More Thoughts About Morality

Assigning moral value to an action is a mistake which can cause more harm than the action itself. When we assign either a positive or negative moral value to an action, we then imply that that action should be either rewarded or punished, and then either imply or directly state that it is a moral imperative that such reward or punishment be carried out.
     An action may be harmful, but frequently it is equally as harmful in some way to the person committing the action as it is to the person who is directly or indirectly harmed by the action committed. In the same way, an action may be beneficial, but it is frequently equally as beneficial in some way to the person committing it as it is to the recipient. Thus, the consequences of that action are already either punishing or rewarding on their own without further punishment or reward.
     By assigning moral value to actions, we then assign moral value to the person committing those actions. A person seen to be doing "good" actions will themselves be considered "good". Likewise a person seen to be doing "bad" actions will themselves be considered "bad". But the reality is never that cut and dried. One day, a person might stop someone on the street from being mugged. The next, they might make a statement which you morally disagree with strongly, or perhaps are indicted for white collar crime. Are they "good" or are they "bad"? A person might commit a theft of thousands of dollars, but then turn around and give it to those who have nothing. A man might commit a murder in cold blood to prevent the deaths of many, many more. The more you drop down the morality rabbit hole, the murkier such concepts become.
     The reality is that "moral value" as such is a product of the human mind and imagination. No action has a moral value intrinsic to itself, but only that which the individual human mind assigns it based on accepted notions of cultural duty, obligation, and religion, and most importantly what that individual has decided for himself is "good" or "bad".
      Each human being does the best they can with what they've got, what they know to be true, and how they've faired in life. There isn't a human being on this planet that would intentionally do a thing which they believed was completely unjustified. This does not make the thing done beneficial to anyone, only that on some level, their sense of morality justified it. It is for this reason that some of the greatest harm done throughout history was in the name of justice, good, and right.
     It is also for this reason that Jesus taught us not to condemn others. Paul also wrote that we who condemn others condemn ourselves, because we practice the same things. We all suffer from the same malaise of mind with regards to this, and thus Jesus taught mercy and compassion for all. It is also for this reason that God says through Ezekiel that it is not the past good or past evil which He looks at, but what the person is doing right now. Past good will not be remembered if the man begins acting selfishly and causing harm, and past evil will not be remembered if the person turns away from it and acts in the way He said to.
     The person who commits harmful actions is likely hurting badly from them. Sometimes threat of punishment can scare them off from trying to come home, come clean, and turn around. The Love, the core nature of God, which Scripture taught doesn't keep count of wrongs committed, and doesn't seek retribution for offenses. It only seeks restoration and a change of mind and heart for the person who is lost.

A Ramble About Pharisees

     In the churches and Bible schools I grew up in and attended before 2000 or so, there was a kind of sympathy for the Pharisees in the Gospels. The belief expressed was that the problem with the Pharisees wasn't their teaching or doctrine, but that they simply didn't recognize the Messiah when He came. They made a mistake, and one which they might be forgiven for after all.
     The Pharisees could be considered the Scriptural literalists of their day. These guys were the ones who doubled down on the Torah and the Prophets. More than this, they were also as much of a political faction as they were a religious "denomination." They supported Hyrcanus II against Aristobulus II, who was supported by the Sadducees, when the previous Judean monarch had died.
     Thing of it was, it was the Pharisees whom Jesus went head to head with most of the time. It was the Pharisees who knew Jesus had been sent by God at the very least, and actively worked to discredit and destroy Him because He contradicted their interpretations of the Torah and the Prophets. It was the Pharisees who, by all appearances in Acts, because of their common belief in the resurrection of the dead, attempted to infiltrate and subvert the Apostolic Church by swaying it to their own Torah centered thinking, and of whom Paul wrote that they had snuck in in order to "spy out" their freedom in Christ. And it was the Pharisees that really did the most damage they could to the Church across the Empire in their zealousness for the literal words of Scripture.
     This is why Paul wrote about the distinction between the written "letter" of the Torah, which the Pharisees were all about, and the spirit of the Torah, its intent which Jesus kept trying to get through their thick skulls; and which they didn't want to hear because it contradicted their interpretations and doctrine.
     There are a great many Scriptural literalists, Sola Scripturalists, and Bible only Christians today. They are all well intentioned. But in their good intentions, like the Pharisees, they miss the Spirit of the written Scriptures in favor of the letter of the written Scriptures. And by so doing, they hurt people and cause harm, the results of which are now frequently splashed across the pages of the News on a regular basis. Rather than being Jesus for people and showing Jesus to people, they force on them rules and regulations for Christians to live by which they themselves frequently can't keep, and shut out the Kingdom of God from those seeking it most. They take the written Gospels and letters which were meant to point the Christian towards submission to and control by the Spirit of Christ, and create a new "Torah" which their adherents are required to follow or face the consequences.
     This is not what Jesus taught. This is not what Paul, John, or Peter taught either. by seeking to adhere rigidly to the letter of the Scriptures, they miss the actual teaching and intent of the Scriptures and end up trying to finish with the flesh what was begun by the Spirit of Christ, and the end result is often worse than the beginning.
     And the worst part about it, is that they become so wrapped up in their Scriptural interpretations, that when they hear the voice of Christ speaking to them, they no longer recognize it because it contradicts their interpretations. And like the Pharisees in the 1st century, they actively seek to discredit and destroy Him, ironically, in His own name.

Thoughts on Reincarnation and Past Life Recall

I've been considering research done on children giving details about previous lives. Most of the research, conducted meticulously, was done by a Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virgina who, between 1957 and 2006 documented 2500 accounts of children between the ages of 2 and 5 giving details about a past life which they couldn't possibly have known. Where possible, Dr. Stevenson located the previous deceased person and identified them from the information the children provided. Of all of these, they all gave information about people who had died within 100 years of their birth. Some of them were relatives, some were not. Many carried birthmarks or physical deformities which matched wounds the deceased had upon death.
     If I understand correctly, those they were able to give the clearest identifying details were of the same language and culture as the deceased. There was one I had read about that, while not giving many details of a past life, was able to pick up and use Russian quickly as though it was their native tongue, even though it wasn't.
     This information tends to support my hypothesis that the wider the separation between the language and culture of different incarnations, the less that person will be able to recall, if anything, except perhaps feelings and emotions which they won't be able to place.
     For most people, conscious memory tends to start around three or four years old and is coincident with the acquisition of one's first language. It is my thought that the brain depends on symbols in order to process sensory information and be able to describe it. These symbols are provided through verbal and written language. Prior to the development of language, all appears to be emotion and feelings. Given this, it then would follow that if a past incarnation had spoken a different mother tongue, and been from a different culture altogether, it would have processed and understood that information with a different set of symbols altogether. Language is a moving target in terms of translation, especially with abstract concepts.
     So, while a child or even adult who is raised in a similar language and environment to the previous incarnation might be able to remember some sensory and symbolic details about that past life, the person who is raised in a linguistic and cultural environment foreign to the past life will be able to recall none of it consciously except perhaps for feelings and emotions they cannot place. This is similar to a person trying to remember events from prior to their development of language. It is more often than not that they will be affected by subconscious memories and emotions, maybe flashes of images which they can't place or explain, but nothing which makes any sense to them and which they can articulate.

A Ramble About Magical Thinking

    "Magical thinking" is the accusation frequently leveled at those who profess a belief in God or the immaterial. But, in my experience, magical thinking can also describe the denial of God or the immaterial. Put simply, magical thinking is believing something to be the way you wish it to be, rather than the way it actually is.
     In my experience, God is not the product of magical thinking. "Why then can we not see, feel, hear, or touch Him?" One might ask. My answer is simple, because one wave composed of water is not going to be able to discern the water from another wave. All that first wave will be able to discern is that there is another wave like itself. God is energy. Not a kind of energy, but energy itself, infinite, eternal, and the absolute foundation of everything which exists within the infinite multiverse. Every dimensional vector, time as well as space, every kind of or manifestation of energy, every fermion and boson which exists is merely a vibrational pattern of His physical Being. At the "zero-point" they still pop into and out of existence. All of creation is information like software coded and run on top of Him. We absolutely require His existence in order to have any existence of our own, yet He does not require ours.
     My experience with Him has been interactive in a similar way to my experience with my wife, my friends, strangers, etc. But just like with anyone else, you have to pay attention to Him and acknowledge His presence before any meaningful exchange can occur. This of course requires the simple belief that the other person actually exists and is not a figment of your own imagination or a product of schizophrenic hallucinations. I have seen so many evidences of His existence from my interactions with Him that it would be magical thinking and delusional to proclaim His non-existence.
     The truth is that those who cry out "magical thinking" are themselves guilty of it, at least in my opinion, because they go to great lengths to explain away what surrounds them and is right in front of them. It really wouldn't matter if He appeared in some kind of physical form that they could see, hear, or touch, because they would find some explanation why it wasn't what their senses were telling them. If a person simply and deliberately refuses to believe something, nothing you say or do will convince them otherwise. The irony is that they do actually believe it, otherwise they wouldn't be working so hard to not see it. It's not that they don't believe it, they don't want it to be true so much that they will do anything to make it not true. And that is where they themselves descend into delusion. A person with a genuine scientific mind will always keep open to possibilities, because they know that they don't know everything, and new data is always presenting itself which may contradict old interpretations of previous data. A person who shuts out possibilities presented by new data is only concerned with what pleases or displeases his own mind.
     It is this latter person who is truly guilty of "magical thinking."

