A Most Reluctant Convert

 I watched "The Most Reluctant Convert" today, a film about C.S. Lewis' life and conversion story based on "Surprised by Joy". It was a good film, but shorter than I had imagined it would be. In it, the actor portraying an older Lewis narrates his life around the actors portraying his younger self. In particular, he talks about the long journey he took from atheism to theism to the Christian faith. One of the more interesting things he talks about is when he first picked up the book "Phantastes" which set him on the path towards God. 

     This is fantasy book written by George MacDonald in the late 1800s, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian faith, God, or anything of a religious nature. Nevertheless, he describes his experience as that of a spiritual nature, that his imagination was baptized before the rest of him as it was the first time he had experienced what he described as a feeling of holiness.

     C.S. Lewis in the movie, and as I imagine he presents himself within the book on which the movie is based, appears to be intellectually and emotionally dragged by God towards Himself and then towards Christ as though by his feet with his fingers dug into the ground as he tries to hold on to his materialist atheism to no avail.

     It is this last image with which I most identify over the last twenty two years, and over the last two years in particular. God has been dragging me to Himself, and has been drawing me closer to Jesus Christ, not intellectually (I had already been a professing Christian for years), but relationally and emotionally. And like C.S. Lewis, He has been using materials and sources over the last two decades which have little to do with the doctrines and religious tenets with which I grew up. Indeed, I have been dragged farther and farther from these, but closer and closer to Him. I can honestly say that I am closer to Him now, not just with "believing in Him", but with knowing Him beyond any doubt, with experiencing Him as He is, and with connecting with Him on a personal level in ways that are difficult to explain, and would likely have me labeled a lunatic for trying.

     I fought those things He has used to draw me closer to Himself, to help me to know Him, because they did not follow the doctrine and tenets with which I was indoctrinated. Who am I now would terrify who I was twenty seven years ago when I graduated from the first Bible School I attended. The journey of faith I undertook would have broken that young man's mind. He couldn't have understood and wouldn't have accepted the truths, the realities which the middle-aged man can no longer deny and which have been personal gifts which have brought his soul a peace, a comfort, and a sense of family and home the young, twenty year old man hadn't ever really felt.

     I've tried to chronicle that journey over the years, since about 2008 or so here on Facebook and then on my blog. I'm sure for those who've followed it with me, it's been just as strange of a path for them to read as it was for me to walk. Everything I've learned and had to come to grips with, I've written about, one way or the other, either as my rambles, my sermons, or in the stories I wrote.

      What is most important to take from all of this is that, even as a professing Christian, I was in point of fact like Lewis, a most reluctant convert. I was a reluctant convert and I didn't know it. I didn't understand what it was I was running from or dragging my feet on. All I knew, as it was revealed to me, was that I was. There were things that I was running from, that I was acting like I was running from, that couldn't be revealed to me at first because I wasn't ready to hear them or receive them in any way. It wasn't a moral failing. It wasn't a conscious rejection. It just took time and patience on God's part to build the foundation of relationship, experience, and understanding so that I could eventually accept them.

     It is the easiest thing in the world to hide behind a barrier of doctrines, interpretations, theologies, rules, and so forth thinking that you understand what it's all about. And for that reason, all of those barriers had to be torn down. The doctrines, the interpretations, the theologies, the rules, all of it had to be smashed and left in the dust until it was just He and I. And for that reason, He led me through churches and writings which I had been taught were corrupt, heretical, blasphemous, and so on. I had been told to avoid them and treat them as evil, and so I did until He decided it was time they weren't and I was to see Him and hear His voice speaking through them. To be sure, He helped me see when it wasn't His voice and when they were to be taken with a grain or more than a grain of salt. But the point was to begin unlearning those things which I had learned so that those barriers to connection would be removed.

     He continues to lead me on this wayward path, and I continue to have difficulty with it. I continue to resist until I'm given a chance to see and understand where He is in it, looking for His light in the darkness around me. But where I am now is not where I have been, and the only way forward is through, not back.

     I know Jesus Christ, and I am known by Him. It is not a passing acquaintance, but a deep friendship which goes back a very long time. Longer than I knew. I know His death, burial, and resurrection, and they produce powerful emotions within me, as though they were memories I lived and not just "religious feelings." I know the Father, and there is no describing that. I know Him even when, like Peter, I take my eyes away and look at the storm instead of Him and thus begin to sink. I have experienced the "home" within Him, and it is something I always long for, and feel lost at times when the things experienced by the senses in this world distract me. I know His holy Breath, and know what it is like to have Him speaking and acting through me, always voluntarily, as though I was merely in the passenger's seat of my own body, and that was okay. I get upset. I succumb to despair. I snap. I panic, and none of these things negate any of His relationship and connection with me, or I with Him. He just waits patiently for me to come to my senses and pick up where we left off.

     My knowing Him, my ongoing relationship with Him, goes beyond any one theology, any one denomination, or any one religious faith. It is living, dynamic, and continuing to grow and mature. It is anchored in Him and who He is, and not in the "letter" of doctrines, or the "Law," or religious tenets. While these things in and of themselves are not bad, and used properly that can be useful guides and tutors, they are not Him and are themselves not to be worshiped and adhered to as though they are.

     He is Source, as some say, He is Tao, He is Logos, He is "I Am," He is Yahweh, He is such that it is impossible to accurately describe Him using human language because human language is confined to the symbols it uses which are derived from senses which can only process limited temporal and spatial information; and He is infinite. He is what all dimensions and all motion move through. He is the medium through which all creation moves, our universe and every possible universe and reality, as a sound through the air. We are like holograms, like smoke against the sunlight, or like the rainbow which is briefly visible after a rain and then disappears. But He is the reality, the Being without which not even nothing as we imagine it can exist. The very word we use, "God," is paltry, underwhelming, and nearly useless in describing Him as it was only meant to describe fictions existing in imagined pantheons living in the sky. Words fail. Images fail. Human understanding and intellect fail in comprehending and capturing Him with any accuracy.

     And He does not care if they do. The most important thing to Him is not knowing "what" He is, but "who" is He as a person. It is not knowing about Him, but getting to know and interact with Him. And He will use anything in existence at His disposal, which is everything, if it will achieve this goal. He will also, if it serves this purpose, remove those barriers to this goal as carefully and as slowly as necessary so as to preserve the person He loves, even if for other people they are conduits to knowing Him, and not barriers. He recognizes that each person is different, and must come to know Him in different ways as works for them.

     It is both stunningly beautiful, and abjectly painful. It is frustratingly slow, and altogether too fast for comfort. It is paradox and oxymoron to the human mind, and yet completely sensible and straightforward to Him.

     There is much about my journey that I want to say, that I want to talk about openly. But to do so would cause harm to others and to their journeys, and would, as I said before, label me a lunatic even if I've never felt more sane. But I hope, through what I have explained, and what I have written, that these things have helped others to work out their own journey, their own deliverance into His arms, with both fear and trembling as Paul wrote.

Struggling with Attachment and Loss

      The word "trauma" is actually a loan word from ancient Greek. Literally, it means "wound, hurt, or heavy blow." This word can be used to describe a blow to a ship damaging enough to sink it.

     Lately I've been wrestling with fears of loss which I thought I had worked through and left behind, but certain circumstances brought to the surface again. I really freaked out where the dogs were concerned, and, to my shame, went off on other members of our family because I was terrified they were going to freeze to death outside. We had all done everything we could do to keep that from happening, and we couldn't bring them into the house for very legitimate reasons, including their own health. Heidi and Cindy had to talk me down from my panicking, and remind me that, no matter what, we did everything we could do to prepare, and now we had to trust that God would keep them alive. the most off thing about it was that I wasn't really concerned about losing the goats, chickens, and rabbits. I think I just figured they'd be okay in the barn with the heat lamps, though I knew at sub-zero temps they could only do so much. It really became irrational.

     I've also been wrestling with the loss of my Leatherman, which I do use for nearly everything around the farm. Thing is, I have other knives, and I have use of other multi-tools until I'm able to find or replace it. But I've been nearly panicking about that too. 

     There are other things which have been going off in my head too which I've been wrestling with, but these two things are the easiest to use for illustrations. At first, I didn't know why I'd been reacting so strongly and fearfully, but then it came to me. I was terrified of losing the dogs because of all of the dogs I'd had to give up in the past. The most recent was Bel back in Arkansas, but before that we'd had to give up, that is, put down Jojo in Idaho. Before that had been a puppy Heidi and I were going to raise when we were engaged in Canada, and which we had to give back. And for me personally, there was also Mija who had been my mother's dog, but to which I was very attached. And before that, when I was a small child, there was Becky, who we had to give up when we moved from a house into an apartment. I was really upset about the Leatherman because of all of the other personal possessions I'd lost or had to give up over our journeys. As much as I'd tried to just push on, ignore it, do the right thing as much as I could, deep down all of those losses really affected and hurt me. And as much as I'd gone through and let them go at one point, there they were again, triggering panic and fear reactions that had my stomach in knots, triggered migraines, and had me blurting out hurtful things to those dearest to me.

