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."

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.

JR51: Fifth Step: Keep Christmas, Toss Easter

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

Christmas tree. Photo credit JAT 2012.

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

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

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

A: What would that mean in practical terms? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

J: Joy is crucial to the experience of faith.  

A: How do you define "joy"?  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A: Any other suggestions?  

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

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

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

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

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

A: Amen to that.

JR50: Fourth Step: Insist on Balance

A: In the past couple of weeks we've been talking about ways to help heal the church. What other suggestions do you have for Christians who want to live a life of faith without compromising their logic or their ethic of inclusiveness?
 
J: I'd definitely say the Church needs to teach holistic balance. They need to teach people on an ongoing basis how to balance the mind, body, heart, and soul.
 
A: This is a topic that could fill many, many books.
 
J: All the better. As I've said before, the path to peace begins with education, not with piety and not with covenant.* The Church needs to expand the source material it relies on to teach its new insights. The Bible by itself won't cut it. Not even the parts of the Bible that teach the truth about God the Mother, God the Father, and me. You can only read from the Gospel of Mark so many times. You need some other source material to work with.
 
A: Can you give some examples?

 
J: Actually, a lot of open-minded ministers are already including other source materials in their services. They're using poetry, music, dance, art, drama, and spontaneous prayer to expand the scope of their services -- to let the experience breathe. There still needs to be some structure to the service -- it isn't healthy, especially for younger children, if ministers do away entirely with a recognizable format -- but these other "languages" are valid ways for people to connect with God's voice. The important thing here is to be conscious of the content and -- most importantly -- the intent of the other source materials that are being chosen. The intent is what matters. There's no point filling a service with new songs and new poems if the new material tells people the same thing they've been told for centuries -- that they're unworthy of God's forgiveness and love and guidance. The new material must encourage people to think in positive ways about themselves and their relationship with God.

A: While not overdoing the whole self-esteem thing.

J: Yes. It's not helpful for a service to slide in the direction of Prosperity Gospel teachings. Prosperity preachers are no more balanced than fire-and-brimstone preachers. Prosperity Gospel teaches various versions of the "God-As-the-Great-Gumball-Machine-in-the-Sky" doctrine -- various versions of the "God has to give you whatever want if you ask in the right way" theory.** These teachings feed -- and feed upon -- people's undiagnosed status addiction. It's not a healthy way to be in relationship with God. A healthy relationship with God involves a balance between your own needs and other people's needs, a balance between encouraging people to be their best selves and encouraging them to take responsibility for harmful choices they've made on purpose. The Church's job is to help people recognize and maintain this balance.

 

“Jesus said: Blessed are those who have been persecuted within themselves. They have really come to know the Father” (Gospel of Thomas 69a). Think of your life as a series of interwoven buoys that lift you up. You can see the individual strands of heart, mind, body, and soul, but when you do your best to weave them together with self-honesty (“persecution within themselves”), you have a sturdy lifeline that can carry you through the storms of human loss and suffering. Photo credit JAT 2021.

 
A: So you don't recommend that ministers get rid of the Prayer of Confession in their services?
 
J: The Prayer of Confession is a crucial part of helping people recognize the balance. Of course, the Prayer of Confession needs to be written with the utmost care. It needs to strike the proper balance between encouraging people to be honest about their intentional errors while at the same time leaving room for them to feel optimistic about their ability to learn from their mistakes and to feel God's forgiveness.
 
A: I remember with excruciating clarity the penitential prayer (or "preface" prayer) from the 1962 Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The Communion Service prepared us for the sacrament of the Eucharist by having us all recite in unison, "We do not presume to come to this thy table, O Merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table [emphasis added]. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen." This prayer always made me feel like crap. The line about not being worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under the table stuck in my head, too, as I'm sure the authors of the prayer intended. In the Anglican Church's newest prayer book for Canada -- The Book of Alternative Services -- this prayer has ostensibly been removed from the new Holy Communion service. But the intent is still there.
 
J: This is exactly the sort of prayer that's harmful to people's relationship with God rather than helpful.
 
