JR61: Sixth Step in Healing the Church: Be Honest About the Bible

A: I've been reflecting for the past few days on the suffering inflicted by Anders Breivik on everybody everywhere who's capable of loving their God and loving their neighbours as themselves.

Several news reports have referred to a 1,500 page manifesto that Breivik posted on the Internet shortly before the Norway attacks. Apparently Breivik copied a number of sections almost word from word from the writings of several well-known far-right ideologues. (Which just goes to show, once again, that psychopaths are very good at "cutting and pasting" other people's ideas, but not capable of coming up with original insights of their own.) Breivik's manifesto has been compared to the writings of Ted Kaczynski, the U.S. Unabomber. But when I look at excerpts from Breivik's diary and manifesto, and compare his actions to his beliefs, I don't see a modern day European political movement. I see a very old ideological movement, one that fills up many pages in the Bible. I see the Book of Jeremiah. I see the Book of Revelation. I see the Book of Numbers.

J: These are all biblical books that give permission to psychopaths to carry out "Just Wars."

A: I've noticed in news reports about Breivik that he readily admits he carried out the Oslo bombing and the camp shootings, but he says he didn't break the law in doing so because he's at war with the Norway government.

J: Inside our man Breivik's head, it all makes perfect sense. Of course, the reason it makes sense to him is that he's only using certain parts of his biological brain. He's not using the parts of his brain that deal with empathy or relationship or common sense or compassionate humour or trust or creativity. If he were using those parts, he wouldn't be capable of planning such a cold, ruthless, legalistic act of violence against others.

A: On the other hand, interviews with some of the camp survivors suggest these young people embody all the best of human potential -- empathy and relationship and trust and so on. There was a really good article in Saturday's Toronto Star: "Norway Tragedy: Inside the nightmare on Utoya" by Michelle Shephard (Toronto Star, Saturday, July 30, 2011). One 20 year old woman, Karoline Bank, is quoted as saying, "Yes, he took many people away from us, and every life lost is a tragedy. But we have gotten so much stronger over this. There's not much more to say."

J: Couldn't have said it better myself.

A: People of faith will wonder why God allowed this to happen.

J: People of faith have to stop listening to people of religious humility. People of faith -- by that I mean people who want to be in relationship with God now, TODAY, not at some vague time of future judgment -- have to start being more honest, more realistic, about the motivations that drove the authors of many revered religious texts. They have to stop wearing rose-coloured lenses when they read the Bible. They have to stop making excuses for the psychopaths who wrote so many parts of the Old and New Testaments. They have to stop making excuses for the parts of the Bible that were clearly written by those suffering from major mental illness.

A: Like the Book of Revelation.

Christian theologians have long been desperate to endorse the violent imagery of the Book of Revelation as a central justification for orthodox Christian teachings about the End Times. But from the point of view of God's angels, the prophetic visions recorded in Revelation feel like a psychopathic attack on God and also on the soul who lived as Jesus, an attack no different in intent than Anders Breivik's systematic rampage against campers trapped on a small island. Like Breivik, who disguised himself as a police officer so he could ensnare more victims, the prophet who penned Revelation pretended to be a faithful follower of Jesus as he took direct aim at Jesus' teachings about a loving and forgiving God. Shown here are the head and wings of a large 9th century BCE Assyrian human-headed bull found in the North-West palace at Nimrud (on display at the British Museum). Photo credit JAT 2023.

 
J: This is an issue of trust. People have to decide for themselves whether they're going to trust what John says about humanity's relationship with God, or whether they're going to trust their own hearts, their own heads, and their own experiences about humanity's relationship with God. Would a loving and forgiving God put a gun in Anders Breivik's hands and tell him to go out and shoot people to "ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom [will] prevail"?*

A: God didn't stop him, though.

J: Really? You're sure about that? Because from where I'm standing, God did a great deal to stop him.

A: Sixty-nine people at the camp are dead, plus several more at the site of the Oslo bombing. They're dead and they're not coming back.

J: No, they're not coming back. And their families and friends will grieve because they -- the human survivors -- have loving hearts. Their grief is unavoidable and is a measure of their wholeness. Yet one day their family and friends will cross to the Other Side, as all creatures of Planet Earth must do, and they'll be reunited with their loved ones. So from God's point of view, the relationships haven't ceased. The relationships still exist, despite the death of the physical body, because love never dies. The form of the relationships has changed, but not the substance. The substance is real. The love can't be taken away from any of these souls. Love continues beyond anything the physical body knows. Love is greater than anything the physical body knows. Love is the great mystery. It's what guides God the Mother and God the Father in their decisions about when people are coming Home. But make no mistake -- everyone eventually dies. God has never promised otherwise. This is the natural order of the universe.

A: You wouldn't know it to listen to an apocalyptic prophet who promises bodily resurrection of the dead.

J: It's a funny thing about psychopaths. A psychopath has a distinctive pattern to his logic and choices and behaviours, and one of the most distinctive features of psychopathy is the peculiar attitude towards death. They're unable to trust anyone, of course -- since trust is closely related to empathy and love and forgiveness -- and this means they're completely unable to trust in the idea that physical death is a natural, loving part of the soul's relationship with God. Death without future punishment isn't logical to a psychopath, just as life with present forgiveness isn't logical to him. He's incapable of feeling love, so he's unable to conceive of a loving death. He's also incapable of believing that God is smarter than he is, so he'll spend a great deal of time and energy looking for "escape clauses" in the contract laws about death in the Abrahamic religions. If the clauses he wants aren't there, he'll claim to be a divinely-inspired prophet and add them himself. Egyptian attitudes towards death in the pre-Hellenistic period epitomize the psychopath's fear of death.

A: You're saying a psychopath's attitude towards death isn't unique to a specific religion or culture, but is instead universal because it's biological. You're saying that "escape clauses" come out the same way in different cultures because all human beings share the same basic DNA.

J (nodding): A psychopath is, by definition, a person who is cut off from the input of his own brain's Soul Circuitry. This "cutting off" may have resulted, in rare circumstances, from a head injury or infection or poisoning or oxygen deprivation. But the vast majority of psychopaths are "self made." High functioning psychopaths such as Anders Breivik are individuals who've turned themselves into psychopaths one bad choice at a time. This is why psychopathy doesn't usually emerge in full-fledged form until adolescence. It takes a long time for a person to consciously undo the healthy connections God builds into the human brain.

A: It's still amazing to me that human beings have that kind of control over the wiring of their own brains. But history bears out the truth of what you're saying.

J: You'll probably be shocked to learn, then, that within the annals of religious history there have been select groups who've intentionally incorporated the blueprint for "how to build a psychopath" into their religious doctrines.

A: You mean . . . these groups wanted to create psychopaths? On purpose?

J: It can be very useful, from a utilitarian point of view, to have a man like Anders Breivik on your side if you're trying to acquire wealth, power, status, and "immortality."

A: This immortality thing . . . this need to leave behind a human legacy of power and status for future generations to admire and imitate -- is this a normal state of mind for a person who feels whole and healed and humble? Because it seems awfully narcissistic to me.

