Is There a Christian Way?

Posted on by L Reese Cumming

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I happened upon a blog post during a recent and rare trip to New Advent; a Catholic site with an amazing assortment of subject matter and an archive of wonder.  I say “rare” only in that I do grow tired of its futile emancipation of things incredibly shallow in nature.  I can read only so many times, “9 Reasons Why Pope Francis Likes Vegetables”, before I want to throw up my vegetables.

Anyways, having gone through the Catholic RCIA program in 2013, that’s the Rite of Christian Initiation for all of you non-Catholics, I found this post of good interest.  I’d have to say in regards to my own experience with RCIA, that it was far less frustrating than the type of one imagined in this post.  It was, nonetheless, similar with the writer’s experience in the fact that the program I went through seemed to offer up nothing as an examination of why I ever came to RCIA and the Catholic Church to begin with.  What was my motive?  Why the Catholic Church and not the Latter Day Saints or the Assembly of God?  Had I been called or was I searching?  Was there any metaphysical substance within me that sought the here-and-now, just as much as the there-and-later?

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The Commonality of Faith

Posted on by L Reese Cumming

Portrait of a boy with the map of the world painted on his face.

In the modern, secular world, the average citizen has lost the appreciation of just how fundamental religious identity is to our basic existence.  The secularist – remote to the religious experience all about them each and every day – sees religion as a membership in an organization; a simple choice that can be flipped with an opportunistic lifestyle, a change in schedule, or a little enlightenment.  The results of such a naiveté is just beginning to roost like gargoyles on the growing discord we call diversity.

But religion is not an organization with a human leadership that shops for designer bargains at a factory-outlet store.  Religion isn’t just tucked neatly within the prefrontal cortex of the brain; ready to be affected by neuroplasticity brought about by human events.  Religion has demonstrated that it is much more pervasive and prevailing in all human cultures; signaling that it is embodied within every cell within every human body.  It is not likely to go away with a “shoo”, or retreat to its dog house with a “bad doggie”.

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The Problem of the Spirit

Posted on by L Reese Cumming

Ernest_Trova_Falling_Man_Manscapes

Worrying about evil is, quite frankly, small potatoes in comparison to a much greater human condition that plagues the vast majority of mankind; the absence of any consciousness of the spirit.

We pursue a path of consciousness that solely imbues our intellect and passions as the arbiters of our existence, and in extension, that of God’s existence.  We actually believe that what we cannot rationalize, at this moment, therefore does not exist, and man’s history has consistently demonstrated this demoralizing condition.

Let’s look at the Bible for a moment.  There is an argument – a position on God’s existence – that takes on the rationalization that if the Bible is errant in its assertions or circumstances, then God must not exist.  I have to ask the question, “Why?”.  Critics, for purposes of convenience and certain lack of awareness of spiritual matters, equate what they can see with their eyes and then perceive from paper pages with ink imprints, as somehow possessing some form of power that dictates over God and not under God.

Man believes his intellect and passions should be the sole arbiters of truth.  My simple argument against that is man’s history.  Such a consideration is obviously not true given the results, and to assert that it is our intellect and our passions that has at least gotten us this far, well that I would agree with you.  We have obviously put performance aside.

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The Breech of Equality

Posted on by L Reese Cumming

Cracking dam wall

The concern for the rights of women has been, and still is, a central issue in our American society in 2015. Amongst the many “rights” that have been identified as critical to the freedom of American women, is the right to self-determination of what a woman can do with her own body; to include the aborting of a woman’s own fetus – a human life – should she believe it to be a burden and an inconvenience to her future decision-making.

And with a similar rise to national attention, the rights of homosexuals have also come to dominate the attention of the American society. The cause is similar: the right to self-determination of what a homosexually-oriented person can do with his or her own body; without restrictions from the societal and political opportunities of open and endorsed relationships in which the legal status of marriage brings with it.

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