A Religious Mutt

This is part of an interview that i found with Goldie Hawn. She is apparently a Buddhist Christian. I ran into a lady who was the same thing a few weeks ago and i asked her how she came to that conclusion and she said that she was raised catholic and her boyfriend was Buddhist and he helped her know Jesus better. i was just really confused. well, here's goldie!

So you had a multifaith childhood.

Definitely. I also went to the Presbyterian church. And it was so great not to be stopped, you see. A parent can say, "You’re Jewish, you don’t get to do that. This is our faith, you don’t get to learn about it." But my mother loved Jesus—she was just a complete Jesus freak.

She was?

Oh, and I am too—that’s another interesting thing.

Why?

He went to the desert; he sat quietly. He sat so quietly that he heard the voice of God. He heard the truth. He felt the truth. He was able to receive the truth because he emptied himself and he had the ability to do it. Perhaps that was his specialness, or part of it.

Why was your mother so into Jesus?

Because she felt he was an extraordinary man. She didn’t believe, of course, that he was the son of God. But she believed that he was one of the great humans, superhumans, on the planet.

That was a long time ago to have been Jewish and to believe that.

I know. My mother was the kind of person who was very much part of her tribe and very much a satellite of her tribe. She was the girl who left her family at the age of 17 and went to Washington. My mother was orphaned at three and then was brought up by my aunt Goldie. So, yes she belonged, but there was a part of her that didn’t.

How do you incorporate Judaism and Christianity in your spiritual practice?

I’ve been practicing modalities of Eastern philosophy since about 1972. What I’ve learned through my meditation is a sense of equanimity, a sense of all things being equal. Then I went to Israel--and when I went to Israel, I had a very, very strong epiphany. Every now and then, I will light a candle; I will light candles for my mother on the High Holidays and my father and my relatives. I haven’t been to the synagogue, at least not recently.

And when I went to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, I started to look at their society, I started to look at their people, I started to look at the ways in which they lived and what mattered to them as a society, as a people, what is their natural inclination in building a good society. Mothers and grandmothers took care of the preschoolers and created afterschool programs, where children can go after school to get them off the streets. These were incredible nurturing qualities, right down to making sure they had hot food. I looked at this and I finally realized, "Oh my God, now I see myself. Now I know why I sit and I watch my children eat and I’m sitting over them, watching them eat and wanting them to be happy because I’m feeding them." That’s when I realized that was my DNA.

I integrate that knowledge into my spiritual practice. But who you are has not much to do with what you are becoming, because the qualities you bring to any faith--whether it’s honed by family, religion, or lack of religion whatever it is--you bring it to wherever you’re going. The idea of faith itself, that you believe or you don’t believe in certain things, will continue no matter what faith you are in. You will learn to question all. So do I bring it to my practice? No, I don’t bring Judaism necessarily into my Buddhist thought, because all that I have been is there already.

Is that the same for the Christian half of you?

Yes. The interesting part of my spiritual life is studying as much as you can. Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism and Shamanism and Judaism, Christianity--you try to learn what the precepts are, what the religion is, and ultimately, it’s based in the same thought, it’s based in the same outcome, you know.

(Whispers) It just has a different façade.

We go into religion in order to feel warmer in our hearts, more connected to others, more connected to something greater and to have a sense of peace. I think all religions try to do that, but they corrupt themselves. I like Buddhist thought because it breaks that down; it teaches you how to view your thoughts rather than be your thoughts. We live in this crazy world, full of jobs, and we have to be there, be-be-be--it’s a very demanding, taxing world. The result of meditating is watching your thoughts, detachment from your own precepts of what is right and wrong, things that frustrate you, that you can’t grasp and want to grasp onto.

From another point of view! Heresy anyone?

a day after reading what Mohler had to say, here's what Tony Campolo had to say. Any surprise that Clinton chose him to be the spiritual advisor. What would be the bigger disaster, Katrina or that God was not in control?



Katrina: Not God's Wrath--or His Will
The Hebrew Bible doesn't say God is omnipotent. When disaster strikes, he cries with the rest of us.