J: It's normal and natural for a soul-in-human-form to want to create and build and improve the quality of life for his or her community. Persons-of-soul -- angels -- have a strong sense of purpose and mission and service. So you expect to see a community of Whole Brain Thinkers busily at work devising new ways to dig wells for clean water or improving ways to eliminate toxins from the environment or building new schools and medical clinics in underserved areas. Human beings are at their best when they come together in teams to bring healing to others in the face of suffering.

A: Healing instead of revenge.

J: A large number of people around the world have responded to the Norway tragedy by offering their hope, faith, and love instead of judgment, piety, and revenge. Some have found, for the first time in their lives, the courage of their own faith. The courage of their own trust in God. The courage of their own trust in each other.

A: That's a powerful insight, to know you have the courage to choose hope, faith, and love.

"Jesus said: One person cannot ride two horses at once, nor stretch two bows; nor can a servant serve two masters, as he will respect one and despise the other. No one drinks vintage wine and immediately wants to drink fresh wine; fresh wine is not put into old wineskins because they might burst. Vintage wine is not put into new wineskins because it might be spoiled” (Gospel of Thomas 47a-d). You can choose the path of redemption or you can choose the path of revenge. Pick one because you can’t have both. Photo credit JAT 2014.

J: To find that courage is to know redemption. I send my love to all who are open to the wondrous idea that humans -- not just God -- are filled to overflowing in their own souls with divine courage and trust and gratitude and devotion.

This courage is yours. It's not God's. It's not your neighbour's. It's not your parents'. It's not your priest's. It's yours. It's part of who you are as a soul.

Claim it and live it. Be the person God knows you really are. Don't be a bully and coward like Anders Breivik, who hasn't the courage to love. (Though I forgive him.) Be open to a loving relationship with God, no matter what your religious background. Your neighbour is loved by God as much as you are. All your neighbours.

No other truth is acceptable.


* On July 24, 2011, The Globe and Mail published a Reuter's article, "Excerpts from Norway attacker's diary." An entry from June 11, 2011 said, "I prayed for the first time in a very long time today. I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail."

JR57: Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me

A: When I came home from work on Monday, Oprah was rerunning an episode about two twin daughters who had been being sexually assaulted and raped by their father and two brothers until a neighbour called authorities. Towards the end of the episode, Oprah offered the definition of forgiveness that she's found most helpful. It was something to this effect: "Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been different." How do you respond to that?  

J: Well, I find this definition demeaning and discouraging. Forgiveness is not about "giving up hope." Forgiveness is about finding hope.  

A: Maybe the person who coined this definition was using the word "hope" in a different way than you and I use it. 

J: Hope is one of those slippery, hard-to-define spiritual terms. About as easy to explain as forgiveness. And about as complicated. Basically, though, angels use the word hope as a synonym for "trust in God." It's a powerfully positive, uplifting emotion. It's an emotion that expresses an element of uncertainty. Perhaps I could rephrase that. Hope -- trust in God -- is an experience of emotional continuity in the face of apparent discontinuity in the Materialist laws of Cause and Effect. In other words, you still believe in God's goodness even when you can't see an obvious link between actions and the results of those actions.  

A: A leap of faith, in other words. 

“Jesus said: From Adam to John the Baptizer, among those born of women, there is no one greater than John the Baptizer, so that his eyes should be averted. But I have said that whoever among you becomes a child will know the kingdom and will become greater than John” (Gospel of Thomas 46 a-b). Photo credit JAT 2023.

J: Yes, but not a blind leap of faith. Trust, surprising as it may seem, requires an element of brutal honesty. Brutal honesty about oneself. Trust requires you to know your own limits, your own abilities right down to a "t." This knowledge allows you to recognize situations where you've reached the limits of your own abilities and experience. At this point, you switch over to your knowledge about other people's abilities and experience. You switch over the decision-making process to somebody who has more knowledge about the topic at hand than you have. You hand over the reins, as it were. Angels do this without an instant of shame or jealousy or regret. They simply accept their limits and gratefully hand over the reins to other angels. This is what humbleness feels like. Not false humility, as the Church teaches it, but divine humbleness.  

A: You're making my head hurt with all these different terms -- forgiveness, hope, trust, humbleness.  

J: These are all complex divine emotions. Not the same as each other, but interwoven with each other. Holistically. Hopefully, people will like the idea that God the Mother and God the Father are capable of experiencing and expressing the most complex emotions of all. 

A: This switching-over thing you're talking about . . . is this related to the research you've been helping me collect about the "gears" in the biological human brain that are supposed to help people switch smoothly from one idea or emotion to another?  

J: You mean parts of the human brain such as the anterior cingulate gyrus? 

A: Yes. And related "switching centres."  

J: Definitely. Angels don't have an anterior cingulate gyrus, but souls-in-human-form do. Angels who incarnate as human beings need a biological "toolkit," and a number of tools in that toolkit relate to the human brain and central nervous system. When those tools aren't used the way they should be -- when, for example, a "hammer" is used when a "screwdriver" is called for, or when the blunt end of the adjustable wrench is used instead of the adjustable claws at the other end, you can't expect the result to be pretty. The human brain is designed with an entire set of "ball bearings" and "lubricants" to prevent the various gears of the brain from grinding against each other and causing excessive wear. Unfortunately, in many young human beings, the ball bearings and lubricants are the first thing to go. After that, you see the onset of DSM-IV psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, problems with impulse control, problems with anger control, possibly even psychopathy. 

A: All because their switching mechanisms aren't working properly?  

J: The human brain is an incredibly complex set of tools and machinery. It uses many different types of switching mechanisms to help it balance incoming data and outgoing choices -- outgoing thoughts, feelings, and actions. The operative word here, of course, is balance. The brain has to be able to identify, remember, understand, and fix many different sorts of problems. It has to switch constantly between different spheres of reality, between logical thought and positive emotions and practical actions, between the needs of the self and the needs of the other, between active learning and quiet processing, between past, present, and future. Believe me, human beings need every scrap of brain tissue they can muster for this job of Whole Brain Thinking.  

A: So when the switching mechanisms aren't working properly, people get "stuck." They get stuck in one or two spheres. For example, a person who gets stuck in the past.  

J: Yes. Or a person who gets stuck in logical thought. These are the people who lack empathy, who lack compassion for others. They make all their choices based on logic alone. The Church has had an overflowing cup of bishops who were incapable of feeling empathy.  

A: I've also known some people -- mostly women -- who seem stuck in their emotional circuitry and can't make a decision that's tough. They don't forgive other people so much as put blinders on. They try to sweep great harms under the carpet so they don't have to deal with the fallout of taking a firm stance. 

J: Forgiveness is very much about taking a firm stance. The first step in forgiving somebody -- whether it's yourself or someone else -- is honesty. There must be an honest assessment of harm. This means you have to take a stance on the question of right and wrong. For the soul -- for all souls in Creation, including God the Mother and God the Father -- some choices are clearly right and other choices are clearly wrong. The soul knows the difference. The soul feels confident and clear when right choices are made. The soul feels abused when wrong choices are made. This is what many people call . . . conscience. 

