"Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!" He didn't. It would have been dynamite to see...
There's an old rhyme "Confess a man against his will, he's of the same opinion still." I mondegreened it into "Convince a man against his will, he's of the same opinion still." I think my mistake is also true. The most thorough proofs don't sink in and make a change unless the hearer wants them to. Parents will have noticed this. And of course, sometimes people hold conflicting "truths" for a lifetime. And for the honor of truth, I have exemplified this also: after I was convinced of the truth of Christianity it was another two weeks before I finally converted. (One afternoon, with a clarity I never had before or since, I realized that everything made sense in Jesus. How can you do more than a supernatural persuasion?--and even then I procrastinated.)
Father Simon says that when Jesus called people to be "fishers of men" he expects them to be tasty bait. I'd not quite say that--the attraction is supposed to be Jesus--but it does seem as though the call is almost always one by one by one.
I at one time, when I was much younger, expressed the opinion that I would rather find my own way to hell than follow someone to heaven.
ReplyDeleteThat has been pretty well what happened as the Buddhist way is to get you to figure it out for yourself. Much useful help in that endeavour but very little actual instruction, outside of useful methods, well explained.
The Book of Common Prayer is largely why I consciously left Christianity. Go read the back. I was sent to a school where chapel every day and twice on Sunday left one a lot of time to read the books on the back of the pew.
That book shook this fish off the hook, and I am very grateful indeed.