New Thought Christians have paid a lot more attention to the Bible in recent years. I'd like to believe it was because we have been doing a better job at educating our folks about the positive value of the Judeo-Christian scriptures, or because our people are reading the works of progressive authors, like the scholars of the Jesus Seminar--people like Bishop John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, Fr. John Dominic Crossan, and the late Robert Funk. But this renewed emphasis in biblical studies is probably more related to flights of fancy, like The DaVinci Code and assorted quasi-biblical archaeologically findings like the James Ossiaries. Regardless of how non-historical and poorly researched these works may be, they have nonetheless stirred popular interest in the biblical era again, just as the pop-religion, mini-hit book and movie The Secret has done for metaphysical thought in general.
One source of biblical enlightenment which has drawn wide attention in the small New Thought community has been the work of George Lamsa (1892-1975), a Turkish-born scholar who grew up speaking one of the many sub-languages which have descended from ancient roots in Aramaic. This modern version is part of a family of small languages and dialects, often tied to a religious community, which is growing smaller as tribal and villages versions give way to regional tongues such as Turkish, Arabic or Kurdish. Biblical Aramaic is a Semitic tongue related to Hebrew and Arabic, much like modern English has a common ancestry in German, with help from Latin, French and other European languages.
Jesus probably read Hebrew, spoke Aramaic, and perhaps knew some Greek or Latin. His boyhood home in Nazareth was only a short walk from the Greek-speaking town of Sepphoris, a trading and commercial center where Jesus and his father most surely marketed their carpentry trade. However, it requires a massive leap of faith for Lamsa to proclaim that the Aramaic he learned as a boy is the same language as Jesus spoke. Modern Aramaic is to the spoken language of Jesus as Spanish Salsa lyrics are to the Latin of Julius Caesar. Lamsa, however, insisted he grew up speaking biblical Aramaic, which he believed was the original language of both Old and New Testaments. This point of view is shared by virtually no scholar in the world, with the sole exception being Lamsa's direct disciples like Rocco Errico.
George Lamsa actually argued that the original OT text has been lost and the current Hebrew Bible is a re-translation back into Hebrew from the Aramaic. There is absolutely no evidence for this, a fact that Lamsa seems to have acknowledged when he claimed special insight rather than scholarly evidence as the basis for this conjecture. There are enormous problems with claiming the First Testament comes to us through the Aramaic, not the least of which is the fact that Judaism still retains its Hebrew Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls seem to establish that biblical Hebrew, not Aramaic, was the original language of Jewish scriptures. Before the time of Jesus, Scribes had produced Aramaic and Greek translations of the Bible--known as the Targums and the Septuagint, respectively--for study and prayer use, but the ceremonial and liturgical scrolls used in the Synagogues of Israel remained in their original Hebrew.
In Second Testament studies, Lamsa and Errico claim that the text known as the Peshitta, written in an Aramaic sub-language called Syriac, is an authentic, preserved version of an original Aramaic New Testament. If this is a faith position, something akin to claiming the King James Bible is a divinely inspired translation, then no critical scholarly comment is possible other than a raised eyebrow. However, the NT Aramaic school opens itself to scholarly inquiry by asserting their position is verifiable by historical and textual evidence. And when applying the tools of critical analysis to their claims, the Aramaic NT fails several key tests.
1) The Peshitta is not old enough. The Aramaic of the Peshitta is much later than the NT-era Aramaic which Jesus would have spoken. Linguists can tell the difference in the progressive changes within a language, much like a reader today could readily distinguish between the writing styles of British authors Charles Dickens and J.K.Rowling. Also, the Peshitta shows evidence of influence from Greek Byzantine texts which came centuries after NT times.
2) Aramaic letters of Paul make no sense. Why would Paul, a Greek-speaking Jew, write to a Greco-Roman audience in Europe with the language of orthodox Judaism in Palestine? It would be like a Japanese scholar, who was educated at Harvard, writing letters to the New York Times in his native Japanese. Certainly, the Times could find someone to read Japanese, but why would an English-speaking Japanese author do that in the first place? Paul's purpose in life was to reach the Gentiles, and they did not speak Aramaic.
3) Certain gospel passages clearly indicate they were not written in Aramaic. For example, Mark contains this text:
At three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34, NRSV)
Mark also reports the same statement-translation format when Jesus raised a child from the sleep of death:
He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mk 5:41)
Scholars have rightly observed that translations of Aramaic passages in the text make no sense whatsoever if the text were written originally in Aramaic.
4) Lamsa's methodology is unprofessional. He is roundly criticized for making sweeping assertions with no foundations and for stretching the meaning of the text beyond the breaking point. The first step in biblical interpretation is to attempt to discover what the author was probably trying to say to his target audience, not to take favorable interpretations and insist the author really meant this or really meant that.
This is a crucial point for any interpretative system which looks to symbolic meanings: There are certainly passages which scream for allegorical/symbolic interpretations, the whole book of Revelation for example. However, it is an entirely different process when people try to discover a) what symbolic meaning the author may have had and b) what symbolism can be seen in that passage today. It is important to remember that the interpreter is probably not discovering some hidden, secret meaning in the text as much as co-creating new meanings with the long-dead author of the passage. Art, literature, music, drama--all these are interactive media. The creative process is not complete until the person at the receiving end makes the final adaptations.
Metaphysical interpretation is a process whereby we allow all persons, places, objects, and events to represent different phases or aspects of the growth of the individual soul. It is allegorical interpretation seen through spiritual growth lenses. And there are other lenses. Peace, justice, love, relationships, self-esteem, selfless service, and intellectual growth are other possible lenses through which we might view the words of a particular passage.
The fact that Lamsa's interpretations are favorable to much of New Thought Christianity should not compel us to overlook the problems with his scholarship. Unity, Religious Science, the UFBL and other New Thought churches have an uphill struggle to establish themselves as legitimate expressions of Christianity in the twenty-first century. Certainly, Lamsa's insights into Semitic idiom can be helpful, but to emphasize an Aramaic Bible in the face of overwhelming scholarly evidence to the contrary is to marginalize ourselves further and confirm the negative stereotype of New Thought as a vacuous assortment of religious dabblers who have no clue about the origins of the Judeo-Christian faith. We are better than that.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Grace Consciousness
Sometimes, We Don't Need Jesus
There was a good crowd that day. The young clarinetist, wisp of a girl not yet in her teens, rose at the appointed point in the prayer service and left her father and strode to the front of the Fillmore chapel. In this historic, pillar-punctuated sanctuary, where Charles and Myrtle had preached and taught an earlier generation of heroes who launched the Unity movement, this little hero summoned the courage to raise her black wind instrument and blow the soothing, familiar first notes of "Amazing Grace..." With the warm sun slanting in from the fountained courtyard, I slouched in the seat and closed my eyes. Soon I was drifting, carried away by the lilting melody.
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Then the music stopped sharply. I opened my eyes and saw the girl trembling. She had stumbled in the music--missed a note, or lost her place. I never noticed during the serenade. But she did, and it was too much to bear. She flew to her father's arms. I could hear soft sobbing above the murmuring tones of an approving, patient parent.
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And then it happened. The congregation spontaneously took up the melody, a cappella.
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"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a soul like me..."
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All of us began almost at the same instant. It was as though God, or Myrtle Fillmore, had raised a baton and said, "All right now, together..."
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The song ended amid smiles and not a few tears all around. Soon the program would continue. She never got up and finished her solo. No one expected her to do that. But after the prayer service, people came up to her and said kind words. Yet, no gesture could have been as simple and as powerful as that moment of spontaneous "grace consciousness" when a room full of strangers became the patient, loving family of a girl who will remember their embracing song for the rest of her life.
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Sometimes, we don't need Jesus. We just need to act like him.
There was a good crowd that day. The young clarinetist, wisp of a girl not yet in her teens, rose at the appointed point in the prayer service and left her father and strode to the front of the Fillmore chapel. In this historic, pillar-punctuated sanctuary, where Charles and Myrtle had preached and taught an earlier generation of heroes who launched the Unity movement, this little hero summoned the courage to raise her black wind instrument and blow the soothing, familiar first notes of "Amazing Grace..." With the warm sun slanting in from the fountained courtyard, I slouched in the seat and closed my eyes. Soon I was drifting, carried away by the lilting melody.
.
Then the music stopped sharply. I opened my eyes and saw the girl trembling. She had stumbled in the music--missed a note, or lost her place. I never noticed during the serenade. But she did, and it was too much to bear. She flew to her father's arms. I could hear soft sobbing above the murmuring tones of an approving, patient parent.
.
And then it happened. The congregation spontaneously took up the melody, a cappella.
.
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a soul like me..."
.
All of us began almost at the same instant. It was as though God, or Myrtle Fillmore, had raised a baton and said, "All right now, together..."
.
The song ended amid smiles and not a few tears all around. Soon the program would continue. She never got up and finished her solo. No one expected her to do that. But after the prayer service, people came up to her and said kind words. Yet, no gesture could have been as simple and as powerful as that moment of spontaneous "grace consciousness" when a room full of strangers became the patient, loving family of a girl who will remember their embracing song for the rest of her life.
.
Sometimes, we don't need Jesus. We just need to act like him.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
On the Consequences of Inaction--Iraq War and the Parable of the Talents
The Gospel According to Dolly
Country-western singer Dolly Parton--who is a gifted songwriter, poetess and a surprisingly astute observer of human nature--is reported to have said: “We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
I am a firm dis-believer in any power of evil, although people certainly do "evil" deeds. But is there some motivating force behind the tendency to act in hurtful and hateful ways? Some identify an “evil” force in opposition to the power of God, Satan or some other convenient scapegoat devil. However, a “power” of evil is a metaphysical oxymoron if God is truly All-Powerful. As Joseph Conrad said in his 1911 book Under Western Eyes, “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” [1]
However, Conrad’s observation raises an important issue which New Thought Christianity often finds uncomfortable: one cannot live a life on this planet without recognizing that there are evil deeds, evil ideas, evil intentions, and—yes—evil men. And women. Some people make horrific mistakes, bringing ruin on themselves and others, and the fact that good can come from every disaster does not require otherwise reasonable people to certify every painful mistake as a good choice. Common experience seems to show there are greater and lesser goods, even though the life program for each person may shift the values of good-and-lesser-good from situation to situation. Until a certain level of consciousness is achieved by all humans, conflicts will be inevitable. What’s good for the Indian war party defending their sacred hunting grounds is not good for the wagon train heading for Oregon.
Pacifism and “Just” War Theory: United in Goals
Having said this, it is still necessary to admit that at this stage of human consciousness some people choose to create circumstances so maladaptive and hurtful to others that the collective good requires their opposition. As Edmund Burke said nearly three centuries ago, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”[2] Pacifists insist there are no circumstances which require violence; advocates of the “just war” theory say not to fight Hitler would be an act of criminal negligence. Yet both are united in their goals, i.e., opposition to the forces of brutality and cruelty. The pacifist and “just war” participants merely disagree about means, i.e., about which tactics which can legitimately be used to overturn the brutalizers of this world. Pacifists say non-violence only; just war advocates say sometimes force is required.
Whatever tactic is used, there is arguably a universal theme running through the prophets, teachers and messiahs of humanity that insists, however defined, acts of “evil” must be opposed. Inaction is a choice, and the prophets, teachers and messiahs have decried the feckless response of those who chose detachment during times when decisive actions were crucial. In more recent times, Robert Kennedy (1964) said that one of his late brother’s favorite quotes was based on a scene form Dante’s Inferno, although it is often misreported as a line from the Italian poet’s towering work itself: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”[3]
.
One need not believe in a literal hell to grasp what President Kennedy heard in this popularized saying. Choices matter, and not to choose is sometimes the worst choice of all.
Parables about Choices: Adjusting the Sails
The Parable of the Talents introduces a proactive authority figure who makes decisive choices, much like the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. Other parables suggest that patience and inactivity are sometimes the best recourses, especially when life’s lessons have to be learned anew by the young. This is the lesson in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The Parable of the Talents, however, tells another story. Three servants are given large sums of money to manage in absence of their supervisor. Two of them use the principles of circulation and increase their master's wealth. The third buries it in the ground for fear of losing it and getting in trouble. This parable shows how important it is to trust your gifts; it reminds people their choices matter, and that grown-ups meet their responsibilities without complaint. Finally, the return of the Master underscores the consequences of inaction when life requires decisive acts. The world is not always a happy place, but regardless of circumstances a person encounters, increase in prosperity, love and wholeness is possible. One can only hope the authors are guilty of succumbing to their own pessimism when both Matthew and Luke show punishment falling on the servant who gets it wrong. But even though the metaphor of “outer darkness” conveys fear and dread, the parable no where says this astringent consequence endures forever. There is still hope for a transformed person and a better world.
In the ancient world, the prevailing winds blew from many directions. These two parables show people responding to different challenges, adjusting their sails depending on the weather. Sometimes you act decisively; sometimes let go and let God. Spiritual wisdom means, in the words of the oft-quoted poem by Reinhold Neibuhr, "...the wisdom to know the difference."
Iraq War Requires Action and Patience: Congress Shows Neither
Real religion works in the real world. I tell my students we are studying metaphysics and theology in order to think metaphysically and theologically about life. I intend to do that now in regard to the War in Iraq. If you are uncomfortable with political commentary from a Unity theologian, minister and metaphysician, this would be a good time exit and return to surfing the web.
The Democratic congress just missed a opportunity to show leadership and stand up to President Bush's rush to Armageddon. Terrified that they would be branded for voting "against the troops," the congressmen and senators who were elected to end the American involvement in a foreign civil war simply rolled over and essentially gave the President a blank check for the next few months. Now he can continue to alienate the world against America. Now he can send 19-year-old kids from door-to-door looking for "terrorists" he has created by occupying their land. As a retired US Army officer, I am outraged that this President continues to place young soldiers in harm's way and then cries that it will be the fault of his political opponents if they are harmed. He has done what no other President in my memory has ever done--he is shoving the troops ahead of him and taking political cover behind their heroism and willingness to sacrifice for our country. Message: If you oppose George W. Bush, you are placing the troops at risk.
And I blame the Democrats for letting this deadly game continue. They control the purse strings of war, the budget. The British Parliament wrestled with their King for centuries before he yielded to their authority. How did they do it? By virtue of the one area over which they had absolute power: raising and expenditure of tax money.
Congress could have--should have--said to this President: "Not one cent more until you give us an absolute cut-off date to bring the troops home. And don't start whining about hurting the troops--you're the one who sent them over there on bogus intelligence and landed them in the crossfire of a sectarian civil war. You did it--now undo it!"
To return to Dolly Parton's metaphor, when the wind is blowing gale force, the time for sailing under full canvas is past. Trim the sails, ride out the storm, and head for port. Chances are good the storm will blow itself out, not follow you home...