A: There's been a trend among some New Age gurus and some Progressive Christians to claim there are no moral absolutes. Hence there is no need for forgiveness. According to these thinkers, all choices are equally acceptable to God because each person is really just a spark of God trying to express itself. Neale Donald Walsch has built a lucrative empire on this idea.  

J: Only a person who doesn't want to face his own life choices would find this theory acceptable.  

A: It does leave a lot of wiggle room for people who want to excuse their own behaviour . . .  

J: Forgiveness is a clear and conscious decision to call forth and believe in the best that a person can be and the best a person can do. Forgiveness is a refusal to accept excuses. At the same time, it's a gift of love that has no strings attached. Divine love goes beyond anything a Materialist philosophy of Cause and Effect can imagine. Divine love is an up-front gift, a conscious decision to offer the recipient (whether the self or an another person) a vote of confidence in his or her best self. It's a leap of faith. It's a boost-up. A helping hand. A sense of purpose for a person to hang onto. It does not require you to prove yourself before you get the gift of love. If you had to prove yourself first, one proof at a time, as many theologians have taught, you'd be looking at the vertical path of spiritual ascent -- anagogic mysticism. Anagogic mysticism is a form of Materialist belief. God the Mother and God the Father are not required to obey Materialist philosophy. They love us because they choose to love us, not because they "owe" us anything for our "obedience" and "piety." They believe in us, their children, so much that we simply cannot and will not let them down. They inspire us to be our best selves. But they don't force us to be our best selves -- we, as angels, choose to be our best selves. It's as natural as breathing for all angels. 

A: Including the angels who have incarnated on Planet Earth.  

J: Yes. Including the angels who have incarnated on Planet Earth. There are no exceptions among God's children. All angels are filled with trust and devotion and gratitude and courage BECAUSE God the Mother and God the Father believe in our best selves. They have faith in us. 

A: So in the case of a father who has raped his own daughters, how would God look at that?  

J: God the Mother and God the Father would recognize instantly the selfish, uncourageous intent of the father. They would identify the problem -- the father's dysfunctional brain circuitry -- and they would remember this as they worked to help him and those around him recognize the great harm he's been choosing to create. They would not condone or accept this behaviour as acceptable. They would identify the behaviour as "wrong." Nonetheless, they would blanket him in divine love. They would whisper to his soul, "We believe in you. We know this isn't the best you can be. We know you can make loving choices. We won't abandon you. We'll stick right with you and show you why your choices have been wrong. You won't understand at first, and you're going to be angry and confused and resentful for a while, but that's okay, because we know that more than anything in the world you want to be able to give love. We believe in you."  

A: And then God sends you through the human court system that'll cart you off to jail for "X" number of years. 

J: Somehow you have to get it through your thick human skull that you made an abusive choice that was very, very wrong. You have to accept that you made a mistake, you have to accept that you can learn from your own mistakes, and you have to accept that you can be a better person who makes right choices. If you receive the right kind of help.  

A: Locking up a person and throwing away the key isn't the right kind of help.  

J: Nor is revenge the right kind of help. Usually it takes a whole team to provide the right kind of help to a man who has raped his own daughters. A whole team of well trained professionals. Of course, if the professionals themselves don't believe in the soul or the power of forgiveness or the mystery of God's divine love, they're ill-equipped to provide the kind of mentorship the abuser needs if he's to have any chance of living up to his best self.  

A: In which case the abuser isn't likely to be healed.  

J: Healing follows insight for both the victim and the perpetrator of a crime. Forgiveness, as we've said, is a catalyst that speeds and facilitates the healing process. Healing is the path towards Wholeness. Not the path towards Oneness but the path towards Wholeness. Wholeness is the place -- the Kingdom, the experience of self -- where you know yourself and all your limits and all your strengths and all your quirks and you can be humbly proud of yourself anyway because you're being the best person you can be.  

A: Young children are like this. They have the ability to throw themselves into new relationships and new experiences to the best of their ability without any concern for status or "face."  

J: Yup. That's what I meant when I said that to enter the Kingdom you must become again like a little child. Humble and guileless, yet full of infectious enthusiasm and intelligence. Many three-year-olds are smarter than the adults around them because they haven't yet forgotten how to learn.  

A: And they still know how to forgive. Young children are born with an amazing ability to forgive.  

J: I rest my case.

JR55: Healing: The Easy Way and the Hard Way

A: Apart from the Kingdom sayings and the puzzling Son of Man sayings, you also left behind some curious sayings about protecting the master's house and making it strong against thievery or attack -- especially attack from within. Thomas 21b and Luke 12:37-48 and Mark 3:20-27 all use this theme. The passage in Luke is especially confusing. Luke 12:37-38 is a makarism: "Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves."

Now, I know you had nothing nice to say about the custom of slave-owning. So the passage in Luke (12:37-48) must be a parable, an analogy for something else, even though the Oxford NRSV calls these verses a collection of "sayings on watchfulness and faithfulness" rather than a parable.

“Therefore I say: If a householder knows a thief is coming, he will keep watch and not let him break into his house (of his kingdom) and steal his goods. You must keep watch against the world, preparing yourselves with power so that thieves will not find any way to come upon you” (Gospel of Thomas 21b and 21c, translated by Stevan Davies). Photo credit JAT 2013.

 
J (grinning): Oh, yes. It's a parable. One I wrote myself.

A: Ah. And I see that this parable references "the Son of Man" in verse 40: "You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." Many commentators have assumed this verse is a reference to an apocalyptic prophecy you made. They assume "the Son of Man" is an actual person -- you -- who will be coming back on a future day to bring about the prophesied day of judgment. Is this what you meant? Because Matthew 24:36-51 certainly makes it sound as if this is what you meant.

J: Matthew, as we've discussed earlier, was no friend of mine and no friend to my teachings. Matthew was like a gardener who sees another's man field and hates the way the plants are arranged. So he sneaks in with a shovel at night and digs up the other man's plants and takes them to a new field and replants them in an entirely new garden composition and adds some new plants of his own, then steps back and loudly proclaims he's done great honour to the other man. Meanwhile, the other man's garden is a potholed ruin.

A: Always with the parables. You just don't quit!

J: It's who I am.

A: Okay. So what were you getting at? Why were you so fond of the image of the master's house that needs to be protected? Who was "the master"? Was it God?

J: Nope. The master in the parable of the responsible slave (Luke 12:37-48) is the soul of any human being who's walking around on Planet Earth. Any human being at all.

A: Say what?

J: Although today's commentators assume I was an idiot who spouted apocalyptic prophecy and hadn't a drop of common sense in me, I actually had a "method to my madness." The sayings I left behind all speak to a few internally consistent, common sense teachings about the soul. I said a small number of things a great many times. The things I said all relate to each other in a logical, coherent, heart-based way. If I spoke again and again about the psychological reality of the Kingdom (wholeness and maturity of the self), and the importance of respecting "boundaries of the self" and "boundaries of the other," and the potential of human beings -- all human beings -- to seek healing and redemption throught the power of forgiveness, then there's only one person this "master" can be. The master is the self. The master is the core self, the soul that each person is. The true self. This parable is a metaphor about the human brain. It's an attempt to explain in layman's terms what's going on instead a person's head, and why there's no such thing as demon possession. It's an attempt to explain why the path of redemption seems so harsh at times.

