Tzaia

You aren't reading what I wrote. I never mentioned persecution against Christians. I wrote specifically regarding Christian vs Christian persecution. A better understanding of the "godhead"? Coming from people who for generations had no understanding of monotheism? By the time Christianity shifted from Jerusalem to Rome, it was a mere shell of what it started out to be. It hadn't grown, it had morphed. The only way "Christianity" was accepted by non-jews was to take out the jew, which Paul was more than willing to do. Peter did it, but he had a harder time doing it.

The bloodshed of Christian against Christian can be traced back to the movement away from Jewish based Christianity to Gentile based Christianity. The factions were there from the time Peter recognized that gentiles could receive h.s. However they felt about each other personally was secondary to how everyone outside Christianity felt about them. Had Christianity remained Jewish based, the persecution against the Christians would have remained sufficient for them to continue to bond in self preservation as the Jews had always faced persecution due to their strict adherence to the one God concept. Once Christianity moved away from strict monotheism the strict monotheists were again persecuted, whether they be a part of Christian strict monotheists, Jews, or Islamics. I have no doubt in my mind that Calvin was sincere. It doesn't make him any less wrong or any less a murderer. He had a man (or many men) murdered for the "crime" of being a strict monotheist. He deliberately chose to see that a man's life was ended because of doctrine. There is nothing in the new covenant scriptures that supports killing over doctrinal differences and for that he will be judged and I believe he will be judged more harshly because he should have known better. Perhaps he will be one that Jesus spoke about who cries out, "Lord, Lord." but who does not know the Lord. We can see in retrospect that his actions clearly were not godly, even with all his knowledge of scripture. I'm not so sure that it's so important what you know as it is important what you do with what you know. Calvin's portrayal of God is one of mercy, but Jesus himself said there will be harsh judgement amongst the saved to the point where they might wish they hadn't been. Did Calvin ever repent of the sin of having Servetus murdered? I don't know, but if he didn't, then he will not have a pleasant experience at the judgement. Tzaia

Several months ago I registered ChristianUnitarian.com not being happy with the way BU was headed. Here's the basis of the site: Not all Christians are Unitarian. Not all Unitarians are Christian. Not all Christian Unitarians are "biblical unitarians" Unitarans that confess Jesus as Lord (rom 10:9-10) are Christian. I am interested in getting souls won over to Christ and I believe that keeping it simple is a start. The other point of the site is to push for acceptance and respect the concept of Christian Unitarianism into the orthodox church. What I am looking for is writers and editors who are interested in doing the same thing. I also could use a kick-butt logo (garth <cough&gt;)--> as I'm not an artist, nor do I play one on TV. The site is being built with Typo3, a heavy duty CMS. The head developer is a committed Christian named Kasper from Norway. The only thing I worry about is how freakin' argumentative some of you can be. The purpose of the site is NOT about being right, but about respect for people's beliefs and that there is room for Unitarians in the body of Christ. If any of you are interested in working on this project, send me a private message.

I wanted to give you folks an update on the status of BU. As I stated, Jeff and I signed an agreement about the site and it's use and purpose. I had mentioned at the time that there needed to be a clause that would not lock me out of administration. I was told it was not necessary, that it "would never come to that". Boy, was that a lie from he!!. The fact that it's not specifically mentioned is reason why I no longer have access. What I said is if I have to negotiate my having access to the site, then it's not going to happen. My understanding is that it would never be an issue, so it didn't need to be specifically stated even though that's what I wanted. I'm not an idiot. Contracts need to be concise and precise. But I was told I was displaying a "lack of trust" when I wanted everything to be stated. Hmmm. Bringing the concord in for a landing and the point that I was making when I first came across this thread: The way Jeff posted here was an act of deception on his part. His insisting that I trust him about my continued access to the BU site was an act of deception. CES knowingly and willingly accepts this behavior as they continue to employ this person and allow him to act deceptively on behalf of CES, therefore I can't trust CES. You make up your own mind. This is my story and I have had access at a level that none of you have had.

There are a couple of things not said. 1. Don't hook up your computer directly to a DSL or cable modem. It takes under 2 minutes for a computer to get infected and hooking up to a modem is like leaving the backdoor open. Get a router. In the meantime turn off Netbios over tcpip. 2. Don't login to your computer with full rights and leave it that way. If you can install programs and do things with files, so can anything else. Create an "internet" username. Sounds like a hassle, but it's the only way I know of to keep the rascals off your hard drive. This will do it regardless of whatever else you do because you are restricted as to where you can write files. 3. Use a firewall. Sygate is good Zonealarm is good.