By Dr. Tony Campolo
Whenever there is a catastrophe, some religious people inevitably ask, "Why didn’t God do something? Where was God when all those people died?" Among the answers we might consider is the one that Martin Luther gave as his wife asked a similar question upon the death of their infant son. Luther answered, "The same place he was when His son died!"
Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad answers. One such answer is that somehow all suffering is a part of God’s great plan. In the midst of agonies, someone is likely to quote from the Bible, telling us that if we would just be patient, we eventually would see "all things work together for the good, for those who love God, and are called according to His purposes." (Romans 8:28)

I don’t doubt that God can bring good out of tragedies, but the Bible is clear that God is not the author of evil! (James 1:15) Statements like that dishonor God, and are responsible for driving more people away from Christianity than all the arguments that atheistic philosophers could ever muster. When the floods swept into the Gulf Coast, God was the first one who wept.

There are still other religionists who take the opportunity to tell us that God is punishing America for its many sins. Undoubtedly, there are some al-Qaeda fanatics who right now are saying that Katrina is the hand of God, striking America for what we have done to the people of Iraq and to the Palestinians. Furthermore, there are Christians who, in the weeks to come, can be counted on to thunder from their pulpits that Katrina is God’s wrath against the immorality of this nation, pointing out that New Orleans is the epitome of our national degradation and debauchery. To all of this I say, "Wrong."

The God revealed in Jesus did not come into the world "to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." (John 3:17) There can be no arguments over the claim that, for a variety of reasons, our nation deserves punishment. But when the Bible tells us about the grace of God, it is giving us the good news that our loving God does not give us what we truly deserve. Certainly, God would not create suffering for innocent people, who were--for the most part--Katrina’s victims.

Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed. Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is omnipotent. Kushner points out that omnipotence is a Greek philosophical concept, but it is not in his Bible. Instead, the Hebrew Bible contends that God is mighty. That means that God is a greater force in the universe than all the other forces combined.

In scripture we get the picture of a cosmic struggle going on between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. The good news is that, in the end, God will be victorious. That is why we can sing in the Hallelujah Chorus, "the kingdoms of this world [will] become the Kingdom of our Lord."

Personally, I contend that the best thing for us to do in the aftermath of Katrina is to remain silent, and not try to explain this tragedy. Instead of asking "Why?" we should be asking, "What does God want us to do now?" The loving God calls all believers in the face of Katrina’s devastation to seek ways to express love in concrete ways towards those who have lost friends and family members; and to those who have lost homes along with most of their earthly belongings.

In the Bible, we read this passage: "And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." (I Kings 19:11-12)

Instead of looking for God in the earthquake or the tsunami, in the roaring forest fires blazing in the western states, or in the mighty winds of Katrina, it would be best to seek out a quiet place and heed the promptings of God’s still small voice. That voice will inspire us to bring some of God’s goodness to bear in the lives of those who suffer.

God's Role in the Storm

This is a post from Al Mohler's blog. Thought it was good and something that needs to be heard.


God in the Storm--Part One
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina once again raises questions about the goodness and power of God. These are not easy questions, and not just any answer will suffice. If we are to understand how to think rightly about God and the storm, we must look to the testimony of Scripture.

In Job 37, Elihu, one of Job's friends, speaks to him: "Out of the south comes the storm, and out of the north the cold. From the breath of God ice is made, and the expanse of the waters is frozen. Also with moisture He loads the thick cloud; he disperses the cloud of His lightning. It changes direction, turning around by His guidance, that it may do whatever He commands it on the face of the inhabited earth, whether for correction, or for His world, or for lovingkindness, He causes it to happen." [Job 37:9-13]

At the end of the book of Job, God rebukes three of Job's friends for making inaccurate statements both about Job's suffering and about God. Elihu, however, is not rebuked. Elihu spoke truthfully, saying to Job, in effect, "Look, you cannot take God out of this equation. You cannot say God is not in the storm. He is." Throughout the Bible, but particularly in the book of Job, we are reminded that we simply do not have the option of saying that God is somehow not involved. If we say we believe in the sovereignty of God, we must believe that God is always and everywhere sovereign--even over the storm.

The playwright Archibald MacLeish wrote a work entitled, J.B., which was a modern rendering of the book of Job. In that play is the famous line, "If God is good, He is not God. If God is God, He is not good." This is the equation many people are wrestling with today: If God is sovereign, and if He controls every atom and molecule of the universe, then how in the face of so many evils can modern human beings affirm that He is good? On the other hand, if we believe that God is good, then He must not be in control. He must not be able to keep these things from happening, and therefore, He is not the all-powerful God of the Bible. In the end, it is asserted, if God is God, then He is not good; but if God is good, then He is not God.

