The Spiral Path

Wonder, Science, and Faith

Archive for the tag “Christ Archetype”

18 Jun 2011

JR51: Fifth Step: Keep Christmas, Toss Easter

Christmas tree (c) JAT 2012

Christmas tree. Photo credit JAT 2012.

A: So far we’ve talked about rescuing the soul, restoring the mystery of divine love, inviting our Mother to the table, and insisting on balance as four ways to help heal the church. What else do you have in that angelic bag of surprises you carry around?

J: The liturgical calendar of the Church must be changed.

A: You mean the calendar of religious events and themes and holy days that tells people what they’re supposed to be celebrating when.

J: Calendars are very important to the healthy functioning of the brain. So the Church still needs a calendar to help focus events for the year. I’m not recommending that the Church do away entirely with the idea of having a yearly cycle of events. Far from it. I’m suggesting that the Church revise the calendar and bring it into alignment with the needs of the soul.

A: What would that mean in practical terms?

J: It would mean you’d get to keep Christmas but you’d have to put Easter in the garbage bin.

A: Get rid of Easter? I can see the steam coming off the heads of conservative Christians already.

J: It would be kinder, in the eyes of many Christians, for me to suggest that Holy Week be “reformed” rather than axed altogether. But Holy Week is a celebration of Pauline Christianity at its worst. The overriding theme of Holy Week is salvation — escape — not healing or redemption. Every year it sends the wrong message to Christians. It sends the message that the focus of their relationship with God should be the Saviour — his death and resurrection and coming again. This was never the message I taught during my ministry as Jesus. Nor is the meaning of my time on the cross being properly taught and represented by the Church. There’s no way that Holy Week can be fixed. It would be the same as asking people to celebrate “the joy” of an S.S. death camp like Auschwitz. (I say this as facetiously as possible.) There is no joy to be found in the traditional teachings of Holy Week.

A: I’ve noticed a tendency among more liberal ministers to treat the “events” of Holy Week in a more symbolic way — to de-emphasize the crucifixion and instead emphasize the themes of renewal and rebirth and regrowth in the spring.

J: It’s very helpful and hopeful to talk about the themes of renewal and rebirth. I have no problem with that per se. I have a problem with a continuing effort among theologians to attach those themes to me. I am one man, one angel, one child of God. I’m not the Fisher King. I’m not Horus. I’m not the dead and rising Sol Invictus. I’m not the resurrected Christ. I’m just a stubborn s.o.b. who won’t shut up. I wasn’t even crucified in the springtime. I was crucified in the fall. The early church’s efforts to place the time of my crucifixion in the spring were largely centred on John’s writings. John had his own reasons for wanting to place the time of my crucifixion at Passover. But John wasn’t a man who cared about historicity or facts. He wrote what he wanted to write about me. It helped him sleep better at night.

A: A minute ago you mentioned joy as if it’s somehow significant or important to the healing of the church.

J: Joy is crucial to the experience of faith.

A: How do you define “joy”?

J: I use the word “joy” to express the gratitude and devotion and trust that all angels feel in their relationship with God the Mother and God the Father. I don’t use it as a synonym for worship or praise. I don’t use it as a synonym for the excitement of being part of a large crowd (which is more like hysteria). For me, joy is a word that conveys the happiness and deep contentment we feel as angels. It’s the feeling you get when you feel really, really grateful and really, really SAFE at the same time. It makes you smile from the inside out.

A: Christians have long believed that the purpose of angels is to offer praise and worship to God. Do angels worship God?

J: Noooooooo. You never see angels down on their knees with their heads bowed in humility. What you see is angels living their purpose of love in everything they do. As angels, we show our never-ending love and appreciation of our parents by choosing thoughts and words and actions that bring more love into Creation. We live in imitation of our parents’ courage. We’re not carbon copies of our divine mother and father — that is, we all have our own unique temperaments and personalities and talents and interests — but we’re all alike in that we all choose love. There are many different minds and many different bodies in Creation, but it can be said in all truthfulness that there’s only One Heart. It’s the feeling of joy that comes from our choice to share One Heart that makes us feel like a big family. We all belong to one family.

A: Where you feel safe, despite your differences in talent and temperament.

J: Yes. This is the underlying intent of divine love. It’s the choice to see another soul as, in fact, another soul — as someone who’s not you, who’s not a mere extension of you. It’s the choice to respect differences between individual souls, while at the same time choosing to help other souls be their best selves.

A: Can you explain what you mean by that last statement?

J: Here’s the thing. No one soul can “do” all things or “be” all things. Every soul has unique strengths. But every soul also has unique absences of strength. Angels are always giving and receiving help within the family. An angel with a particular strength will offer that strength to help brothers and sisters who need assistance with something they’re not very good at themselves. The same angel who offers a strength to another will in turn be very grateful to receive help from another soul in an area where he or she needs some help. There’s no sense of shame or guilt or inadequacy among angels when they have an absence of strength. They accept who they are. They don’t judge themselves or feel sorry for themselves or describe themselves as flawed or imperfect or unworthy. They gratefully and humbly ask for — and receive — help when there’s something they don’t understand or something they want to do but don’t have the skills for. It’s all about education, mentorship, and personal responsibility, even among God’s angels. As above, so below.

A: At the start of this conversation you said that Christians could keep the celebration of Christmas. Why? Why keep Christmas and not Easter?

J: December 25th is a day marked by all angels in Creation. It is the day when Divine Love was born.

A: I thought you said we have to get rid of all the invented myths about your ministry. Isn’t this one of them?

J: I wasn’t born on December 25th. I was born in the month of November. When I refer to the day when Divine Love was born, I’m talking about God the Mother and God the Father. I’m talking about the day when their Divine Love for each other first emerged in Creation. It was the day when everything — absolutely everything — changed. It was the day — the actual day in the far, far distant past (before the time of the “Big Bang”) — when they made the choice to live for each other. It’s the day when the Christ was born — NOT, I’d like to reiterate, the day when I, Jesus, was born, but the day when Mother-and-Father-Together-As-Christ were born. When their new reality was born. When their new relationship was born. None of us would be here today if they hadn’t made that choice.

A: So you’re saying that God the Mother and God the Father have an actual calendar of the kind we would recognize here on Planet Earth, and that the day of December 25th is marked on this calendar? This seems like too much of a coincidence.

J: God isn’t using a human calendar. Humans are using a divine calendar. God the Mother and God the Father are pretty good at math, you could say. It wasn’t difficult for them to set up indications of their calendar system all over the known baryonic universe. Planet Earth runs on the same calendar system that angels use. More or less. There are cycles that can’t be argued with, cycles that are fixed by astronomical and mathematical realities. Solar and lunar and galactic cycles dictate the calendar, not the other way around. Humans didn’t “invent” this calendar. They simply noted its existence.

