A Poverty Mindset

     The one who owns everything has no need to be attached to anything. He has no need to hoard, because everything belongs to him. 

     I've been meditating on the end of 1 Corinthians 3 this morning, as well as the need for Jesus' disciples to let go of all of their attachments, including the property they own.  Those who belong to Christ, also belong to God. They are one thing with Him. Everything belongs to God from one end of creation to the other. Therefore, everything also belongs to Christ, and everything also belongs to those who are one with Him. 

     For this reason, clinging to anything, any property as uniquely one's own and to be protected, is absurd. It's to adopt what has been called a "poverty mindset." It's the same as the son of a very wealthy man choosing not to make use of his family's wealth, even though his father would freely share it on a "what's mine is yours" basis, but to try and gain his own through his own efforts. While working for your own wealth may be ethically admirable, it is absurd when you already have access to everything you could ever need. It's digging through the garbage for your provision when you need only go to the family storehouse.

      This, more than anything, drives the conditions of discipleship to let go of anything and everything which becomes an obstacle to Jesus Christ, whether it's personal relationships, personal wealth or property, personal self-identity, or anything else. It is all to be let go as so much crap ("skubala" according to Paul in Philippians) as we learn to make use of the shared wealth of literally the entire creation, the shared inheritance which we have through our union with Jesus Christ which He receives from the Father.

Thoughts on the Rich Young Man Who Asked About Eternal Life

 And with His going out into the road one having run towards Him and having falling on his knees in front of Him questioned Him, “Good teacher, what should I do so that I should inherit eternal life?” Yet Yeshua said to him, “What are you saying I am good for? No one is good if not one, the God. You know the commands; ‘don’t murder, don’t break your marriage vows, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony,’ don’t commit fraud, ‘value your father and mother.’” Yet he said to Him, “Teacher, these things all I guarded from my youth.” Yet Yeshua having looked at him loved him and said to him, “One thing lags behind you; go, sell what you possess and give it to those destitute, and you will have a treasure in the sky, and come here, follow Me.” Yet the one having had a gloomy look upon the message left grieving; because he was in possession of much property.

      And having looked around Yeshua says to His disciples, “How difficultly those possessing money will enter into the kingdom of God.” Yet the disciples were shocked upon His words. Yet Yeshua again having responded says to them, “Children, how difficult it is to enter into the kingdom of God; it is easier for a camel to come through the eye of a sewing needle than for a wealthy person to enter into the kingdom of God.” Yet these all the more were stricken from their senses saying to one another, “Who also is capable of being delivered?” Yeshua having looked at them says, “Alongside human beings it is impossible, bot not alongside the God; because everything is possible alongside the God.”

Mark 10:17-27

Thoughts. First, it’s clear that “being delivered (or “saved”)” and “inheriting eternal life” are equated as the same thing by Jesus Himself. This is a fascinating thing from a modern theological point of view. The man asked, in modern parlance, “What do I need to do to be saved?” And Jesus did not answer, “Just believe in Me.” Notice too that the man did not ask, “what do I need to do to be forgiven?” even though modern theology would equate forgiveness with inheriting eternal life or “being saved.” In fact, Jesus stressed the impossibility of any human being entering the kingdom of God, and that it was only possible for God Himself.

     In point of fact, when asked about how he might inherit eternal life, Jesus pointed him back to the Mosaic commandments, and ultimately to letting go of everything he owned in order to follow Him. That letting go of everything was a requirement of being a disciple is stated by Jesus Himself elsewhere in the Gospels, and is implied by Peter’s question to Jesus which follows these verses. If inheriting eternal life, if being saved was about having your sins forgiven, then Jesus contradicts nearly everything else in the New Testament right here in this passage and sets people up for trying to earn their forgiveness from God.

     Clearly, forgiveness and inheriting eternal life or “being saved” are not the same thing, and Jesus never says they are. Forgiveness is always found in turning away from selfish and harmful behavior, and if one is practicing Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself, then all the commands are kept whether you intend to or not.

     Also, clearly, the man was telling the truth. He really had kept the commandments and was sincerely wanting to know. But as Paul pointed out in his writings, the Mosaic Law, the Torah, had no ability to actually fix the problem. It could only restrain behavior, it could not deal with the malfunction itself. The man sincerely wanted a solution to the problem, and Jesus loved him for it. The next logical step for him was to become one of His disciples, and learn to follow and imitate Him so that, like Jesus, he could learn to inherit the life of the Father.

     And fear stood in his way. Fear of losing those things he was attached to. Fear of letting go of the life he was grounded in. Maybe fear of losing his position, his social status, and so on as well. All of those things which he depended on for his self-identity and security he would have to let go of and jump off into the unknown with the Teacher.

     And it was impossible for him, because he believed it was impossible for him. It was impossible to just let go of everything in his mind and devote himself to Jesus’ teachings and practice. Notice Jesus did not say it was impossible for the wealthy man to enter into the kingdom of God, just insanely difficult. What happens when you try to fit a large thread through a small hole? Only a little bit might get through, but the rest of it will be stopped and prevent even that small bit of thread from getting through. In order to fit something through a hole that small, it has to be shaved down to a size which will fit if the hole itself doesn’t shave it in the process. Those who have a lot of property had to be shaved down in order to actually be a disciple, and the process was incredibly painful.

     Jesus did say that deliverance, inheriting eternal life was impossible for human beings on their own, but not for God. Human beings, because of their malfunction, don’t believe letting go of the things they cling to, either positively or negatively, will be beneficial for them. It is impossible to let go because they believe it to be impossible, because they are hardwired by the malfunction to not let go, and they literally require God’s intervention, one way or the other, before that barrier can be crossed. God does understand it. He does not judge it. It is just a fact of our existence which must be overcome while still respecting our free will and freedom to choose with all of the positive and negative consequences which follow our choices.

     The wealthy man did have a choice. That choice was made insanely difficult by his wealth, but it was still there. Jesus neither insulted him nor judged him for the choice he made. He just used it as a teachable moment when he left. Jesus never said the door was closed to him once he left either.

More Thoughts on Fear and Anger

 Basing a decision on fear is always the wrong response. The same is true of anger. From what I have been able to observe, there is no master martial artist who will say being angry with your opponent gives any kind of an advantage. If anything, it will weaken you and put you at a disadvantage, whereas a calm, compassionate mind will also be a clear mind and aid in focusing on your objective. Fear and anger blind and twist a person's decisions into making all kinds of mistakes which result in the opposite of the intended goal. Greek tragedy is full of examples and warning about this, the most prominent one being the story of the father of "Oedipus Rex." Interestingly enough, fear and anger are also the two primary survival threat responses.

     One cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ and base his or her decisions or behaviors on fear or anger. It is an issue of mechanics. The practice of the disciple of Jesus Christ centers around agape, that is, loving kindness and compassion for every single being with whom one might encounter.  Agape is the measure by which decisions and behavior are based. Agape and fear cannot co-exist in the same space, because agape will always toss fear out. Agape submitted to will always bypass that survival response. A person not practicing agape or presenting with its behaviors is not a person following or imitating what Jesus Himself taught or modeled.