A: I think many church leaders and church elders and even some Christian parents are afraid that if faithful Christians aren't forced onto their knees in fear and obedience then mass chaos will erupt in our society, and civilization will fall apart.
 
J: Yes. Many church elders do believe this. They believe this because they've been told to believe this by authority figures in their lives -- whether parents, ministers, theologians, saints, or scripture. They're genuinely frightened. They believe they're doing the right thing in promoting this kind of fear in people's relationship with God.
 
A: What's your suggestion for healing this problem in the Church?
 
J: Ministers and church elders must look to the second step of the Peace Sequence for guidance. The Peace Sequence I taught was education-then-mentorship-then-personal-responsibility-then-peace. Those called to the task of ministering to the spiritual aspect of humanity must first be educated. Then they must accept the mantle of mentorship. They must stop trying to "save souls" and instead start trying to "mentor brains." A minister in the third millennium must be a bit of a jack-or-jill-of-all-trades -- knowledgeable about the history of the church and the history of church doctrine, but also aware of trends in science, psychotherapy, the arts, and politics. An effective minister isn't somebody who's hiding his or her head in the sand like an ostrich. An effective minister isn't somebody who preaches "escape from the sins and evils of the world." Instead, an effective minister is someone who isn't afraid to look at Creation in holistic ways, balanced ways, and wonder-filled ways. An effective minister is someone who teaches people how to live as a human being according to the needs and wishes of the soul.
 
A: The good soul.
 
J: Yes. The good soul that everyone is.
 
A: I suspect that most people in the world today wouldn't even know how to begin to imagine what Church would look like if it operated in this way.
 
J: Well, for starters, the Church would be a place that's integrated into the wider community. This idea isn't really new. Many heart-based Christians have tried to take the church into the community and the community into the church. This is admirable. The great stumbling block to progress in this endeavour has always been the doctrines. It's the doctrines themselves -- and the intent behind those doctrines -- that drive a wedge between the church and the community. You can't go around preaching that you're chosen by God to be saved and not have people notice how hypocritical your claims of love and forgiveness really are.
 
People these days have access to information -- lots and lots of information. They find out pretty quickly when pastors and priests have been charged with crimes against their neighbours. It looks hypocritical. And, indeed, it is.
 
A: I spent two years in full-time studies with theology students, most of whom planned to go on for ordination. Even among United Church candidates, there's a belief that ministers-in-training are there because they've been "called." I have no problem in general with the idea of people feeling called to particular tasks in life. But this was different. These ministers-in-training seemed to believe that their call was somehow "more special" than other people's calls. They didn't see their job as just another job on a par with teaching or medical care or firefighting or environmental cleanup. They thought they were somehow "different." I also noticed that a few of these ministers-in-training got a strange light in their eye when they talked about their special -- and highly controlled -- right to bless the bread and wine of the Eucharist. It was not a pretty sight. It was clear some of them wanted the status of being "specially chosen by God" to bless the Elements, and maybe even facilitate their Transubstantiation into something more elevated. 

J: Well, as for that, there's no transubstantiation -- no transformation of the "inner reality" of the bread and wine. There's mystery and wonder in every stick of bread that's baked in the world, and the Church's bread is no better. Unfortunately, there are too many priests and too many ministers who want the Church's bread to be better so they themselves can claim to be a unique and indispensable part of bringing the bread of God to the people of God. This is not mentorship. This is exactly what it sounds like -- narcissism.
 
A: So part of the journey of healing the church is to heal what it means to be a minister.
 
J: Yes. The minister himself or herself must first understand what it means to live a life of balance -- a life in which the needs of mind, body, heart, and soul are recognized for what they are.
 
It should go without saying that a religious acolyte who intentionally chooses a life of imbalance -- who intentionally chooses a life of asceticism and celibacy and seclusion and obsessive forms of daily worship -- is not ever going to be "simpatico" with his own soul. And he's never going to be equipped to guide others. He's never going to have the personal tools necessary to become a spiritual mentor to others. He who preaches the importance of balance but doesn't live according to the needs of balance is a hypocrite.
 
A: As I recall, this was one of your favourite themes 2,000 years ago.
 