A: Ah. The Preexistent Calendar. I’d love to see what the theologians will do with this theory!

J: The cycles are real and meaningful to all souls. The Church liturgical calendar needs to honour and respect these cycles. Obviously there can’t be too many “fixed liturgical days” because there has to be room for change in patterns depending on latitude and longitude. The time of regeneration, rebirth, and regrowth changes depending on where you live. The Church has to make allowances for these scientific realities.

A: Any other suggestions?

J: Yes. The Church should get rid of Holy Week entirely, including all the bells and whistles such as Lent. In its place, they should institute at a different time of year a brand new 3-day Festival of Redemption. Like Christmas, it would be a “fixed” celebration, celebrated by all Christians at the same time each year.

A: This is an entirely new idea. What would the purpose be?

J: The Festival of Redemption would be a time for Christians to stop their busy everyday lives and get together for workshops, seminars, and conferences on the theme of helping each other heal. Workshops could be held locally in the homes of individuals. Or they could be held in larger venues, such as university campuses. Not everyone would want to experience this festival in the same way — and this is as it should be because souls have different needs and different learning styles. In fact, there should NOT be one particular fixed geographical location or “pilgrimage” site for this Festival. Having “special sites” would undermine the purpose of the Festival. The idea that only some sites are “sacred” or “specially blessed by God” is a human idea. Every square inch of Creation is sacred and blessed by God as far as the angels are concerned.

A: Something tells me the Biblical idea of specific sites sanctified by God is another idea that’s going to be going into the garbage can along with the Easter eggs.

J: Hey. Don’t throw out the chocolate bunnies. They’re one of the only parts of Easter worth keeping. That and the big family dinners.

A: Amen to that.

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Posted in "4 S's", angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), Christ archetype, Church of today, Divine Love, historical Jesus, Jesus Redux, John the Baptist, Peace Sequence, relationship with God, Soul, worship and tagged , , | Leave a Comment
12 Jun 2011

JR49: Third Step: Invite Our Mother to the Table

A: Last time we spoke, the idea of the “scandal of particularity” sort of popped onto the page. I’ve been thinking about it for the past few days, and I’d like to return to that idea if it’s okay with you.

J: Fine by me.

A: You said — and I quote — “There IS a ‘scandal of particularity,’ but it applies to God the Mother and God the Father, not to me.” Can you elaborate on this?

J: Orthodox Western Christianity — the religious structure built on the teachings of Paul and Paul’s orthodox successors — has worked very hard in the last few centuries to “reposition” me, Jesus son of Joseph, in the marketplace of world opinion. Many critics of Christianity have pointed out how damaging and abusive it is to claim that God “became” one particular man in one particular place at one particular point in time. No end of systemic abuse has been voluntarily created by Church representatives because of this claim. Claims about me have been used to justify maltreatment of women, violence against Jews, and attacks on the “inferiority” of all other religious traditions.

Christians who think that I, Jesus, am happy about their claims should check out the current song by Christina Perri called “Jar of Hearts.”* “Jar of Hearts” is a song about a person who has finally figured out how abusive her former partner is. “Who do you think you are?” she asks with no holds barred, “running’ ’round leaving scars, collecting your jar of hearts, and tearing love apart.” This song reflects quite accurately how I feel about “Mother Church.” I want no part of the traditional teachings about Jesus the Saviour. If they want to keep their Saviour, they’ll have to find a new candidate, because this particular angel has resigned. Quit. Left the building. I’m tired of being their whipping boy.

A: Not quite the answer I was expecting.

J: People think that angels have no feelings. Well, I have plenty of feelings about the way the Church has abused me and those I love. I forgive individual church leaders — those who have perpetrated great harm in the name of God and Jesus — but I feel the pain intensely. Forgiveness isn’t the same thing as sweeping great harms under the carpet. Forgiveness is first and foremost a state of honesty — honesty about the intent and the injury inflicted by the intent. The intent of the Church’s teachings about me (Jesus) and about sin, salvation, sacraments, and separation from God is selfish and narcissistic. These teachings promote physiological addiction disorders. They harm lives. They harm relationships. They harm the understanding of humanity’s role in Creation. I do not respect these teachings, and I do not support the right of the Church to teach abusive spirituality to desperate people. Abuse is abuse. Western society as a whole no longer supports or condones spousal abuse or child abuse or corporate abuse. Yet Western society continues to condone spiritual abuse. This must stop.

A: Many Christians have noticed the problem of abuse in the Church and have decided to walk away from the Church. They don’t see how it can be fixed.

J: People want and need to be in relationship with God. They need faith in their lives. Unfortunately, the Church has taken terrible advantage of this need.

A: I haven’t seen much willingness among Christians I know to ask tough questions about Church doctrine. They’re trying to change the window dressings while the basement foundation is full of rot. No wonder people are leaving the mainstream churches in droves! At least in Canada they are. Can’t comment on the experience in other countries.

J: In Canada there’s such a widespread ethos of inclusiveness, access to public health services and public schooling, government accountability, gender equality, and prevention of child abuse that individual Canadians aren’t seeing their day-to-day ethos reflected in the core teachings of the orthodox Church.

A: Because it’s not there. The words are there, but not the underlying ethos.

J: No. The ethos isn’t there. The Church can talk till it’s blue in the face about the importance of service work and mission, but regular people can still sense there’s “something wrong with the picture.” They can sense there’s rot in the foundations. And they don’t want to be a part of that. Some of them decide to leave the church. Others stay and do their best to try to fix it from within. But there’s mass confusion. And people are starving — literally starving — for a faith experience that makes sense to them at the deepest possible level of the heart.

(c) Image*After

“A woman in the crowd said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you. He said to her: Blessed are they who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed is the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk'” (Gospel of Thomas 79 a-b). The Gospel of Thomas follows a minority voice in Judaism that speaks of women in a positive light and shows them as being equal to men in God’s community (rather than inferior knock-offs). This particular saying in Thomas goes even further and talks about God the Mother as one who shouldn’t be understood in terms of ordinary human motherhood. As Co-Creator of everything in the universe, our blessed Divine Mother is beyond our simple conceptions of what it means to be a mother. When compared to Hellenistic cult images of the Divine Mother (for example, the multi-breasted Artemis figure from Ephesus), it’s easy to see why Jesus faced an uphill battle in changing people’s perception of God. Photo credit Image*After.