     Attachment and love are two different things. Attachment is not love. Attachment results in fear, anger, hatred, and so on. Attachment twists even the best of intentions into a steamroller of harm, hurting relationships, and destroying lives. Love lets go. Love trusts. Love cannot be threatened by loss. Don't mistake attachment for love. They are very different, and produce very different fruit. Attachments aren't love, though they are often mistaken for it, and neither are they beneficial. They're harmful and trigger threat responses which cause damage even when I or anyone else have the best of intentions. Attachments are the foundation of being hurt or wounded. Attachments are the first building block of trauma. You cannot be traumatized at losing a thing if you are not attached to that thing. Neither can you be traumatized at gaining a thing if you are not attached to keeping that thing away from you.

      The letting go of things to which you are attached, regardless of what they are and as I continually find out, is not a once and done proposition. At least, it's not for me. It's something which must be done again and again until it lessens to the point where it is no longer an issue. The deeper and more serious the wound, the longer it takes to heal and fully close. The deeper the trauma, the longer it takes to fully be free from it.

      In order to move forward, trauma must be acknowledged for what it is, and dealt with as though treating any other wound. It must be cared for, bandaged, stitched if need be, and checked periodically to see if more treatment is needed. The deeper the trauma, the more care and time is needed.

     Heidi and Cindy talked me down, and they were right. God has done miracles to keep our animals, all of our animals, alive. The Leatherman will likely turn up when the snow melts. If not, it's possible to replace it. As far as the other ghosts in my head, that's all they are is ghosts which no longer exist, if they did at all, except in my head. The past is gone, the future hasn't happened. There is only right now, this moment.

      I hope in writing these experiences, it helps others to understand and work through caring for their own deep hurts and outbursts.

On the Human Problem, part 2

      It's clear to me that the problem of “hamartia,” which I have described in my previous writing, began with the events of Genesis 3. This may surprise some who think me too liberal in my theology, but it is true. There are two popular interpretations of the events of Genesis 3. The first is that the text is absolutely literal with one man and one woman, two trees, and a snake, and that it happened about 6-7,000 years ago. The second is that it is, at best, a metaphor, if not an outright myth or fable in the same sense as other creation myths and with the same accuracy. I, however, believe that it is actually an amalgam of events, highlighting certain points, which Moses saw and wrote about. What fits the data, to me, is that in reality a specific family group of homo sapiens was placed by God, either through migration (more likely) or directly transported, into a gardenesque grove roughly near what is now Tabriz, Iran where the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Uizhon, and the Gihun-Abraxis converge, or at least used to.

     Were there two trees with one of them off limits? I believe it highly likely, one as a primary food source and one which was off limits because it was damagingly toxic to human beings. But more than this, I think it is more likely that there were two different kinds of trees in the area, possibly in their own groves or interspersed throughout. 

     The first kind which which Scripture and tradition identifies as the tree of life was placed there as the primary food source of this specific group of homo sapiens which made them distinct from other species of hominids and animals. The fruit from this tree had a combination of compounds and substances which prevented mutation and degeneration caused by aging at the cellular level, scrubbing and repairing the DNA and cellular structures thus preventing physical aging once the human in question had reached a fully mature state. This isn’t as difficult to believe as one might think. There are many exampled of human beings, even today, who have certain sets of genetics adopt certain kinds of diets and lifestyles who live well past the average lifespan and appearance-wise don’t appear to age, or at least age very slowly. What is interesting is that such “trees of life” appear in many ancient mythologies such as the trees of the Hesperides in Greek mythology, and so it would not be a stretch to say that, like a flood event, it tends to be a part of the human cultural memory.

     The second kind of tree which we know as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was likely placed there as a food source for a different kind of animal which could metabolize the compounds within without issue. This is also not a difficult thing to accept as there are many different metabolic variations even among mammals where something which is toxic to one is perfectly harmless to another. Dogs with chocolate or onions is a good example. It is my opinion that this was likely a stonefruit of some kind like a peach or almond which contained cyanogenic compounds. Obviously, most stonefruit today is generally harmless for human beings to ingest in spite of the toxic compounds found within, and it was probably harmless to most hominids elsewhere in the world at the time, even other homo sapiens. So why would this be the culprit?

     The difference lie in the other food source in Eden which they were told they were free to eat. The compounds found in the fruit of the “tree of life.” This is why those human beings in Eden were warned against eating fruit from the other tree. When the compounds from these two fruits were combined, because the fruit from the tree of life affected the human body so thoroughly, they caused neurological and genetic damage which became hereditary. This damage caused the enlargement of the amygdala in the human brain (while the brains of humans and chimpanzees, with whom we share 98.5% DNA, are nearly identical, proportionately speaking, the human amygdala is far larger in proportion to the chimpanzee amygdala). The amygdala governs or filters emotional information being fed to the hypothalamus which governs survival threat responses such as fear, aggression, feeding, and so on. Thus the amygdala began to treat things as requiring a threat response that didn’t, such as being naked when this is the natural state of all animals.

     This is why the humans in Eden had to be relocated after this event. While the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil couldn't do any more damage on its own, and was fairly common outside of Eden, the first tree was only found in that one location. Further consumption of both types of fruit may have caused further damage. Physical death was the only real cure for the damage which had taken place, and so they were removed and allowed to die naturally, albeit with greatly increased lifespans in comparison to their non-Edenic counterparts in the rest of the world due to the effects of their previous food source.

On the Human Problem

     When fear creeps up on you, or is screaming in your ear, ask yourself "is this thing actually a threat?" Fear is a threat response. In animals it is a response given to physical danger, such as a bigger animal eating you. But for human beings, our fear response, and the survival responses in general, tend to get triggered by much, much more than just physical threats. The fear response gets triggered by perceived threats to one's identity, for example. It gets triggered by perceived threats to one's financial status. It gets triggered by a great many things that we are attached to, but that are not actual threats to the person's physical survival. The same can be asked regarding anger. Again, the question is, "Is this thing I'm angry at actually a threat which requires me to be aggressive?"

     The human brain frequently makes mountains out of molehills where survival threats are concerned. A personal desire or preference is pursued like a survival necessity. A personal dislike is feared as though it could actually cause harm. Self-control of these overactive responses takes effort and is something which must be learned and practiced, where the effortless response is to be carried from fear to aggression to feeding to sexual gratification unrestrained. The former, unnatural response restrains harm, the latter natural response causes it. It takes training and restraint from very early on in a human being's life to counter it to where human beings can interact with one another without harming each other.

     This is something which other animals simply don't comprehend. They like and dislike, but such things aren't survival threats. When a survival threat comes, they either flee or fight as the situation demands, and then let it go once it's done. Animals are very good at letting things go, something which human beings simply aren't. Our threat responses are triggered at the mere memory or thought of perceived threats. Frequently, we become aggressive or fearful of things which have not occurred anywhere else but in our own minds, and this forms many mental disorders which are simply unknown among other animals.

     Finally, this overactive threat response really forms the basis of human morality. From a very early age, we perceive those things which we like as "good" and therefore a survival necessity, and we perceive those things which we dislike as "bad" or "evil" and therefore a threat. As we age, and with training, the things we like and agree with, or dislike and disagree with, change and so do our definitions of "good" and "bad." We become attached to those things we perceive as "good," that is, what we like, and become averse to those things we perceive as "bad," that is, what we don't like.

     It is this overactive threat response (governed by an amygdala which "over-triggers" the hypothalamus) with which every human being is afflicted which the New Testament calls "hamartia," what we mistranslate into English as "sin."

A Response to an Argument about Faith and Salvation

[The following comes from a Facebook comment thread as my response to a gentleman who took issue with how I defined what it means to believe and what faith is. He proceeded to quote the definitions from different popular Greek lexicons. I have omitted any identifying information as to the owner of the comment thread.]

      I saw from your profile that you are an advocate of the "Free Grace" theology. That's awesome. I imagine that we agree on many things more than you realize, even if we use differing language to describe them. You have, in this comment thread, spent a lot of time an energy attempting to show me my error. I assume this was from the best of intentions, and this is to be appreciated. This being said, to be honest, you have spent a lot of time and effort, in my opinion, to be able to demonstrate why what Jesus taught can be ignored completely, something which, to my mind, is antithetical to the very idea of discipleship.

      But, let's get to the real heart of what you're most concerned about, that forgiveness of sins and entry into heaven is not based on any kind of merit or "working for it." Fair enough. I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. In fact, I probably go a lot further than you do, because I believe that Jesus meant what He said when He said that "every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven human beings except one." 

     Every sin and blasphemy. Consider that statement for a second. I presume you know that the word in Greek means "all." As it does in fact presume "all," would this not include the sin of ignorance? That is, not knowing anything about Jesus Christ? The only sin which He said would not be forgiven, in context, was knowing something was of God, and rejecting it and calling it evil. This described the Pharisees perfectly. 

