95 Theses: Articles of Faith for a Christianity for the Third Millennium

[OneBlueSky]

by Matthew Fox

http://www.matthewfox.org/sys-tmpl/door/

Like Luther, I present 95 theses or in my case, 95 faith observations drawn from my 64 years of living and practicing religion and spirituality. I trust I am not alone in recognizing these truths. For me they represent a return to our origins, a return to the spirit and the teaching of Jesus and his prophetic ancestors, and of the Christ which was a spirit that Jesus’ presence and teaching unleashed.

1 God is both Mother and Father.

2 At this time in history, God is more Mother than Father because the feminine is most missing and it is important to bring gender balance back.

4 God the Punitive Father is not a God worth honoring but a false god and an idol that serves empire-builders. The notion of a punitive, all-male God, is contrary to the full nature of the Godhead who is as much female and motherly as it is masculine and fatherly.

5 “All the names we give to God come from an understanding of ourselves.” (Eckhart) Thus people who worship a punitive father are themselves punitive.

6 Theism (the idea that God is ‘out there’ or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).

8 All are called to be prophets which is to interfere with injustice.

9 Wisdom is Love of Life (See the Book of Wisdom: “This is wisdom: to love life” and Christ in John’s Gospel: “I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance.”)

10 God loves all of creation and science can help us more deeply penetrate and appreciate the mysteries and wisdom of God in creation. Science is no enemy of true religion.

11 Religion is not necessary but spirituality is.

12 “Jesus does not call us to a new religion but to life.” (Bonhoeffer) Spirituality is living life at a depth of newness and gratitude, courage and creativity, trust and letting go, compassion and justice.

17 Jesus, not unlike many spiritual teachers, taught us that we are sons and daughters of God and are to act accordingly by becoming instruments of divine compassion.

18 Ecojustice is a necessity for planetary survival and human ethics and without it we are crucifying the Christ all over again in the form of destruction of forests, waters, species, air and soil.

19 Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

20 A preferential option for the poor, as found in the base community movement, is far closer to the teaching and spirit of Jesus than is a preferential option for the rich and powerful as found in, for example, Opus Dei.

- more (scroll down) . . .

[xchrom]

1. if # 11 could sink in to the hierarchy of all churches

they would all behave a good deal differently.

something more human.

[Xeric]

2. Blah

What the hell does "spirituality" mean? Believing in spirits? Its one of those vague, meaningless words that people use to denote whatever they want it to mean. These theses aren't as bad as that great anti-semite and proto-fascist Martin Luther's but they are just as meaningless to me.

[lapislzi]

4. your comment brings to mind a phrase

"dog in a manger."

[Xeric]

5. non sequitur

Hey, anybody can believe whatever goofiness they like as long as they don't expect me to go along with it, I'm not stopping them. Problem is they do. So again, what exactly does spirituality mean? If somebody puts out a vague thesis (or 95 of them) we're all supposed to be in awe? I'm not. When somebody says "God is male and female", I ask what that means. Does God have a penis and a vagina? Am I a bad person for questioning that? I don't think so. And I also think more people should question a lot more things. Like the dogma in the manger.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Why? What is Xeric preventing other people using?

And is there an answer to the question - what is 'spirituality'? I think it's a very nebulous word too.

[JVS]

7. Yeah those theses sucked. Indulgences ruled!

[Xeric]

8. Catholics vs. Protestants: the smack-down

So who do you think killed more of the other? Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

But one thing they could both agree on. As Martin Luther said, "Jews should be boiled in their own blood".

[JVS]

9. Cite?

I googled the phrase "Jews should be boiled in their own blood" and got 0 hits

Are you aware that the 95 theses had nothing to do with Jews?