J: Hypocrisy and narcissistic intent are incestuous bedmates in the history of orthodox Western Christianity. Where you find one, you always find the other.
 

* See http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/05/peace-sequence.html
** See also http://concinnatechristianity.blogspot.com/2010/06/ya-gotta-love-those-kevin-trudeau.html

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

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

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

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

“Jesus said: Images are visible to people, but the love within them is hidden in the image of the Father’s love. He will be revealed but his image is hidden by his love” (Gospel of Thomas 83). Standard translations of this saying use the word “light” where I’ve used the word “love.” But for Jesus, Divine Love — rather than hidden knowledge — was the great light that shines upon us all. There was no word in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic that adequately captured this concept of love, so he sometimes used the Greek word φως (phos) to try to capture the intensity and sense of life in God’s love. Strange as it may sound, mystery, and love are always associated with a sense of movement, beauty, grace, and transformation. St. Margaret's Church, London, UK. Photo credit JAT 2023.

 

A: Why?  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J: Yes. It's a question of living your human life in imitation of Christ -- not as Paul taught the nature of Christ, but as I and others have taught the nature of Christ. Since God the Mother and God the Father are THE Christ, it's a pretty good bet that if you live your life in imitation of their love -- their courage, their devotion, their gratitude, their trust -- you're going to be "in the zone."  

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

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

A: The Kingdom of the Heavens.  

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

A: And you?  

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

A: How very Protestant of you. 

* http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/06/first-step-in-healing-church-rescue.html

JR46: First Step in Healing the Church: Restore the Soul

“Jesus said: If your leaders say to you ‘Look! The Kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds will be there before you are. If they say that the Kingdom is in the sea, then the fish will be there before you are. Rather the Kingdom is within you and it is outside of you. When you understand yourselves you will be understood. And you will realize that you are Children of the living Father. If you do not know yourselves, then you exist in poverty and you are that poverty” (Gospel of Thomas 3a and 3b). Photo credit JAT.

A: Jesus, what would you say to those who are asking how we can heal the church of the third millennium?

J: That's an easy one. First you have to rescue the soul. Not save it. Rescue it. Restore it to the place of sanity it deserves. Give it some credit. Give it some trust. Be kind to it. Rescue it the way you'd rescue a dog who's been shut out of the house without food or water. Bring it in from the cold.

A: Or in from the fiery pits of hell.

J: There's a trend at the moment among Progressive Christians who want to try to rescue me. They want to rescue me from the clutches of the evangelical, charismatic, and fundamentalist Christians. While I appreciate the effort, the Progressive movement won't solve anything by trying to rescue me. I'm not the problem. And I'm not the solution.

A: In the Christology course I took, we studied a book by Wayne Meeks called Christ Is the Question (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). At the beginning of the book, Meeks identifies this issue. He says, "As a brand of shampoo promises the answer to frizzy hair, a detergent brand the answer to unbright laundry, a new model car the answer to loneliness and (by innuendo) sexual longing, so Jesus is the answer to -- what? Whatever you wish. Indeed [mainly in the context of American Protestantism] Jesus has become whatever you wish, an all-purpose brand, the answer to all needs, desires, fantasies, and speculations" (page 2).

J: It's true. But it's not really a new development in Christianity. It's exactly the outcome the apostle Paul desired. From the beginning, Paul's intention was to convert me -- a real flesh and blood person -- into the new face of the well-known Saviour brand. Sort of like redoing the label on a familiar brand of soap. You want your target audience to believe your "new and improved" brand of soap can clean away absolutely anything. You know you're lying, but you hope your audience won't catch on -- at least not until you have their money in your pocket.

A: Old lies beget new lies.

J: There's nothing to stop people from taking Paul's imaginary Saviour figure and adding their own imagination to the story. Who's to say they're wrong? It happens all the time in story-telling traditions. Somebody comes up with a captivating (but purely fictional) hero or heroine. The character and the plot catch on. Other people start dreaming up their own chapters in the hero's saga. Some of these catch on, too, and enter the myth. King Arthur is a good example of this. People are still writing their own versions of this story. Five hundred years from now the fanzine additions to favourite comic book heroes will blur together and create one giant new myth about Superman. Traditions evolve. Stories evolve. But story-telling traditions aren't selling fact. They're selling story. Fantasy. Speculation.