A: For 2,000 years now we’ve been saddled with a religion that absolutely insists in no uncertain terms how ludicrous it is to even consider the remote possibility that possibly — just possibly — God might not be a “he” but might instead be a “he and a she.” It’s okay, of course, for us to bust our brains on the question of the Trinity and all the other “mysteries” that go with traditional Christianity. But it’s not okay for us to suppose that God is two people united forever in divine marriage with each other.**

J: Such a portrayal of God brings with it all sorts of implications the Church doesn’t want to deal with. For one thing, they’d have to explain why and how they “kidnapped” our Divine Mother, why they eradicated her from the message. They’d have to explain — at least in the Roman Catholic Church — why they allowed a cult to flourish around the fictional character of Mary, Mother of God.

A: You did have a mother. And her name was Miriam.

J: Yes. But she was no more the Mother of God than I was God incarnate. She was a normal human mother. That’s it.

A: Two flesh and blood people — you and your human mother — who’ve been turned into myths, lies, and symbols.

J: Meanwhile, there’s a very real and very particular Mother in Creation. God the Mother. This is the scandal of particularity I was referring to — the scandal of God the Mother and God the Father being two particular, definable, real, knowable people. Real people who have existed and continue to exist in real time and real space and real history. Real people who refuse to be moulded by the grandiose lies made by assorted religious mystics over the centuries. Real people who belong to each other — not to their children — in marital love. Real people who are our PARENTS. Real people who get hurt when their dysfunctional human children try to cross the boundaries of safety and trust between parents and children by engaging in occult practices — especially occult sexual practices.

A: Mystics have often described their “union with God” as a mystical marriage, with God as the bridegroom and the mystic or the church as the bride.

J: Yeah. And for the record, that’s another doctrine that’s gotta go. It’s highly dyfunctional and abusive for children to want to have sex with their own parents. This should go without saying. But for too long the Church has condoned mystical practices that lead in this direction.

A: Who can forget Bernini’s sculpture of St. Teresa of Avila with her mouth agape and her toes curled in orgasmic ecstasy?

J: Here’s a thought. Maybe we should butt out of the personal relationship between God the Mother and God the Father — their private life — and get on with the important job of being their children. For starters, human beings of faith could be nice to our Mother for a change. You know, talk to her. Include her. Invite her to the table of faith. Look to her for guidance and inspiration. Say thank you to her. Look her in the eye and say, “Thank you for loving me.”

A: It’s amazing how effective the Church’s strategy has been. They’ve managed to put blinders on people’s eyes so they literally can’t see God the Mother. She’s the Invisible Woman in Western theology. She’s standing right in front of us, waving her arms and jumping up and down, and people of faith still don’t see her.

J: If that isn’t gender abuse, I don’t know what is.

* “Jar of Hearts” was written by Drew C. Lawrence, Christina J. Perri, and Barrett N. Yeretsian.

** See also “A Divine Love Story” and “How My Experience as a Chemist has Influenced My Mysticism.”

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Posted in "4 S's", angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), Church of today, forgiveness, honesty, intent, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' teachings, Messiah, Mother and Father God, Mother God, occult themes, Paul vs Jesus, relationship with God and tagged | Leave a Comment
08 Jun 2011

JR48: Second Step in Healing the Church: Restore the Mystery of Divine Love

A: I was rearranging a couple of my bookshelves yesterday — actually, I was tidying up because my parents are coming over — and I felt drawn to set aside a book I picked up last fall in the remaindered book section at Chapters. It’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Christian Mysteries by Ron Benrey (New York: Alpha-Penguin, 2008). It’s not a bad little book. And it sure beats trying to wade through Jaroslav Pelikan’s massive 5 volume history of church doctrine.

Anyway, Benrey’s book is divided into 4 parts and a total of 24 chapters. Part 1 is called “The Christian Mindbenders.” The 6 mysteries included in Part I are “the mystery of the incarnation,” “the mystery of the trinity,” “the mystery of Jesus’ dual natures,” “the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection,” “the mystery of the atonement,” and “the mystery of the last things.” A few days ago, you said there’s not enough mystery in the church.* Yet Bender has filled a whole book with Christian mysteries of various sorts — most of which you’ve trashed in your discussions with me. So I’m wondering if we can return to the question of mystery in the church today. How do you envision the role of mystery in healing the church?

J: First, it’s important for church leaders to accept that people want and need mystery. If you strip away the mystery, all you really have is a secular service club devoted to charitable causes. That’s not faith. Faith and mystery go hand in hand.

Strange as it may sound, mystery is always associated with a sense of movement, beauty, grace, and transformation. Photo (c) Image*After

“Jesus said: Images are visible to people, but the love within them is hidden in the image of the Father’s love. He will be revealed but his image is hidden by his love” (Gospel of Thomas 83). Standard translations of this saying use the word “light” where I’ve used the word “love.” But for Jesus, Divine Love — rather than hidden knowledge — was the great light that shines upon us all. There was no word in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic that adequately captured this concept of love, so he sometimes used the Greek word φως (phos) to try to capture the intensity and sense of life in God’s love. Strange as it may sound, mystery and love are always associated with a sense of movement, beauty, grace, and transformation. Photo credit Image*After.

A: Why?

J: Because faith — as opposed to piety or fear of God — is about relationship with God. And as soon as you start talking about relationships, you start entering the realm of mystery.

A: That feeling of awe about somebody else’s gifts and gaffes — their amazing courage, their brilliant insights, their hilarious mistakes.

J: Perhaps the greatest mystery of all is consciousness — what it means to be a person. This mystery extends to the origins of our divine Mother and Father. God the Mother and God the Father are distinct consciousnesses — two distinct people — with vastly different talents and abilities, yet they share their journey together in the deepest love and trust and gratitude. What they create together is so much bigger than what either could create alone. There’s an immense sense of wonder on the part of all angels at the richness and kindness and patience that’s infused in everything our Mother and Father create together. The creations themselves are cause for much appreciation and emulation. But it’s not the creations themselves (stars, moons, planets) that convey to us — their angelic children — the deepest sense of divine mystery. It’s the love itself. The deepest mystery — the startling mystery, the core mystery, the infinite puzzle — is the mystery of divine love. And this is a mystery based on relationship.

A: Some Christian theologians like to talk about the “scandal of particularity.” In Christian terms, it’s related to the doctrine of the incarnation — the idea that God entered one particular, limited existence. Namely you. It’s interesting that what you’re describing as the mystery of divine love sounds nothing like the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, yet it sounds an awful lot like the scandal of particularity — though not at first. You have to ponder the feeling for a while to notice the connection . . . which reminds me that I’ve noticed over the years that some of the doctrines Christians cling to so desperately contain an echo or a hint of something true. The doctrines have become all twisted around and knotted so we can’t see the original truth anymore. But at the same time we don’t want to let them go because we sense there’s something important there.

