No Good Father Would Choose To Condemn His Children To Endless Torment

As a parent, a father, could you choose between your children to send one to heaven and the other to hell? This was the question asked in the movie, "The Shack," based on the book of the same name and starring Sam Worthington of Avatar fame who plays Mack. The movie is essentially an extended near death encounter with all three members of the Trinity in a weekend getaway to a cabin in the mountains. This happens after Mack's daughter has been kidnapped and murdered while on a camping trip with him and his other two children. He is understandably angry, in pain, and blames God. He wants to confront the murderer who has not been caught and end him right there. 

     During this time he also encounters Sophia, or Wisdom, and she makes him choose. He must choose to send one to heaven and the other to hell. Horrified at the choice, he chooses himself instead. If someone had to go to hell, it would be him. Wisdom's point, and what was reinforced over and over again during his encounter was that God does not choose to send any of His children to hell. That even the ones who cause the most pain are still His children, and they themselves do so because pain was caused to them. This point is driven home when God tells Mack about the man who murdered his daughter, “he’s my son, too.” He would no more choose for any of His children to go to hell than any good father would choose that. Is a human being more loving and more compassionate than God? No, of course not. He is just because He is love. He is right because He is love. He is Holy because He is love.

     Showing Mack first that his daughter is well and with Him, God asks this man to forgive her murderer. To let go of the pain and anger that is destroying him inside. It’s not about the murderer. It’s about Mack. God's goal is for Mack to find peace and healing, and in the end, he does.

     But the question, especially as a father myself, could I make that choice? Honestly, among my three kids, my wife, and everyone I love, I would make the same choice that Sam Worthington's character did. I can't see any good husband, father, or friend do any differently. We may be pained, we may be hurt, we may even get angry at the stupid things we see them doing, but we're not going to send them to a permanent torture forever.

     If we wouldn’t, then neither would God. 

     Mack himself has blood on his own hands. It's revealed in the movie early on that he poisoned the liquor with strychnine which his father, an alcoholic, drank after beating Mack's mother and himself viciously. Mack himself killed his own father to save himself and his mother. And part of Mack's healing had to do with letting go of that anger, pain, and guilt. Rather than condemning Mack for his own patricide, God was more concerned about healing and restoring him.

     This rings true with God's justice. It is never about the retribution, but always about the restoration. He's not willing that ANY should be destroyed, but that all should come to a change of heart and be restored no matter what they've done. That process of restoration might be rough, it might take time, but the goal is always restoration and redemption. For everyone. What God sets out to accomplish gets accomplished. Period.

      It should also be noted that the person causing the most suffering in Mack's life at the beginning wasn't his daughter's murderer, though certainly that contributed. It was Mack himself. Mack himself was in a kind of hell of suffering brought on by his own anger, pain, and guilt. It was God who did not want him to stay there and took measures to rescue him from it. As He often does. We just don't always see it, being blinded by our own pain and anger and fear.

     The Shack may be a fictionalized account of an NDE, but it gives us a profound question leading to a more profound truth.

God Became Man So That Man Might Become God

 The Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity misses the point of the Incarnation entirely. It was never just about Jesus being God and co-equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It was never even about Jesus receiving the same worship as the Father, something which He never asked for or demanded. The only being who asked for worship in the New Testament was Satan when he was tempting Jesus. 

     The point of the incarnation was always found in John 17 where Jesus prayed to the Father, ""Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who believe in me through their word,

21 "that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. 22 "The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one; 23 "I in them, and you in me, that they may be made whole into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me. "  

     It was never about just Jesus Christ Himself being God as the Logos, one with the Father, but it was always about each and every one of us being one with another because we are also one with Him as He is one with the Father. It was never only about the Father, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit, but about the Father, the Logos, the Spirit, and each one of us, all one with each other and with and through Him. 

      Being the Logos of God incarnate, Jesus taught us how to also activate that piece of His logos within each one of us so that we too could also be like Him, Logos incarnated into flesh, and ultimately God made flesh like Him in total submission to and cooperation with the God and Father like Him. Jesus Christ's mission was to be the firstborn among many siblings. His mission was to make Himself not unique, but one of many. The first of many to be sure, but one of many nonetheless. By focusing on the "mystery of the Trinity" we completely miss the greater mystery and purpose which is written all over the New Testament, that, as so many Church Fathers repeated throughout the centuries, "God became Man, so that man might become God."

The Wise Men Who Visited Jesus as a Baby Were Buddhist Monks Looking for Maitreya

      Who really were the Magi spoken of in the Gospel of Matthew? Were they really Zoroastrian priests from Babylon as it so commonly taught?

     About two years after Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, and there is no legitimate reason to assume other than the Scriptural account of the location of His birth, His mother, adopted father and He were visited by a group of men identified in the Gospel of St. Matthew only as “magoi” in the Greek who had come from the east. The text says that they had followed a star looking for the birth of a newborn “King of the Judeans”, and that they had initially gone to King Herod’s palace looking for Him, only having been directed to Bethlehem after Herod had consulted with scribes and priests to determine where the Jewish “Maschiach” (Anointed One, Grk. “Christos”) would be born.

     While Christian tradition has given us a particular image of who these men were, there is nothing in Matthew’s text to support that image other than the term “magoi”, often rendered “magi” or the more vague and slightly euphemistic “wise men”. There is no account of the number of these travelers to support that there were only three. The word “magos” (the singular form) in Greek refers principally to a class of Zoroastrian priests, practitioners of astrology, centered in the area of Persia. For this reason, it also refers more generally to someone as a “wizard”, “sorceror”, or a practitioner of the magical arts. Another example of the word used in the New Testament is in the Acts of the Apostles referring to “Simon the Magos” in Samaria. It appears clear that Simon was neither Persian in origin nor a Zoroastrian priest.

     The Magi were regarded with extreme renown in their own homeland as scholars, magicians, astrologers, and priests. They were some of the most educated of their people and heavily involved in politics. But in all of the reading I have done on the subject, I have not once encountered a single extra-Biblical account of Zoroastrian Magi traveling outside of their homeland, much less for two years along the caravan routes across the Middle East, to honor newborn royalty they didn’t exactly know where to find (if anyone has such evidence, I would be happy to look at it).

     Furthermore, the trip on foot across the land trade routes between a location in ancient Persian territory (such as Babylon, for example and mentioned often in sermons implying a connection with the prophet Daniel) only runs about 1200 miles, give or take. Figuring 20 miles a day on foot with a caravan, the trip would take approximately two to three months, not one to two years as is implicated by the Biblical text. For this reason, the idea that these were literal Zoroastrian Magi doesn’t fit the description. In order to fit the time frames involved we must go farther east than ancient 1st century Persia.

     In fact, there is a religious group also practiced with astrology that perhaps does fit the scant identifiers given. It is a little discussed fact among Christian theologians and pastors that Buddhism, having been established by Gautama Siddharta around 500 B.C.E., not only existed but flourished during this period in what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, and India. More than this, there is evidence that they regularly sent missionaries west as far as Egypt and are mentioned by Clement of Alexandria in the third century. 

     One region and group in particular that seems to fit is that of Ghandara around what is now Kabul in Afghanistan. This region was conquered by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C.E. and later would become a part of the Indo-Greek kingdoms of the period. It also became a major center for the practice of Indo-Greek Buddhism, patronized by the rulers of the period, Menander I and his successors. One interesting note about Ghandaran Buddhism is its focus on the boddhisatva Maitreya (this is the Sanskrit form; in the Buddha’s native Pali it is “Metteya”), the prophesied successor to Gautama Siddharta (the Buddha), from approximately 30-375 B.C.E.

     About Maitreya, it is written that the Buddha said before he died:

And the Blessed One replied: “I am not the first Buddha who came upon earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time another Buddha will arise in the world, a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals. He will reveal to you the same eternal truths which I have taught you. He will preach his religion, glorious in its origin, glorious at the climax, and glorious at the goal, in the spirit and in the letter. He will proclaim a religious life, wholly perfect and pure; such as I now proclaim.”

Ananda said: “How shall we know him?”

The Blessed One said: “He will be known as Metteya, which means 'he whose name is kindness.'”

(The Gospel of Buddha XCVII:12-15)

     It is a well established fact that to this day, Tibetan Buddhists will search far afield for reincarnations of previous teachers known as “lamas”. One of the more sensational occurrences of this is that depicted in the film “Little Buddha” which was based on the true story of a group of Tibetan monks who believed they had found the reincarnation of a great lama in a boy from Washington state in the United States.

     It makes more sense to me, based on the scant details given, that these “magoi” described in the Gospel of St. Matthew were in fact Buddhist monks from either Ghandara or somewhere farther east where Buddhism was thriving. There would have had to be a reason why from the time the star was seen to the time they arrived in Jerusalem was two years give or take. If the “wise men” had come from traditionally Buddhist regions east of Persia, that would explain the much greater length of travel time than was necessary to travel from Persia. 