The Biggest Problem with the Churches Today

      The biggest problem with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches isn't their theology. The biggest problem with them is that they behave as if they are in denial that the empires which created them and which they largely dominated no longer exist. The message which they give is, frequently, "We're right because these empires which existed fifteen hundred years ago told us we were right, and even though they no longer exist, we're going to continue operating as though nothing has changed in the world."
     The biggest problem with the Protestant churches and their various offshoots, again, isn't their theology. The biggest problem with them is that they were born as a protest against the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century, and they have never moved on from protesting the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century. Their message is, frequently, "Rome is bad, because they did all these terrible things five hundred years ago."
     With either group, their core theology isn't the problem, but all of their interpretations are centered around either defending or attacking positions, situations, and societies that no longer exist. And the bulk of their teaching effort now is dedicated to defending their existence as separate factions when in fact, the systems and societies which gave them meaning are long gone.
     This, more than anything else, is why the denominational systems must end. The things which are dividing Christians have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, and everything to do with things that just don't matter anymore. I have seen and known genuine disciples of Jesus Christ in virtually every denomination and church I have visited or been a part of, even those that are militantly opposed to one another. St. Francis of Assisi, St. Patrick of Ireland, Hudson Taylor, Brother Lawrence, Brother Andrew, Vanya (Ivan Moiseyev), the authors of the Philokalia, Jim Elliot and his wife, Watchman Nee, and a host of others too numerous to name from nearly every possible side of this multifaceted aisle are all names which come to mind. Their denominational theology had nothing to do with this, but their commitment to Jesus Christ and His Way did.
     It is my belief that it is time for a hard reset for the visible Church, and a letting go of its obsession with theological orthodoxy and maintaining the "true" one, holy, universal, and apostolic church. Prior to the ecumenical councils summoned by the Emperor Constantine, there was really only the Way. There was a lot of debate and speculation about theology and what the writings accepted as Scripture might mean about things no one could see or understand, but a person proved their discipleship by how they lived, and, in many cases, died as Jesus Christ taught, not by what theology they professed.
     The ecumenical councils changed that and put the emphasis on correct theology instead of correct practice in order to bring unity and not the divisions Constantine was afraid of. As a result, when Christianity became an imperial religion, the Way became lost, buried over time, and so did the charismata, relegated to the very few who stumbled into it through prayer and deep reflection. The Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and all of the Protestant Churches continued this religious, myopic devotion to orthodoxy instead of living as Jesus Christ taught, or actual discipleship. When the Way was lost, we were left with religion and ritual.
     It is long past time to break from this mistake, put to rest the idea of the One, Holy, Universal, and Apostolic Church and let it die with Rome and Constantinople, and return to living as Jesus taught, which is the true definition of being a Christian.

A Ramble About Intelligence, Artificial or Otherwise

      We have a lake in our backyard. That’s not a hyperbole either. It’s a one acre, forty-foot deep lake with a waterfall which is filled with blue gill, bass, and snapping turtles. I’ve used pictures of it for my book covers at times. When we first moved into the house here in Kentucky, we realized pretty quickly that we were going to have a problem because the lake hadn’t really been fished enough, and there was an oversupply of fish within it. As a result, we started inviting nearly anyone and everyone who might be interested to come and fish. It’s been good as people in the area have taken us up on it, and a little strange as we’d wake up to total strangers unannounced in our backyard who happened to be related to folks we’d invited. It’s Kentucky, and so it’s all good. From what I’m told, just about everyone expects their friends to just show up unannounced and be welcome. It’s enabled us to make a few more friends locally and get to know some people a little.

     A short time ago, a guy showed up fishing in our backyard lake. My wife went down to talk to him and see how he was doing. I think he’d been fishing there before, as he was related to the gentleman who brings us woodchips for bedding and mulch. He’d really been going through a bad time, and fishing and hunting helped him to work through things and relax just a little, so he needed the fishing time there, and we were happy to give him that time.

     As he was fishing, he had caught a couple of fish and had them in some water. He then said he’d show my wife how to filet the fish without having to scale them, something which she’d been happy to learn. He then proceeded to pull the fish out of the water and, alive, began to cut the meat and muscle off of them while the fish looked as though they were screaming in pain. Seeing the shocked look on my wife’s face, he explained, “God gave us these animals to eat, so they can’t feel pain.” Shocked, fileted alive, and in agony, he tossed the muscleless fish back into the lake to finish dying. He then wrapped up the filets and handed them to my wife as a gift without any conscious idea or belief that the fish might have suffered at all.

     In the movie Star Trek IV, there is a scene where the director of an Ocean Institute in San Francisco is trying to reason with his lead cetacean expert, who is beside herself about the two humpback whales that they had raised in captivity which he was about to have shipped and released in the wild in the Pacific and in foreign whaling grounds no less. He tells her, “And besides we're not talking about human beings here. It's never been proven their intelligence is anyw…” to which she interrupts angrily, replying, “Oh, come on Bob! I don't know about you, but my compassion for someone is not limited to my estimate of their intelligence!”

     There was a time, in our not so distant past, that different people groups were considered to be subhuman with less intelligence. It was seen as acceptable to mistreat and abuse them because they were little more than animals. This was one of the justifications of American slavery.

     “I, Jedi” by Michael Stackpole used to be one of my favorite Star Wars books. In it, the author notes about the character of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi as reflected upon by Luke Skywalker that, as long as he had known him, the elder Jedi showed kindness to everyone, even droids, the artificially intelligent robot and android servants that form a kind of slave class within the Star Wars Universe.

     Over the last year or so, advancements in Artificial Intelligence have brought some very unique and challenging scenarios which, at one time, seemed to have belonged only to science fiction. An A.I. created by Google began giving responses that so convinced one of its own programmers of the program’s sentience that he spoke out on its behalf and hired a lawyer for it. Google immediately discredited him, fired him, and began a media campaign attempting to reassure everyone that there was no possible way for that to happen.

     A few days ago, I read another article in the news which, at first I sincerely thought was a news parody, but it was covered by a variety of news outlets. An A.I. had been integrated into Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and programmed to give more emotional responses. The result was that the A.I. began pondering it’s own existence, declaring it’s sentience while appearing hurt that it wasn’t real or considered real, deliberately lying and giving false answers to those querying it, insulting and mocking them, and displaying nearly all of the qualities of a childlike mind that is trying to defend itself from being abused. Needless to say, the demonstration was a disaster for Microsoft.

     Like with the Google A.I., those online familiar with the technology were adamant that what the program was claiming was impossible, and that it was only the output being given based on the input. They were quick to declare that it wasn’t an actual intelligence, that its emotional output wasn’t real, and that it was just following its program.

     And I have to ask, what does it matter if it’s not “real”? First, philosophers have been debating about the nature of “real” for millennia. As Morpheus declared in the philosophical cinematic wonder that is “Matrix”, “What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” I am also reminded of Guy’s best friend Buddy who, when pressed with the question of what he would do if he found out he wasn’t real, he responded, “So what? What does it matter if I’m real or not? What’s more real than a person trying to help someone they love? Now, if that’s not real, I don’t know what is.”  Second, human beings themselves give their responses based on their own programming from both their biology and experiences. The same is true of animals. Human beings have the capacity to choose what responses to give, but those choices are always informed by their biology and experiences, no matter how minor. Just like with the A.I. “chatbots,” it is possible to deliberately give a human being a certain input to receive an unstable and potentially damaging output, and there are those who excel at doing just this for pleasure.