J: You’ve really nailed that. There IS a “scandal of particularity,” but it applies to God the Mother and God the Father, not to me.

A: I’ve been hanging around with you for too long.

J: The same thing applies to the idea of the Christ archetype. I was not — and am not –THE Christ. The original Christ archetype is held by God the Mother and God the Father TOGETHER. I seek to emulate their courage, their love, their devotion as an angel, as a child of God, and in so far as I choose to emulate their example, I am a “small-c” christ. But when angels think of Christ, we think of our divine parents. We think of God. It’s a term of affection. And gratitude. It’s a positive epithet. But Paul and his successors took this term of affection and turned it into a word that means power and control and hierarchy. They mutated and subverted the meaning of everything that God the Mother and God the Father stand for together as the Christ.

Sure, there really is a Christ. And sure, regular Christians don’t want to let go of the idea that there’s a Christ. But they’re pinning the tail on the wrong donkey. I’m not the Christ. I’m a child of Christ — as, indeed, are all souls in Creation.

A: When we started talking about the “scandal of particularity” a few minutes ago, I got my butt off my chair and retrieved another book — this one called Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes, edited by Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). In it there’s an article called “God With Us in the Dust” by Karen Baker-Fletcher (pages 188-190). Baker-Fletcher says this:

“What, then, is the difference between Jesus and other humans? It is not that we are like Jesus in the suffering we humans endure. It is the other way around; Jesus is like us, relates to us, identifies with us, having experienced the violent consequences of human sin. Jesus is like us because Jesus has been sinned against. He therefore can identify with human suffering. Jesus is like us because Jesus also feasts and rejoices with us. But we are not Christs [emphasis added]. Jesus does not sin but is sinned against. Jesus is unlike us because he is the Christ, the anointed one, one with God. God alone in Christ can promise restoration, redemption, salvation. As human beings we may participate in this activity, but we do not initiate it (page 189).”

How do you respond to these thoughts?

J: Well, she’s managed rather neatly to allude to the Christian mysteries of the incarnation, the trinity, Jesus’ dual natures, Jesus’ resurrection, the atonement, and the last things all in one paragraph. She gets points for brevity. But she gets no points for understanding my ministry or my true relationship with God.

A: You’ve said in the past that all human beings have the potential to live as Christs-in-human-form.

J: Yes. It’s a question of living your human life in imitation of Christ — not as Paul taught the Christ, but as I and others have taught the Christ. Since I am not the Christ, there’s no point living your life in imitation of me. On the other hand, since God the Mother and God the Father ARE the Christ, it’s a pretty good bet that if you live your life in imitation of their love — their courage, their devotion, their gratitude, their trust — you’re going to be “in the zone.”

A: In the Christ Zone, as you’ve called it before.

J: Yes. I’ve called it the Christ Zone for a modern audience but 2,000 years ago I called it . . .

A: The Kingdom of the Heavens.

J: Same thing, different name. It’s not the name that matters, after all. It’s the intent. Paul’s intent — his choice of ground on which to sow the seeds of human potential — was barren and rocky because he didn’t actually want people to understand their potential to initiate the activities of healing, forgiveness, and redemption. He wanted them to feel helpless and hopeless about themselves so they would turn first and foremost to church leaders (such as himself) for authority and guidance.

A: And you?

J: I wanted people to feel helpful and hopeful about themselves so they would turn to God the Mother and God the Father for direct guidance.

A: How very Protestant of you.

* Please see First Step in Healing the Church: Rescue the Soul.

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Posted in Christ archetype, Christ Zone, Church of today, consciousness, Divine Love, faith, intent, Jesus Redux, Jesus' teachings, Kingdom teachings, Mother and Father God, mystery, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, relationship with God, Soul and tagged , | Leave a Comment
01 May 2011

JR35: Father of Lights, Mother of Breath

Father of Lights, Mother of Breath

“Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the Word of Truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures” (James 1:17-18). Photo credit JAT 2014.

A: Saying 56 of the Gospel of Thomas is somewhat puzzling. Stevan Davies translates it as “Jesus said: Whoever has known the world has found a corpse; whoever has found that corpse, the world is not worthy of him.” Davies suggests that this saying relates to the two Creation stories in Genesis. He says, “it seems that the animating principle of the world is the Kingdom within it that remains undiscovered by most people. They do not realize that for them the world is a corpse; when they discover that it is, they simultaneously discover the Kingdom that can animate it” (page 61). Davies’s interpretation doesn’t feel right to me. What were you trying to get at here?

J: Davies’s thesis that the Kingdom is an animating principle within a person and within the world outside each person is central to his interpetations of the Thomasine sayings. He’s entitled to his own theories, but I don’t have to agree with them.

A: So you don’t agree.

J: No. Davies’s interpretation — for all that he tries to cast it in the light of Wisdom teachings instead of Gnostic teachings — is still Gnostic. In other words, it’s an occult interpretation. Occult interpretations of the world rely heavily on dualistic thinking — everything is reduced to pairs of opposites such as “good versus evil” or “light versus darkness.”

A: “Alive versus dead.”

J: Yes. As soon as a person starts talking about “dead things” being animated — literally, being brought to life — by outside forces, then you’re moving in the direction of dualistic, occult thought. What scholars call Christian Gnosticisms are really just a form of immaturity. Emotional and intellectual immaturity. Nothing in Creation can be reduced to the kind of simplistic “either-or” religious formula that’s being offered in Davies’s interpretation. Life just isn’t like that.

A: So you don’t agree that “alive versus dead” is a legitimate pair, a legitimate starting point for discussion about the nature of life?

J: You have to understand the religious context in which I lived. People had some very strange ideas about birth, life, illness, and death — everyone did, regardless of their religion. Jews were no different. We had tons of restrictions and limitations and taboos around natural life processes. Especially around death. Taboos around some other things had loosened up when Jewish lands fell under the sway of Hellenistic thought and then Roman thought. But the taboos around death hadn’t diminished. People were very frightened of dead bodies. Only certain people were allowed to touch them. No one could be buried inside the city walls. The list went on and on.

A: That doesn’t sound much different from today.

J: One of religion’s most important jobs is to help people deal in mature and compassionate ways with death. Few religions manage to accomplish this task with any grace or decorum. One of the few modern religions that brings death into the community in a living, natural way is Rabbinic Judaism. Christianity could learn a thing or two from Judaism on this score. However, the approach to death seen in today’s synagogue was not the approach to death I grew up with. Rabbinic Judaism didn’t exist in the first half of the 1st century CE. Judaism was a mess. We had so many competing philosophies and so many competing rituals that regular people were hopelessly confused.