Cynic, Think fruit.

Testing my Ascii signature...

High road Mark. High road.

Cynic, Why are you a trinitarian?

To call Him a "Him", when you believe He is a "They" is contradictory.

Most are held in a church. All the ones I've done are. You can check out where they all are being held at http://www.lampstand.net

Great Banquet is an orderly, structured weekend designed to strengthen and renew the faith of Christians. Through a combined effort of laity and clergy, the Great Banquet focuses on the renewal of the church. The image of the Great Banquet comes from Luke 14:15-24. Jesus tells of a master who prepared a great banquet and invited many guests, saying "Come, for everything is now ready." Many had excuses and did not attend. Finally, many were brought who were poor, crippled, blind and lame. The result of the master's invitation was to feast and fellowship at a banquet given by God. The Awakening is the youth version of the Great Banquet, designed for older(high school) youth who are seeking an awareness of each one's need to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and then begin to make Him Lord in all areas of life. The image of the Awakening comes from I Samuel 3:1-10. One night as Samuel was lying down in the temple, the Lord calls, "Samuel! Samuel!" Samuel did not yet know the Lord so he did not recognize who was calling him. After the Lord calls Samuel three times, Samuel is instructed by Eli to respond with, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears." The weekend is broken down into 3 days with 5 talks each day given by members of the team. First day talks 1. Discovering Priorities 2. God's Gift of Grace 3. Ministry of All Believers 4. Our Response to Grace 5. The Way of Piety Second day talks 6. The Truth Through Study 7. Sacramental Grace 8. The Life of Christian Action 9. Obstacles to God's Grace 10.Disciples 3rd day talks 11. Changing Our Environment 12. From Faith to Life 13. The Body of Christ 14. Staying Power 15. Establishing Priorities Each talk lasts from 20-45 minutes (depending upon the talk) with a time of reflection, discussion, and a group activity to solidify what was learned following each talk. Team members chosen to do the talks are committed Christians who are active in a church environment. They are provided with an outline of what needs to be covered. How they do that is what makes each talk unique. The lay directors are chosen by the pastors and they, in turn, choose their team. The pastors select 4 "spiritual directors" who are there to guide and intervene, if necessary. Each table has a leader who is in charge of leading and guiding discussion. There are 5-8 members of a table. Each table has an assistant leader which participants don't know about as they are the ones who give a talk. All team members are taught to be a "non-active presence". The whole weekend is geared towards God and Jesus, so team members are largely invisible to the participant. Participants see "servant leadership" in action in a big way. Why do I recommend a weekend such as this? It rightly shows the difference between being a believer and being a disciple. While being a believer is by no means a "mere" thing, the leap between believer and disciple is substantial and I believe was misleading in The Way context of discipleship. So many of you have been hurt by how they did things and I believe a weekend like this is very healing. The other thing the weekend does is put things in perspective. It helps you move on by taking the focus off you and on to serving the Lord.

Ok, I'll bite. Here are the facts: 1. God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree. He said that man would surely die. 2. Adam ate from the tree. 3. God said he would put emnity between the serpent and the woman. Making Jesus God puts God in the position of personally doing battle with Satan, which I think is erroneous. Satan battles God, but the notion that God battles Satan doesn't fit my theology. Giving Adam a commandment that no man could possibly obey is capricous, which doesn't fit my theology. The idea of God becoming his own sacrifice in order to reconcile man to Him doesn't fit my theology. Cynic, You can believe anything you want. I have no need to change your mind. I choose to believe that God provided the sacrifice through the supernatural conception of a perfect human who made the free will choice to obey God, even though it meant his death. I don't believe God became a perfect man to provide a perfect sacrifice. Until Jesus died on the cross, no human ever trusted God from first breath to last breath. I believe that if you make Jesus God, that becomes meaningless. The church I go to struggles with conveying the humanity of Jesus, and rightly so. It's hard to imagine God being tempted in all things, even in human form. And the reason why it's hard to imagine that is because we are rightly taught that God can't be tempted. How do you reconcile that contradiction? How do you reconcile God becoming human flesh when Numbers specifically states that God is not a man...or the son of man? I can't. So I don't go there. I do believe, however, once God raised Jesus from the dead that he also gave Jesus temporary, functional equality. i.e. for all intents and purposes Jesus is Jehovah in the same sense that Joseph was Pharoah. And thank God we live in a time where believing something like that doesn't get us murdered. Tzaia