     According to Nicodemus in John 3, they knew, they knew, that Jesus had come from God because only someone from God could do what He was doing. They knew it, and rejected, attempted to discredit, attempted to arrest, defame, destroy, and kill Him anyway. They knew the Light, and willfully shut their eyes to it. They opted out intentionally and voluntarily. This is the "sin" which Jesus said wouldn't be forgive. So, everything else, according to Jesus Christ Himself, would be forgiven. Consider what everything else means again. So, in that respect, the Grace I believe in is a lot freer than you probably do.

      As I wrote to my friend though, the salvation which Jesus Christ and His Apostles taught in the Scriptures wasn't really about forgiveness. That was actually a non-issue where God was concerned. The issue He was concerned with was the root problem itself which Paul described in Romans as both hereditary and biological or physiological in nature, and which clear affected human behavior so that, no matter how well-intentioned someone may be, they always end up causing harm. His concern was not with the afterlife consequences of this problem, but with the very immediate concern of the harm we cause in this life due to this problem. 

     And so the salvation the New Testament teaches is about being joined as one to Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection, and thus being grafted to Him so that His "breath," His Spirit resides within each one of us who is joined, so that we have the choice to either continue to be enslaved to our malfunctioning, physical neurology, or we could enslave ourselves to the Spirit of Christ through voluntary submission and handing ourselves over to Him with each decision, each moment. In so doing, our own malfunctioning neurology would be bypassed, and our responses and reactions would come, not from our survival responses of fear, aggression, feeding, and sexual desire, but from Jesus Christ Himself, and through Him, the Father, thus producing agape, peace, joy, self-control and so on as He lives His life through us in cooperation with us. This is something He Himself modeled throughout His life as He surrendered to His Father with whom He was one. And so with Him acting and speaking through us, we then would cease to cause harm and the problem would be solved. 

     This is where belief in Jesus Christ becomes a necessity as we must entrust ourselves to Him wholly and without reservation. And this is why belief cannot mean mere "opinion" or "mental assent." This is something one must actively engage in and practice, or it is still their own physiology, their own "flesh" which is reacting and responding. As Paul wrote, they would still be "in their sins." 

     So, this is the salvation which Jesus taught, practiced, and instructed His own immediate disciples in, and which Paul is consumed with in his letters and for which He continued to press towards the goal for the prize. Heaven, as is commonly understood, is not in view as the prize, but full conformity to the person of Jesus Christ. 

     As to your continued use of these lexicons. Have you ever asked yourself where they got their English definitions and translations from? Or who were the men who compiled them? 

     The Greek New Testament, and the common Greek language of the first and second century near east, were unknown in Western Europe until the fall of Constantinople in the mid 1400s. Until that point in time, the only Scriptures which anyone had was the Latin Vulgate, something which, like the KJV occasionally by the ignorant, was commonly assumed to be the original. After Constantinople fell, Orthodox scholars and priests fled west, taking their Greek manuscripts and lectionaries with them. These formed the basis of Erasmus' Greek New Testament. But the Greek of these texts was ancient, and didn't resemble the Greek spoken at the time. What do you think they compared the Greek text with in order to build a common lexicon to fill in the gaps? 

     The Latin Vulgate. 

     Except the Latin words aren't a 1:1 perfect rendering from the Greek. No translation ever is, even between languages as socio-culturally close as Greek and Latin were at the time. As a result, for dikaioo you have iustifico which was transliterated, not translated, into English as justify. And yet dikaioo in Greek literally means, "to make something right," and while it can be used in legal contexts, that is not necessarily its primary domain. And so the Greek to English lexicons were filled with such slightly inaccurate definitions which were not, at the time, compared with other Koine works much less the Classical Greek authors because they were almost unknown. 

     Furthermore, these words took on theological significance especially to those whose theology came from the Reformation. If you look to see who compiled the lexicons you have cited, you will see that they were all from men with a particular theological bias, and a stake in keeping those theological definitions and translations intact. It eventually becomes an academic echo chamber, as do most English translations, because the translators have an aversion to doing anything against what has come before, even if the translation is inaccurate. Most English translations today are still heavily influenced by Tyndale's work, even when his renderings weren't actually what was said, and Tyndale himself was influenced by his own theological bias as much as any modern translator. This is why I avoid such theological dictionaries and lexicons, and only use the BAGD for quick reference. It took me a long time of study and use to understand this, and so I understand why you would lean on them and quote them, but I respectfully decline to based on my own scholarship and experience. 

     Finally, I ask you the same question I asked my friend, how can someone claim belief in Jesus Christ, and ignore what He taught or said? How can someone claim to be a disciple and not follow the discipline which He taught? Even in the first and second century Church, a person was not considered a Christian if they didn't live as He taught; according to Justin Martyr in his at any rate.

On the Control of the World's Resources by a Very Few Elites

     As long as there has been civilization as we understand it, there has been hierarchy, castes, and in general a very few people in control of the majority of resources. Furthermore, it has been the pattern throughout history that the presence of oligarchic human civilization not only ruins the environment within which it dwells, but eventually collapses in on itself due to corruption, mismanagement, and general selfishness. The only societies where this didn't and doesn't happen are egalitarian and especially migratory tribal societies as found in Africa, South America, and at one time in North America (such as the Sioux or the Nez Perce for example if I understand correctly). To assume that it was not going to happen in modern Western society would be to assume that doing the same thing over and over again would result in a different outcome at some point. This is one of the prices paid for what we understand as civilization: its eventual demise and collapse at the hands of those who hold the most power. This was true in ancient Mesopotamia, it was true among the Mayans, it was true among the Romans and Byzantines, and there is no reason to assume it won't be true today with a global civilization and culture.

     Knowing these things from history, what should be the response of a disciple of Jesus Christ to those very few who hold the vast majority of resources and power? According to Paul, we should give respect to whom respect is due, and pray for the emperor (and remember, the emperor in power when he wrote was Nero). In terms of our daily lives, we cooperate with and submit to the Spirit of Christ within us like any other time. Nothing has changed on that front knowing that a very few people in the world control everything, and their motivations and operations are entirely selfish. The same was true in Paul's time.

     The implications of course are disturbing, but not unexpected. If the pattern holds true, a large number of people will die, and many more will lose their personal property and livelihoods, but any effective response against it will also result in the loss of life and property. Consider the French Revolution, for example. So, no matter what, life and property will be lost. So, what do we as Christians do?

     The best response to this, I believe, is nothing. If this pattern holds true today, no matter what counter action is taken, lives and property will be lost. If it is not true and a counter action is taken, lives and property will be lost. But if it is not true and no counter action is taken, then there is no additional loss of life and property. Furthermore, if it is true, and no counter action is taken, than fewer lives will be lost than if a counter action is taken. In this case, wisdom and compassion would suggest the best course of action would be to minimize the damage on our end as much as possible.

     Fear is a very natural, human response to what is perceived to be a threat, whether the threat exists or not. But it is a response which is born of our own biological threat assessment system within our brains which, as I have written about copiously, are malfunctioning. Fear drives us to either flee or fight, both of which can result in harm to ourselves and to others. Fear is not a response of the Spirit of Christ within us. The responses of the Spirit of Christ within us are agape, joy, peace, patience and everything which characterized Jesus Christ Himself in the flesh. As John wrote, "agape brought to completion tosses fear outside," and again, "God is agape." And so agape is the indication that it is God who is responding through you, and not fear and your own devices.

     Finally, if such things are true, it should be no surprise to those who have known and read the Scriptures. These things fit into the larger pattern of events which has been building and gaining steam over the last decade or so, and which really began coming together several decades ago. The solution to that problem for each one of us is the Way, the Path of Jesus Christ, and to follow that Way which He taught and modeled. Were each person on earth to do this, then things would correct themselves. But as this is not realistic, we can only follow Him for ourselves and teach and encourage others to do the same. Regardless, the days of humanity as we know it are numbered, and it will eventually be transformed from our bodies of this earth to the bodies of energy and Spirit as Paul described, both the living and those who sleep. This will happen sooner or later, but it will happen. Until that point, humanity will continue on the trajectory it has set for itself, and it will be God Himself who ultimately intervenes to protect us from ourselves.

On the Word and the Way, the Logos and the Tao

     I've been reading a modern translation of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor in the mid second century, but he was also a thoughtful Stoic philosopher who practiced what he believed, and is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best emperor Rome ever had. There are two things which have stood out to me in my reading. 

     The first is that there is a serious disconnect between what he writes as a philosopher and the persecution of Christians under his rule. Much of what he writes would have been readily agreed with by the authors of the New Testament, and even Justin Martyr wrote nothing short of a huge book directly to him defending the tenets and precepts of Christianity point by point. If the emperor actually knew what Christian practice was, I don't believe he would have maintained the death penalty for them. The only point he would have taken issue with is their refusal to recognize the pantheon of gods, which is why they had the reputation of being "atheists" in the second century. Marcus Aurelius was both spiritual as well as a philosopher in the best sense of the word, but he was also devout where the gods were concerned, being thankful for all the divine had given him in his life, especially where "the God" was concerned (a term which Socrates also uses, presumably to reference Zeus as the supreme god of the pantheon). So, is this reputation of atheism which likely was what offended him the most. Whether or not he ever took the time or had the time to read Justin Martyr's defense, or whether or not it ever made its way into the emperor's hands may be up for debate.