[Xeric]

10. He was no saint

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther#Martin_Luther_and_the_Jews
for more on Martin Luther's anti-semitic views. Or just google "Martin Luther anti-semite" for more references and quotes.
He was also big on witch burning and supported the royalty's bloody crackdown on the Peasant Rebellion.
As to his theses, "Luther did not challenge the authority of the pope to grant indulgences in these theses." (again from wikipedia). The only reason his writings resounded as they did was because of the corruption of the Catholic church, a corruption the Protestants later matched. A pox on both their houses.

[JVS]

12. From 95 theses

"75. To think the papal pardons so great that they could absolve a man even if he had committed an impossible sin and violated the Mother of God -- this is madness.

76. We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its guilt is concerned."

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/ninetyfive.html

While not a challenge to the authority to grant indulgences, it is a denial of the efficacy of the indulgences.

As far as anti-semitism is concerned, Luther did write things that are anti-semetic (religiously not racially), but many accounts of this are sensationalized by people eager to do as much damage to his reputation as possible because they want to blame him for the division of the church.

[trotsky]

14. Sensationalized?

Have you read On the Jews and their Lies?!?!?!?!

http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/basis/1543-Luther-JewsandLies-full.html

The man was a fountain of hatred for the Jews. The "damage to his reputation" was done by his own vile words.

[JVS]

15. I don't deny that his writing is vile, but there is also a tendency for..

it to be remembered as though it were some kind of unique contribution to anti-semitism, rather than typical of his time and place. It's shameful that he thought and wrote that, but unfortunately it also isn't unusual for his time and place.

And to return this to the original part of the sub thread. The 95 theses is definitely part of Luther's writing that do him credit. And to hear the term 95 theses and dismiss them and what they were about out of hand as being written by an anti-semite is disingenuous.

[beam me up scottie]

16. Yeah, that's the ticket, it was "sensationalized"!

Just like Mein Kampf.
:eyes:

[JVS]

17. When someone mentions the declaration of Independence..

is it appropriate to dismiss it out of hand as the ridiculous drivel of a slave raper?

My objection was to immediately dismissing the 95 theses as crap by an anti-semite.

Yes, late in his career Luther wrote some disgustingly anti-semetic stuff. But these have no bearing on the document under discussion, and also indicators are that at the time of the 95 theses Luther did not hold such views. Seldom do I see anyone mention his 1523 condemnation of inhumane treatment of Jews in "That Jesus Christ was born a Jew", which being written 6 years after the 95 theses is probably more reflective of his attitude at the time of the 95 theses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_the_Jews#That_Jesus_Christ_Was_Born_a_Jew

I'm just saying that this topic is more complex than many would care to admit.

[beam me up scottie]

18. "slave raper" ???

[JVS]

20. What, you didn't know about Jefferson?

If you'd like a more similar example to Luther, we could talk about Erasmus of Rotterdam.

[beam me up scottie]

21. Dammit.

I restarted my computer like the instructions said but I keep getting the same error

[JVS]

22. Well is it proper to dismiss the Dec. of Ind. out of hand because...

Jefferson was a slave raper, or should the document be evaluated on its own merits or lack thereof?

[beam me up scottie]

24. That's it.

I going Linux, this has to be a Windows problem.

Or it could be AOL.

I think the ID-iots have created a virus.

[SidDithers]

3. "I trust I am not alone in recognizing these truths"...

I'd hardly call them truths. Values, maybe.

Sid

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[beam me up scottie]

13. "You can not discuss this on DU-even trying to escape the xian put downs

and swamping of the conversation that always occurs in R/T by going to GD like you have will not work - as you can see you were tossed back into R/T - Only christian posts in GD are permitted to stay in GD- any actual discussion of religion is a hot button for our christian friends and our christian friends must respond.:)

Actually you may have a chance for a good discussion with the christian crowd once they realize you "might be" advancing the pantheism there is a god concept.

It will be interesting to watch this thread."

oops, forgot the smilie, I must capture the hypocrisy and broad brush smear in its totality.

[Proud_Democratt]

19. Oh no...not another 1000 years of war, greed, deceit, deception,

lies, fairy tales, scare tactics, regressed science.

