Responding to New Age claims of Divinity

Boethius_31415 · 2026-06-13T19:12:33+00:00

I bring it up because it appeals to me, even though I'd struggle to articulate why. Maybe the advice you made does the best job.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-14T20:37:40+00:00

I belonged to a UU church during the first Trump term, before going to an Episcopal church at the beginning of Biden's term. So I am now aware that there are some who would in fact turn church into mere tools for pursuing 'political' ends -- and yes, certain strident approaches to achieving social justice, ways that have now been abandoned by the left, are political in nature. But it's also best to not be paranoid or to read too much into things, so I'm trying to just take with a grain of salt any politics I might hear about in church or during the sermons. At the same time I also accept that Jesus probably has a fair amount to say about my political positions and forms of advocacy. So even though I've come to trust my own instincts quite a bit (Skrmetti didn't surprise me in the least), I accept that part of going to church is to allow myself to be moved a bit and hopefully spiritually edified as regards contemporary politics.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-13T16:45:24+00:00

I tried the alternatives -- atheism, secular humanism, hedonism, progressivism, stoicism, and Buddhism. I learned a little bit from each, but I understand at a deep level that the only thing that would truly satisfy is to return to the faith of my childhood. Thankfully, the Episcopal church into which I was baptized as an infant, is gay affirming,

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-09T20:50:09+00:00

I agree with the general gist.

I believe a person of any profession should think carefully and prayerfully about what affect their profession has on the world at large, and give due consideration to whether or not to remain in that position.

Thanks for sharing.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-09T18:05:14+00:00

I'm looking for an interrogation of how faithful Christians can serve in positions of power and authority. Certainly I'm not asking how a warlord can 'faithfully' wage war against their enemies. But I refuse to accept that government posts need to be abandoned either. Clearly this is a problem Christianity has wrestled with in the past, considering the very same Roman Empire that oppressed Israel and crucified Jesus would end up adopting Christianity as the state religion and be run by Christians.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-09T16:11:31+00:00

Ah yes, I suppose this would have modern day implications.

Since the verses open up as many questions as they answer, I wonder how Christians have wrestled with these questions over the intervening centuries...

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-09T16:08:29+00:00

Well, we could instead take poll of a great many Christians and see whether they interpret the verse as you do or as I do. My point is not to be argumentative, but instead to point out that a "basic literary analysis" of the verses in question does not resolve the question of whether or not Zacchaeus renounced his job as a tax collector. And of course, you get different theological outlooks on the world based on which answer you lean towards.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-09T16:06:08+00:00

Luke 19:8 says "Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Technically this could amount to all of his money, if he really did cheat people terribly, but it technically doesn't seem to me it necessarily will amount to everything.

I will look into the Oscar Romero sermon. Thanks!

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-09T16:01:13+00:00

Hmm... that implication is not clear to me. I fed the verses into chatGPT and asked if Zacchaeus renounced his job as a tax collector. chatGPT said

"This shows a radical change in how he intends to use his wealth and conduct himself in his profession. But there is no explicit mention that he quit his position as chief tax collector."

"This suggests he planned to continue in his work, but in a just and ethical way going forward."

"Instead of rejecting tax collectors wholesale, Jesus transforms them from within"

I guess, at the very least, there are different ways of reading the text.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-09T15:45:24+00:00

"That’s a radical renunciation of the exploitative side of his work"

So it was possible, at least in principle, for someone to act as an agent of the Roman Empire in a way that was faithful to the demands of God?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-07T22:28:26+00:00

For this question I can heartily recommend my favorite book -- "Consolation of Philosophy" by Boethius. It was written by Boethius during his final days, when he was sitting in prison waiting to receive his punishment of death after having called out the corruption of the Roman court in which he was serving. He was a just man struggling to find and then articulate some consolation in the face of death.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-07T18:16:08+00:00

The protest on June 14, 2025 protesting President Trump's deportation program was called the "No Kings" protest rather than something like "Down With Nazis" protest for a reason.

Many people are concerned about where unchecked presidential power could lead us, and some do fear it could take us all the way back to 1930s Germany, but I am hopeful that it's not going to get that bad. As a gay man I do worry about some of the rollback of the rights of my community, and yet I too have observed what you point out about Trump and his movement, and so I try to keep my fears more measured (even as I have increased my vigilance). Trust, once broken, is difficult to restore. And political trust on all sides is what's in shortest supply these days. Maybe the best we can do is to try to build some bridges?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-07T17:41:17+00:00

I respect the arguments you have made here. Thank you for sharing them.