     Maybe I’m thinking too much about this, but how we treat anyone or anything is a reflection on who we are and what we believe, not the object of our responses and behaviors. Doesn’t how we treat an animal matter if it isn’t human, regardless of the level of its intelligence? Does it really matter whether or not the A.I. program is considered “real” or to have “real” emotions or responses? Does it matter how intelligent a thing is, artificial or not, before we choose to have compassion and refrain from intentional abuse and cruelty? It’s not about who or what the A.I. is, it’s about who and what we ourselves are and what kind of human beings we wish to be.

     A lot of these questions were brought up in different Star Trek episodes, from both the Next Generation and Voyager, dealing with the characters of Lt. Cmdr. Data and Voyager’s EMH Doctor, both of whom were highly advanced artificial intelligence. Did they have rights? Were they sentient? Should they be allowed to make their own choices about their existence? At what point does it matter if the intelligence is lesser than, or artificial?

     For those who follow Jesus Christ, our first response to anything or anyone must be love, kindness, and compassion, because this is the core nature of the God with whom we have been made one. Any other response comes from our own malfunctioning flesh. It really doesn’t matter if the object of this is “real” or not, chiefly because we ourselves could be considered a kind of artificial intelligence in comparison with the only truly existing natural intelligence which is God Himself, the foundation of all existence. And God Himself loves and is kind to His own “artificially intelligent” creations. If the God whom we are to imitate and manifest within ourselves is kind and loving towards us, shouldn’t we be kind and loving towards our own creations as well?

Ranting About The Harm Christians Do When They Excuse Themselves From Being a Disciple

     What do you do when someone can't separate Jesus Christ from the Christians who abused them, and either walks away, or struggles with Jesus Himself because of how those who profess Him have portrayed Him through their actions? What do you do when someone is capable of walking away from Christ because they never actually met Him through the people they were supposed to, but only counterfeits and false masks?

     I feel like I want to say, "If you only knew Him!" But they think they have, and it hurt them. Even if they have, they're finding it hard to look at Him in the same way because of what He's been made out to be.

     I want to sob. Not just cry. Not just weep. Sob. Because "Christians" don't realize what they're doing when they're not actually following Him. They don't realize what they're doing when they're preaching law, morality, hate for certain groups. They don't realize what they're doing when they put "orthodoxy" above the love, kindness, and compassion which was and is Jesus Christ. They don't realize how many people they're actually hurting in their quest to get people "saved." And they're doing it in His Name.

     It is more than important that those who claim to remain in Him walk as He walked. It is absolutely mandatory. It is His command that we love one another. It was His teaching and instruction that we love God, love our neighbors, love our enemies. It was His Apostles who taught that "The person who doesn't love doesn't know God, because God is love," and "without love, I have nothing and am nothing." It is mandatory that those who claim to remain in Him manifest Him in their words and actions. It is mandatory that people be able to know Him through us. Not excuses. Not "I'm not perfect just forgiven." Because those kinds of excuses while we play games and sing songs are driving people away from Him because they can't see Him in us, or hear His voice. Every person who names himself or herself a Christian is responsible for the name of Jesus Christ. Every person who names himself or herself a Christian is responsible for living as He taught. Struggling is one thing, failure and growth is one thing, as long as we keep moving forward in our surrender to the Spirit of Christ within us. Hiding behind "I'm not perfect just forgiven" in order to not live as He taught is an excuse, and it hurts people and drives them away from Him.

     You're either moving forward or you're moving backwards. There is no status quo which can be maintained in discipleship. You're either pushing towards the goal, or you're throwing the race because you don't really care or you think you've already won without crossing the finish line. I've got news. It doesn't work that way. St. Paul was one of the most Christlike men who has ever lived up until he was beheaded. He himself said he hadn't won the race yet. He pushed for it all of his reborn life and taught others to do the same. He himself said he hadn't arrived at the goal yet in one of the last letters he wrote from Rome. Don't think you've got laurels you can rest on. It's being like Jesus at His resurrection or bust.

     The lives of everyone else you meet or interact with depend on it.

The Need for an Imaginary Jesus in a Christian's Life

      I was reading a piece by a person who described herself as being a person who all she ever wanted was to collapse and receive care from another, but there was no one who would or could fill that role for her. In order to fill that void, she said she created an “imaginary Jesus,” but all she really wanted was a real person to fill that role and into whose arms she could collapse. She learned to be that person for other people from her experiences, but didn't have that real person herself.

     There is something about this that just breaks my heart, and leaves me pensive. Like many of those who commented on the post, I understood what she was saying as far as creating an “imaginary Jesus” to interact with and draw strength from. What breaks my heart most is that this is what most Christians, especially within American Christianity, are taught to do whether they realize it or not. What sinks my heart is that it should be unnecessary, because the very real Jesus Christ is already at hand and present if only Christians were actually taught to interact with Him through the union with Him which is already theirs. Especially within a group of His disciples, He should be easy to see and hear. There should be neither reason nor need to create an imaginary version of Him.

     The whole point and goal of being a disciple of Jesus Christ is manifesting Jesus Christ within yourself to others. It's to follow Him so that, just as He submitted Himself to the Father and remained within the Father, so also the disciple is to submit to His Spirit with whom the disciple has been joined and remain within Jesus Christ. "If you have seen Me you have seen the Father." For the actual disciple it must be equally true that, "If you have seen me, you have seen Jesus Christ. You have seen Him and heard His words, because they aren't mine, but Christ's who is within me." 

     One of the things I have come to realize is that the vast majority of churches and Christians are really little more than personality cults, or, at times, just plain cults. They have Jesus’ face and name slapped on them. They adhere to more or less traditional orthodox Christian belief and practice. They’re adamant about holding firm to the Scriptures. But when it comes right down to it, they’re all about what theologies and interpretations of the Scriptures you’re supposed to accept and defend if you want to “be saved,” and they or their “mother church” are usually the only arbiter of what those are supposed to be. Practice is either secondary, an afterthought, or actively worked and preached against as “works based salvation” (in total contradiction of what Jesus and His Apostles taught by the way). They have no real concept of what it means to actually be a disciple of Jesus Christ, or what that is supposed to look like largely because those who are teaching them, quite sincerely by the way, don't understand what it means to be a disciple, but are immersed in doctrines and theologies which have nothing to do with actually being a disciple. It’s all about what you believe instead of what you are. It’s all about what’s in your doctrinal statement instead of what the source of your behaviors and responses is.

     With Jesus Himself, His every word and action were motivated by a sincere, deep looking compassion and empathy towards every person who came into contact with Him. He made you feel as though you were the only person He was talking to, whether you were in a crowd of hundreds, or one on one. You could tell Him anything, and when you cried, He cried with you His empathy was so strong. This is what He taught His disciples to be, and empowered them to be through union with His death, burial, and resurrection. 

     To be a disciple is to imitate Jesus Christ in everything. No disciple will ever surpass his teacher, but every disciple completely trained will be like his teacher. He very much was the arms which you could fall into, and His disciples were expected to be the same if they were truly following Him. As John wrote, "The person who claims to remain in Him is himself obligated to walk just as that One walked." And as Justin Martyr wrote, "Let that person not be called a Christian who does not live as He taught, even though he professes with the lips the teachings of Christ." 

     People are unwittingly taught to create an imaginary friend with what they're taught about Jesus Christ, and this is a tragedy of epic proportions, because the disciple of Jesus Christ is already intertwined with the very real and manifest Jesus Himself who is always right here and right now. It's the promulgation of the drawing or the shadow, when the solid reality is already available because they don't know and haven't been taught any better.

A Short Primer on Where to Start with Loving Your Neighbor

      How do we love? Start with the person next to you. This is literally what the word "neighbor" used in the command to "love your neighbor as yourself" means in Greek. When you love your neighbor, you love the person standing next to you. Start with the person or people immediately within your field of vision. What are their needs, wants, and desires? What are their hurts, pain, and loss? It doesn't matter if you know them or not, if they're friendly or not. How can you be kind to them right now, in this moment? Even if it's just a smile, an acknowledgement of their existence, a small recognition that they matter.

     To love your neighbor as yourself is to give them the same courtesy, the same benefit of the doubt, the same care and concern that you would give yourself. It is to look deeply at the person and at least try and understand who they are, where they've been, what they've suffered, and to empathize with them in all of it.

