JR58: The "My Fellow American" Interfaith Initiative

A: I was contacted this week by a person who's working with the Unity Productions Foundation on an interfaith initiative called My Fellow American. The goal of the initiative is to encourage Americans to think of their fellow Americans who happen to be Muslim as fellow Americans. There's a 2 minute film produced by Unity, and there are also uploaded videos and stories from various supporters of the idea that all Americans are equally American, regardless of religion. What do you think of this project?

J (grinning): I think you should post the address.

A: Oh yeah. Good thinking. The address is http://myfellowamerican.us/

I discovered when I went to watch the film how truly outdated my computer really is. Computer updates are not my thing. Good thing the computer at work has more juice in it.

The person who contacted me also wondered if I could maybe Tweet about the project if I checked it out and liked it. I don't know how to tell her this, but I don't even own a cell phone. So the Tweeting is pretty much out.

J: Everybody has their own way of communicating with others.

A: Anyway, I certainly can't argue with the basic principle of treating all your neighbours with dignity and respect and compassion and kindness regardless of religion. This is what makes a society internally strong.

J: The one thing people have to remember is that all human beings are children of God. A Muslim woman is just as a much a child of God as the saints of Christian history. To deny a woman dignity and respect simply because she's Muslim is to withhold divine love from your neighbour. It's as simple as that.

A: I think some people are afraid that if they love and accept the woman with an open heart they'll be required to love and accept all the religious teachings that are part of her tradition. At least that's how they view it.

"For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I awake -- I am still with you" (Psalm 139:13-18). Psalm 139, apart from a rather unloving interpolation in verses 19-22, is a deeply personal and humble reflection on the unique relationship each human being has with God. There are no Chosen People. God sees us only as individuals making difficult decisions about faith, hope, and love. Pictured here is a dahlia with its welcome visitors: Creation feeding Life, Life preserving Creation. Photo credit JAT 2025.

 
J: Religious teachings are very much a human thing. Divine love, on the other hand, is a soul thing. Divine love always trumps religious teachings. Every religion on the face of Planet Earth today has problems -- problems with abusive doctrines, problems with gender issues, problems with "law," and problems with balance. Every religion. Islam is no different from Christianity in this regard. Sure, Islam has some problems. But so does orthodox Western Christianity. This is no excuse for failing to love your neighbour and failing to believe in his or her best self. Everybody's struggling. People of all religions have to hold each other up. People have to work together. It's the only way to find healing.

A: The 10-year anniversary of 9/11 is coming up. Some people haven't got over the shock. They're still looking for someone to blame.

J: If they're looking for someone to blame, then they should be looking at the unassailable laws of neurophysiology, not at religion. Only a seriously, seriously dysfunctional individual thinks it's okay to blow up buildings "in the name of God." This applies across the board to all religions and all cultures. Christianity has had its fair share of psychopaths in martyrs' clothing, too. Psychopathy is a social, medical, and educational issue. Psychopathy is about as far from genuine relationship with God as it's possible to get.

The vast majority of Muslims and Christians and those of other faiths are doing their best to get closer to God -- not farther away from God and faith -- even though they make mistakes along the way. People of all faiths are constantly learning, changing, growing. Traditions change. Religious teachings change. The one core truth that doesn't change is the reality of the good soul, and the potential of all human beings to help each other understand this reality. If you allow yourself to be open to this truth, amazing things can happen in your community. Whatever community you happen to live in.

A: There are some psychopaths in positions of religious authority.

J: Yes. But there are also psychopaths in positions of political and economic and educational authority. Psychopathy is an entirely separate issue from the question of faith. Inherent to the definition of psychopathy is a total lack of conscience and empathy -- in other words, a disconnection from all that enables true faith, true relationship with God. A psychopath seeks status, not faith, when he or she chooses to blow up buildings. It's entirely a question of status addiction. Can we say this status addiction is true of "all Muslims"? Well, OF COURSE NOT. This would be the same as saying that every person who lives in Boston must be a status-addicted psychopath simply because he or she happens to live in Boston. It isn't right or fair to make such a claim.

A: Claims such as this have been fairly common over the course of history, though.

J: True. These claims fall under the umbrella of the HDM Myths that you posted about on Concinnate Christianity. (http://concinnatechristianity.blogspot.com/2010/11/it-takes-village-non-hdm-village-that.html ). Group myths of Hierarchy, Dualism, and Monism. Again, these are human myths, human choices, that have nothing to do with the faith of the soul. Challenge the myths and heal the soul, remembering always that the soul is not the aspect of the self that's perpetuating these myths. It's certain parts of the biological brain that have gone off the rails, so to speak, and now enjoy the addictive high of schadenfreude. For a person suffering from status addiction, there's just nothing better than a good hit of mental revenge and religious hatred to get you through the day. It's cheaper than buying whiskey and cigarettes.

A: That's a pretty tough statement.

J: Addiction is a pretty tough reality. Addiction destroys lives. Better to be honest about its effects.

A: Because, as you often say, healing follows insight.

J: My hat's off to the My Fellow American participants because they're doing their best to help others in their community be their best selves. And they're working together as a team to teach and share and communicate in relationship with each other. As an angel, I can't ask for more than that.

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Addendum, October 16, 2023: It's been 12 years since I wrote this post with the soul who lived as Jesus.

The world has changed greatly during this time. One of the unfortunate changes has been an ideological shift towards monism within many educational institutions and humanitarian organizations in Western nations. This shift has taken society further away from the idea that people hold individual responsibility for their own choices. In place of the long-held Judeo-Christian value system built on free will, personal responsibility, and accountability to your own inner wisdom (what we call "conscience"), there has been a push to impose a value system based on "group banners" behind which individuals can hide.

No one can be his or her best self if "group banners" (especially religious "group banners") are used as an excuse for hanging onto harmful traditions, hateful actions, or justification for revenge.

Mother Father God and your angels don't care what your religious teachers say. What matters to God is how you choose to use your free will as a human being during your time on Planet Earth. If you decide it's a great idea to hate other people on the basis of their religion, that's not okay with God. The recent resurgence of anti-Semitism is therefore not okay with your own soul or your angels.

Anti-Semitism isn't the only example of extreme hatred in today's world, but right now it's a cauldron of suffering, especially for those who are doing the hating.

It's your job as a human being -- as a soul in human form -- to learn how to look past the "group banners" that breed hatred and divisiveness. Seek the best in others and stand your ground as a child of God. Treat each person you meet as an individual who is responsible for his or her own choices towards others and towards God. This probably means you'll have to reject some of the destructive religious doctrines that are causing problems in the world today. But if that's what you have to do so you can hear your own conscience, that's what you have to do.

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.