WE ALL SET BOUNDARIES WE ALL SET BOUNDARIES

We need boundaries and limits,
a concept of what is acceptable and what is not.
Without boundaries there is chaos, insecurity, fear.
Behaviour contrary to communal good
is performed without restriction.

Then we need judgement
a decision whether certain things are acceptable
and what to do if they are not.

Then we need 'police'
to bring wrongdoers to a place of accounting
and 'jailers' to execute the sentence.

But is this how we should behave?
How God would have us behave?

How should we care for the feckless,
the stupid and thoughtless,
those driven only by drugs,
even the downright evil?

How should we handle those who break our boundaries?

BUT
Where are the boundaries?
What are the non-negotiables?

What does the Internet tell us about the boundaries set by others
Perhaps those set by the cult known as Bibletalk.tv.
or the, more accepted, Billy Graham Evangelical Association,
or those of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches

This might lead perhaps to a
Primary Conclusion Primary Conclusion

Having read all of the above we might conclude that these are
the somewhat extreme views of a cult rather than a mainstream church.

For they all bear the same imprint,
suffer from the same certainty,
are stamped with the same sense of sin
and maybe the shame of their imperfection.

They all cry aloud in their pain
demanding attention to their whim
and the uncertainties of their certainty.

How can we tend their fear?
How to bring comfort and security,
to those who face the abyss knowing
that their certainty has feet of clay?

Maybe we can then find our own boundaries
and see whether those of others correspond.

Finding Boundaries Finding Boundaries

The boundaries of the Evangelicals try to limit our exploration
to a spiritual world embraced in the smallness of human minds.
Surely we need to embrace a wider view.

Is there a God, or gods, or is this merely a human concoction?
Is God, as Jesus said, embraced within each of us,
a product of our creation, of our very DNA?

Is the Jesus-story one of a real person
or a vehicle for assembly of special teaching?
Was Jesus a spiritual giant, or great teacher,
or an undercover war-leader as authority suspected?

How can we separate the politics of the Bible
from any spiritual content or reality?
How can we separate the moribund church
from its reliance on ancient writings?

How can we find a faith, a spirituality,
which resonates with the world today?

Surely the Sermon on the Mount, wherever that originated,
contains all the good ways of life, the best way of living and loving,
freed of the constraing, moribund, chains of religion.
Maybe here we can find truth and direction.

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