     This is why the dividing lines are so clear between the person being a disciple and the person "fulfilling the desires of the flesh." This is also why it was understood that those who claimed to be a disciple were obligated to live the same way He did, and those who did not live as He taught were not considered Christians. Mistakes and regressions are one thing as long as they are recognized and turned away from when recognized. But continuing to live basing your behaviors and decisions on fear, anger, or the cravings of the body even when these things are pointed out or revealed to you are quite another. Turning back and continuing on the Path is always an option, but it is a choice which the person must make for themselves.

     God only holds us responsible for the things we're aware of, and doesn't always reveal everything all at once because that would drive us insane and to despair. I am becoming more aware of how many of my decisions have been based on fear and not agape, and I confess, it is probably most of them. The same is true of the decisions I make based on my own bodily cravings, or anger. It does no good to dwell on them or to "whip myself" for them. All God asks is that I acknowledge them and turn away from them, disengaging from that survival threat response and engaging with the Spirit of Christ, and His agape. He asks that I let them go and move on just as He is perfectly willing to let them go and move on, and indeed already has.

     Every "work of the flesh" which Paul ever writes about can be sourced back to these survival threat responses, especially fear and anger. If the source of our responses and behaviors is the Spirit of Christ, then agape itself will be the foundation of our decisions and behaviors, and what will be seen in them will be, as He wrote, Agape, joy, peace, endurance, kindness, courtesy, self-control and so forth. There is no need for rules to restrain these behaviors like there is to restrain the behaviors which are sourced in fear and anger.

     Finally, and fundamentally, agape is more powerful than either fear or anger. This runs counter-intuitive to the way our brains operate, but it is true. It is the man who practices loving kindness and compassion who is always the most powerful in the room, even when in a crowd. It is the man whose behaviors and decisions are sourced in agape who is always completely in control, even when angry and fearful men are shouting around him. It is the man who does not trust in force but in agape who cannot be forced, no matter what fearful, angry force is applied to him. This has been proven historically again, and again, and again, and such great men fall only and if they themselves succumb to fear and anger. Then they are weakened enough for others to destroy. The man who is sourced in agape remains present and in control even long after those opposed to him might murder him. We still today feel the effects of many such people, and their memories and words are carried forward while those who shouted against them or murdered them are forgotten and swept away.

     Fear and anger are easy. They are also the most self-destructive, and result in nothing the person might set out to do.

Thoughts on Fear and Agape

 The thing which keeps us from actually following and imitating Christ is fear more than it is disbelief. It is a threatening thing to let go of everything so deeply that your own words and behaviors don't originate with you, even if you are in full cooperation with them. It is a threatening thing to remove yourself from the way everyone else operates, and to not know for certain how you are going to respond to anything which comes at you. It is a threatening thing to surrender control to the Spirit of Christ, no matter how benevolent we know it to be. No matter how much we know it to be good, loving, and have our best interests at heart. It is uncomfortable, and the brain will fight against it. 

     Every potential threat which comes up will call it into question again, and again, and again. It will create scenarios in the mind to dislodge and disengage the Spirit of Christ so that it can resume control. "But what about this? But what about that?" The brain insists that it must be in control in order to deal with each new thing "decisively" and "effectively." 

     "Love is fine," it will say, "but it is not practical in every situation." "You have to meet force with force." "This thing is beyond you, you have to flee!" And many more things like this the malfunctioning brain will hammer you with until you turn back to it and let it run rampant, causing as much harm or more in the name of survival, good intentions, or some other well sounding thing.

     This is why, frequently, it requires a massive "moral" shock in order to cripple the brain's malfunctioning threat response system into submission. It requires the brain to be the cause of something horrendous, something the brain itself considers to be a moral atrocity, before it will permanently turn over control long term. It has to be shown, repeatedly, the outcomes of the behaviors and responses which originate with it. It has to calculate itself as "bad," causing a contradiction with the malfunction which will drive it to push away the "bad," in this case, itself. Because it will adapt "morally" to what it considers "justifiable transgressions," it needs to be something the brain itself considers unjustifiable.

     For Paul, it was the revelation that the harm he was causing to Christians was actually directed against God Himself through the direct revelation that Jesus was actually the Christ from Jesus Himself. A second shock of a kind was his separation from Barnabas over the severe argument about Mark. It was only after this that he was able to fully submit long term. For Peter, it was likely the denial of Him three times when he had sworn he would die with Him. Was their submission to His Spirit perfect after that? No, but it was consistent, and when their own deviations were pointed out, they immediately course corrected.

     I think I know the kind of harm I am capable of. In truth, I do not want to know the reality of it. I do not want to come near it, or have anyone else suffer because I need my own brain to be shocked back into submission. It's not a matter of being forgiven for it, but it is a matter of it happening in the first place. Even the most well intentioned words and actions can cause harm to those around me if they originate with my own malfunctioning mind. They can miss the target completely, even if aimed in the right direction. And yet there are still times I allow my fears to take back control from the Spirit of Christ.

     "Love brought to completion tosses fear outside." Agape and fear cannot coexist. "There is self, and there is truth. Where self is, truth is not. Where truth is, self is not." Self is built on fear, whereas truth is built on agape. Self is a construct of all of our experiences and biology, everything we're either afraid to lose or afraid to acquire. Agape is not. Agape clings to nothing, and because it clings to nothing it is able to seek the best interests of everyone. Because it clings to nothing, it is able to let go and forgive everything. Because it clings to nothing, it sacrifices itself for the other without thought for itself. As Paul also wrote, "the flesh desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these things lie against one another..." The brain is flesh, and its principle operator is fear of loss or fear of acquiring something it doesn't want. The Spirit clings neither way. And so these two things are in constant conflict with each other.

     There is a scene in Free Guy where Guy the NPC, who has found freedom and growth through acquiring the sunglasses off of a player, attempts to do the same for his best friend the bank security guard. He takes the glasses from another player and tries to hand them to his friend, knowing what it will do for him. But his friend looks at him, and the fear, the sheer terror at what it will mean and how it will change everything is written all over his face and he refuses them. "I can't, okay! I just can't." This doesn't make buddy a bad guy, or even useless. But his fear cripples him in ways he doesn't even understand because he can't see past it. He knows the changes he's seen in Guy, the kind of person he's become, and they scare him.

     Our malfunctioning brains are used to fear and clinging. They don't understand agape and can't really process it until they experience it, and even then need help to do that, just like Guy and his friend needed the glasses. Agape, as wonderful as it sounds, terrifies our malfunctioning brains.

Thoughts on Proving God's Existence

 God's existence doesn't need to be proven. Even if you could provide absolute ironclad evidence for His existence, those who refuse to accept it will continue to refuse to accept it and come up with their own reasons and evidence as to why. His existence isn't contingent on whether or not a human being believes He exists. It is only human vanity which demands God prove He exists to them and then shuts its eyes and ears to anything which might suggest it. God is not answerable to human beings.

     When someone chooses not to accept something as true, then there is no possible way to reason with them about it, and it is pointless to try. For that person, it is a conscious choice to close their eyes and shut their ears and they will open neither until they make the conscious choice to do so.

     It is only human delusion that suggests that God needs us to believe in Him. He doesn't need us to exist. We need Him to exist. In a very real way, it is only His belief in us which keeps our existence intact and not scattered into the cosmic winds. He reaches out to us because we need Him, not because He needs us.