     The second thing which stands out to me, is that if you want to understand what the Greco-Roman understanding of the concept of the "Logos" was in the first and second centuries, read Marcus Aurelius. The "Logos" was a well known and integral facet of Stoic belief, and the use of it to describe Jesus Christ by John was no accident or miscommunication. He knew exactly what language he was using and what his audience would have understood by this term. What's interesting is that the way the emperor describes the Logos is similar, in my opinion, to the way Lao Tzu describes the Tao, and the philosophy, while not exactly the same, shares similar features. 

     It is difficult at best to describe the concept of the Logos in Greco Roman thought, just as it is difficult to describe the concept of the Tao in Lao Tzu’s thought as he describes it in the Tao Te Ching. In fact, the latter describes it as fundamentally indescribable in his work’s first few lines, “The Tao which can be named is not the eternal Tao”. Typically, you’ll find such definitions as “the principle of order which underlies all creation,” but this doesn’t entirely do it justice. The Logos in Stoic thought is both what gives order and the order itself. Furthermore, it is both this order on a cosmic scale, and it is the order which arises within the mind of each human being, distinguishing them from other animals. The Logos in Stoic thought is both the one that plans and the plan itself. It is not a stretch to say that the Logos could be considered both a universal ordered consciousness animating the entire creation as well as the share of that ordered consciousness which resides within every human being. It is immediately identified with the Divine and Fate, and yet is also distinguished from both. A Stoic might have seen no contradiction in John’s opening to his Gospel at all when he said, “The Logos was at the start, and the Logos was with the God, and [the] God was the Logos” (brackets mine for grammatical purposes). Marcus Aurelius certainly wouldn’t have disagreed. The Jewish Philosopher Philo who lived between 20BCE and 50CE (within the lifetime of Jesus Christ) believed that

 “the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated" and that “Plato's Theory of Forms was located within the logos, but the logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world. In particular, the Angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was identified with the logos by Philo, who also said that the logos was God's instrument in the creation of the Universe.” (Logos, Wikipedia.com; further references to sources be found in that article)

     Similarly, the word “Tao” refers to the pattern or flow of creation and the universe and what keeps the universe balanced, but itself resists all words to accurately describe it. The Tao cannot accurately be described by human language because it in and of itself is beyond the capabilities of the human brain to fully comprehend. It can only be understood through insight. It can only be known through intuition and experience, and through the observation of the patterns found in nature. This brings to mind what Paul wrote in Romans 1 where he says, “because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity” (WEB). It also brings to mind God’s own descriptions of Himself in the Scriptures as incomprehensible to human beings, even naming Himself just “I Am” or the divine name which translates to “He Is.”

     What is also interesting is while "Logos" is generally translated "Word" (though the full meaning of the term is untranslatable by any one, or even a dozen English words), Tao is generally translated "Way" (though it is also actually untranslatable in its full meaning). One could justifiably describe Jesus Christ in Scripture, as expressed by the Scripture itself,  as both the Word and the Way, the Logos and the Tao incarnate as a human being. "And the Logos became flesh and went camping among us..." When you give these words “Word” and “Way” the full impact of Logos and Tao, the meaning of these words which John wrote expands to something the human mind simply can't wrap itself around.

     What is most telling as well is that when the Logos/Tao incarnated to display what God is like in a way for human beings to understand, His focus was not on His power, or “what” He is. His focus was on who He is as a Person, and on teaching us to follow His Way, giving Himself as the example. And so just like the Logos and the Tao, Jesus Christ was both the Way and the one practicing the Way and teaching others to practice it.

When Was Jesus Born?

      When was Jesus actually born? This is a question which comes up sooner or later around this time of year for obvious reasons. Traditionally, we celebrate His birth on December 25th, and believe our calendar was set to begin with the year of His birth.

     In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. He was born, and that is what matters. It changes nothing about who He is if His birth date wasn't 12/25/0001 (there is no year 0000). There are no major doctrines of the faith in jeopardy if He wasn't born at midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This being said, I'd like to offer up the fruits of my own study into this question.

      First, the year. Luke's Gospel is actually very specific. He says that it was during the census when Quirinius was Governor, or Legate, of Syria. This census occurred in 6CE. It was taken when Rome assumed direct governance over Judea after deposing Herod Archelaus for his brutality towards his own people. In short, like most of their client states, they had allowed Judea to govern itself with its own monarchy up from the time Pompey imposed order upon it until then. That changed when Herod Archelaus had been so brutal towards his own people that a delegation of Judeans went to Rome to beg Caesar to depose him. This wasn't the only problem Rome had with Judea governing itself, but it was the last straw for Caesar. Rome divided Judea and imposed direct rule through a procurator over the provinces of Iudaea, Samaria, and the Coastline leaving Galilee and Idumea to Herod Antipas and his family. The census was taken as a matter of course for the Roman government. So, the year Jesus was born was 6CE.

     Now, for the month. Luke says that Gabriel told Mary about Jesus' birth in the sixth month. A reasonable assumption can be made that this is referring to the Jewish lunar calendar which is composed of months of 29 and 30 days on average. The sixth month in the Jewish calendar is Elul, which corresponds to roughly August/September. An average human gestation period is forty weeks or 280 days. Doing the math for that year on the Jewish Calendar would put his birth date around the middle of Iyar, possibly the 15th. On the Gregorian calendar, this would be right around the end of April or the beginning of May, roughly May 1st.

     So, a more likely date of birth for Jesus Christ would be May 1st, 0006. The hard date for His crucifixion (for various reasons) is April 3rd, 0033. This would have put him at right around 27 give or take when He died and was resurrected. (Yes, Luke says He was about 30 when He began to preach, but "about" 30 could be anywhere from 25 to 34; and Luke probably didn't know exactly how old He was).

A Ramble About "Home"

 Home and family are where you feel like you belong. They're where you feel safe, and those around you can be trusted to support you just like you support them. They're where no one is left behind or forgotten.

     Over the three years Jesus' apostles, disciples, and their families were together, they became both home and family each one to the other, and Jesus Himself was not only Teacher to them all, but just as much of a brother, older or younger to them all, and even a kind of father figure to those younger than Himself. They cared about Him and He about them. They were there for Him and He was there for them. He was never aloof or distant from them, and while there were times He needed time alone, they respected that and looked out for Him all the same. He was personable, vulnerable, had an easy smile, and always kindness in His eyes. To those who were cruel, those eyes became saddened and unflinching, but no less kind, as though there was a pleading in them to turn around immediately.

     As time went on, and especially after His resurrection, they began not only addressing Him as "didaskalos" or "epistata," that is, "Teacher," but also as "kurios," "owner," or as most know it, "Lord," because of what they saw and heard from Him, and the sheer command He held over everything, though He did not lord it over anyone or anything. There was just no question as to His position in the grand scheme of things, and especially after they saw Him risen from the dead, demonstrating His power and authority over the lord of death himself. There was no better word or title to give Him. But you wouldn't know it just from interacting with Him. He was everyone's best friend, beloved older brother, and the person whom you just naturally trusted the most. When you talked to Him, He made you feel like you were the only person there other than Him, and He listened. For women, He was safe. He felt safe to be around. He never looked at anyone in a way that would make the feel unsafe from Him. He had an easy sense of humor as well, and laughed easily when they were all together.

     Jesus Christ was home for them, and He felt like home for them and for anyone who spoke with Him and got to know Him, even if they couldn't quite put their finger on it. Those who turned away from him or actively worked against Him felt it too, and were terrified by it. It was their fear that made them so antagonistic towards Him. He naturally drew people to Himself with the welcoming light of His "homeness", and this scared those who couldn't comprehend His sheer goodness so much that they saw Him as a threat to be destroyed.

     After His ascension, His disciples and apostles felt like home to each other, and to those around them because He shone through them. It was He who continued to draw people through those whom He inhabited and lived out through. And those who interacted with them noticed, and either were drawn to that home, or again tried to destroy what scared them so much.

     This is the mark of a disciple, Jesus' homeness being seen and felt through them. This is the mark of His genuine grouping of followers, whether or not those who interact with them feel like they've come home.

More Musings on Reincarnation

 "We all change when you think about it. We're all different all through our lives. And that's okay. That's good. You've got to keep moving. As long as you remember all the people that you used to be." - The 11th Doctor, Doctor Who "The Time of the Doctor"

I've been reflecting again on reincarnation. I realize that many folks will take objection to even its mention, but I think there are some important things to take from it even if you don't accept a literal reincarnation of the soul from one body to another.

     One of the big red flags I think most folks get when listening to or watching an interview with someone who claims to be reincarnated is that their whole identity seems to become wrapped up in it. It's as if the past incarnation of their soul suddenly becomes the only personality or person which matters to them, and who they were up until the point they learned of their past life no longer makes a difference to them. This hyperfocus and preoccupation becomes an unhealthy thing psychologically.