As Christians, we must be able to give a biblical answer to these questions. Unfortunately--but inevitably--there are several bad answers that have been offered in an attempt to handle these issues. One of the most common is this: "God is doing the best He can under the circumstances."

In 1981, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner published a book entitled, When Bad Things Happen to Good People? Kushner's answer to his own question was that it is because God simply cannot help it. He cannot stop evil. Essentially, God is a God of limited power, doing the best He can under the circumstances, and therefore, we should just trust Him to do all He can to prevent evil. Of course, we might wish He could do better, but finally, there is only so much that God can do. When a person faces a dread disease or a storm, an earthquake, or a tsunami, his only course of action is simply to believe that God is doing the very best He can do and to know that God really could not have kept this from happening. After all, if God could have kept it from happening, He would have done so.

A second inadequate answer when we ponder God and the storm is to say, as some might, "Sure, God could have stopped this, but He did not do so because He has an evil intent. Our days are numbered, and He is going to get us all one way or another. Cancer for one person, an earthquake for another. Life in the end is meaningless, and God is like the Hindu deity Shiva, the Destroyer."

Both of those arguments fall infinitely short of the biblical testimony. The God of the Bible cannot be described as "doing the very best He can do under the circumstances." Nor can one read the Bible and seriously affirm that God is a God of evil. He is a God of love and of mercy, a God of holiness.

How then are we to put all of this together? In Job 37, Elihu reminded Job that God is in the storm. "With moisture He loads thick cloud; He disperses the cloud of His lightening. It changes direction, turning around by His guidance." There really is no way to get around those words, is there? Last week, we saw the storm turn. We saw its direction change. And Scripture affirms unequivocally that "It does whatever He commands it on the face of the inhabited earth. Whether for correction, or for His world, or for lovingkindness, He causes it to happen."

In chapter 38, the Lord answers Job out of a whirlwind. Speaking to Job, He says: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who enclosed the sea with doors when, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; when I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and I placed boundaries on it and set a bolt and doors, and I said, "Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? [Job 38:1-13]

"Who has cleft a channel for the flood, or a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land without people, on a desert without a man in it, to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to make the seeds of the grass to sprout? Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? Water becomes hard like stone and the surface of the deep is imprisoned. [Job 38:25-30]

Throughout this chapter, God rebukes Job, saying in effect, "Who are you to question Me? What right have you, the creature--a suffering creature, yes, and a creature with many questions, yes--but who has given you the right to interrogate Me?" At the beginning of chapter 40, the Lord concludes His argument: "Then the Lord said to Job, 'Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it.'" [Job 40:1] It is hard to imagine a more severe and direct indictment than what God says here to Job. Where were you when I made the world? Remind Me again how you set the sun on its course. Remind Me of how you set the limits on the waters.

Job's response is entirely appropriate. "Then Job answered the Lord and said, 'Behold I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; even twice, and I will add nothing more.'" [Job 40:3] He continues, "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore, I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees you. Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes." [Job 42:1-6]

What we should learn from Job's response--at a bare minimum--is that while we are to seek to understand what God is doing in the midst of this crisis, we must never act as if we can explain exactly why God allowed this tragedy to happen.

One great danger is the temptation to say, "I know why this storm hit, and I know why this storm hit where it did." "New Orleans is a sinful city," some say. "The Lord sent this storm because of the casinos in the gulf and because of the wickedness in the city of New Orleans." To make such a claim, however, is to go far beyond the bounds of human knowledge. We are simply not given the right to say with such precision why this tragedy--or any other natural disaster--has occurred.

Jesus made this same point in John chapter 9. Jesus and His disciples came across a man who was blind from birth. His disciples wanted to know if it was this man's sin or the sin of his parents that had caused his blindness. Jesus responded, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." [John 9:3] God's purposes are beyond our understanding, and the Lord simply does not explain or seek to justify His ways to humankind. Thus, Christians should consistently affirm the sovereignty of God and the righteousness of God's ways, even as we await the full revelation of His purposes in the age to come.