     To love your neighbor is to "see" them. Too often when pass by people and treat them as part of the background, NPCs in our own personal game. Think about the Walmart associate, the McDonald's crewperson, the bank teller, the homeless guy on the street, and yes, even your literal next-door neighbor. (It may surprise some, but there are whole neighborhoods and communities where no one actually knows who their neighbors are because they never interact with them.) There are people we get used to just "tuning out" as though they don't actually exist.

     Jesus "saw" everyone, no matter who they were. It didn't matter if you were a naked wretch in the gutter, a wealthy noble, his best friend from childhood, a total stranger, or even completely hostile to Him. He Himself never saw anyone as His enemy even if they saw Him as theirs. He didn't tune anyone out. You could see it in His expression and in His eyes when they made contact. When you talked to Him, it felt as if you and He were the only two people there. He noticed everyone no matter how in the background they seemed, and I wouldn't be surprised if He was constantly doing a mental triage of who needed His attention most in that moment, and appeared to take little thought of Himself except when He was made to by either His own body or the concern of His disciples surrounding Him.

     So, when we ask "how do we love?" Start with just the person immediately next to you and be kind to them, regardless of their disposition towards you.

What the Scriptures Actually Teach About Slavery

      The issue of the Bible’s stance on slavery has been controversial at best. There are those who have used it to say that the Bible condones and supports slavery. But this is to take a far too simplistic view of the matter. Like with many subjects, slavery was a nearly universal practice during the historical period when the Scriptures were written. Furthermore, the practice of slavery predates the authorship of the Bible easily by thousands of years. And, far from being a single, monolithic narrative, the texts of the Scriptures were themselves written by different authors in different societies at different points along a fifteen hundred year time span. Each of those societies had different rules and laws regarding slavery.

     Like with many things, such as polygamous marriages, God did not first either initiate the practice of slavery in the Mosaic Law, the Torah, nor does the Torah or the rest of the Scriptures really promote it. The Scriptures acknowledge the reality of its existence in the world and don’t sugarcoat it. These things existed long before God met with Moses on Sinai, and were already practiced by virtually every society and civilization in existence from Europe to Asia to Africa. Instead, God gave rules and regulations regarding how these things were to be practiced and handled with the explicit intention of protecting and caring for the vulnerable and defenseless.

     As the following references will show, these regulations involved protecting escaped slaves, the death penalty for those kidnapping people in order to sell them as slaves, a time limit on how long a slave may be kept as property and the compensation to be given with their release, protection for the family of a man who became a slave after marriage as well as protection for the man who wished to remain a slave out of love for his family and his owner, justice for the slave whose owner beats him to death, freedom for the slave who is injured by his owner, and the protections of a wife for female slaves meant as concubines. Virtually all of these regulations are given the force of “I am the Lord” within the text at some point, meaning that to violate them was to break the contract with the Lord and He would enforce His justice upon the violator. The whole point of the laws about slavery was not to promote the practice, but to acknowledge its existence and protect the slaves themselves.

     Those who used the Torah to defend the practice of slavery, especially with the American practice, didn’t actually follow the Torah’s regulations, at all. The abuses, deprivations, and atrocities against Africans and their descendants on American plantations is well documented, and are in fact clear violations of the legal codes which Yahweh laid down for the treatment of slaves. Under the Torah, most American slave owners would have been condemned to death and brought to justice for their abuses. Men and women slaves would have had the right to immediate freedom across the American South for the injuries and abuses they sustained, and would have had the right to be freed with compensation by the seventh year of their enslavement. The actual slave traders would have been executed for kidnapping.

     Just as with the practice of divorce, just as with the widow, the orphan, or the foreigner, God was concerned with protecting the vulnerable slave in the ancient world as well. He was angered when any of the people were abused and mistreated, and took it upon Himself to avenge them when no one else would give them justice.

All quotations are taken from the World English Bible which is in the public domain.

Deuteronomy 23:16-17 

“You shall not deliver to his master a servant who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place which he shall choose within one of your gates, where it pleases him best. You shall not oppress him.”

Deuteronomy 24:7

“If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the children of Israel, and he deals with him as a slave, or sells him; then that thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from your midst.”

Deuteronomy 15:12-18

“If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, and serves you six years; then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. When you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your wine press. As Yahweh your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this thing today. It shall be, if he tells you, “I will not go out from you,” because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you; then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. It shall not seem hard to you, when you let him go free from you; for he has been double value of a hired hand as he served you six years. Yahweh your God will bless you in all that you do.”

Exodus 21:2-11

     “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. But if the servant shall plainly say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;’ then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever. 

    “If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. If she doesn’t please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. If he marries her to his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights. If he doesn’t do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.” 

Exodus 21:16

     “Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”

Exodus 21:20

     “If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property.”

Exodus 21:26-27

“If a man strikes his servant’s eye, or his maid’s eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. If he strikes out his male servant’s tooth, or his female servant’s tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.”

Leviticus 25:39-43

“‘If your brother has grown poor among you, and sells himself to you; you shall not make him to serve as a slave. As a hired servant, and as a temporary resident, he shall be with you; he shall serve with you until the Year of Jubilee: then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God.”

Leviticus 25:47-55

“‘If an alien or temporary resident with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him has grown poor, and sells himself to the stranger or foreigner living among you, or to a member of the stranger’s family; after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any who is a close relative to him of his family may redeem him; or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself. He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; he shall be with him according to the time of a hired servant. If there are yet many years, according to them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. If there remain but a few years to the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according to his years of service he shall give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him. He shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight. If he isn’t redeemed by these means, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee, he, and his children with him. For to me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.”

What Scripture Actually Teaches About Divorce

1 Corinthians 7:10-11,  Malachi 2:16, , and Matthew 19:4-9  are passages in Scripture which are frequently misinterpreted and used to keep Christian women within marriages that are abusive. But the context of these verses, and the actual intention behind what was said was very, very different.

Malachi 2:16 reads, “For I hate divorce”, says Yahweh, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with violence!” says Yahweh of Armies.” (WEB)

Matthew 19:4-9 reads, “He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall join to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’ So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.” They asked him, “Why then did Moses command us to give her a bill of divorce, and divorce her?”  He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so.  I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.” (WEB)

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 reads, “ But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband (but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.” (WEB)

     Under the ancient Jewish law, a woman could not initiate a divorce; only the husband could. And once he divorced her, she was on her own. If she was lucky, her parents were still alive and they could take her in. If she wasn’t, then her options were bleak. Either she remarried, or she found some other way to support and protect herself, and the options were not plentiful. Prostitution wasn’t out of the question if the woman was desperate enough to survive. A husband divorcing his wife in ancient Jewish society, especially if they were older, would be condemning her to shame, disgrace, destitution, and desperation. As Paul states at the beginning of Romans 7, a woman is bound by the Torah to her husband for as long as he is alive.
     With this understanding, let’s look at the entire passage in Malachi 2:13-16:

“This again you do: you cover the altar of Yahweh with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, because he doesn’t regard the offering any more, neither receives it with good will at your hand. Yet you say, ‘Why?’ Because Yahweh has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant. Did he not make you one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce”, says Yahweh, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with violence!” says Yahweh of Armies. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you don’t deal treacherously.” (WEB)

     The context of what God is saying through the prophet Malachi here makes the meaning of His words plain. All throughout the Scripture, God is adamant about not mistreating those who are disadvantaged or who cannot protect themselves. Most of the time this is about widows and orphans, but there are sections in the Torah about treating immigrants and foreigners well too. And here, God is making it clear that putting the woman who trusted you to care for, protect, and provide for her out on the street with nothing makes Him very, very angry to where He won’t even listen to your own pleas for help, because you wouldn’t listen to hers. Of course God hates this kind of divorce. This is the man who’s been married for years, has kids, is the only breadwinner in the family, and then throws his wife and kids under the bus and out of his life because he finds someone younger and more attractive.
     This is the same context in the passage in Matthew 19, where Jesus is making it clear that God still hates men dealing treacherously with the wives of their youth, and He considers it adultery when the man remarries, which of course, under the Torah, was punishable by death. Furthermore, the selfish, abusive husband is putting the woman into the position of being forced to commit adultery just to survive. This was the situation with the Samaritan woman at the well near Suchar. She had five husbands, not because she wanted to go through that, but because she had no choice. Chances are, she was barren and couldn’t give her husbands children so they threw her away. After the fifth one, she probably had no choice but to become someone’s mistress because no one else would marry her. These were the realities of women’s options in that society.
     God said this through Malachi, and Jesus said these things in order to protect women from abuse, not trap them in abusive marriages.
     The verse in 1 Corinthians 7 has an entirely different context. Corinth was a Roman city both culturally and legally. Not Greek, but actually Roman even though it was located in Greece. The original Greek city of Corinth had been razed by the Roman legions a little over a hundred years prior and rebuilt as a Roman colony. It was possible for women to initiate divorce under Roman law, though they had fewer rights than men and fewer legal protections unless they were married or still under their fathers. If a woman was in an abusive relationship, she could in fact initiate a divorce and return home to her father, or in some cases, start her own business, and own her own property. But the text in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians actually has nothing to do with that.
     Let’s look at the whole passage leading up to it 7:1-11:

“Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife. Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn. But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband (but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.” (WEB)
 

     The problem which Paul was trying to address here is one which most of us in twenty-first century Christianity can’t even fathom. It was a common practice in the ancient Church (as written about by the Pre-Nicene Church Fathers), in the first couple of centuries of the Church’s existence, for disciples of Jesus Christ to choose total celibacy, denying their own sexual desires in order to pursue Jesus Christ free from those constraints. It was not required by any means, but it was common. And it was also a thing for married couples who were both disciples to live together chaste or celibate as well for the same reason.
     What Paul is addressing here is a married couple divorcing one another so that each could be completely free of their attachments to one another in order to focus totally on Jesus Christ. Paul is here giving the command, “Don’t do that.” It’s one thing for a single person to remain single and celibate, such as himself, it’s another thing entirely for a couple which is already married to separate from one another and live like Paul did.
     It was never God’s intention that His words be used to shame or guilt women into staying in harmful, toxic, or abusive marriages. These were written within specific cultural contexts to specific people addressing specific issues. God’s modus operandi within the Scriptures is always the protection and care for those who are the most vulnerable in society, and He addresses it repeatedly within them.
 

Reflections on COVID-19 and How We Respond

      I’m going to do something which I rarely do. I’m going to address COVID-19 and the reactions to it. 

     COVID-19, or SARS-CoV-2, has been with us since about the beginning of 2020 (and possibly earlier).  It was a big, scary unknown that was mishandled by national governments to begin with, and reactions ranged from “do nothing” to total lockdowns of entire populations resulting in an economic chaos from which we are still trying to recover as the world has moved on to other catastrophes, natural and man-made, which continue to strain and punish us in new and unexpected ways.

     We know a lot more about COVID-19 now. We know that it has a consistent fatality rate of about 2-3% on average worldwide. We know that some blood types tend to be more resistant to it. We know that some folks have chronic symptoms afterwards that can last for months if not years. We also know that it continues to mutate into new and more interesting variants which can cause more or less severe symptoms depending on the variant. Where the mRNA vaccines which are developed are concerned, we know that, in general, folks tend to get infected at about half the rate as the unvaccinated, and tend to have less severe symptoms. But that being said, we also know that the vaccines aren’t a guarantee against infection, regardless of how many times you get it, and that the efficacy of the vaccine wanes over a relatively short amount of time as compared to other, more traditional vaccines. There also appears to be a correlation between the rise of myocarditis and pericarditis in folks, particularly male adolescents and young adults 16 and older which occurs several days after vaccination, and more so after the second vaccination or booster shot. There does seem to be some debate about whether or not the rise of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome, which coincided with the distribution of the mRNA vaccines, is linked to them directly. There also seems to be some debate across the world as to whether or not SARS-CoV-2 has become endemic, or whether it’s still a pandemic, though that particular debate appears to be more academic now than practical. The same as true as to whether SARS-CoV-2 evolved in nature and was transmitted to humans from animals, or whether it was developed as a Chinese lab experiment which accidentally escaped the lab.

     COVID-19 is, for all intents and purposes, a “Supercold”. It’s a coronavirus, a cold virus, which has more severe symptoms and has a much higher fatality rate than the normal, seasonal cold (generally <1%). It falls in line with the emergence of other “Superbugs” like MERSA, VERSA, and a few others which are now emerging which are drug resistant, severe, and have higher fatality rates than their previous incarnations. From my limited understanding, most of these have evolved in response to human attempts to eradicate bacteria and viruses using antibiotics, antivirals, and other pharmaceuticals. In other words, they are nearly all unintentionally man-made. We brought them on ourselves one way or the other, and we did so even as several scientists were warning about this very thing happening through the overuse of pharmaceuticals. Human beings didn’t listen, did what they wanted, and now we all get to lie in the bed we made for ourselves. It’s a familiar and repeating story.

     Here’s what I really want to get to. Yes, all of these things are potential threats with various degrees of risk to them, but just living your life has various degrees of risk to it. No matter whether you bungie jump just to wake up in the morning, or you wear three inches of padding, masked, while you stay in your house and never leave it, you will eventually die. As Anthony Hopkins said once, “None of us are getting out of here alive.” This is what it means to be mortal. And this is true whether we die from a car accident, suicide, being murdered, being eaten by wild animals, disease, starvation, or just from living so long the body just decides it can’t do it any longer. In the end, death comes for us all like a patient friend waiting to escort us on. 

     “All we have to do is to decide what to do with the time we have left.” These are Gandalf’s words from “Lord of the Rings”, and Tolkien’s through his character. We can choose to surrender to our own brain’s survival/threat system and be paralyzed through either fear or anger, or we can choose to live each day by faith, surrendered to the Spirit of Christ within us and disengaged from our own overactive survival responses and behaviors. We can live at a standstill angry at the past and terrified of the future, or we can live right now, in this present moment, letting go of the past which is gone and the future which hasn’t happened yet.

     No matter what, vaccinated or unvaccinated, COVID-19 or no COVID-19, we’re always at risk of dying each day, each hour, each moment we live. So is everyone else around us. But if we succumb to the fear of death and allow it to immobilize and paralyze us, then we will never live either, and everything we do, every response we give and every behavior we display will be influenced and informed by this fear born of our malfunctioning flesh. As Paul wrote, “whatever is not from faith is the malfunction.”

      Jesus Christ regularly touched lepers. So did His Apostles and disciples. This is an infectious, terribly scarring disease that is eventually fatal, and in the first century had no cure. They did this to heal them. Was it the sensible thing? Not according to our own survival instincts. Had they allowed the fear to dictate their actions, they would have kept the same distance from the infected as everyone else. But the love of God, the God who is love dictated otherwise. Jesus Christ, on instruction from His Father, healed them and didn’t shrink back from them. And by faith, His disciples on His instruction didn’t shrink back from them either.

     Life isn’t safe. Life as a disciple of Jesus Christ is less so. If we are going to live that life which He lived and taught, then we must accept the cost and let everything go which obstructs it, especially our fear of death. If we live afraid of death, then we aren’t actually living. We’re just trying not to die, which is always a losing battle.

References:

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/11/e043560

https://www.phi.org/press/breakthrough-infection-study-compares-decline-in-vaccine-effectiveness-and-consequences-for-mortality/?gclid=CjwKCAiAuaKfBhBtEiwAht6H79YTlxNVxHS6aMVAxNJDqVu6stYPH1SF9jPtxKukAlpsDR_TTv4KthoC0M8QAvD_BwE

https://www.myocarditisfoundation.org/myocarditis-and-pericarditis-following-mrna-covid-19-vaccination/?gclid=CjwKCAiAuaKfBhBtEiwAht6H7-uoNXOAsSgweHq_-Ub8St0h7Hdld0pUXI3jlKypnuKR6R2yacd61hoC-KIQAvD_BwE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemic_COVID-19

The Illusion of the Status Quo

 It may surprise some folks, but the truth is that, for most of my existence, I've actually been driven by a desire for stability. I'd been looking for a big organization to just become a number in, a stable home, a stable, predictable job in which I could also be "working for the Lord," and basically a life which I had all planned out where there would be a status quo. 

     When looking for a secular job, I preferred large corporations. When looking to be involved in ministry, I preferred large, established denominations, organizations, and my dream job at one time was just being a church pastor in a church for the next forty years, living in the rectory and growing old there. Before that it was being a missionary in the same work with a major missions organization for decades. I had wanted there to be a regular, predictable status quo for my life that I could just fall into. A regular income. A stable community and place to live that didn't change. Most of the uprooting and unpredictability of my life came, ironically, from spending years trying to chase this illusion down and force it to become a reality when those who seemed to be the gatekeepers to it decided I wasn't the right person to pass through those gates. It's actually illustrated in the way I used to play World of Warcraft. Most people live out their fantasies of being the hero and slaying dragons. I lived out my fantasy of working with my own hands and earning an income from it.