     Why is this? Because while this may be who the person "was," it's not who they "are" right now in the present moment. A person may have been a 5th century blacksmith in France in a past life, for example, but in this life, from the time they were born up until they learned of that past life, they accrued other experiences, language, history, relationships, and so on. They may or may not even be the same gender. It may have been the same soul as the French blacksmith, but it is not the same person, nor should it be. That French blacksmith might, in some way, have contributed to who the person is now, but they are still a different person altogether, and they should be. The French blacksmith did not know what the new person knows, did not see what the new person sees, and did not experience what the new person experienced.

     The same is true of a person just within the one life, the one incarnation, they might have. The person I was at 5 years old was very different from who I am at 47 years old. The same is true of the person I was at 20 years old. I may have had the same name, the same parents, and so on, but I can rightfully say that the person I was at 20 and the person I am now at 47 are two completely different men. We think differently, we have different goals, different relationships, and who I am at 47 has had many, many more experiences, learning, and growing which would shock and probably horrify who I was at 20. Given that every cell in the human body is replaced every seven years, I don't even technically have the same body I did at 20 years old, and with time, age, and experiences, even my DNA has probably somewhat changed.

     Doctor Who, as a fictional character, literally changes into a different person each time he regenerates even as he retains the memories of each past regeneration. But the point the 11th Doctor makes is a good one. We all change and become different people than we used to be over time. No one of us is ever the same person twice from moment to moment, even if each change is gradual or miniscule. And as he said, that's good. You have to keep moving forward. It does no good to hold on to who you used to be, and resist changing and growing. It's a fight against both nature and time which you will lose. Where the creation is concerned, that which does not change, dies, or was never alive to begin with. Even the rocks change as they're exposed to the elements over time. Coal changes to diamond given time, heat, and pressure.

     Whether a person has been literally reincarnated or not, it's never a good or healthy thing to try and return to the person you used to be. The 20 year old cannot return to being 5, neither the 40 year old to 20.

     As the Doctor said, "You have to keep moving forward, as long as you remember all the people you used to be." Knowing who we were and where we've been helps us understand those components of ourselves in a richer and more full picture as long as we recognize that we are no longer those people, and cannot hold on to them. The goal of life with respect to this is growth, understanding, maturity, and the wisdom which comes from those experiences the soul has had whether it fully remembers them or not.

     While who we used to be in the past must be remembered and learned from, they must also be let go of to make way for who we are right now in the present, and who we will be in the future.

A Theory of the Relationship of the Soul to the Brain, and Memory

      I had an interesting thought for an alternative theory of memory. What if the brain was more like a Chromebook than a Desktop? That is, what if the soul or "psyche" was stored "in the cloud" as opposed to "on the device"? It's been fairly well known that the storage of memory in the brain is still something of a mystery as, while different parts of the brain are clearly dedicated to motor control, sensory inputs, cognitive processing, threat assessment, and so on; there yet remains to be found a memory center of the brain, that is, a dedicated storage device or "hard disk". In this case, the hardware of the brain would maintain a constant connection (possibly due to quantum entanglement?) to the majority of the storage and software of the soul (except perhaps a kind of "BIOS" which allows the brain to function and connect in a minimal way) which is held "in the cloud," the brain itself writing, rewriting, and adding to that software throughout the person's life.

     The theory of memory comes in because the soul, potentially being eternal and therefore not subject to the motion of time in and of itself, is simultaneously present at all points of that person's existence. The soul itself is still present in what the brain, being subject to the motion of time, considers the past. The further through time the brain moves away from a certain moment, the harder it is to remember because all conditions around it, including the structure and makeup of the brain itself, are dynamic and constantly in flux as they are subject to the motion of time. 

     Those memories which are associated with strong emotion, and in particular survival emotions, are retained the longest and sharpest because those have the biggest imprint on the soul, that is, the soul is still being forced to contend with them by the brain at the moment they are happening. As a person changes over time, some memories are harder to recall because the brain itself has changed so much that it can no longer process that software as cleanly or as accurately as it does in the moment when it happens.

     This might also, hypothetically, allow for the idea of reincarnation as well, and why the brain frequently does not synchronize with the previous brain's events and experiences stored with the soul. As I have written before, the brain needs common symbols and frames of reference in order to process information. The soul is still present in that distant past, but because of the extreme differences physically, culturally, linguistically, and so on, the most which can be processed with any accuracy is emotions and feelings, which then the person in this life has no idea where they come from. It might also explain why there are more accounts of very young children being able to remember details from a past life which are more difficult to recall by adults later in life. And the more recent the past life, the more linguistically and culturally similar the past life, the more clear details which can be remembered. In particular, I remember a recent article (CNN I think), within the last year, about a very young boy in the South (3 or 4 years old) who began talking about the murder of his mother's brother as though it had happened to him, and who pointed out the murderer in question.

     This is just a hypothesis, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But it is an intriguing concept. As to what the "cloud" is that the soul might be stored in, my thought is that the soul would be stored and held within God, connecting with the brain within the body, but never actually changing "location." Again, just a hypothesis.

How do you Forgive the Deepest Hurts?

     How do you forgive the deepest hurt committed against you? By choosing to love the person who committed it. By choosing to see the person as someone with their own hurts, their own history, and saying, "I understand why you are doing what you are doing, and I cannot say that, in your shoes, I wouldn't have chosen the same path." Love, the word actually used in the Greek text, has little to do with romantic attachment or familial affection, and everything to do with choosing to have compassion for the other person.

     How do you forgive a murderer, a rapist, a person who has become a monster? You look deeply into that person and recognize that they were not always so. You look at the experiences of the child they were, the neurological considerations of their biology, the education and what they know or knew at the time; you look at everything and really ask yourself, would I have done any differently were I them?
We always want to say, "Yes, of course I would have done differently." Ah, but you are a different person, with a different past history, a different brain chemistry, a different set of learning experiences from them. Of course you would have done differently, you were never that person.
     The only path through the bitterness, the anger, and the hurt which we feel is by choosing to love the other person. By setting that person as the object of our compassion. Fear is always the root of things like anger, frustration, hurt, and bitterness. But Love tosses fear outside, always, and because it tosses fear outside, things like anger, bitterness, and hatred are tossed with it. These cannot exist where there is no fear, and thus they cannot exist where love and compassion are present.
     Loving the other person isn't always about the other person, but it is always about ourselves. Loving the other person may change the other person, but it will change ourselves. The other person may or may not understand, or even have knowledge of this love. That is not always the point. They may be so twisted within themselves, and thus dangerous to themselves and others, that it may not matter whether they recognize it or not. Again, that is not the point. Loving the other person is about overcoming your own fear, your own anger, and your own hatred. If it overpowers theirs as well, so much the better.
Love always lets go. Fear always clings. Fear always holds on to wrongs, love always releases them into the void. It is because of fear we become either attached or averse; fear of loss of something we perceive as beneficial, or fear of gain of something we perceive as harmful. But attachment, either positive or negative, is always driven by fear.
     God loves and is love, but He holds no attachments. What need is there for Him to be attached to anything? All things depend on Him for their existence. Nothing is ever lost to Him, but is merely transformed.
     How do you overcome the fear, anger, and hatred from the most grievous of offenses? How do you forgive the one who has caused you the greatest suffering? By choosing to love them, and letting the fear go because of that love.

No One Comes to the Father Except Through Me

      There is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. This is one of the most basic, foundational understandings of the Christian faith. Jesus Himself said in John 14 that “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.” We all have a pretty good idea of what traditional Christianity means when it proclaims this. That is, no one goes to heaven unless they, at the very least, profess belief in Jesus Christ.

     But is this what He meant?

     Really, the concept of salvation meaning going to heaven as we now think of it wasn’t within the worldview of the ancient world. The word which we translate as “heaven” actually just means “sky” in nearly every case, and the “sky” is where the divine dwelt in virtually every ancient pantheon (the Greek gods dwelt on Mt. Olympus, but that was still basically in the sky as far as they were concerned). It was where the divine dwelt, but no mortal living or deceased ever set foot there. Mortal souls descended into the underworld to be judged and sent to either paradise, torment, or someplace in between depending on the cultural worldview. The idea that a mortal soul would dwell with the divine after death was foreign to everyone in the first century, either Jew or pagan.

     The concept of a mortal soul going to the realm of the divine after death stems from what Paul says, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” That is, for those who are joined to Christ as part of His body, where He is, they are, and where they are, He is. And so, of course when one of these endures physical death he or she is automatically with Jesus Christ, because they are joined as one thing, one body. It is not a prize to be won, per se, but a fact of their union with Jesus Christ. But the hope of the follower of the Way of Jesus Christ was not even this, but the resurrection and transformation of the physical body as immortal like His body after the resurrection.

     But was this actually the salvation Jesus spoke of? It was certainly the end result, but the salvation He spoke of throughout His life was the rescue from our common malfunction which in Greek is called “hamartia.” Not the consequences of that malfunction, but the malfunction itself. The Way He taught and modeled to His disciples was about letting go of your own will, attachments, and desires, and surrendering all of it to the Father so that He did not say or do anything which the Father did not say or do through Him. It was a voluntary cooperation between Himself and the Father, not forced. And on the night before He was crucified, He explained it in really no uncertain terms that just as He surrendered Himself and remained in the Father, so His disciples were to surrender themselves and remain in Him, so that it would be the Father acting and speaking through the Son, and the Son acting and speaking through the disciple what the Father acted and spoke through Him.