A: You're saying that there's too much story in Christianity and not enough fact. 

J: Yes. There's too much story. On the other hand, there's not nearly enough mystery. When I say mystery, I mean there's not enough room for individuals to have a transformative experience of redemption. Redemption and divine love and divine forgiveness are emotional experiences that lie well outside the boundaries of pure logic. Words like "wonder" and "gratitude" and "humbleness" spring to mind. But redemption doesn't just change your thinking. It changes everything -- everything in your whole being. It changes the way your physical body works. It changes the way you see colours. It changes the way you see patterns. It changes the way you learn. It changes the way you remember. The way you smell things. The way you feel rain on your skin. The way you eat your food. The way you sleep. The way you dream at night. The way you dream while you're awake. It changes absolutely everything about your relationship with yourself and with all Creation. Where once you crawled and chewed endlessly as a caterpillar, now you fly with beauty and grace as a winged butterfly and sip from the nectar of flowers. It may sound cliched, but it's true. The experience of transformation is that profound. You were "you" when you were a caterpillar, and you're still "you" as a butterfly. But the way in which you relate to the world has been completely altered. Your whole life is completely changed. The change is so sweet. So kind. So mysterious. It takes your breath away.

A (nodding): Even while you're still living here as a somewhat confused and baffled human being. You don't have to die to feel the mystery. You have to live.

J: The process of redemption -- the experience of mystery -- begins for a human being with the soul. The soul is not fictional. The soul is real. The soul -- the true core self of each consciousness within Creation -- is your laughter. Your empathy. Your conscience. Your curiosity. Your sense of wonder. In other words, all the least explainable, most mysterious parts of being human.

The soul is not one substance, but many substances -- many substances of a quantum nature. Its complexity and sophistication at a quantum level lie outside the bounds of current scientific investigation. But this has no bearing one way or the other on the soul's scientific reality. Scientific researchers have failed to detect many things in nature: the soul is just one of many things on a long list of "undiscovered countries."

A: How would a renewed understanding of the soul help heal the church today?

J: At the moment the Progressive movement has concluded -- based on erroneous starting assumptions -- that the past errors of the church include a belief in the eternal soul, a belief in miracles, and (for some) a belief that a guy named Jesus ever existed. They assume that if these "errors" are swept out of the church, and replaced with teachings based on pure logic and pure praxis, or, on the other end of the scale, replaced with teachings based on pure symbolism and hidden truth, then the church can be restored to a state of health and balance. This is not so.

A: They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

J: Yes. They've failed to realize that the problem with the church is that church leaders long ago put a lien on people's souls, as you and I discussed last time.

A: I was pretty indignant, wasn't I?

J: For good reason. The problem for Christianity is not a belief in the existence of the soul. The problem for Christianity (or rather, one of the problems) is the body of lies being taught about the soul. Over the centuries, Christian orthodoxy has done everything in its power to preserve the lien on the soul so it can preserve its power. The lien has to go. Church leaders are going to have to stand up and be honest about the fact that their teachings on the soul have damaged people's confidence and trust in God. They need to start from square one on the question of the soul -- no resorting to "tradition," no rooting around in the writings of early Church Fathers for justification. This will be a terrifying prospect for most theologians. But it must be done. The answers to their questions are already there -- not in the pages of the Bible, and not in the pages of Plato and Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas and Wesley, but in the pages of God's scientific reality. Theological inquiry must stop clinging to tradition. You're in the third millennium now. Start acting like it.

JR45: Lien or No Lien on Your Soul?

A: Last week, I bought a 2007 Pontiac to replace my 1998 Nissan, which was close to death. The Carproof report found a lien against the Pontiac -- a financing lien held by Chrysler. At first I wasn't worried. I figured the paperwork for the clearance of the lien hadn't yet made it into the computer system at the proper government ministry. But being a thorough person, I decided to phone the ministry yesterday morning to make sure the lien had been cleared. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the lien was still attached to my car! I quickly got the problem straightened out with the dealer I bought the car from. But in the meantime I had a chance to reflect on my feelings about the lien. In Ontario, as in many other jurisdictions, a person who unwittingly buys a car or house that has a lien against it can lose the property they bought. It can be legally seized by the lien holder if the debt hasn't been paid by the original debtor. The car you think you own outright can be towed away in the blink of an eye by the original lender. It's a scary thought. 

