the big questions
According to Ken Westby, the organizer of these one God conferences, the three biggest questions facing every human being are: Who is God? Who am I? and How should I live?
Finding the correct answer to the first question is critical toward answering the next two. If we are made in God's image, as the Scripture tells us, what is that image? How can we become like God if we don't know who God is, or what he is like, or how he wants us to act and think.
True knowledge of the self begins with knowledge of God. God made man in a certain way for a specific purpose. What is that purpose? Is it to grow into the Image of God, which image is perfectly reflected in Jesus? Did Jesus have a clear image of God and did the way he lived and the things he taught reflect it?
People tend to form their religion around their concept of God. Pagans devise various rituals and sacrifices they imagine their god wants. They have images, concepts, and pictures--real or mental--of their god. Their picture of god influences how they live in seeking blessings or avoiding punishments. Christians are no different. An enlightened, accurate, biblical concept of God naturally promotes enlightened worship of the one true God and influences all aspects of living before that God.
These One God seminars tackle the first of the three big questions.
recommended books
The One God Conferences are a great way to become acquainted with the basic contours of the one God movement including a good many of the issues and texts. However, if you would like to dig deeper, there is no substitute for spending the time to read these books.
Inclusion of a book on this reading list does not mean that we endorse all of their views nor even all of what is in the book. Oftentimes we find that the "liberal" scholars, unfettered from church tradition, are most capable of speaking honestly on this topic. So, even if you do not agree with all that you read, it is an important though often neglected exercise to read those with whom you disagree. Doing this will, at best, change your beliefs to be more accurate and, at worst, strengthen your existing beliefs.
2013 One God Seminar
Seattle, Washington
June 8-9, 2013
Our 12th annual Nature of God seminar program is set for the Pacific Northwest this June. And if you are traveling here, this is the best time to see Seattle and the glories of its surrounding mountains and waters.
Seminar held at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Federal Way, Washington (between Seattle and Tacoma and close to the airport)
Special rates for sleeping rooms to seminar attendees ($104). Just mention you are attending the ACD seminar.
Call 1-800-HILTONS for reservations. Agenda details and speaker list—including new speakers--will be posted on our website as the event draws nearer.
We have a few surprises planned for this year’s program. You won’t want to miss it.
Our Nature of God seminars directly challenge perhaps the most sacrosanct doctrine in the Protestant and/Catholic world: the Trinity. God is not three, two, or some impersonal force of nature. He is the uncreated Creator having personhood and is Father to us all. This is no small matter for it affects how people relate to the most important Being in the cosmos. The Trinity (or Binity) keep “God” in a mysterious theological fog that even the theologians can’t explain with any clarity. It is a pagan construct of the deity borrowed from pagan Greek religion when the visible Christian church fell into apostasy in the centuries following Jesus.
Our seminars have assembled and laid out the evidence of just how it all came about. It is much like the forensic work one might see in a huge airfield hangar where all the pieces of a crashed airplane are brought together and reassembled or spread on tables and labeled. The cause of the crash is usually discovered after some painstakingly difficult work. How the Trinity came into Christianity is no mystery anymore. The challenge is how to replace it with the truth that there is, as Jesus said, only One True God, the Father (John 17:3).
Spend a weekend in June with fellow seekers after God. I’ll wager it will be your most inspiring and educational weekend of the year.
JoAn and I hope to see you soon.
Your friend,
--Kenneth Westby
westby@godward.org
useful definitions
While listening to these conferences you may come across certain words that you have not encountered before. Just as every field has its own technical jargon, so theology to has a distinctive set of words that are used in special ways. In order to aid you in understanding these lectures Ken Westby and Dixon Cartright have put together a brief collection of theological words and phrases.