Strawman characterization? I think not. One of my friends, a PHd in New Testament studies, has confirmed that is the way doctrine is approached in the evangelical church. The Catholic church doesn't even bother. There's is more along the lines of "We say this is the way it is, therefore it is", which is pure Hellenistic thinking. As my brother often says, "Don't confuse me with facts." The trinitarian church finds itself confounded with the inherent contradictions of a triune concept of God, but the first mode of acceptance is putting away any semblance of rational thought. With God, nothing is impossible. Therefore God can act in an arbitrary and capricious manner defying his own laws. The question is that begs to be asked is just because nothing is impossible with God, does that mean he can and will do or be anything? God is a mystery. Therefore we cannot even begin to comprehend him, but here's our best shot (the trinity). If God is, in fact, an incomprehensible mystery, then how do YOU know that the best way to describe Him is as a triune entity?

The problem encountered in that is who's rules? Example: (keeping with the subject) The rules in forming and supporting a trinitarian theological position involve the "logic rule" that you first form your doctrine and then use scripture to support the doctrine. We call that proof texting, but who's to say that our methodology is any more honest? Only our perception of logic. And where did we get that? From a cult, or from science, or from some other 5 senses realm, which from a trinitarian viewpoint leaves out holy spirit and tradition as a resource, and therefore disqualifies our logic. When I have the trinity discussion with people it becomes easy to attack the logic by which it was formulated. Such as: The trinity has withstood the test of time. My response? It has withstood the "test of time" because it really hasn't been put to the test. Have you seriously challenged the doctrine? And if not, then why not? If your only reason is that it has stood the test of time, then I challenge you to challenge the trinity. my .02 worth Tzaia

Had the Momentus thing almost done and made the mistake of calling up a web site from my mail reader and Poof! it was gone. The long and short of the momentus thing is that I never went. I didn't go because I was seeing fruit I didn't like. I saw a lot of corp mentality at work in the recent attendees and I wasn't too thrilled about that. It caused a rift between the enlightened and those of us who preferred to not go. The 4 page (mine was 4) hold harmless agreement didn't sit well considering that they wanted full control of my life without the responsibility of dealing with the outcome. JAL's response to that was for me to ignore that part. JAL and I had a major argument over him using his considerable influence over people to get them to go. I told him it was plainly a misuse of influence. I also believe that Dan Toccini used JAL because he knew the numbers that JAL could bring to the momentus seminars. That's my experience. The three day weekend is called many things, but it is comprised of 15 talks prepared and given by lay people that follow a formula. There are meditations and communion at least once per day. You have to be invited, although that isn't much of problem. The great banquet is a bit different in that it is ecumenical and we are allowed a bit of straying from "the formula". The community is very involved and that goes further than being assistants. Like at our church, you stay there in a dorm like setting. All your meals and snacks are provided by the community. There are people there the entire weekend filling various roles. If 40 are going through, then there are at least 40 on team. The guests are not aware of who's on team and who's a guest at the tables until well into the weekend. That makes for interesting dynamics. I think the weekend is a great way to get you hooked back up with Christ in a healthy way. Tzaia

Do you really want the answer to that or are you just asking a rhetorical question? There comes a time in most scholar's lives where they don't spend so much time learning as refining. Rather than go back and revisit every jot and tittle of what they have previously learned, they just try to preserve and refine what they accept. Is this good? Is this right? Is this reality? What you are seeing is the result of being more driven to know about Jesus rather being driven to be more like Jesus. To some extent, you have the same spirit and you don't see a problem with that any more than John sees a problem with how he thinks. My point being is what good does all this right thinking do if it doesn't bring people to Jesus? Jesus and Peter clashed and Peter even denied knowing Jesus, but who was there when Jesus was caught up? Peter. Paul murdered believers and even as an apostle did things that weren't totally about Jesus, but we continue today to receive the good news that he taught and argue about whether it was a continuation of Jesus' good news or whether some of his own ideas about the good news slipped in (dispensationalism). The point I'm trying to make is that you are trying to apply a standard that not even Jesus himself expected out of his personally chosen disciples. And if he didn't do it, I'm not real sure what grounds you have to do it. Quit worrying about whether their doctrine lines up with yours. If you don't like it, so be it. No one is forcing you to agree. God himself will decide whether to bless and increase their ministry. Do you believe that God has sent you as a personal messenger to correct their version of the truth? Hopefully this doesn't come out as harsh. I'm just trying to figure out how long you are going to keep chewing and regurgitating the same old stuff? This has been going on for years and nothing has changed. You've made this your own personal "Ground Hog's Day". The only problem is that the outcome will remain the same because the other players have nothing invested in this situation with you. They moved on long ago and they are not going to revisit any of your concerns. At least not on your terms. That's the reality. Maybe what you don't realize is that they only speak highly of you. I've never heard them speak a disparaging word about you. Let's leave it at that. You have some wonderful insight at times, but my gosh... Whew...sorry guys. Blame it on PMS ;)--> Tzaia