“His disciples said to him: When will the resurrection of the dead take place and when will the new world come? He said to them: What you look for has come, but you do not know it” (Gospel of Thomas 51). In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus talks often about “life” and “beginnings,” yet his sayings involving “death” are not what we typically find in eschatological or apocalyptic teachings. Rather, the sayings about “life” and “death” in Thomas seem closely related to parts of the first century CE text known as The Didache, in which “the way of life” and “the way of death” are used as metaphors for how to live a moral life in full relationship with God. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus spends quite a bit of time and energy trying to persuade the disciples to let go of the eschatological doctrines held by the Pharisees and the Essenes at that time.  Photo of my red car. Photo credit JAT 2015.

Anyway, I was thinking about my feelings around the lien on my car. I was noticing how upset I was at the thought that somebody could -- theoretically -- swoop down on my little Pontiac and take it away with no say on my part. I was thinking how I'd paid for the car in full, how I could lose all the money I'd invested (unless I were inclined to sue, which would cost me even more money). I was thinking how unfair it would be for such a thing to happen. I'd bought the car in good faith. Why should I be punished for somebody else's mistake? Or somebody else's willful fraud?

So I'm standing in the bathroom and I'm drying my hair so I can get ready for work and it suddenly dawns on me that the feelings I'm expressing to myself about the lien on the car are the same feelings I have about orthodox Western Christianity's teachings on the soul. The Church teaches us there's a lien on our souls!

J (grinning): Yes. Not a nice feeling, is it?

A: No! It totally sucks. I never noticed till yesterday how deeply, deeply unfair the church's claims are. I knew their claims about the soul were based on the writings of Paul, Tertullian, Augustine, and so on. I knew their claims were self-serving. I knew their claims were just plain wrong in light of God's loving and forgiving nature. But I never felt the unfairness of it before at such a deep level -- at a gut level, a visceral level. It's just wrong to tell people their soul can be taken away from them by lien-holders. It's so . . . so . . . unfair. And cruel. It's cruel to tell people they have to invest themselves wholly in their faith while at any time the great big tow truck in the sky could show up to haul them or their loved ones away to the fiery pits of hell. Not to pay their own debts, but to pay somebody else's debts! Namely Adam and Eve's debts!

J: Ah, the wages of sin.

A: Very funny. This God-and-Devil-as-lien-holders thing means that devout Christians are always looking over their shoulder, waiting for the cosmic tow truck they can't do anything about. It makes people feel helpless. It makes them feel like slaves-in-waiting. Their soul isn't their own. Their time isn't their own. Their life and their choices and their free will aren't really their own. They're always on tenterhooks because they think they don't fully own their own soul. This is abusive.

J: That's why it works. From the perspective of certain members of the church hierarchy -- stretching all the way back to the time of Paul and his backers -- it's an excellent strategy for gaining control of the populace. People who feel helpless and hopeless tend to cause less trouble. They ask fewer questions. They tend to do what they're told because they're frightened. Frightened people turn to strong leaders -- in this case, church leaders. The Church is using a psychological control strategy that other groups in other cultures have used to similar effect. Paul's teachings have been particularly successful in this regard. 

The teachings of myself and other like-minded spiritual teachers are useless for this kind of psychological strategy. Totally useless. You can't frighten people into submission if you're actually giving them real hope. Real hope doesn't come from words. Real hope comes from actions -- from people's ongoing choices to help their neighbours. Real hope comes from healing and relationship and dignity and change. If the early church had wanted to teach real hope, it wouldn't have chosen the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Chalcedon Creed as its operative statements of faith.

A: Ah. You mean they might have mentioned the themes of divine love, forgiveness, healing, redemption (as opposed to salvation), and egalitarianism?

