Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

    I believe that the Holy can be experienced virtually anywhere, at any
    time, and that virtually anything can be a sacrament.  If God is not
    only transcendent, but also immanent, then God can be found in many
    places in our lives, not just in formal worship.  I often find that
    taking a quiet hike alone on a mountain trail can be among the most
    moving spiritual experiences.

    However, I do find that worship is a very special and necessary
    experience for me.  I look forward to attending meeting, and feel an
    strong urge to attend each Sunday.  I like what John A. T. Robinson
    writes in his book _Honest to God_:

        The purpose of worship is not to retire from the secular into the
        department of the religious, let alone to escape from 'this world'
        into 'the other world', but to open oneself to the meeting of the
        Christ in the common....The function of worship is to make us more
        sensitive to these depths; to focus, sharpen and deepen our
        response to the world and to other people beyond the point of
        proximate concern (of liking, self-interest, limited commitment,
        etc.) to that of ultimate concern... (page 87)

    The point, therefore, is not to withdraw from the world, but to direct
    our religious experience outward.  This is the outer-directed mysticism
    that Matthew Fox talks about often in his book _Original Blessing_. 
    Howard Brinton, in his book _Friends for 300 Years_, writes of the
    process that he calls "withdrawal and return":

        _Withdrawal_ and _return_ are both essential; each without the
        other is inadequate.  The negative way takes us back to the source
        of meaning and value; the positive way takes us forward to the
        embodiment of meaning and value in the routine of life. (page 62)

    Robinson expresses it this way in _Honest to God_:

        The test of worship is how far it makes us *more sensitive* to 'the
        beyond in our midst', to the Christ in the hungry, the naked, the
        homeless and the prisoner.  Only if we are *more likely* to
        recognize him there after attending an act of worship is that
        worship Christian rather than a piece of religiosity in Christian
        dress.  (page 90).

    I therefore don't believe that you "need" to attend public worship in
    order to be "religious".  I believe that you don't "find God" in
    church unless you find God in your life at large.  But I do see, for me
    anyway, worship as an important spiritual discipline.

    -- Mike

I suggest that the church needs you to be religious. Jesus
promised when two or three is gathered in His name, He will be in
their presence.

Many of will find a religious experience while very much alone.
When we are able to share that experience, we have a chance to
share an experience that helps in the corporate spiritual
experience. This way, those who is weak in their religious walk
will find support and comfort.

Individually, when we are in need, searching for that religious
experience is a real exercise.

Matter of fact, it's like jogging or taking walks; when you're in
a group, it's easier to get started and keep going. I know that
there are a lot of solitary joggers as there are solitary
religious experiences. When those solitary folks are joined with
His spirit, their corporate force is far greater than the one.

May His peace prevail,

calvin

Mike, I agree with the thrust of your thoughts.

I find that being at church with others during a worship service really
helps me to worship God.  I'm really enjoying choir rehearsals, as well,
since we are singing music that glorifies God so much (and sounds so
pleasing, as well).

Collis

re.0

	Anyone can be religious anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Religiousness in
and of itself is vanity. 

	Now if by "religion" what's meant is personal relationship with God
Himself, then I would say that only in the church can it such a relationship
be found. 

	
ace

    Hhmmmm...I can be spirtitual anywhere.  I find it easier to stay in
    touch with the precepts (such as they are) of my chosen religion, if I
    manage to drift in every once and a while.
    
    E Grace

    I believe that God is expressed best through people, usually through a
    community of people.  I need such a group to be nourished.  I need the
    sharing, the caring, the weeping, praying, loving.  The "being with."

Off hand, I'd say that the communal aspect of religious life is
important, but not a necessity.

As much as I enjoy the after worship mingling and visiting that
goes on in many churches, I find that most people are reluctant to
speak of matters of the Spirit.

Too many times folks are concerned with conducting the business of
the church.  The church that is obsessed with its own self-perpetuation
is one that needs to listen a little harder for Guidance.

Peace,
Richard

    
    	As Ace said, You can be religious anywhere.
    
    	But if you are talking about having a spiritual lifestyle
    I think that, that is impossible outside the realm of fellowship.
    The Church is not a place to 'get' religion but rather it is a 
    place to 'practice' (live out ones) religion.  
    
    	Religion is similar to Love.  With out an object of it's affection 
    it is lifeless.

    RE: .7
    
>Off hand, I'd say that the communal aspect of religious life is
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>important, but not a necessity.

    
>As much as I enjoy the after worship mingling and visiting that
                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>goes on in many churches, I find that most people are reluctant to
>speak of matters of the Spirit.
    
    These are not the same thing!  Don't write off the former because of
    confusing it with the latter.  :-)   However, not everyone "needs"
    people as much as I do -- amazing, and I don't understand why, but it's
    true!
    
    Nancy

    Re .9
    
    I stand amended. ;-)
    
    Thank you, again,
    Richard

The American Sociological Association says the United States is one of
the top religious societies in the world.  Recent Gallup polls find 94
percent of Americans believe in God and 84 percent believe in the divinity
of Jesus - up from 78 percent a decade ago.

At the same time, 30 percent of people who are not going to church - which
has *increased* over the past 10 years - say religion is very important to
their lives.  And further, 77 percent of people who don't go to church say
they pray occasionally.

- from the March issue, Quaker Life

    We also have the highest murder rate for an industrialized nation.

    .12  How do you account for that?  Not enough church?
    
    Richard
    

    Those numbers seem way to high. They are not consistent with other
    numbers I have seen.
    