     But for those who choose to keep their eyes and ears open, God does respond. He can respond a lot, actually, especially if we shut up enough to listen and observe. God knows if you'll pay attention, and what you'll pay attention to when He lets you know He's there. As I've said before, God speaks your language. Not just the language you speak like English, Spanish, or Japanese, but your personal language of the way you understand and comprehend things unique to you and you alone. It is in this language which He will get your attention and communicate with you. It is also over time. He rarely if ever reveals anything to you which He knows you're not ready to handle yet, and it is an ongoing conversation through signs and symbols which He knows you'll comprehend the meaning of, whether it's spoken language, visual cues, smells, tastes, music, writing, coincidence, or anything else which will mean something to you. How He communicates with another person will be unique to them as well, and not meant for you. How He communicates with you will not be meant for them.

     But first and foremost, He doesn't have any pressing need to be proven. His is the first, last, and only independent existence which could be considered "real." Everything else, really, is just a product of His imagination, sentience and self-awareness notwithstanding. Just code programmed into His own infinite and eternal energy to produce forms, dimensions, independent consciousnesses, particles, planets, galaxies, and more. Just intelligent, self-aware NPCs with their own wills, emotions, and choices to make in a one Player cosmic RPG.

     And the kick of it is, He cares so much for each and every one of those NPCs that they are His whole focus. He is absolutely consumed with their holistic well being, even when they're deranged and malfunctioning. They are His friends and family, without whom He will not do.

      And if one of them insanely refuses to acknowledge His existence? He's more concerned for that NPC's psychological health and well being than He is for the delusional slight.

     He is. He was before any of us even registered a blip. He will be long after we fail to register at all. He doesn't need anyone to prove Him at all.

Thoughts on the "Great Commission"

“Going into all the world, disciple the ethnic groups…” “Going into all the world, preach the Gospel to every created thing…”
     These were some of the last commands Jesus gave before ascending into the sky that day. He doesn’t say, “get people to believe in Me.” He doesn’t say, “preach the Gospel to every human being.” What He says explicitly is to instruct and make students of the various people groups in the world, and to preach the Gospel which He taught to everything that isn’t God Himself, that is, everything which is created, regardless of what it is.
     It stands to reason that if someone is a student, a disciple of Jesus Christ, then they will believe in Him. Belief in the one to whom you are discipled is implicit in discipleship. Belief in Him wasn’t His concern, but teaching people from every people group how to follow what He taught, how to practice and imitate His example, the pattern He laid down and lived His own life by; this is what was of utmost concern before He physically left in mid-May of 33CE almost two thousand years ago.
     I write what I write on these subjects for this reason. My objective isn’t to make believers in Jesus Christ. Nearly every person who has heard of Him believes in His existence and teachings, either literally or as a metaphor, and almost everyone, even the church’s detractors, has little bad to say about Jesus Himself. Even if they only accept Him as a good moral teacher, they still believe in His existence in some way. Not everyone, that’s true, but for most who reject the existence of Jesus, it’s not because of Jesus Himself, but because of those who profess to follow Him yet do anything but.
     No, my objective is to teach people how to follow Him, how to follow what He taught, and to give them the foundations of understanding to do so. I use the arguments I do, and the unconventional resources I do, to achieve this by any means necessary. If traditional resources and theologies don’t work, then let’s try non-traditional resources and theological frameworks. If someone doesn’t get it one way, let’s flip it on its head and try to explain it that way. If that doesn’t work, let’s turn it inside out and look at the inner workings in detail as much as possible. And if we don’t know what the inner workings look like, let’s explore it and figure out what explanation fits the data we’ve got. And if we acquire more data, let’s plug it in and see how it holds up and fits in. But the goal, the overarching, all consuming goal is to give people the tools to practice and imitate, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
     It is explicitly not my objective to make disciples of Martin Luther, John Calvin (God Forbid), any of the Protestant Reformers, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, or any other denomination, church, pastor, theologian, or guru for that matter. It is my explicit objective to do what Jesus said, and provide the resources to teach people how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ. I am not looking to add notches to my Bible. I am not looking to rack up the number of “saved” people under my belt. My sole objective is Jesus Christ.
     If this means I reveal personal or even humiliating struggles or mistakes, so be it. If this means my positions on certain matters change and evolve, so be it. I too am still learning, even after thirty plus years and counting, and I still feel like I’m only barely now getting something of a handle on it. Everything I learn, I share for others to make use of one way or the other. Everything needs to go to this one goal, teach others how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ. Not how to be successful and prosperous, not how to achieve their life goals, not how to be happy; always and only how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ.
     And as for the second thing He said, how do we preach the Gospel to every created thing? Do we start reciting Matthew to rocks? Do we quote John to the trees? Do the flowers need a lesson from Paul? Clearly not. The Gospel is not a theology or a doctrine to believe in. This is our first mistake and misunderstanding. The Gospel is Jesus Christ Himself. To preach the Gospel to every created thing is to preach Jesus Christ to every created thing. The most effective means of preaching the Gospel to anything or anyone is by stepping back, disengaging, and letting the Spirit of Jesus Christ take control so that it is Him the creation around you encounters. It is His words and His actions people around you see and hear. Peter preached Jesus Christ to the Sanhedrin not just by lecturing them, but by displaying Jesus Christ through himself for all of them to see so that it was Jesus Himself accusing them of His own murder through Peter. We preach the Gospel to anything and everything around us when it is Jesus Christ who is in control and speaking and acting through us. When they can see and hear Him through us, and not we ourselves. There is no greater evangelization than having someone encounter Jesus Christ through you. Preaching the Gospel to every creature is being a disciple of Jesus Christ yourself, and doing nothing which He does not say or do through you, just as He did nothing which the Father did not say or do through Him.
     I admit, it’s a lot easier to just subscribe to this or that doctrine. It’s a lot easier to just tell people all they have to do is “believe,” assuming that they know what that even entails. Of course they have to believe. If someone doesn’t believe they can do something, then they can’t do something. If someone doesn’t believe something will work for them, then it won’t work for them. They themselves are creating the barrier through disbelief. And being an actual disciple necessitates actual belief in Jesus Christ. It’s an assumed prerequisite.
     Subscribing to a particular religion or set of doctrines is easier, and can be more personally comforting, but it isn’t the mandate Jesus gave His disciples before He was taken up. His mandate was to teach people to be like Him, to do like Him, to walk as He walked, to be Him for the world around them. And in the first and second centuries, this was the very definition of the word “Christian,” because the followers of the Way didn’t consider you one if you weren’t displaying Jesus Christ and living as He taught. Even John says as much in his first epistle. You may have been saying all the right things, but if they didn’t see their Master and Teacher in your behavior, you weren’t considered one of them.
     So, I write what I find and learn. I present what I have in order for whoever reading it to have an understanding of how to actually be His disciple. And more importantly, I pray every day that I do the same myself, that I be Jesus for everyone around me, give Jesus to everyone around me, receive Jesus from those around me, and see Jesus in everyone around me. This is what it means to fulfill the “Great Commission.”
 