     If this is true, then why would Buddhist monks make this kind of an arduous journey? They were actively looking for the coming of the man they believed to be the Buddha’s successor (and it appears that at least after 30 C.E., the Buddhists in Ghandara believed they had found him). When the star appeared, probably after much debate, they set out to follow it from “the east”. 

     Not being aware of local Judean, much less Roman, politics, and assuming that the new boddhisatva would be born a prince (which would be a reasonable assumption since Siddharta was born a prince), they traveled first to King Herod’s palace assuming that the new prince would be his son. They would not have known Herod the Great’s reputation. 

     When inquiring about the new born prince, it is possible that they might have included in their explanation the Pali form of the name, “Metteya.” An interesting point about Greek orthography and pronunciation is that the “tt” and the “ss” can be, at times, interchangeable depending on the regional dialect of Greek. It is possible they might have explained in Greek that they were looking for the new born “Metteya” and those hearing understood them to be saying “messias”, the Hellenized form of Aramaic, “meschiach” (“anointed one”, Heb. “maschiach”, Grk. “Christos”) which comes into English as “messiah”. This would explain why Herod and those with him inquired as to where the “Christ” (Grk. “Christos”, Aram. “meschiach”) would be born upon the monk’s announcement they had come to honor a newborn king.

     I imagine their conversation happened along these lines:

Monks: “We have come to do homage to the newborn king of the Judeans.”

Herod: “Sorry, friend. There is no newborn prince in my house.”

Confused, the Monks reply: “We have seen his star far to the east. The Lord Metteya has been born here, we are certain of it.”

Herod, now beginning to shake a little: “Did you just say Messiah’s been born?”

Monks, not understanding the difference: “Yes.”

     I imagine also that Mariam, being one of the few remaining living witnesses to their presence and St. Matthew’s probable source, called them simply “magoi from the east” because, in reality, she may have had little real idea who they actually were or what land they had come from not having been educated in such things being a first century woman either still in puberty or barely out of it. It is easy for me to entertain the idea that a group of Greek speaking Buddhist monks with heavy accents, educated in astrology and with their journey possibly backed by an Indo-Greek king, traveling together might have been described by such a woman as “magoi”. That they may have been looking for a newborn Buddha might be suggested by the three gifts they presented as well. Today, Tibetan monks searching for their reincarnated lamas frequently bring a series of personal objects belonging to the deceased lama along with similar objects not having belonged to them in order to test whether or not the child in question is who they think they are. In this case, they were looking, not for a reincarnation, but for the birth of a new Buddha, and so brought gifts that might indicate the path in life the child would take should he choose them.

The Problem Isn't the Minimum Wage

 The problem isn't the minimum wage. The problem is a cost of living mismanaged by those people who control the resources in order to benefit themselves and not all of society. A microcosm example of this can be found in the worship songs found in churches. 

     During the nineties and oughties in particular (and still today), most worship songs that were not written prior to the late twentieth century had to be licensed every year from the corporations who controlled their copyrights. This could be hundreds of dollars per year for maybe ten to fifteen songs. The churches could not legally perform the songs during a service without paying the licencing fees to the corporations. If they wanted to keep using those songs, they had to keep paying the license fees. Over time, in order to increase their revenue streams, these corporations increased the fees, sometimes as much as 2 or 3 times what they originally had been. For smaller churches, this could mean they couldn't afford a youth pastor, or the money they might have used for some charitable works had to go towards paying those fees. "How Great is Our God" by Christ Tomlin made millions for its controlling company just so these churches could sing a familiar praise song, a familiar liturgy if you will, every Sunday. It has only been lately when this stranglehold has started to be broken by churches returning to the ancient hymnals, writing the worship songs themselves, or using songs which are made available freely to everyone; all things which send the controlling corporations into panic and lawsuit mode.

     When the resources needed to live are gatekept by a very few whose only motivation is profit for themselves, this is when real scarcity occurs. On a world like ours, in a country like the United States, there really shouldn't be any scarcity of either food, housing, or the basic necessities of life. Almost all scarcity of the things needed for living is artificially manufactured in nature by human beings hoarding those resources in order to make themselves more powerful and others powerless.

     This is not what or how we were created to be on a world teeming with anything and everything we as human beings actually need to live. Tribes in the rainforests and grassplains know this truth all too well. Their egalitarian societies function on everyone working for the benefit of the whole clan, village, or tribe. In many such societies, hoarding resources is seen as evil or even a sickness. Consider that. Consider that's the way we should be seeing it, and not something to aspire to.

Judgment on the American Church is Already Underway

 Some folks aren't going to like what I have to say here (not that this is new). I've been watching a lot of videos on why so many churches and Christian organizations are collapsing, and why so many of the younger generations are leaving the churches and not coming back. Most of these are done using AI to scour all parts of the internet for all information and statistics on a subject and then asking the AI to deliver an unbiased, no fluff interpretation of the data. 

     The results are pretty clear. What it boils down to is that, as I said several years ago, the younger generations are calling B.S. They've got immediate access to statistics, science articles, and personal testimonies at their fingertips. They can read the Bible, and most have read it very well, for themselves and compare it to the behavior they see from pastors and the older congregants, and they want no part of the massive contradiction they're seeing. 

     One of the biggest factors is the merging of right wing politics with institutional religion, and MAGA, and it's contradiction of Jesus' actual teachings. That's not speculation. That's what they're saying. They see the leader of the MAGA movement, Donald Trump, and his behavior and can't understand how their pastors and Sunday School teachers idolize this man, even calling him an "American Messiah." But the numbers don't lie. 

     Churches are closing their doors for lack of people and funding. Church attendance has been cut by a third if not a half across the US, and those who remain are my generation (GenX) or older. The generations who were supposed to carry it onwards have, almost with one voice, said "no." The movement and the man to whom many Christians and churches looked to be the savior of American Christianity is becoming one of the main causes of its gutting. As church members die off, if things continue, there will be no one to replace them.

     And the kick of it is, many if not most of those who leave and don't return to any church still believe in God. They still believe in and want to follow Jesus Christ. They still read their Bibles, and many know them thoroughly from what I've seen. They've taken responsibility for their own spiritual development and formation. Even those who adopt the "spiritual but not religious" moniker are often among these. Many of those who would now fall under the "New Age" label have nothing but praise for Jesus Christ and His teachings, and call themselves followers of Jesus. They haven't rejected Jesus. They've rejected the hypocrisy of the institutions who claim to represent Him.

     I've written about and even done a video sermon on a judgment coming to the American Church. I think it was about three years ago now, give or take. What I didn't know then was that it was already underway and is gaining speed and we're actually watching it in real time if we're paying it any attention.

     As Paul wrote, "You reap what you sow." And the American Church is reaping the harvest it's been sowing for decades.

My Review of "Superman" (2025) and Comparison with "Man of Steel"

     This post is going to be a bit different. There's no spiritual point to it. It's just my review of Superman (2025).

      I got around to watching Superman (2025) yesterday. To be honest, I went into it with a bias against it because of WB's behavior towards Zack Snyder, Henry Cavill, and the others of that era of DC films. I also waited until I didn't have to pay full price and picked up a Blueray leftover from Black Friday for $10. So, that's my disclosure. I've seen every Superman series and movie since George Reeves' Adventures of Superman and Christopher Reeve's quadrilogy (also a large amount of the animated movies and series over the last forty to forty-five years), so I think I'm fairly qualified to give my opinion on this one.

     First, David Corenswet did well in his role, as did Rachel Brosnahan. That is, I think they did well with the material which was given to them. The same is true of Nicolas Hoult. I don't think any of the actors in this movie delivered a subpar performance. The special effects were good and were what we've come to expect from movies of this genre in 2025.

     But I do have a gripe. It felt to me like the movie tried too hard to be a comedy rather than a superhero movie. Jokes and intentionally comedic moments were inserted at random and in places where, honestly, they just weren't appropriate. Another gripe is the lack of character development when compared to their counterparts in previous Superman iterations. Jonathan and Martha Kent stand out as prime examples, but Lex Luthor's character suffers from this as well. The characters felt far too two dimensional. The only ones who demonstrated more depth to them were Lois Lane's and Superman's. While I realize Gunn was going for a stricter adaptation of the comic book characterizations, it felt jarring when compared to the depth given to them in previous adaptations (and yes, Man of Steel weighs in heavily here, but so does the Chris Reeve movies and even Superman Returns; it's unfair to bring in Smallville and Superman and Lois because they had far more time to develop and flesh out their characters than a movie has).

     This movie might be a silly one to throw on every so often, but it dodges or barely addresses the big questions asked by the Superman mythos, and when it does, I feel like it mishandles them. To be clear, this isn't the fault of the actors. They all did well with what they had, but what they were given felt like it went out of its way to avoid being anything other than a shallow Saturday matinee movie. For me, it was jarring and disjointed.

     This is just my opinion, and I'm sure many will disagree. If you really liked it, that's great. Not saying I wouldn't watch it again, but given all of the Superman material that came before it, I think Gunn could have done a lot better.

     As a follow up, I rewatched Man of Steel in order to compare it with Superman (2025). Disclosure, I already went into it with a bias towards Man of Steel to begin with. Also disclosure, I didn't start out that way. 

