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Show 275 way. He learned a great deal about Alice this way, and was slow in discovering j u s t how far things had already gone with Richard. "Are you guys trying to t e l l me Jesus Christ is who they mean by God in the Old Testament but not the New Testament?" he said. "Sure," said Sorenson. "Who was he praying to in the Garden of Gethsemane? Himself?" Richard sat up. "I think I can give you a non-anthropomorphic answer to that." Or: "What do you mean the t h i e f wasn't necessarily saved? Jesus Christ said he'd see him in Paradise. Have you read Saint Augustine?" "That's a misunderstanding about what Paradise i s , " said Sorenson, who had not read Saint Augustine. "Everybody goes to Paradise. I ' l l explain i t again." Or: "What about races? If somebody's born Oriental does that mean he was Oriental in the pre-existence? What i f one parent is an Oriental and the other one i s n ' t ?" "That's a good question," smiled Sorenson. Or: "How do you get o f f calling yourselves mainstream Christians when you say every man can become a god? If that i s n ' t polytheism I don't know what you'd call i t ." "Nobody ever said we were mainstream Christians," said Sorenson. "But polytheism really means many gods governing a single world. Our doctrine teaches that one God created the universe but there are i n f i n i t e universes. That's p l u r a l i t y , not polytheism. Anyway, remember the Hebrew word 'Elohim' is p l u r a l ." And so on. The end of i t was that a couple of months l a t e r , on the Saturday afternoon before a fast-Sunday meeting, Richard descended the white |