J: If the bishops in the first few centuries of Christianity had spent one tenth the time on compassion that they spent on their endless arguments over the "substance" of the Trinity, medieval Europe would have been a much nicer place to live in.

JR44: Mark's Themes of Understanding and Strength

This is a research paper I wrote in 2009 for a course on New Testament exegesis. It explains in detail some of the major themes found in the Gospel of Mark. 

The paper pasted here is exactly as I wrote it, including the endnotes, where I confess I don't yet understand how the word "artos" (leavened bread, loaf) is being used by Mark. Since then (with Jesus' help), I've figured it out.

“Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out — beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.’ They said to one another, ‘It is because we have no bread.’ And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ Then he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?'” (Mark 8:14-21). Photo credit JAT 2021.

 

 
RADICAL MESSIAH AND THE SHEMA: MARK’S THEMES OF
UNDERSTANDING AND STRENGTH

Graham Stanton, in his discussion about the Gospel of Mark, refers to "Mark’s genius as a story-teller" (41), and says, "perhaps Mark should be seen not so much as a block of toffee (form criticism) or as a string of pearls (redaction criticism), but as a piece of rope with interwoven strands" (41). Later in the chapter, he asks these questions: "Why was this gospel written? Many scholars have proposed quite specific historical or theological settings. But they are usually able to make reasonable sense of only one or two of the many interrelated strands which the evangelist develops" (57-58). One strand which I feel has been overlooked is Mark’s overt addition to the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9) in Chapter12:29 of the Gospel. So obvious would this change have been to a Jewish Christian audience in the early to mid-60's CE that the question of Mark’s purpose must be raised. What was he signalling to his audience with this change? Why did he dare add to a well-known prayer that, according to the Jewish Study Bible, was being formally recited late in the Second Temple period (379)? It is the thesis of this paper that Mark did not accidentally alter the Shema through lack of knowledge, and that he did not accidentally link the Shema to the commandment in Leviticus 19:18 to love one’s neighbour as oneself (12:31). There was a purpose to his addition of the phrase "and with all your mind (διανοίας)" to the existing formulation of "you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart (καρδίας) and with all your soul (ψυχnς) and with all your might (iσχύος)." This supposition is supported by Mark’s repetition of the Shema in 12:32-33, altered yet again, this time without genitive cases, and with a changed emphasis to understanding (συνέσεως). Here the sympathetic – and sensible (νουνεχwς) – scribe is allowed by Mark to voice the two most important commandments: "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ – this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." The penny then drops for readers as Jesus says to the scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God" (present tense verb, 12:34). Mark has just presented a major clue to unravelling some of the strands of his gospel.

The altered Shema is part of a teaching chreia (12:28-34) that can be seen, it is argued here, as an early creedal statement, the climax and summary of Jesus’ teachings about what it means to be "not far from the kingdom of God" (12:34). It is difficult to understand Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom of God, says Mark in different ways throughout the Gospel. Even Jesus’ closest friends, the disciples, do not understand (4:10-13). The whole thing can be boiled down to two commandments (12:28-31), which sound easy at first, but are much more difficult to practice than the old system of "burnt offerings and sacrifices," a system which requires Jews to show unswerving loyalty. (Loyalty, not private emotion, is the meaning of the verb aheb, "love," as it applies to the Shema, according to the Jewish Study Bible (380) and Sakenfeld (376)). A big part of Jesus’ version of faith, according to Mark, is the requirement that disciples use their minds. Fideism is not acceptable. God’s faithful must question the specific ways in which religious teachings are being misused (e.g. 2:23-28; 3:1-6; 7:1-23; 12:38-40; 12:41-44), just as in the past Jews once questioned harmful religious and societal conventions (e.g. Exod. 20:2-6; 21:1 - 22:16; 22:20-12). (Mark thus shows Jesus to be following the "wilderness spirit" of the Sinai Covenant in the Torah (cf. Mark 1:3,4,12), as opposed to the Temple and hierarchy-based Zion Covenant presented in the Psalms and the Deuteronomistic History.[1]) God’s faithful must be willing to not only open their hearts and souls to God’s kingdom, but also their minds (διάνοια) – their innate capacity to think and understand in moral ways (Harder 125). Moral thinking and moral decision-making is a higher form of loving God than being obedient and loyal to the laws of the Zion Covenant.