About Judgment

     The farther I go along the path, the more I notice how every little event, word, experience, or input triggers either agreement or disagreement.  The news is particularly bad about this, but our society in general pushes us to form and pronounce a judgment of right or wrong, good or bad on anything, no matter how trivial.
     Our society as we know it is geared to exacerbate our common human malfunction.
     What would it look like if we actually passed no judgments on anything or anyone? What would it look like if we never placed opinion over compassion? If we just accepted things as they came, neither adding to nor subtracting from them, and having compassion for the people involved whether they were perceived as causing harm or being harmed?
     It’s hard work to look at a thing, see it for what it truly is: a thing, an event, a situation, a person, and not pass judgment on it. It goes against the hardwiring of the human brain. For me, it can cause a mild headache on occasion. The brain wants to determine if the thing should be clung to or pushed away, but in so doing it frequently perpetuates more harm.
     It is easy for me to see Vladimir Putin as an evil man. It’s a judgment my brain comes to readily. In reality he is a man, like every other, doing what he thinks is best for himself and his country. But his country is not the modern Russian Republic of the twenty first century. He is a man raised, educated and indoctrinated under the old Soviet Union with its ideals, prejudices, fears, and goals. And he is a man who believed and apparently continues to believe in them all. Someone made the remark once that the fall of the Soviet Union was a very personal blow to Mr. Putin, and one he’s never been able to move beyond.
     It is easy for me to pass judgment on fellow Americans who wish to return to the days of the mid twentieth century. These days were comfortable for them, but not for everyone who lived during them. But who doesn’t want to return to the time when they felt most at peace and secure? It’s easy for me to pass judgment on the terrorist, but from his perspective he is fighting for a cause greater than himself. As someone pointed out, technically, the Rebels in Star Wars were, in fact, terrorists against the legal galactic government. It is a matter of perspective.
     It is easy for me to call someone stupid in my head for something they do that I don’t agree with, and to create whole fantasy arguments which will never be played out in reality. It’s not so easy to look deeply and see why that person has done this thing I have disagreed with.
     Jesus taught, “Judge not, lest ye be judged, condemn not, lest ye be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” The practice of non-judgment goes deep into what He taught. It’s the practice of seeing the person or situation without declaring it or them to be good or bad, right or wrong, and to see without prejudice, without opinion, and with compassion for all parties. As much as possible, it is the practice of seeing through the other person’s eyes and understanding why they do what they do. It strikes at the very heart, the very root of the human malfunction.
     As for me, my practice to this end feels slow going. I get triggered every time I look at the news. A lot of the time, I want to shout at the computer screen or T.V. “Have you lost your minds?” And I certainly think as much in my head. It can be good exercise in non-judgment, but it can also set me up for failure. Of course, failure too can be learned from and transformed. The best success I can claim to this end is that I am increasingly aware of my judgments, opinions, justifications, and condemnations.
     Jesus rebuked, but He didn’t really condemn. He pointed out hypocrisy, but it was to bring those doing it into the light. Pleading with them and intervening for them to change direction from where they were headed. It was compassion which drove Him, always. He looked deeply at Pontius Pilate, even while bruised and bleeding, and reassured him that he wasn’t going to be held responsible for what was about to happen. He saw the man Pilate was, nothing more and nothing less, saw the predicament he was in and in which he didn’t want to be, and tried to encourage him. Jesus did all this knowing that Pilate would be the one physically giving the order for His crucifixion, because He also knew that the choice had been taken from the Roman procurator. Jesus did not judge Pilate. Neither did He judge the soldiers beating Him. He looked at them and knew the hardships they had suffered in Judea (much like the hardships U.S. soldiers suffered in Afghanistan and Iraq). He knew they didn’t know who He really was, only that they had been told He was an insurrectionist, and they had lost too many friends to insurrectionists. He certainly didn’t judge the thieves on their crosses. And He didn’t judge the Judeans hurling insults at Him as He hung on the cross because of them. He saw them deeply. Knew where each one was at. He didn’t need to judge them. He didn’t want to judge them. They were judging themselves, something He had wanted to rescue them from, and they wouldn’t have it. And in the midst of all of this, He cries out “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing!” No judgment, even as they are brutally murdering Him and enjoying it.
     Non-judgment is a core practice of discipleship to Jesus Christ. It’s also something which many churches deride and teach the opposite of. Judging everything and everyone, whether they follow this standard or that, whether they use the right doctrine, the right translation, the right lifestyle. This antichrist teaching hurts and harms people using God’s name, and makes Jesus out to be someone who hates anyone and everyone they don’t agree with. For these churches, God is hate, not love. God is merciless, not merciful. Their god is a delusion of their own malfunctioning mind which conforms to their ideals. It is an idol, and one which has hurt, and hurt, and hurt again and again; a demon wearing a Jesus mask tearing the wounded and hurting apart.
     The Living God does not Himself judge, but shows the soul its own actions through the eyes of those with whom it has interacted, and then lets that soul judge or not. The Living God trains, corrects, forgives, lets go, and encourages us to keep growing and moving forward. The Living God sees all of us through our own eyes, and understands why we do what we do. He teaches us to help, and not harm; to love, and not hate; to empathize, and not condemn.
     And so, I continue being aware of my own judgments, and when I am making one. And when I definitively decide that someone or some group is wrong, frequently, God engineers it so that I become a part of that group to see things from their perspective. This is a kindness on His part towards me, and a part of my training. I didn’t understand it at first, but I am coming to. I started off judging every religion and denomination the group I was a part of didn’t like. Mostly because I was implicitly if not explicitly taught to. And then God would have me either become a part of that religion or denomination, or interact with them positively in some way. He taught me to see things from their perspective, and in so doing, deepened my understanding and relationship with Him.
     Don’t judge, because in so doing, you only judge yourself and no one else.
 