[charlie]

23. Ease up

and read the rest of the theses. It's none of those things. It's pulling Christianity out of its current obscene incarnation of dogma, cant, and control, and putting it into the realm of the personal, ethical, and ineffable. For want of a better word, it's "mystical" Christianity. If there must be religion in the world, this is the sort you'll want it to be.

[Proud_Democratt]

25. I stated my opinion after reading the rhetoric...That's my story....

and I'm stickin' to it. Keywords....deceit, deception. This is my opinion.

[BayCityProgressive]

26. you know

I really hate when the faults of humanity are blamed on a belief system. Growing up my parents were very conservative Christians...they joined their church because of money problems and marital strife. I came out as an openly gay male in my senior year and was homeless for a full year.I walked to school every day and walked to work (Spencers gift store) for minimum wage. I stayed at whatever house would keep me. I actually was so depressed I considered killing myself. However, I moved on and after years of bitterness have realized that any thought or religion....even atheism will eventually be turned into a tool of hate by the ignorant mass of people who unfortunately make up the majority of our society. I now consider myself a very spiritual person and have no problem with anyone of any belief system. I do however have a problem with people who blame the human nature to hate on any certain religion. In most cases people warp the original teachings of a religion to fit their own horrible hateful minds. That is what is saddest to me. Religion isn't the problem in my eyes. Ignorrant people are.

[Dogmudgeon]

27. Amen to that!

A lot of us around here have suffered atrocities at the hands of the faithful. In my case, it was abuse as a child. While I did come to reject faith per se, I never confused the evils of the ignorant with the evils of the religions themselves.

Meme theory, begun by Richard Dawkins, who is also a prominent atheist, claims that natural selection occurs among ideas, and that we should observe the same kind of seeming random variation among them that we see among life forms. But while Dawkins -- and many of the atheists who post here -- well understand how religion carries and disseminates irrationality and hatred, they often fail to acknowledge that the bad stuff is only one part of the entire random variety of memes carried by religion.

For example, Fundamentalist Christianity produced Martin Luther King as well as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Rousas Rushdoony.

It is no lie to say that your parents were in the thrall of their religion -- but they're also responsible for their own atrocious behavior, as are we all. There is plenty wrong with all the big religions, as well as most of the smaller ones. And you're right: atheism has the same potential to spawn hateful people, even independently of Communism and Objectivism, the two big forges of hateful atheists. (Most atheists, I would hasten to point out, are far from hateful, and as a group have quite a good track record.)

Religion has a useful sub-discipline known as hammartiology, the study of sin. It's a shame -- a sin, ha-ha -- that there is no real, comprehensive secular equivalent of it. Most religious hammartiology studies sin to understand redemption. The tragedy is that this is almost entirely an abstraction, and institutional evil continues. And so, too, do multitudes of the faithful mimic the worst aspects of their faiths.

But it's changing. Slowly. Very slowly. For example, acceptance of Gays is catching on, especially among the liberals, but at a glacial pace. It may be up to the Queer community to forthrightly say "Stop mucking around and obey your own Golden Rule! Everybody sins! Get over it!"

I only hope it won't be too much to ask the conservatives in the religious community to actually listen.

--p!

[Proud_Democratt]

28. Religion creates ignorance of science, wars, witchhunts and

many other negative impacts of humankind.
Has it ever done anything in a positive manner besides giving out personal "pacifiers" to the would-be alcoholics, addicts, gamblers and other problematic personal disorders? Does everyone need a "crutch" to make it from day-to-day, or face a dilemna???

[TallahasseeGrannie]

29. You know

I have the impulse to sit down next to you, give you a cup of tea and a dish of ice cream. And a gentle pat on the shoulder. (which may or may not get progessively more and more firm) I think you might be thinking too much.

Enjoy life. It's short.

[Zhade]

30. #6 is fascinating. Closer to original Christianity, I think?

Interesting trend, thoses Foxes and Spongs. Theist traditionalists must be having fits!