     Paul also elaborates on this heavily in his letters, detailing the internal workings of this salvation from our own malfunction, explaining that the malfuncton itself is both hereditary and biological in nature. And only those who submit themselves, or enslave themselves, to the Spirit of Christ with whom they have been joined will be able to function, to speak or act, apart from that malfunction because it will in fact be the Spirit of Christ, which is without the malfunction, speaking and acting through them.

     So, the salvation which was first proclaimed had very little to do with the afterlife and everything to do with what we do and how we function in this life, in these mortal and physical bodies. It was meant as a final solution to the problem of the human malfunction which, as it was voluntary, would not violate our free will. As long as we voluntarily cooperated with the Spirit of Christ within us, our malfunction would be rendered inert and unmanifested. Once we chose to not cooperate, it would manifest itself again.

     And it is this salvation, this voluntary possession and control by the Spirit of Christ which bypasses our own malfunctioning biology, which is impossible without Jesus Christ. There are things like meditation and philosophy which can mitigate our malfunctioning behavior, rules and laws which can restrain harmful behavior, but it is only this cooperation with the Spirit of Christ which can bypass the malfunctioning source of behavior altogether. It is this salvation which He and His Apostles taught first and foremost, and everything else which happens including the union with Jesus Christ as a part of His body, including being present with Him wherever He is whether in the body or outside of it, and including the final transformative resurrection to be like Him in every way is a byproduct, a consequence of this submission and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ within us.

     And it is this salvation, this rescue from our own malfunctioning selves, which is the most important to understand, to preach, and to practice. If we understanding nothing else about salvation, if we understand nothing else about theology, if we are going to call ourselves true disciples of Jesus Christ then we must, absolutely must, understand this.

A Ramble about Human Language and Theology

The problem with doing theology and then comparing notes with others is that human language is completely inadequate for the task. Any human language. We could literally be describing the exact same thing, but use such wildly differing descriptions that we argue militantly about what we've observed and experienced. Why is this? Because of what language is, and how it works at the most basic level.

     A language, as such, is essentially a group of symbols whose meaning has been mutually agreed upon by two or more parties. This is true whether those symbols are composed of sounds which can be heard, or written, drawn, or engraved pictures or characters which can be seen. Thus in English, we have the written symbol "bird," which we have agreed represents a vocalized labial stop, an unconstrained sound, a liquid sound made with the tongue curled against the hard palate of the mouth, and a vocalized dental stop. Further we have agreed that both written symbol and the sounds it represents themselves represent a warm blooded two legged vertebrae with wings, feathers, and a beak, which may or may not be capable of self-powered flight. But for the Chinese speaker, the audible symbol is something like "niao," and the visual symbol is something else altogether.

     What these symbols which we have agreed upon represent come from the things we experience with our five senses. What we have smelled, what we have touched, what we have tasted, what we have seen, and what we have heard all become symbols stored in our brains. Our brains then use these symbols to process other symbols and information which we encounter.

     The human brain however, can only process and describe something using the symbols it has, and the symbols it has are limited to our three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. A concept like Eternity, even when experienced as Eternity, must still be filtered through those symbols which the brain has at its disposal. As a result, if one's internal set of symbols, or internal language doesn't match someone else's internal language exactly, one person will not fully understand what the other person is trying to describe and may misunderstand it completely.

      One analogy of this deficiency might be the color "blue." Most ancient languages, Greek in particular, have no word for "blue." This was not because "blue" did not exist, but they simply did not experience it as a separate color. In order to describe it, they used terms like "wine dark" or "the color of sapphires" and other similar descriptions. As a result, this could lead to confusion about what color someone might have been trying to describe a thing. And even with English having this symbol "blue" there can still be some confusion as some people see and experience color differently from another, and of course there are different shades, and still, one person might swear something was "green" while another will swear it is in fact "blue."

     Spiritual realities take place in more dimensions than we as human beings can experience, and because we cannot experience them, we have no symbols to accurately describe things within them. With no common frame of reference, no common "lexicon" if you will, there is no way to really describe with any accuracy what one sees and hears when the veil is lifted for that person. We have the English symbol "Eternity," for example, but we have no functional, agreed upon experience to attach to it, and so we resort to different descriptions like "timeless," "the ever present now," "all of time happening at once," "outside of time and space," and so on. And none of these descriptions presents a clear and accurate meaning to our brains because our brains can't experience it through their inputs, the five senses.

     And so, when someone does have an experience with God where the veil is pulled back, they fumble and grasp for ways to describe it. And sometimes, the way they describe things is different from the accepted descriptions we have agreed upon through study, opinion, and mutual discussion whether or not we have had such an experience ourselves.

     Another analogy which comes to mind is the old one about the blind men and the elephant. There are a group of blind men who are trying to describe an elephant, but they of course cannot see the animal. So one describes the elephant like a rope, feeling its tail. One describes it like a wall, feeling its side. Still another describes it like a tree feeling its leg, and still another describes it like a hose feeling its trunk. All are attempting to describe the elephant accurately, but are unable to do so because they can only describe what they've experienced using the symbols of things they have themselves previously experienced.

     This is why attempting to maintain a strict dogmatic theology, a strict description barring all others, simply doesn't work when dealing with the Reality. This is the reason why one's personal theology must always be held as being able to adapt, change, and grow as one experiences God in different ways more and more.

On the Meaning of the Word "Heresy"

 

     The words "heresy" and " heretic" in the New Testament are badly misunderstood by most today. Most believe they have to do with false teaching and false teachers. There's a new thing going around saying they have to do with "choosing" and making a choice. But neither of these things is really correct where the Greek terms used in the NT are concerned.

      The word "hairesis" in Greek literally means "faction." And the word "hairetikos" literally means "factionalist." The words have to do with creating factions within what is supposed to be a unified body. These are the words used, for example, if you wanted to describe a political party and its members, or separate sects or even denominations of a religion. These words have to do with schisms and schismatics among a population.

      So, both Republicans and Democrats are heretics according to the actual meaning of these words. Both Liberals and Conservatives are heretics. Both the hard core Catholic and the die hard Baptist are heretics. Anyone who seeks to cause or maintain divisions are, by definition, heretics. And where Paul was concerned, anyone who sought to cause or maintain divisions within the Body of Christ is a heretic regardless of what theology he or she professes to hold. Anyone who puts their theological opinions above the love which Christ commanded which holds the body together is a heretic, regardless of how correct those opinions are.

      And according to Paul, heresy was a product of the flesh, not the Spirit of Christ. The need to be right is a product of the flesh, whereas the love for one another, putting each other's needs above our own is a product of the Spirit of Christ.

A Ramble about NDEs

      Recently, I've been watching Near Death Experience compilations from a YouTube channel called "Love Covered Life." The gal who runs it tends to be more progressive, if not outright New Age, but I respect her intentions and her Bible knowledge. These compilations are clips from interviews she's done with folks who have had a near death experience and can remember what happened. None of them know or have ever met each other to my knowledge. But the reason why she put together these compilations of clips was to demonstrate the consistency of their experiences, all of which had been tailored to the individual, yet all of which shared remarkably the same features regardless of who was experiencing it, what age they were at the time, or what their background was. All experienced a "life review" through the eyes of the people they interacted with. All experienced God in roughly the same way, as pure and indescribably love and light. Most experienced meeting Jesus and conversing with Him, regardless of their denominational or religious background, and at least one experienced hell before being rescued from it by crying out to Jesus (this last one I have seen his entire interview).
      "In the mouth of two or three witnesses let everything be established" is what the Scriptures say. There were roughly five to ten people represented in these compilations of interviews. And, as I mentioned before, they did not know each other and had never met each other. It is for these two reasons that, I believe, these accounts cannot just be dismissed.
      What strikes me most about these accounts, which I cannot ignore, is how much their descriptions of God and creation's relationship to Him during their experiences coincide with what I have written over the last several years, even though I have only just seen them (I did see Howard Storm's interview before I left California, but that was the only one). What I wrote came from prayer, study, and my own personal experiences with Him. What also strikes me is how much the Spirit within me agrees and refuses to let me argue with them, but rather gets me to see and hear past the surface words to the commonalities of what they're describing.
      These people weren't theologians. The majority of them that I observed had no axe to grind. They were just ordinary, random people observing and trying to describe what they saw and heard according to how they understood and perceived it. But what they saw and heard profoundly changed them and their beliefs from the time they died to the time they woke up again. The aforementioned Howard Storm, who was the one who initially had a hellish experience before being rescued, was an atheist professor visiting Paris at the time. He is now a UCC pastor and has been for the last thirty years.
      One might say, from a conservative Christian perspective, that God will never contradict His word. And yet in His word He very much does contradict what He has previously said when the need has arisen. One glaring example is Peter's vision of the sheet with the unclean animals on it. Peter knew God had commanded in the Torah not to eat them, and yet here he was being commanded by God to kill and eat them as a metaphor for including the Gentiles into the Church. Jesus' contradictions of Sabbath keeping, one of the Ten Commandments itself, were legendary. So, where these accounts might seem to contradict at least traditional theology if not His actual word directly, I think this must be kept in mind as well as taking the accounts themselves with a grain of salt, discerning what is being embellished and what is not. And where the account descriptions become nearly identical is where I sit up and pay attention. Where they start matching the conclusions I've already been led to is where my attention becomes like a hawk's.
      Like it or not, these experiences are data, and potentially valuable data once the personal inconsistencies are sifted out. And for that reason, I don't think they can just be dismissed. Theology as a science, like any science, must continually evolve in its understanding as more data about its subject is acquired. As you get to know a person, either previously held misconceptions about that person are changed or you become disillusioned. Where God is concerned, either you allow Him to change your misconceptions about Him, or, stubbornly holding on to them, you make those misconception an idol, and refuse to know the real Person in favor of a God of your own creation.