Thoughts About Prejudice and Discrimination

     I was rewatching an episode of "Poirot" tonight. It's one of my favorite series to watch and rewatch. It was produced by ITV starring David Suchet in his most iconic role as the titular detective, and dramatizes all of Agatha Christie's original Hercule Poirot stories very, very well. You can find them on YouTube if you know where to look. This episode was called "The Dumb Witness," referring to the witness of an attempted murder who couldn't speak because he was a dog, a fox terrier to be precise.
     In this episode there is a character who is a doctor who happens to be Greek. That is, he is not only of Greek ethnic origin, but is from that country. And because he is "foreign" to the rest of the people around him in pre-World War II England, he is treated with suspicion and even referred to as "a foreign devil." He is not the first "foreign" character in this series to be treated this way. Poirot himself who is Belgian and speaks with a heavy French accent, peppering his sentences with French words and phrases, is also frequently treated with disdain by many of the English folks he encounters and has to get the truth from in order to do his job as a private detective.
     What stuck out to me about this is that this is clearly a prejudicial attitude among her fellow English folk with which Agatha Christie was familiar. One group of Europeans was not only prejudicial but discriminatory against another group of Europeans for no other reason than their ethnic and cultural backgrounds. It is reminiscent also of the prejudicial attitudes which the Irish and Italians encountered when they migrated to the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Consider that for a moment. There was a serious suspicion and distrust among the English, not because someone had a different physical appearance from them per se, but because they were from a different cultural background. The English felt themselves better than the Greeks, and those of Anglo-Saxon descent in the United States felt themselves better than those of Irish or Italian descent (or Jewish for that matter).
     Where we're at in the United States in the 21st century, it's kind of hard to imagine one white person discriminating against another. We tend to discriminate based on color of skin, first language spoken, whether someone has Eastern or Western facial features and so on. But there are so many people of mixed European descent in the U.S. now that it's hard to fathom being prejudiced against someone because their ancestors were Irish, Italian, Greek, or even Eastern European. Yet, at one time this was normal and accepted even if it wasn't kind or gracious. We tend to lump everyone with light colored skin and Occidental features into the catagory of "White" and leave it at that as though we were all some homogeneous group and always had been.
     Most of my ancestry is from Britain, either from England or Scotland. A DNA test several years ago confirmed that. But I do have just a bit of Cherokee in me as well. It's not a lot. 1/16th in fact, having come from a great great grandmother whose last name was "Bear" as far as I've been able to research. It's enough though to have given me near black hair when i was younger, a Cherokee eye shape and cheekbone structure, and a complexion which can get darker than most "white" folks with enough sun; all things I couldn't have inherited from my very British ancestry. I am 15/16ths of European descent. 15/16ths "white." The vast majority of my DNA is in fact Anglo-Saxon and Celtic. I am so "white" in fact that the current Cherokee nation wouldn't even dream of admitting me into its rolls as a member. I am simply not Cherokee enough.
     But all of my "white" ancestry wouldn't have mattered one whit in the 1800s. The only thing President Andrew Jackson and the U.S. army would have seen was a man with 1/16th Cherokee ancestry, and that would be enough for them to confiscate any property I had and force me and my children to walk from the Cherokee ancestral lands to Oklahoma. Aptly called the "Trail of Tears" thousands of people died on that march.
     Ironic. The current Cherokee tribal government will only see a "white" man. Whereas at one time, all that "white" men would see was a Cherokee. The former President of the United States encountered a similar phenomenon. His mother was "white" while his father was from Kenya. For many "black" people in the U.S. He was too "white." For many "white" people in the U.S. all they saw was a "black" man.
     What do I make of all of this? Honestly, the first thought which comes to my mind is that prejudice has nothing to do with the person who is being discriminated against, and everything to do with the prejudiced person. It has nothing to do with ethnic background, color, cultural origin, disability, religion, or anything else someone might use as an excuse to exclude another and treat them poorly. It is simply the choice to see someone as different, and because they are different, somehow they are lesser than the observer and can be misused and abused with impunity. "They are different, so therefore they don't really have any rights like I do. They are different, so it doesn't matter if I treat them like animals. They are different, so they aren't really 'human' like me."
     There's an Isaac Asimov story with Elijah Bailey and Daneel Olivaw where Elijah lands on a planet and encounters a security robot. This robot immediately treats him as a threat, and tries to harm him in spite of the three laws programming which says that it can't allow a human being to be harmed. What is learned is that the owner of the robot programmed it to only recognize those who spoke with the accent of the planet as "human" and thus protected by the three laws. Anyone else wasn't human at all. Another thing which comes to mind is certain tribal people which I have heard about that don't recognize anyone outside of their socio-cultural group, those that speak their language, act and look like them, as people, or human. They may not be animals, but they're not human according to them. It really wouldn't surprise me to learn that this kind of thinking goes back to when "modern humans" shared the earth with other hominids like Neanderthals, Homos Erectus, and so on. It didn't matter that we were all descended from a common ancestor. They were different, and that was enough to make them somehow threatening, inferior, or "bad."
     Prejudice and discrimination like this, as I think about it, stems from our common human malfunction to categorize what we like or agree with as "good" and what we don't like or don't agree with as "bad." We then attempt to hoard what we see as "good" and attempt to push away or destroy what we see as "bad." Apparently, this includes other human beings who are simply different from us. In this respect, it is just as much a product of our malfunctioning human mind as theft, rape, overeating, and other vices and offenses which are produced by it.
     Jesus Himself is clearly of Middle Eastern descent, a pure blooded Israeli Sabra. In how many churches which profess to follow or worship Him would He be looked on with suspicion because of His non-European ethnicity and culture? Were He to walk in the doors with regular street clothes, would He be given side glances and whispers because He might resemble "those Middle Eastern Terrorists" they'd seen on T.V.? Because He is different from them would His mere presence be offensive to them? I mean, after all, He's a Middle Eastern Jew!
     Prejudice doesn't care about color, language, belief, or ethnic background. Prejudice just cares that the other person is different in some way and uses that as an excuse to abuse and take whatever it wants from him or her. It has nothing to do with and has no place with a disciple of Jesus Christ.

About Things Which Trip Us Up

 I wrote and deleted a post this morning about events that were happening in the news. These events triggered my sense of right and wrong as I perceived a deceptive injustice was being committed. They offended my sense of right and wrong. But then I had to ask, what is more important? That I point out the wrong which had been done, and risk turning away more people who disagree with my assessment from reading those posts which point them towards being a disciple of Jesus Christ? Is it worth it placing a stumbling block in their way just because one had been placed in mine and I tripped up on it?

     And this got me to thinking about the word "skandalon" in Greek. It's the linguistic ancestor of the word "scandal," but it literally means "something which someone trips over, an offense." And then the thought came to me, what is being tripped up? The sense of right and wrong. What is being agreed with or disagreed with. Another way to express this idea is that a "skandalon" is a good/evil, right/wrong "trigger". It's something which offends, triggers the hamartia malfunction, and makes us take back control of our behaviors from the Spirit of Christ.

     I hate watching the things which are happening in the news, and what's happening within the halls of power and behind the scenes. But anything which could be a trigger for me has to be let go so as not to disengage from the cooperation with the Spirit of Christ, and this is one of those things.

     As disciples, we need to be careful of those things which will trigger us to take back control of our behaviors and words from the Spirit of Christ. If there is something which can be a catalyst for doing this, then it needs to be removed from our lives, as He taught. Otherwise, we run the risk of wandering off of the path of Jesus Christ and getting lost in the darkness. Such triggers are a threat to our discipleship, and are the reason why He taught to let them go, and those would didn't couldn't be His disciples. You can't be a disciple of Jesus Christ and continue to surrender control to your own malfunctioning neurology. These two things are contradictory to one another. It's one or the other, not both.

A Ramble About Creating Idols About God

 "You will not make for yourself an eidolon..." (Exodus, 20:4, LXX)

     The word "eidolon" in Greek is an interesting choice for the translators of the Septuagint to render the Hebrew word "pesel" in the commandment. The word "pesel" means "something which is hewn or cut," and thus a "statue" (which is its Modern Hebrew meaning), or as it is more commonly translated, an "idol." But the word used to translate it in Greek, while being the linguistic ancestor of the word "idol," originally meant something like "phantom of the mind" in older, Classical Greek, or "an image in one's mind." It might have described the "phantoms" a person with schizophrenia might see, such as the hallucinations the main character of "A Beautiful Mind" continued to see throughout his life. There is a sense of self-delusion to the word, as well as seeing things that aren't there.

     Frequently, we create such images in our minds about celebrities. We compile all sorts of information from media, news articles and television programs, about them. For example, I know that Keanu Reeves, one actor I highly respect as a person, professes to be a Buddhist. I know that he has suffered many personal tragedies in his life, and that he gives generously, lives fairly simply, and is well liked by just about everyone who has ever interacted with him. I know he's been in several movies, is currently in a serious relationship with his girlfriend, and that Winona Rider once wasn't certain if she was actually married to him by accident. I know all of this and a little more about him. 

     Does this mean I know him? Does the image I've built in my mind about Keanu Reeves mean that I have a relationship with him? No. Of course not. I've never met him in my life. Were we to walk past each other on the street, while I would recognize him, he would have no idea who I was, and have no reason to interact with me other than to be friendly and polite. I have built an "eidolon," an image in my mind about Keanu Reeves, but I do not know Keanu Reeves as a person.