A: Dare I say that you added to that confusion?

J: You can say that. It’s true. But Judaism had some good things going for it. Even though I had studied the works of Hellenistic philosophers, looking for nuggets of spiritual wisdom, I came back in the end to the best that Judaism had to offer. In my view, the best ideas of Judaism topped everything the other religions were offering.

A: Can you give some examples?

J: The most obvious one is the image of God in the Hebrew texts. There was the strange idea in Judaism — uncommon, though not unprecedented in the history of religion — that there was really just one God, not a whole pantheon of gods. Of course, I didn’t agree with the Platonic idea that God was a single undifferentiated “He.” This idea had slowly made its way into Jewish thought, and by the 1st century CE it was widely accepted by many Jews. But not all Jews saw God as 100% male. A thinking person couldn’t make sense of the natural world if it was seen solely as a “male domain.” There had to be a feminine principle in there somewhere — a feminine principle that was equal to the male principle and in full partnership with the male principle. My personal experiences as a mystic clinched that theory beyond all doubt. Once I had seen and felt the reality of God the Mother and God the Father in my own heart, I had no doubt about who God really is. God is Father and Mother together — Abba and Ruah. Father of Lights, Mother of Breath. That’s what I called them.

A: You refer to the Father of Lights in the Letter of James (James 1:17-18). You also say there that the Father of Lights gave birth to us “by the word of truth.” What did you mean by this?

J: “The word of truth” — logo aletheias in the Greek, which is not the same as Sophia (Wisdom) — is a name I sometimes used for God the Mother. I was trying to make it clear that God the Father doesn’t give birth to us by himself. It isn’t a weird form of parthenogenesis (virgin birth). It’s the most natural form of creation imaginable.

A: Two partners coming together in light and in truth and fulfilling our creation because they want to.

J: This image of God was considered heretical to both pious Jews and pious Gentiles. There were countless images of the Divine in many different religions. The only image of the Divine that wasn’t being preached was the one I was preaching — the God Who Is Two. One God, many children. One God, many souls. One God, many Kingdoms. This image of God as God really is did have — and still has — the power to free so many people from the suffering caused by prejudice and hierarchy and male dominance! This image has the power to open up the gates of meaningful relationship with God. Everything you see in the world around you makes so much more sense when you allow yourself to make room for the “crazy, heretical notion” that God is Two — not One, and not Three. All the most meaningful experiences of life as a human — the experiences of love, of redemption, of healing, of trust — they all rely on relationship. On two people — at a minimum — coming together in mutual aid and comfort. As the song says, “one is the loneliest number”. On the other hand, two is the number of change, growth, creation, balance, and divine love. The world of science and nature constantly reinforces this one simple message: it’s all about Two, not One.

A: It seems very strange to me that when an individual adamantly holds to the idea that God is One, his or her thinking becomes less holistic and more dualistic — more based on black-and-white pairs of opposites. When pious religious followers commit themselves wholly to the idea that God is One, it’s like a cartoon thought bubble pops up and fills itself up with all sorts of nasty, judgmental words. Words so nasty they could singe the hair off your head. You wouldn’t think the idea of God-as-One could lead to so much hatred and prejudice and racial discrimination. But we have plenty of history to prove it. I’ve been watching the Kennedy mini-series on the History Channel, and of course they examine the racial rioting in the U.S. South in the early 1960’s. I simply can’t understand or relate to that kind of vicious hatred.

J: Well, we had plenty of that kind of vicious hatred in my time. Jews against other Jews. Rich against poor. Chosen people against damned people. Blah, blah, blah. No end to the bigotry. No end to the narcissism.

A: I see you’re equating bigotry with narcissism.

J: Sure. Bigotry can only grow in a garden that’s growing the weeds of narcissism and bullying. Narcissism is a psychologically dysfunctional state where an individual’s brain becomes addictively dependent on the myth that he or she is “special,” “better than others,” and entitled to better treatment than other people. Like any addict, the status addict has to receive regular fixes. To maintain a stance of bigotry towards another person on the basis of skin colour is simply proof of addiction — addiction to status. The choice to hate somebody on the basis of race or skin colour has the same biological effect on the brain as an addiction to cocaine. Bigotry is a form of “using.” It has no place in the life of a person of faith.

A: Bigotry is another form of dualistic thinking — “us versus them.”

J: It’s also a clear indication of immaturity in an individual. A mature individual is able to process ambiguity, change, complexity, and “shades of grey.” A mature individual is capable — even as a frail human being — of perceiving and appreciating the vast scope of Creation and the awe-inspiring, humbling interconnections that exist among all forms of life, both here and elsewhere in Creation. A mature individual doesn’t ask “what God can do for you,” but instead asks “what you can do for God.”

A: That statement would be considered blasphemous by the “piety and pity” crew that insists we’re all full of sin and unworthy before God.

J: Well, I rejected the “piety and pity” parade, as you can tell from everything I’ve been trying to say on this site.

A: I’ll just call you the “trust and twofulness” guy instead.

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Posted in Davies (Stevan), dualism, Gnosticism, Gospel of Thomas, Jesus Redux, Kingdom teachings, Letter of James, life and death, Mother and Father God, Mother God, status addiction and tagged , | Leave a Comment
10 Apr 2011

JR31: Jesus, the Man Who Was a Mystic

Life as a Mystic (c) JAT 2015: always drawn to the path less travelled

Life as a Mystic: always drawn to the path less travelled. Photo credit JAT 2015.

A: Sayings 18a and 18b in the Gospel of Thomas have some interesting things to say about our relationship to time — to beginnings and endings. Stevan Davies’s translation says this: “The disciples asked Jesus: Tell us about our end. What will it be? Jesus replied: Have you found the Beginning so that you now seek the end? The place of the Beginning will be the place of the end [18a]. Blessed is anyone who will stand up in the Beginning and thereby know the end and never die [18b].” Your makarisms — your beatitudes — don’t sound much like the makarisms from the Jewish Wisdom thinkers who wrote books like Proverbs and Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon. Why is that?

J (shrugging): I was a mystic, not a Wisdom teacher. I believed in logic, but I believed more in Divine Love. My understanding of happiness was founded in my personal mystical experience. When people asked me how I could be so happy despite all the personal suffering I’d experienced in my life, I told them. They didn’t believe me, but I kept telling them anyway.

A: People today don’t think of you as a mystic. They may think of you as a rabbi or as a wandering Cynic philosopher or as a political revolutionary or even as a shaman-like fellow wandering around Palestine in a severe dissociative state.* But none of the well-respected biblical scholars I’ve read have described you as a mystic. Why not?

