Sd#352

[theironhorse]

Sunday Dispatch #352

I referred earlier to Jesus as my Lord. After many years of vague identification with Buddhist and Islamic mysticism, I ultimately made a firm Christian commitment--signified by my non-denominational baptism on the ninth of march 1980, at the age of fourty-three---lonf after I had begun working on this book.

In a manuscript he sent me an author once apologized for his "Christian bias." I make no apology. Nor do I desire to disguise my Christian outlook. In fact, I couldn't. My commitment to Christianity is the most important thing in my life and is, I hope, pervasive and total.

But I am concerned that this outlook will, when most apparent, unnecessarily bias some readers. So I ask you to be careful in this repect also.

Great evil has been committed throughout the centuries--and is still be committed--by nominal Christians, often in the name of Christ.

The visible Christian Church is necessary, even saving, but obviously faulty, and I do apologize for its sins as well as my own.

Crusades and inguisitions have nothing to do with Christ. War, torture, and persecution have nothing to do with Christ. Arrogance and revenge have nothing to do with Christ..

When he gave his one recorded sermon, the first words out of Jesus' mouth were, "Blessed is the poor in spirit." Not the arrogant.

And as he was dying, he asked that his muderers be forgiven.



~M. Scott Peck, from the book People of the Lie