     God was very clear in His commandment to Israel that they not create these eidolons about Him, or anything else they might think of as deity. He was very clear that He could not be represented by any kind of statue or description. This is reminiscent of the first line of the Tao Te Ching which says, "The Tao which can be named is not the Eternal Tao." He was not a figment of the imagination, or a phantom of the mind. He was real, living, and spoke to them directly on many occasions as well as through His prophets. He wanted them to know Him as a person, to interact with Him, and to get to know Him as He is rather than create these imagined versions of Him.

     Many Christians do this very thing which He commanded against. They fill their minds with images of what God is supposed to be according to the doctrine of the church they attend, and then are told that if they believe in these images, they know Him. If they accept these particular phantoms of the mind as true, then they have a personal relationship with Him. 

     Rubbish. It's just as much rubbish as if I believed I had a personal relationship with Keanu Reeves based on what little I know about his life and personality. It's a phantom of the mind, an eidolon, an idol which they are taught to serve and worship.

     The only way to get to know someone is to talk to them, spend time with them, interact with them, shut up and listen to them when they talk, and to pay attention to the person themselves, not the poster on the wall bearing what is supposed to be their image. When Jesus says "I never knew you," it is to those people who sincerely believed they knew Him, but in fact only knew the phantom of the mind which they had created about Him. They had supposedly done all these great works in His name, but in reality had only done it in the service of the idol they had been taught to construct.

     Why is actually knowing God personally, and interacting with Him considered such a rare thing? Why is it that we consider the person who claims it to be either a super Saint or delusional? Why is it that we are so afraid of it that we substitute doctrines and theologies about God, instead of just getting to know Him through interaction, something which He is all for, by the way.

     In order to really get to know someone, you have to strip away all of your preconceptions and eidolons about that person. You have to let them all go and just let that person be as real and as human (or divine in God's case) as they actually are without judgment or condemnation for them being who they are. You have to unlearn everything you had previously learned in order to get to the reality.

     I find that it is these eidolons about the Father and about Jesus Himself which is the biggest obstacle for Christians in particular to overcome in order to know Him. And the irony is that they are always erected with the best and most reverent of intentions.

     Ask yourself, do I actually know Him, or do I only know about the image of Him I've constructed in my own mind? And then be prepared for some deconstruction and tearing down of idols.

More Thoughts on Forgiveness and the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

 God forgives. God lets go of offenses. It's not difficult for God to do this. He understands us better than we do. The only thing He can't let go is what we can't let go of, because He's not the one holding onto it, we are.

     Consider that for a moment. Jesus said that "every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy (literally, evil speaking) of the Holy Spirit won't be forgiven...". Why? Is He holding onto it, or are we?

     "Every sin and blasphemy..." Those are the words Jesus uses in the Scripture. Think about that for a minute. Murder, theft, blasphemy, adultery, rape, child molestation and murder, genocide, and any or every possible abomination or atrocious act a person might commit will be forgiven to human beings and let go by God to the person who changes his mind, turns away from these things, and turns to do the right thing.

     What won't be forgiven? Speaking evil of the Holy Spirit. Knowing that the Holy Spirit is acting and speaking, and then deliberately saying evil things about it, attributing it to something evil. Why can't this be forgiven? Because He's not the one holding on to the offense. The person is. You can't let go of what is not in your possession to let go of. The person who is doing this is refusing to turn away from what he is doing, he is refusing to change his mind and stubbornly digging in. God can't forgive those who refuse to turn around and be forgiven, not because of any lack of ability to forgive on his part, but because it's not a choice He can make for them, and overriding their free will and personality without their consent is out of the question for Him.

     If the person does manage to come to their senses, are they then the same person, or someone new completely? We are never the same person twice. Each experience, each encounter, each new insight or thought changes who we are if even imperceptibly. Each decision point on the quantum level distinguishes us from the person who might have made an opposing decision, and distinguishes us from the person we were prior to making that decision.

     Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not be let go in this age, or in the age to come. This is what Jesus said. So, there are two ways to look at this statement. The first is that once committed, the person is screwed and can't turn around no matter how much he may want to. But the second, and what follows who God is more, is that while this person is doing this, it can't be let go regardless of whether they are in this age or even in the next. This is a decision of the soul or psyche which travels with them even if the body dies. Does that mean the soul or psyche cannot make a different decision? No. But while it is in this state, it can't be let go of by God, because God is not the one choosing to hold onto it. But once it is let go of, then the person is no longer the same person who was holding onto it.

     As long as a person willfully turns away from the Light, he will walk in the outer darkness. This is that person's choice, not God's. He will stay there in that darkness until he comes to his senses and turns around. But once he does, God runs to him with open arms and holds him tight as his child has come home.

How Does a Person Follow Jesus Christ If They're Gay?

 This is going to be a controversial but necessary topic for me to write on. It will probably anger not just a few people, and I may lose a few friends over it. But it is something which the Spirit of Christ compels me to write about.

     How does a person follow Jesus Christ if they're gay?

     The subject of being a Christian and being homosexual is a tense one and filled with emotion and passion on both sides of the argument. There was a time when I would have argued that it was impossible, but that time has come and gone.

     Homosexuality today and homosexual or bisexual practice in the first century Greco-Roman society are two distinctly different things if, for no other reason, because they are separated by two completely different cultures and worldviews. 

     In ancient society, there was no question of homosexual marriage, as marriage was a contract between a prospective husband and the father of a young woman for the purposes of joining two families and producing children. While the prospective bride and husband might have had feelings for one another, it certainly wasn't a necessity and wasn't always factored into the thinking of either prospective husband or father of the bride. It's clear from a deeper research into both the language and practices of the time that the homosexual practices mentioned by Paul in his letters, and written against, referred to both the cultural practice of pederasty (older men sodomizing younger boys), and the practices of the priesthood of certain goddesses where the male priests would emasculate themselves, live as women, and offer themselves as prostitutes in worship of their goddess. Outside of this, it was clear there were extra-marital bisexual and homosexual affairs between men who were close friends (Julius Caesar is mentioned in this regard, and 400 years earlier, Alexander's relationship with his childhood best friend is pretty well documented), but they could never result in "marriage" as they understood it. It was the same European mentality you would see much later on that "a Gentleman's business was his own and his wife had to endure it or be dealt with." This was true whether the affair was with a woman or a man. This was the culture in which Paul wrote as he mentioned these things in his letters. The Apostle could never have imagined accepted, stable, open homosexual marital relationships. And such relationships between women weren't even considered by him, as they weren't even forbidden in the Torah (the passage in Romans 1 more likely refers to bestiality in connection with pagan worship, something which is explicitly forbidden in the Torah). So, many of the homosexual or "queer" relationships today are something which simply wouldn't have existed in the first century, and couldn't have been conceived of by the New Testament authors.

     It goes without saying, or it should go without saying, that there are many homosexual or queer people today who have been ostracized, abandoned, rejected, and hurt by Christians and the Church at large. I too share a responsibility in that, something which I regret deeply. What is less understood is that there are also a great many such people who not only believe in God, but want to seek Jesus Christ. They just aren't let past the doors of the churches because of the way their brains are configured, regardless of the reason whether psychological or neurological.

     So, how does a person follow Jesus Christ if they're gay?

     First, understand that He would never turn you away or reject you. Had you needed healing, He wouldn't have made you fill out a questionnaire regarding your past history and sexuality. Had you wanted to follow Him, He would have taken you in and taught you more.