A: "Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay down his head and rest." (Thomas 86)

J: Yes. Foxes know who they are and where their "home" is. Birds know who they are and how to build a home for themselves and their children. Human beings, of all God's creatures on Planet Earth, are the least likely to know who they are and how to build a "home" for their highest potential. For a human being, this home is their brain -- their biological brain and central nervous system. This home has to be painstakingly built over many years. Nothing so simple as building a bird's nest, no sir! The "insides" of a person have to be carefully built to match the "outsides." This is the holistic path to maturity for all human beings.

A: This goes back to what you were saying a few days ago about Saying 22 in the Gospel of Thomas. (http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/06/saying-22-in-gospel-of-thomas.html ) One thing I love about your teachings on wholeness -- on Whole Brain Thinking -- is the fairness of it. These teachings apply to all people in all places in all cultures. It's radically egalitarian. Everyone gets the same basic toolkit for building a garden of peace. But each person's garden will look different because each soul is different. I just love that part!

J: Yes, but before they can get to the point of being able to admire each other's gardens -- instead of envying and destroying each other's gardens -- they have to get through the healing stage. This is the stage where most people quit, where they run away from the difficulties and challenges of building an inner "home" -- a field full of good soil -- inside their own heads. This is the stage most people don't even know IS a stage.

A: The Church has done precious little to help us understand this -- even today, when we have so much knowledge about the human brain and its hard-wiring for empathy and change.

J: Two thousand years ago, I certainly had no knowledge of neuroanatomy or neurophysiology or neurotransmitters or the like. But I was a keen observer of human nature, and I was scientifically minded. More to the point, I was a mystic. I had unflinching faith in God's goodness because of my mystical practice, and I knew there had to be something better than "demon possession" to account for frightening behaviour. So I looked to a scientific model. It wasn't that hard, really. You work through empirical observation and rudimentary statistical analysis. That's how all science advanced for thousands of years until recently. You take careful notes, you try to stay objective, you look for patterns, you try to prove you didn't simply invent the patterns because you wanted to see them. Objectivity is crucial, of course. If you're determined to find an imaginary Cause X, you'll find it because you want to. However, this isn't science. This is narcissism.

A: So your lack of narcissism -- or I suppose I should say your eventual lack of narcissism -- made you more open to honest fact-finding about the human condition.

J: I was open to the idea that there could be scars on the inside of a person's body as well as on the outside.

A: In James 1:8, you use the unusual Greek word "dipsychos," which is usually translated in English as "double-minded." What were you getting at here?

J: If you read the parts of the Letter of James that I wrote -- James 1:2-27; 2:1-8a; and 3:1-18 -- you can see me struggling to put into words the problem of understanding the human brain and all its competing "intents." I used several different metaphors there to try to explain what a lack of inner wholeness results in. Which is tragedy. Pain, suffering, and tragedy.

A: You also express the idea in James 1:8 that "the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord." This is a pretty tough statement, don't you think?

J: Many will think so. They'll assume I'm talking about divine judgment and divine retribution. But I'm not. I'm talking about the scientific reality of the soul-body nexus. I'm talking about the built-in set of checks and balances that exists within the human self to promote mature, loving choices.

I'm going to come at your question from a different direction. If there really is a God, and there really are good souls, and there really are souls who choose to incarnate in a temporary 3D body where they have to struggle to balance the needs of their souls and the needs of their biological bodies . . . would it make sense to you in this context that God would refuse to provide built-in roadmaps and compasses and warning signals and obvious feedback so you could safely navigate all the confusion? Does that make sense to you?

A: No.

J: It didn't make sense to me, either. So in the parable of the responsible slave, the "house" of the master is -- to use you as an example (sorry, hope you don't mind) -- is your entire head, including your skull. The "master" is your soul, and in particular the non-plastic parts of your brain that are controlled by the thoughts and feelings and actions of your soul. The "slaves" are the semi-autonomous regions of your brain that are supposed to be in charge of your physiological needs, but which all too often end up running the show -- and doing a very poor job of it, I might add. If you were to let the "slaves" manage your choices, abuses would occur. Abuses of your self and abuses of others. Naturally, your core self -- your soul -- wouldn't like this very much, and your core self would have something to say about it. This isn't punishment "from above." This is you standing up for your own core integrity! This is you trying to get yourself back in balance!

A: By first recognizing that there's a problem. With your own choices.

J: Healing begins with insight. Before you can heal, you have to admit there's a problem. Unfortunately, people can get their heads caught up in some pretty unhealthy thinking patterns. They can become so dysfunctional that they confuse the "slaves" with the "master." They can't hear their own inner voice, even though the inner voice never stops talking.

There's always the easy way and the hard way. You can listen to your own inner voice, and begin to heal, in which case the journey won't be as difficult.

A: You'll get a "light beating" (Luke 12:48).

J: The majority of human beings, then and now, however, end up by default on the hard way.

A: So their bodies get a "severe beating" (Luke 12:47) from their own souls.

J: Well, it looks that way from the outside in the beginning.

A: People will say you're blaming the victims of illness.

J: It's not that simple. People get ill for a variety of reasons. But ONE of the reasons people get sick is because they opt to make certain very poor choices. This is simply a statement of fact. It's not a judgment to say that a person who chooses to eat 5,000 calories per day and is morbidly obese (with all the attendant health problems of extreme obesity) bears SOME of the responsibility for his or her state of health.

A: When you put it that way, it seems pretty fair and reasonable. There are lots of intentional human choices that can lead to serious illness and disability. We often don't want to change the choices we make until we really, really understand the consequences that are involved.

J: Observable consequences are part of each person's built-in roadmap for living a life of wholeness in accordance with the wishes and needs of the soul. If your biological body is way out of balance, you need to listen to what your soul is saying. It's only common sense.

JR53: Saying 22 in the Gospel of Thomas

A: At the beginning of Stevan Davies's translation of the Gospel of Thomas, there's a Foreword written by Andrew Harvey. Harvey says this about the Gospel of Thomas: "If all the Gospel of Thomas did was relentlessly and sublimely champion the path to our transfiguration and point out its necessity, it would be one of the most important of all religious writings -- but it does even more. In saying 22, the Gospel of Thomas gives us a brilliantly concise and precise 'map' of the various stages of transformation that have be unfolded in the seeker for the 'secret' to be real in her being and active though [sic?] all her powers. Like saying 13, saying 22 has no precedent in the synoptic gospels and is, I believe, the single most important document of the spiritual life that Jesus has left us (pages xxi-xxii)."
 
Harvey then plunges into 5 pages of rapture on the ectastic meaning of Saying 22. None of which I agree with, of course. And none of which you're likely to agree with, either, if experience is any guide. But I thought maybe you and I could have a go at it.
 
J: By all means.
 