     Initially, I was reluctant to see Man of Steel because I had enjoyed Superman Returns and Brandon Routh's portrayal of the character. He was a spot on drop in for Christopher Reeve and really brought back that feel of the Donner/Salkind movies. Kevin Spacey was phenomenal as Lex Luthor in that one as well, and probably the best cinematic Lex Luthor portrayed to date, or at least on par with Gene Hackman's portrayal. I felt WB had given them a seriously raw deal by not bringing them back, especially when Superman Returns was profitable. And I didn't like that they had cast a British actor for an American midwestern role.

     Then I read the novelization, and I started seeing the trailers and clips on YouTube, and I eventually bought the DVD when it came out. Man of Steel didn't just grow on me, it spoke to me, especially as a kid who also struggled with being different and had challenges growing up. I loved the portrayal of Clark's powers as a disability at first before they became his superpowers. The casting, the acting, the writing, the story telling, the grounded realism that it brought to the Superman mythos was intense, even with and especially with the motivations and depth of the characters. This was superhero film raised to the level of a near biblical epic with Shakespearean overtones. It should have won awards in my opinion, but the Academy didn't tend to recognize superhero films then, which is a crying shame for a number of films and actors which deserved it (Robert Downey Jr.'s final scene in Endgame comes to mind).

     Man of Steel became my favorite cinematic portrayal on its own merits even when I was initially against it.

     Knowing this, I purchased Superman (2025) on sale and decided to give it a go and a chance to change my mind. To be honest, I was disappointed with it. It had its moments, but when compared with Man of Steel, those moments felt unearned. In comparison with Man of Steel, Superman felt surreal and not able to reach the threshold for suspension of disbelief. The characters didn't feel like real people, which, I suppose is what the director was going for in trying to harken back to the silver age of DC comics but it felt jarring. It was difficult to empathize with any of them whereas in Man of Steel, you could empathize with nearly all of the characters, including the villains, and understand to some extant where they were coming from even if you disagreed.

     To me, having recently watched both movies, comparing Man of Steel to Superman (2025) is like comparing Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings to, perhaps, the movie adaptation of Eragon, if not Robin Hood: Men in Tights (though at times Superman feels like it tries too hard to be the latter while maintaining a facade of Superhero drama and action).

     I know there are people who prefer the most recent movie. I really wish I would have been more pleasantly surprised by it, but I just can't see how anyone would say it's the better adaptation. Maybe something for kids on a Saturday afternoon, but it just doesn't reach the level of filmmaking and storytelling that MoS does.

Church Abuse, Pastoral Accountability, and What the NT Says About It All

 I've been watching a series on YouTube which has been diving into the recent history of the collapse of megachurches in particular but also of many churches and denominations in general, especially Evangelicalism. Many well known pastors of churches so large they've become their own brand have succumbed to the temptations of lavish lifestyles and abusing their authority to sexually abuse their congregants in one way or another. This has happened so often it's almost a given that if a church reaches a certain size and celebrity that it's only a matter of time before it happens there too. 

     One of the constant factors in these collapses is the lack of accountability for the pastoral leadership in either their personal conduct, their handling of church finances, or both. In these churches, the pastor is at the top and even if there is a board of elders or deacons, they're usually filled with his friends, family, and those who will rubber stamp everything he does or says (and it's usually a male pastor). When a credible accusation of abuse comes up, the victim is silenced, shamed, and paid off in order to protect the institution and its brand.

     Thing is, this kind of monarchal pastorate isn't what Jesus taught. It isn't even what Paul taught in his letters. Presbyters and bishops, the terms Paul uses for church leadership, were to be held accountable by the rest of the community because of their position as guides and teachers. They were to be the living examples of discipleship that everyone else could see and emulate. They were to not only teach how to operate with the Spirit instead of from their own dysfunctional flesh, they were to demonstrate it. When one of them began to engage with his flesh, with his fear, aggression, or bodily craving responses, the protocols for correcting them were different than for others in the community. There were no private asides. There were no taking two or three other brothers or sisters with you. They were to be confronted publicly and in front of everyone. Paul demonstrated this forcefully in his account of challenging Peter to his face in Antioch. Jesus demonstrated it in also publicly rebuking Peter in front of everyone. In a way, Peter did it with Simon the Sorcerer as well, publicly rebuking him. Whether he was in any kind of a position of leadership among the Samaritan community isn't said, though given his previous social position, it's probably not outside the realm of possibility.

     Part of the problem as well is the current model of church communities and giving. In the ancient Christian communities, all resources were put into a common pool where everyone could draw from as they needed. That included the community's leadership and spiritual guides. They had no more access to the community's resources and finances than anyone else. They were provided for out of them, yes, but no more than anyone else. In the Didache it talks about traveling prophets who would come to stay with these communities. They were to be allowed to stay and draw from the communal pool of resources for no more than three days before being required to move on. Otherwise, with the exception of the pastors, bishops, or presbyters, everyone who drew from the communal pool of resources was required to contribute to it as well as they could. Widows and orphans were obviously exempted from this, though Paul encouraged younger widows to remarry rather than draw from the communal pool for their livelihood. (This was a cultural thing. Unmarried younger women had few recourses for their livelihoods in that time even in Roman society. They were expected to either be married or live from their parents.) This is what Paul meant by "if someone doesn't work, neither should he eat," referring to those capable of working within the communities who stood around all day without working to contribute to those resources. But the key here is being able to contribute to the community in some way. One modern model for these ancient Christian communities is that of a religious order such as the Jesuits where any paycheck is handed over to the order and the order then provides all the necessities of life to its members.

     One who claims to be a teacher of discipleship, a pastor, a bishop, a presbyter must be held accountable by the rest of the community no differently from any other professing disciple except in how they are corrected. They are not to be protected or indulged, but are to be publicly rebuked and exposed in order to bring them back to their senses.

     If we had followed this actual New Testament model for accountability (and for that matter, resource distribution), none of these scandals would have happened in the first place.

The Purpose of Government

 I have a dear friend who believes the Federal government, or any government for that matter, is the real problem and should be dismantled entirely. I have other friends who believe that Billionaires and the ultra wealthy are the problem, and most of their money should be taken from them and redistributed. Still others think that the poor and homeless themselves are the problem, and they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop waiting for handouts.

     The problem isn't any of these. The problem is our common human malfunction, and yes, it is a malfunction or dysfunction peculiar to the human brain. It causes us to overreact to things that please or displease us and treat them as survival necessities or threats to one degree or another. It is the cause of murders, thefts, frauds, rapes, and so on. As much as we want to believe the problem isn't inherent to each and everyone one of us, it is the very reason why laws and rules exist. As Paul wrote to Timothy, "the law isn't put there for a human being who is operating the way he's supposed to, but for the lawless and those refusing to comply." Laws and rules are meant to constrain harmful, selfish, and destructive behavior so that the person doesn't cause harm to themselves or the rest of their community either through overt action or through neglect. They are only effective however if they are enforced by the rest of the community, because, after all, they are only words on paper or stone unless people choose to obey and enforce them.

     Government exists in order to enforce the agreed upon laws and protect the community as a whole. The only reason government exists is because of our common, inherited human dysfunction. Were we all of us operating as we were supposed to, in submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ, there would be no need for laws or rules, and thus no need for government. But as it stands, we are not all doing so. It is fair to say that the vast majority of the eight billion people on the planet operate from their own perception of survival threats and necessities, and either attempt to self-regulate these based on a personal or communal moral code they agree with, or are regulated by the governmental structures and laws put in place by their communities.

     The idea of the poor just pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, going and getting a job to solve their problems, etc. is a complicated one at best. Lack of education, lack of opprtunities, mental illness, family stresses or issues, racism, and other factors make it far more complicated than many believe it is. Many of those now who qualify as under the poverty line do in fact have jobs, some two or three. When the cost of living however is far above your paychecks, just having a job doesn't lift anyone out of poverty. Things like social services, food stamps, and medical assistance become survival lifelines without which everything collapses. When the poverty line is $60,000 a year, your $45,000 salary only goes so far. $24,000 salaries fall much farther short.

     Some folks don't believe laws like those which render assistance to the poor should exist. Instead, at best, they believe those services should be provided by non-governmental non-profits. In an ideal world, that might be true. But the reality is that such non-profits would become overwhelmed immediately, as they likely are right now with SNAP benefits going unpaid. The truth is that while there are many wealthy people who donate large sums of money to such organizations, the majority do not. It is the instinct of the human malfunction to hoard those things it sees as beneficial to itself and attempt to destroy those things it sees as a threat. This plays out frequently among the wealthy. This is why the laws surrounding food and medical assistance for the poor exist, because the human instinct to hoard is often greater than the human instinct for compassion.

     The existence of Government may not be the ideal, but it is a necessary evil until we are all relieved of our common human dysfunction and operate the way we're supposed to. We may not like the government forcing us to pay for assistance to those under the poverty line with our taxes, but they only do it because we won't otherwise.

