A Ramble About Star Wars, Fandom, and Religion

So, the Rise of Skywalker has hit. I haven't seen it yet, we're planning on going Christmas night. I have been keeping up with leaks and spoilers though, and have been reading the reviews. Suffice it to say, from my limited understanding, if you were to go by all the reviews it's both a great movie and a terrible movie, depending on whose review you read (or watch on YouTube). What's really interesting for my purposes here, is that it's not the quality of the movie, the writing, or the visuals which the negative reviewers take issue with. It's that their expectations concerning storylines and relationships were not met. They took serious, and in some cases viciously rabid issue, when things didn't go the way they thought they should have. This was most frequently the case with, dare I say it, "devout", hard core Star Wars fans.

This isn't the first time a Star Wars movie has been panned by the fans. The Last Jedi also divided the fan base because of its seemingly "heretical" portrayals of Luke Skywalker in particular. But even before this, the Star Wars prequels drew fans ire as well.

What's really interesting about the prequel "fan hate" is that those were done by George Lucas, the creator and "auteur" of Star Wars himself. To this day, some twenty years later, there are fans that will refuse to admit the prequels as canon, regardless of George Lucas' direct involvement. Why? Because they did not adhere to the backstory which the fans thought was supposed to have happened.

The Disney Star Wars films, except for Rian Johnson's Last Jedi, have bent over backwards trying to cater to the fan base. But the fan base isn't one homogenous group. It's made up of individuals with their own "head canons" who have already determined what Star Wars is, and isn't, regardless of the actual creator's or writer's intents and results. It is very true that you cannot please all of the fans, because the fans themselves do not agree with one another, and have separated themselves into "denominations" of Star Wars fans. Some accepting all 9 movies, some accepting only the original trilogy, some accepting only the original and prequels, some damning the Last Jedi, and some praising it and accepting all 9 movies, Rogue One, Solo, the Clone Wars, and now the Mandalorian as completely canon. As several people have observed, Star Wars, in the last 42 years, has become a kind of secular religion and its adherents have become just as opinionated and divided as the rest of the world's major religions.

While Disney tried to cater to the fan base, what's interesting is that George Lucas never did. He locked down his shooting and sets so much that no one knew anything about the movies before they hit the theaters (granted, this was before the advent of drones and modern cell phone tech). The fans just had to wait and see what the creator delivered to them, and accept it or reject it as they would. And while George Lucas wanted people to enjoy his vision, their opinions didn't change the direction of the story he wanted to tell, or that he always wanted the Star Wars story to be one that kids could see and understand and enjoy (another point of contention among Star Wars fans, that it's targeted at kids).

God's a lot like George in this respect. He knows exactly the story He's telling and how He wants it told, and isn't going to change it to please the fan base, "any" fan base. I was reflecting on this similarity this morning because just like the Star Wars fans, religion in general, "God fans," and Christianity in particular, "Jesus fans" if you will, are divided among people who have viciously savage opinions about what the story is supposed to look like, and how it is supposed to go. Frequently, they look at the existing canon, and decide they don't like what was said and so totally ignore it, or decide it's not actually canon at all. At the other end of the spectrum, they continue to expand on it trying to please their own section of fan base and give them what they want, but end up angering other fans in the process. This was true with the God fans in the first century when God released His sequel to "The Prophets", "The Messiah," and it is true now as we're waiting for the impending finale, "The Apocalypse."

No matter how much we speculate, no matter how much we complain when we hear or see "leaks" that don't match the way we think it's supposed to go, God isn't going to change how He's going to unfold and wrap up the story. Denial isn't going to help, neither is trying to force events to occur to match what you think is supposed to happen (the religious equivalent of fan filming). When the auteur is done with it, He'll release it and He's not going to change it or tweak it because you don't agree. You can either accept what's happening, or you can reject it. But if you reject it, maybe you should really consider whether or not you're really a fan of Him at all, or a fan of your own fan fiction.

May the Force be with you this Star Wars movie... er, Christmas season!

A Ramble About Putin and Chess

I rarely if ever get truly political here, but I want to share my thoughts on current events and where they're heading. If there's ever been a locus for them, a central hub about which they're all spinning, as the current United States Speaker of the House has said, "All roads lead back to Putin."

Vladimir Putin started out as a KGB officer who was present during the fall of the Soviet Union. The events which transpired then, in addition to the decade of chaos in Russia which followed under Boris Yeltsin's presidency, affected him very personally. It is not a falsehood to call the man a Russian patriot if not a Soviet one. He became president of the Russian Republic about twenty years ago, and essentially never left regardless of the Russian constitutional term limits imposed on him. His rule over Russia was only briefly interrupted when one of his lieutenants was elected President and he took power as prime minister, but it was always understood that it was Vladimir Putin who was in control.

Since he took power in Russia, Putin has been manipulating things behind the scenes both domestically in Russia, and abroad. His express and apparent intention is the reclamation of territory and power for Russia which existed under the former Soviet Union. He has no interest in Communism, only Russian, and personal, glory. To this end, over the last twenty years, all institutions in Russia, including the press and the Russian Orthodox Church have become mere arms of the Putin led Russian government. Putin maintains a veneer of Russian Orthodoxy, while the Church and State ban every other expression of Christianity in the country as illegal. His government has blatantly attacked and seized territory from former Soviet states, including Ukraine and Georgia, which have been at least nominally independent nations for at least the last thirty. His government has been demonstrably behind assassinations of political rivals both at home and abroad, the silencing of dissident voices within Russia, and clearly racist, and discriminatory policies at home which he has attempted to export to other nations through the use of the internet and social media. His government has also demonstrably been behind the influencing of elections in Britain, the United States, and other European nations so that the outcomes favor his strategic short term and long term goals for himself and his country such as the withdrawal of the United States from NATO (something which the current US President has openly advocated), the dissolution of nuclear treaties with the United States, the removal of US forces from strategic places in Syria to assist Russian allies, the disruption of a US presence in South Korea as a deterrent to North Korea, the distancing of Great Britain (a key NATO member and military force protecting the rest of Europe) from the rest of the European Union and so on. His biggest win was when his strategy to use the United States' own simmering divisions to severely divide the populace using social media, plant a compromised businessman in the White House to act in the interests of Russia and not his own nation, and turn a previously anti-Russian political party into one which espoused Russian propaganda as gospel was wildly successful. If you don't believe any of this, all it takes is a perusal of news articles about Russia, Putin, and Russian actions on the world stage for the last five to ten years (which I've personally been keeping tabs on). Further, the foremost U.S. experts on Russia testified under oath things to this very same effect very recently. None of it is secret. All of it has been blatant, out in the open, and verifiable. Even the Russian state news broadcasts have been gloating about it (look it up).

