Maybe the church is coming to a new realization that God's people do not all do things the same way.
For the record, it is clear from the Bible and the historic teaching of the church that heresy is the departure from core biblically ordained and orthodox doctrine either by word or practice.
The Bible as we know it is a work of man -- selectively edited, translated so many times that it is a long game of telephone, and misused by many who profess to believe in it.
But one which has always been no 1 on his list of 'no-no's' has been profane worship - that is worship he deems unauthorized and unnacceptable.
So God needs to be worshipped and in a specific way? Strange for an infinite being, isn't it?
Top of this particular list comes worshipping the wrong god (i.e. the god of all non-Judeo-Christian religions)
If there is only one God, as esentially all religions teach, then "my god" and "your God" are one God. There can be no other,
Does this not seem petty? "You must worship ME and only ME or I will smite you." Is this attitude worthy of worhip?
Chartres doesn't even understand the basics of worship and practice in the true faith.
What evidence do you have that it is any more true than any other faith? Our God is a jealous God.
And jealousy and pride are sins, according to Christianity, right? Is a jealous God who needs to be worshipped and demands certain ways of doing so or you will burn for eternity a God you really want to worship? Where is the love? Where is the goodness? I certainly don't see it in this portrayal of God.
He doesn't like sharing his Crown with others.
You know, I don't think the One Power, One Presence, One Life, One Spirit worries about this. Ultimately, ther eis no Other.
The world sees this sort of thing and is rightly confused as to why the church's central message speaks of Christ as the only Son of God born among men. "You ar ethe light of the world."
"The thigns that I have done, ye also shall do, and greater than these shall ye do."
How can any of God's creation be anything BUT the son (or daughter) of God? And why would God want to condemn 4/5 of them?
Well said.
Sure, *seems* petty the way you characterize it. But you characterize it wrongly. That's a totally mistaken conception of what Christianity teaches about God, and it is miles away from the reality of the thing. Read St. Augustine or Dante or something, it may help. :)
In a certain sense, God doesn't give a fig whether you acknowledge Him/worship Him or not. You can not acknowledge the law of gravity either, but try to walk off a cliff with that attitude and see how far you get. God only cares that we worship him, because a) that's what wewere made to do, and b) that's the only thing that will fulfill us and make us happy. You can throw your happiness down the toilet if you want, you can refuse to acknowledge the infinite debt you owe to He-who-has-made-all (as the Hurons would say). In doing so, you change Him not one iota. But you change yourself. You deny the very purpose for which you were made, and as a result, you will never be truly happy.
God alone must be worshiped, because God is *the only thing worth worshiping*. Worship a human being, he dies. Worship a tree, it dies. Worship the earth, the sun, the universe--they are not only non-sentient and don't give a rat's rear about what happens to you, but they die too. Worship the higher spirits--call them gods, angels, manitowak, whatever--and you find that they are in one of two states: in allegiance to God, or separated from Him forever. No need to worship the first because they point you toward the Creator. Definitely silly to worship the second because they're even more miserable and hopeless than we are.
Here's the train of logic that leads to where orthodox Christianity sits. God is sovereign over all things. Christ is the son of God. Christ left a Church for us poor sinners to share in the divine life of God.
Heretics deform and despise the very instrument of our salvation that Christ left--that is why they are so injurious to the Body of Christ. It is as if we were drowning in the water, Christ throws us a life preserver, and then some other poor drowning soul starts ripping it and tearing chunks out of the thing. That is heresy, and that's why the people of God should avoid it.
Now folks can say that we "all have a right to worship as we wish." But the drowning man cannot claim some right to be saved in whatever way he wishes to be saved. He has no power to save himself, thus he will only be saved if he accepts Christ's way of saving him. If he does not, he will drown.