ABSTRACT
The concept of spiritual discernment using a dialogical approach with multiple authoritative sources is offered as an alternative to a rule-based religious approach that requires simple obedience. This traditional four-part discernment framework helps to amplify a wider variety of sources to allow more sex positivity, increased personal power, and ultimately more flexibility. The sources are scripture, tradition and community, reason and intellect, and personal experience and spirit. Prayer, by its very nature requires a certain degree of flexibility and variability, and Christians usually agree that everyone’s spiritual journey is different. In this way, there is some precedent for encouraging the use of a discernment framework. In addition, three guiding moral principles can be employed to counter problematic religious beliefs. They are application of the Golden Rule and Jesus’s first and second commandments to love God and others as oneself.