Putin has been playing a long game of chess with the world since the Soviet Union's fall. That he thinks like a chess player is obvious. All of his recent achievements in the world stage can be seen as chess movements. Taking a pawn here, a rook there, oh look, he's got your queen now.

The thing about seasoned chess players, of which I am not one and I freely admit it, is that they always plot out there moves as many turns in advance as they are capable of, and they always have the endgame in view. While it seems Putin has already gotten almost everything his heart could desire, today, I saw a news article which had him saying that he could essentially wipe away the Russian constitutional term limits very easily. A reference to that his own term is coming to a legal end here sometime soon. And yet Putin has no intention of leaving office yet. If it were simply a matter of a corrupt politician just keeping power, it would be understandible. But Vladimir Putin is a highly disciplined man. Corrupt, yes, but highly disciplined and every move he's made has had a purpose.

So what is Putin's endgame? What unfinished business does he have which would keep him from leaving office just yet? What is his goal? If it would be merely to humiliate the United States in front of the world, then he has already accomplished it. And yet he remains. The game isn't finished yet.

It has been rightly said before that if Adolph Hitler had died before 1938 or 39, he would have been remembered only as a great German statesman and gifted orator who lifted his country out of the poverty of the Great Depression and post WWI reprisals to a prosperous, modern country and economy. We only remember him as an evil, anti-Christ figure because he didn't, and his endgame was allowed to play out costing millions and millions of lives.

Hitler was pursuing the Atomic Bomb, but the US got there first. Today, Russia already has a devastating nuclear arsenal which Putin is now legally free to rebuild without US or even world oversight. He now has tighter and tighter relationships both economic and especially military ones with China, Turkey, and other governments more congenial to dictatorship. His is openly pursuing and demonstrating new missile and weapons technologies which Russia is developing. His stated goals are the recovery of former Soviet territories and satellite states. Something he can't openly do with a unified NATO and a unified and powerful United States.

Yesterday, Donald J. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives. No one expects the US Senate to remove him regardless of the evidence. But Donald J. Trump has been demonstrably only one of Putin's pieces in a very large, very long game of chess. Putin would have planned for the possibility of Trump only serving one term, one way or the other. Trump's first term is up in approximately one year from now. This means that, most likely, Putin's endgame strategy is almost in place and ready to be deployed regardless of who takes office in January of 2021.

The only real question now is how many lives are going to be lost before the world wakes up and realizes what it allowed to be unleashed once more.

A Ramble About "One Thing"

I was reading in 1 John 5:7-8 yesterday in the Greek, and something stood out to me. First of all, these verses don’t read the same in every Greek text. Over half of verse seven and part of verse eight are cut out in pretty much every version of the text based on the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. They occur in the Textus Receptus, and in the Latin Vulgate (though arguably not as literally rendered from the Greek as the rest of the Vulgate). Some translations acknowledge their existence by either putting them in brackets, or placing the missing parts in footnotes. Verse seven is of particular interest.

With the rest of the verse it literally reads, “Because there are three who testify in heaven, the Father, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit, and these Three are one thing.”

The word for “one” in Greek, like most adjectives, comes in three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter depending on the noun or nouns it is describing. If the noun or nouns are masculine, the adjective will be masculine, if the noun is feminine or neuter, the adjective will match the gender. What caught my attention this time with this reading is that, while the nouns are masculine (with the exception of “pneuma” which is neuter), the word for “one” is neuter, referring, not to a person (proper names referring to people never take neuter adjectives), so to speak, but to a genderless object. The reasonable, and trinitarian, conclusion is that John is referring to God’s substance as opposed to His persons. The three persons, or hypostases, of God existing as one substance or “ousia.” Thus rather than understanding this verse as “these Three are one person” it should be understood as “these Three are one thing.”

Okay. Clear as mud? Good, let’s move on to the next passage where this same statement is made.

In the Gospel of John 10:30, Jesus tells those listening to and arguing with Him that, “I and the Father are one thing.” Again, the same gender and construction. Not “I and the Father are one person,” but “I and the Father are one thing.” In several other passages Jesus says without qualification that His teaching was not his own, but was given to Him by the One who sent Him. He says that nothing of what He said was His own, but was given to Him by the Father, and that He could do nothing from Himself. He says in John 14:10 that it was the Father remaining within Him that did the works. The picture developed in the Gospel of John of Jesus’ relationship with the Father is that it was the Father speaking, doing, and acting through Jesus to the point that if you had seen and heard Jesus, then it was no different from seeing and hearing the Father. Jesus’ submission to the Father was absolute to where you saw nothing but the Father from Him.

