A HERETIC'S WISDOM...

It is not just that many church-people love to warm their hands at the fire when a heretic is burned; some people seem to delight in applying the label "heretic" to anyone who might open their faith to the future.

Of my own twin gurus, one was excommunicated and the other always regarded askance as a born Jew; among the Jews, Gershon Scholem called Buber a heretic, and, of course, any and all Protestants used to qualify as far the Catholic church was concerned. The Swiss theologian Walter Nigg wrote a wonderful book called simply The Heretics which, while it does lump Marcion and Luther together, also argues for the necessity of the heretic's voice.

The quote below is from someone who almost certainly was a heretic, but then, who am I to judge?

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

--Nikos Kazantzakis

Amen, Brother Nikos.

The future, or rather, our desire for a particular future, creates the present! To me, that is one of the hidden-in-plain-sight truths of Christianity, though you will search for it in vain in most churches...