____________
References:
[1] Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, online quote source: http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/evil/ (Accessed 05-22-07)
[2] Edmund Burke, online source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edmundburk384617.html (Accessed 05-21-07)
[3] JFK Presidential Library website, online source: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Dante+Quote.htm (accessed 05-22-07)
Country-western singer Dolly Parton--who is a gifted songwriter, poetess and a surprisingly astute observer of human nature--is reported to have said: “We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
I am a firm dis-believer in any power of evil, although people certainly do "evil" deeds. But is there some motivating force behind the tendency to act in hurtful and hateful ways? Some identify an “evil” force in opposition to the power of God, Satan or some other convenient scapegoat devil. However, a “power” of evil is a metaphysical oxymoron if God is truly All-Powerful. As Joseph Conrad said in his 1911 book Under Western Eyes, “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” [1]
However, Conrad’s observation raises an important issue which New Thought Christianity often finds uncomfortable: one cannot live a life on this planet without recognizing that there are evil deeds, evil ideas, evil intentions, and—yes—evil men. And women. Some people make horrific mistakes, bringing ruin on themselves and others, and the fact that good can come from every disaster does not require otherwise reasonable people to certify every painful mistake as a good choice. Common experience seems to show there are greater and lesser goods, even though the life program for each person may shift the values of good-and-lesser-good from situation to situation. Until a certain level of consciousness is achieved by all humans, conflicts will be inevitable. What’s good for the Indian war party defending their sacred hunting grounds is not good for the wagon train heading for Oregon.
Pacifism and “Just” War Theory: United in Goals
Having said this, it is still necessary to admit that at this stage of human consciousness some people choose to create circumstances so maladaptive and hurtful to others that the collective good requires their opposition. As Edmund Burke said nearly three centuries ago, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”[2] Pacifists insist there are no circumstances which require violence; advocates of the “just war” theory say not to fight Hitler would be an act of criminal negligence. Yet both are united in their goals, i.e., opposition to the forces of brutality and cruelty. The pacifist and “just war” participants merely disagree about means, i.e., about which tactics which can legitimately be used to overturn the brutalizers of this world. Pacifists say non-violence only; just war advocates say sometimes force is required.
Whatever tactic is used, there is arguably a universal theme running through the prophets, teachers and messiahs of humanity that insists, however defined, acts of “evil” must be opposed. Inaction is a choice, and the prophets, teachers and messiahs have decried the feckless response of those who chose detachment during times when decisive actions were crucial. In more recent times, Robert Kennedy (1964) said that one of his late brother’s favorite quotes was based on a scene form Dante’s Inferno, although it is often misreported as a line from the Italian poet’s towering work itself: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”[3]
.
One need not believe in a literal hell to grasp what President Kennedy heard in this popularized saying. Choices matter, and not to choose is sometimes the worst choice of all.
Parables about Choices: Adjusting the Sails
The Parable of the Talents introduces a proactive authority figure who makes decisive choices, much like the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. Other parables suggest that patience and inactivity are sometimes the best recourses, especially when life’s lessons have to be learned anew by the young. This is the lesson in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The Parable of the Talents, however, tells another story. Three servants are given large sums of money to manage in absence of their supervisor. Two of them use the principles of circulation and increase their master's wealth. The third buries it in the ground for fear of losing it and getting in trouble. This parable shows how important it is to trust your gifts; it reminds people their choices matter, and that grown-ups meet their responsibilities without complaint. Finally, the return of the Master underscores the consequences of inaction when life requires decisive acts. The world is not always a happy place, but regardless of circumstances a person encounters, increase in prosperity, love and wholeness is possible. One can only hope the authors are guilty of succumbing to their own pessimism when both Matthew and Luke show punishment falling on the servant who gets it wrong. But even though the metaphor of “outer darkness” conveys fear and dread, the parable no where says this astringent consequence endures forever. There is still hope for a transformed person and a better world.
In the ancient world, the prevailing winds blew from many directions. These two parables show people responding to different challenges, adjusting their sails depending on the weather. Sometimes you act decisively; sometimes let go and let God. Spiritual wisdom means, in the words of the oft-quoted poem by Reinhold Neibuhr, "...the wisdom to know the difference."
Iraq War Requires Action and Patience: Congress Shows Neither
Real religion works in the real world. I tell my students we are studying metaphysics and theology in order to think metaphysically and theologically about life. I intend to do that now in regard to the War in Iraq. If you are uncomfortable with political commentary from a Unity theologian, minister and metaphysician, this would be a good time exit and return to surfing the web.
The Democratic congress just missed a opportunity to show leadership and stand up to President Bush's rush to Armageddon. Terrified that they would be branded for voting "against the troops," the congressmen and senators who were elected to end the American involvement in a foreign civil war simply rolled over and essentially gave the President a blank check for the next few months. Now he can continue to alienate the world against America. Now he can send 19-year-old kids from door-to-door looking for "terrorists" he has created by occupying their land. As a retired US Army officer, I am outraged that this President continues to place young soldiers in harm's way and then cries that it will be the fault of his political opponents if they are harmed. He has done what no other President in my memory has ever done--he is shoving the troops ahead of him and taking political cover behind their heroism and willingness to sacrifice for our country. Message: If you oppose George W. Bush, you are placing the troops at risk.
And I blame the Democrats for letting this deadly game continue. They control the purse strings of war, the budget. The British Parliament wrestled with their King for centuries before he yielded to their authority. How did they do it? By virtue of the one area over which they had absolute power: raising and expenditure of tax money.
Congress could have--should have--said to this President: "Not one cent more until you give us an absolute cut-off date to bring the troops home. And don't start whining about hurting the troops--you're the one who sent them over there on bogus intelligence and landed them in the crossfire of a sectarian civil war. You did it--now undo it!"
To return to Dolly Parton's metaphor, when the wind is blowing gale force, the time for sailing under full canvas is past. Trim the sails, ride out the storm, and head for port. Chances are good the storm will blow itself out, not follow you home...
____________
References:
[1] Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, online quote source: http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/evil/ (Accessed 05-22-07)
[2] Edmund Burke, online source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edmundburk384617.html (Accessed 05-21-07)
[3] JFK Presidential Library website, online source: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Dante+Quote.htm (accessed 05-22-07)
Monday, May 21, 2007
How to Overthrow the Government and Bring about a New Revolutionary Consciousness Which Transforms the World
Pray with "denials", letting go of negative images, visualizing a better world. Pray affirmatively. Then vote. Pray more, affirmatively. Write emails to leaders. Pray unceasingly. Study the issues. Pray over them. Visualize the good established. Vote again--every election, school hourse to the White House. Pray again. Vote again. Pray. Vote. Pray. Vote. Pray...
You got the system.
You got the system.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Beware of Gnostics Bearing Gifts
The Sirens of Gnosticism
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Because a barrage of popular publications have highlighted a few Gnostic ideas which sound compatible with New Thought Christianity, the idea has somehow circulated that Unity is a modern version of Gnosticism. After you have encountered the actual content of Gnostic belief systems, you will probably want to re-think those claims.
There were many types of Gnostics, apparently non-Christian Gnostics included pagans and even Jews. Their basic point was that salvation (variously defined) is only available through secret knowledge (gnosis), which not everybody will receive. Gnosticism was a flagrantly elitist, highly dualistic worldview which saw the physical universe as evil. Only things of the mind and spirit were good and potentially holy. In fact, Gnostics believed this world was so evil that the Supreme God could not have created it; some even said the earth was created by Satan, or some other lesser god, while God wasn't looking.
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Women Must Become Men
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Oh…and women are evil, too. Especially evil, because their seductive wiles draw men's contemplation from the higher things of spirit. The much-touted, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas concludes with these words, from saying # 114:
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Simon Peter said to them, “Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life.”
Jesus said, “Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
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(Don't get mad at me--I didn't write that!)
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St. Valentine, He's Not...
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Valentinus of Rome (second century C.E.), arguably the best-known Gnostic teacher of antiquity, developed a form of Gnostic Christianity to a high level of complexity. Valentinius was born in Egypt and educated at Alexandria. He later established a Christian school at Rome, where according to Tertullian he had been on the short list for Bishop of Rome, today called Pope. He was probably influenced by Middle Platonism, which taught that God was transcendent being itself. While that premise does sound like New Thought, the problems come quickly when Valentinus begins unpacking his whole Cosmology.
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Thirty Gods...You're Kidding, Right?
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According to Valentinius, the Supreme God for its own reasons began creating spiritual beings, called Aeons (gods?) These represented various divine powers: Mind, Truth, Logos, etc. Taken together, these thirty Aeons constitute the pleroma or fullness. Last one, Sophia—wisdom—decided to create her own creature, Hokmah, but it was not perfect as she. Sophia and Hokmah together created the Demiurge, who was incompetent and ignorant. The Demiurge created material world, and the humans who live here.
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Are you following this? 1) The physical Universe is so crass and evil that the Supreme God could not have created it. 2) He created thirty gods (Aeons), who were also too holy to have created the Cosmos. 3) The last goddess, Sophia, created her own clone god called Hokmah, who was also somewhat sacred and therefore could not have created the material world. 4) But when Sophia and Hokmah create a being below this last level--the Demiurge, who is also equated with the God of the Old Testament--it is this bumbling fool who finally drags spiritual power down low enough to make the world and all that dwells herein.
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It gets worse...
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The two semi-competent spiritual beings, Sophia and Hokmah, were able to undo only some of the damage by implanting the divine spark in a few humans. These were the Elect, who could be awakened to their true nature by knowledge (gnosis). But before you start hopping up and down, pointing to this as a New Thought concept, listen to the fine print: Only a very few people have this divine nature. Most humans are walking meat, nothing more.
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Here's the Gnostic breakdown of humanity:
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1. No soul – majority of human race is animal; perishes at death.
2. Soul – ensouled humans with opportunity for acceptable afterlife.
3. Divine spark – the few Elect who can re-unite with God in glorious eternity.
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It is this third concept which some New Thought teachers admire. However the original Gnostic teaching was limited re-union with the Divine by the select few who qualify. Frankly, the idea of Gnostic “election” was dualistic, elitist, and mean-spirited.
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Need to take a deep breath?
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The good news in this mess is that no matter how alien these ideas sound today, in the second and third centuries all the above were considered Christian! This demonstrates the fantastic diversity of early Christianity; the fact that one party won the argument and became the universal (i.e., catholic) church viewpoint does not negate the fact that many, many options were on the table, even patently absurd ones like Valentinian Gnosticism, which was wildly popular for a long time. Early Christianity was an evolutionary jungle where new ideas tried to find ecological niches until a stable pattern developed. Given a few shifts in circumstances, a very different ‘orthodoxy’ could have emerged.
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Startling Diversity
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This startling diversity among early Christians is quite new to the modern reader, because the faction which Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina calls the proto-orthodox group—i.e., the minority viewpoint which finally became traditional Christianity—re-wrote Church history in its favor once they gained the majority. The proto-orthodox so successfully shaped the historical record that today people assume proto-orthodoxy has always been the majority view. Their version of heilsgeschicte (sacred history) sees an invariable, divinely ordained, straight-line progression from Jesus, to the early church, to the established religion of the high middle ages, and down through the coridors of time until today.
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Of course, historians know this direct-line, single-faith theory is completely bogus. Christianity has been highly diverse from its beginnings, even on things as basic as how many gods there are. Some Christians believed in one god, other Christians insisted there are two, three, thirty, or even 365 gods. And they all taught this as Christian doctrine.
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We stand in unbroken line with our ancestors, but so do almost all other Christian groups. Diversity rules in the corridors of time.
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Still, the next time someone says with alleged historical authority that Unity or other New Thought groups are the spiritual descendants of Gnosticism, you might want to offer a second opinion...
.
Because a barrage of popular publications have highlighted a few Gnostic ideas which sound compatible with New Thought Christianity, the idea has somehow circulated that Unity is a modern version of Gnosticism. After you have encountered the actual content of Gnostic belief systems, you will probably want to re-think those claims.
There were many types of Gnostics, apparently non-Christian Gnostics included pagans and even Jews. Their basic point was that salvation (variously defined) is only available through secret knowledge (gnosis), which not everybody will receive. Gnosticism was a flagrantly elitist, highly dualistic worldview which saw the physical universe as evil. Only things of the mind and spirit were good and potentially holy. In fact, Gnostics believed this world was so evil that the Supreme God could not have created it; some even said the earth was created by Satan, or some other lesser god, while God wasn't looking.
.
Women Must Become Men
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Oh…and women are evil, too. Especially evil, because their seductive wiles draw men's contemplation from the higher things of spirit. The much-touted, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas concludes with these words, from saying # 114:
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Simon Peter said to them, “Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life.”
Jesus said, “Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
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(Don't get mad at me--I didn't write that!)
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St. Valentine, He's Not...
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Valentinus of Rome (second century C.E.), arguably the best-known Gnostic teacher of antiquity, developed a form of Gnostic Christianity to a high level of complexity. Valentinius was born in Egypt and educated at Alexandria. He later established a Christian school at Rome, where according to Tertullian he had been on the short list for Bishop of Rome, today called Pope. He was probably influenced by Middle Platonism, which taught that God was transcendent being itself. While that premise does sound like New Thought, the problems come quickly when Valentinus begins unpacking his whole Cosmology.
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Thirty Gods...You're Kidding, Right?
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According to Valentinius, the Supreme God for its own reasons began creating spiritual beings, called Aeons (gods?) These represented various divine powers: Mind, Truth, Logos, etc. Taken together, these thirty Aeons constitute the pleroma or fullness. Last one, Sophia—wisdom—decided to create her own creature, Hokmah, but it was not perfect as she. Sophia and Hokmah together created the Demiurge, who was incompetent and ignorant. The Demiurge created material world, and the humans who live here.
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Are you following this? 1) The physical Universe is so crass and evil that the Supreme God could not have created it. 2) He created thirty gods (Aeons), who were also too holy to have created the Cosmos. 3) The last goddess, Sophia, created her own clone god called Hokmah, who was also somewhat sacred and therefore could not have created the material world. 4) But when Sophia and Hokmah create a being below this last level--the Demiurge, who is also equated with the God of the Old Testament--it is this bumbling fool who finally drags spiritual power down low enough to make the world and all that dwells herein.
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It gets worse...
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The two semi-competent spiritual beings, Sophia and Hokmah, were able to undo only some of the damage by implanting the divine spark in a few humans. These were the Elect, who could be awakened to their true nature by knowledge (gnosis). But before you start hopping up and down, pointing to this as a New Thought concept, listen to the fine print: Only a very few people have this divine nature. Most humans are walking meat, nothing more.
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Here's the Gnostic breakdown of humanity:
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1. No soul – majority of human race is animal; perishes at death.