     Second, understand that He wouldn't have treated you any differently than the other disciples or Apostles. The same conditions of discipleship would have been placed on you as were placed on them. Nothing more, and nothing less. These conditions of discipleship were, in a nutshell, detachment from any relationships, possessions, self-identity, or anything to which you are attached which could or might become an obstacle to your relationship with Him and following His path. If something or someone was more important to you than Him, then He explicitly said you couldn't be His disciple. He wasn't being cruel, He was just stating a fact, because the path He taught required letting go of everything you were afraid to lose or which could trigger fear or anger upon threat of loss.

     Third, the Path He taught and demonstrated was one of total submission to His Father in everything He said and did. It was being a "channel" of Him, to where everything He said and did was really the Father through Him, as He Himself said, "I can't do anything at all from Myself..." And in this total, voluntary submission to His Father, and us to Him, we become the conduits of His absolute love, compassion, and mercy to all those around us no matter who they are. We treat no one differently, are attached to no one differently, but love all equally because God loves all equally through us. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Thus we love our spouses, not because we are attached to them, but because God loves them through us absolutely, and because He loves them through us, we keep their best interests close to heart and do good to them and care for them as though better than ourselves. We love them as Christ loved the church, and conversely we also submit to them as the Church is to submit to Christ. We be Christ for them, and we see them as Jesus Christ serving them as we serve Him. And this is true of our spouse, the rich, the homeless, great leaders, and total unknowns. There is no difference, we see Jesus in every individual that comes across our path and treat them accordingly just as Mother Teresa once remarked.

     What does this look like for our sexuality though? Our sexual desires are a part of our neurological survival response system controlled by the brain. Along with fear, aggression, and the feeding response, it is governed by the hypothalamus, amygdala, and the limbic system in general which, as I have previously described is the part of the brain which is overreacting and malfunctioning in human beings. Whether one is heterosexual or homosexual, this too must be brought under the control of the Spirit of Christ with whom you have been joined. It is not a matter of forcing yourself to remain celibate, in either case, but it is a matter of disengaging from your own responses and cooperating with Him so that He is the one who responds.

     As I have written before, the normal "sexual state" of Christian practice is not heterosexual marriage, but chastity or celibacy as the malfunctioning neurology is bypassed by the Spirit of Christ. Marriage, as described in the New Testament, is a special dispensation or exception for those who follow Christ, and as Paul described it in 1 Corinthians 7, one of the reasons for allowing this exception is for those who cannot handle absolute celibacy (such as myself). Furthermore, as such, it becomes a more concentrated and intimate devotion to Christ between the two spouses as they practice being Jesus for each other, forgiving, loving, and submitting to each other as Christ and His Church. In the case of a homosexual couple, the same understanding would still apply. Each would practice being a conduit for the Spirit of Christ towards his or her spouse. This would be the foundation and daily practice of any and every Christian marriage, whether heterosexual in nature or homosexual, and not one's personal sexual desires for their spouse or anyone else for that matter. The needs, wants, and best interests of the other person come first. Period.

     The way one's brain works should never been seen as a barrier to recognizing their malfunction and turning to follow Jesus Christ. In comparison with the rest of creation, there is no human being that is not malfunctioning. This malfunction presents in different ways, but it is the same malfunction nonetheless and in need of the same solution. To forbid anyone from coming to Him based on their not keeping a "law" or a "rule" is to ignore the decisions of the Apostles themselves who decided that the Torah wasn't necessary for the non-Jews to follow in order to be disciples, and those rules they did ask them to keep were so they could keep the peace with their Jewish brothers in terms of ritual cleanliness. To forbid anyone from coming to Him to be a disciple is to shut the doors to the kingdom to them while refusing to enter it yourself.

To Whom God Belongs

 In "The Last Jedi," Luke tells Rey, "The Force doesn't belong to the Jedi or the Sith." His point was that the Force is bigger than either philosophy or "theology" of the Force to which these groups subscribed. The Force wasn't a figment of their imaginations. It wasn't created by them but was greater than them both, holding the universe together and flowing through everything.

     There is a truth to this where God is concerned. God, as we refer to Him, does not belong to either Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or any other theistic philosophy or theology. We have our explanations of Him, but He is not our sole possession. No one human being or human understand can possess Him any more than we could actually possess the grand scope of the multiverse itself, and to think we can is delusional. He speaks to whom He speaks, and reveals Himself to whom He reveals Himself in the way that particular individual might be able to comprehend at least in some small way. To those seeking Him, regardless of who they are or what worldview they have, He answers them and reveals Himself within the framework of that worldview as the living God, the Source from which all things come, eternal, infinite, without beginning or end, and reveals Himself as good and love. He reveals Himself as not being the figment of someone's imagination, not being an image someone came up with, and discourages creating any such delusions in lieu of actually getting to know Him. People may call Him what they will, but He remains the same Being.

     We need to keep this in mind, because even when Paul addressed the Areopagus in Acts, he didn't quote the Law or the Prophets. Instead, he quoted their own poets, and called Him the "unknown God" which they already had an altar to within the city of Athens. And the Scripture makes clear that the Apostles firmly decided the same thing that non-Jews did not have to become Jewish to become disciples of Jesus Christ. Paul wasn't requiring the pagan Greeks to suddenly start studying the Torah in order to understand the deliverance brought by Jesus Christ, because the deliverance brought by Jesus Christ, and the Father who sent Him, transcends all religious and theological understanding.

Thoughts on Forgiveness of Sins

 The word in Greek for "forgive" is worth taking a good look at. It's the same word frequently translated as "divorce," as well as several others. Literally, it means "to let go of, to release, to detach oneself from."

    The question then becomes, where our presentations of hamartia are concerned, who has to do the letting go in order for us to move on? The answer to this question really depends on how well we know God personally, and what image of Him we have in our minds.

     As I have previously written, all human beings have an inherited neurological malfunction as compared with other animals. If our behaviors are sourced from our own neurology or psychology, no matter how well intentioned our behaviors, we end up causing harm in some way due to everything being run through an overactive threat response system in the human brain. We literally cannot help our behaviors being informed and influenced by this malfunction any more than say, an autistic man can help his behaviors being informed by his own ASD. God understands this very human problem better than we do.

     Seeing it this way, God is like a parent with children with a disorder which affects thinking and behavior negatively. Does that parent keep a record of every abnormal and negative behavior that those children have and hold it against them with each passing day? We would likely say that a good parent does not. A good parent understands that the child needs training to minimize the harm they can do, and works towards that child being able to function in society as well as they can without causing harm. A good parent praises successes, no matter how small, and lets go of the past failures no matter how large. That parent will likely take measures to protect both the child and those around them if it becomes necessary, but not because they are holding that child's past failures against them. The greatest wish of such a parent is that the child's disorder would be cured, and their single thought towards the child is to work towards that goal. This should sound familiar to any parent reading this who has such a child.

     So, why on earth then would God not let go of the presentations of our human malfunction if we are making progress? If a human being realizes that what he is doing is causing harm, and turns away from it and asks for help, why wouldn't God immediately be right there waiting to do just that? He says as much in Ezekiel 18.

     Now let me ask you this, does the good parent demand payment from the child with the disorder in order to not hold their harmful behaviors against them? I would think that the obvious answer would be "no." The good parent would train the child to try and make the harm they caused right, to try to fix what they had hurt if at all possible. They would not condition their love and forgiveness on being given gifts to appease them. We would call this latter parent an abusive and manipulative one, and rightly so.

