Unfortunately, Christianity has solidified into either a rigid set of right words about God or an unrestricted, phantom-like, nearly imaginary personal relationship with God. Most spiritual seekers are tired of both of these options. They are looking for something else, something more, and something, well, more spiritual. Let's look at both of these models of present day Christianity and see why people, perhaps like you, are tired of and disappointed in these options of Christianity.
In the first model of modern Christianity, to be a Christian, you must say and believe right words about God or those in charge of such matters will not deem you a Christian believer. You must agree with right words about God. In knowing and believing the right words, the approved words about God, the believer is assured that he/she will have a right relationship with God.
According to this model, right words equal right relationship. Say the right words, believe the right things and you will have the right relationship with God.
Many spiritual seekers find this paradigm, this model, too intellectual. Knowing about something does not mean you have a relationship with that something. I might know all the right words about the monster turtles in the Galapagos Islands. However, that does not mean I have any relationship at all with a living turtle on those far away islands.
Knowledge about something does not create a relationship with something. This model is increasingly leaving people feeling hollow. Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God. Increasingly, people looking for spirituality are rejecting the idea that knowledge and relationship are the same thing.
However, many also reject the other option. The second option of modern Christianity is a reaction against the first option. Instead of concentrating on right words about God, the second option encourages believers to forget about doctrine (right words about God) and simply dive into the relationship with God with your heart.
Not bothered with intellectualism or doctrinal codes, those who follow this path only have a sketchy, scratchy understanding of who it is they think they have a spiritual relationship with! They raise their hands (indicating the plainly old belief that God is up), close their eyes (indicating that God cannot be seen in the physical world but only in the imagination) and sing songs of adoration and commitment to God (indicating that the God they worship wants such things as adoration and commitment from those with whom the God has a relationship).
But, since this option denies the need for any doctrinal codes, each person has a different version of the spiritual relationship they experience. Spirituality becomes extremely personal. So much so, some people who follow this path seem offended if they are asked to describe their spirituality.
So, here is the dilemma. Behind spiritual door number one, we find an external spirituality based on right words about God which everyone must believe and repeat in unison.
Behind spiritual door number two, we find an internal spirituality based on subjective feelings about God which may or may not be explicable or understood even by the person who is experiencing the spirituality.
Increasingly, true spiritual seekers are finding both doors incomplete. An external, right words based spirituality seems lifeless and academic. The internal, subjective spirituality seems cartoonish and so undefined that no two people can walk the same path together.
Door number one relies totally on cognitive, thought information and door number two relies totally on feelings and the right brained imaginative cognitions or thoughts.
Many people want to know what is behind the famous door number three.
Orthodoxy Transforming seeks to pry open door number three and find a different approach to spirituality that melds Orthodox Christianity with universal spirituality of the human race.
Orthodoxy Transforming is dedicated to this rediscovery of spirituality for the 21st Century. The 20th Century was the century of blood. Orthodoxy Transforming believes the 21st Century will be the century of enlightenment, spirituality and planetary awakening. However, this cannot happen using old patterns and models.
Something new is being born. A new spirituality and spiritual hunger is emerging. People will find spirituality to fill the void our present course has created in all of us.
Some will chase the easy path of listening blindly to others tell them what to do to enter spiritual relationship with God. These will be the fanatics.
Some will hammer away at the material world imagining that God will emerge if enough information is collected. These will be the earnest skeptics.
Some will follow their own self-taught path of whimsy, imagination and spirituality with no boundaries except those created in their own minds. These will be the strangelings.
Some will try to find God inside the human somewhere, tucked neatly away, hidden from view until exposed by trials or disaster. These will be the humanist mystics.
Some will wander away, confused and empty, discouraged and disillusioned with all spiritual paths. These will be the depressed, deluded and disbelieving.
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