Christians today feel threatened from all sides. Forces beyond our control crowd us into a “global village,” squeezing us nearer to everyone else… Often uncomfortably close. Folks of various cultures and competing faiths are only a mouse-click away. They enter our homes daily via satellite television. Even within our own country, a “culture war” seems to have targeted normal Christian values.
This clash of opposing views is sometimes perturbing and infrequently downright scary. Yet, underneath these clear conflicts is a core of common hope and spiritual truth… Love! Indeed, only Love – as prescribed by Jesus – will give us the will to explore, both within ourselves and in those we view as “the other,” the Problems which now seem unbeatable.
This is the message of a new book, The Love : Of the 5th Non secular Framework, released by The Oracle Institute, an instructional charity dedicated to lessening the current spiritual chaos. In this unique collection, 11 sides of Love are examined by Times hottest authors and Pulitzer and Nobel Peace Prize winners. The contributing authors come from a broad spectrum of spiritual and academic backgrounds, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Evangelical Priest Brian McLaren, and Professor Robert Eisenman, who was pivotal in getting the Dead Sea Scrolls released from the Catholic Church.
Archbishop Tutu’s essay, God Has A Dream, cleverly connects the Psalmist’s phrase, “Be still and know that I am God,” with his own wisdom, “Be still, be quiet, and then you may begin to see with the eyes of the heart.” Tutu also teaches us, “As we take a bit of time to be still and to be in God’s presence, the qualities of Our Lord God are transferred to us,” as one may absorb soothing warmth by “sitting in front of a fire on a cold day.”
In Good news for All People, Priest Brian McLaren reminds fellow Christians, “We still need to come to terms with this small but serious detail : Jesus and his message are not simply a gift to Christians, but to all the folk of each faith. And nowhere is that realisation more vital than when we are intending to understand and practice the way of Love – in particular, the way of unconditional Love.”
P.M.H. Atwater, a deep and tireless analyst on the consequences of life-altering brushes with death and peak non secular experiences, contributes an essay entitled Our Love for God : How It Expands as We Do. She declares, “Our hunger to reconnect with Almighty God drives us ( even when we reject it ). And that hunger is Love based.” From her studies into the near-death experience, Atwater has learned that both Christians and non-Christians come back consumed by a Love of God and a Love of their neighbors… Just as Jesus modeled in the gospels.
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