2. Soul – ensouled humans with opportunity for acceptable afterlife.
3. Divine spark – the few Elect who can re-unite with God in glorious eternity.
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It is this third concept which some New Thought teachers admire. However the original Gnostic teaching was limited re-union with the Divine by the select few who qualify. Frankly, the idea of Gnostic “election” was dualistic, elitist, and mean-spirited.
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Need to take a deep breath?
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The good news in this mess is that no matter how alien these ideas sound today, in the second and third centuries all the above were considered Christian! This demonstrates the fantastic diversity of early Christianity; the fact that one party won the argument and became the universal (i.e., catholic) church viewpoint does not negate the fact that many, many options were on the table, even patently absurd ones like Valentinian Gnosticism, which was wildly popular for a long time. Early Christianity was an evolutionary jungle where new ideas tried to find ecological niches until a stable pattern developed. Given a few shifts in circumstances, a very different ‘orthodoxy’ could have emerged.
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Startling Diversity
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This startling diversity among early Christians is quite new to the modern reader, because the faction which Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina calls the proto-orthodox group—i.e., the minority viewpoint which finally became traditional Christianity—re-wrote Church history in its favor once they gained the majority. The proto-orthodox so successfully shaped the historical record that today people assume proto-orthodoxy has always been the majority view. Their version of heilsgeschicte (sacred history) sees an invariable, divinely ordained, straight-line progression from Jesus, to the early church, to the established religion of the high middle ages, and down through the coridors of time until today.
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Of course, historians know this direct-line, single-faith theory is completely bogus. Christianity has been highly diverse from its beginnings, even on things as basic as how many gods there are. Some Christians believed in one god, other Christians insisted there are two, three, thirty, or even 365 gods. And they all taught this as Christian doctrine.
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We stand in unbroken line with our ancestors, but so do almost all other Christian groups. Diversity rules in the corridors of time.
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Still, the next time someone says with alleged historical authority that Unity or other New Thought groups are the spiritual descendants of Gnosticism, you might want to offer a second opinion...
Friday, May 18, 2007
Wintry Relapses Never Prevent Summer
Double Crossed by Missouri Weather
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Yesterday I decided that summer was nearly here--it was in the 80's the day before--so it was time for one of my beloved Hawaiian shirts. Every Thursday the dress code is casual at Unity Village, and although I usually wear a jacket and tie even on dress down day, I abandoned the professional garb for a luau look.
Except Thursday wasn't summer weather here but a breezy day in the 50's. I shivered all day. A wiser soul might have gone back home and put on a flannel lumberjack shirt, but I thought I could decree warm weather and it would be so. Some of the biblical Jesuses could have done it; John's Jesus is so supernatural He could have warmed the hemisphere with a stray thought. So, why not me?
Except shivering in short sleeves is a poor time to affect climate change by positive thinking, my friends of the Cause-and-Effect school of metaphysics notwithstanding. If I changed the weather, it would have affected everyone, and that just would not be fair. In the original Oh, God movie with George Burns and John Denver, the anthropomorphic God-character demonstrates His power over nature by causing a rainstorm, but only inside John Denver's car. Why should He ruin everybody's day, God asks. Maybe that's why all these countervailing human thoughts have so little effect on moving mountains. I mean, if you had the power to pluck that mountain up and cast it into the sea at will, what happens when your neighbor comes home and wants his mountain back? I mean, can we be tossing mountains to and fro like ping-pong balls and still expect the mail to arrive on time? I'm happy enough to find a well-tossed salad at a church potluck. Mountains need to stay where they are.
And winter. Friend, I have done winter. I grew up in the Northeast, lived five years in Germany, three in Colorado, and three in Alaska. I've been out of doors as a chaplain with the Infantry in the arctic, sleeping on the ground at 65 degrees below zero F. I've zoomed along the Rockies in an open jeep in a snowstorm. I've walked guard duty in Central Europe at sub-zero temperatures. I have done winter.
But Missouri wasn't through chilling for this season. A petty 55 degrees with with a wind? Hardly a polar blast. What was wrong with me--a little tingle at the elbows and I'm whining for Acapulco. And then I realized: It was not getting what I wanted that caused me this discomfort, not the colder weather itself. I wanted winter to be over. Every fall I love to watch the leaves turn colors, enjoy the cooler air and anticipate snowstorms with glee. But I thought that was over now...it's beach umbrellas on the back deck and flip-flops and Bermudas. No, it's not. Not yet. Everything happens in its time. Life has cycles. Sometimes you're the salmon; sometimes you're the bear. Sometimes the path gets blocked and willpower alone will not clear it because that is not the way you need to go and the Universe know it and you don't. Yet.
I don't want any more winter, yet. I'll be ready in November. Now, I want warm, warmer, warmest! And it will come. Wintry relapses in life never prevent summer, only delay it. In the fullness of time, all things work together for the good.
I'll try to remember that next time I'm shivering in a luau shirt.
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Yesterday I decided that summer was nearly here--it was in the 80's the day before--so it was time for one of my beloved Hawaiian shirts. Every Thursday the dress code is casual at Unity Village, and although I usually wear a jacket and tie even on dress down day, I abandoned the professional garb for a luau look.
Except Thursday wasn't summer weather here but a breezy day in the 50's. I shivered all day. A wiser soul might have gone back home and put on a flannel lumberjack shirt, but I thought I could decree warm weather and it would be so. Some of the biblical Jesuses could have done it; John's Jesus is so supernatural He could have warmed the hemisphere with a stray thought. So, why not me?
Except shivering in short sleeves is a poor time to affect climate change by positive thinking, my friends of the Cause-and-Effect school of metaphysics notwithstanding. If I changed the weather, it would have affected everyone, and that just would not be fair. In the original Oh, God movie with George Burns and John Denver, the anthropomorphic God-character demonstrates His power over nature by causing a rainstorm, but only inside John Denver's car. Why should He ruin everybody's day, God asks. Maybe that's why all these countervailing human thoughts have so little effect on moving mountains. I mean, if you had the power to pluck that mountain up and cast it into the sea at will, what happens when your neighbor comes home and wants his mountain back? I mean, can we be tossing mountains to and fro like ping-pong balls and still expect the mail to arrive on time? I'm happy enough to find a well-tossed salad at a church potluck. Mountains need to stay where they are.
And winter. Friend, I have done winter. I grew up in the Northeast, lived five years in Germany, three in Colorado, and three in Alaska. I've been out of doors as a chaplain with the Infantry in the arctic, sleeping on the ground at 65 degrees below zero F. I've zoomed along the Rockies in an open jeep in a snowstorm. I've walked guard duty in Central Europe at sub-zero temperatures. I have done winter.
But Missouri wasn't through chilling for this season. A petty 55 degrees with with a wind? Hardly a polar blast. What was wrong with me--a little tingle at the elbows and I'm whining for Acapulco. And then I realized: It was not getting what I wanted that caused me this discomfort, not the colder weather itself. I wanted winter to be over. Every fall I love to watch the leaves turn colors, enjoy the cooler air and anticipate snowstorms with glee. But I thought that was over now...it's beach umbrellas on the back deck and flip-flops and Bermudas. No, it's not. Not yet. Everything happens in its time. Life has cycles. Sometimes you're the salmon; sometimes you're the bear. Sometimes the path gets blocked and willpower alone will not clear it because that is not the way you need to go and the Universe know it and you don't. Yet.
I don't want any more winter, yet. I'll be ready in November. Now, I want warm, warmer, warmest! And it will come. Wintry relapses in life never prevent summer, only delay it. In the fullness of time, all things work together for the good.
I'll try to remember that next time I'm shivering in a luau shirt.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Fundamental Transition
Jerry Fallwell died Tuesday. He was a stalwart advocate of conservative Christianity, the foe of liberalism, opponent of gay rights, and proponent of what has become known in American politics as the Christian Right. He was a worthy adversary, a faithful family man, and one whose passing perhaps marks the end of an era in American culture. Americans have always liked their religion and politics held at arms length from each other. Oh, sure, every patriotic speech must invoke God, and the American civil religion is a theistic cult of patriotism and heroes, but brand name religion--Baptist, Catholic, Unitarian--has always sounded, well, too commercial for public consumption. Let our public figures mouth platitudes about God & country, but they'd better stay far away from sacraments, papal infallibility, and speaking in tongues. Jerry Fallwell tried to maintain this illusion of separation between church and state while exerting the maximum influenced upon conservative public officials to enact legislation in support of the agenda of the Religious Right.
When Fallwell came to Alaska in the early 1980's he caused such a stir that I felt the effects as an Army chaplain assigned to duty in that state. His virulent anti-feminist, anti-gay program was so hostile and unChristian that I had to speak a word in public to present an alternative viewpoint. That prophetic utterance cost me dearly, as I was beaten up severely on my next Officer Efficiency Rating and as a consequence was never promoted again for the balance of my military career. Instead of retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel, which would have been a reasonable career progression, I remained a captain until my early retirement in 1988.
Even though he indirectly ruined my career as a military chaplain, I harbor no ill will toward Jerry Fallwell on his death. He was doing what he believed was right. I see him surrounded by God's peaceful light, moving from fear and hostility toward redemptive love.
What this man's passing confirms for me is that Unity and the New Thought churches need to step into the public view and let their light shine forth. There are better models of Christian love than the divisive hostility of Jerry Fallwell, and I am fairly certain that he knows this now and will expand his consciousness in ways unimaginable to limited humans.
Meanwhile, this is a good time to remind ourselves that God works through all sort of people, and there are many ways of understanding the Truth....
RevTW Shepherd
When Fallwell came to Alaska in the early 1980's he caused such a stir that I felt the effects as an Army chaplain assigned to duty in that state. His virulent anti-feminist, anti-gay program was so hostile and unChristian that I had to speak a word in public to present an alternative viewpoint. That prophetic utterance cost me dearly, as I was beaten up severely on my next Officer Efficiency Rating and as a consequence was never promoted again for the balance of my military career. Instead of retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel, which would have been a reasonable career progression, I remained a captain until my early retirement in 1988.
Even though he indirectly ruined my career as a military chaplain, I harbor no ill will toward Jerry Fallwell on his death. He was doing what he believed was right. I see him surrounded by God's peaceful light, moving from fear and hostility toward redemptive love.
What this man's passing confirms for me is that Unity and the New Thought churches need to step into the public view and let their light shine forth. There are better models of Christian love than the divisive hostility of Jerry Fallwell, and I am fairly certain that he knows this now and will expand his consciousness in ways unimaginable to limited humans.
Meanwhile, this is a good time to remind ourselves that God works through all sort of people, and there are many ways of understanding the Truth....
RevTW Shepherd
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Redneck Entertainment and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
The Gospel According to Jeff Foxworthy
When I lived in Georgia I discovered a delightful willingness of Southern people to laugh at themselves, a healthy attitude which might be good to adopt for those of use who call the rest of the planet home. One of the chief commentators about the trailer trash/Southern good-ol'-boy network is Jeff Foxworthy, whose famous one-liners usually end with: "...then you might be a Redneck."
My favorite was this one, paraphrased as follows: "If your idea of quality entertainment is a six pack and a bug zapper...." (You know how it ends.)
People from all regions laugh at this because it's an image of a simple lifestyle, a caricature. It's funny because it both celebrates the Redneck worldview while poking good-natured fun at it. Jeff Foxworthy understands the red-clay world of the Georgia countryside and speaks its language. Talking for and from the lower-middle-class worldview which Foxworthy's Redneck constituency represents, it would make no sense to for him to discuss the foibles of commuting to work in Manhattan from upstate Connecticut. He works inside the mythos of Saturday night tractor pulls and automatic transmissions in the bathtub. It is the source of of his material, and through Redneck humor he is able to connect with something universal about the human condition.
Now, let's look at the early Christian church with this in mind... (Don't quit on me, I'm actually going somewhere.) It isn't a comedy routine, but it certainly speaks to the human condition in the metaphors of a time-and-place locus which is quite alien to us today.
It is immediately apparent that the tools and metaphors of the first generation church were inherited from their culture. They didn't invent the ideas of sin and sacrifice. They surely would not have chosen for Jesus to meet such a tragic and abrupt end. They responded to these events with the cultural symbols available to them, manufacturing a Christ-of-faith myth both to explain his horrific crucifixion and to respond to the post-crucifixion appearances of the Risen Lord.
There is no doubt to the historicity of the underlying events themselves. Consider the vantage point of Paul, who is the only undisputed first generation Christian writer whose work is available today. Paul clearly testifies to those appearances and cites over five hundred others who can be called upon to corroborate his claims:
"For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." (I Cor 15:3-8)
Whatever actually happened, the theology which developed was based on a lot of complex components. People were trying to understand what had happened among them, and they went to the metaphors of the day, i.e., sacrifice to set the balance right between heaven and earth. This idea of offering sacrifice to reconcile humanity with the gods was an almost universal theme in Hellenistic religions and therefore a bridge between paganism and traditional Judaism. In the time of Paul the Jerusalem Temple still had its daily animal sacrifices for the remission of sins. How else could the followers of Jesus understand the unexpected collapse of the teaching and healing mission of Jesus due to his untimely death by crucifixion? If Jesus was truly sent by God, it must have been planned that way, the early Christians reasoned. But for what purpose? Ah, of course! Jesus is the Lamb of God whose self-sacrifice sets the balance right between heaven and earth for all time.
We don’t have to agree with their conclusions to understand the way they probably arrived at those ideas. However, the untimely death of Jesus DID matter to the early church, and they responded by creating a world-embracing mythos based on sacrificial theology that was nigh on to universal in the ancient world. Our task is to separate the threads and find the golden strands woven into this yarn, while allowing the ancient authors to say what the really said without re-interpreting them to make New Thoughters out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Q Source and Paul.
I am currently writing a new book on Christology, and the mythical-mystical-metaphorical-metaphysical are all delightfully co-mingled in the mess. But I invite you to explore the formative documents of the early Church with the same kind of keen insight that brother Foxworthy brings to his cultural milieu.
Who knows, perhaps you'll come away muttering: "If you think Jesus showed people the way to God-within them, you might be a Christian..."
When I lived in Georgia I discovered a delightful willingness of Southern people to laugh at themselves, a healthy attitude which might be good to adopt for those of use who call the rest of the planet home. One of the chief commentators about the trailer trash/Southern good-ol'-boy network is Jeff Foxworthy, whose famous one-liners usually end with: "...then you might be a Redneck."
My favorite was this one, paraphrased as follows: "If your idea of quality entertainment is a six pack and a bug zapper...." (You know how it ends.)
People from all regions laugh at this because it's an image of a simple lifestyle, a caricature. It's funny because it both celebrates the Redneck worldview while poking good-natured fun at it. Jeff Foxworthy understands the red-clay world of the Georgia countryside and speaks its language. Talking for and from the lower-middle-class worldview which Foxworthy's Redneck constituency represents, it would make no sense to for him to discuss the foibles of commuting to work in Manhattan from upstate Connecticut. He works inside the mythos of Saturday night tractor pulls and automatic transmissions in the bathtub. It is the source of of his material, and through Redneck humor he is able to connect with something universal about the human condition.
