God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (2 Corinthians 5:19).<\/p>\nGood seems to me to suggest that for someone to move beyond the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153early stages of cognitive development<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, he must realize that, even if there was a historical Jesus, that this statement is not true alone\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat God wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reconciling the world to himself through Jesus at all, and if he was, he then reconciles the world to himself through others also. Good suggests that coming to this conclusion may be a traumatic realization. I agree. But is it necessary?<\/p>\nIs it not possible, I offer, that maturity could mean moving from believing that the above verse means: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jesus is the only way and if you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accepted him as your personal Lord and Savior at the altar, then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to Hell!<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to perhaps mining deeper into the text to perceive that in Christ something cataclysmic and universal was accomplished for the whole world? And is it fair to suggest that I can only grow and mature into a better person by rejecting or relativizing this verse?<\/p>\n <\/p><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jack Good, in his book The Dishonest Church, says: \u201cRespect means recognition by the pastor that people have moved beyond the early stages of cognitive development and are ready to think more broadly\u201d (p. 97). I sometimes wonder if Good makes the assumption that spiritual growth means believing different things\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to include other ideas and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thought"],"yoast_head":"\n
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