This kind of "thinking faith," directed towards loving God (e.g. 1:35-39; 15:25-32), loving others (e.g. 9:33-37; 10:41-45), and loving themselves (e.g. 12:31)[2], will put them in opposition to others – family (e.g. 3:21; 3:31-35; 10:28-31), friends (e.g. 6:1-3; 14:66-72), Pharisees (e.g. 3:6, 12:13-17), scribes and chief priests (e.g. 2:6-9, 3:16-17; 11:18), and Gentiles (e.g. 5:14-17; 15:16-20) – who choose to follow honour-oriented traditions. Understanding is not an instantaneous gift from God, however (clearly evidenced in 8:14-21)[3]. Nor is understanding a gift conferred only on the disciples closest to Jesus (e.g. 5:33-34; 9:33-37; 10:17-22; 12:34; 14:6-9). Understanding is a long, difficult process which disciples must willingly participate in (e.g. 4:13; 4:33-34; 10:23-27; 13:9-13). It requires strength, a theme which Mark repeatedly intertwines with the requirement for understanding, as shall be shown. God’s faithful must commit their strength (iσχύς) to a process spread out over time and geography (hence Jesus’ travels back and forth across Galilee and adjacent territories) and also over boundaries of class and honour (hence Jesus’ willingness to heal and teach people from disadvantaged groups). It is a process open to all people, regardless of race, religion, gender, state of mental and/or physical health, wealth, or status. But it is a difficult process.

Mark – for all that he is trying to describe a "thinking faith" – seems very wary of directly invoking Hellenistic or Judeo-Hellenistic notions of philosophy, rational thought, or "wisdom" (σοφία). Σοφία is used 51 times in the New Testament, but only once in Mark (on the lips of the surprised synagogue attendees in 6:2). The adjective σοφός appears 22 times in the New Testament, but not once in Mark. Whatever claim Mark is making, it is not a claim for σοφία (wisdom, insight, intelligence, knowledge, divine knowledge). He prefers the cognates of the more "practical" verbs συνίημι (understand, comprehend, perceive, have insight into) and διαλογίζομαι (discuss, argue, consider, reason, wonder about, question). It is notable that, although he uses the adverb νουνεχwς once, and the verb νοέω a few times, he does not use the Greek word νοuς, a noun meaning perception, understanding, thoughts, or reason. Νοuς is attested since Linear B; it was used by Plato to mean "the highest of the three parts of the soul" (Harder 122), and still later used in the post-canonical, apocryphal era of Jewish literature in a sense associated with the will or deliberation (Harder 125). It is difficult to tell whether Mark avoids using νοuς because in Hebrew there is no direct equivalent for it, and the Septuagint rarely uses it (Harder 124) (compare to Paul, who uses it in Romans and 1 Corinthians); or whether Mark avoids using it because he has a general tendency to not include abstract "wisdom words" such as "peace," "hope," and "righteousness" words in his writing[4].

It is interesting to ponder Mark’s non-use of the "wisdom words" frequently attested in books of the Old Testament, as well as in the other Gospels, Acts, and the accepted letters of Paul. Certainly it can be argued that these words are malleable enough to serve any purpose ("Peace in our time!"). Perhaps, by not making abundant use of "wisdom words," Mark hopes to make his readers think, to apply their minds in new ways to the difficult question of what it means to be close to the kingdom of God. (Mark himself lends this impression in 13:14, where he suddenly interjects with "let the reader understand (νοείτω).") "Out with the poetry, in with the praxis," seems to be his approach. He therefore intentionally avoids "telling us" at length what Jesus said, and insists on "showing us" what Jesus did – what Jesus’ actions and choices were, where he went, who he talked to, who he aided, and what he did despite his friends’ lack of courage, faith, and love. Mark’s Radical Messiah is a man of relatively few words who teaches by example, and is not interested in raising his own status. (Even the scribe in 12:28-34 is accorded great dignity by Jesus – and also by Mark.) Therefore, for Mark, the examples are what matter most. (By contrast, Matthew’s Jesus seems very fond of the sound of his own voice, and John’s Jesus has a case of the "I ams.")