Now let’s go to the Gospel of John 17:20-24 where we next see this same usage of “one,” where Jesus prays for us, “And I don’t ask about these alone, but also about those who will believe through their word in Me, so that they everyone might be ‘one thing’ just as You Father in Me and I in You so that they also might be ‘one thing’ in Us so that the world would believe that You sent Me, and I, the glory which You had given Me, have given to them so that they might be ‘one thing’ just as We are ‘one thing’; I in them and You in Me so that they might be having been completed into ‘one thing’ and so that the world would know that You sent Me and loved them just as You loved Me. Father, those whom You have given Me I wish that where I am those would also be with Me so that they might view the glory of mine which you gave Me because You loved Me before the founding of the world.” (Emphasis mine)

Jesus’ prayer for those who believed and would believe in Him, all of us who believe in Him, is that we would be “one thing” with each other as well as with the Father and the Son just as He was “one thing” with the Father. The Father “one thing” with Him, and He “one thing” with each on of us who would also be “one thing” with each other. Just as Jesus remained in the Father, and the Father in Him, so He instructed us to remain in Him and He in us (John 15:4-7). Just as it was the Father you saw when you saw Jesus, so also it must be Jesus people see when they look at us both individually and collectively, and thus the Father. The Father in Jesus and Jesus in us, and thus the Father through us by way of our union with Jesus.

The practice of Christianity is total submission to Jesus Christ remaining in us that the life of Jesus might be expressed through us, not our words but His, not our actions but His. The goal of Christian practice is so that “if you have seen me, you have seen Jesus” because “I and Jesus are one thing” just as Jesus said, “I and the Father are one thing.” Not “one person” but “one thing.” This, above all else, is what is most important in Christian faith and practice, not happiness, not prosperity, not health; and anything which gets in the way of it must be removed and expunged from the Christian’s life.

The ultimate goal of the Christian life is to be “one thing,” and “one thing” only.

On Christ's Virgin Birth

As we're entering the Christmas season again, I'm posting an excerpt from An Unconventional Christian Theology (Allen Bair. Amazon: 2019) which I wrote on Christ's Virgin Birth. This tends to be one of the facets of Christian theology which many bring up as an issue or barrier to belief. In this excerpt, I hope to demonstrate both the possibility and the miraculous nature of this central teaching of the Christian faith.

Parthenogenesis or “virgin birth” is a process that has been documented in reptiles, birds, sharks, and other species which permits a female of the species to produce an offspring without a male contribution. In short, it occurs when an egg cell begins dividing on its own without the introduction of a sperm cell. With rare exceptions, if a viable offspring is produced, it is always a genetic clone of its mother. There are several mechanisms observed which permit this among those species.

To date, while technically feasible, it has not been formally documented in mammals in nature. In 2004, Scientists at the Tokyo University of agriculture successfully induced parthenogenesis in a mouse producing an offspring without the introduction of sperm or the male chromosome¹. In August of 2007, it was revealed that a Korean scientist had successfully created human embryos through parthenogenesis under laboratory conditions as a part of his research into stem cells and stem cell production².

Human parthenogenesis, according to one research article by graduate students in Brazil³, is not necessarily a rare occurrence but almost always results in benign tumors called teratomas. These teratomas may on the rare occasion develop in such a way to where “the basic human body plan is present”⁴ though non-functional and as such develop fat cells, hair, teeth, and in rare cases, limbs, malformed head, and “other structures”. The authors of the paper however offer the hypothesis that human parthenogenesis producing a viable offspring in nature does occur in extremely rare circumstances due to mutation resulting in the deletion of two maternal genes that would otherwise prevent it, but is not noticed because the offspring is otherwise healthy and normal. Human parthenogenesis then, resulting in a viable, normal human offspring, can be considered astronomically improbable, but not technically impossible.

What is more improbable is the human parthenogenesis of a male offspring. Biological sex is generally determined by one’s chromosomes, either “XX” for female, or “XY” for male. The gene which is responsible for determining whether or not a fetus develops testes is called “SRY” and is normally contained within the “Y” chromosome. SRY determines sex by switching off the gene RSPO1 which in turn switches on the gene SOX9 producing a male offspring. In female offspring without the SRY gene, SOX9 has been switched off by the gene RSPO1. This being said, what has been found is that it is possible for RSPO1 to fail during the developmental process, leaving the SOX9 gene turned on thus producing testis in the fetus as opposed to ovaries according to an article by Keri Smith⁵. In this article, the author reference four brothers from a family, all of whom had the “XX”combination of chromosomes, and none of whom carried the SRY gene. However, each brother carried a mutation of the RSPO1 gene.

For the sake of brevity, I have tried to spare the reader from any more intense technical details than what I have presented to make my argument. I encourage you to read the articles I have referenced and draw your own conclusions. But from the articles and sources I have read, while requiring a precise series of mutations occurring in order, that Jesus Christ could have been conceived both male and by parthogenesis is, while astronomically improbable, within the realm of what is known to be scientifically possible. In this scenario, Jesus would have physically been a male genetic clone of his mother, Mariam, with the XX chromosome but biologically male due to the failure of the RSPO1 gene at a critical stage in embryonic development. One consequence of this scenario is that, in modern clinical terms, Jesus would also have been technically considered intersex regardless of the completeness of His male physical anatomy. This argument is not made to devalue the Scriptural account of his virginal conception by the Holy Spirit in any way, only to demonstrate that the assertion by His followers that He was conceived by parthenogenesis is by no means impossible or absurd as some have accused. In fact, the series of genetic mutations required is so specific that I would argue it is more plausible God was involved in the process than not, much like the evolution of life on Earth and human beings specifically. Here I see the hand of God working through obscure, but natural processes to produced the result He desired; in this case, a Son.

There is a question to be had as to why God would go to the trouble of this. One hypothesis would suggest that the genetic Hamartia disorder I described in the previous chapter is passed down through the male chromosome. There may some reference to this in the passage in Genesis chapter six which says that the “sons of God” went in to the daughters of men and took wives from them. In this interpretation, “sons of God”, rather than referring to “angels” as is commonly interpreted, refers to the particular family group of humans that God took a special interest in by interacting with them directly and placing them in the garden, and who later ate the toxic fruit which they had been warned not to.⁶ In this scenario, without a male human chromosome Jesus would have been born without the human neuropsycholoigical disorder, Hamartia, thus making Him “sinless”.