A: Okay. Here's the translation of Saying 22 as Stevan Davies's writes it:

"Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants taking milk are like those who enter the Kingdom. His disciples asked him: If we are infants will we enter the Kingdom? Jesus responded: When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the upper like the lower and the lower like the upper, and thus make the male and the female the same, so that the male isn't male and the female isn't female. When you make an eye to replace an eye, and a hand to replace a hand, and a foot to replace a foot, and an image to replace an image, then you will enter the Kingdom (page xxii and 25-27)."

Harvey's interpretation of this saying speaks of an "alchemical fusion" and a "Sacred Androgyne" who "'reigns' over reality" with actual "powers that can alter natural law" because he or she has entered a transformative state of "mystical union," where "the powers available to the human being willing to undertake the full rigor of the Jesus-transformation are limitless."

I'm not making this up, though I wish I were.

J: And there I was, talking about a little ol' mustard seed . . . . It's a terrific example of the danger of using "wisdom sayings" as a teaching tool. People have a tendency to hear whatever they want to hear in a simple saying. Parables are much harder to distort. Eventually I caught on to the essential problem that's created when you choose to speak indirectly to spare other people's feelings. When you use poetry instead of blunt prose, it's much easier for other people to twist your meaning intentionally. You can see the same understanding in the Gospel of Mark. Mark is blunt. He doesn't waste time on cliches and "wisdom words." He goes straight for the truth, and leaves no wiggle room for gnostic-type interpretations.

“The disciples said to Jesus: ‘Tell us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.’ He replied: ‘It is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all. However, when it falls into worked ground, it sends out a large stem, and it becomes a shelter for the birds of heaven'” (Gospel of Thomas 20). Mustard Seeds by David Turner 2005, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

 
A: Harvey seems to have found a whole lot of wiggle room in Saying 22.
 
J: I must admit that Harvey's "revelation" of the Sacred Androgyne makes me feel sick to my stomach.
 
A: Why?
 
J: Because it denies the very reality of male and female. It denies the reality that God the Father is male and God the Mother is female. It denies the reality that everything in Creation is built on the cherished differences between male and female. Being male isn't better than being female. And being female isn't better than being male. But they're not the same. Neither are they yin-and-yang. They're not two halves of the same coin. They're not mirror images of each other. They're not a fusion -- they're not a Oneness -- like a bowl of pure water. God the Mother and God the Father are like a bowl of minestrone soup. You can see all the big chunks of differentness floating around in there, and that's okay, because that's what gives the mixture its taste, its wonder, its passion.
 
God the Mother and God the Father aren't the same substance with opposite polarities. No way. They have individual temperaments and unique characteristics. In some ways, they're quite alike. In other ways, they're quite different from each other. Just as you'd expect in two fully functioning, mature beings. That's why it's a relationship. They work things out together so both of them are happy at the same time. It's not that hard to imagine, really. They have a sacred marriage, a marriage in which they constantly strive to lift each other up, support each other, forge common goals together, build things together, and most importantly, raise a family together. They look out for each other. They laugh together. They're intimately bound to each other in all ways. But they're still a bowl of minestrone soup. With nary a Sacred Androgyne in sight.
 
A: Okay. So if you weren't talking about "oneness" or "alchemical fusion" or the "Sacred Androgyne" in Saying 22, what were you talking about?
 
J: Well, I was talking about the mystery and wonder that can be found in a simple seed. I was talking -- as I often was -- about how to understand our relationship with God by simply looking at and listening to God's ongoing voice in the world of nature.
 
A: Oh. Are we talking about tree-hugging?
 
J: You could put it that way.
 
A: David Suzuki would love you for saying that.
 
J: I was a nature mystic, to be sure. Endogenous mystics are nature mystics. They see the image of God -- and more importantly the stories of God -- in God's own language, which is the world of Creation. The world outside the city gates has so much to say about balance and time and beginnings and endings! The world outside the city gates is a library. It's literally a library that teaches souls about cycles and physics and interconnectedness and chemistry and complexity and order and chaos all wrapped up together in a tapestry of Divine Love.
 
A: What you're saying seems like a pretty modern, liberal sort of understanding. Were you able to articulate it this way 2,000 years ago?
 
J: Not to be unkind to modern, liberal thinkers, but when was the last time a philosopher of science sat down with a mustard seed and reflected on the intrinsic meaning of it? When was the last time you heard what a humble fresh bean can teach you about the spiritual journey of all human beings?
 
A: I see your point. People in our society don't usually take the time to sit down and "smell the roses."
 
J: Geneticists and biologists and related researchers can print out all their research on the genome of a kidney bean, and can even modify this genetic code in a lab, but to a mystic the kidney bean holds more than pure science.
 
A: So we've switched from mustard seeds to kidney beans as a metaphor?
 
J: Kidney beans are bigger and easier to see without magnifying lenses, and a lot of people have begun their scientific inquiries by growing beans in a primary school classroom. So yes -- let's switch to beans.
 
A: I remember being fascinated by fresh beans and peas when I was young. If you split the bean with your thumbnail, and you didn't damage it too much when you split it, you could see the tiny little stem and leaf inside at one end, just waiting to sprout. If you planted a whole, unsplit bean in a small glass-walled container, you could watch the whole process of growth -- the bean splitting open on its own, roots starting to grow from one end, the stem and leaf popping up, the two halves of the bean gradually shrinking as their nutrients were converted into stem and root growth. Somehow the bean knew what to do. It just kept growing out of the simplest things -- dirt, sunlight, water.
 
J: The bean is a lot like the human brain. If you plant it whole in fertile ground and provide the right nutrients, it grows into a thing of wholeness and balance and wonder and mystery. On the other hand, if you try to split it open, or extract the tiny stem hidden inside, or plant it on rocks instead of good soil, or fail to give it sunshine and water, it won't thrive. It may not even root at all. You can't force the bean to grow where it isn't designed to grow. You can't force it to grow once you've forcibly split it open. You can't force it to grow on barren rock. The bean has to be whole when you plant it. The outside skin has to be intact. The different parts inside the skin have to be intact. The bean has different parts, but it needs all those different parts in order to be whole -- in order to create something new. The bean isn't a single substance. But it is holistic. It's a self-contained mini-marvel that teaches through example about cycles and physics and interconnectedness and chemistry and complexity and order and chaos. It appears simple, but in fact it's remarkably complex. Creation is like that -- it appears simple, but in fact it's remarkably complex.
 
A: Why, then, were you talking about "male and female" in Saying 22? Why did you seem to be talking about merging or fusion of male and female into an androgynous state? Or a Platonic state of mystical union?
 
J: It goes to the question of context. I was talking to people who, as a natural part of their intellectual framework, were always trying to put dualistic labels on everything in Creation. Everyday items were assigned labels of "good or evil," "pure or impure," "male or female," "living or dead." It had got to the point where a regular person might say, "I won't use that cooking pan because it has female energy, and female energy isn't pure."
 
A: I'm not sure that kind of paranoid, dualistic, magical thinking has really died out, to be honest.
 
J: There are certainly peoples and cultures who still embrace this kind of magical thinking. You get all kinds of destructive either-or belief systems. You get people saying that right-handed people and right-handed objects are favoured by God, whereas left-handed people are cursed. It's crazy talk. It's not balanced. It's not holistic. It's not trusting of God's goodness.
 
A: And you were left-handed.
 