On the Practice of Being a Christian

     The whole practice of the Way, of following Jesus Christ, is essentially channeling Him. You can see this in Peter as he stands before Caiaphas and accuses him of Jesus' murder. You can see this in Paul, not only in his writings, but especially in his later years as he interacts with people. And you can see it in the first few weeks and months of the church after pentecost as they were all of a single mind and heart, parts of a body connected to a single head, as it were.

       Our practice is to not say or do anything except what He says or does through us, just as He didn't say or do anything except what the Father said and did through Him. Just as He said, "I can't do anything at all from Myself," so also He said, "without Me you can't do anything at all." And in the ancient church of the first and second centuries it was understood that a person who wasn't living as He taught wasn't to be considered a Christian regardless of what came out of his mouth. That is, if you couldn't see and hear Jesus from this person, then he wasn't a disciple. 

     The power of the Gospel is more than just words, it is literally the Spirit of Christ taking over and living and expressing Jesus Christ out through us so that all around us can see and hear Him even though He wears our faces. Without this, without being able to see and hear Him through us, why should anyone follow or believe what we say? How is it different from any other religious belief without the Spirit of Christ making His presence known? As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, they would know the power behind his words when he came to them, and that he didn't initially come just speaking words of human wisdom.

      This is the greatest problem and challenge in the churches today. People just aren't experiencing Him, seeing Him, or hearing Him from those who claim to belong to Him, and they're calling BS on it. There are too many today who "preach the Gospel," and simply don't see the need to actually follow Him or do anything He said. Thus we have situations like the many pastor scandals, the entertainment churches which, when viewed behind the curtain are full of very material and fleshly concerns, and those who "preach the Gospel" by arguing their own theology viciously and hatefully against others. They "preach the Gospel," but do not love, do not forgive, judge and condemn, and teach others to do the same through their actions if not their words. They "preach the Gospel," and prey on young women and even boys. They "preach the Gospel," while making themselves wealthy from their congregants. They "preach the Gospel" while enslaving their listeners under rules and moral codes which amount to another Law which Paul wrote those who are in the Spirit are not under. They "preach the Gospel," but have no idea what it means, or if they do, do not care.

      You know when you've encountered Jesus Christ through someone, even if you don't make the connection at first. You never forget Him. So also should be all those through whom He lives His life. "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives within me..." This isn't a metaphor, but the summing up of what it means to be a Christian, not following rules and moral codes, but fully surrendering your words, actions, and thoughts to the Spirit of Jesus Christ with whom you have been made one thing rather than to your own neurological and psychological responses.
     So, yes, absolutely preach the Gospel, but more importantly, be the Gospel.

The Goal of Salvation

 

     One of the things which keeps coming up in conversations about salvation is heaven. In these discussions, heaven is imagined as another realm where God and His angels dwell as either a paradise, or some parody of an angel standing at pearly gates checking IDs like a bouncer. Most folks think that entry into heaven is the goal and purpose of salvation through Christ, and this is what we're taught by nearly every church and denomination.

      Except it isn't. Entry into heaven is not the goal of the salvation found in Jesus Christ.

      As I have written before, if heaven is where God dwells, then heaven is all around us infinitely in every direction, because God is omnipresent and there is no time or place in which He does not dwell. We simply don't experience it because of the distractions of this life and our physical senses, and because of our own peculiar human malfunction. In other words, we are all already there, we just can't see the forest for the trees, and are so wrapped up in our own stuff that experiencing the eternal and ever present presence of God at all is considered unusual and beyond extraordinary (and, if I were to be honest, would be overwhelming if it took place all the time in this physical world). Far from a realm of the blessed dead, the dwelling place of God is here and now, and the traditional images and parodies of heaven stem from medieval artwork and theologies, themselves influenced by previous pagan worldviews about the afterlife.

      The primary goal of the salvation found in Jesus Christ is to provide a solution for our common malfunction, that is, to make it so that we don't have to be enslaved to that malfunction in everything we say, do, or think so that we can act and speak free from it. Our salvation is first and foremost deliverance from this primary problem. This is accomplished through union with Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, intertwining each one of us with His Spirit so that we are parts of Him and He of each one of us as the parts of a body with Himself as the head which controls and guides the rest of it. But as we are united with Jesus Christ so that He may guide and take control of our words and actions, we are also united with the Father through Him. We become one thing with God Himself through Jesus Christ, so that wherever He is, we are, and wherever each one of us is, He is present.

      And so of course to be absent from the body is to be present with Jesus Christ, because we are one thing with Him. Of course when the physical body is stripped away we are exposed to the unfiltered presence of the Eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient Being who is love because we are already one with Him. God's solution to our malfunctioning neurology as human beings is to graft us to Himself, with our cooperation and permission, so that His Spirit and His Eternal life can be the new source of our behaviors and words. And the consequence of this grafting is that we are always wherever He is, and He with us, regardless of whether we are in the body or out of it.

      This is why the common misconception that salvation is all about who goes to some imagined celestial paradise, gets a big mansion in the sky, and lives out eternity in a kind of paradaisical retirement plan really, really bugs me. It's a distortion of the worst kind, and leads to all kinds of misunderstandings, spiritual abuse, and some pretty harmful theology. Everyone is just concerned about who gets through the gates and who doesn't, when that whole scenario is as much a product of medieval mythology as the Elysian Fields are a product of Greek mythology.

      God isn't going to ask anyone, "Why should I let you into My heaven?" like some Zeus like figure deciding who's been good and who's been bad, or deciding whose theology is correct enough. This is a popular image and the one most people think of when they think of it. But this isn't the reality of what our salvation found through Jesus Christ entails.

"How can God forgive that?"

      Tonight, I heard an interesting thing. Max Lucado, the well known devotional author and pastor, upon hearing of the prison conversion to Christ of Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer and cannibal, described it as one of the most difficult things he has wrestled with, and asked, "How can God forgive someone like him?" This is a question which often comes up, either as a hypothetical or as a real world difficulty of faith in the case of Dahmer. The actions of some are so heinous, so harmful, so vile, so evil that the question is raised about the reasonable limits of God's forgiveness. "God couldn't forgive that, could He?" or also as Max Lucado asked, "How could God possibly forgive that?"
      Imagine for a moment that you have a child who has a psychiatric disorder which makes them hurt themselves and others, sometimes badly. R.A.D. can be one such disorder. There have been documented severe cases where small children have not only attacked their parents and caregivers, but also seriously injured or killed themselves. Psychological disturbance can take many forms, and there are many disorders which can influence a child to have extremely harmful behaviors. That child spends the next twenty or more years so messed up that he or she leaves a trail of injured, hurt, and scared people behind them. And all you want is for that child to come to their senses and be rid of that disorder. All you want is to be able to love them and have that love returned. All you want is for them to be happy, successful, and at peace with themselves and everyone else.
      And then, one day, they change completely. They are no longer the same person at all, but are loving, affectionate, at peace and are able to participate in life like a normal person.
      How would you respond? Would you hold every evil thing they did against them? Or would you rejoice that this miracle had occurred and let go of who they had been and what they had done before?
This is God when someone comes to their senses and turns around from what they were doing, no matter what came before. His focus is entirely on recovering those lost to our common human malfunction, regardless of how that malfunction presents in any one human being. No one presentation of that malfunction, whether it be greed, murder, theft, lying, or just wanting what someone else has is worse than another because they all stem from the same disorder. When your kid starts acting like a normal kid instead of the devil incarnate, you start jumping for joy and hugging them relentlessly. The point isn't how bad the psychiatric illness got, or what kind of damage was done. The point is that it's no longer in control of your kid.
      We project our desire for retribution onto God, and because we want the person who hurt us or others to themselves be hurt at least as bad as the person whom they hurt, we assume God must want that too. But God's justice is about restoration and healing, not punishment and destruction. When an "evil" man turns away from his evil and does what is right, God says flat out in Scripture that the former evil will no longer be remembered. And the same is true of a "good" man who turns away from his good and does what is harmful or wrong. The good will no longer be remembered. Why? Because either one has become a different person altogether, and you don't punish or reward someone for something a different person has done, and we are each one of us different persons from one decision to the next.
      I don't know if Dahmer's conversion was sincere. I really don't. I do know that if he really had turned around and come to his senses, then God would have been rejoicing with tears, not debating about what to do with him.