2 Corinthians 6:14 and Interfaith Marriages

      Why do we assume 2 Corinthians 6:14 has anything to do with marriage, or marriage specifically? There's nothing in the immediate context to even suggest it. Nowhere before or after the whole passage, or even within the passage, is Paul discussing marriage or any kind of relationship. So why do we apply this to marriages specifically?

     My point is that nothing in any of the verses preceding 14 has anything to do with marriage or relationships. It's a weird, jarring transition to suddenly go from explaining or defending your apostleship to "don't marry unbelievers." And the language itself doesn't really necessitate that interpretation either. There's no actual mention of marriage itself in 14. Another thing too that's weird in the verse. There's no word in the Greek for "with" in this sentence. The translation we usually have is really from the Latin, "nolite iugum ducere cum infidelibus", which literally reads, "Don't lead the yoke with unbelievers." But the Greek literally says, "Don't become differently yoked by/to/for untrusted/unbelieving [people]." You'd expect the preposition "sun (syn)" meaning "together with" but it's not there. I checked the Textus Receptus, Byzantine, and Critical Texts and it's not present in any of them. It's just the plural substantive in the dative case. That's actually weird. There are three different prepositions which could have been used for "with" but none of them are present. Now, There are also about four hundred years in between the Greek of Paul's writing and the Greek which Jerome would have known when he translated it in the fifth century. That's almost to the point of unintelligibility between different stages of the same language. I kind of wonder if language evolution had anything to do with how he rendered it. 

     Regardless, interpreting it as meaning "don't marry unbelievers" doesn't fit the preceding context or anything afterwards. It also somewhat contradicts what he said in 1 Corinthians about not leaving an unbelieving spouse if they're content to stay married to you. If Paul had applied the same reasoning that he does in the rest of the chapter, he would have encouraged them to leave. Something doesn't mesh.

     It makes more sense in the context of both of Paul's letters to Corinth that Paul is talking about not being "unequally yoked" with, as he says in 1 Corinthians 5, "anyone named a brother who is immoral, greedy, a slanderer, drunkard," and so on and "not even to eat with such a person. In truth, in his letters to the Corinthians, this is the only group of people that he is so harsh with, those who call themselves Christians but "whose god is their belly, whose glory is their shame, who set their minds on earthly things." This makes perfect sense when he says "don't be unequally yoked by the untrusted/untrustworthy/unfaithful. As he writes of those outside of the Church, "I didn't tell you to keep away from those on the outside of the Church, otherwise you'd have to leave the world completely, but to not keep company with the one named a brother who is immoral..." This interpretation also fits the harsh language he uses in the rest of 6 where he quotes from the LXX, "Exit out from the middle of them and be excommunicate [from them] says the Lord." As I wrote before, Paul did not have marriage or other personal relationships with "those on the outside" in mind when he wrote these words, but continued communion with those named Christians who do not actually live as Jesus Christ taught or walk as He walked. This should also be illustrated in that, in 1 Corinthians 7, believing spouses were not to divorce their unbelieving spouses if they consented to live with and remain married to them.

     Paul wasn't forbidding interfaith marriages, he was reiterating a point that he makes over and over again, that the Corinthian Christians should have nothing to do with and no communion with those who, as John describes, claim to walk in the light but walk in darkness instead.

The Ridiculousness of Being "Saved" Based on What Theology You Profess

      Why does it make sense to us that God judges based on the theology someone professes? That is, why have we decided that what theological teachings we profess to believe are more important to God than whether or not we love or how we live? It's pretty clear from the testimony of Scripture that the God who is described and describes Himself in the pages therein is far more concerned with how we treat one another, how we love, and how we live our lives than with what we think He is or whether or not the Earth is young or old. Even Jesus taught explicitly that the final judgment would be based on how we treat the "least of these," the poor, the hungry, the foreigner, the sick, the prisoner, and so on. In the Scriptures, Widows and Orphans are high on the list of God's priorities while whether you're trinitarian or unitarian is not. So, given what God's M.O. actually is, why does it somehow make sense to us, even when He explicitly says otherwise, that "believing" a specific creed is the standard by which salvation is granted?

     The religions which we have constructed make no sense given who God has revealed Himself to be if you really sit down and think about them. Even the word "believe" isn't really the right translation for the word in Greek which all of this rests on. The better translation for Koine Greek is "trust," and that's a very different shade of meaning from just "believe." You can "believe" a certain set of facts, or at least you can say you do, or you can "trust" those facts. You can say you believe in Jesus Christ, or you can put your trust in Him. You can give mental assent to the truth of what He taught, or you can trust Him and do it. To actually conform to the conditions of the verb in Greek, you have to actually put your trust in Him enough to live as He taught.

     And what did He teach? In a nutshell, to love and be love for everyone. To forgive, turn the other cheek, not judge, go the extra mile, do good to those who hate you, and do to others what you want them to do to you.

     Here's another question, why have we decided that our salvation only has to do with the afterlife when Jesus explicitly said and preached that the Kingdom of Heaven is right here and right now, so close as to be touchable? He explicitly said that the Kingdom of God is inside of you. Nowhere in the New Testament is the deliverance which comes through Jesus Christ ever described as only pertaining to the afterlife, if it pertains to the afterlife at all. The writings of Paul in particular describe the effects of this deliverance or salvation as being in the immediate present and this life, not the great by and by.

     The truth is that I do know where these things come from. They come from medieval theologians in the dark ages trying to make things more comfortable for those wealthy and powerful rather than actually adhering to the discipleship which Jesus taught, and the Kingdom of Heaven which He and His apostles described. Because as Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven isn't in the afterlife, and it's not a metaphor for getting into the good place when you die. It's right here and right now inside of you. It's disengaging from your own malfunctioning flesh and coming under the control of, cooperating with, the Spirit of Christ already inside of you. It's returning to being the image of God just as He was the genuine image of God. It's submitting to Jesus Christ, the Logos of God, acting and speaking through you just as He submitted to the God and Father acting and speaking through Him.

     God doesn't care one whit about how you think the mechanics of the spiritual world work. No matter what, we're all wrong on that count anyway in some way. What He has always cared about is restoring us to being His image in the here and now, and that image is being love for all those around us and especially the person right next to us. This is what is most important to Him, how we treat each other no matter who "each other" is. That is, how we love.

The Most Important Diploma on My Wall

 I was going through our "important papers bag" a few days ago looking for something completely different when I ran across the worn, smudged, thirty three and a half year old diploma I hadn't paid attention to since I was about sixteen or so. It was February of 1992, and I was in my junior year of high school and a Police Explorer with the Westminster Police Department in Orange County, California. 

     That weekend, as part of the Police Explorer program, I attended the Orange County Law Enforcement Explorer Academy starting on the Friday evening and ending on the Monday afternoon. Put simply, if you were to take all two or three months of a regular Police Academy and role it into a four day boot camp for teenagers with very little sleep, that was what we signed up for. This wasn't a fun weekend camp. There were a couple hundred of us from many different Departments there. From the word go, our tactical officers were screaming in our faces, forcing pushups, and being as unpleasant as possible trying to get us to quit. I still remember there was one guy standing next to me who quit within five minutes. There were several others who followed suit. Their objective was to get at least one Explorer to quit every day.

     At the time, I was a sixteen year old kid with ADHD and undiagnosed ASD and attachment disorder that had quit almost everything that he had started after it got hard. Everyone knew that too. I remember I only lasted a week on the Freshman Football team at Bolsa Grande High School. My track record wasn't great. So for me, for who I was at the time, that weekend was hell and I felt it keenly. Between the constant yelling and the constant physical exercise and running (I still had asthma and couldn't keep up running to save my life), it was the hardest thing I'd ever attempted in my life.

     If I were to be honest, I wanted to quit within the first five minutes too. I didn't. I was determined to get through it and not just quit. They could kick me out, they could fail me, but I refused to quit, and it was the first time in my life that I made that choice. In order to do that, I kept telling myself, "I just want to see what happens next." And then that next thing would happen, and I would tell myself again, "I just want to see what happens next." I also told myself, to keep myself from smiling (because we would be punished for smiling at our tactical officers), "I'm in hell and that's all there is to it" as well as "Do everything you're told by the tac without question." Every five minutes I would tell myself these things for the next four days.

     We went through police procedure classes, PT, meals, and late night watch duty (we even took the oath to protect and defend the constitution), and then suddenly it was Monday, and somehow I had gained enough points to graduate (my classroom scores making up for my abysmal PT scores). I walked the stage in full uniform with my badge, and received my diploma with the other Explorer graduates.

     For me, it wasn't about being a Police Explorer. I would leave the Police Explorer program the following summer in order to become more involved in my church and pursue the career track I felt called to. For me, it was the first time I had finished something and not quit because it was too hard. I hadn't taken the easy way out. No one made accommodations for me. No one gave me a pass. I either kept up and worked as hard as everyone else or I was out. This four day academy taught me how to keep going even when things seemed too hard or nearly impossible for my AuDHD self.

