We feel bound to the Christian image of humanity - that is what defines us. Those who do not accept this are in the wrong place here.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There's an inclination to get on the inside of Jesus' psyche, and I think that's a deep mistake because it assumes that what you have here is someone analogous to us.
Thus Christian humanism is as indispensable to the Christian way of life as Christian ethics and a Christian sociology.
Then, certainly, to be a Christian is to love God above all, and our neighbour as ourselves.
On the religious Right and religious people in general have the feeling that the world is not just material, the world is not just there for us to do what we want with. That our bodies, things have an immaterial essence, a spiritual essence that God is in all of us.
The often cruel behavior of Christians toward unbelievers and even toward dissenters among themselves is shocking evidence of the function of that image in relation to values and behavior.
Mankind is not special by virtue of our address in the universe, or what spins around us, or because life originated here. Slowly, but surely, we've been compelled to renounce the comfort of these beliefs.
I think there is a tendency for people to get rigid and caught up in their beliefs of what is right and wrong, and they lose sight of humanity. Being human has to come first before right or wrong.
The Christian image of God is that of a rational being who believes in human progress, more fully revealing himself as humans gain the capacity to better understand.
I felt unworthy, and it's amazing how God kind of showed me that that's how we act as humans, and that's sometimes how we act in our Christian life.
'Accepting the Christ' is merely a shift in self-perception.