More Thoughts on Repentance and Forgiveness

     The worst injustice we as human beings do to God is to project our own ways of thinking onto Him, and assume that He thinks the same way we do. We assume that He holds grudges because we do. We assume that He demands retribution because we do. This was true as soon as Adam and Eve ate the fruit they weren't supposed to. Why in the world would they have hid from God because they were naked? Every animal on the planet was naked. The answer is that their minds had become so warped that they believed being naked was shameful, and so of course they believed God would see it as shameful because they did. We project a darkened, deranged, malfunctioning mind onto the One who is without error or darkness because the malfunctioning human brain cannot imagine that someone else might think differently from itself.
      This is the reason why we do not trust God to forgive just because He says it. This is the reason why we want guarantees. We instinctively do not trust because of our inherent derangement, and because we know that, deep down, we want retribution for when we ourselves are injured or offended and letting go of that is incredibly difficult.
      And there is of course the temptation, the darker desire to be able to get or do what we want without consequence to ourselves, to be able to "work the system" to our advantage. Thus in ancient times you have wealthy "religious" people breaking commandments with what they believe is impunity as long as they keep the sacrifices flowing. Thus you have men of power and influence doing what they want as long as they make regular confession and donate the right amount of money to the churches. They believe they have "guarantees" of a "do what I want and get away with it" card, not understanding that God sees it, and that's not how this works.
      When God says something, He doesn't have to back it up with a guarantee. He's going to do it. He doesn't have to take an oath. His "yes" is as good as a promise engraved in diamond. And His "no" is as immovable for a human being as a mountain of the heaviest metal. When He says He will forgive the wrongdoing of a person if that person turns away from that wrongdoing and does what is right, He will do it. Period. When He says He will choose not to remember the wrongdoing, He will do it. Period. He doesn't need a sacrifice to bind Himself to that word. He isn't the same as we are. He isn't deranged or erroneous. He doesn't harbor secret, dark things within Himself. He doesn't talk out of both sides of His mouth. What He says is what He will do. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
      The sacrifices were written into the Torah as a concession to our own fallen psyches. They were written in as a concession to our own malfunctioning consciences. He does not need them in any capacity, and would be just as good without them. They were written in as a mercy to our own inability to forgive ourselves or others, and as a counterpoint to projecting that inability onto Him.
      Jesus Christ died for us, but not because God needed blood to forgive us; rather, He died for us so that we wouldn't have to continue in that malfunction and inherited derangement. He died and resurrected so that we could operate from a different source of behaviors than our own malfunctioning neurology, our own erroneous flesh. All that it requires is that we shelter in place within Him, admitting and recognizing our own internal derangement, and handing ourselves over to the control of His Spirit so that He, free from that derangement and malfunction, would be the source of our actions, words, and thoughts. And the very act of turning to Jesus Christ, trusting Him and following Him, is itself turning away from the previous errors and wrongdoing. Of course God would forgive in so doing, because He said He would. Of course there is forgiveness found in Jesus Christ, because the person truly seeking to remain in Him and follow Him is a person who is repentant and has confessed and continues to confess his own errors, and so of course God is faithful and just to forgive that person's errors and wrongdoings, because He said He would forgive the repentant person to begin with, just as He justified the repentant tax collector but not the Pharisee.

Regarding Forgiveness and Taking Refuge

     I was going through the Scripture readings for today this morning in the "Daily Roman Missel" I still have. It's a thick black book of liturgy, prayers, and readings for every day of the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. I bought it in preparation for the priesthood oh, about eighteen years ago now, used it for Sunday Mass for several years, and still keep it for sentimental reasons, not least of which because it contains a record of those people whom I baptized. Now, it's held together with duct tape, and the pages are bulging from use and water damage which happened years ago. It's one of those books that's just been a companion through everything since that time.
     This morning, the last verse in the Psalms (34:23) reading caught my attention. In the Missel it reads, "The LORD redeems the lives of his servants; no one incurs guilt who takes refuge in him." (NAB) Either on a hunch or prompted by the Spirit, I'm not sure which, I looked up the same verse in the King James Version (34:22, the KJV doesn't include the title as the first verse), and curiously it read, "The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." After reading the extreme difference in translation, I then did what I normally do and went to the Hebrew text followed by the Greek LXX and then the Latin.
     The Hebrew text reads, literally, "YHWH redeems [the] soul of His slaves and all the ones taking refuge in Him do not suffer for their guilt." The Latin and Greek were something along the lines of "...and all those hoping in Him are not guilty" (Vulgate) and "...and all who hope in Him will absolutely not trespass." (LXX)
     I checked a couple of other translations, and they were all some combination of either the Latin reading or the Hebrew depending on who was doing the translating.
My question then becomes, why did the KJV editors and translators so badly deviate from the original texts? According to what I've been able to research, they didn't copy it from Tyndale as Tyndale didn't translate this Psalm.
     I have to wonder if the reason for the deviation has to do with theology. At least, this question has crossed my mind. In my experience, the theology of a translator tends to color the way he or she views the original text, and they render it in a way which aligns with that theology whether or not the text actually does. Frequently as well, translators simply don't understand what the text is talking about, even if they understand the use of language, because they're not at the same point of spiritual development as the prophets and Apostles who wrote it.
     The Hebrew text says that Yahweh redeems or ransoms the soul of His slaves, and all those who take refuge in Him will not be held guilty. I'm not sure how much more clear a message of forgiveness and mercy for those who turn away from their wrongdoing and "take refuge" in Him there can be. Notice too that there is no mention of sacrifice here as being necessary for that being held guiltless, only taking refuge in Him.
Jesus said, "Remain in me and I in you." The word used in the Greek literally means to "stay put," or more to the point, "make your home." If that's not a similar concept to taking refuge, then I don't know what is. "Shelter in place" in Him might be another way of saying it.
     Another part of the readings today was from Luke 18 and concerned the pharisee and the tax collector. In Luke 18:14 there's an interesting use of words here. It reads, "I say to you, this one [referring to the tax collector] went down having been justified [made right] into his house as opposed to that one [referring to the pharisee]..." All the tax collector did was sincerely repent and acknowledge that he had screwed up. He said, literally, "God, be conciliated [or appeased] with me, the screw-up." Again, no mention of sacrifices being made.
     The only thing God has ever truly required for forgiveness and mercy is that we recognize the wrong we are doing, and turn away from it. Even Abraham was made right in God's sight, not from sacrifices for sin, but just because he believed Him. The sacrifices which were prescribed in the Torah were already a cultural thing, and were meant to help deal with the guilty conscience, but they were for human psychological benefit, not because God wanted animals slaughtered. We wanted a physical guarantee of forgiveness, a contract which said we would be forgiven, rather than trusting His word that we would be. And in the ancient world, the blood of animals was used to sign contracts.
     Those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ are forgiven because that belief and following presume a recognition and confession of one's screwing up. One agrees with God about his error, and God is faithful and right to forgive and to cleanse them of all wrongdoing. One takes refuge in Jesus Christ, and then His Spirit works within that person for him to be able to not screw up, and not cause harm, just as He was without error.
      It was never about the requirement of blood, but about the turning to God and sheltering in place in Jesus Christ.

*  *  *

Regarding the verse, "For without the shedding of blood, there is no remission":

    It's Hebrews 9:22, and in context, the author is describing what had to happen according to the Torah, not necessarily the laws of spiritual physics. The phrase itself doesn't occur in the Torah, or in the rest of the Old Testament as a requirement for forgiveness whereas turning away from one's wrongdoing and turning to God as a requirement for forgiveness is all over the Old Testament, and both Jesus and John the Baptist preached for people to repent and turn around rather than go and make sacrifices. It's clear in many places in the Old Testament, that God gets fed up with people making sacrifices instead of turning away from their wrongdoing; that is, sinning and then expecting Him to forgive because they spilled the blood of an animal. He says very clearly that such things abhor Him. 

     Also, as Paul wrote, Abraham lived long before the Torah was ever written. He had no Ark of the Covenant, no Holy of Holies, no prescribed altar of sacrifices, Day of Atonement, or any of it. There is no mention of him ever sacrificing an animal for the forgiveness of sins. Instead, we read about him slaughtering animals to sign a contract with God. We read about him nearly offering Isaac in sacrifice to God, but there is no mention of what the sacrifice was for except as an offering which was requested. Abraham simply trusted what God had said, and God counted it as good enough for Him. This is also true of Isaac and Jacob as well, who themselves also did not have the Torah. They only trusted God with what He said. 

     Going back to Hebrews, the thrust of the author's argument is that blood sacrifice could never "take away" sin. Notice, he doesn't say "forgive," he says "take away" which is a different matter. Only the death of Jesus Christ could take away sin, and this is accomplished through union with Him in His death, and submission to His Spirit whereby He who is without sin acts and speaks through us, and there is no sin found in our actions and words. Thus, sin has been taken away through Jesus Christ.