Ideals
Christ-based Individualism
Manning teaches a message of individualism within a context of Christ. "When I accept in the depth of my being that the ultimate accomplishment of my life is me -- the person I've become and who other persons are because of me -- then living in the wisdom of accepted tenderness is ... a way of life." When a person accepts himself as loved by God, he is liberated from conceptions of "the blood line, the nation, the church, money, ego, entitlement, sexual muscle, security, violence, and the paltry gods of modern life." He rejects the idea of teaching the love of God with limits. "I cling to the God of my experience, whose love beggars belief."
The Church as Mystery
Manning presents the Roman Catholic Church's treatment of married priests. After citing examples, he says that he is "dismayed, infuriated, and heartbroken over its travesty of tenderness." He asserts that "church abuse isn't limited to one denomination." The institutional church, which exists to serve the people of God," he states, "is never to be confused with the church as mystery...". The Church as Mystery, according to Manning is everyone who is Christ-centered, faithful to the Bible, tender and compassionate. It consists of those "who walk the talk.".
Jesus is the Human Face of God
Manning contrasts the brutality of the institutional church with Jesus treatment of the adulterous woman of John 8:1-11 and of his meeting of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17). He proclaims Jesus as "the human face of God."
Read more about this topic: Brennan Manning
Famous quotes containing the word ideals:
“Let the will embrace the highest ideals freely and with infinite strength, but let action first take hold of what lies closest.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the “money touch,” but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to the intellectual expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-medical jargon that parodies the concepts of science. The social style conforms to the political expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-liberal social movement that parodies the ideals of freedom and rationality.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)