     So, if God, as the good parent, is not the one who needs to let go of our presentations of hamartia, who is? We are.

     Our behaviors that cause harm trigger our own good/evil responses which are based on the threat response. Suddenly we find ourselves doing those things which we have previously agreed were "bad," and this then means that we ourselves are a threat and "bad" and therefore must be pushed away or destroyed. Such cognitive dissonance is the source of many psychiatric disorders, and leads the person to either decide that the behavior wasn't "bad" for some reason or other, into a downward spiral, or even blocking the event altogether in one's conscious memory so as to remove the dissonance as the psyche tries to protect itself from... itself.

      The only real solution is to admit the behavior caused harm, and then let it go, something which the psyche can have a tremendous amount of difficulty doing because of its own self-image and the changes or updates to that self-image which may be required.

     This is the reason why, even after a person has repeatedly heard that God will forgive their sins, they don't feel forgiven, saved, or set free. It's not God holding these harmful behaviors against them, it's their own psyches still running the memory of the harmful behavior through its threat response system which has been adapted to include threats to its belief system, and threats to its ideas of right and wrong, both of which are key parts of its self-image.

     So why were the sacrifices then prescribed in the Old Testament? To appease, not God, but the human conscience. In ancient times, contracts were sealed with the blood of animals. A sacrifice for sin was considered a contract between a person and his god that the deity wouldn't hold the sin against him. This is also why God got sick of sin sacrifices in the psalms and prophets because they were meaningless if the person offering them didn't turn away from the harmful behaviors.

     This is also why Jesus' death on the cross was not a sacrifice to appease God from holding our harmful behaviors against us, but His death on the cross was meant to make all of us one with Him so that His Spirit could take the reins of our behaviors and bypass our malfunctioning neurology. It was meant to provide a means to act and speak without our malfunction informing and influencing those behaviors, not so that He wouldn't punish us for them.

     So, the real question then becomes, do we trust God if He says He won't hold our "sins" against us if we turn away from them, or don't we? And also, are we just thinking that Jesus' death on the cross means that we have a "do whatever we want and face no consequences" card?

     He wasn't impressed with those people who abused the sin sacrifices in the Old Testament that way, and Paul's writings indicate He's not impressed with those who look at Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection that way either. We put such malfunctioning people who refuse to be treated or make progress into places where they can't hurt themselves or others. Not because we want them to suffer, but because we don't want them to cause harm. It's clear from Scripture that God does a similar thing when it becomes necessary.

Thoughts On Law Keeping and Salvation

I've had the urge to write about this again for the last few days, but couldn't get my head on straight enough to do it. In particular, I want to talk about the Law of Moses, or the Torah.

     There's this idea in the world, and among Christians in particular, that, at some point, Jews and others believed and taught you could go to heaven if you kept the ten commandments and the larger Law in general. Some "Christian" churches still maintain this misunderstanding.

     Nothing in the Torah talks about this. Nothing in the Torah really even talks about an afterlife. "Going to heaven" simply wasn't in view where the Law was concerned. It just wasn't a thing.

     The Torah was and is the ancient nation of Israel's constitution and penal code. It was a contract between Yahweh and the descendants of Jacob framed as what was known as a "suzerainty treaty" between a king and the people he had conquered. It laid out the history between them, the agreed expectations placed on both parties, and the consequences for either party breaking those expectations. All of those penalties, consequences, and "blessings" were very much about this life, and the here and now. They said nothing about a soul's consequences after death. Thus, the penalty for murder is death, not eternal torment. Thus the penalty for theft is repayment. Thus you have "an eye for an eye" in the case of a pregnant woman being injured in a fight.

     This is also the reason why there are sacrifices prescribed for mistakes and unintentional wrongs, but no sacrifices available for intentional wrongdoing. Eternity is not in view where the Torah is concerned, but criminal justice in this life both for the individual and the nation as a whole.

     The people of ancient Israel understood this, as I'm pretty sure the Pharisees and Sadducees of the first century understood this as well. Their view of the afterlife wasn't terribly different from the mythological Greco-Roman view, and by the first century was likely influenced by it.

     No one in the first century believed that if they kept the Torah they would "go to heaven," because that was the dwelling of God alone. They did eventually believe that if they were Jewish and kept the Torah they would enter paradise (as opposed to torment) as a "righteous" person, and if you made a mistake then there were the appropriate sacrifices prescribed by the Law. But it was never about doing enough good works to go to heaven, and they expected all of the blessings and benefits from the Torah to be applied in this life.

     The problem which Jesus and His Apostles were addressing was that the Torah, while it could prescribe penalties for doing the right thing, it couldn't fix the problem that made human beings incapable of doing the right thing in the first place. While it could prescribe not desiring what your neighbor had, it couldn't keep you from doing it. It was a legal document. It was a penal code. It had no ability to enforce itself or change the very real human disorder which results in harm no matter what the good intentions. It could mandate love for one's neighbor and for God, but it could not enable anyone to do it.

      This is what human beings needed and still need saving from in this life. Jesus and His Apostles understood that you can't legislate people into doing the right thing. You can prescribe penalties for the wrong thing, but that's all you can do. In order to do the right thing, in order to practice the love mandated, there must be a solution found for the inherent human disorder that doesn't impact free will; to bypass it in this life until the body dies and the soul is free from it ("the one who died is made right from hamartia").

     And this is the salvation which Jesus and His apostles preached, that by becoming human, as a "second Adam" Jesus included all human beings into His death, burial, and resurrection, joining them to Himself, becoming one with them (activated by trust in Him as displayed in public baptism), and giving them the option of enslaving themselves to His Spirit for the source of their behaviors as opposed to being enslaved to their own malfunctioning neurology, therefore bypassing the inherent problem altogether. And because they are realized as one with Him, wherever He is they are, and wherever they are, He is. Thus, if He is "in heaven," then so are they. And once the body is left behind, then of course they are immediately in His presence, because they are one.

     We need to leave this nonsense about being good enough, or keeping rules and laws, behind. It has never been, nor will ever be, about that.

     Why is this salvation "by faith," or why does it need to be activated by trusting in Him if all human beings have been joined to Him through His incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection? How can you make use of a thing if you don't know about it, or don't believe that it will work? A man may be in possession of a bank account worth billions of dollars, but unless he knows about it, or believes that it is true, how can he access it? Why would he? It might as well not exist for him for all the good it will do him. This is the reason why belief is required. Not a certain amount of belief, not belief to move mountains, just belief that it exists and can be accessed. After this, there has to be a motivation and willingness to make use of it.

     God will not violate the free will of a sentient creation. He will cajole. He will put things in one's path to guide and direct, but He will not override your conscious mind and free will without your permission, and once it is given, it is a cooperation which He respects. He does not want automatons, but individual minds in cooperation with Him. There is no point in Him having automatons, and it would totally work cross-purposes to the reason why He created sentient creations in the first place, be they of a spiritual/energetic or physical/material nature.

     No amount of "good works" will change this common human neurological disorder, because all such "good works" are produced by it. It must, absolutely must, be bypassed, and this union with God through Jesus Christ which enables this bypass can only be activated and made use of if one knows about it, believes it to be real and usable by them, and is willing to make use of it.