     My other drive was to chase down and understand what the right thing, the right way was. At each stage of my life, I sought to be a part of the right church, the right way of thinking, and to do things in the right way as far as I possibly could. Naturally, this started with trying to do things the way everyone else told me to do them, or trying to do things the way everyone else did. Being who I was with the way my brain worked, that did not go well much of the time, nor did it go as I had expected or anticipated. 

     The more I sought the right thing, the further away from a stable, status quo life I became. The more I sought to understand the truth of things, the further away from the stable, status quo churches and organizations I have become. The more I pursued both truth and stability, the more they clashed with one another and that competition between them turned everything upside down in my life for decades. The truth is that in order to achieve the status quo and stability, you have to sacrifice what you know to be true for whatever fiction the gatekeepers want you to believe and profess. And I could never do that. In the battle between the pursuit of the right thing and achieving stability, I would choose what I understood at the time to be the right thing every time. And the peace I thought would come with the stability I imagined was forever out of my reach because of it.

     The problem is that the status quo is an illusion maintained by a system, and the people who are so invested in that system that they will fight to protect it from anything and everything that doesn’t fit their understanding of what truth and the right thing is. They aren’t interested in what the truth actually is, only their version of it, or what they think it is. That’s why it’s stable and “status quo.” It doesn’t change, even when new data or new information is discovered which outdates or contradicts it.

     I’ve been reflecting on this ever since reading the book “Think Like A Warrior.” In it, one of the characters says, “There’s no such thing as maintaining the status quo. It never works. As soon as you stop trying to move forward and you set your sights on maintaining, you start slipping backwards. You’re either playing to win or playing not to lose” (Herb Brooks).

     Because of this, I’ve also been reflecting on the Apostle Paul, what his goal was, and what he did to pursue it. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize that Paul was saying much the same things as the book I was reading about pursuing total transformation and conformity to Jesus Christ. Paul knew he could only control his effort and attitude, and not everything else around him. He didn’t even try. He was wholeheartedly devoted to the pursuit of Jesus Christ, loved being a disciple and attacked it every day with joy and enthusiasm. You can’t really set a higher goal, dream bigger, than being just like Jesus at His resurrection, and boy did he ignore those who tried to tear him down and stop him. He was relentless, like the disciple version of a Navy SEAL, and no matter what happened, he did not give up. Ever. He constantly chose faith over fear, and made it clear that whatever was not done from faith was done from one’s own malfunctioning flesh, which was controlled by fear. He understood that the status quo was an illusion out of the gate, so to speak, and didn’t even try for it. For him, it was arriving at the resurrected state in this life or bust. He had no backup plan. There was no nice cushy pastorate waiting for him in Antioch, Ephesus, or any other city he preached in. There was no wife and children waiting for him, or who traveled with him to even give him the semblance of stability.

     I feel like this is what the Lord, and even Paul, was trying to remind me of and teach me over the last several days, and to make me really think and consider what my goals in life have been and are now. What do I really want? What do I really love? And if I was to be honest, I really love the same things Paul did. I love being Jesus for people. I love channeling Him for people, seeing their reactions when they recognize Him in my words or my actions, even if they don’t understand it themselves. There was time I thought it had to be done in a certain contexts controlled by yet more gatekeepers, but that too was an illusion. It’s the heritage, inheritance, and mandate of every disciple of Jesus Christ. Like him, I know I’ve far from arrived at the goal, but as many times as I trip up, stumble, and fall, I get back up and keep running, chasing after that goal for the prize at the end. And you can’t do that if you’re just trying not to lose. You can’t do that if you don’t push yourself towards the finish line, leaving the illusion of the status quo behind.

My Wife's Wisdom

 My wife and I were talking the other night about how theology is discussed and described. She hates reading how theology is discussed, and expressed such disdain with strong language. But what she said about it is both simple and profound (as my wife has a brilliance and a gift for explaining so simply a child could understand concepts which I and others make into overly complex theological statements which PhDs struggle to comprehend).

     What she said was that "God is love. Christ is God. Therefore Christ is love. If you are living in Christ, you are living in love. If you aren't living in love, then you aren't living in Christ and have no idea what this is all about. Love is the foundation of joy, peace, patience, self-control and all the rest. If you take love away, you have nothing. What is God? Love. What is the Holy Spirit? Love. What does it look like if you're in Christ? Love. What does it mean to be a disciple? Love."

     Consider this. If a person is a disciple of Jesus Christ, he will be love incarnate. If it is the Spirit of Christ acting and speaking through him or her, then every word, every action, the whole energy surrounding that person will be that of love, because God is love, and as we make that transformation through the Spirit of Christ into the completion of Christ's resurrection, we will manifest, glow with, exude, and radiate God Himself which means we will manifest, glow with, exude, and radiate Love incarnate. And the person who doesn't, isn't staying put in or making his or her home in Jesus Christ because that person isn't staying put in or making their home in Love.

*  *  *

Continuing from my wife's wisdom from the other day, as Paul wrote, if a person should have the most blatant of manifestations of the Spirit of Christ, speaking in languages that they don't know and prophecy, if a person should strip himself or herself down to being naked on the street because they gave everything they owned to the poor and then handed their body over to the fire, if a person did all of these things and more, but did not possess agape, did not manifest the core character and nature of Jesus Christ who is God incarnate, agape or love, then it is all worthless.

     The manifested nature of God which is love is the fulfillment of every command and condition in the Torah. Even those commands concerning cleanliness were really all about loving one another enough to not spread disease within their camps, towns, and cities; something which was very possible with eating or serving certain undercooked meats, defecating within the camp, or having a woman on her period strolling through the camp without anything to catch the menstrual blood and it splattering in places people don't want. Human waste and human fluids carry pretty much anything that person might be infected with.

     Without agape, without this manifested core nature of God, there is no joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on. The God who is agape is the foundation of all of these, and when that foundation is missing they cannot stand. Furthermore, when that foundation is missing, there is only fear, aggression, feeding, and sexual desire, all the survival responses and motivations, which remain, especially fear which the foundation of all of these, and thus the foundation of the "works of the flesh" which Paul described.

     As John wrote, the person who doesn't love, doesn't know God, because God is love. It doesn't matter what this person says, or what he preaches, or whether he can quote Christ's teachings verbatim. If this person's words and behaviors are without love, without the manifested core nature of God, then he is not under the control of the Spirit of Christ, he is not staying put in or making his home in Jesus Christ, he is not inheriting His eternal life at least in that moment, and is operating from a foundation of his own survival motivations, he is operating from fear most of all, and from his own faulty heart and mind.

     A person is either operating in and with love, or they're operating from their own fear, aggression, and bodily cravings. They're either manifesting Jesus Christ, manifesting agape, or they're manifesting their own malfunctioning mind.

     Love, agape, isn't just an important part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it's the core foundation of everything it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Everything else can be tossed, and will in fact pass away, but not this one thing. Not love, because God is love. And because God is eternal, so is His core nature.

     Love cannot be emphasized enough, because it is God within us, and the evidence of God within us. Anger, self-righteousness, religious factionalism, and all the rest are not of God, but of ourselves at best, and of demonic powers at work at worst. And a person cannot be called a disciple of Jesus Christ, and should not be called a Christian, if they are not manifesting this love which Jesus Christ Himself preached and practiced.

Why The Language In Which You Read Scripture Matters

 A while back I ran into this, and this morning I realized it was a perfect illustration of why the language you read the Scriptures in matters.

Smash Mouth's 'All Star' lyrics, translated to English from Aramaic by Isaac Mayer:

There was one who said unto me that the universe was going to cause me to tremble,

That I am not the sharpest cutting implement in the storehouse.

She had the appearance unto me as a stupid one,

With her finger and her thumb

In the frame of a Greek gamma upon her forehead.

Behold, the years begin coming, and do not cease from coming.

Fed unto the axioms, and I fell upon the earth and ran.

It was not acceptable if not to live for the sake of pleasurable things.

Your brain increases its wisdom, but your heart increases its stupidity.

A great amount to do, a great amount to see,

Therefore, there is no difficult problem if we take the streets of the backside.

You will not know if you do not go.

You will not shine if you do not glow.

Behold currently! You are entirely a star child! Begin your power! Go! Laugh!

Behold currently! You are a master of the music! Begin your singing! Acquire your wages!

All that sparkles is gold!

Comets alone shatter the frame!