Now, let's look at the early Christian church with this in mind... (Don't quit on me, I'm actually going somewhere.) It isn't a comedy routine, but it certainly speaks to the human condition in the metaphors of a time-and-place locus which is quite alien to us today.
It is immediately apparent that the tools and metaphors of the first generation church were inherited from their culture. They didn't invent the ideas of sin and sacrifice. They surely would not have chosen for Jesus to meet such a tragic and abrupt end. They responded to these events with the cultural symbols available to them, manufacturing a Christ-of-faith myth both to explain his horrific crucifixion and to respond to the post-crucifixion appearances of the Risen Lord.
There is no doubt to the historicity of the underlying events themselves. Consider the vantage point of Paul, who is the only undisputed first generation Christian writer whose work is available today. Paul clearly testifies to those appearances and cites over five hundred others who can be called upon to corroborate his claims:
"For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." (I Cor 15:3-8)
Whatever actually happened, the theology which developed was based on a lot of complex components. People were trying to understand what had happened among them, and they went to the metaphors of the day, i.e., sacrifice to set the balance right between heaven and earth. This idea of offering sacrifice to reconcile humanity with the gods was an almost universal theme in Hellenistic religions and therefore a bridge between paganism and traditional Judaism. In the time of Paul the Jerusalem Temple still had its daily animal sacrifices for the remission of sins. How else could the followers of Jesus understand the unexpected collapse of the teaching and healing mission of Jesus due to his untimely death by crucifixion? If Jesus was truly sent by God, it must have been planned that way, the early Christians reasoned. But for what purpose? Ah, of course! Jesus is the Lamb of God whose self-sacrifice sets the balance right between heaven and earth for all time.
We don’t have to agree with their conclusions to understand the way they probably arrived at those ideas. However, the untimely death of Jesus DID matter to the early church, and they responded by creating a world-embracing mythos based on sacrificial theology that was nigh on to universal in the ancient world. Our task is to separate the threads and find the golden strands woven into this yarn, while allowing the ancient authors to say what the really said without re-interpreting them to make New Thoughters out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Q Source and Paul.
I am currently writing a new book on Christology, and the mythical-mystical-metaphorical-metaphysical are all delightfully co-mingled in the mess. But I invite you to explore the formative documents of the early Church with the same kind of keen insight that brother Foxworthy brings to his cultural milieu.
Who knows, perhaps you'll come away muttering: "If you think Jesus showed people the way to God-within them, you might be a Christian..."
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Addendum to "Smart Heart" -- The Fantastic Four
New Template: Scripture - Tradition - Experience - Reflection
When Jesus recommended that the individual should go into a closet and pray to God in secret, he assumed the Jews he was addressing had already studied Torah and the Writings regularly since they were 10 years old. Shall Metaphysical Christians admire someone who travels 8,000 miles to "study" with a guru, but disparage the systematic study and reflection on treasures of Western spirituality? If our primary tool for spiritual experience is a feel-good event with modern music, how do we differ from Pillar of Cloud Independent Fundamentalist Tabernacle down the street, which offers the same feel-good package, and pulls in a much bigger crowd?
It is simplistic to think people are flocking to fundamentalist and evangelical churches because they are afraid of hell. If you listen to the preachers at those cathedrals-in-the-cornfields of America, what is striking today is their upbeat message. God is a God of redemption, healing, blessing, and love. Yes, they do filter it all through an archaic, dualistic theology, which does contain eternal doom for the unsaved, but that is NOT where the emphasis is placed in many, many conservative churches today. They are selling joy, not fear. And their Jesus-rock, hand-waving, praise-the-Lord worship style is doing exactly what our people do when we sing "I release and I let go..."
It is all about engaging the worshiper at the emotional level and giving them a taste of the sweetness of God. Some would argue that without an encounter with the Divine, it's all an abstract word game. God's Presence and Power must be apprehended first in regions of the heart. But the process doesn't end with emotion; it only begins there.
UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION: NEW THOUGHT
It is not emotions which make Unity unique--it is ideas. And ideas MUST be tested, refined, discussed, applied, re-assessed, re-defined, cussed and discussed again. Jesus discoursed with the learned men of his day. True, he lambasted them frequently, but he engaged them in dialogue instead of dismissing their enterprises as folly. If Jesus showed that much respect for the process of theological discourse, how can his followers settle for happybabble and joy songs? There are so many great ideas, so many great issues, where is the prophet to bring us the word of the Lord for today?
My suggestion is that we continue to do the outstanding work we are doing in prayer, meditation, joy work (yes, joy WORK! ), healing, and prosperity-wholeness. And we add to the mix an intellectual dimension, which has been absent since the earliest days of the Fillmore revolution. To read Charles Fillmore is to engage a mind that thought things through before arriving at very definite conclusions. Myrtle Fillmore, too. In one of her earliest letters, long before they were married, she wrote to warn Charles that she was quite eclectic in her theology.
TRANSCENDENTALISTS
The intellectuals of their day were not all stuffy traditionalists, either. It was the era of the Transcendentalists, which included such intellectual luminaries as Louisa May Alcott, William Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. And, of course, the greatest of them all, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson is quoted frequently by the early-modern founders of New Thought Christianity. Marcus Bach said Emerson was the actual father of New Thought, although one could argue that P.P. Quimby and Emma Curtis Hopkins are also contenders for that honor.
Even a cursory reading of the ideas of the Transcendentalists will show how very much in their debit we are today. One of my hopes is to offer in the near future a whole course in the relationship of New Thought Christianity & Transcendentalism at Unity Institute.
My point here is that Unity and New Thought in general did not begin as some feckless brew of mawkish sentimentality and nugatory anti-intellectualism. As one YOU'er said to me in California, "Dude, we got us some seriously smart people up the family tree..."
New tools are needed to release the power of those ideas once more, and with all the resources and technologies coming online today, I believe the time is now. If New Thought Christianity learns how to think as deply as it feels, bringing balance between head and heart, the lonely and spiritually hungry multitudes who long for a thoroughly modern, intellectually solvent, spiritual home will flock to our ministries. And we're not talking esoteric science here. Simple techniques are available to assist ministers and teachers to explore metaphysical theology more deeply.
SCRIPTURE - TRADITION - EXPERIENCE - REFLECTION
For instance, decades ago our friends in the Methodist camp discovered a straightforward, four-part program for doing theology, which has yet to be improved upon. Because of its Wesleyan origins, the system has been called the Methodist Quadrilateral, but this template seems to have broad applications beyond the UMC. I like to call it the Fantastic Four. It works like this: Whenever considering a concept or practice which has spiritual/religious dimensions (as everything, properly understood, pretty much does), the procedure is to run the idea under consideration through the Quadrilateral machinery, i.e., scripture, tradition, experience and reflection.
For example, suppose we were considering an issue related to war and peace today. Should a person volunteer to serve in the military forces of his or her country? According to the mission statement of the US Army Infantry, the purpose of combat soldiering is, "To close with the enemy by fire and maneuver to destroy or capture him.” Is this compatible with a Christian point of view?
All right, class, before you raise your hands to answer--relax! It's only a rhetorical question. We're not going to slug it out war-and-peace here and now. (Believe it or not, there are good people on both sides of almost every issue, this one included.) I am a retired US Army Chaplain, so I have some ideas about this topic, but they can wait for another time. The above is provided as a subject to enter into the Fantastic Four/Quadrilateral machinery. I can start anywhere, since all four parts are interactive. However, I'll take them in the sequence given.
SCRIPTURE
Although this is primarily the First and Second Testaments (Hebrew and Christian Bibles), by no means would I rule out the sacred writings of other traditions, which may have something quite profound to say on war and peace. Time and place are important, too. Both biblical Judaism and classical Islam will likely have a different take on the subject than modern Buddhism. And modern interpretations of the Bible shed a lot of new light. For example, the Hebrew text translated "Thou shalt not kill" in the King James Version is usually rendered "You shall not commit murder" according to newer translations. I'd take a look at passages where people were faced with choices involving violence, and see what the tone of the author's message seems to be.
I would NOT simply take anybody's scripture as an absolute mandate from God, and I am OK with saying, "That's what this biblical author said then, but today I disagree..." The idea is to let the words of Judeo-Christian Scripture and the inspired writings of other faiths inform my thoughts as I process the questions at hand. But I am also aware that other people have thought about these issues before me. That's why I need the second factor in the process, tradition.
TRADITION
Talk about a term which has fallen on hard times! Tradition is almost a cuss word in some people's minds, and with good cause. However, what I am talking about here is not blind obedience to hidebound conventions. Tradition refers to stuff that happened and things people thought about it. What did Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Quaker founder George Fox and Mohandas K. Gandhi say about war and peace? What have people on both sides of this issue
thought and done? As I reflect on tradition, I realize I'm not in this alone.
EXPERIENCE
The world has changed radically in my lifetime. When I went to Germany as an 18-year-old Army private in early 1965, my high school peers (class of '64) all had short hair and did NOT do drugs. Kids today don't believe the latter, but it's true. When I returned two years later--1967--the anti-war movement was beginning, the Beatles had revolutionized hair-and-lifestyles, and pot was everywhere. I've still never done any recreational drugs, and never will. It just isn't part of my life values. But I am aware that those values were shaped by experiences--in the military, in my German-American upbringing, in the teachings of the liberal Protestant church which I attended.
Society and individuals have experiences which shape their beliefs. Were all the people in the Old South evil because they by-and-large supported slavery, even those who owned no slaves? Were all the people evil who were caught giving the "Seig, heil!" salute in those grainy, black-and-white photographs at 1930's NAZI rallies? The culture and community experience is a powerful factor in formulating values and beliefs. As the sociologists say, "There are no tiger gods where there are no tigers."
Examining an issue to see the cultural and experiential influences upon one's thinking is part of the process of doing theology via the Quadrilateral. But even the process of examination itself is a factor.
REFLECTION (Reason)
I divide reflection into two parts: intellectual reasoning and creative intuition. Any problem or issue must think right and feel right. The head and the heart again.
And as I said the whole process is interactive. Scripture provides paradigm stories and teachings by which to evaluate Tradition, which in turn gives its verdict on the meaning of those stories and ideas. Experience of the community and individual shapes the way we look at Scripture and Tradition, but each of these also provide tools to evaluate the highly subjective experiences of life in a concrete historical and cultural expression. Finally, Reason gives the tools to think critically, creatively and intuitively about all these categories, while being reined in from flights of fantasy or excesses of emotion by the more earthbound elements of the process.
It is a kind of checks-and-balances system for theology, and I heartily commend the 4-fold process to spiritual seekers and students at all levels of mastery.
The "Fantastic Four" is another way for Unity and the other New Thought churches to be "Smart with a Heart" in the post-modern age in which we live, move, and have our being...
When Jesus recommended that the individual should go into a closet and pray to God in secret, he assumed the Jews he was addressing had already studied Torah and the Writings regularly since they were 10 years old. Shall Metaphysical Christians admire someone who travels 8,000 miles to "study" with a guru, but disparage the systematic study and reflection on treasures of Western spirituality? If our primary tool for spiritual experience is a feel-good event with modern music, how do we differ from Pillar of Cloud Independent Fundamentalist Tabernacle down the street, which offers the same feel-good package, and pulls in a much bigger crowd?
It is simplistic to think people are flocking to fundamentalist and evangelical churches because they are afraid of hell. If you listen to the preachers at those cathedrals-in-the-cornfields of America, what is striking today is their upbeat message. God is a God of redemption, healing, blessing, and love. Yes, they do filter it all through an archaic, dualistic theology, which does contain eternal doom for the unsaved, but that is NOT where the emphasis is placed in many, many conservative churches today. They are selling joy, not fear. And their Jesus-rock, hand-waving, praise-the-Lord worship style is doing exactly what our people do when we sing "I release and I let go..."
It is all about engaging the worshiper at the emotional level and giving them a taste of the sweetness of God. Some would argue that without an encounter with the Divine, it's all an abstract word game. God's Presence and Power must be apprehended first in regions of the heart. But the process doesn't end with emotion; it only begins there.
UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION: NEW THOUGHT
It is not emotions which make Unity unique--it is ideas. And ideas MUST be tested, refined, discussed, applied, re-assessed, re-defined, cussed and discussed again. Jesus discoursed with the learned men of his day. True, he lambasted them frequently, but he engaged them in dialogue instead of dismissing their enterprises as folly. If Jesus showed that much respect for the process of theological discourse, how can his followers settle for happybabble and joy songs? There are so many great ideas, so many great issues, where is the prophet to bring us the word of the Lord for today?
My suggestion is that we continue to do the outstanding work we are doing in prayer, meditation, joy work (yes, joy WORK! ), healing, and prosperity-wholeness. And we add to the mix an intellectual dimension, which has been absent since the earliest days of the Fillmore revolution. To read Charles Fillmore is to engage a mind that thought things through before arriving at very definite conclusions. Myrtle Fillmore, too. In one of her earliest letters, long before they were married, she wrote to warn Charles that she was quite eclectic in her theology.
TRANSCENDENTALISTS
The intellectuals of their day were not all stuffy traditionalists, either. It was the era of the Transcendentalists, which included such intellectual luminaries as Louisa May Alcott, William Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. And, of course, the greatest of them all, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson is quoted frequently by the early-modern founders of New Thought Christianity. Marcus Bach said Emerson was the actual father of New Thought, although one could argue that P.P. Quimby and Emma Curtis Hopkins are also contenders for that honor.
Even a cursory reading of the ideas of the Transcendentalists will show how very much in their debit we are today. One of my hopes is to offer in the near future a whole course in the relationship of New Thought Christianity & Transcendentalism at Unity Institute.
My point here is that Unity and New Thought in general did not begin as some feckless brew of mawkish sentimentality and nugatory anti-intellectualism. As one YOU'er said to me in California, "Dude, we got us some seriously smart people up the family tree..."
New tools are needed to release the power of those ideas once more, and with all the resources and technologies coming online today, I believe the time is now. If New Thought Christianity learns how to think as deply as it feels, bringing balance between head and heart, the lonely and spiritually hungry multitudes who long for a thoroughly modern, intellectually solvent, spiritual home will flock to our ministries. And we're not talking esoteric science here. Simple techniques are available to assist ministers and teachers to explore metaphysical theology more deeply.