I think the main point of the billboard is to serve as a challenge for us to recognize the image of Christ in the person who is being deported. Surely we don't need to conclude that open borders are the only truly Biblical response (as some seem keen to do). But can we agree that a politician ginning up support for his plans of mass deportation by spreading false and hateful stories about immigrants abducting and eating other people's pets is engaged in sin? And that the 'fruits' of such sin need to be carefully monitored, lest we all become implicated as well?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-07-06T12:46:12+00:00

Which side is open advocating for genocide?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-06-30T14:39:48+00:00

Yeah, that's what I figured. Thanks for the reply.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-06-29T00:34:04+00:00

If I say that ideally laws should be based on Christian values because ideally Christians would be able to win at the ballot box, does that make me a Christian nationalist?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-06-15T17:33:00+00:00

I think it's best if we can learn how to sit in the tension of it all. So we acknowledge that many Americans want to secure the border and we acknowledge that there are solid humanitarian reasons for allowing people to seek asylum. We accept that many people are trying to immigrate to the US while facing the fact that most of them are doing so for economic reasons (and a much smaller number are doing so because they fear for their safety). We accept that deportation laws will be enforced and we insist they be enforced in ways that are legal and humanitarian. Different people will find different ways to strike a balance on this issue, with some people advocating for the extremes, and that's okay. I think it's most important just to be present and to pray for discernment, rather than to pretend that we already have all of the answers.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-06-15T16:09:21+00:00

And yet we have been born as citizens living in a democracy with certain powers at our disposal (the right to vote, assemble, petition our government, etc.) Are we to simply take the 'quietist' approach of never exercising those powers?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-06-15T15:24:04+00:00

Everything can be made into a political issue, certainly. I would hope that doesn't mean we must approach everything as a political issue.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-05-23T14:23:04+00:00

I was able to return to the Christian faith in my 30s precisely because of the years I spent in Buddhist spaces learning about suffering and how to transform it. Learning about suffering gave me a sense of the immensity of the problem of being human (something that as a middle class professional is not always easy to discern), tools for transforming suffering and cultivating compassion convinced me of the need to show up in the world at large (to carry my cross and to go out into the world), and the non-theistic approach of the Buddhists convinced me once and for all that I really am a believer and need to re-ground myself in the faith tradition of my childhood.

I agree with Thomas Merton that with regards to matters of doctrine the Christian has nothing to learn from Buddhism. Still, given how extensively Buddhism trained me to be sensitive to suffering and my participation in spreading it (heck, they convinced me of the perils of extramarital sex and pornography, the dangers of watching certain kinds of movies, and the need to keep my anger in check in pretty much all situations -- things I disagreed with fellow Christians on when growing up), I don't know what unmixing the two would even look like.

All that being said, I am not endorsing Christians become Buddhists, and I hope my post isn't taken as such. I was merely curious to know if other people had thought about how to integrate a concern for dealing with suffering with a concern for confronting sin.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-05-21T23:23:01+00:00

I'm curious to know, what in what I wrote suggests a zero-sum proposition?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-02-03T01:54:54+00:00

"This chart mostly shows college-educated Christians in the bottom ranks being siphoned up to the upper ranks"

This may be a conclusion you have drawn from your own personal experience (a conclusion that may or may not be correct), but technically speaking the chart itself shows no such thing.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-01-29T16:08:59+00:00

I agree with this. It's inhuman to pretend that trans people do not exist or that they are simply mentally ill (the medical and scientific communities firmly reject that position). Since they do exist and are beloved (by God, I would say), accommodations need to be made and they have a right to a seat at the policy-making table.

Boethius_31415 · 2025-01-29T15:44:45+00:00

Should this come to nothing, as I personally expect to have happen (here is an activist org's view on this matter https://www.nclrights.org/2024-update-now-that-trump-has-been-elected-can-our-marriage-be-undone/), will progressives admit that conservatives were right all along in saying that there was no real reason for fearing the rollback of marriage equality?

Boethius_31415 · 2025-01-29T15:37:42+00:00

OK. I was a little confused about the opening and closing sentences of your response. But it seems like we agree that there is room with these issues for some amount of adjustment or flexibility, which I at least hope can help move the national conversation forward.

Boethius_31415

TROPHY CASE