J: There’s nothing so poorly understood in the history of religion as mysticism. Having said that, the form of mysticism I practised has been rare in the annals of religious mysticism. I was neither an apophatic mystic nor an anagogic mystic. I was an endogenous mystic.

A: You’re going to have to explain that.

J: Mystical experiences from different cultures can be categorized. And should be categorized. Unfortunately, they’re usually lumped together in one big pot. They’re assumed to be roughly equivalent to each other. But they’re not. For instance, mystics who claim to have had an experience of timeless, transcendent oneness or union with the Divine come away from the experience with the belief that “less is more.” These are the apophatic mystics, from the Greek word meaning “negative speaking” or “unspeaking.” Apophatic mystics believe you can only experience union with God through the constant practise of mystical contemplation. This practice allows you to first “unknow” or “unspeak” yourself, to escape your frail human senses so you can become a proper empty vessel. If you do it correctly, goes the theory, you find yourself in a transcendent state where you no longer think of yourself as “you.” In other words, the path to knowing God is eradication of the self.

A: The opposite of what you taught.

J: Yes. Another thing I taught was the futility of the anagogic path — the vertical or upward path of spiritual ascent that’s been taught so many times by so many different teachers over the centuries. Anagogic mystics may or may not also be apophatic mystics, just to make things more confusing. Basically an anagogic mystic is somebody who believes that the only way to know God is to achieve perfection by following a rigorous step-by-step set of instructions or laws in the correct order. This takes you one step at a time up the spiritual ladder. The ladder of perfection takes you closer to God and farther away from your sinful neighbours. It sets you above and apart from your neighbours. Benedict, the founder of the Christian monasteries and the monastic Rule that bear his name, was teaching his monks a form of anagogic mysticism.

A: Again, not what you taught. So explain what you mean by endogenous mysticism.

J: It’s a term I’ve coined to suggest an experience of intense mysticism that’s hardwired into a person’s DNA rather than being imposed from the outside on an unwilling religious acolyte. True mystics are born, not made. Just as true engineers or true musicians are born, not made. An endogenous mystic is somebody who was born with a particular set of talents and communication skills aimed in the directions of philosophy, language, music, mediation (that’s mediation, not meditation), and what I’m going to call for lack of a better term “the geek factor.” True mystics are more interested than most people in offbeat stories and unusual phenomena. They show a life-long interest in stories and experiences that are somewhat unconventional. Not too weird, but a bit weird. You wouldn’t find a mystic teaching an M.B.A. course. But you might find a mystic teaching a Creative Writing course. Most true mystics don’t even know they’re true mystics. Most often they end up as writers. Writers need more solitary time than most people, as mystics do. They need the solitary time so they can pull up from somewhere inside themselves the emotions and the insights they long to express. They’re not being unfriendly or rude or hostile. They just need the quiet time so they can hear themselves think. This is true for both writers and mystics.

A: Well, you can count me in on all scores there. I spent a lot of time indoors reading as a child. And drawing. And watching TV shows that had a science fiction or fantasy element. I loved the first Star Trek series when it first came out. Come to think of it, I still like it.

J: I was like that, too. I was fascinated by the Greek myths. As soon as I learned to read, I read the Iliad. Then the Odyssey. My strict Jewish mother wasn’t pleased. But what could she do? She was a widow with a big family to look after. As long as I stayed on the family property, where I couldn’t get in too much trouble, she put up with my unusual interest in books, books, and more books. I read everything I could get my hands on. I learned to write by studying the authors I most admired.

A: I’m thinkin’ that Plato probably wasn’t one of your favourite authors.

J: I liked plays, actually. I learned a lot by studying Greek poets and playwrights. I liked the comedies of the Greek playwright Menander. Much healthier than the doleful rantings of the Jewish prophets.

A: These aren’t the literary influences one would expect you to describe.

J: No. I had to learn to read and write from the sacred Jewish texts because my mother and my maternal grandfather insisted we be literate in our religious heritage. So I knew my Torah and my Proverbs. But I was a born mystic, and, like all mystics and mystics-in-writer’s-clothing, I was interested in — utterly fascinated by — the fine nuances of character and environment and insight. I wanted to know what made people tick. I wanted to hear how they spoke, how they phrased things, how they interacted with each other. I wanted to know why people fall in love, what they say, what they do. I wanted to absorb all the joys, all the nuances, of life and living.

A: As writers do.

J: Writers can’t help it. It’s what they do. They’re so attuned to the rhythms and patterns of language and dialogue and everyday speech and sensory input and colours and textures and movement and nature and choices and especially change. Mystics are like this, too. Deeply attuned to patterns of communication that other people don’t pay attention to at a conscious level. A mystic is somebody who’s hardwired to pay conscious attention to subtle, nuanced communications from the deepest levels of Creation. Sometimes these communications come from God. Sometimes they come from one’s own soul. Sometimes they come from somebody else’s soul. But basically it’s about conscious observation and understanding of specific kinds of communications. Mystics are tuned to certain bands on the divine radio, if you will. They can pick up stations that most other people aren’t interested in trying to pick up. These “mystical” stations aren’t better than other stations. They’re just . . . well, they’re just different. All the stations on the divine radio are good, because different styles of music are all inherently equal. They’re all inherently equal, but they don’t all sound the same. Because they’re not the same. They’re different but equal.

A: As souls are all different but equal.

J: Yes. A lot of people imagine it would be wonderful and exciting to give over their lives to mysticism. But being a mystic is only wonderful and exciting if you’re hardwired to be a mystic. If you’re like most people — born with intuition, but not born to be either a mystic or a writer — you would find it very isolating, frustrating, even depressing to live as a mystic — as many Christian nuns, monks, clerics, and mystics have discovered to their misfortune. The “Dark Night of the Soul” is not and should not be part of the journey to knowing God. At no time in my life as Jesus did I experience a Dark Night of the Soul. On the contrary, my experience as a mystic gave me only an ever deepening sense that I was in the right place doing the right thing with the right people for the right reasons. I trusted my “beginning.” As a result, I stopped worrying about my “ending.” I lived each day in a state of comfort, peace, trust, and love.

A: The journey was not about the end goal, but about finding your own beginning — knowing yourself as you really are, then going from there.

J: This is the only way to find the freedom that comes from knowing and loving your Divine Parents — to whom I would like to say, once again for the record, you both rock!

* In 1995, Stevan Davies, the same author who published the translation of the Gospel of Thomas I refer to, wrote a very puzzling book called Jesus the Healer (New York: Continuum, 1995) in which he claims that Jesus carried out healings during a trance state that can be called “holy spirit-possession.” He concludes, therefore, that Jesus was a “medium.” If you’ve read my comments on The Blonde Mystic blog about psychic powers and psychic mediums, you’ll be able to guess what I think of Davies’s spirit-possession thesis.