SCRIPTURE - TRADITION - EXPERIENCE - REFLECTION
For instance, decades ago our friends in the Methodist camp discovered a straightforward, four-part program for doing theology, which has yet to be improved upon. Because of its Wesleyan origins, the system has been called the Methodist Quadrilateral, but this template seems to have broad applications beyond the UMC. I like to call it the Fantastic Four. It works like this: Whenever considering a concept or practice which has spiritual/religious dimensions (as everything, properly understood, pretty much does), the procedure is to run the idea under consideration through the Quadrilateral machinery, i.e., scripture, tradition, experience and reflection.
For example, suppose we were considering an issue related to war and peace today. Should a person volunteer to serve in the military forces of his or her country? According to the mission statement of the US Army Infantry, the purpose of combat soldiering is, "To close with the enemy by fire and maneuver to destroy or capture him.” Is this compatible with a Christian point of view?
All right, class, before you raise your hands to answer--relax! It's only a rhetorical question. We're not going to slug it out war-and-peace here and now. (Believe it or not, there are good people on both sides of almost every issue, this one included.) I am a retired US Army Chaplain, so I have some ideas about this topic, but they can wait for another time. The above is provided as a subject to enter into the Fantastic Four/Quadrilateral machinery. I can start anywhere, since all four parts are interactive. However, I'll take them in the sequence given.
SCRIPTURE
Although this is primarily the First and Second Testaments (Hebrew and Christian Bibles), by no means would I rule out the sacred writings of other traditions, which may have something quite profound to say on war and peace. Time and place are important, too. Both biblical Judaism and classical Islam will likely have a different take on the subject than modern Buddhism. And modern interpretations of the Bible shed a lot of new light. For example, the Hebrew text translated "Thou shalt not kill" in the King James Version is usually rendered "You shall not commit murder" according to newer translations. I'd take a look at passages where people were faced with choices involving violence, and see what the tone of the author's message seems to be.
I would NOT simply take anybody's scripture as an absolute mandate from God, and I am OK with saying, "That's what this biblical author said then, but today I disagree..." The idea is to let the words of Judeo-Christian Scripture and the inspired writings of other faiths inform my thoughts as I process the questions at hand. But I am also aware that other people have thought about these issues before me. That's why I need the second factor in the process, tradition.
TRADITION
Talk about a term which has fallen on hard times! Tradition is almost a cuss word in some people's minds, and with good cause. However, what I am talking about here is not blind obedience to hidebound conventions. Tradition refers to stuff that happened and things people thought about it. What did Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Quaker founder George Fox and Mohandas K. Gandhi say about war and peace? What have people on both sides of this issue
thought and done? As I reflect on tradition, I realize I'm not in this alone.
EXPERIENCE
The world has changed radically in my lifetime. When I went to Germany as an 18-year-old Army private in early 1965, my high school peers (class of '64) all had short hair and did NOT do drugs. Kids today don't believe the latter, but it's true. When I returned two years later--1967--the anti-war movement was beginning, the Beatles had revolutionized hair-and-lifestyles, and pot was everywhere. I've still never done any recreational drugs, and never will. It just isn't part of my life values. But I am aware that those values were shaped by experiences--in the military, in my German-American upbringing, in the teachings of the liberal Protestant church which I attended.
Society and individuals have experiences which shape their beliefs. Were all the people in the Old South evil because they by-and-large supported slavery, even those who owned no slaves? Were all the people evil who were caught giving the "Seig, heil!" salute in those grainy, black-and-white photographs at 1930's NAZI rallies? The culture and community experience is a powerful factor in formulating values and beliefs. As the sociologists say, "There are no tiger gods where there are no tigers."
Examining an issue to see the cultural and experiential influences upon one's thinking is part of the process of doing theology via the Quadrilateral. But even the process of examination itself is a factor.
REFLECTION (Reason)
I divide reflection into two parts: intellectual reasoning and creative intuition. Any problem or issue must think right and feel right. The head and the heart again.
And as I said the whole process is interactive. Scripture provides paradigm stories and teachings by which to evaluate Tradition, which in turn gives its verdict on the meaning of those stories and ideas. Experience of the community and individual shapes the way we look at Scripture and Tradition, but each of these also provide tools to evaluate the highly subjective experiences of life in a concrete historical and cultural expression. Finally, Reason gives the tools to think critically, creatively and intuitively about all these categories, while being reined in from flights of fantasy or excesses of emotion by the more earthbound elements of the process.
It is a kind of checks-and-balances system for theology, and I heartily commend the 4-fold process to spiritual seekers and students at all levels of mastery.
The "Fantastic Four" is another way for Unity and the other New Thought churches to be "Smart with a Heart" in the post-modern age in which we live, move, and have our being...
Friday, April 27, 2007
New Reformation: "Smart with a Heart"
Rehabilitate the Intellect:
Get the Brain out of the
Broom Closet!
And I am not talking "Heart-Math" here. That increasingly popular, quasi-scientific, flavor-of-the-month might be another good subject to discuss later...
The intellect needs to be rehabilitated in New Thought Christian literature and studies. Athough some of the founding fathers and mothers of Practical Christianity cautioned against or flatly rejected intellectual pursuits in spiritual studies, we've come a long way since then. The time has come to take the brain out of the broom closet. It's time to admit that Plato, Jesus Christ, Thomas Aquinas, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin were right when they called upon people to use their minds in pursuit of spiritual truth. (After all, it is called New Thought, not New Feel.)
Just as 21st century science has come a long way since Myrtle cleaned her closet of the snake oils and impotent potions of 19th century medicine, so has biblical scholarship, systematic theology, theological ethics, pastoral studoes, and the sociology of religion come a long way in over one hundred years. We know more about the historical Jesus today than people knew in the second century, and the questions being asked by biblical scholarship do not begin with the assumption that the Bible was channeled from heaven to automatic-writing prophets and brand-name apostles. Modern Bible scholarship begins with the frank admission that people wrote the Bible. Ordinary folks, too. Real people who argued, had axes to grind, and had points of view to push. And here's where biblical studies gets exciting: They had some lovely disputes. If you knew how Matthew's school of thought (whoever he was) and Luke's school of thought (ditto whoever) felt about each other's work, well...they would have needed Jerry Springer's muscular guys in the black T-shirts to keep them apart. And when the reader realizes what's going on, it's as if somebody flips a switch and the flourescent tubes nuke the room in dazzling light. Take Paul's attitude about hell, for instance: He didn't believe in it. And Paul's attitude toward women....
Want to know more..?
Great-->sign up for a course! We need people to get smart with a heart.
What I mean by "Smart with a Heart" is to set as a priority the need to release the intellectual power of New Thought Christianity. Groups like Unity can do this in several stages. First, by rehabilitating the intellect itself in our practices and writings, then by getting serious about developing in-house theological scholarship which can bring our people into contact and collegial dialogue with religious traditions beyond what I have called the "New Thought Compound."
Unity evolved as a home-made, laity-led, build-it-as-you-go, non-denominational denomination--whew! No wonder the movement has suffered the fate of most self-taught individuals, i.e., great coverage of the areas of special interest but gaping holes in the blind spots. Last summer during the first Master of Divinity classes for Unity ministerial students, theologian Matthew Fox--who is a true "friend" to Unity in many respects--gently upbraided the class for our lack of appreciation for the treasures of Western spirituality. And clearly he was right. Dr. Fox suggested that Unity has a lot to offer to the wider Christian world but has some remedial work to do before reaching communicative parity with the other players. We have a lot to learn as a movement about how New Thought Christianity fits into the wide, deep and vast ecosystem of human religious thought. It does no good to tar the whole Christian world beyond the New Thought Compound with the brush of fundamentalism, because that epithet is as self-defeating as it is incorrect.
There is also nothing particularly revelatory or new about Matthew Fox’s observations. Feedback from ministers and laypeople continues to indicate a feeling of inadequacy in biblical studies, and it is not an exaggeration to say that most Unity people have little understanding about the history of mystical Christianity. Sometimes, when listening to Unity sermons and reading our publications, one gets the impression that two thousand years ago there was this Master Teacher named Jesus Christ, then Charles and Myrtle Fillmore and other New Thought authors came along in the 1890’s, and nothing worth mentioning happened in between. The actual storyline is far more interesting. We have plenty of Friends in High Places.
In the century-plus since it was founded as a prayer and publication society, Unity has continued to grow but has never quite captured popular attention as a spiritual movement. Its main claim to fame has been the widely read devotional publication Daily Word. Unity churches and study groups exist all around the world, but we continue to struggle with prosperity issues in our small groups, like a chain of New Thought archipelagos stretching across a global ocean of traditional religions and post-modern skepticism. However, it is fair to say that Unity exercises greater influence than its meager numbers would suggest due to the wide readership of Daily Word magazine and the century-old outreach of Silent Unity's prayer ministry. I like to think of the lighthouse cupola at the top of the Silent Unity building as the night light for the world.
Nevertheless, a great opportunity exists for expansion of the Unity movement now, in the 21st century. In the United States alone, recent studies have shown that as many as 29 million people describe their religious identity as “none,” and two-thirds of those unchurched dissenters affirm their belief in God, and more than one-third consider themselves “religious.” They are the people Bishop Spong has tagged as the “Christian Alumni Association,” and although they may have dropped out of organized religion they are far from indifferent to spirituality. We tend to attract people from the subgroup of the cultural left which Walter Ong calls Electronic Orality. These are people who display progressive characteristics like an open-ended approach to truth, an emphasis on the “now,” deep commitment to ecology and environmental concerns, and display a medley of traits to include simultaneity, spontaneity, a dialogical approach, open-endedness, a preference for variety of choice, team work, and a growing sense of globalism. They are smart, and they have a heart. These characteristics are widely distributed among people who attend Unity congregations, although not every Unity person would identify with every trait. Compare the above description to this great quote from Charles R. Fillmore, Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors and grandson of the founders:
“Unity says that true religious growth is a 'do-it-yourself' project ...One might describe Unity as a religious philosophy with an ‘open end,’ seeking to find God's truth in all of life.”
(Source: Unity World Headquarters website, http://www.unityonline.org/discover_main.htm)
It is my fond hope that we have turned a corner recently and decided to become a place where great ideas and good scholarship are cherished, where the head and the heart work together to produce a balanced person, aware of human limitations, but fully convinced that "human" is only a temporary identity for the spiritual beings housed in this incarnation. I am all for joining Bishop Jack Spong and others who are calling for a New Reformation in Christian thought. But we need to understand what the first Reformation was about, too, and how to think theologically about the challenges and opportunities facing us today in the post-modern era.
Love stands not alone. There at least are eleven other powers. Let's imagine the whole range of divine-human consciousness based on an enlightened use of the intellect: Using will to rehabilitate the intellect and put its understanding, wisdom and sense of order to work on the great questions of life. Let's eliminate negative thoughts about the intellectual side of humanity, and release the power of divine zeal for life. A much strengthened faith will result.
We need a new generation of Unity scholars, well-educated and deeply spiritual, to reach that huge plurality which sits at home every Sunday because there is no spiritual tradition which has yet addressed their needs for a faith that is smart with a heart...
Any volunteers?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Divine Order and Gliese 581C
Whether or not I needed a demonstration of the odd convergence of events life seems to keep thrusting my way, as if to defy any drift toward skepticism, another demonstration of Divine Order happened to me Monday night. Let me back up a few hours... Dr. Young Chun, My instructor at St. Paul School of Theology, where I am taking courses toward a doctorate, regaled the class that we had not yet completed his suggested assignment from the early weeks of the class. Dr. Chun's class is in the theology of prayer and spirituality, yet he has strongly urged us to write to political leaders and urge some course of action, as if to give concrete expression in the world to our spiritual pursuits. OK... Dr. Chun has a point: Jesus prayed alone, then went into the marketplace and upended the tables.
I have already made my mark as the Unity goat in the flock of Methodist, Lutheran and Episcopalian sheep--all of whom have been great grazing partners, despite what I'm sure they consider my sure and steady sink into New Age occultism. So, rather than writing about world peace, hunger, AIDS in Africa, domestic violence, and assorted forms of sin in high places--all of which I take seriously and consider worthy topics for public debate--but instead of those vital concerns, all of which are being addressed, as they should be, I decided to write about something which was NOT being addressed. I decided to shoot the moon.
Actually, shoot the stars would be more accurate. I figure, "What the heck--I'm a Trekkie. It's a matter of public record. So, let's go public."
I wrote an e-mail to most of the major contenders in the 2008 USA Presidential election. The list included Democrats Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson; and Republicans Sam Brownback , Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
I advocated...well, let me share a little of it with you:
"I would like to raise an issue for discussion which no one seems to have considered: Establishing a national priority on development of faster-than-light technologies to allow humans to reach habitable planets in star systems in our immediate neighborhood...
"If this technology were possible, its discovery would be an event equivalent to the domestication of draft animals or the invention of the wheel. FTL capability would forever change our place in the Cosmos by carrying people to new worlds, and not just to second and third earths but potentially thousands of habitable planets, which could be awaiting discovery within a few hundred light years of us. To date, dozens of planets orbiting other stars have been discovered by astronomers. Although the distant globes detectable so far by turn-of-the-millennium science have all been colossal and outside the temperate zones of their respective solar systems, every frozen gas giant or oven-hot super-planet dramatically increases the likelihood of untold numbers of smaller, terrestrial worlds orbiting the right distance from their home suns among the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
"With such vast numbers of potentially habitable worlds--where, like the New World before Columbus, great plains stretch that have never tasted a steel plow and endless forests teem with exotic flora and fauna--problems of overpopulation might evolve into the challenge of under-population. We might find ourselves in a race to reproduce enough humans to settle dozens, hundreds, or thousands of earth-type planets. Given the statistical probabilities, it is highly possible that the solution to the socio-economic problems of Earth lies in the heavens. The potential for human settlement on countless uninhabited, earth-like planets could alleviate poverty and hunger forever, while providing vast resources for anyone bold enough to venture to these new worlds.
"If God has created and sustained such a vast Cosmos and set in motion scientific principles whereby sentient life has evolved, at least on one planet we know about intimately, one could reasonably assume a mechanism must exist to contact other islands of life in this sea of stars. The economic and social advantages of such a discovery could produce a flourishing of human civilization unparalleled in history, opening the future to possibilities beyond our wildest dreams. I urge you consider, amid the enormous terrestrial problems which you will face as President, the incalculable return to be realized for humanity--literally an end to poverty and access to resources unimaginable...
"As a theologian and pastor, I understand and sympathize with those who will argue against such a speculative adventure when resources are needed to alleviate poverty, illiteracy and disease on the only earth-type planet we know exists. However, there are biblical and historical precedents for bold stepping boldly forward when the destination is less than certain. A promised land is not a guaranteed land, and it is safer to stay in the old country than sail off the edge of the earth. I believe the spirit of discovery is a gift of God, a calling to venture forth and reach the heavens and bring humanity to new heights.
"Perhaps one day one, when our children's children's children stand on a new Earth under a starry sky filled with new constellations, the words of the psalmist will come to mind, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork..."(Ps.19:1). And perhaps they will offer silent prayer to God in thanks for the courage of those who made the new human civilization among the stars a possibility."