J: Yep. My mother tried to beat it out of me, but I was a leftie till the day I died. When I was a child, I was taught to be ashamed of my left-handedness. Eventually I came to understand that I was who I was. The hand I used as an adult to hold my writing stylus was the same hand I'd been born with -- my left hand. But on my journey of healing, redemption, and forgiveness, I came to view my hand quite differently than I had in my youth. Was it a "new hand"? No. Was it a new perception of my hand. Yes. Absolutely yes.
 
A: You stopped putting judgmental labels on your eyes and your hands and your feet and your understanding of what it means to be made in the image of God.
 
J: One of the first steps in knowing what it feels like to walk in the Kingdom of the Heavens is to consider yourself "a whole bean."
 
A: Aren't there kidney beans in minestrone soup? How did we get back to the minestrone soup metaphor?
 
J: A little mustard seed in the soup pan never hurts either.
 

JR52: Pelagius and Personal Responsibility

A: In our discussions lately, you've been emphasizing the role of personal responsibility in the journey of healing and faith, and I've been waiting for somebody to jump up and accuse you of being a Pelagian. How do you feel about the Pelagian philosophy of free will? For the record, Pelagius was born sometime in the late 300's CE, and died around 418 CE. He and his followers drew vicious attacks from Augustine of Hippo and Jerome, and Pelagianism was condemned as a heresy in 431 CE. 

J: Without getting too much into the details of the debate between Augustine and Pelagius on the nature of free will, I'd have to say that both of them were wrong.  

A: How so?  

J: Neither of them had a balanced view of what it means to be a human being. Augustine had no faith at all in the ability of human beings to consciously change their lives and their communities through human initiative. He thought people would be happier if they just accepted their miserable lot in life. Acceptance of Original Sin and concupiscence was the best they could hope for, in his view. His views on human nature have created no end of suffering for devout Christians over the centuries.  

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, Pelagius preached the opposite extreme. He taught the path of spiritual ascent -- anagogic mysticism -- which says that people can achieve a state of holiness and perfection if they just try hard enough. He placed the entire burden on the individual. This is no less damaging to people's lives than Augustine's idea. Neither man understood -- nor wanted to understand -- that the path of healing and relationship with God is a path of balance. There must be a balance between personal responsibilities and group responsibilities, a balance between personal responsibilities and divine responsibilities. In particular, there must be a willingness on the part of individuals AND on the part of groups to be honest about their own limits. This honesty is the foundation of great strength for souls-in-human-form. Unfortunately, both Augustine and Pelagius hacked away at this foundation with all their might. They both snatched away a source of deep courage and strength for Christians, and insisted on despair and self-blame in its place. It was a cruel thing to do.  

A: So your understanding of personal responsibility isn't the same as what Pelagius taught.  

J: It's important to note that in the Peace Sequence we've been discussing, I've placed personal responsibility as the third "gear" in the sequence, not the first gear. Pelagius and others have tried to place personal responsibility in the first position on the Peace Sequence, not the third position. They've tried to equate free will with personal responsibility, as if they're synonymous, as if they're exactly the same thing. But they're not.  

A: Can you elaborate on that?  

J: Personal responsibility is perhaps the most complex, most advanced skill set that human beings can learn during their lifetime here on Planet Earth. It's not a single skill or a single choice. It's what we referred to earlier as a "meta-choice" -- a pasting together of several smaller choices into something bigger. A meta-choice is so well integrated, so cohesive, so holistic that it often seems like a single choice. But actually it's a blend of several other choices. It's a blend of the choice to be courageous, the choice to be empathetic, the choice to be humble, the choice to be intuitive, the choice to be well organized, and the choice to be self disciplined. It's all those things together.  

A: You mean . . . maturity. Emotional, psychological, and physical maturity.  

J: Yes. It's maturity. It's individuation. It's compassion. It's Whole Brain Thinking.  

A: Using the whole toolkit of the human brain instead of isolated parts of it.  

J: The human brain has long been treated as a single organ, though really it's an interconnected series of semi-autonomous sectors, each with its own specialized ability to "choose" on behalf of the whole. When all the different choices work together towards a common goal, the human brain works smoothly. If "feels" like a single whole, a single choice. But really it's a combination of choices. When a person has arrived at the stage in life when he or she "gets" the concept of personal responsibility, it means his/her biological brain is working in a balanced, holistic way. The fruits of this long process should -- if all goes well -- START to be visible in the actions of people 16 to 18 years of age. The process isn't normally complete, however, until about age 21 or 22. If all goes well.  

A: Last week, after Vancouver lost to Boston in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals, large crowds of young people -- many of them now identified as coming from "good" families -- rioted in downtown Vancouver. There was a lot of looting and vandalism. Something tells me these young people haven't developed the Whole Brain Thinking approach to personal responsibility.  

J: There were some people in the crowd who stepped forward and did the right thing to protect others who were being beaten. These Good Samaritans are the individuals who instinctively know "the right thing to do" in a crisis. Their sense of personal responsibility, of right and wrong, of courage and compassion doesn't desert them in an emergency. In fact, it may only be during an unexpected emergency that they themselves realize for the first time that they "get it." They act first and ask questions later -- fortunately for those they can help.  

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, or they might throw them upon the manure pile. Do not throw pearls [to] swine, or they might make [mud] of it” (Gospel of Thomas 93). Jesus taught several centuries before either Augustine or Pelagius, so of course we don’t expect to see any reference to these later theologians in the Gospel of Thomas. On the other hand, Jesus had unflattering things to say about both the Pharisees and the Herodians, whose teachings resembled those of Augustine and Pelagius respectively. It seems likely that in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus was using the metaphor of “dogs” to refer to the Pharisees and the metaphor of “swine” to refer to the Herodians. It seems Jesus wasn’t impressed with either group’s approach to God’s holy things. Recently, I visited a Toronto Conservatory where several generations of cardinals have learned to enter and exit through the automated roof openings so they can build nests for their young in a warm, safe place. These birds not only provide basic food and shelter for their offspring, but also, in this case, are teaching their young an unusual and complex skill set that calls upon them to maximize their latent potential without exceeding their limits. In other words, the parent cardinals are mentoring their offspring. Photo credit JAT 2017.

A: You're saying that maturity -- personal responsibility -- is the product of many years of education and mentorship of children. Is that right? 

J: Yes. Education is the first "gear" in the process, but education alone isn't enough to guide a child towards maturity and personal responsibility.  

A: As the well-educated youths who rioted in Vancouver proved all too well.

J: Along with education there must also be appropriate, mature mentorship. It's the older mentors who are supposed to guide children in their emotional growth with firm, consistent, boundary-respecting compassionate tough love. Parents, grandparents, teachers, sports coaches, medical professionals, and many others can all be mentors for children if they so choose.  

A: What about ministers and priests? Can they be mentors?  

J: Ideally, yes. However, realistically speaking, they rarely are.  

A: Why not?  

J: Because most of them have deeply embraced either Augustine's idea about human nature or Pelagius's idea. Neither approach helps a young person learn how to find the balance they so desperately need. In addition, those ministers who try to inject balance into their youth work are also the ones most likely to have rejected the idea of the soul and the spiritual life. It's lose-lose for ordained clerics.  