     The lessons I learned from that weekend stayed with me as I then went on to pursue a career in ministry and attended Bible School in Wisconsin. Within months if not weeks of the semester starting I was running afoul of the deans for behaviors that I didn't even know were wrong or out of place. This particular Bible School put a heavy emphasis on conformity of both theology and behavior, and they just didn't know what to do with me. I took the lessons I learned from Explorer Academy and applied them here too, making plenty of mistakes, socially and behaviorally as I sought to play catch up and at least try to fit in and "pretend" to be a mature, relatively normal young adult; doing whatever I had to in order to keep going and not give up as well as not be told to leave. It was a rough two years, but that December of 1995, once again, I walked the stage and received my diploma as a graduate.

     The lessons I learned that one weekend in February of 1992 to not give up and keep going stayed with me for the rest of my life.

     Thinking it through, I decided to frame and hang this diploma next to my others on the wall of our library at home; the first time I ever thought to. I realized that if it hadn't been for this diploma, I probably wouldn't have earned the others that it now hangs next to.

No, the Church Fathers Did Not Teach the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

In response to the claims that the pre-tribulation rapture can be traced back to the second or third century:

Did some digging on your claims. As I suspected, your information is based on citations taken out of context, mistranslated, or outright fabricated. The writings of the Pre-Nicene fathers were a required study for me during my seminary courses as I prepared for the priesthood. I knew something wasn’t right when you listed of Irenaeus and Cyprian. I’d heard of the Ephraim citation, but have never been able to find a copy of the source text to read for myself. Regardless, Ephraim was very much an Orthodox Catholic Priest

Irenaeus Book V, Chapter 29 - “1. In the previous books I have set forth the causes for which God permitted these things to be made, and have pointed out that all such have been created for the benefit of that human nature which is saved, ripening for immortality that which is [possessed] of its own free will and its own power, and preparing and rendering it more adapted for eternal subjection to God. And therefore the creation is suited to [the wants of] man; for man was not made for its sake, but creation for the sake of man. Those nations however, who did not of themselves raise up their eyes unto heaven, nor returned thanks to their Maker, nor wished to behold the light of truth, but who were like blind mice concealed in the depths of ignorance, the word justly reckons as waste water from a sink, and as the turning-weight of a balance — in fact, as nothing; Isaiah 40:15 so far useful and serviceable to the just, as stubble conduces towards the growth of the wheat, and its straw, by means of combustion, serves for working gold. And therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said, There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be. Matthew 24:21 For this is the last contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome they are crowned with incorruption.” - Irenaeus is clearly speaking of the resurrection when both dead and living will be transformed. In your parlence, a “post-tribulation” rapture. Not a pre-trib.

Cyprian Epistle 63 and Treatise 4 – The first writing is about a specific Christian, and Christians in general who fall away. The second is a treatise on the Lord’s Prayer. There is nothing in his writings describing an escape from the tribulation of the last days, nor two comings of Christ.

Both of the above texts are available for free at newadvent.org

St. Ephraim of Nisibis “On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World”, also known as the “Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem” – I’m afraid I can’t find any actual English translations of this work except as produced by organizations with a vested interest in promoting a pre-tribulation rapture. This being said, most scholars believe this work wasn’t actually written by St. Ephraim himself, but a “pseudo-Ephraim” centuries after, and there are serious questions by scholars about the translations being made available by those aforementioned organizations as being deliberately mistranslated to reflect a pre-trib rapture. I know for a fact that St. Ephraim originally only wrote in Syriac, his native tongue. Those Latin and Greek texts which exist are either translations or forgeries written long after St. Ephraim’s death. The text in question is currently dated to the seventh century. According to the Wikipedia article on this text,

A passage from the Latin version of the text has been used to argue that a pretribulational rapture view existed in the early church. This passage from the Latin version says:

"All the saints and elect of God are gathered together before the tribulation, which is to come, and are taken to the Lord, in order that they may not see."[6]

However, the Syriac version implies that it is death that will cause some to avoid the tribulation. The Syriac version says:

"Pronouncing the good fortune of the deceased Who had avoided the calamity: 'Blessed are you for you were borne away (to the grave) And hence you escaped from the afflictions!"

Additionally, there are several passages even in the Latin version that imply Christians will not escape the tribulation. For example:

"In those days [during the tribulation] people shall not be buried, neither Christian, nor heretic, neither Jew, nor pagan, because of fear and dread there is not one who buries them; because all people, while they are fleeing, ignore them."

"Then, when this inevitability has overwhelmed all people, just and unjust, the just, so that they may be found good by their Lord; and indeed the unjust, so that they may be damned forever with their author the Devil."

Based on this evidence, I maintain that the teaching of the pre-tribulation rapture is a modern invention at the very least by Darby, if not by Margaret MacDonald, and was never taught in the ancient church.

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk

 "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who hunt you, and pray for those who abuse you." "Don't give back evil for evil." "If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one also."

     Yesterday, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. So far, I haven't heard if they caught the person or who it was. I only know of him from what I've heard through certain podcasts. I didn't really know much about him apart from them. I imagine that I'm like most people these days with regards to this. From what I've heard, he's a man with whom I would have likely disagreed on many points. As I understand it, he said a lot of things which hurt a lot of people with whom he disagreed. He was also a major supporter of Donald Trump, something of which I've made no secret where my opinion is concerned. It is likely this person would have considered me and people who hold similar opinions to me "the enemy."

     Doing violence against him was not what Jesus taught, no matter what he said or did. Jesus, and the entire New Testament, explicitly teaches the opposite of doing violence to those who hate you, disagree with you, and count themselves your enemies. Murder is a malfunctioning flesh reaction born from anger/aggression which itself is a response to fear or panic. It's trying to destroy that which you feel threatened by. Jesus taught as much by example on this subject as by words when He let them torture Him, and He let them crucify Him until He died; and even in the middle of it, He forgave those doing it and begged His Father to forgive them too. It would have only taken one word from Him, and they would have withered like the fruitless fig tree did. Jesus taught to love your enemies, and He practiced what He taught.

     Murdering Charlie Kirk, or anyone by whom you feel threatened, accomplishes nothing good and more harm to the murderer's cause than he ever intended. A martyr has been made today, and the backlash will likely be far more intense than anyone realizes. It will likely produce more violence against those with whom the murderer presumably identifies, and not less. It gives an excuse for those on Charlie Kirk's side of things to seek and exact revenge and feel justified in so doing. By this one action, this shooter has harmed potentially thousands if not millions of people with whom he likely at least sympathized.

     Right now, somewhere in Eternity, there are two possible outcomes for Charlie Kirk. Either He's met Jesus and is going through a life review right now seeing everything he's ever done from the perspective of the other people affected, or he's enveloped in darkness and possible torment until he cries out for help, and then he'll go through the life review. Either way, he will eventually come to his senses, as will we all, and embrace the all consuming Love that is God, and be embraced by Him. 

      In this life though, he leaves behind a grieving wife, son, and daughter, not to mention other family members and friends. The shooter has not just harmed Charlie Kirk, he has harmed all of these people as well. In addition are all those who followed and listened to Charlie Kirk, and thought well of him. They are now grieving too. The shooter has harmed them as well. By this one calculated action, this shooter has harmed potentially hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, most of whom Charlie Kirk never interacted with personally, and whom the shooter had no idea existed.

     And the shooter, by this one action, also harmed himself irreparably. If he hasn't already taken his own life, he will be hunted. Everyone he knows will be questioned. His life and the lives of everyone he loves will be turned upside down, and it is likely when he is caught and prosecuted, his own life will be ended for it.

     The Way Jesus taught was different. It avoided all of this harm and sought to stop it before it started. Forgiveness, non-retaliation, and even flat out pacifism were the hallmarks of the very early followers of the Way as they practiced the love which He taught.

     Yesterday, Erika Kirk watched her husband bleed to death from a gunshot wound. Her world has been destroyed in one moment. His children watched their father die. That is not an image which will ever leave their minds. They will see it in their nightmares possibly for the rest of their lives. Put yourself in their skin for a minute. Imagine what it must feel like to be them tonight. It doesn't matter if you disagreed with him or saw him as a threat. Put yourself in their skin and watch it through their eyes. Feel every moment of horror as the man you love and spent your life with, the father whom you loved and respected and thought the world of, falls to the floor, his own blood spilling everywhere. Be her, be them, in that moment. Experience that moment as they experienced it, and also as God experiences it through their eyes and ears. Tell me then, how can you honestly claim to love anyone if you can, much less God Himself, if you can pull this trigger and cause this much pain, horror, and harm.

     It doesn't matter what kind of a man he was. He was a man. He was loved. If I am to follow Jesus Christ, I am to love this man as though he was me. And so in the very end, he was me and I was him. In the end his wife and kids are me, and I am them.

     I feel deeply for Charlie Kirk's family as I imagine what they are feeling and having to live through right now. I also feel deeply for the shooter, and what must have driven him to take this extremely harmful and devastating action. I feel deeply also for all those others who are impacted by this one action in which they had no say.