    
    Patricia

    My understanding is that church attendence is much higher in the United
    States than in Europe.  These are rough figures off the top of my head,
    so take it with a grain of salt, but as I recall what I heard was in
    the order of 50% in the U.S. attend church fairly regularly, as opposed
    to 10% in Great Britain.  These figures could be way off, though.
    
    Does anyone have any firmer figures to confirm or deny this?
    
    -- Mike

Europe is definately "post-Christian" in terms of their
actions reflecting a commitment to Jesus Christ.

The U.S. is just headed that way.

The 10% attendance in England is what I'm familiar with.

In terms of the U.S., 33% or so attend church every
week with another significant percentage attending church
often.

Collis

    .14  Stats can be funny things.
    
    But to address what these numbers indicate, I do think that there are
    a lot of believers who do not take part in the Sunday morning ritual.
    
    Richard
    

    Do you use the word "ritual" in .-1 in a derogatory or trivial sense?

    .18
    
    Not necessarily.  I do think that many perceive going to church as
    an uninviting routine though.
    
    Richard
    

			Types of Guidance.

	One type of guidance is simply a sensitivity to the voices and
	injunctions and well-meaning intentions of good people on the path
	of return to incarnation.  The spiritual dilemma of the race today
	is causing the rapid return of many advanced souls to life on the
	physical plane.  As they hover on the borderland of outer living,
	awaiting their time to be re-born, they are often contacted 
	subjectively and unconsciously by human beings in incarnation,
	particularly at night when the consciousness is out of the physical
	body.

	What they say and teach (frequently good, usually indifferent in
	quality and sometimes quite ignorant) is remembered in the waking
	hours of consciousness and interpreted by the neophyte as the voice
	of God, giving guidance.

	Another type of guidance can also be of an astral, emotional nature,
	and is the result of the contacts made by the aspirant (firm in his
	aspiration but weak in his mental polarization) upon the astral plane.
	These are all colored by glamour, and many well-meaning leaders of
	groups and organizations get their inspiration from these sources.
	
	There is, in them, no true lasting divine guidance.  They may be quite
	harmless, sweet and well-intentioned, they may feed the emotional
	nature, develop hysteria or aspiration; they may develop the ambitious
	tendencies of their victim and lead him down the byways of illusion,
	but they are *not* the voice of God or of any Members of the Hierarchy,
	nor are they divine in nature, any more than the voice of any ordinary
	teacher upon the physical plane is necessarily divine.

	The guidance recorded may be the result of the person tuning in
	telepathically upon the mind or the minds of others.  This frequently
	happens with the more intelligent types and with those who are mentally
	focused.  It is a form of direct, but unconscious telepathy.  The
	guidance, therefore, comes from other minds or from the focused group
	mind of some band of workers with which the person may have a realized
	or an unrealized affinity.  The guidance thus given can be consciously
	or unconsciously imparted, and can be, in quality, good bad or
	indifferent.			

	The mental world as well as the astral world is full of thought forms
	and these can be contacted by any person and be interpreted by him as
	conveying guidance.  These thought forms can be used by the Guides of
	the race at times in order to help and guide humanity.  They can also
	be used by undesirable entities and forces.  

	They can, therefore, be most useful, but when interpreted by any person
 	as embodying divine guidance and as constituting an infallible leading 
	(thus demanding and evoking blind and unquestioning acceptance) they 
	become a menace to the free activity of the soul and are of no true 
	value.

	Guidance can come from all kinds and types of incarnate or discarnate
	people, ranging in character from very good to very bad.  They can
	include the help offered by real initiates and adepts through their
	working disciples and aspirants to the mental and astral activities
	of ordinary intelligent men and women, including the emotionally and
	selfishly oriented person.  

	It should be remembered that no true initiate or disciple ever seeks 
	to control any person nor will indicate to him in the form of a 
	positive command, any action which he should take. But many people
	tune in on teachings being given by traimed minds to disciples, or
	record telepathically the powerful thought forms created by world
	thinkers or Members of the Hierarchy.  Hence many the many 
	mis-interpretations and the so called guidances.  People sometimes
	appropriate to themselves that which is intended for a group or
	a hint given by a Master to a disciple.

	Guidance can also come from a person's own powerful, integrated
	personality and he will frequently fail to recognize it for what it is.
	The ambition, desire, or prideful purposings of a personality may work
	down from the mental body and be impressed upon the brain, and yet the
	person, in that brain consciousness, may regard them as coming from
	some extraneous outer source, and all the time, the physical person
	is responding to the injunctions and impulses of his own personality.

	Guidance can also come from a person's own soul when through meditation
	discipline and service has established contact, and there is
	consequently a direct channel of communication from soul to brain via
	the mind.  This, when clear and direct, is true divine guidance, coming
	from the inner divinity.  It can, however, be distorted and
	misinterpreted if the mind is not developed, the character is not
	purified and the person is not free from undue personality control.

	The mind must make right application of the imparted truth or guidance.
	Where there is true and right apprehension of the inner divine voice,
	then, and only then, do you have infallible guidance, and the voice
	of the inner God can then speak with clarity to its instrument, man
	on the physical plane.

	[Source: Esoteric Psychology II by Alice Bailey ]

	Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow,
	I love creation better as it stood
	That day You finished it so long ago
	And looked upon Your work work and called it good.
	I know others find You in the light
	That's sifted through tinted window panes,
	And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
	In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.


A portion of _A Cowboy's Prayer_ by Badger Clark,
which was included in a Christmas greeting card
I received from former C-P noter and moderator
Jerry "Bubba" Beeler.

Shalom,
Richard