The circumstances of His birth may have contributed to His death by heart rupture. Jesus died within hours of His initial torture and being nailed to the cross. Under normal circumstances, a crucified victim would die slowly over a period of two or three days from dehydration and asphyxiation. Because the day after Jesus’ crucifixion was a Sabbath, out of agreement with the Jewish leaders the executioners were ordered to remove the bodies before sundown, the start of the Sabbath. However, the condemned men would still be alive. This was the reason why the Roman soldiers were ordered to break the legs of the crucified victims in order to speed up their deaths, and were surprised to see that Jesus was already dead, thus the reason why they chose to stab His heart to confirm death rather than break His legs to induce it.

If he was, in fact, a male XX clone of His mother due to parthogenetic conception, this may have led to some physical weakness which a typically conceived XY male would not experience. A similar syndrome where the SRY gene is located on the male X chromosome instead of the male Y chromosome resulting in a male XX offspring can result in decreased libido, physical weakness, decreased stature, and malformed or hermaphroditic genitalia. While an argument can be made for decreased libido in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life through His own statements (see Matthew 19:11-12) as well as that He never married and, speculating, appeared to actively avoid marriage, He is very clearly identified as male in the Gospel accounts by His mother and all those who knew Him, thus suggesting no ambiguous or hermaphroditic genitalia. It is also recorded by St. Luke in chapter two of his Gospel that He was circumcised on the eighth day according to Jewish custom. If there was any ambiguity in His genitalia the circumcising Rabbi would have noticed. Also, His height as recorded by the image on His burial shroud indicates that He was of an average height for a Judean born man of that period. But that under extreme stress He suffered from hematidrosis and less than twenty four hours later died from what looks like stress cardiomyopathy where a typical man wouldn’t may seem to suggest that He might have suffered from an inherent genetic weakness in His physical system. Many people who are born with chromosomal disorders such as Down’s Syndrome also suffer from heart problems, for example. It could be that, due to His parthogenetic birth, He too suffered from a weaker heart muscle which could not endure the combination of extreme stresses He underwent during His torture and crucifixion and causing Him to die much earlier than a typical human being might.

I know there are some who may take issue with the idea of a physically weaker Jesus Christ in any way. However, it must be remembered that though fully divine, He is also fully human with every possibility that implies. It is never recorded that He was particularly physically strong or even “heart healthy” as it were. Consider in John 4 where Jesus was tired out after their journey and stayed behind to rest by the well whereas His disciples were still strong enough to head into town to buy food, and were concerned for His health when they returned trying to get Him to eat something. It is recorded that He attributed everything He did, not to His own strength or ability, but to His Father’s. It is also recorded that those observing the demonstrations of power He performed were constantly amazed, in particular, that they should be performed by Him. In this, I am reminded of St. Paul who writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (1:27-28, WEB):

“but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are: that no flesh should boast before God.”

It occurs to me that nowhere does Yahweh demonstrate this principle more than in the flesh and blood body of His Son who Himself stated that He could do nothing from Himself.

1Kono, Tomohiro, Yayoi Obata, Quiong Wu, et al. “Birth of parthogenetic mice that can develop to adulthood”. Nature. 428, 860-864 (22 April 2004)

2Minkel, JR. “Korean Cloned Human Cells Were Product of ‘Virgin Birth’”. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/korean-cloned-human-cells/

3Gabriel Jose de Carlie and Tiago Campos Pereira. “On human parthenogenesis”, Medical Hypotheses. 106 (2017) 57-60

4See previous, “On human parthenogenesis.”

5Smith, Keri. “Gene mutation turns girls into boys,” Nature. 15 October 2006, doi:10.1038/news061009-14

6 See chapter 3 of this work. In this way, those afflicted spread their affected genes to the rest of the human population through interbreeding. Accompanied by intentional extermination of other, different human groups this may explain why, by the time true civilization arose, there were no unaffected humans left on earth.

Reflection on 1 John 3:23-24; 4:7-12

“And this is His command, that we should believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He gave us command. And the one keeping His commands remains in Him and He in him; and with this we know that He remains in us, from the spirit which He gave us.” (1 John 3:23-24, my translation)

Keeping the command to believe in Jesus Christ and love one another is not causative of remaining in Christ, that is, it is not a work which results in remaining in Christ, rather it is evidentiary, that is, it is evidence of remaining in Christ to begin with. We know that He remains in us because we can see the produce of the spirit which He gave (John 15:4-5, Galatians 5:22-24).

“Dear ones, we should love one another, because Love is from God, and every person who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. The person not loving hasn’t known God, because God is love. With this the love of God has been made apparent within us, because God sent His one of a kind Son out into the world so that we should live through Him. With this is Love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His propitiating Son about our malfunctions. Dear ones, if God loved us in this way, we are also obligated to love one another. No one has ever viewed God. If we love one another, God remains within us and His love is having been finished within us.” (1 John 4:7-12, my translation)

While many will take issue with me for saying this, in the context of everything John has written so far and will write, the word “is” in the line which reads “God is love” is essentially a “=”. It’s an “equals” sign expressing that one equals the other. My apologies to other translators and theologians, but it could just as easily be translated correctly “love is God” in the context of what John is saying here, which is that, if there is no love present in the person, then God is not present within the person. Love being expressed by the person for others, and by the community for one another, is the key indicator that that person is remaining in Christ and Christ is remaining in him (or her as the case may be). The person who claims to be remaining in Christ is obligated to love and express His love through what he does, because the person remaining in Christ has God living and acting through him and God is love. That love which is expressed is God Himself. It is a binary option in John’s thinking. If love is present, then God is present. If love is not present then God is not present. If hatred is present, then God is not present and the person is not remaining in Christ. In John’s thinking love = God and God = love.

Reflections on 1 John 3:6-18

Reading from 1 John 3:6-10 today. 