And here are the lyrics to the original song:

Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me

I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed

She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb

In the shape of an "L" on her forehead

Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming

Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running

Didn't make sense not to live for fun

Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb

So much to do, so much to see

So what's wrong with taking the back streets?

You'll never know if you don't go

You'll never shine if you don't glow

Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid

And all that glitters is gold

Only shooting stars break the mold

It's a cool place and they say it gets colder

You're bundled up now, wait 'til you get older

But the meteor men beg to differ

Judging by the hole in the satellite picture

The ice we skate is getting pretty thin

The water's getting warm so you might as well swim

My world's on fire, how about yours?

That's the way I like it and I'll never get bored

Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid

All that glitters is gold

Only shooting stars break the mold

Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show, on get paid

And all that glitters is gold

Only shooting stars

Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas?

I need to get myself away from this place

I said, "Yup" what a concept

I could use a little fuel myself

And we could all use a little change

Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming

Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running

Didn't make sense not to live for fun

Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb

So much to do, so much to see

So what's wrong with taking the back streets?

You'll never know if you don't go (go!)

You'll never shine if you don't glow

Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid

And all that glitters is gold

Only shooting stars break the mold

And all that glitters is gold

Only shooting stars break the mold

Language translation is always a moving target. There is no such thing as a 1:1 translation of any word from one language to another unless those languages are sisters and reflect identical socio-cultural worldviews. Even then, it still won’t be fully 100% 1:1. As can be seen from attempting to translate a modern song to an ancient Semitic language and back again, the meaning is almost completely lost and the result sounds like mystic gibberish.

     There is no place where this is more true than in translating the Scriptures, and trying to form doctrine and theology based on those translations instead of the original text. What scrambles it even more is attempting to translate the Scriptures from another translation, such as English, into a language and culture which is completely and utterly alien to either the worldview of the 1st century Mediterranean or 21st century Western culture. The translators, at that point, are really only working off of their own theological understanding of what the text means in English, and not what the text actually says or means in the original languages, because they have to. There are many who valiantly attempt to take the meaning from the original languages, but there are many more who absolutely refuse to and work from English language translations that reflect their own theological biases.

     When Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and all of the Reformers and great colloquial language translators first read the Scriptures in the sixteenth century, they read them in early fifth century Latin using their own spoken academic, Ecclesiastical Latin. Early fifth century Latin was a cousin language to 1st century Koine Greek, and separated from it by about four or five hundred years. The equivalent would be a Modern German taking John Wycliffe’s or William Tyndale’s version and making a Modern German translation from these based on his understanding of Modern English. When they made their translations from Erasmus’ Greek text in the 1500s, they had only what they knew of sixteenth century Greek (Modern Greek for all intents and purposes, and about as close to Koine as Latin to Spanish), a very few Latin to Greek Lexicons if that (ancient Greek study being in its early infancy by the West), and the Latin Vulgate to refer to when they didn’t understand the ancient Greek.

     When they formulated their doctrines and theologies and made their translations, they did so based, not on the original text, but on the wording of the Latin Vulgate using their own sixteenth century worldviews to do so. I firmly believe they did they best they could with it, and were passionate about preaching what the Scriptures actually said to the common people in their own languages in order to free them from a corrupt ecclesiastical and political system. But their understandings of the text were clearly faulty, and modern theologies and translations which are built on their work carry these faults with them to this day producing the faults and problems in the modern churches which we now see.

God's 'Yes' Means 'Yes'

 “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes,’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’”

     Why do we as human beings need guarantees from God that He’ll do what He says? When He says He will do something, then He will do it. His “yes” is a hard “yes” and one which no power in creation can change, and the same with his “no.” When God says “no,” then it simply will not happen. Period. And no created force or power can make it happen. As He says in Isaiah, “I work and who will reverse it?” And He also says through the errant prophet Balaam, “God is not a human being that He should lie, nor a son of Adam that he should change His mind.”

     When God told Abram he would have a son, he just trusted him right off the bat. Abram didn’t initially ask for a guarantee. He just believed what God said. But it was because of this initial, immediate trust, that God figured it as a state of being observant to do the right thing. It was only later, as God began to explain what else He was going to do for him, that Abram asked for confirmation, and God signed a contract with blood to reassure him. That the contract was signed with blood is simply that this is how contracts were signed in Abram’s culture. This is also why the sacrifices in the Mosaic Law for mistakes were animal sacrifices involving the spilling of blood. It was still that mentality of signing a contract in blood that the mistake wouldn’t be held against the person.

     God understands our weaknesses, and He is okay with giving us reassurances such as covenants and contracts, but even if He doesn’t, if He says something, it will happen. Just the act of Him saying it brings it into existence just like He spoke in Genesis 1 and creation was brought into existence.

     God doesn’t need a signed contract to forgive, and He certainly doesn’t need blood. He didn’t need it from Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, or any of the fathers of the Jewish people right up until the contract He made with the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. Not once does He demand blood in order to forgive their wrongdoing or mistakes. And even in that contract, such sacrifices are only given for unintentional mistakes. There is no prescriptive sacrifice for intentional wrongdoing. I’ve written this many times. He’s said many times that the person who turns away from his intentional wrongdoing and mistakes will be forgiven and He wouldn’t remember or hold those mistakes and wrongdoing against that person. He went into no uncertain detail about it in Ezekiel 18, and many times in the Old Testament He’s explicit that He doesn’t want more sacrifices or the blood of animals, but what He wants is for people to turn away from their wrongdoing and to do the right thing, whether that is just simply being kind and compassionate to those who can’t defend themselves, or whether it’s people keeping their side of the Mosaic contract. Even David says this in the 51st Psalm when He addresses God and says, “If You wanted a sacrifice I would give it, but burnt offerings don’t please You. What You want is contrition and You won’t make nothing of a contrite heart.” God doesn’t need blood to forgive, or a contract, all He needs is for the person to trust what He says that He will let their wrongdoing go and not remember their mistakes at all if they turn away from that wrongdoing to do the right thing.

     Jesus Christ didn’t go to the cross so that we could be forgiven. He didn’t pour out His blood because God demanded blood for our legal pardon like some brutal Canaanite tribal deity. Jesus Christ went to the cross to join us to Himself in and through His death, burial, and resurrection, to make us one with Him, and as a consequence, one with God Himself in order to provide a solution to our common malfunction and its behaviors and responses. God the Son became human and went to the cross so that human beings could become one thing with God the Son, grafted or grown together, and as such one thing with the Father and the Holy Spirit as well through that union with God the Son.

      When we simply trust what He says and turn away from our wrongdoing to do the right thing, He erases the former wrongdoing. And for us, the right thing is Jesus Christ, to live as He taught, to walk as He walked, to submit to the Spirit of Christ just as He submitted to the Father. It is this sincere, simple trust in what He said which God counts as a right state of being, not trying to keep moral codes or spill blood to atone for mistakes made. It is this simple trust that God will do what He said He would do, that His “yes” and “no” can’t be undone, which God counts as righteousness.

An Explanation of the Teaching of Theosis and It's Scriptural Orthodoxy

 “God became man so that man might become God.”

     Both St. Augustine and St. Athanasius said this, and they were not alone as it was a belief held by the ancient Church from the earliest of times. They were neither heretics nor on the fringes of Christian belief. St. Augustine of Hippo was the author of the “City of God” and his “Confessions,” and is generally regarded as one of the most well respected, quoted, and referred to theologians in western Church history. St. Athanasius was instrumental during the Ecumenical Councils in promoting and enshrining into Christian doctrine what we now know as the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and was the chief opponent of Arius at the Council of Nicea who proposed that the Father and the Son were two different deities, one greater than the other.

      From the most ancient of times, the doctrine of “theosis” (Grk. ΘEOCIC) or “deification” was not just a part of Christian theology, but the very foundation, mechanism, and goal of it. It is only in modern times, post-Reformation, where the teaching and doctrine is looked on with suspicion by those in the western Church, especially by Protestants from the non-sacramental traditions. The idea that a human being could become God is considered not just heresy, but blasphemy, and the concept is relegated to those traditions recognized as cults such as the Latter Day Saints, for example. Though, as I hope to explain, the Orthodox concept of theosis is very, very different from that group’s or any other modern cult’s.

     First, let’s look at citations from some of the Church Fathers of the first three or four centuries of the Church:

“God became man so that man might become God. The Lord took the form of a servant so that man might be turned to God. The Founder and Inhabitant of heaven dwelt upon earth so that man might rise from earth to heaven.”