The Most Divine and Most Human Thing You Can Do

      Why should we love our neighbor as ourselves? Because my neighbor is myself. The person next to me is just as much "me" as I am. Sure, they inhabit a seemingly different body, they have a different set of experiences, emotions, relationships, and so on, but the person next to me is a mirror of who this person, myself, would have become if I had been born in that body, had that set of experiences, had been influenced by those relationships, and so on. The person next to me is a "me" from an alternate reality, so to speak.

Being kind and treating the person next to you as you want to be treated, when it comes right down to it, can only help you in the long run. Just from a purely selfish standpoint even. It helps to build the connections and relationships which you may need to survive. By placing the welfare of others as at least equally as important as your own, by ensuring everyone else's survival if you will, you increase the odds of your own, as well as the odds of the survival of your own progeny, family, and loved ones. I am reminded of the economic model which was described in the movie "A Beautiful Mind" by "who gets the blond?" Put simply, when you remove yourself from the equation and focus on the welfare of the people around you, everyone wins. When everyone in the group does this, then no one goes without. When people don't compete with one another but work together for each other's good then everyone prospers and can do so without guilt, shame, or having to worry about losing what they own.
The immaterial part of every human being, the logos of every human being, is born of God and is a piece, fractal, or shred of the Logos who is the image of God. By loving the person next to you like yourself, you are in fact loving God, being kind to God, being compassionate and showing empathy to God. In addition, by doing so you are simply obeying what God instructed, which is itself a demonstration of love and respect for God.
Loving your neighbor as yourself is submitting to that original image of God which is the "real" you. It is reconnecting with the person you genuinely are at your very core, unaffected and unadulterated by the dysfunctional survival responses of the human brain which are dominated by fear. Fear and love cannot coexist in the same space. Loving your neighbor as yourself is giving permission for the God who is Love to manifest through you uninhibited by this fear.
Loving your neighbor as yourself is both the most divine and the most genuinely human thing you can do.

Conversing with the Authors of the New Testament on Their Terms

 I started on translating 2 Corinthians 3 again this morning. It's not the first time I've done 2 Corinthians, but I'll admit, I have some kind of a block about this letter more than any other work in the New Testament that even I don't really understand. 

     There's something just very different for me in engaging with the text in Greek and then writing down a translation. I've done it now so many times I've lost track. I've gotten through the whole New Testament several times over the last thirty odd years or so, but it's not the written translation that works for me. That can change every time I do it because of the semantic drift between ancient Greek and English, and every new piece of data I acquire on the culture, philosophy, and society of that time period. 

     Truth is, with my own brand of neurodivergence, I can read an English translation too fast and just lose everything I just read as my focus goes all over the place and I space it. ADHD can be a pain. But doing it in the Greek forces me to lock in, every time, even passages I've been over a hundred times. Words I already know the meaning of I look up again anyway if they stand out that particular time so that I can understand the full semantic meaning and not just the simple lexical definition given. As I am forced to slow down and do this, the English translation itself doesn't matter as much as the concept of what the author was saying that forms in my head. I start to pick up the rhythms of speech, the tone, the sarcasm, and just the way the authors spoke. So much starts getting communicated in that moment that just doesn't happen with an English translation. I start to hear how it was said in my head as much as what was said. And that is the point where the real understanding starts taking place. What I write down on the page is almost inconsequential after that, and really only serves to keep me on task so that I don't start spacing again. 

     I've filled notebooks with such translations. I've gone through Romans so many times I've lost track, but every book in the New Testament, some portions of the Septuagint, Early Church Fathers, and Epictetus are represented. Every translation is different, even if only slightly so, and most were never meant to be published for the public. But it is through this process that I came to know the voices of the N.T. authors very well, and I came to "hear" where certain verses or passages were or were not written by the author in question. 

     I'm not the best translator, to be honest. I'm not even close. The best translators have to not only understand the source language, but be able to express the meaning in the target language in a meaningful, accurate, and engaging way that the reader can understand. I'm not always there on that last point. I go back to my own translations and cringe sometimes. Not because they don't reflect what it means, but because they don't sound right in English. But I think it is this experience which I have had while spending time working through and translating the text which is the reason why I advocate for others to engage with the text in its own language and on its own terms. It's the closest thing you're ever going to experience in this life to having a conversation with these original authors themselves.

I Don't Do This For Money or Reputation, I Do It Because of the Spirit of Christ

 I wasn't planning on writing anything this morning. Lately, I've just been focusing on turning my Rambles into YouTube videos. But a dear friend said something a little while ago, speaking of friends of his that wanted to get an income from being seen as a pastor or minister. Given our past discussions and arguments, it's stuck with me that he was referring to me.
     When I was actually employed in a pastoral role at St. Jude's, I received $50 when I performed a service. This was whether it was a Sunday service, a baptism, or a wedding. There were times I took the initiative and performed the sacrament of Baptism without any compensation because the person was ready in that moment and there was no reason to wait. For a short time, I would work a few hours a day in the church office as a receptionist during the week as well making $8/hour. Let me be clear, I ministered whether I was paid or not because that was my calling. I was compelled to do it by the Spirit, as I still am.
     When I went out to Tennessee to act as a Co-Pastor at All Saints, I received no salary at all and we had to go on Food Stamps and Medicaid. During the week, I took a job as a Substitute Teacher for Houston County, and later I worked for a while as a Direct Care Worker for criminal and troubled boys until the flooding hit in 2010. This was in addition to performing Sunday services at All Saints, and driving the hour into Clarksville to minister to a parishnor when asked.
     After I left my formal ministry positions, to which I never returned, I continued writing and teaching on my blog as well as here on Facebook. I started this in 2008, and I never stopped. I have, to this day, never received a penny from doing it. Yet I continued to do it. I wrote my first book, and then continued to write. Yes, I was hoping they would do a little better in terms of sales, but that never stopped me from doing it and continuing to do it.
     Later, at the suggestion and recommendation of a friend from church, I took a position as a volunteer chaplain at UCI Medical Center, making rounds once a week on Sundays after church. Again, volunteer. I did not need to do this. I was not enrolled in a Seminary at the time and did not need to complete the hours I did. I did it because that was what the Spirit was compelling me to do. It was an outlet for ministry. 
      Now, I am making YouTube videos of the teaching and Rambles I've written for the last 17 years. No one is paying me to do this. Not even YouTube.
     Have I sought paid pastoral positions? Yes, of course I have. Thing of it is, not too many churches are interested in having a pastor with my background. Either my education is wrong, my experience is wrong, my theology is wrong, I was raised in the wrong state, or they didn't think I could do it because of my ASD or ADHD. Have I stopped attempting to minister because I'm not paid for it? No. Have I stopped taking time for those who need to talk, those who need to confess, those who need to experience Jesus Christ through me because I receive no compensation for it? No. Absolutely not. Nor will I.
     Would I want to have received an income for ministering? It would have made things a lot easier for my family over the years. We wouldn't have had to move around so much. We wouldn't have been in the impoverished situations we were in almost constantly. I could have focused more on the ministry part and less on the just trying to survive part. I wouldn't have faced accusations of just wanting to live off of people. I wouldn't have been told, to my face, how worthless and lazy I was and not wanting to work. But my teaching, and my counseling, and the services and sacraments I have performed have never, and I repeat NEVER been about trying to make money from being a minister of any kind.
     I have been pushed and compelled towards ministry since I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Every time I have tried to just give it up, and there have been many times, I have been pushed and compelled by the Spirit to pick it up again. I have lost jobs, stability, apartments, friends, and any reputation I might have had because this compulsion by the Spirit would not leave me alone.
     And here I am. Still doing it. No paycheck in sight. Were I to stop altogether again, I guarantee you, something would happen to push me to seek it again.
     Here's the thing, my congregation is the person I meet online, the person I run into by chance. The person who meets me on the steps at random in tears. The person who stops me at night while I'm visiting a friend and begs for confession and absolution. The person whom I don't know and will probably never meet again who just needs Jesus Christ in that moment. And if it's just one person who meets Jesus in what I write, if it's just for one person that I do hours of research on a topic for, then that is worth it. That person needed Jesus Christ in that moment, and they were able to meet Him through me.
      This is why I do what I do. This is why I write, do the videos, and take time for the person who asks no matter who they are. And if I never see a dime for it, so be it. That's not what this is about. Reputation isn't what this is about. I'm an unknown. I will probably remain an unknown and derided until I die. So be it. But if I can be Jesus Christ for just one person, and if that one person can experience Him through me, then I will have achieved my purpose. But that is the compulsion I am under, not for money or reputation, but to be Jesus for people, give Jesus to people, receive Jesus from people, and see Jesus in people today, right now, in this moment.

All Human Beings Are Children of The God

  A friend of mine posted a video from YouTube today which took issue with the Pope's declaration that we are all children of God regardless of religion.  In this video, he read from the King James Version of John 8:39-45 where Jesus tells the Judeans who declared that Abraham was their father, and then that God was their father, that their father was actually the devil because they sought to murder Him and the devil was a murderer from the beginning. I didn't really get much further into the video because this person seemed to have an antisemitic bent as he made it clear that Jesus was talking to the Jews specifically, and made it sound like all Jews are the children of the devil which is in fact a theological point of certain extreme Christian sects.

