Testing the Spirits

Today's Verse: 1 John 4:4 (NIV)
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Today's verse is written in the context that advises us that we must test men's spirits so that we may determine whether we are dealing with the spirit of truth or the spirit of falsehood. Because, as Christians and children of God, the Holy Spirit is within us, we are protected from the spirit of the Antichrist. John says that the spirit of the Antichrist does not acknowledge that Jesus is from God. Of course, at the time of writing, John was concerned with schism in the Church and a group of secessionist opponents, and John wanted to assure and encourage those orthodox Christians who had not departed from the apostolic faith. John said that those who confessed their faith that Jesus is the Son of God exhibit the mark of the true believer, while those that refused to accept His divinity were not to be trusted.

Today's Comment: This verse and the context which surrounds it strikes a familiar cord, when one thinks about the apostasy that exists in the Episcopal Church. It seems to me that a Presiding Bishop who suggests that there are many ways to God and that Christianity is only one of those many may have failed the test to which John refers.

In reference to a recent interview on the NPR program Here and Now, the Roman Catholic blog site Cystos Fide commented:

Ms. Katharine Jefferts-Schori Interview

A recent interview on the NPR program 'Here and Now' had the new Episcopalian primate of the United States Katharine Jefferts-Schori. I'll admit I have a hard time referring to her as a 'bishop' only because it is a heresy in my Christian faith to change any teachings of Jesus to accommodate radical secularists. The interview touched on a previous TIME magazine interview that Ms. Jefferts-Schori gave.

In it when asked if Jesus was the only path to salvation she answered, "We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box".

Robin Young (RY) who interviewed Ms. Jefferts-Schori (KJS) pinned her down by asking, "they say Scripture says that Jesus says he was The Light and The Way and the only way to God the Father."

Ms. Jefferts-Schori went into alternate-universe spin mode...

KJS: Christians understand that Jesus is the route to God. Umm... that is not to say that Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jains, come to God in a radically different way. They come to God through... human experience.. through human experience of the divine. Christians talk about that in terms of Jesus.

RY: So you're saying there are other ways to God.

KJS: Uhh... human communities have always searched for relationship that which is beyond them.. with the ultimate.. with the divine. For Christians, we say that our route to God is through Jesus. Uhh.. uh.. that doesn't mean that a Hindu.. uh.. doesn't experience God except through Jesus. It-it-it says that Hindus and people of other faith traditions approach God through their.. own cultural contexts; they relate to God, they experience God in human relationships, as well as ones that transcend human relationships; and Christians would say those are our experiences of Jesus; of God through the experience of Jesus.

RY: It sounds like you're saying it's a parallel reality (emphasis mine), but in another culture and language.

KJS: I think that's accurate.. I think that's accurate.

This makes me wonder what the Apostle John would say about Katherine Jefferts-Schori.