Signed: Rev Thomas W. Shepherd
I completed the above and e-mailed the last of these to their respective campaign headquarters around 1 AM Central Time on Tuesday, April 24. Then I went to bed, glad this late work wasn't a graded assignment.
The next day I went to work, and during an early afternoon break I discovered the following "breaking news" report:
European Astronomers Discover First Habitable Earth-Like Planet...
I thought: "Naw...that has to be a fluke, some blogging speculator. " Then I found it on CNN, CNBC, and everywhere else. Here's what NASA's official website says:
"Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and possibly having liquid water on its surface...'We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,' explains Stephane Udry, from the Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) and lead-author of the paper reporting the result. 'Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky -- like our Earth -- or covered with oceans,' he adds...The host star, Gliese 581, is among the 100 closest stars to us, located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra..." (Source: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=19695 )
Now, maybe that's a coincidence. Maybe the first discovery, in the history of the human race, of an extra-solar planet in a habitable zone with a comparable mass to the Earth just happened to be announced within hours of my sending mass e-mails to all the presidential candidates urging the development of Faster-Than-Light travel to discover planets like this...
Maybe it was sheer coincidence. Or maybe we're really supposed to boldly go there. Maybe it's our destiny to sail the stars, not as conquerors who despoiled the Aztec and Inca like Cortez and Pizarro, but as explorers and settlers, like the Polynesians who discovered the uninhabited Hawaiian islands. And maybe the lessons of European cruelty to the native people of the New World can prevent any repetition of those events among islands of life in the Cosmos. The time to have that discussion is now, before we actually discover FTL travel and hop over to Gliese 581C or any of the thousands of inhabitable worlds which by logical deduction must exist in our stellar neighborhood.
Maybe it was just a coincidence...sending those "what if" emails to candidates for president the night before the big discovery is announced. Who could prove otherwise? And it's unlikely the candidates will ever see my words, anyway.
Or maybe the messsage is strictly personal, Divine Order acting as messenger to let me know that YHWH, the sky-god of Israel, the I AM dwelling within every sentient being and empowering the Cosmos to exist, is a Trekkie, too..
Rev Tom Shepherd
I have already made my mark as the Unity goat in the flock of Methodist, Lutheran and Episcopalian sheep--all of whom have been great grazing partners, despite what I'm sure they consider my sure and steady sink into New Age occultism. So, rather than writing about world peace, hunger, AIDS in Africa, domestic violence, and assorted forms of sin in high places--all of which I take seriously and consider worthy topics for public debate--but instead of those vital concerns, all of which are being addressed, as they should be, I decided to write about something which was NOT being addressed. I decided to shoot the moon.
Actually, shoot the stars would be more accurate. I figure, "What the heck--I'm a Trekkie. It's a matter of public record. So, let's go public."
I wrote an e-mail to most of the major contenders in the 2008 USA Presidential election. The list included Democrats Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson; and Republicans Sam Brownback , Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
I advocated...well, let me share a little of it with you:
"I would like to raise an issue for discussion which no one seems to have considered: Establishing a national priority on development of faster-than-light technologies to allow humans to reach habitable planets in star systems in our immediate neighborhood...
"If this technology were possible, its discovery would be an event equivalent to the domestication of draft animals or the invention of the wheel. FTL capability would forever change our place in the Cosmos by carrying people to new worlds, and not just to second and third earths but potentially thousands of habitable planets, which could be awaiting discovery within a few hundred light years of us. To date, dozens of planets orbiting other stars have been discovered by astronomers. Although the distant globes detectable so far by turn-of-the-millennium science have all been colossal and outside the temperate zones of their respective solar systems, every frozen gas giant or oven-hot super-planet dramatically increases the likelihood of untold numbers of smaller, terrestrial worlds orbiting the right distance from their home suns among the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
"With such vast numbers of potentially habitable worlds--where, like the New World before Columbus, great plains stretch that have never tasted a steel plow and endless forests teem with exotic flora and fauna--problems of overpopulation might evolve into the challenge of under-population. We might find ourselves in a race to reproduce enough humans to settle dozens, hundreds, or thousands of earth-type planets. Given the statistical probabilities, it is highly possible that the solution to the socio-economic problems of Earth lies in the heavens. The potential for human settlement on countless uninhabited, earth-like planets could alleviate poverty and hunger forever, while providing vast resources for anyone bold enough to venture to these new worlds.
"If God has created and sustained such a vast Cosmos and set in motion scientific principles whereby sentient life has evolved, at least on one planet we know about intimately, one could reasonably assume a mechanism must exist to contact other islands of life in this sea of stars. The economic and social advantages of such a discovery could produce a flourishing of human civilization unparalleled in history, opening the future to possibilities beyond our wildest dreams. I urge you consider, amid the enormous terrestrial problems which you will face as President, the incalculable return to be realized for humanity--literally an end to poverty and access to resources unimaginable...
"As a theologian and pastor, I understand and sympathize with those who will argue against such a speculative adventure when resources are needed to alleviate poverty, illiteracy and disease on the only earth-type planet we know exists. However, there are biblical and historical precedents for bold stepping boldly forward when the destination is less than certain. A promised land is not a guaranteed land, and it is safer to stay in the old country than sail off the edge of the earth. I believe the spirit of discovery is a gift of God, a calling to venture forth and reach the heavens and bring humanity to new heights.
"Perhaps one day one, when our children's children's children stand on a new Earth under a starry sky filled with new constellations, the words of the psalmist will come to mind, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork..."(Ps.19:1). And perhaps they will offer silent prayer to God in thanks for the courage of those who made the new human civilization among the stars a possibility."
Signed: Rev Thomas W. Shepherd
I completed the above and e-mailed the last of these to their respective campaign headquarters around 1 AM Central Time on Tuesday, April 24. Then I went to bed, glad this late work wasn't a graded assignment.
The next day I went to work, and during an early afternoon break I discovered the following "breaking news" report:
European Astronomers Discover First Habitable Earth-Like Planet...
I thought: "Naw...that has to be a fluke, some blogging speculator. " Then I found it on CNN, CNBC, and everywhere else. Here's what NASA's official website says:
"Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and possibly having liquid water on its surface...'We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,' explains Stephane Udry, from the Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) and lead-author of the paper reporting the result. 'Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky -- like our Earth -- or covered with oceans,' he adds...The host star, Gliese 581, is among the 100 closest stars to us, located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra..." (Source: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=19695 )
Now, maybe that's a coincidence. Maybe the first discovery, in the history of the human race, of an extra-solar planet in a habitable zone with a comparable mass to the Earth just happened to be announced within hours of my sending mass e-mails to all the presidential candidates urging the development of Faster-Than-Light travel to discover planets like this...
Maybe it was sheer coincidence. Or maybe we're really supposed to boldly go there. Maybe it's our destiny to sail the stars, not as conquerors who despoiled the Aztec and Inca like Cortez and Pizarro, but as explorers and settlers, like the Polynesians who discovered the uninhabited Hawaiian islands. And maybe the lessons of European cruelty to the native people of the New World can prevent any repetition of those events among islands of life in the Cosmos. The time to have that discussion is now, before we actually discover FTL travel and hop over to Gliese 581C or any of the thousands of inhabitable worlds which by logical deduction must exist in our stellar neighborhood.
Maybe it was just a coincidence...sending those "what if" emails to candidates for president the night before the big discovery is announced. Who could prove otherwise? And it's unlikely the candidates will ever see my words, anyway.
Or maybe the messsage is strictly personal, Divine Order acting as messenger to let me know that YHWH, the sky-god of Israel, the I AM dwelling within every sentient being and empowering the Cosmos to exist, is a Trekkie, too..
Rev Tom Shepherd
Thursday, January 04, 2007
New Year's Message 2007
The following was written just a few moments after Sadam Hussein was executed.
The Metaphysics of Revenge: Bad Karma, Payback, and Justice Served
A Year of Bloodshed Ends with the Death of a Dictator
Tonight, as I write this, Saddam Hussein was just executed. The former Iraqi dictator was hanged...but you already know this, because we're in an electronic information age. AOL currently features an AP wire service article which says, in part, "The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982."
The same report carries a prayer about Sadam offered by an Iraqi leader, Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq:
"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam."
AP further reports: "Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday called Saddam's execution 'God's gift to Iraqis.' "
All this celebratory response to the end of a life strangely reminds me of an early childhood memory from March 1953.
Josef Stalin (left, above; Saddam, on right) was dying. The doctors gave him a few hours or days to live. I was five years old, a kindergartner, but I remember my Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother and grandfather talking gravely about the approaching death of "Stallion", as they called him. (I'm not remembering this wrong; they really did call the Russian dictator that.) I asked who was this Stallion guy, and they said he was "our enemy." So, I said that I hoped he would die soon. Made perfect sense to me--your enemy was expendable. But my gracious grandmom--who lived through the Great Depression and two World Wars, and more recently the anti-communist Korean War and Berlin Airlift--corrected me and said that we should not pray for anyone's death, even an enemy as rotten and nasty as Stallion.
And Josef Stalin was nasty, really nasty. Don't let the grandfatherly smile deceive you; Saddam was an amateur cutthroat compared to him. Stalin is said to have boasted to Churchill at Yalta that he had to kill about 10 million people to get Russia under proper control. Naturally, Stalin was Saddam's hero...
And yet, despite their worthiness to receive the hate-prayers of millions, I must agree with the teachings of my German Reformed Church upbringing, personified by my grandmom, and not fall prey to a consciousness of revenge. Furthermore, as a New Thought Christian, I need to remind myself that even Stalin and Saddam--even these two worthless, no-good &^$#@#*-ers--had the Divine Spirit within them.
I also need to be conscious that, for a lot of people, this is extremely difficult. How hard it would be to let go of revenge-thoughts if someone I loved were a victim of Stalin or Saddam. And yet, releasing the need for reprisal does not mean forgetting the offense or pardoning the offender. Justice is better served coolly, without the heat of passion. Saddam received his due for crimes committed, and even those who oppose the death penalty can admit that he deserved some kind of maximum punishment.
Karma is over-rated as a balance mechanism by some. I'm not certain there is such a thing as "bad karma," because it supposes some kind of actual power abides in negatives. If evil is the lack of good, the most we can say about "bad karma" is that it provides another opportunity to learn a missed lesson. And although, metaphysically speaking, the decision is way above my pay grade, I suspect Saddam has some serious remedial work to do.
Stalin, even more.
But I stand with Origen on this issue. That second century Alexandrian Christian teacher said God is so gracious that everyone will be "saved" in the end, even the Devil. (Mentally delete "Devil" and insert you-know-who.) Saved...the Greek word also means healed. Made whole. Transformed by the renewing of your mind.
So, may I be so bold as to suggest that we conspire in a world-wide effort to pray for all the Saddams and Stalins of humanity...to see their rapacious anger and venomous greed replaced by faith, hope and love as they release their Christ-nature (divine nature/Allah-within, any name will do).
And may I also suggest that we hold in our loving thoughts the people of that war-beaten land, Iraq, the Bible land of Mesopotamia, the fountainhead of civilization which produced Sumer and Babylon, where writing first began, and from which the myths of Creation and Flood, Abraham and the patriarchs, flowed into human consciousness. Let the ancient cry of "Shalom!" and "Salaam!" bring a renewed dedication to the cause of peace. And let the good future awaiting humanity be the image which draws us forward as we release all thoughts of revenge and live instead by the binding power of justice and steadfast love.
The Metaphysics of Revenge: Bad Karma, Payback, and Justice Served
A Year of Bloodshed Ends with the Death of a Dictator
Tonight, as I write this, Saddam Hussein was just executed. The former Iraqi dictator was hanged...but you already know this, because we're in an electronic information age. AOL currently features an AP wire service article which says, in part, "The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982."
The same report carries a prayer about Sadam offered by an Iraqi leader, Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq:
"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam."
AP further reports: "Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday called Saddam's execution 'God's gift to Iraqis.' "
All this celebratory response to the end of a life strangely reminds me of an early childhood memory from March 1953.
Josef Stalin (left, above; Saddam, on right) was dying. The doctors gave him a few hours or days to live. I was five years old, a kindergartner, but I remember my Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother and grandfather talking gravely about the approaching death of "Stallion", as they called him. (I'm not remembering this wrong; they really did call the Russian dictator that.) I asked who was this Stallion guy, and they said he was "our enemy." So, I said that I hoped he would die soon. Made perfect sense to me--your enemy was expendable. But my gracious grandmom--who lived through the Great Depression and two World Wars, and more recently the anti-communist Korean War and Berlin Airlift--corrected me and said that we should not pray for anyone's death, even an enemy as rotten and nasty as Stallion.
And Josef Stalin was nasty, really nasty. Don't let the grandfatherly smile deceive you; Saddam was an amateur cutthroat compared to him. Stalin is said to have boasted to Churchill at Yalta that he had to kill about 10 million people to get Russia under proper control. Naturally, Stalin was Saddam's hero...
And yet, despite their worthiness to receive the hate-prayers of millions, I must agree with the teachings of my German Reformed Church upbringing, personified by my grandmom, and not fall prey to a consciousness of revenge. Furthermore, as a New Thought Christian, I need to remind myself that even Stalin and Saddam--even these two worthless, no-good &^$#@#*-ers--had the Divine Spirit within them.
I also need to be conscious that, for a lot of people, this is extremely difficult. How hard it would be to let go of revenge-thoughts if someone I loved were a victim of Stalin or Saddam. And yet, releasing the need for reprisal does not mean forgetting the offense or pardoning the offender. Justice is better served coolly, without the heat of passion. Saddam received his due for crimes committed, and even those who oppose the death penalty can admit that he deserved some kind of maximum punishment.
Karma is over-rated as a balance mechanism by some. I'm not certain there is such a thing as "bad karma," because it supposes some kind of actual power abides in negatives. If evil is the lack of good, the most we can say about "bad karma" is that it provides another opportunity to learn a missed lesson. And although, metaphysically speaking, the decision is way above my pay grade, I suspect Saddam has some serious remedial work to do.
Stalin, even more.
But I stand with Origen on this issue. That second century Alexandrian Christian teacher said God is so gracious that everyone will be "saved" in the end, even the Devil. (Mentally delete "Devil" and insert you-know-who.) Saved...the Greek word also means healed. Made whole. Transformed by the renewing of your mind.
So, may I be so bold as to suggest that we conspire in a world-wide effort to pray for all the Saddams and Stalins of humanity...to see their rapacious anger and venomous greed replaced by faith, hope and love as they release their Christ-nature (divine nature/Allah-within, any name will do).
