IS JESUS THE ONLY TRUTH AND WAY?

A WONDERFUL CHRISTIAN ACQUAINTANCE SENT THIS EMAIL TO ME:

Dear Mike,

"We have to remember to ask, 'Is Jesus God and did he rise from the grave?' If he is God and He said, 'I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the father except through me', that leaves us to believe that we must be exclusive. If you don't believe this then you will have to say He is a liar. That takes a lot of courage to do that, or to say there is another way, because if you do, it shows you don't believe and have not faith which is a requirement for eternal life and reconciliation to God. I have to believe what I believe because one of the things that brought me to God was the thought, 'Why am I here on this earth, what reason do I have for existing?' When I was reconciled to God I saw the why of being here on earth."

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The above paragraph is similar to what all evangelical Christians argue. It was once my argument. Below is my current response:

Dear ______

To say you have to believe any sort of doctrine makes your intelligence God. I have no problem with this if you are a Secular Humanist or Rationalist. But if you claim to trust in God alone, then you must cease making human reason supreme.

Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism taught me to make my brain and rational understanding the ultimate source of truth. They taught me that I had the power. They taught me that I could get God's salvation by my correct intellectual beliefs in the right doctrines. This makes the believer more powerful than any God.

You once told me that God touched you the night you knelt by your bed and cried out to God for help. You told me that you did not understand then that Jesus was "the way, the truth and the life". You did not believe in the Trinity, or the Bible, or Jesus' as God in the flesh. You said you were flooded with peace and joy. You did what Abraham, Moses and David of the Old Testament did - namely, you humbled your broken heart and God wrapped you up like a little baby. Your intellect had nothing to do with it.

You always say I am too much of an intellectual. That strikes me as ironically funny. I know nothing about what we humans have labeled 'God' except that He (It) works in every human heart to move them to Himself - whether Jew, Samaritan, Roman, Iraqi, Muslim, Christian, slave or freeman. The night of my spiritual awakening, I was surprised by God (Infinity), I knew absolutely nothing. I wasn't even consciously seeking anything! He (It) sought and seized me in spite of my beliefs, or absence of beliefs - because I had none.

In my opinion, I experienced the loving, living Presence of the Infinite God, and then I returned to bondage after I started thinking I knew what happened in my 'conversion'. My first Pastor was a good man, but he began to steal the experience of God away from me. All of those know-it-all doctrinaire teachers put me back in the bondage I was delivered from when I surrendered to God in complete ignorance. But we wonderful humans want control - and we most insidiously take control through religion. We are like the Wizard of Oz standing behind the screen, pulling our biblical levers and shouting through our theological microphones, projecting a forceful image when we are really just tiny little ordinary men from Kansas. Evangelicals use the Bible and theology to make themselves God.

To tell a man that he must believe a set of theological facts to be redeemed is to make that man's brain the Ultimate God and the main source of authority. God (Infinity) takes us in spite of our brains, not because of them. That does not disparage the role of reason, but acknowledges that it has limits. I do not understand how a computer works, but thankfully, understanding is not a requirement for using one. If I can't understand a computer, how much less my ability to comprehend the Cosmic drama and the mysteries of human redemption/salvation!? Thankfully, Bill Gates allows me to use his amazing P.C. invention in spite of my stupidity - I can't imagine J.C. (God) being any less benevolent to the human race.

Visit Michael's web site at www.michaelbogar.com
Email: InRequiemVita@aol.com