     In John's first letter, the Apostle indirectly touches on what Jesus was saying in the third chapter where he says, "Every person making their home in Him does not error; every person who errors hasn't seen Him neither known Him. Children, don't let anyone lead you to wander away; the person doing the right state of being is right, just like that One is right; the person doing the error is from the devil, beccause the devil errored from the beginning. ... Every person having been born from the God does not do the error, because His sperm makes its home within him, and he isn't capable of erring, because he has been born from God. With this the children of the God of the devil are apparent; every person not doing the right state of being is not from God, also the person not loving his brother."

     So, what are Jesus and John talking about here? Every human being carries the "Imago Dei," the image of God, just as Jesus Christ is the image of God. Just as Jesus Christ is the Logos, so every human being carries a piece or "shred" of that logos. Every human being is in fact a child of God. 

     The problem comes in where not every human being (probably most human beings) is connected to the Head, that is, the Logos. Imagine a body with all the nervous system wiring which connects each body part to the brain. Now imagine that some parts of that body aren't receiving signals from the brain and are therefore paralyzed and unable to function. They are no less a part of the body, but they are unable to communicate with the Head.

     Those who operate from their malfunctioning flesh, who are governed by their fear, aggression, and bodily cravings are in fact paralyzed where the Head is concerned. The signals are being blocked because when this threat response system is in control, when fear is governing our thinking, responses, and words, it becomes next to impossible to love. When the survival response system, which is entirely based in our flesh, takes over that part of us which is not flesh becomes blocked.  God is love, and love becomes obstructed by fear just as love brought to completion tosses fear out. By choosing to be governed by this system, we choose to not respond to the Head. 

     When Jesus and John describe the "children of the devil," they are trying to make a point. The devil errored from the beginning. The devil has been governed by fear and aggression, and has thus been a murderer from the beginning. When we choose to be governed by our fear, we are choosing to follow in the devil's footsteps. When we choose to be aggressive, angry, and hateful, and when we choose to be governed by our bodily cravings and attachments we are following in the devil's footsteps like children following a kidnapper who raises them like an abusive, criminal parent.

     When we choose to be governed by the Imago Dei, the logos, the Spirit of Christ; when we choose to love and allow God's love to flow through us, then we are being who we truly are and functioning with a right state of being as born children of the God. The Imago Dei is not capable of error. The malfunctioning and erroneous flesh is not capable of a right state of being. We choose whom we follow, our Father from birth, or the kidnapper masquerading as our father.

     All human beings are children of God, regardless of their religious beliefs, but not all human beings are choosing the path of their natural born Father, but the path of their deceiver and kidnapper.

You Cannot Love a Person You See As a Threat

 You cannot love someone whom your brain is screaming at you is a threat. You can certainly have an attachment to them, as many have attachments to those who threaten them, but that is not loving them. To love someone is a choice, not an attachment or an emotion. The moment you see someone as a threat, your fear response kicks in which then can also trigger your aggression response. The brain only knows two ways to deal with threats. Seeing the other person as yourself, or yourself in the other person, having compassion on them, is not one of them. The brain cannot be allowed to engage its threat response system if it is your goal to love this other person. You can either love this other person, or you can see them as a threat, but you cannot do both. Your brain will not allow you to do it.

     Therefore, when you are aggressive towards someone, you cannot love them simultaneously in that moment. When you are scared of someone, you cannot simultaneously love them in that moment. Again, love is a choice to have compassion on the other person, to see yourself in the other person. It is an action, not an emotion.

     If we are to love the person next to us as ourselves, then we cannot see them as a threat. Whether or not we see them as a threat is up to us. It is a choice we make, or rather it is a choice we are capable of making upon reflection of our own subconscious attitudes, biases, and preconceptions. One does not try to protect themselves from a person whom they are choosing to love as themselves. This is why Jesus taught to "turn the other cheek," and "if someone takes your coat, give him your shirt as well," and "if someone forces to go one mile with him, go with him two." He also explicitly taught to "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse and misuse you." In order to do these things, you cannot see this other abusive person as a threat. Love and fear are mutually exclusive. As John wrote, "Love brought to completion tosses fear out."

     The threat and needs assessment system in the human brain is to what Paul was referring when he talked about "the flesh" in almost every case. As John wrote also, "God is love." Paul wrote, "Operate in the Spirit, and you will in no wise bring the works of the flesh to fulfillment." We must disengage from this threats and needs assessment system and submit to or cooperate with the Spirit of Christ in order to love so that it is God who acts and speak through us, because then it is Love Himself who will be responding to the other person, regardless of what they do or say.

The Difference Between "Preachers" and "Shepherds"

 It is still my opinion, and it has only grown stronger with time, that spending at least a year tending livestock should be a requirement for becoming a pastor. You don't really understand what it means to shepherd a flock until you've done it literally. There's a difference between a shepherd and a preacher. The preacher gets up into the pulpit every Sunday and spends an hour talking. The shepherd spends every day tending to the needs of their flock. The shepherd checks their water and food every day. The shepherd gets to know each one of them by name, their personalities, which animals tend to form a clique and which are left on the outside, which animals are the alphas and which are at the bottom of the ranking order. The shepherd observes who's getting enough food and who's not, who's taking too much, and who's being shoved away from the feed tin. Preachers observe none of these things. 

     The preachers who put on Sunday morning "shows" observe none of these things. Their job isn't to get to know and look after their charges, it's just to say a liturgy and preach for an hour once or twice a week. I just watched the film "Man of God" today about St. Nektarios of the Greek Orthodox Church. This man was a shepherd. He screamed "shepherd." Mother Theresa was a shepherd, too, regardless of her rank or status. I can think of others both real and fictional. 

     I myself wasn't a very good shepherd when I wore the collar. I didn't really understand what it meant. I loved being Jesus for people and giving Jesus to people in the Sacraments, but I didn't really get the actual shepherd part. I wish I had. I know I would have done things differently. If I had been able to relate to the people who came under my charge half as well as I find myself looking after and caring for the animals under my charge... Those goats, dogs, cats, and chickens have taught me more about pastoring than any of the courses I had ever taken in college, or many of the pastors I had ever seen.

All are Members of the Logos but Not All are In Communication with the Head

     I was reading this morning in “After” by Bruce Greyson, M.D. and I reached the chapter titled, “What About God?” For context, this book in the account of Dr. Greyson’s decades of research into Near Death Experiences, and contains many quotes and recountings from those who have experienced them. I highly, highly recommend this book because of Dr. Greyson’s methodical, science based approach to the topic. In general, the majority of NDEers encounter a Divine Being in some way. Frequently it is Jesus Christ, and then moving on to experiencing a Being they call “God” for lack of a better term, but it is universally understood that this term doesn’t do any justice to the overwhelming Source of Being, Love, Peace, and Acceptance that wraps them in His embrace.

     In many cases, the person experiencing the NDE also comes to the understanding that they, their soul or mind, is somehow the same as this Source, but not. They are a part of this Source, though distinct from it. As one person put it, “IT was me and IT was not me. I was IT and I was not IT. I was *in* IT, *of* IT, yet still simultaneously my individual unique beingness. I knew myself to be precisely precious to this Presence of Light and Sound, as if I was an atom of IT. A drop of the ocean is the essence of the ocean, though not the ocean; the ocean is not complete except for the existence of the presence of every single drop of which it is composed. That is how I related to the Light and Sound in which I was immersed.” (p. 156) I cannot help but be reminded of how Paul describes the Body of Christ in his letters, and how it is made up of many “members” or literally, “body-parts.” It is occurs to me that this is not as much of a metaphor as I was initially taught, but a deeper, and more literal truth. In Stoic philosophy, from where the concept of the Logos comes, there is this same understanding of all human beings holding a share, piece, or literally “shred” of the divine logos, and all human beings for this reason being children of the God. One Logos, one Head, but also many logoi which are a part of the Logos and are Sourced from the God and are parts or members of that one Logos.

     It is my opinion that the Body of Christ is made of its members with Christ as the head. From my reading, this is the same as the Logos in Stoic philosophy of which all human beings possess a piece, shred, or part of logos with the Logos as their head. My current thinking is that while all human beings possess this logos, not all are in obedience to, or under the control of, The Logos, that is, not all remain in communication with the Head like a member of the Body does with the brain through the nervous system. It is when a member of the body is in full communication with the head that it is able to function properly and normally. All are members of the body, but not all are in communication with the head. It is those who are properly in communication with the Head that are His disciples and can be considered to be properly functioning members of the Body of Christ. When these members are properly communicating and following the instructions of the Head, then it can be said that the Head is acting and speaking through them. 

     There are too many who call themselves Christians, from any denomination, who don't even know where to begin in proper communication with their Head. They aren't taught. They're taught doctrines, dogmas, and theologies, but they're not taught how to disengage from their own malfunctioning flesh and surrender to the Spirit of Christ, the Logos. This is equally true, and most dangerously true, of much of the visible Church's leadership. As Jesus said, frequently they do not enter the Kingdom themselves and they prevent others from entering as well.

