The deepest key in understanding revelations is that it isn’t people that are cast out of the New Jerusalem, but the offenses in people. A murderer raised by a thief. A diplomat raised by a former president. It doesn’t matter. Only God himself can approach things suitably for each individual. There is a great personal involvement with God, but in the end you must also get to know him personally; this is not necessarily a fun process either. The reason the bible ends is the separation of light from darkness. The only one who could say a person was only darkness is God, and I dare not step on his ground in thinking I could judge a person as he does. By the way, God doesn’t even judge, but the things written in the book, his books, are the judges. And in each hand ways the wound of a cold father and the cold son that came from such. The avenging terrorist whose family was killed by an Israeli missile. The person born with a deformity which makes them feel inadequate all these days of their existence. Adler the psychiatrist thought the feeling of inadequacy at the heart of mature development. Freud thought more of desire, fear, and of course sex. Jung and his deep gnostic collective-conscience maybe one day awakening as God himself. What I am saying is this world and its people do not need judgment but care, and what care is right for them. And an ultimate God that knows best how to rebuke and chasten them, so that they bare fruit.
well, now, there is truth in the reality that no person can judge another person’s SUBJECTIVE motives. Admittedly, it is a mystery why persons do what they do. And, to be sure, the Church understands that she gave scandal in the Middle Ages and that this was the primary seed of Christian division, which in turn scandalized the world and caused a certain disillusionment with the pursuit of supernatural truth. Yes, I agree, Clovis. You want me to summarize the objective history of the last 2000 years. Sure! Here goes:
First Romans torture and kill Christians. Then Christians gain freedom and for a brief time enforce their religion with the death penalty. Then Christians start major disputes about the Divine Nature. Then from this arises a religion called Islam. So then Muslims kill Christians. Later, the Pope’s crusaders, having been involving killing Muslims back, then totally destroy Constantinople, so then the entire Eastern Church says that Pope can go you know what. Then Catholics set up courts and horribly torture persons who are at least perceived to be in objective “heresy”. Then most bishops become lazy and morally lax slobs, so then whole entire communities rebel and say you’re hypocrites, we only need the Bible. So then Catholics kill more heretics, heretics kill Catholics, and heretics kill other types of heretics.
That is a rough summary of the period of 60 AD to 1700 AD. And so I agree, if you intended to say this, that the modern apostasy is not totally condemnable. Bad things done in the name of religion have given religion a bad name.
And if you imply that this mess can be cured, I absolutely agree. I think that God can show humanity that it still needs him and can cure these sad and tragic wounds and restore humanity anew. Amen.
I agree, we must sympathize with our separated brothers and sisters that our own members have sinned and apologize for that, and reach out in love, and dialogue in love, helping them to rediscover the beauty of the faith, the fullness of the faith. Yes, I do believe that the devout members of the separated communities and Churches are seeking God as best as they can. And I agree that humanity is largely wounded and doesn’t know where to turn. They need love, not hell fire and brimstone. I agree.
But you still should admit that it is possible that, even though we can never judge it, many persons are in mortal sin today. For whereas subjective conditions can diminish a person’s culpability, there is not much excuse for living indifferent to religion completely when one has no serious psychological barrier. I mean, admittedly, there may be some people who are totally apostate in an objective sense but because of an emotional wound that is not their fault, but I cannot help but believe that there may be many people (not that we can ever know for sure who these people are) who ARE simply superficial and really don’t care about God because of deliberate pride.
I mean, if the angels could receive the total Revelation of God’s Plan for this world and experience the grace and love of God, and some of them tell God to take total hike, and they didn’t have any material distractions to choose, just only pride, how much more so is spiritual depravity possible for creatures who have sex and dorittos and the Super Bowl and Aerosmyth to distract them from the concern of the Spiritual?