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Posted in anagogic mysticism, apophatic mysticism, Davies (Stevan), ethical mysticism, Gospel of Thomas, historical Jesus, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' original writings, makarism, Soul, soul purpose and tagged , | Leave a Comment
20 Feb 2011

JR12: A Divine Love Story

Beauty. Photo credit JAT 2014.

A: You know, for the past two weeks I’ve been doing a lot of research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and after wading through the English translations [Wise, Abegg, and Cook]* of the Essene’s own teachings, I’m sick of them. Just sick of them.

J: Sick of the teachings? Or sick of the Essenes?

A: I’m sick of the teachings. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to go to dinner with anybody who believes in these teachings, either. The writings are so . . . so self-centred and narcissistic. So full of themselves. So full of hot air. They don’t say anything moderate or balanced about our relationship with God. They’re full of cliches and bluster and prophecy and big long strings of fancy-sounding words. But where is the love? There’s no love in them — no kind, respectful, trusting, compassionate, inclusive love. It’s just narcissistic bullshit. Did I say that already? I think I said that already.

J: Don’t forget paranoid. The teachings are also very paranoid.

A: Yeah. Enough with the evil Belial, for God’s sake! Enough with the final battle where the pure and virtuous Essenes will lead the armies of Light to victory! Get a life, people.

J: Or Pauline Christianity.

A: Say what?

J: If they don’t want to get a life, they could always get some serious, heavy-duty evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christianity doesn’t say much that the Essenes didn’t say within their own brand of Community Rule.

A: Yeah, well, I’m not feeling the love from evangelical Christianity, either. Again, lots of narcissism, not so much trust in God. I can’t believe what these people are saying about God!

J: Which people? The Essenes or the Pauline Christians?

A: Both. I’m not seeing a lot of difference between them, as you’ve pointed out. This is not what you’ve taught me about God. I don’t see any resemblance at all. I don’t see any resemblance between your teachings and Paul’s teachings, or your teachings and John’s teachings. This is crazy! How did orthodox Christianity get so far from the truth?

J: I hate to sound like a broken record, but, again, it’s the mental health issue. My teachings have no appeal for narcissists. Or psychopaths.

A: Because there’s no “fuel” for status addiction. Narcissists and psychopaths suffer big-time from status addiction.

J (nodding): And as for people suffering from psychotic illnesses . . . they’re not in a position to take full control of their thoughts and feelings. They can’t. The illness interferes with their thinking and feeling processes. So they’re filled with fear and paranoid thoughts even before you add the religious paranoia. They can also suffer from narcissism on top of those biologically confused thoughts and feelings, as John did. But the main point is they’re not mentally or emotionally well, and their writings — if they write about spiritual or religious topics — always reflect their inner mental state. The writings of a person suffering from a psychotic illness sound psychotic. You have to step back from their writings and ask yourself . . . would an adult human being with a clean bill of health as far as the DSM-IV is concerned — and taking into consideration the psychopathy that the DSM-IV writers left out for bizarre reasons — would a non-paranoid, non-manic, non-depressed, non-psychotic, non-substance-addicted person write this? Is this writing the reflection of a person in a highly stressed mental state? Is this writing the reflection of a person who understands what compassionate love is? Is this writing the reflection of a person who understands what it means to trust in God’s goodness? Because let’s be honest — a person who writes all the time about the devil or Belial or whatever you want to call this imaginary evil entity is showing that he or she does not trust in God’s goodness. How can anybody say they trust wholly in God, then turn around and say God is too weak to prevent the existence of a devil? You can’t have it both ways.

A: Orthodox Western Christianity says you can. And another thing —

J (starting to chuckle):

A: Yes, I’m on a rant this morning. I’m sick of the way these writers — the Essenes and Paul especially — talk about women. I’m sick of the way they’ve just gone ahead and eradicated the Divine Feminine from everything. I’m sick of their pompous warrior-king Messiahs and I’m sick of their divinely appointed male priests and I’m sick of their testerone-soaked jockeying for the best places at the table. Me, me, me. Look at me — I’m special! That’s all these people can talk about. For religious people who claim to be serving God humbly and piously, they sure spend a lot of time bragging about their own status and putting other people down. Have you read what the Essenes say about people with physical infirmities and imperfections [IQSa]? It’s just plain cruel!

J: The difference between humbleness and humility. You and I have talked about that a lot.

A: It wasn’t very humble of early teachers such as Second Isaiah or the redactors of Genesis to go ahead and do a hatchet job on God the Mother — to just slice her out of the story of Creation. Even the Greeks, for all their crazy Homeric myths, had the sense to include strong female archetypes in their pantheon. Anybody with half a heart can see that Creation — the world of beauty and wonder and mystery all around us — is a Love Story. It’s a testament to the love shared by God the Mother and God the Father for each other, a record of their journey of love, growth, commitment, struggle, and faith. It’s a giant love story. That’s what you’ve taught me. That’s what I feel myself. It’s a painful story, but a truthful one. Everything around us talks about the importance of relationship, the importance of balance. How can religious people look at the world and see a Judeo-Christian Covenant? How can they think “it’s all about them”?

J: Narcissists always think it’s all about them. It’s how they view the world — through a very small lens of “I.” Me, myself, and I. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re religious. The issue isn’t one of spirituality or faith or God. It’s simply a matter of biological brain health. Sadly — broken record again — it’s about the human brain and how people use the brain God gives them.

A: I notice that God gave women brains, too. You’d think that would count for something in the grand religious scheme of things.

J: Not to mention the thorny reality that 75% of the human sex chromosomes are X chromosomes — female chromosomes, not male. I’m thinkin’ that’s probably an important “Post-It Note” in the biologist’s Book of Creation.

A: I’m so glad I was raised in a family where I was taught that men and women are equal in terms of their intellectual gifts and in terms of their right to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

J: I’ll second that. I wouldn’t be able to talk to you this way if your human brain hadn’t developed along the lines of dignity, respect, and equality. That’s what the relationship between God the Mother and God the Father is all about — dignity and respect as the basis of their mutual love and trust, despite their respective differences in temperament and talent and size. As above, so below. When human beings live according to the values and principles of their beloved Divine Parents, they can feel the love of God coming into their daily lives. When they reject those values, their biological brains become like big pots of quivering jello — lots of colour, lots of movement, but not much substance. It’s fun to eat, but 15 minutes later, you’re hungry again.

A: They feel empty inside when they reject the core values of the soul.

