{"id":459,"date":"2008-11-23T13:07:31","date_gmt":"2008-11-23T13:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/11\/i-have-been-convinced-by.html"},"modified":"2008-11-23T13:07:31","modified_gmt":"2008-11-23T13:07:31","slug":"i-have-been-convinced-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/11\/i-have-been-convinced-by.html","title":{"rendered":"A new idea about God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been convinced by a Christian minister that what we need in this world is a new idea about God. I want to thank Rev. Mark Holick of Wichita for that.<br \/>\nYou may recall that yesterday in this space I spoke of an interview that Rev. Holick, is pastor of Spirit One Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas, had with CNN.  The interview had to do with a sign that Rev. Holick had placed in front of his church, on which he claimed that President-Elect Barack Obama was a Muslim. Everyone knows that Barack Obama is a Christian, but Rev. Holick was not backing off of his assertion.<br \/>\nMore pronounced in his interview with CNN, however, was Rev. Holick&#8217;s insistence that anyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior is going to hell. &#8220;I do not believe that there is more than one path to God,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nI closed my commentary about all this yesterday by saying that what we need now on this planet is a new idea about God. I&#8217;d like to talk about that a bit today.<br \/>\nLet me ask you some simple questions&#8230;<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like on this planet if we had a God who loved us unconditionally?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who did not need or want anything from us?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who did not tell us there was only one way to get back to Him?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who never judged us?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who would never condemn us to everlasting damnation for any reason?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who said there was no wrong way to celebrate sexuality between consenting adults?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who said we may use all the marvels of modern medical science at our disposal to improve the quality of our lives, including stem cell research?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who said that every woman has the right to choose whether she wishes an unexpected pregnancy, or a pregnancy created by rape or incest or brutal attack, to continue?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who said that nothing is separate from God, that all of life is interconnected, and that you and God are therefore one?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who declared that there is no such creature as Satan, and that hell does not exist?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God who announced that death does not<br \/>\nexist?<br \/>\nWhat do you think life would be like if we had a God we could fall in love with?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been convinced by a Christian minister that what we need in this world is a new idea about God. I want to thank Rev. Mark Holick of Wichita for that. You may recall that yesterday in this space I spoke of an interview that Rev. Holick, is pastor of Spirit One Christian Church&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,5,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-looking-up-close-at-life","category-news-of-the-day","category-questions-about-christian-beliefs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A new idea about God - Conversations with God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A new idea about God - Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have been convinced by a Christian minister that what we need in this world is a new idea about God. I want to thank Rev. Mark Holick of Wichita for that. You may recall that yesterday in this space I spoke of an interview that Rev. Holick, is pastor of Spirit One Christian Church&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/11\/i-have-been-convinced-by.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-23T13:07:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Neale Donald Walsch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A new idea about God - Conversations with God","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A new idea about God - Conversations with God","og_description":"I have been convinced by a Christian minister that what we need in this world is a new idea about God. 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