Karma and Christianity

Karma should be one of those points in my post 'Spirituality of the Everyday'. Karma is something which most people have a pretty good understanding of without a 'religious' background. At its simplist if you do good then good will come back to you. Likewise if you do bad it will catch up with you.
A constant theme which comes up with my reading of Laurence Freeman's 'Jesus, the Teacher within' is the idea of Karma and how it interacts with Christianity.

The sacrificial love of Jesus highlights the moral meaning of the universe, the gift of unconditional love that awaits us at the heart of reality. In contrast to the mechanistic view of sin and punishment based on karma, love transcends the dichotomy of reward and punishment. this is the 'scandal of the Cross', its affronts to the rational mind. We cannot perceive its moral meaning without also seeing how all-pervading is the activity of sacrifice throughout the universe.

On reflecting upon this I can see the more extreme forms of Christianity such as fundamentalism  and some pentecostals are more about Karma.  If you follow our rules and hang out with us then you are in, and will get to heaven. If you don't then doom will prevail and you will end up in hell. Like wise there prophesies. If the government supports same sex relationships then drought and bushfire will await. They are all based around idea of Karma.

Yet Christianity has, as Freeman calls it the 'scandal of the Cross', which brings about unconditional love or another word for it grace. It breaks Karma. The thing about a sovereign God is that often when we expect karma to strike, grace abounds. It is not for us mortal beings to know when or how the formula works. Unlike Karma.

Women easier to decieve than men?

Abandoned image, wrote and quoted Mark Driscoll::

Without blushing, Paul is simply stating that when it comes to leading in the church, women are unfit because they are more gullible and easier to deceive than men. While many irate women have disagreed with his assessment through the years, it does appear from this that such women who fail to trust his instruction and follow his teaching are much like their mother Eve and are well-intended but ill-informed. . . Before you get all emotional like a woman in hearing this, please consider the content of the women’s magazines at your local grocery store that encourages liberated women in our day to watch porno with their boyfriends, master oral sex for men who have no intention of marrying them, pay for their own dates in the name of equality, spend an average of three-fourths of their childbearing years having sex but trying not to get pregnant, and abort 1/3 of all babies – and ask yourself if it doesn’t look like the Serpent is still trolling the garden and that the daughters of Eve aren’t gullible in pronouncing progress, liberation, and equality (p. 43). 

I've got to say this is an amazing bit of writing. It is just another instance where men need to lift there game.

I really struggle with Paul's writing and the way people use it. On a positive note there are some aspects where he expands on the themes of Jesus and explains them beautifully. Yet when it comes to direction on how to live life he should be firmly entrenched in the culture of Israel 2000 years ago.

I really do doubt his "Apostleship" in terms of the other disciples. He is included into this elect group on his word that he had a 'Vision'. His books have been used to divide Christians and certainly as you can see by Driscolls comments.

A lot of this stuff boils down to if you think that there is subordination within the Trinity. Do each parts, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, treat each other equally. Equality is the camp I am in. I suspect that Driscoll believes  that there is subordination.

To be honest it is difficult often to be a Christian with people who come out with things which I would say operate opposite to the nature of God. A God of love.

It disappointments me that Christians speak of other humans, God's creation with such an air of superiority, .not only morally but spiritually

It is no wonder that Christianity is loosing ground in the West.