J: Which is all very confusing when it’s their time-honoured religious traditions that insist they reject their soul’s own values. They’re taught by their religious leaders to reject divine notions of equality amongst all life, to reject balance, to reject symbiotic relationships — to reject all mutuality. Then they complain because they can’t feel God’s love. They complain they’ve been abandoned by God. It’s a crock. It’s not God who’s abandoned them. It’s they who have abandoned God. They usually don’t realize that this is the cause of their feeling of inner emptiness. They think their religion is helping them fill the void. But unless they have an unusually mature, unusually intuitive religious leader, their church services are just making the inner bowl of jello bigger. There’s no substance because there’s a lack of will, a lack of courage, to teach the truth about God.

A: The truth that God is the God Who Is Two, not the God Who Is One. And not the God Who Is Three, if you’re a Trinitarian.

J: It’s a simple truth, seen everywhere in Creation. There’s no relationship when it’s only “me, myself, and I.” Relationship MUST begin with two. It can involve more than two — and, in fact, the angelic community of God’s children is so large, so much bigger than two, that I can’t give you a number that’s meaningful to the human brain.

A: Gajillions?

J (smiling): Yes. Gajillions of angels, both male and female. But no matter how many angels exist within God’s family, it’s still about relationship. It’s still about people — angels — knowing each other, respecting each other’s uniqueness, respecting each other’s differences, working together in a symbiotic way to make a “whole” that’s much larger than the component “parts.” The sense of Oneness that people long for in their relationship with God isn’t a sense of losing themselves in the infinite Mind of God. It’s the sense of Oneness that comes from combining your strengths with the strengths of your brothers and sisters towards a common goal. It’s not Oneness of identity. It’s Oneness of Purpose. It’s Oneness of Commitment. It’s family. It’s people with differences coming together to work as a Team to create something much bigger than each could create on his or her own. That’s what Divine Love feels like.

A: Habitat For Humanity. It feels like the charity called Habitat For Humanity. Where groups of committed people volunteer their time and their skills to help build safe, affordable housing for families.

J: Exactly. It feels just like that. Everybody has different talents. Some are good with plumbing. Some are good with woodworking. Some are good with designing. But all the talents are needed, and no one talent is more important than another. Everybody’s got a job to do, and everybody’s job is important.

A: Especially the guy who makes the coffee. Ya gotta have your coffee breaks while you’re busting your butt to get a job done.

J: Even angels take coffee breaks.

* Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg Jr., and Edward Cook, trans. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. New York: HarperCollins–HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.

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Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, Christ archetype, dissociation, dualism, Essenes, gender and sexuality, humility, Jesus Redux, Mother and Father God, narcissism, Paul's teachings, religion and mental Illness, Soul and tagged , | Leave a Comment
18 May 2010

CC12: Update on "the Sin Within"

Yesterday, the Globe and Mail published an AP story by Nicole Winfield (May 16, 2010, updated on May 17) entitled, “Thousands Flock to Vatican to Back Pope Over Abuse.”

at the Vatican (c) J MacDonald 2011

At the Vatican. Photo credit J MacDonald 2011.

According to the report, approximately 150,000 people showed up in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, May 16, in a spontaneous show of support for Pope Benedict XVI. Banners had been hung in the colonnade, including a banner that said, “Don’t be afraid, Jesus won out over evil.”

The article quotes the Pope as saying, “The true enemy to fear and to fight against is sin, the spiritual evil that unfortunately sometimes infects even members of the church.”

The mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, was among the faithful in the Square. Alemanno told AP journalists that “we want to show our solidarity to the pope and transmit the message that single individuals make mistakes but institutions, faith and religion cannot be questioned.”

Meanwhile, on the home front here in Canada, the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, is in hot water because he was “simply stating church doctrine” when he told a reporter that it’s always morally wrong for a woman to have an abortion, even in cases where the woman has been raped (Nelson Wyatt, “Statement From Catholic Cardinal About Abortion and Rape Causes Uproar,” The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2010).

Notice here that church doctrines — the formal belief statements touted by the church as “truth” — are being placed on a pedestal. The doctrines themselves are sacred. Sacrosanct. Holy. They act as a divine shield against that horrible cosmic power called “sin” or “the Devil.” Unfortunately, individual people sometimes get attacked by evil despite the protective power of these doctrines. Therefore, the faithful must redouble their efforts to obey the moral laws contained within the doctrines, says the Church. In other words, it’s all right to challenge the actions of individual abusers, but it’s not all right to challenge the doctrines that contribute to the creation of these abusers. Even when the doctrines violate all common sense and all common humanity, the doctrines are right and you are wrong.

These Christian leaders show us that they are cowards. They lack the courage to trust in God, they lack the courage to take responsibility for the historical errors of church doctrine, and they lack the courage to make meaningful changes.

I see no evidence in their teachings or in their behaviour that they actually believe in a loving God. However, I see plenty of evidence that they believe in a God who loves some children more than “he” loves others (i.e. election), who is too stupid and too weak to prevent cosmic sin from entering Creation, who thinks it’s okay to hold a major grudge-fest for all eternity against one man and one woman who made a mistake (i.e. Adam and Eve), who is required to follow all the laws and doctrines that male church leaders have dictated to God over the centuries, who is going to have a really big yard sale one day in the future to clear out all the unwanted garbage (that garbage might be you, according to the church’s teachings about Judgment Day!), and who is so touchy and narcissistic and sensitive to an attack on “his” sense of honour that he couldn’t stand the thought of fixing the sinful world alone, and had to send in a pinch-hitter (Jesus) to save “Team Humanity” from that wily guy who’s pitching for the other side.

Does this sound like the kind of God you want to get close to? Because this is the God that fills the pages of orthodox Western Christian theology. This is the portrait of God that “cannot be questioned.” This is the portrait of God that cowards like to hide behind.

Not every church leader is a coward, and not every Christian is a coward. These days, individuals from all religious traditions are challenging the teachings of their conservative leaders, and are asking daring questions about God. Some of these people are so distressed by the narcissistic intransigence of their own conservative religious leaders that they’re leaving the church and seeking spiritual solace in other ways.

Please ask all the questions you can. Only through our honest questions and honest answers can the church of the third millennium heal the sense of “brokenness” that many writers have described.

Please help find a way to invite God the Mother and God the Father into our hearts and our lives. Our beloved Mother and Father are nothing like the fickle, judgmental, authoritarian dude described above. Jesus knew this. I’ve had the privilege to come to know this. I invite you to know this, too. God loves all their children.

Even you.

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Posted in "4 S's", Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, Law (Nomos), Mother and Father God, Original Sin and tagged , | Leave a Comment

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