It says, "Every person remaining in Him does not malfunction; every person who malfunctions has not seen Him neither has he known Him. Children, don't let anyone lead you astray; the person who does the righteousness is right, just as that One is right; The person who does the malfunction is the Outcast's, because the Outcast malfunctioned from the start. Every person who has been fathered by God does not malfunction, because His sperm remains within him, and he is not capable of malfunctioning, because he has been fathered by God. With this, the born children of God and the born children of the Outcast are apparent; every person not doing righteousness and not loving his brother is not God's." (my translation)

When I was younger, I tripped up on this verse theologically. A lot. Especially as Romans 3:23 was pretty clear that "All had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But at the time, like many, my understanding of salvation was limited to justification and whether or not someone was "saved" or not. As a result, these verses became confusing and contradictory.

John here isn't describing justification at all in any sense. What John has in mind here is what Jesus taught in John 15:4-8, and it is the same kind of dichotomy of behaviors which Paul describes in Galatians 5:16-25. In the Gospel of John passage, Jesus says "Remain in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine, neither can you unless you remain in Me." In the Galatians passage, Paul writes, "Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh under any circumstances."

What John is saying in his first letter is that all those who are remaining in Jesus, as Jesus taught in John 15, cannot succumb to the hamartia malfunction when they are remaining in Him. It simply isn't possible because when they are remaining in Him it is Christ operating through them and they are functioning the way they are supposed to be functioning. This is what John means by "the person who does the righteousness is right," that is, if a person is operating correctly, producing the life of Jesus in his words and behaviors, then he is remaining in Christ and is "working correctly." If he is malfunctioning, that is, if he is displaying behaviors associated with the fight/flight/feeding/sexual responses in moralistic (positive or negative) or selfish ways (as Paul describes is Galatians 5), then he is not remaining in Christ and his behaviors are from his own malfunctioning psyche which is no different from the Outcast (Grk. diabolos, devil), reminding us that our malfunction started with the Outcast.

The thrust of John's first letter is, like much of Paul's writings, to teach us to remain in Christ, how to know when we're not, and what to do when we realize it.

1 John 3:11-18 -
"Because this is the news which you heard from the start, so that we would love one another, not like Cain was from the depraved one and slaughtered his brother; and for what reason did he slaughter him? because his actions were depraved and his brother's right. And don't be shocked, brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have changed out of Death into Life, because we might love the brothers; the person not loving remains within Death. Every person who hates his brother is a manslayer, and you know that every manslayer does not have eternal life remaining within him. With this we knew love, because that One set down His psyche for us; and we are obligated to set down our psyches for the brothers. And whoever has the world's means of living and views his brother having a need and should close his compassion off from him, how does the love of God remain in him? Children, may we not love by word neither by tongue but by action and truth."

Continuing John's central thought from 6-10 (and similar to Paul's in Galatians 5:16-25), John is laying out again the dichotomy of behaviors and how to know when a person is remaining in Jesus Christ, and when he is not. If a person is remaining in Christ, then he is not capable of hating his brother. If a person hates another, then he is not remaining in Christ, and is functioning from the same source of behaviors as Cain was. Love (Grk. agape) and compassion belong to the eternal and immortal, and are indicators of remaining in Christ because it is Christ doing it through you. That love is flowing from him through you. Without remaining in Christ, you are cut off from this. Love and hate (Grk. agape and misos) are incapable of residing in the same space.

The word which I have translated as "psyche" is actually the same word in Greek. "psyche" is only a transliteration. It does not mean physical or animal life as it is frequently translated here. That would be "zoe" in Greek. Instead, it can be translated as the "soul" of a person. It is the person's "self" as made up of their experiences, biology, and choices. It is also the same word used when Jesus says, "anyone who seeks to save his life (psyche) will lose (destroy) it, anyone who loses (destroys) his life (psyche) will preserve it." Jesus didn't just surrender His physical life for us, He surrendered all of Himself for us, giving up His very psyche in who He was and how He lived culminating in the cross. Jesus's very life was crucified from day one. What John is saying here is that those who remain in Christ should be acting in the same manner because it is Christ acting through them. It is His eternal life passing into and through them like sap from the vine to the branch. As a result just as John says in 2:6, those who claim to remain in Him are obligated to walk just as He walked. It should be visible and apparent, and if Christ is not seen in the actions of the person, if love and compassion are not present, but this person acts with hatred toward another (or any one of the other "works of the flesh" which Paul writes of in Galatians 5), then he is lying to himself and to others and is functioning from the same malfunctioning source as Cain and the Outcast before him.

In the Didache, an ancient first century Christian teaching manual, it begins with, "There are two paths, the path of Life and the path of Death." Here, as with Paul, John is going into painstaking detail about what that looks like

A Reflection on Racism

I've been thinking about racism recently, especially my own. I don't consider myself racist in any way. I have admired and looked up to many people of color over my life. I have some small amount of Native American ancestry through my great-great grandmother, but that doesn't usually count these days (though it certainly did in the 1800s), and the rest of my ancestry is from the British Isles in some way prior to the American colonies.

I have observed that every time I randomly imagine a mugger or a gang member, I virtually always imagine a person of color before I realize what I have done and change the image wilfully. The strange thing about this is that I did not grow up in an area where this should have even been a thing. I grew up in a very multiracial and multiethnic Orange County, CA where you would just as easily see an African American lawyer or doctor as you would a white or Hispanic one. You would just as easily see a white or Asian gang member as you would one who is African American or Hispanic. I was an early supporter of Barack Obama's candidacy for president largely because I respected the opinions of Oprah Winfrey who first promoted him highly.

So, why would I, of all people, imagine a person of color when I imagine a random thug?

The more I think about this question, the more I think it has to do with the media I consumed growing up. Television, movies, etc. Typically, in seventies, eighties, and even nineties media the roles of low level criminals, gang members, and thugs would virtually always be played by people of color. This stereotype was rampant in those productions which I, being largely homebound and having few friends as a kid, consumed constantly.