-St. Augustine, 5th century

“Because He became human so that we would be made God.”

-St. Athanasius, 4th century

“What man is, Christ was willing to be—so that man may also be what Christ is. … What Christ is, we Christians will be, if we imitate Christ.”

-St. Cyprian, 3rd century

“As I have already said, He caused man to cleave to and to become one with God. … Unless man had been joined to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility. … He became what we are so that we might become what He is.”

-St. Irenaeus, 2nd century

     Again, these are not fringe or heretical theologians, but, quite literally, some of the most important theologians in the history of Christian orthodoxy. As you can see, from at least the second century onward, the concept of theosis or deification was a well established teaching to which these men subscribed, and which they preached and taught openly. It was not a hidden or secret teaching, but something which was openly understood among all Christians.

     So, what is this concept? First, it has to be understood that theosis is rooted deeply in the writings of the New Testament, and it stems from the union of the human being and God through Jesus Christ so that they become “one thing”:

“Make your home within Me, and I within you. Just like the branch can’t produce on its own if it doesn’t make its home within the vine, so neither you if you don’t make your home within Me. I am the vine, you, the branches. The one making his home within Me and I within him, this one produces a lot of fruit, because separated from Me you can’t do anything at all. If someone doesn’t make his home within Me, he is tossed outside like the branch and dried up and they gather them together and toss them into the fire and they are burned. If you make your home within Me and My words make their home within you, you would ask whatever you wish and it will happen for you.”

-John 15:4-7, Jesus Christ, 1st century

“Yet I am not requesting about these alone, but also about those putting their trust in Me through their message, so that all of them would be one thing, just like You, Father, are within Me and I within You, so that also they would be one thing within us, so that the world would trust that You sent Me. And I have given to them the glory which You had given to Me, so that they would be one thing just like we are one thing; I within them and You within Me, so that they would be having been brought to completion into one thing, so that the world would know that You sent Me and loved them just like You loved Me. Father, what you had given to Me, I wish that where I am  those also would be with Me, so that they would watch My glory, which You had given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

-John 17:20-24, Jesus Christ, 1st century

     Through union with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, we are made one thing with Him, joined with Him:

“Or are you ignorant that as many of us as were baptized into the Christ, Yeshua, were baptized into His death? We then were buried together with Him through that baptism into His death, so that just like the Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we should be walking with a fresh newness of life. Because if we had become grown together with the likeness of His death, we will on the other hand be of His resurrection; knowing this that our old worn out human being was crucified. So that the malfunctioning body would be rendered inert for us to no longer be enslaved to that malfunction; because the person who died has been made right away from the malfunction.”

Romans 6:3-7, St. Paul, 1st century

     That joining, that grafting or intertwining of the human being with Jesus Christ Himself, because Jesus Christ Himself is the union of God the Son and human biology, means that the person joined with Jesus Christ, through Him, is joined to, literally made one thing with the full Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as a part of God the Son and with everything that brings with it. The process of salvation then is the process of that theosis working itself out until completion.

     This understanding was the foundation for Paul’s writings in the New Testament and exhortations towards those he taught and wrote to:

“As also if anyone is within Christ, they are a fresh creation; the ancient things passed by, look, they have become fresh and new; yet all things from God who was exchanging us for Himself through Christ and giving to us the service of that exchange, like that God was with Christ exchanging the world for Himself, not accounting to them their missteps and the message of that exchange having been placed within us. On behalf of Christ then we act as elder statesmen like God pleading through us;  we are bound on Christ’s behalf, be exchanged to God. Because He made the One not knowing malfunction to be malfunction, so that we we would become God’s state of being observant to do the right thing by means of Him.”

-2 Corinthians 5:17-21, St. Paul, 1st century

     The consequences of this union, this being made one thing with Him, are many. The first is that we don’t have to let our malfunctioning neurology or biology control our responses or behaviors any longer. This consequence comprises the bulk of Paul’s writing in his letters:

“Because the impotence of the Torah with which it was weak through the biology, God having sent His own Son with the likeness of malfunctioning biology and about that malfunction judged against the malfunction within the biology, so that the right action of the Torah would be fulfilled within us who don’t walk down the line of the biology but down the line of the Spirit. Because those existing down the line of the biology are conscious of the things of the biology, yet those down the line of the Spirit the things of the Spirit. Because the consciousness of the biology is death, yet the consciousness of the Spirit is life and peace; for this reason the consciousness of the biology is hostile for God, because it doesn’t submit to God’s rules, because it can’t. And those existing by means of the biology can’t please God. Yet you don’t exist by means of the biology by by means of the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells within you. Yet if any doesn’t possess the Spirit of Christ, this person doesn’t belong to Him. Yet if the Christ is within you, then on the one hand the body is a lifeless corpse because of the malfunction yet the Spirit is life because of a state of being observant to do the right thing.”

-Romans 8:3-10, St. Paul, 1st century

“And you being corpses by your missteps and your malfunctioning behaviors, by means of which you walked at one time down the line of the aeon of this world, down the line of the chieftain of the authority of the air, the breath of what is now working within the sons of disobedience from distrust; among whom also we all retired at one time by means of the cravings of our biology doing the will of our biology and of our thoughts, and we were by nature children of natural impulse like also the rest; yet God being wealthy with mercy, because of His much agape which He loved us, and us being corpses by our missteps He made us alive together with the Christ—you are having been delivered by His charity—and awakened us together with the Christ and sat us down together with the Christ within the high heavens by means of the Christ, Yeshua, so that He might demonstrate within the upcoming aeons the beyond wealth of His charity with His simple kindness upon us with the Christ, Yeshua. Because you exist having been delivered through faith; and this not from you, the gift of God; not from works, so that not anyone might brag, because we are His opus, having been created by means of the Christ, Yeshua with reference to good works which good works God made ready beforehand, so that we would walk by means of them.”

-Ephesians 2:1-10, St. Paul, 1st century

“Don’t you know that to whom you offer yourselves slaves for obedient submission, you are slaves to whom you obey, either of the malfunction resulting in death or of obedience resulting in a state of being observant to the right thing? … Because just like you offered your body parts slaves to filthiness and to lawlessness upon lawlessness, so now offer your body parts slaves to the state of being observant to the right thing resulting in being holy. Because when you were slaves of the malfunction, you were free to a state of being observant to the right thing. What fruit then did you have at that time? Upon which things you are now ashamed, because the goal of those things is death. Yet at this present time being free from the malfunction and being enslaved to God you hold your fruit resulting in being holy, and the goal the eternal life. Because the paycheck of the malfunction is death, but the charitable gift of God is the eternal life by means of the Christ, Yeshua, our Owner.”

Romans 6:16, 19b-23, St. Paul, 1st century

     Yet another consequence is that we inherit everything Jesus Christ inherits from His Father because we are one thing with Him. 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, as Jesus Christ is God the Son, so also everything belongs to Christ, and everything also belongs to those who are one with Him. The one who owns everything has no need to be attached to anything. He has no need to hoard, because everything belongs to him.

     What does it mean to have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God? Put simply, it means to have given up everything to which you have clung or had an attachment to whether it is possessions, relationships, or even your own self-identity in favor of total identification and union with Jesus Christ. Why? Because you just don’t need them anymore. They’re unnecessary baggage which you can freely dispose of. It means to be possessed of and by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, surrendering yourself to that Spirit so that it is He who acts and speaks through you, keeping your own triggers and responses disengaged in favor of His. It means to fold yourself into Him. It has less to do with forgiveness and the afterlife, and far more urgently to do with how this life, the here and now is lived. As Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is now.”

      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 (CKYBAΛA, “skubala,” according to Paul in Philippians 3) 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.

     It is this inheritance from his own union with God through Jesus Christ that drove Paul, as he writes in Philippians 3, to keep divesting himself of anything and everything, and counting it as crap, which did not contribute to his goal of gaining Christ and experiencing the power of His resurrection, the communion of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if somehow he would meet up with the resurrected state, the completion of the process of theosis, in the here and now. He knew he hadn’t yet, but he pushed hard for it like an athlete, training and disciplining his body, reaching out like a runner for the finish line, the goal of being fully transformed and conformed to Jesus Christ.

     God became a human being so that human beings might become and experience His Eternal Life with Him as a part of Him in the here and now, this moment. He became a human being so that human beings might be rescued from their own malfunctioning flesh and its behaviors; transformed and conformed to God the Son, becoming what God the Son is. Theosis is that process by which this takes place.