And may I also suggest that we hold in our loving thoughts the people of that war-beaten land, Iraq, the Bible land of Mesopotamia, the fountainhead of civilization which produced Sumer and Babylon, where writing first began, and from which the myths of Creation and Flood, Abraham and the patriarchs, flowed into human consciousness. Let the ancient cry of "Shalom!" and "Salaam!" bring a renewed dedication to the cause of peace. And let the good future awaiting humanity be the image which draws us forward as we release all thoughts of revenge and live instead by the binding power of justice and steadfast love.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
I Love the Commercialism of Christmas
No Joke--No Hidden Meaning
I really love it. Mall parking lots clogged with car headlights like a starry night sky in the country. Inane, convivial music wafting over hordes of harried, hopeful, hesitantly happy holiday hunters. Shop 'til you're top-heavy, arms full of packages, box-crammed plastic bags dangling from every finger.
Sure, it's an ordeal. Sure, I procrastinate every year. (As of this writing--Dec 21--I still haven't gotten Carol-Jean a "main" present yet. So I won't be forwarding this to her--and you are sworn to secrecy!) Sure, I spend in December, then spend January through October paying off the credit cards. (Sure, I talk to myself like a pit bull puppy at obedience school: Bad boy, bad prosperity teacher--shame on you!) But I don't care.
Do you hear that, world? I don't care!
I love this inane, over-rated, superficial, commercialized hollow-day like Jesus must have loved little children and the first sunshine on Easter morning. For three reasons.
1) Christmas gives us an excuse to move closer to people. Although I love ideas--God knows you realize that, being a reader of this column--even the best ideas can only get you to the threshold of a happy life. We need not denigrate the intellect in order to say that humanity shall not live by thoughts alone; good relationships are just as important as good ideas. Okay...maybe more important. But good relationships almost always proceed from a base of goodf ideas about life, God, values, the world, self-esteem, etc.
Singer Winona Ryder discovered that long ago. A few years back, Ms. Ryder was sentenced to community service and a fine for shoplifting. Her problems didn't start there. Listen to what she says about her early life and the need for healthy relationships:
"When I was 18, I was driving around at two in the morning, completely crying and alone and scared. I drove by this magazine stand that had this Rolling Stone that I was on the cover of, and it said, 'Winona Ryder: The Luckiest Girl in the World.' And there I was feeling more alone than I ever had." [1]
Christmas crowds us, badgers us, makes us open our sacks and hand tokens of love to people we spend too much time avoiding. Christmas makes us vulnerable, duty-bound to honor the possible...we could possibly be friends...we could possibly work together without in-fighting or envy...we could possibly get along, maybe even like each other. Oh, of course, our cynical patterns of error-belief try to tell us it won't happen. But for one brief shining moment, we allow ourselves to pretend it is all so...possible.
2) Christmas changes everybody's (or most people's) internal thermometer to "warm-up" setting.
Some people say they see auras. Mine has been described as several colors by several different people; I don't know what that means. Either the seers are not seeing the same thing, or my spiritual energy has a chameleon setting. Whatever.
Christmas, however, transforms the psychological world of humanity like a wave of many colors, sweeping across the mindscape to warm the human psyche. Sure, it stresses people and drives some into the cold of despair...but the warm, soothing default for the season still plays in the background from every station in the inter-locking network of endless Christmas music: Do you hear what I hear? Joy to the world! Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas! I'll Be Home...if only in my dreams...
3) Christmas gives us an excuse to hope. All right--maybe the angels decorating the mall were made in a Shanghai sweat shop and most of the gifts won't survive to Valentine's Day, so what? Do you remember that old truism, "It's the thought that counts..."? Well, as a Unity minister, I now realize the text should be edited to read: "It's the THINKING that counts!"
"Fighting the crowds" can be read as "mingling with the holiday throngs," while those "harried chores" and "endless items to cross off lists," can just as easily be read as "joyful preparations" and "lots of fun stuff to do."
(Stop muttering those naughty words. I'm just trying to work a mental treatment here...)
Even if it sounds idealistic--or maybe because of it--Christmas gives humanity an opportunity to pause and believe, if only for a little while, that "peace on earth and goodwill" are actually possible. For one brief shining moment, heaven touches earth.
Bless the Sacred Malls: May their tribe increase!
So, if you haven't been to a crowded shopping space yet this year--or if you've been putting off the last minute gifts and are now wondering how late Wal-Mart stays open Christmas Eve, or if you just want to go window-gazing again--let me suggest a radical departure: Bless the mall! See the shopping centers as holy ground. Go to the crowded places and say a silent prayer, that all these people may have someone to give and receive love, that the spirit of prosperity may spread across the human species, that the true gift of Christmas may be born in everyone's heart.
If the above does not work to raise your prosperity consciousness, buy a nice gift and send it to yourself...*
*[Or send a tax-deductible Christmas Gift donation to Unity Institute, Attn: Ministerial Scholarships, 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, MO 64065-0001.)
_____________________________________________________
[1] Winona Ryder, quoted by Plugged In, Vol. 6, no. 4 (April 2001).
I really love it. Mall parking lots clogged with car headlights like a starry night sky in the country. Inane, convivial music wafting over hordes of harried, hopeful, hesitantly happy holiday hunters. Shop 'til you're top-heavy, arms full of packages, box-crammed plastic bags dangling from every finger.
Sure, it's an ordeal. Sure, I procrastinate every year. (As of this writing--Dec 21--I still haven't gotten Carol-Jean a "main" present yet. So I won't be forwarding this to her--and you are sworn to secrecy!) Sure, I spend in December, then spend January through October paying off the credit cards. (Sure, I talk to myself like a pit bull puppy at obedience school: Bad boy, bad prosperity teacher--shame on you!) But I don't care.
Do you hear that, world? I don't care!
I love this inane, over-rated, superficial, commercialized hollow-day like Jesus must have loved little children and the first sunshine on Easter morning. For three reasons.
1) Christmas gives us an excuse to move closer to people. Although I love ideas--God knows you realize that, being a reader of this column--even the best ideas can only get you to the threshold of a happy life. We need not denigrate the intellect in order to say that humanity shall not live by thoughts alone; good relationships are just as important as good ideas. Okay...maybe more important. But good relationships almost always proceed from a base of goodf ideas about life, God, values, the world, self-esteem, etc.
Singer Winona Ryder discovered that long ago. A few years back, Ms. Ryder was sentenced to community service and a fine for shoplifting. Her problems didn't start there. Listen to what she says about her early life and the need for healthy relationships:
"When I was 18, I was driving around at two in the morning, completely crying and alone and scared. I drove by this magazine stand that had this Rolling Stone that I was on the cover of, and it said, 'Winona Ryder: The Luckiest Girl in the World.' And there I was feeling more alone than I ever had." [1]
Christmas crowds us, badgers us, makes us open our sacks and hand tokens of love to people we spend too much time avoiding. Christmas makes us vulnerable, duty-bound to honor the possible...we could possibly be friends...we could possibly work together without in-fighting or envy...we could possibly get along, maybe even like each other. Oh, of course, our cynical patterns of error-belief try to tell us it won't happen. But for one brief shining moment, we allow ourselves to pretend it is all so...possible.
2) Christmas changes everybody's (or most people's) internal thermometer to "warm-up" setting.
Some people say they see auras. Mine has been described as several colors by several different people; I don't know what that means. Either the seers are not seeing the same thing, or my spiritual energy has a chameleon setting. Whatever.
Christmas, however, transforms the psychological world of humanity like a wave of many colors, sweeping across the mindscape to warm the human psyche. Sure, it stresses people and drives some into the cold of despair...but the warm, soothing default for the season still plays in the background from every station in the inter-locking network of endless Christmas music: Do you hear what I hear? Joy to the world! Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas! I'll Be Home...if only in my dreams...
3) Christmas gives us an excuse to hope. All right--maybe the angels decorating the mall were made in a Shanghai sweat shop and most of the gifts won't survive to Valentine's Day, so what? Do you remember that old truism, "It's the thought that counts..."? Well, as a Unity minister, I now realize the text should be edited to read: "It's the THINKING that counts!"
"Fighting the crowds" can be read as "mingling with the holiday throngs," while those "harried chores" and "endless items to cross off lists," can just as easily be read as "joyful preparations" and "lots of fun stuff to do."
(Stop muttering those naughty words. I'm just trying to work a mental treatment here...)
Even if it sounds idealistic--or maybe because of it--Christmas gives humanity an opportunity to pause and believe, if only for a little while, that "peace on earth and goodwill" are actually possible. For one brief shining moment, heaven touches earth.
Bless the Sacred Malls: May their tribe increase!
So, if you haven't been to a crowded shopping space yet this year--or if you've been putting off the last minute gifts and are now wondering how late Wal-Mart stays open Christmas Eve, or if you just want to go window-gazing again--let me suggest a radical departure: Bless the mall! See the shopping centers as holy ground. Go to the crowded places and say a silent prayer, that all these people may have someone to give and receive love, that the spirit of prosperity may spread across the human species, that the true gift of Christmas may be born in everyone's heart.
If the above does not work to raise your prosperity consciousness, buy a nice gift and send it to yourself...*
*[Or send a tax-deductible Christmas Gift donation to Unity Institute, Attn: Ministerial Scholarships, 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, MO 64065-0001.)
_____________________________________________________
[1] Winona Ryder, quoted by Plugged In, Vol. 6, no. 4 (April 2001).
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
"A House Divided"
Based on a Sermon given at Christ Church Unity of Springfield, MO (09-18-05)
Biblical texts referenced: II Chronicles 10:6-11; Mark 3:22-26
The title of this Mid-Week Message is “A House Divided,” and it is based on two readings…one, the parable of Jesus in the third chapter of Mark: “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” The other is not as well known…from II Chronicles 10, where the son of King Solomon the wise shows two things we all know instinctively…even a genius can raise an idiot. And you can’t teach kids anything until they decide to learn it.
According to II Chronicles, when Solomon died and his son, Rehoboam, became King of Israel, the leaders of the tribal areas came to him and said, “Your father placed heavy burdens on us. If you will make these burdens lighter, we will be your loyal subjects.” (TEV) Rehoboam called his advisers and sought counsel. The older ones said, essentially, “Take the deal.” But the younger hot-heads advised the King, “Slap them down like a pimp collecting from a crack `ho.” (Well…okay. Not exactly those words, but you get the sense of youthful arrogance.)
Rehoboam agreed with the young men. He gathered the tribal leaders and said, “My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions." (NRSV) You don’t have to be a Nobel laureate to guess the results. We can date the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah from that second meeting.
Which brings me to the second passage, Jesus’ well-known quotation about a “house divided.”
"If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand." (Mark 3:25, NRSV)
I have meditated on these two passages at length. I believe they contain the essence of Unity’s religious philosophy of life: cooperative compassion and non-resistance, based on faith in Divine Order. Jesus reminds us that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Today. the world remains a house divided. And not just among nations, too often closer to home. At home, actually. In his short story, “Capital of the World,” Ernest Hemingway illustrated how the far “House Divided” reaches. The story, based on an old Spanish tale, was set in Madrid. A father and his son, Paco, had a terrible argument, and the son left home. Then the father cooled down he tried to find Paco. He searched all his familiar hang-outs for months with no success. Finally, in desperation, the father turned to the newspaper for help. His ad simply told "Paco" to meet his father outside a certain hotel, assuruing him that all was forgiven. On the appointed day, eight hundred young men named Paco showed up at the hotel.
Well, it’s just a story…or is it?
The world is a house divided. Every town and village is filled with people who desperately long for reconciliation—with each other, and with God. But there is a time for every purpose under heaven…And New Thought Christianity understands how such reconciliation works. Release the anger. Use your power of elimination to let go of the hurt. See the Christ in the other person, regardless how hurt you feel, regardless how justifiably outraged you are.
The world is a house divided. Many children grow up in homes where family quarrels and regular conflict is the normal daily fare. And let’s face it…when you live with other people, sometimes you’re going to disappoint them. And sometimes they’re going to disappoint you. We used to say, “A man’s home is his castle.” Anybody who’s lived long enough knows how quickly a domestic castle can settle into a four-season pattern of siege warfare.
Sometimes, we feel separated from even our closest loved ones. It’s the price you pay for the privilege of having a human body… You’re inside your head, they’re inside theirs. And it seems the longer you live with someone, the more you know about them, the less likely you are to actually listen to what they have to say. The little daily squabbles inside your domestic castle, especially with children, can teach you quickly that just because you have a castle doesn’t make you an absolute monarch.
Can we reveal a secret of the ages here, a halo of divine illumination for anyone who hasn’t realized it yet? People you love occasionally disappoint you, just as you occasionally disappoint them. It isn’t because they don’t love us. It isn’t moral failure. It’s just the nature of the human psyche. People have bad days. People get lazy about things you passionately care about. And they don’t always know what you care passionately about, regardless how long you’ve been sharing the refrigerator. Nobody is inside your head but you.
How much better is it to detach all moral and ethical values from the circumstances which make you crazy? It is not for the express purpose of driving you stark raving mad that the children refuse to remember to take out the garbage. Many people live in a house divided…but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. Reconciliation is possible…the Christ is available in each person.
Paco, come home, all is forgiven…
Our homes can be a house divided. Family conflicts are commonplace, but also conflicts at work. Turf wars, disloyalty and deception, infighting and passive aggressive behavior can waste time and keep a business from realizing its true potential.
At a county fair, the townspeople held a horse-pulling contest. The first-place horse ended up moving a sled weighing 4,500 pounds. The second-place finisher pulled 4,000 pounds. The owners of the two horses decided to see what these horses could pull together. They hitched them up and found that the team could move 12,000 pounds. By working separately, the two horses were good for only 8,500 pounds. When coupled together, their synergism produced an added 3,500 pounds. It's a hard lesson for us, but unity of purpose consistently produces greater results than individual efforts. Teamwork divides the effort and multiplies the effect.
The workplace is a house divided…but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. We can learn to release the need to defeat our co-workers, we can learn to work together for the greater good, because unity of purposes consistently produces greater results than individual efforts.
And it goes beyond the workplace. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and nationalism…the environmental abuse of the Earth, too. If we feel separate from and superior to nature, as if we are floating on top of the ecosystem—walking paved streets, cruising along on asphalt roads, never touching the soil of the planet from which we evolved—how much easier it is to suck all the oil and fossil fuels from the veins of the Earth, like energy vampires. If we are alienated from our organic link to Mother Earth, why should we care if global warming melts the icecaps, or the barrier reefs and rain forests disappear, or the oceans are fished out, or species after species of land animals, fish, and birds go extinct?
