Warning, Longest Post Ever...But Well Worth The Read!

A longest of posts, one quite daring, but worth the read!

This morning I have been exploring the generational impact of my spiritual heritage as well as the individual distinctions demonstrated among people of various faiths. Especially faith's influenced by those early exiles from Isreal, both those who returned under Cyrus and those who remained in Babylon.

Strange I know, but feeling "called!"

Yes, Ezekiel has in part inspired this pursuit!

He never physically returned to Jerusalem post exile. Thus, he spent his entire prophetic ministry and his remaining years in Babylon, where he died around 570 BC. His traditional tomb is a Jewish religious site located in modern-day Iraq.

I now find myself thinking back over my own days of spiritual exile, having left the faith in my teens, then "prayed back in" by my dad, on January 3,1973. However, not immediately back into church, my "metanoia" experience happened in Dad's Living Room. That distinction seems now providential!

Then there was the influence of the school teacher across the hall, now my wife, who first invited me back to church.

She was brought up in the Lutheran faith, anchored with a legalistic allegiance to the catechism. Taught by male clergy, no women that I know of...in case you are Baptist (sorry, my bad), all robed in clerical collars with degreed authority, and a staunch alignment with the historical Reformation.

To this then unchurched, former Pentecostal, their liturgical approach to worship seemed to reflect what I assumed was the mother church of Rome, though Germany & Luther got the credit!

Well actually, the Moravians will quickly let you in on a secret! Jan Hus provided the notes for Luther about a 100 years earlier, though the Roman Church had already burned him at the stake!

My childhood days of spiritual exposure came mostly by way of preachers enthralled by what they had experienced in the overflow of the Azusa Street Revival, which broke in 1906, under the leadership of a black pastor, William J. Seymour (look him up).

Few of my early ministers had any academic moorings, though they revered the text of scripture, assuming all as literal in meaning. If Jesus or Paul said it, they preached it as "gospel", Good News!

The thing that caught my attention growing up was that often the manifestations described in the text followed their ministry. Healings were common place, stories that defied explanation were abundant in their lives.

Over 50 years then passed between the start of the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 and the major milestones of the Full Gospel and Catholic Charismatic movements in the early 1960s and 70's.

Again, it was in the early 70's when God again caught my attention. About that time, it seems that a Methodist church in county where I first taught had been influenced by the Charismatic movement.

Following my own experience with God outside the church, both the Lutheran teacher across the hall, (my wife) and our Methodist principal began inviting us to attend a Friday morning prayer breakfast at a local Holiday Inn.

I studied the contrast among the varied interdenominational perspectives and went with those most demonstrative in their faith, which again brought me back to a variant of the Pentecostal movement.

Now again, some 50 additional years into my faith, I am again exploring my faith orientation. Now aided by an access to data, knowledge and wisdom as never before. All that intensified by my age and a sense of necessity for questioning much of what I have always accepted as religious absolutes, such that I might deliver value to the generations that follow me.

With a cautioned humility, I thank God for my intersection with the Christ apart from any one denominational orientation, the spectrum of my spiritual experience now quite broad!

Thus my intrigue with the differences in our belief systems, all seeming to extend back as far as Isreal's Babylonian exile.

Two branches seemed to have eventually emerged. The Western branch of Christianity, mostly Pauline, influenced deeply by the Romans. Then the Eastern sector, among those like Ezekiel who remained in what is now Iraq, apparently embittered toward the Romans, while as well, their economic ventures to the east by way of the Silk Road.

This led to variances in their compilation of sacred texts, the sources for their interpretation, as well as the nuance of languages used in that process, more Arabic than Latin. The former more aligned with the Hebrew language.

Turning the corner on this longest of posts, now back to the present, and the pluralistic nature of our own nation. As well, the growing influence of Islam, requires an awareness of the origin of this faith lest we re-enter the sad era that led to the violent Crusade years!

Strong statement I know, but the rhetoric of fear and warfare that seems dominant across our globe takes me there.

Hope then leads me elsewhere!

As I understand Islam, a man named Mohammad once encountered Allah, (Arabic for God) in a cave, roughly estimated as August 10, 610 CE. He was so moved, that he asked of others what his experience might have been.

Ironically, we are told Mohammad was then encouraged toward further pursuit by a Christian scholar who instructed and validated Muhammad after his first encounter with the angel Gabriel. His name, Waraqah ibn Nawfal. He was an elderly, blind Christian ascetic and the paternal cousin of Muhammad's wife, Khadija.

Waraqah ibn Nawfal's own Christian heritage is long debated, some say he was a Nazarene Monk, others believe that even before dedicating himself to Christianity, Waraqah was classified as a Hanif—a pre-Islamic title for those who rejected Meccan idolatry to follow the pure monotheism associated with Abraham.

You can sense my intrigue, given the overlap of these religions, and the varied origins of the Christian faith. Overlay all that with the nature of this God of love, as reflected in the man Jesus and you can see the "why" behind my intrigue.

One is without excuse for religious ignorance, uninformed bias or distain for the faith of others, given our current access to information and the "new every morning" availability of the the Spirit of God.

I rest my lengthy case...for now!