I have since grown beyond that subliminal programming, I hope, but that those associations remain in my psyche disturbs me. It also makes me think about how many other Americans received similar cultural programming through media and racial stereo typing just passed down from generation to generation. Whether we are consciously or actively racist, which I would like to think I am consciously and actively anti-racist, those associations which we were taught early on are still present in our psychological make up.

I think that if we, as a nation and as a culture, are to move past the cultural and societal racism which, let's face it, American culture was built on, we need to recognize this early programming for what it is and turn away from it.

A Very Personal Ramble

What I'm about to talk about is very personal to me. I'm sharing it here in the hopes that my experiences and struggles may be of some benefit to someone else.

I have previously written about the passing of my dad. What may not be common knowledge, though I have made no secret of it, is that my dad left us shortly before I turned six years old. The last time I saw my dad prior to February of 2013 was in October of 1983. I was eight years old. My dad did not raise me.

I have struggled throughout my life with older men and father figures because in the end, they have all ended up leaving or giving up on me. To be fair, I was not an easy kid to stick with, or a teenager, or a young adult for that matter. I have made no secret about that either. But be this as it may, one by one they all left or abandoned me to my own devices whether they were relatives, "big brothers," pastors, teachers, or spiritual leaders.

I don't think I realized exactly how deep this hurt was in my life until last night when it all came to the surface. At 44 years old, I spent part of last night sobbing silently in my bed when it hit me, trying to keep my kids from hearing me (my life was house sitting elsewhere).

What was more about this is how it has affected my relationship with God. I realized that I have also always been terrified of Him leaving me too. I know all the Scriptures regarding that not happening (I can probably quote them to you in both Greek and English), but there is a difference between knowing something, even believing it, and feeling it. And as I was sobbing, the question was asked me, "would I even abandon my kids regardless of anything that might do?" For me, of course the answer was "No. Absolutely not." And my kids know this. They might screw up, they might get into fights, do the wrong thing, land in jail, what have you. But they will always be my kids, and I will always be their father no matter what. I made that decision, that choice, early on the same way that Heidi and I made that decision towards each other early on.

And then the same was impressed upon me and towards me. God is my Dad. He has never abandoned me before, and He will never abandon me, no matter what I do. That's what a father does. That's what family is supposed to do. It's not about deserving it. It's about that familial relationship which exists which cannot "unexist." In reality, He's the only father and father figure who has never deserted me regardless of what I have said or done.

The truth is, I know I'm not the easiest person to mentor. And maybe that time for someone to take that role in my life has long past and is no longer possible. But the truth is, right now, I could have really used someone like a father to come alongside me and tell me everything's going to be okay like I tell my kids when some disaster strikes. I think, in many ways, I have tried to be the father to my kids that I never had. Admittedly, I think I'm terrible at it, but from what I've observed, most fathers feel the same way at some point in time. I can only thank God that He, more often than not, steps in and fathers them through me where I cannot (which is pretty much all the time).

I don't know who this ramble might help as I sit here and write it, but I set it out to say that if any of this rings familiar, that you're not alone.

About Being a Pastor

Most people think that a pastor's primary job is to preach on Sundays, and so all the emphasis goes into how good of a sermon they can deliver. This is not a pastor, this is a person who delivers a TEDx talk once a week.

The word "pastor" comes from Latin and literally means "shepherd." The word used in Greek which is translated as "pastor" in most English translations literally just means "shepherd". Shepherds don't stand up and give a rousing speech to their flocks once a week. Shepherds watch their flocks for hours on end and through the night as they graze to keep them safe from predators. Shepherds (in particular ancient shepherds) don't hand feed their sheep generally. They move them, guiding them from safe pasture to safe pasture and watch over them while they graze on the greens they find there. Each sheep and lamb represents a serious investment of time and resources, and so each one matters. Sheep are going to be sheep, which means they are going to get themselves in trouble on occasion. The shepherd doesn't judge them for it. He doesn't punish them for it (seriously, you really can't train sheep worth anything). He plans for it and takes care that they don't get into too much trouble. If one sheep wanders too far away, they go after them and guide them back to the rest of the flock so that none of them are lost. If one of the flock gets stuck, they take the time to free it. If one of the flock is injured, they care for it. They do all this because each head of livestock matters to the owner of the flock, and a loss of even one represents a financial blow. All of this is doubly true if the shepherd himself is the owner of the flock.

My favorite story which exemplifies what it means to be a pastor comes from Eusebius' History of the Church. In it, he relates a story about the Apostle John in his later years before he died. A much older, very senior John brought a young man whom he had been discipling and left him in the care of the bishop of a certain town in Asia Minor and then left for a while needing to travel elsewhere. After John was gone for a while, the young man fell away and fell in with a gang of thieves and bandits and eventually ran away to their hideout at the top of a mountain. When John returned he asked the Bishop for the "treasure" he had left in his care. Confused, the Bishop didn't know what he was talking about. Then John clarified that he was talking about the young man. The Bishop then explained what had happened, and without saying as much had basically written him off. John however, a man in his eighties or nineties, took it upon himself to travel the dangerous path up into the mountains on his own to the bandits' hideout to find the young man to plead with him to return with him. He stayed there for days, weeks maybe until finally he had reached the young man and he agreed to return with the Apostle.

This is what it means to be a pastor. As pastors, we are given care or charge of those the Lord brings into our lives to watch over, guide, and protect from predators. It is our responsibility, not to hand feed the sheep, but to guide them to safe pastures where they can graze. If one wanders off or runs because another shepherd has abused it, it is our responsibility to care for it and do everything we are empowered to do to bring it home. I have heard and seen far too many pastors write off sheep who run or wander as not worth the effort because they have the rest of the flock to watch.

The primary job of a pastor is to care and be responsible with the sheep they are given to watch, not to deliver speeches whatever the context. It is a demanding, twenty-four hour, on call job which may or may not pay enough to support the pastor much less a family. Sermons and homilies are a part of the job, but they are only a part of the whole job.