He was not forced. That was his own free-will decision. CES has taken a pretty zero-tolerance stance on certain things and John didn't play by the rules. In the process of him getting his head from out of dark places, he realized that he had to live what he preached and he had to suffer consequences for failure to do so. Personally, I have a great deal of respect for him doing so, because he paid dearly for the decision to step down. I have much respect for the Johns and Mark. None of them are business men and none of them had any business running the business side of CES. They needed someone to step in and do that. That has happened. I was the first "casualty" of the new paradigm. They want me to feel hunky-dory about the whole thing as it was a "personel" decision not a "personal" one, but I don't, because they left someone who is ethically challenged there and for whatever reason, they can't see where this person is the problem and he is a much bigger "problem" than I ever was. Ethics are not a la carte and as I said before, he would have been shown the door had I been in charge. I was less peraonally entangled with the group. I don't live, worship, or socialize with them. But I did provide something that they now don't have: balance and perspective.

There are no "c"s anywhere in my name. Never even realized that before...

I know what they did. That was meant to be satiric humor. Anytime someone tried(s) to get an idea of what the actual numbers were (are), there is the excuse of "we have no membership" when, in fact they know more about and intrude more into their non-member's personal lives than any church I've ever been to.

Does that make me a good witch or a bad witch?

I was at a limb gathering race weekend here in Indy in May of 1980. VPW was a big race fan. I was walking through the lobby and there was VPW. Conversation was short and I went back to my seat and said to my new hubby, "VPW is a leacherous old man." How did I know that? By the way he looked at me. Of course I was dismissed as VPW couldn't have thoughts like that. My next clue this was a top down deal was when a girl on the PFAL team with me in 1982 was despondent over the now-defunct relationship with a corp guy. He had told her that now that they were brother and sister in Christ they couldn't continue sexually. I confronted the guy and was told that ANYTHING and any means was ok to bring someone to God. From that point on I was pretty much emotionally gone. I didn't care what went on as long as I was left alone. It took a while to physically leave, but we quit going except when we wanted to.

What I want to know is how you can get "kicked out" of something that has no membership? It's not like they kept track of whether you were there or not. I mean, how could they? Just wondering...

I don't know if CES has corrected inconsistencies, but I do know this: When I stand before Jesus at the Bema, he's not going to be nearly as concerned about if I believed all scripture is for reproof correction and instruction or if some of it leaned more one way than another as he is going to be concerned about how my life was pleasing to his Father. How I used my life to glorify God and in what manner did I use the gifts bestowed upon me. W What I have found is that it's real easy to get bogged down in the differences and that is like cancer to a body. I'm talking to a former wayfer at the leadership conference, which I came to briefly to discuss technology. I knew him in Columbus and there had been much division there. He asked me what I was doing. Told him about the presbyterian church I have been going to. He said he couldn't fellowship with people he didn't agree with. I asked him how that was workin' for him. Because the problem is that he's not fellowshipping because he can find no one who agrees with him. If you are spending all your time picking and finding fault, it leaves little energy and no heart for worship. Just my .02 worth.

Hey guys, I wrote the staff a short note on Sunday asking to be removed from the mailing list as I was pretty perturbed over the massive back slapping and no mention of how they were able to accomplish those things (namely my technical ability)in the latest Sower. He was writing to apologize if I felt "slighted". No, I just felt like they were taking credit where credit wasn't due. That's all. He really doesn't lurk around in these places.