Author Topic: Huston Smith, Soul of Christianity  (Read 68 times)

forbitals

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Huston Smith, Soul of Christianity
« on: March 27, 2019, 06:20:57 pm »
So trying to finish up with Huston Smith's "Soul of Christianity"

Smith quotes from a Pius IX document, saying that being part of the "church visible" is not a necessary condition for salvation.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_IX


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_visible


https://www.npr.org/2018/04/24/605252936/why-pius-ix-might-be-the-most-important-pope-in-modern-church-history


Smith, page 88


Pius IX


"the natural law, the commands of which are written by God in every human heart, and being ready to obey him, live honorably and uprightly, can, with the power of Divine light and grace helping them, attain eternal life.  For God, who clearly sees, searches out, and knows the minds, hearts, thoughts, and dispositions of all, in his great goodness and mercy does not by any means suffer a man to be punished with eternal torments, who is not guilty of voluntary faults."

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forbitals

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Re: Huston Smith, Soul of Christianity
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2019, 06:42:29 pm »
page 56, Smith quotes the Beatitudes, and then says,

"We learn from these sayings that blessedness -- beatitude -- is not unalloyed happiness.  It is paradoxical happiness, wherein the sorrow is not eliminated but is enfolded and transmuted by God's all-permeating love.  In blessedness the spear of suffering is enveloped in a shaft of light.  The light shines in darkness, which does not consume it."

forbitals

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Re: Huston Smith, Soul of Christianity
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2019, 06:48:50 pm »
page 60

"I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother-in-law, and one's foes will be members of his own household."


"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters cannot be my disciple."


"Let the dead bury the dead."

( there are other statements comparable to these too. )

forbitals

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Re: Huston Smith, Soul of Christianity
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2019, 07:04:47 pm »
page 90, Speaking of Saul's conversion, speaks of Saul as heir to "throne mysticism".  He will later say this about Revelations.  But for now he lists Enoch, Ezekiel, and Isaiah.

Explains that Paul effected the 4 Gospels and most everything else in the NT.

Don't know that Smith really refuted Borg, but Smith's is a much better book, much broader vision.  Borg's by contrast is more like a marketing plan for some denominational Protestant churches need to re-invent themselves if they expect to be able to keep the lights on.

Smith is very interesting, but it is still not the anti-born again, anti-I AM A CHRISTIAN, message I was looking for.