A: Unless they're willing to accept new doctrines of faith.  

J: For that to happen, they'd have to apply their own God-given free will. It's a choice each cleric will have to make on the basis of his or her own conscience. That's what divine courage is all about.

JR30: Foxes Have Holes, Canadians Have Gloves

A: I'd like to go back to some concepts we were discussing a few weeks ago about the soul. (http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/03/saying-67-in-gospel-of-thomas.html). At that time, you stated that souls aren't malleable. Yet you've also said that the soul is hardwired into human DNA, and elsewhere we've talked about the reality of neuroplasticity -- the ability of the brain to grow new brain cells. These three concepts seem to contradict each other. Can you explain?
J: It's not that hard, really. I'm going to use the analogy of a hand in a glove.

A: Okay.
 
J: The core aspect of a person that's eternal -- the soul -- can be likened to "the hand" in our analogy. Once you reach adolescence, your hand reaches its adult size and stops growing. It's yours for life. Everything about your hand is shaped by your DNA --the size, shape, flexibility, skin pigmentation, fingernail growth, and, of course, your unique set of fingerprints. (For those born without hands, the same principle would apply, though obviously the analogy would pertain to a different portion of the biological body). The characteristics of the hand are not malleable. You don't have a small-sized hand one day and an extra-large hand the next day. You don't have a pianist's hands one day and a mechanic's hands the next. Even the fine details, such as your fingerprints, don't change. You have the hand your DNA says you're supposed to have, and that's it. You can't change the overall form or function. The form and function of your hand are pretty much "carved in stone."

A: Except if you can afford plastic surgery.

“Jesus said: Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay down his head and rest” (Gospel of Thomas 86). February Snow, photo credit JAT 2015.

J: That's a surgical intervention intended to override your DNA. For the purposes of our example, we'll stick to a more basic example -- a person who lives in Canada and needs to wear a glove in the winter because it's cold.
 
A: Hey, count me in. I carry my gloves in my coat pocket from October till April. Just in case it suddenly gets cold.
 
J: The soul is like the hand of the hardy adult Canadian in our analogy. Its overall form and function are fixed. And there's nothing wrong with this. In fact, it's very helpful. Can you imagine how confusing life would be if your hand were very small on Monday and very large on Tuesday? How could you get anything done or decide what tools you need? How could you make long term plans? How could you decide on a career, a hobby, or a hands-on pursuit? You'd be in a constant state of anxiety because of the lack of certainty. It's good to be flexible and creative, but you can only afford to be flexible and creative if some things in life are certain. Like the size of your hand.
 
A: And the shape of your soul.
 
J: Exactly. The shape of your soul is fixed. Knowing this can give you great courage, great strength. Knowing who you are as a soul gives you the courage to say "yes" to the things you ought to be doing and "no" to the things you ought not to be doing. It helps you avoid the years of pain and frustration you feel when you're in the wrong job or the wrong location or the wrong relationship. The job you have may be a perfectly wonderful job from a logical point of view, but if it's not the right job for you as a soul, you'll get stressed out, and then you'll get sick, angry, depressed. If you believe you are a soul, and if you believe your soul has a unique blueprint, you have a terrific foundation of certainty and constancy to build your life on.
 
A: And nobody can take it away from you.
 
J: They can't take away your core self, your core blueprint, your soul. These belong solely to you. What they can take away, however, is the biological functioning of the parts of your brain linked to your human physiology. What they can take away is the glove that protects your soul during your human lifetime.
 
A: Explain how the glove works.
 
J: In our analogy of the hand in the glove, the glove represents the parts of your human biology that keep your temporary 3D human body functioning properly. But, like the glove that prevents warm-blooded fingers from freezing in minus 30 degree weather, the glove is essential to the health of the hand it protects. The glove isn't the same substance, if you will, as the hand, but it protects the hand and is absolutely indispensable. After the glove has been worn for a while, it starts to mould itself to the unique shape of the hand it protects. Eventually you can recognize it in a pile of similar gloves because it has a unique combination of bend marks and stains and the like. It takes on the characteristics of its owner's hand because it's malleable.
 
A: You're suggesting, then, that some of the circuitry in the brain and central nervous system is "fixed" -- not malleable -- because it's linked to the soul's blueprint. The rest of the circuits -- the parts that deal with human survival needs -- are not fixed and are instead intended to be malleable. Have I got that straight?
 
J (nodding): The human brain isn't a simple blob of jello where all the parts inside your skull behave exactly alike. The human brain isn't even a single organ -- it's several semi-autonomous organs working together. At least that's the theory. What happens in the case of major dysfunction is that one or more of the "essential services" in the brain goes off-line. Without input from these "essential services," other sectors of the brain don't do their own job as efficiently as possible. They may go into overdrive and try to make up for the loss of the other services by doing more work themselves than they're designed for. Some parts of the brain end up underactive, and other parts end up overactive. These realities are now visible on brain scans.

A: What's the final result of these imbalances?

J: In most cases the final result is a person who's standing outside in bitterly cold weather and wearing a glove that's covered in holes -- big, ragged holes that let the icy wind in and make you want to retract all your fingers into a ball in the end of your coat sleeve. It doesn't work very well.
 
A: So the thing to do is to fix the glove. Mend the holes and put new insulation in.
 
J: Mending the holes is what neuroplasticity is all about. The "essential services" that have gone off-line in the brains of many of today's adults can be gradually healed and restored. Eventually it becomes possible for them to hear what their own inner self has been saying all along. Eventually it becomes possible for them to hear what God has been saying, too.

A: This is a very helpful, hopeful message. It's much easier to begin the journey of healing when you have faith that your inner self is worth the trouble. It's also easier when you have a basic understanding of what it is you're trying to do.
 
J: I can't emphasize enough the connection between insight and healing. The simple experience of achieving insight is not only emotionally and spiritually transformative, but it lays the groundwork for your biological brain (your "glove") to rewire itself in positive, healing, holistic ways. Healing follows insight. Therefore, if you're a tyrant who wants to cripple the people around you so you can acquire fame, money, power, and sex, your most effective strategy is to prevent people from acquiring their own unique healing insights. People can't oppose you and overthrow you if they're busy dealing with all the holes you've put in their heads.
 
A: Holes caused by HDM strategies (http://concinnatechristianity.blogspot.com/2010/11/it-takes-village-non-hdm-village-that.html).
 
J: Yes. Status-based strategies. Plus choices like slavery. Intentional withholding of food and resources to drive up prices, increase poverty, increase fear, and reduce political opposition. Subjugation of women. Refusal to educate children -- either boys or girls or both. Burning of books. Controlling access to information. Lack of judicial transparency. Claims of religious infallibility. These are the strategies of tyrants.
 
A: What you've just described reminds me a lot of Hitler and his SS goons.
 
J: Actually, as I was talking, I was thinking of the religious tyrants of my day. The ones who were oppressing the regular people. Some things haven't changed much in the last 2,000 years.