As pastors, we need to remember what the word "pastor" actually means, and the picture it is meant to evoke.

Classic WoW Tips I've learned

So, with the launch of Classic WoW on the 27th, I wanted to post a few tips I've gleaned.

1) This is not BFA or anything post-Cataclysm. You won't level to 60 in a week. Don't expect to.

2) Professions matter. If you play a warrior or a paladin, be a blacksmith/miner. If you're a rogue/druid/shaman/hunter be a leatherworker/skinner. If you're a mage/warlock/priest be a tailor/enchanter.It's the only way to have a reliable source of level appropriate armor. Quest armor isn't reliable and may not be usable by your class. Alchemy/herbalism can be a godsend for the potions. Your secondary professions can save your life with food and bandages. Also, professions are the only reliable way to make gold by selling raw materials and finished items on the Auction House. High level mining is especially lucrative.

3) Don't expect to be able to level five or ten levels in a single zone. You're going to be doing a lot of traveling from one end of a continent to another, most of it on foot until level 40.

4) In general, playing Classic WoW isn't about the endgame like it is in BFA and everything post-Cataclysm. It's all about the journey. Don't rush it. You'll have much more satisfying experience if you take your time, read the quests (you have to to find your quest objectives), and just immerse yourself.

5) Prepare to be poor until you figure out the Auction House. Once you do, be reasonable about your listing prices. Gold does not flow freely. A level 10 item will not sell for 10 gold because no level 10s will have 10 gold on them. They probably won't have 1 gold on them.

6) Visit your trainer every time you level, or at least every other level, and be prepared to pay for it. Spells and skills are not just handed to you.

7) Where professions are concerned, you will only be able to reliably find trainers up through journeyman in the cities. Expert trainers are located in only one capital city, and it varies with the trainer. Artisan trainers are located in random places throughout the world. If you have trouble finding one, PM me. I might know where it is for either Alliance or Horde.

8) Dungeons and their entry points are crawling with elites (expect difficulty at least 10 levels above what their level # says). Don't expect to just be able to walk into a dungeon that's for ten levels below you with shoddy gear like in BFA. You will die. Don't walk into a dungeon at all without a healer and a tank and expect to make it past the point of entry. It's not going to happen.

9) Each class has it's own use, and each class is useful for somethings and horrible at others. If you're going up against demons and undead, you want a paladin with you. Mage portals and conjure food can make life a lot easier. No one pvp's like a rogue. Priests are efficient and extraordinary healers. Druids are great jack of all trades and can fill any number of roles; a fully spec'd and geared druid is no joke and can be your best friend in a dungeon.

10) You're not bound by your chosen specialization. A holy paladin can tank and a protection paladin can heal. The talent trees aren't locked to a spec. You can put talents into multiple specs for something custom, and I recommend you do at least for leveling.

11) In pvp servers, cities are not generally safe. You will frequently find rogues ganking players for fun in the opposite faction's city. "Safer" cities to place your hearthstone tend to be Darnassus for the Alliance and Thunderbluff for the Horde because they're harder and more time consuming to get to. Stormwind and Orgrimmar are likely going to be under constant attack.

12) Guilds matter. You will have a much easier time playing with others than soloing. This is not a game meant to be played alone.

Finally, remember, it's about the journey, not the destination. You're in the game to relax, have fun, and make friends. A favor done for a stranger can lead to a good gaming buddy, and being a jerk can lead to people actively hunting you and celebrating your corpse in the middle of Stormwind.

Good adventuring!

About Remaining in Christ and How you Feel

There is this insane idea that if you are remaining in Christ you won't be sad, depressed, or frustrated. Here's the thing, when you are remaining in Christ, there are times when you may share in His emotions. There are times when He gets angry. There are times when He gets frustrated. There are times when He gets sad. 

A good case in point is the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus began to sweat blood. This is a condition known as Hematidrosis which occurs under extreme stress. Know what causes extreme stress? Fear. Did this mean that Jesus wasn't trusting the Father? No. He still went to the cross. But His perfectly human fear response was working just as it was intended, and it was a perfectly reasonable thing to be extremely afraid of going through. He did it anyway because of His surrender to the Father working through Him. 

Surrendering to Him doesn't mean the biological responses stop working, or that you won't ever have those fight/flight/feeding/sexual responses ever again. It doesn't mean that you will be floating on a cloud of rapturous joy 24hrs a day either. Look at Mother Theresa and the letters she wrote to her confessor about how there were times she felt as if God had abandoned her, and yet she said that she did what she did because she saw Christ in those she was moved to help. 

It's not about how you feel about it. It's never been about how you feel about it,or even being happy all the time. Most of those Saints we remember suffered immensely. Is it realistic to think that they never got depressed, or went to some very dark places? If Jesus could get so stressed out that He sweat blood because He was afraid of what was coming, if He could cry out on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?" Should we who are joined to Jesus Christ expect any less? 

If we are sharing His life with Him, if we are surrendering ourselves to Him, then we too will go through this. It's not abnormal, it's not a lack of faith otherwise Jesus Himself could be accused of having a lack of faith, and it's not an aberration. It's perfectly normal. Feeling the fear is normal. Feeling like you've been thrown into a lightless pit is normal. 

Where the rubber meets the road is when you feel the fear, when you sweat blood over it, but you still surrender to Him and get up and move in the direction He's taking you, even if it means your further torture and death. Your biology won't want to go there and will start reacting. It's okay. It's normal. Don't feel guilty about it. Just surrender to Him and keep going, ask Him to do it through you just like He did before. It doesn't mean you're going to feel it any less, but it does mean you're legs will start moving and you'll keep going in the right direction.