What Is the Source of What I'm Doing? Why Do I Do It?

 Take a minute. Ask yourself what's motivating you to do what you're doing or say what you're saying? The other day, I really had to ask myself why I looked at the news, and what was motivating it. When it really got down to brass tacks, it was my threat response that was motivating it. I wanted to be informed. Why? Because I didn't want to be caught not knowing what was happening. Why? Because I wanted to be prepared if something went south, that is, if something went wrong and could possibly affect me or those I care about. This is a perfectly human response. It is also entirely governed by my brain's threat assessment and response system, not from any motivation stemming from the Spirit of Christ. I want to look at the news because I want to be aware of potential threats. There are, of course, other kinds of news, but even this has this undercurrent, if only subtly. It starts boiling down to how do I avoid threats and encourage desirable things, whatever those might happen to be? 

     This is, fundamentally, a perfectly normal, human way of looking at the world. It is the base, default way for looking at and assessing the world, really. It is also, at its very core, hamartia. Instead of being motivated by, in cooperation with, or under the control of the Spirit of Christ and displaying love, joy, peace, patience, trust, kindness, courtesy, and self-control; instead of these things, whether I have good intentions or not, I am looking to do away with threats and maximize whatever I consider necessities or desirable. 

     The Spirit of Christ is not concerned with threats or necessities because nothing can threaten Him, and He is already sufficient for everything. Threats and necessities are entirely the scope of the physical body, the brain's self-defense mechanism, but I, you, and we are not our physical bodies. We inhabit them temporarily before returning to our Source. This threat response system has its proper place in keeping the body alive and in procreation, but it cannot govern everything we do, and it is dysfunctional to where unless it is checked, that's exactly what it does. It always views everything in terms of threats or necessities, what it calls "bad" or "good."

     There is nothing inherently wrong with looking at the news, but I have to be aware of why, and what impact it has on me. Is it going to feed the fear response? Is it going to feed the aggression response? This is true of anything we engage with. Is it going to feed the feeding response? The sexual response? Again, these things are not wrong in and of themselves, but they become problems when they are what is driving us and do not shut down when they are supposed to. When left to its own devices, the brain will pursue all of these things with little to no control to varying degrees depending on the person's brain chemistry.

     Disengaging from this and engaging with or "enslaving oneself to" the Spirit of Christ allows the source of one's actions and words to be rooted in the God who is Love, and His Joy, Peace, Patience, and so on. It allows for this threat response system to shut down when it's appropriate for it to do so rather than try to govern all actions and events inappropriately.

     So, take a minute and really look at what is motivating you to do what you're doing. Ask this one simple question, "Why?"

The Disciple of Jesus Christ, Obeying the Law, and Swearing an Oath to Caesar

 I was recently re-reading the Martyrdom of Polycarp. Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna at the beginning of the second century and a contemporary of Ignatius the Bishop of Antioch who was martyred in 105CE. Polycarp himself would be martyred a few decades later at the age of 86. While the details of his death are extraordinary, the lesson which I want to focus on is why he was executed, because it was a real thing during this period.

     Put simply, Polycarp, like Ignatius, refused to acknowledge Caesar as his lord. He, like Ignatius and many, many other martyrs, refused to offer incense or sacrifice at the official imperial altars to Caesar. This wasn't just a religious offense, this was a civil one. By refusing to acknowledge the divinity or dominion of Caesar, whichever Caesar it happened to be at the time, they were committing treason against the Roman Empire as far as the empire was concerned, especially after the Christians were blamed by Nero for the fire which consumed Rome. What they were doing was illegal under Roman law, and punishable by death.

     My thoughts on this are these. Simply because something is the law doesn't make it right, and just because it's illegal doesn't make it wrong. We've seen this again and again throughout history, and even into the modern day with various regimes around the world. One can look to the Nazi regime in Germany during the thirties and forties to see prime examples of this. Legality does not necessitate ethicality. 

     My second thought on the subject is to compare the view of these ancient Christians towards swearing allegiance to Caesar with the view of modern American Christianity towards their own government. Would modern American Christians refuse to swear allegiance to their government or call their head of state "Lord" today? Most believe that patriotism to one's country, and some today to their head of state specifically, goes hand in hand with their Christian faith. Would they have refused Caesar, or would they have gladly saluted him and sacrificed as good patriots?

     The Christian, the disciple of Jesus Christ, who lives as Jesus taught and walks as He walked is not ruled by laws of any kind, but by the love of God dictating what he says and does. He will obey those laws as long as they are consistent with this love, and when they are not, he cannot. The disciple of Jesus Christ lives by the Spirit of Christ acting and speaking through him, and in surrender to that Spirit so that it is God Himself who loves through him and acts and speaks through him. You need to pay taxes? Here you go. You need to park in a certain spot, or not? Sure. Murder and theft are out of the question because it is the love of God ruling him. But you want me to hurt someone? Not a chance. You want me to defraud someone, cause someone harm, or surrender myself to anyone other than Jesus Christ? Not going to happen no matter what laws are written down or what the penalty may be, and it's not going to happen because that person has surrendered control of himself to God and God Himself will not do these things. God Himself will love first, love always, and love without end.

     This is what Paul meant when he said that if you walk in the Spirit, then you are not subject to the law. Why would the God who is acting and speaking through you be subject to any human laws except as a courtesy? As Jesus taught, "the sons of the kingdom are free." Jesus Himself only bothered paying the temple tax as a courtesy to those who brought it up.

     Finally, Polycarp understood something few Christians today really get. No one can actually harm the real you except perhaps you yourself. What's interesting is that the Stoics understood this concept fairly well. They, like Polycarp, understood that someone else can only harm or possibly kill the body, but they cannot actually harm the "you" that is animating the body, and once you let go of the body, what harm can anyone actually do to you? As Jesus also taught, "don't fear those who can kill the body, but can't kill the soul..." As a result, Polycarp didn't run from those coming to arrest him. Instead, he fixed refreshments for them. He was given the choice several times to swear to Caesar and refuse Christ. He chose to be burned at the stake in Smyrna, and was a smart-alec about it too. 

Mexican Flags, Protests, and California's Uniqueness Among the States

I've been seeing that Fox News is making a big deal about Mexican flags being waved at the protests and exaggerating it beyond reason into a "Mexican Invasion." Having grown up in California, and 35 miles south of LA, let me explain why this is nonsense shouted by people who don't understand California, either it's history or culture. For some Californians, flying or displaying the Mexican flag is no different than folks from the South like Tennessee or Alabama displaying or flying the Confederate flag, a symbol of literal treason against the U.S. 

     California has a very different history from the Eastern half of the U.S. Its history wasn't shaped by the Civil War, the Reconstruction, or a lot of what happened east of the Mississippi. California was, at one time, a part of Mexico until it was annexed by the U.S. If you Google the demographics of California, it's 40% Hispanic, 37% White, and 15% Asian with other ethnicities such as Middle Eastern and African American rounding it out. There is no majority ethnicity there. 

      While there was a single Garrison there somewhere in California, it was otherwise uninvolved in the Civil War. Its history was defined by Spanish Missions, Mexican heritage, the Gold Rush, Vineyards, and heavy farming and ranching including the Citrus Groves in SoCal that Orange County was named for. Many Chinese immigrated to California in the mid eighteen hundreds. After Saigon fell in 1975, many, many Vietnamese immigrated to Southern California. When I was a kid growing up in SoCal, it was said that there were two hundred languages spoken on a daily basis in Orange Country alone, and at least sixty spoken in my high school. California, more than any other state in the Union, is truly a culture and civilization of immigrants. Most of its white residents were themselves immigrants to California in the 1800s, as prior to this, its population was made up entirely of Mexican and Native American peoples (and here Mexican means descended from the Mexica or Aztec peoples). 

     There is in LA and other parts of SoCal in particular, because of California's history, a nativist movement that still believes California is or should be Mexican. Their numbers are very few, and to be honestly, no one's ever really taken them seriously. But they, and others of Mexican descent there who aren't quite so delusional, whether citizen or immigrant, are still fiercely proud of their heritage. It shouldn't really surprise anyone that the ICE raids targeting Hispanic people in particular would have triggered them in such a way as was seen in Downtown LA. They see it, citizen or not, as a threat against themselves and their people, their tribe if you will. To what lengths would you go to protect your people and your family from being kidnapped and assaulted? The truth is, what should surprise people is the restraint they've shown so far.

     No one in California wants any of this. Of this, I am absolutely certain. I guarantee you, everyone there just wants to live their lives in peace without having to worry about whether or not their mother, father, or child is just going to disappear at the agency of the Federal Government. There would have been no protests at all if ICE hadn't been conducting the raids in the belligerent way they have been. If they had come with warrants, if they had come in marked cars identifying themselves without masks, if they had only targeted actual violent criminals like they were supposed to, if they hadn't treated innocent people like animals, then there would have been no protests. There would have been no cars burning. 

     The blame for these protests and violence must lie squarely on the shoulders of those who conducted the raids, and those superiors who ordered them.