JR19: The Beatitudes of Luke

A: People are often confused about the meaning of your statements on wealth and poverty. There's a long history of Christians deciding to "imitate you" by giving up all their possessions and taking vows of poverty (among other vows). How do you respond to this interpretation of your teachings?  

J: It's an incorrect interpretation. 

A: In what way?  

J: Psychologically and spiritually, it's an incorrect interpretation. There's no truth to the widespread belief that asceticism is the correct path to knowing God. Asceticism, including the modified form of asceticism preached by the monastic founder Benedict, is an ancient spiritual practice, to be sure, but it's a dangerous one. It's dangerous to the human body and the human brain. Therefore it gets in the way of connection with God. I don't recommend asceticism today. I didn't recommend asceticism 2,000 years ago. 

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in the Kingdom within; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:22-26, translation from The New Oxford Annotated NRSV, 3rd Ed.) Photo credit JAT 2022.

A: The Beatitudes and Woes in Luke (Luke 6:20-26) seem to suggest otherwise. The footnotes in the New Oxford Annotated NRSV state that "the focus [in the beatitudes] is on economic and social conditions, not spiritual states" (p. 107 NT).  

J: Commentators interpret the Lukan beatitudes this way because the commentators themselves have a dualistic understanding of humanity. There's a common belief that economic and social conditions can be separated from spiritual states. But they can't. They've always been intertwined. There's no such thing as a spiritual state that's separate and distinct from economic and social realities. It's one of the great myths of religion -- the idea that people can dissociate themselves from their own thoughts, needs, feelings, and relationships in order to get closer to God. It's pure crap. Abusive, damaging crap.  

A: Explain. 

J: The only path to connecting with God while living as a human being is to become a Whole Brain Thinker. A Whole Brain Thinker is a person who makes balanced choices, holistic choices each day. A Whole Brain Thinker engages all parts of the brain God gave him. He uses his emotions in a balanced, compassionate way. He uses his logic and memory to balance his heart. He honours and respects the needs of his physical body, neither denying himself food nor overindulging at the expense of his physical health. He incorporates his spiritual life into his regular daily life, rather than setting aside just one or two hours per week to attend religious services. He struggles each day to find the balance among all these competing aspects of his true self, but he tries his best because that's the only path open to a self-realized person. To a person who has found the Kingdom.  

A: Are there any measurable benefits to such a path? Any positive outcomes? Any source of spiritual hope?  

J: There are many measurable benefits. Too many to count, in fact. I can't give a precise list, because each person is different, each soul is different, so there's variation from person to person. But there are some overall patterns that can be described. There are overall improvements to physical health, mental health, family relationships, and community relationships that develop automatically when individuals start to take control of their own choices, their own thoughts and feelings. Thousands of researchers in hundreds of different fields would back me up on this one.  

A: I love it when scientific research backs up the Divine Truth! 

J: One area that gets very little research attention is the role of brain health in facilitating the experience of trust. One of the first emotions to get "blocked" in the angry brain, in the addicted brain, is trust. Trust is a complex soul emotion. It's interwoven with relationships in the soul and in the childhood brain. It's also interwoven with the physical body through ongoing touch -- respectful touch, appropriate touch, sentimental touch. There's a reason that folk wisdom recommends daily hugs. Hugs are important. Respectful hugs -- by that I mean non-sexualized hugs -- are hugely important to people's health. On the other hand, abusive contact, abusive touch has the opposite effect on people's biology. It damages brain cells. Stress hormones released in the body damage the brain cells of both the abuser and the abusee. A survivor of childhood abuse is likely to grow up unable to trust. Without the emotion of trust, there's no basis for mature relationship. There's no basis for mature relationship with yourself or with anybody else. It means you have no foundation for a relationship with God.  

A: Because you need to feel trust in order to feel faith. Genuine faith. 

J (nodding): Genuine faith is founded on a person's ability to trust that God actually knows what they're doing! If you aren't able to trust God, then you're always going to be second-guessing God, getting angry with God. You're always going to be judging God. People don't like to admit that they're judging God, but many Christians do it. Every single day they draw up lists of God's "crimes" of omission and commission. You wouldn't believe the number of angry prayers God gets every day. 

A: So how does all this relate to the message of the Lukan beatitudes? 

J: The issue here is the interconnection between trust and faith on the one hand, and anger and addiction on the other hand. The brain isn't wired -- nor should it be -- to allow human beings to live a life of trust and faith AND anger and addiction. People have to make a choice. They have to make a choice between living a life of trust and faith -- a life where they feel alive every day instead of dead inside, empty inside -- OR living a life of anger and addiction. It's an unfortunate fact that once people become addicted to status, physiologically addicted to the dopamine release of "status hits," they tend to want to stick with their "drug of choice." They won't give it up until they decide their addiction is causing harm. They have to stop denying the harm created by the addiction. So let me ask you . . . how many people do you know who've voluntarily given up their status for the sake of inner life, inner freedom, inner joy? 

A: I know several people who've lost their status involuntarily -- not through choice, but through circumstance. Stock market losses. Divorce. Illness. Long-term disability. That sort of thing.  

J: You know a number of people with money, status, privilege, possessions. How would you say they're doing on the "inner joy" scale?  

A: Many aren't doing well. They're getting clinically depressed. They're developing chronic health problems -- a lot of autoimmune stuff. Sleep disorders. Chronic pain. Unrelenting stress.  

J: Right. These responses to stress and status addiction aren't new. They've been around for as long as homo sapiens have been biologically susceptible to status addiction.  

A: The Lukan Woes -- Luke 6:24-26 -- look different when read in the context you've just described. The "consolation" and the "hunger" and the "mourning and weeping" sound a lot like clinical depression.  

J: Clinical depression has a genetic component, but it's also intertwined with internal stresses and external stresses. Sometimes you can't do anything about the external stresses -- things like the Dow Jones average. But the internal stresses have an effect on clinical depression, too. People can really stress themselves out by making choices that harm themselves and harm others. There's a reason that people with clinical depression respond best to a treatment course that involves both appropriate antidepressant medication AND certain kinds of effective psychotherapy. The medication helps your brain build new "wiring," which is necessary for the healing process, while the psychotherapy can help you recognize your harmful choices and learn to make more loving choices.  

A: Nothing new there as far as an empathetic psychiatrist is concerned.  

J: Exactly. And Christianity should jump onto the same page with the empathetic psychiatrists. It's not money that's the root of all evil. Money builds schools, hospitals, roads, etc., etc., etc.  

A: Whereas status addiction builds huge monuments, huge reputations, huge armies, and professional sports teams. 

J: Jared Diamond thinks that civilizations collapse when they harm their own environment and starve themselves to death. But people who are using their brains in holistic, balanced ways have too much common sense to destroy their own environment. Only serious status addicts are stupid enough to destroy their own sustenance for the sake of building a bigger, better Temple.  

A: The history of collapse in a nutshell. 

J: God won't back up status-addicted choices. God would rather bring people Home to heal them and release them from the pain of status addiction than leave them in a morass of profound abuse. And make no mistake -- religion based on status addiction is profoundly abusive. 

A: Including Pauline Christianity. Its doctrines, its teachings.  

J: If the shoe fits . . .