More Random Morning Thoughts

So, I've been toying with a term for the Christian life and practice as Paul and John describe it in the New Testament, "Voluntary cooperative possession." It is where Jesus Christ takes control by your permission, and only by your permission, to act and speak through you intertwined with you. Or more accurately, The Father speaks and acts through Christ who then speaks and acts through you, Jesus Christ acting as a mediary connection between the Father and the Christian through the Christian being joined to Christ by baptism, and surrendering the will to Him. An illustration I've used before is of riding in a car on the road with God. God is driving. The second you try and take the wheel and say, "I've got this," God takes His hands off the wheel and says, "okay." That's when the car runs into a tree. We aren't just to be like Christ or to attempt a poor imitation of Him, we are to surrender our own wills and lives to His life within us that He might act and speak through us.

For the Christian, there is one simple question that needs to be asked,"Is it Jesus, or is it me?" That is, "Is it Jesus doing or saying this through me, or did it originate with my own biology, my own desires, fears, attachments, etc?" And if the answer is not Jesus, then that action or saying needs to seriously questioned if not stopped altogether. "Whatever is not from faith is sin." That is, whatever does not originate with Jesus Christ within us, originates with our own malfunctioning biology, malfunctioning fears, aggressions, attachments, etc. Paul wrote several lists or guides to help answer this question in his letters. Anger, lying, envy, jealousy, adultery, etc. are all indicators that the origination point for our words or actions is not Jesus Christ, whereas love (especially love), joy, peace, patience, etc. are indicators that it is. John wrote that whoever says he remains in Christ is obligated to walk just as Jesus Christ walked. That is, if you claim Jesus Christ as the origination point for your actions and words, then your behavior and speech should mirror Jesus Christ's because it is Jesus Christ doing it.

One of the things I hear and read frequently in response to what I've said about remaining in and surrendering to Jesus Christ is "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" and the context is usually trying to provide an excuse as to why someone doesn't or doesn't need to. While it is true that remaining in Christ is a discipline which takes practice, for the Christian, I don't believe it to be optional. Neither Paul nor John, nor even Jesus Himself ever described it as being optional, and Jesus Himself said in John 15 that those who did not remain in Him would dry up and be burned like dead branches. Either we, as Christians, surrender to His life within us and through us, or we don't. Either we continue to pursue Him, stumbling along the way, yes, but always getting back up and continuing the race, or we don't. And if we don't, we are described by John as not knowing Him. If you are baptized into Christ, you are on the racetrack one way or the other. Either you continue to run, or you sit on the track and are disqualified.

Yoda said, "there is no try." In many ways, this applies to remaining in and surrendering to Christ. There really isn't an "I'll try." It's a conscious decision to ask Him to act, speak, love, and live through you. And once you do, it's a conscious decision to cede control to Him. There is no "try" on our part. There is only the choice to cede control to Him or not.

The rule for the Christian is not what is "law" but what is love. It is not what is "legal" but what is compassionate. The rule for the Christian asks not "what if it were me?" But "What if it was Jesus?"

For the Christian, there is no other but Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ within and Jesus Christ without. Jesus Christ acting and speaking through me, and Jesus Christ to whom I am speaking and acting. Jesus Christ in front of me, and Jesus Christ behind me. Jesus Christ to my right, and Jesus Christ to me left. Jesus Christ above, and Jesus Christ below. There is no "other", there is no "self," there is no life but Jesus Christ, and there is no death, there is only Jesus Christ. In everything and in every way, at every turn, no matter which way you turn, unless you choose to ignore Him, unless you willfully close your eyes to Him, you will see Him staring back at you. This is what it means to be Christian. Nothing less.

My Thoughts This Morning

I was commenting on a post yesterday that was discussing the moral dissonance between Christian missionaries overseas breaking immigration laws in other countries and the condemnation of some Christian communities of refugees fleeing violence and poverty doing the same here (often the same communities supporting the aforementioned missionaries). It was a good reminder that morality, "good and evil," is ultimately arbitrary to the individual expressing it.

It is a known anthropological fact that there are very few moral universals among human cultures including the condemnation of unjustifiable homicide (in some form), incest (in some form), and public nudity (in some form). What can be "good" and honorable in one culture and society is criminal in another, sometimes even within the same society but between two different castes or classes of people.

It has been my opinion that this is due to an inherent neuropsychological malfunction in homo sapiens which occurred about 70,000 years ago due to our ancestors' consumption of a neurotoxic fruit which had severe neurological repercussions for not only themselves but all of their descendants. This is also why ideas about morality and cultural rules and legislation can only at best constrain behavior, and at worst provoke an antithetical response as the individual determines whether or not they agree with or disagree with the arbitrary moral constraint.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with moral constraints. It is not a code or regulation designed to restrain an individual from harming themselves or others, and Paul states in his letter to the Romans that any such constraints only provoke a disordered response from an individual. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about bypassing the malfunctioning part of our neurology altogether through union with and cooperation with Jesus Christ Himself. This requires deliberately suppressing our natural inclination to moral judgment, and deliberately and consistently turning over control of our behaviors to Him on a moment by moment, decision by decision basis, and removing anything from our lives that interferes with this.

Attachments to objects, relationships, ideas, etc. leads to a fear of loss which triggers moral judgment about the loss. Guilt, shame, and grief are produced from this moral judgment. Our self-justifications and falsehoods we tell ourselves about our behaviors are also products of this moral judgment as the psyche attempts to defend itself. We build up illusions about ourselves and the world around us based on these self-justifications. In short, everything which causes us emotional and mental suffering, and almost everything which functions as a root of psychopathy, is directly or indirectly related to this hardwired need to determine that something is "good" or "evil"and to convince one's own psyche that it is not "evil."

Everything Jesus taught, especially his conditions of discipleship, were essentially about letting go of anything which would trigger this, and instead embracing compassion and love for the other person next to you up to and including sacrificing your own life for them just as He did for us. Things like retaliation, judgment, and hatred were prohibited for His disciples. Things like compassion, mercy, kindness, and self-sacrifice were prescribed. Hypocrisy by religious leadership was mocked and ridiculed by Jesus Christ Himself.

These are my thoughts this morning.