Yet, there is reason to hope. Responsible scientists are working on the problem, even if we can’t seem to get the President of the United States to admit that global warming even exists. And there is the tree of Nagasaki. After the atomic bomb was dropped, scientists predicted nothing would grow there for decades. Yet, the plants came back rather quickly. More astonishingly, a slender sapling survived the blast and is today a great tree which puts out new leaves every year. Halfway around the globe in the jungles of Africa, naturalist Jane Goodall carries a leaf with her from the lone tree of Nagasaki as she goes about her work with the chimpanzees in Tanzania. Jane Goodall says one of her reasons for hope is nature’s amazing resilience, which the Nagasaki leaf symbolizes to her.
The world is a house divided, but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. We are estranged from the natural world, but only because we believe it is so. We have accepted the error-belief of separation from our world, our environment, our co-workers, our neighbors, our families. We have accepted the error-belief that there are many powers, many forces at work, many different types of consciousnesses. There are not. There is only One Presence and One Power in your life and in the Universe, God, the Good, Omnipotent.
You have the power to heal the Earth, heal your workplace, heal your relationships, heal your self…mind, body, and affairs…because God wants you whole, healthy, prosperous, and happy. And how do we affect this miracle? By prayer, by centering on the Christ-within, by affirming the good omnipotent despite all appearances to the contrary, by positively refusing to give in to the negative spirit of the age, and by holding the Truth and knowing the Truth in the darkest moments of your life.
There is a verse in the Tablet of Ahmad by the Persian prophet, Baha’u’llah, in which God calls humanity to unwavering faith:
“Be thou so steadfast in My love that thy heart will not waver, even if the swords of the enemies rain blows upon thee and all the heavens and the earth arise against thee.”
Gary Simmons’ marvelous book The I of the Storm makes the point that no one and nothing is against me. Very well, I understand the metaphysics of panentheism mean we are all one at the quantum level of spirituality, so nothing can be “against” anything. But nevertheless, Baha’u’llah is also right, because in the existential predicament of everyday living, some people hate and some people love, and attempting to see it all as Oneness does not always siphon the discontent or blunt the pain. At least not yet, at my level of awareness. I am working at rising above, to accept life as it is, playing the cards I am dealt, regarding all creatures great and small with Christ-like compassion. But, may I confess the obvious?—The goal of Christ-consciousness is still in my future. I still feel some days like the “swords of the enemies rain blows upon” me “and all the heavens and the earth” have arisen against me. Yet, I know it’s only because I have bought into the error-belief of a house divided. Perhaps I am still responding to the jagged edges of daily life by threatening to flog the dislocated pieces into shape, beating the rebellious events with the scorpions of dualism.
Dualism introduces the idea of more than one Presence and Power is at work in m y life and in the Universe. Yet, I know it simply is not so. All nature and all sentient beings are facets of the One Presence, One Power. Organically, fundamentally, spiritually, existentially, and literally linked together. Knowing and realizing are the capital cities of two great empires of Spirit, separated by an ocean of possibilities.
Recently, I’ve been using the metaphor of the river, saying we’re like fish swimming in the same river. But as I think more about it, the river analogy isn’t large enough. I needed an ocean. All existence shares the same Divine Ocean…sharing the spiritual ecosystem, drawing the very power to exist from God’s energy, which causes everything to be. The world only APPEARS to be a house divided, but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. And sooner or later, everyone will realize our oneness in God, our common kinship with all life, and appreciate our lovely opportunities to learn and grow no matter where we are or what circumstances come to pass.
Meanwhile…join me in an experiment. Try seeing the people and places in your world in their ideal light. Affirm good things about the people you live with, work with, come in contact with during your normal week. The more difficult the person is, the harder you affirm their true inner goodness. Treat everyone as a secret angelic visitor. Think of everyone as a superstar waiting to be discovered.
We could also look to the model of Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem and pointed the way to God for all of us. It may be a little early in the year to invoke the manger at Bethlehem, but bear with me and consider the following pre-season warm-up.
Norman Vincent Peale had a mental image of what it might have been like when God sent Jesus to Earth. It sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting, God sitting with Jesus while to train to Earth pulls into the station, but I like the imagery… mythological or not. Dr. Peale envisioned that God might have said, “Son, I hate to see You go. I sure am going to miss You. I love You with all My heart. But I do want You to go down to earth and tell those poor souls down there how to live and point them to the way that will lead them back home."…And the last thing God said to Jesus was, "Give them all my love." Peale added: “Now that is simple, but it's human and it's divine.” (Norman Vincent Peale, “The Timeless Time”, Guideposts, December 1990.)
All of us have the same human and divine nature. We have been sent to this world by God to create, learn, and follow the path toward our highest good. People and events will flow with us if we put away the whips and scorpions and work together for common goals… a house divided cannot stand. We are all one with the Father-Mother God, capable of greatness of spirit, greatness of achievement, and greatness of love. This house is not divided. We can do it. Don’t wait for Christmas to welcome the Christ. This is the time, this is the season.
Paco, come home, all is forgiven…And God will be with you every step of the way.
Biblical texts referenced: II Chronicles 10:6-11; Mark 3:22-26
The title of this Mid-Week Message is “A House Divided,” and it is based on two readings…one, the parable of Jesus in the third chapter of Mark: “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” The other is not as well known…from II Chronicles 10, where the son of King Solomon the wise shows two things we all know instinctively…even a genius can raise an idiot. And you can’t teach kids anything until they decide to learn it.
According to II Chronicles, when Solomon died and his son, Rehoboam, became King of Israel, the leaders of the tribal areas came to him and said, “Your father placed heavy burdens on us. If you will make these burdens lighter, we will be your loyal subjects.” (TEV) Rehoboam called his advisers and sought counsel. The older ones said, essentially, “Take the deal.” But the younger hot-heads advised the King, “Slap them down like a pimp collecting from a crack `ho.” (Well…okay. Not exactly those words, but you get the sense of youthful arrogance.)
Rehoboam agreed with the young men. He gathered the tribal leaders and said, “My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions." (NRSV) You don’t have to be a Nobel laureate to guess the results. We can date the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah from that second meeting.
Which brings me to the second passage, Jesus’ well-known quotation about a “house divided.”
"If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand." (Mark 3:25, NRSV)
I have meditated on these two passages at length. I believe they contain the essence of Unity’s religious philosophy of life: cooperative compassion and non-resistance, based on faith in Divine Order. Jesus reminds us that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Today. the world remains a house divided. And not just among nations, too often closer to home. At home, actually. In his short story, “Capital of the World,” Ernest Hemingway illustrated how the far “House Divided” reaches. The story, based on an old Spanish tale, was set in Madrid. A father and his son, Paco, had a terrible argument, and the son left home. Then the father cooled down he tried to find Paco. He searched all his familiar hang-outs for months with no success. Finally, in desperation, the father turned to the newspaper for help. His ad simply told "Paco" to meet his father outside a certain hotel, assuruing him that all was forgiven. On the appointed day, eight hundred young men named Paco showed up at the hotel.
Well, it’s just a story…or is it?
The world is a house divided. Every town and village is filled with people who desperately long for reconciliation—with each other, and with God. But there is a time for every purpose under heaven…And New Thought Christianity understands how such reconciliation works. Release the anger. Use your power of elimination to let go of the hurt. See the Christ in the other person, regardless how hurt you feel, regardless how justifiably outraged you are.
The world is a house divided. Many children grow up in homes where family quarrels and regular conflict is the normal daily fare. And let’s face it…when you live with other people, sometimes you’re going to disappoint them. And sometimes they’re going to disappoint you. We used to say, “A man’s home is his castle.” Anybody who’s lived long enough knows how quickly a domestic castle can settle into a four-season pattern of siege warfare.
Sometimes, we feel separated from even our closest loved ones. It’s the price you pay for the privilege of having a human body… You’re inside your head, they’re inside theirs. And it seems the longer you live with someone, the more you know about them, the less likely you are to actually listen to what they have to say. The little daily squabbles inside your domestic castle, especially with children, can teach you quickly that just because you have a castle doesn’t make you an absolute monarch.
Can we reveal a secret of the ages here, a halo of divine illumination for anyone who hasn’t realized it yet? People you love occasionally disappoint you, just as you occasionally disappoint them. It isn’t because they don’t love us. It isn’t moral failure. It’s just the nature of the human psyche. People have bad days. People get lazy about things you passionately care about. And they don’t always know what you care passionately about, regardless how long you’ve been sharing the refrigerator. Nobody is inside your head but you.
How much better is it to detach all moral and ethical values from the circumstances which make you crazy? It is not for the express purpose of driving you stark raving mad that the children refuse to remember to take out the garbage. Many people live in a house divided…but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. Reconciliation is possible…the Christ is available in each person.
Paco, come home, all is forgiven…
Our homes can be a house divided. Family conflicts are commonplace, but also conflicts at work. Turf wars, disloyalty and deception, infighting and passive aggressive behavior can waste time and keep a business from realizing its true potential.
At a county fair, the townspeople held a horse-pulling contest. The first-place horse ended up moving a sled weighing 4,500 pounds. The second-place finisher pulled 4,000 pounds. The owners of the two horses decided to see what these horses could pull together. They hitched them up and found that the team could move 12,000 pounds. By working separately, the two horses were good for only 8,500 pounds. When coupled together, their synergism produced an added 3,500 pounds. It's a hard lesson for us, but unity of purpose consistently produces greater results than individual efforts. Teamwork divides the effort and multiplies the effect.
The workplace is a house divided…but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. We can learn to release the need to defeat our co-workers, we can learn to work together for the greater good, because unity of purposes consistently produces greater results than individual efforts.
And it goes beyond the workplace. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and nationalism…the environmental abuse of the Earth, too. If we feel separate from and superior to nature, as if we are floating on top of the ecosystem—walking paved streets, cruising along on asphalt roads, never touching the soil of the planet from which we evolved—how much easier it is to suck all the oil and fossil fuels from the veins of the Earth, like energy vampires. If we are alienated from our organic link to Mother Earth, why should we care if global warming melts the icecaps, or the barrier reefs and rain forests disappear, or the oceans are fished out, or species after species of land animals, fish, and birds go extinct?
Yet, there is reason to hope. Responsible scientists are working on the problem, even if we can’t seem to get the President of the United States to admit that global warming even exists. And there is the tree of Nagasaki. After the atomic bomb was dropped, scientists predicted nothing would grow there for decades. Yet, the plants came back rather quickly. More astonishingly, a slender sapling survived the blast and is today a great tree which puts out new leaves every year. Halfway around the globe in the jungles of Africa, naturalist Jane Goodall carries a leaf with her from the lone tree of Nagasaki as she goes about her work with the chimpanzees in Tanzania. Jane Goodall says one of her reasons for hope is nature’s amazing resilience, which the Nagasaki leaf symbolizes to her.
The world is a house divided, but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. We are estranged from the natural world, but only because we believe it is so. We have accepted the error-belief of separation from our world, our environment, our co-workers, our neighbors, our families. We have accepted the error-belief that there are many powers, many forces at work, many different types of consciousnesses. There are not. There is only One Presence and One Power in your life and in the Universe, God, the Good, Omnipotent.
You have the power to heal the Earth, heal your workplace, heal your relationships, heal your self…mind, body, and affairs…because God wants you whole, healthy, prosperous, and happy. And how do we affect this miracle? By prayer, by centering on the Christ-within, by affirming the good omnipotent despite all appearances to the contrary, by positively refusing to give in to the negative spirit of the age, and by holding the Truth and knowing the Truth in the darkest moments of your life.
There is a verse in the Tablet of Ahmad by the Persian prophet, Baha’u’llah, in which God calls humanity to unwavering faith:
“Be thou so steadfast in My love that thy heart will not waver, even if the swords of the enemies rain blows upon thee and all the heavens and the earth arise against thee.”
Gary Simmons’ marvelous book The I of the Storm makes the point that no one and nothing is against me. Very well, I understand the metaphysics of panentheism mean we are all one at the quantum level of spirituality, so nothing can be “against” anything. But nevertheless, Baha’u’llah is also right, because in the existential predicament of everyday living, some people hate and some people love, and attempting to see it all as Oneness does not always siphon the discontent or blunt the pain. At least not yet, at my level of awareness. I am working at rising above, to accept life as it is, playing the cards I am dealt, regarding all creatures great and small with Christ-like compassion. But, may I confess the obvious?—The goal of Christ-consciousness is still in my future. I still feel some days like the “swords of the enemies rain blows upon” me “and all the heavens and the earth” have arisen against me. Yet, I know it’s only because I have bought into the error-belief of a house divided. Perhaps I am still responding to the jagged edges of daily life by threatening to flog the dislocated pieces into shape, beating the rebellious events with the scorpions of dualism.
Dualism introduces the idea of more than one Presence and Power is at work in m y life and in the Universe. Yet, I know it simply is not so. All nature and all sentient beings are facets of the One Presence, One Power. Organically, fundamentally, spiritually, existentially, and literally linked together. Knowing and realizing are the capital cities of two great empires of Spirit, separated by an ocean of possibilities.
Recently, I’ve been using the metaphor of the river, saying we’re like fish swimming in the same river. But as I think more about it, the river analogy isn’t large enough. I needed an ocean. All existence shares the same Divine Ocean…sharing the spiritual ecosystem, drawing the very power to exist from God’s energy, which causes everything to be. The world only APPEARS to be a house divided, but there is a time for every purpose under heaven. And sooner or later, everyone will realize our oneness in God, our common kinship with all life, and appreciate our lovely opportunities to learn and grow no matter where we are or what circumstances come to pass.
Meanwhile…join me in an experiment. Try seeing the people and places in your world in their ideal light. Affirm good things about the people you live with, work with, come in contact with during your normal week. The more difficult the person is, the harder you affirm their true inner goodness. Treat everyone as a secret angelic visitor. Think of everyone as a superstar waiting to be discovered.
We could also look to the model of Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem and pointed the way to God for all of us. It may be a little early in the year to invoke the manger at Bethlehem, but bear with me and consider the following pre-season warm-up.
Norman Vincent Peale had a mental image of what it might have been like when God sent Jesus to Earth. It sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting, God sitting with Jesus while to train to Earth pulls into the station, but I like the imagery… mythological or not. Dr. Peale envisioned that God might have said, “Son, I hate to see You go. I sure am going to miss You. I love You with all My heart. But I do want You to go down to earth and tell those poor souls down there how to live and point them to the way that will lead them back home."…And the last thing God said to Jesus was, "Give them all my love." Peale added: “Now that is simple, but it's human and it's divine.” (Norman Vincent Peale, “The Timeless Time”, Guideposts, December 1990.)
All of us have the same human and divine nature. We have been sent to this world by God to create, learn, and follow the path toward our highest good. People and events will flow with us if we put away the whips and scorpions and work together for common goals… a house divided cannot stand. We are all one with the Father-Mother God, capable of greatness of spirit, greatness of achievement, and greatness of love. This house is not divided. We can do it. Don’t wait for Christmas to welcome the Christ. This is the time, this is the season.
Paco, come home, all is forgiven…And God will be with you every step of the way.
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