[MD] New Model Army, Mystic(DQ) Experience, and Religion (SQ) as Power

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Steve H]
No.  I don't believe God is made in the image of man.  How you or New Model 
Army came to that conclusion I'm not sure.  I worship God, not the 
church.  The church is presently flawed and has a leadership vacuum, much 
in the same way the United States is presently flawed and has a leadership 
vacuum.  But you wouldn't argue for destroying the United States, only the 
church because it's all the church's fault!

[Arlo]
The "Church" professes that the only path to salvation is through accepting 
the divinity of Jesus Christ (as do all "churches" of their respective 
"saviour"). Do you believe this?

"In the image of man" I read to mean the human-deity worship that precisely 
is worshiping Christ. If your "God" is not tied to specific orthodox 
doctrine, why call yourself a "Christian"?

[Steve]
I feel the MD group is attempting to identify religion as the scapegoat and 
cause to all its problems.  I feel this is a dangerous path to take.  But 
you find value in turning the MD group into a fascist cult.  Sobeit.

[Arlo]
As was clear in my post, I identify as a problem the literalization of 
mystic experience. As a guide, such metaphor is useful (and sometimes 
necessary). But to lock that metaphor into one particular "religion" is 
ludicrous. As such "organized religion" that professes that it alone holds 
the key to enlightenment, and that subserviation to its static structure is 
required for that enlightenment, is indeed in my humble opinion worth 
condemning. Those who believe, for example, that Lakota who believe of 
White Buffalo Calf Woman are any less on the path to "Heaven" as those who 
believe of Jesus Christ are worshipping the Church as an "image of man". 
Christianity may be an adequate path to understanding for YOU, and so long 
as you are okay with THAT, there is no problem. When the message becomes 
that it must be a path for EVERYONE, your condemning of "fascist cults" is 
pure hypocrisy.

No one is condemning spirituality. If you've found it via Christianity, 
hey, all power to you. Personally I find its metaphor weak in relation to 
other explanatory myths. Its focus on the masculine, for example, is sad. 
Buddhism, for example, I consider much more powerful metaphorically, as do 
I many of the indigenous myths used by peoples that see them as part of the 
world, inhabited throughout by The Godhead. But that's just me.