Epistle to a Preteristic Adventist

Wow....two things you said here that were brilliant: Perhaps Jesus gets lost in translation.... and the principle of reciprocal regard. I wonder if your self worth(and with it of course the self worth others) has beome your ultimate concern (Tillich's synonym for God)? I think this scandal of particularity in the NT is a big problem which is not easily resolved (perhaps it cannot be). Did I send you my blog link...I have an article on Christology there you might want to check out: http://www.progressiveevangelical.blogspot.com/ You and I are trying to walk the thin line between exclusivism and pluralism. My fall back when it gets really slippery and I have to say Jesus is the one true way is to say that heresy is not something that keeps you out of the kingdom. I guess I have become so generalized in my escahtology that the Adventist stuff no longer means anything to me. Jesus was here, is still here and is coming here again. Jesus is the way and he is on the way. And if He maintains his humanity, he is still growing. He is still in conversation with us and maybe we can convince him to save the Hindu who refuses to accept him (if he has not already decided to do this). I actully think that Divinity in all three persons of the Trinity is growing. God is learning and listening and he has created at least one creature whom he cannot ultimately control (a rock He cannot lift or perhaps he has made himself so small and weak he cannot lift a pebble). It is a mystery and mystery is sacrament and sacrament is finding the universal in the particular, the real presence in, with and under (as Luther would say) all mystery and the particular mystery that the church receives and communicates.... And there is the connection: communicate, communion, commune. Risen body becomes body in bread becomes (as we are what we eat) the body of Christ. He is the bread, the bread is the bread and the Bible is the bread. I have come to believe that holy communion should be served every time the holy scriptures are read (I do not practice this belief but we Methodists are trying to get back to our Anglican roots). My rule is this(or at least one of them as I have so many to ignore): Christ is present in the Bible in the same manner and to the same degree as he is in the sacraments (be they 2 or 7 or more). I am also at the point where perhaps I am no longer protestant (well yeah I am and always will be protestant) but I am in agreement with the Orthodox and Catholic traditions...The Church is to be added to my rule...I wish I could find away to elevate the Bible above the Church but it is the Church's book and this book must be read under the illumination (is this not the same as inspiration?...I try as best I can to conform to my protestant heritage) of the Holy Spirit in a Christ centered and trinitarian bound manner (and here's the last catch) within the community of faith (this being, at least, the universal (I dare not say catholic) Church). And yet the Spirit is wild; we cannot control her or her companion Sophia Logos in the flesh ascended. The light of the moon illumines the trees at night, revealing a glitter in the leaves not seen in the daylight and yet that light is one light from one source. (This metaphor I arrived at myself but a professor told me that von Balthasar beat me to the punch.) It is late. I think I shall call this Epistle to a Preteristic Psychologizing (love that moment of self critical reflection)Adventist. I love you my brother.