It is clear from a review of word usage articles that, by the first century CE, there was a blurring between Jewish and Hellenistic concepts of heart, mind, and soul, and this may explain why Mark felt he needed to add to the traditional phrasing of the Shema. In the Septuagint translation of the Shema, for instance, leb is rendered as καρδία; yet Holloday’s Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon shows 11 different meanings for leb: the physical heart organ; the seat of vitality; the seat of one’s feelings and impulses; mind, character, disposition, inclination, loyalty, concern; determination, courage, high morale; intention, purpose; mind, attention, consideration, understanding; the self; conscience; metaphorically the "interior" or "middle"; and finally the organizing power of living beings (nefesh – the word which is translated as ψυχή in the Septuagint’s version of the Shema ) (171-172). Harder points out that Septuagint translators rendered the Hebrew leb or lebab as νοuς only six times, as διάνοια 38 times, and as καρδία in most other instances (124). Sorg reports that the Septuagint occasionally translates leb as ψυχή (181). Meanwhile, ψυχή itself (used 101 times in the New Testament) encompasses a broad range of meanings: the whole person or creature; a person’s actual, physical life; the seat of the emotions; the inner life or personality of a person; the part of the person that lives on after death (Harder 682-686; Carrigan). Καρδία can be used literally to mean the physical heart, or it can be used metaphorically. In the New Testament, it is used in 148 passages with a variety of meanings: the seat of intellectual and spiritual life; the inner person or personality/ego; the seat of doubt and hardness; the mind or reason; will, desire, intention (Sorg 182-183). To state, as Cameron does, that "since Hebrew psychology lacked precise terminology, there is some overlapping in the use of nepesh, leb/lebab, and ruah" is something of an understatement. Perhaps Mark, aware of the confusion amongst Jews and Jewish Christians about the meanings of leb and καρδία, nefesh and ψυχή, decides to make certain that no one can dispute the necessity of "mind" and "understanding" (as distinct from Hellenistic wisdom!) by his explicitly including both διανοίας and συνέσεως in the crucial teaching chreia of 12:28-34.

Mark wants to talk about the Radical Messiah’s "thinking faith," but at the same time he demonstrates a prudent fear of both Jewish and Roman authorities. He does not wish to be arrested for apostasy or political treason (he is writing during a time of heightened political-religious conflict, both within Judaism itself, and between Judaism and the Roman Empire). Therefore, while he shies away from "wisdom words," he makes ample use of allegory. It is difficult, for instance, to see Mark’s repeated use of boat crossings on the "Sea" of Galilee as anything but a metaphor. It is a lake, after all, and not a very big one, at that – a fact that early Jewish Christian readers in the region would have known. Pheme Perkins points out that the Q Source has no sayings about fishing or grapes, and no stories about storms on the Sea of Galilee (94-95). Mark, however, introduces the Sea of Galilee, fishermen, and boats in his first chapter (1:16, 1:16-20, and 1:19-20 respectively). He is hinting at something. What does a boat do? we then must ask. A boat helps us cross the waters. What have bodies of water traditionally represented in Jewish thought? The forces of chaos that are overcome by the sovereign powers of God (Gen. 1:2 - 2:3). And how does one overcome the forces of chaos? In part, by using one’s strength – at which point it is very hard to overlook the similarity in sound between the word for "fish" (iχθύς) and the word for "strength" (iσχύς). (We know that Paul uses plays on words, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that Mark does the same.) Once this is observed, the two miraculous feedings of the crowd with bread and fish (6:34-44 and 8:1-9) become emblematic of the "strength" with which Jesus feeds the people [5,6] – the same strength that is spoken of in a positive light twice in 12:28-34, in a negative light in 14:37, in a perplexing light in 3:27 and 5:4, and in a contextual way in 15:46, where Joseph of Arimathea has the strength to roll a "very large rock" across the tomb by himself.

In the important verses of 8:14-21, Mark draws an overt link between the allegorical feedings – with their relationship to the theme of strength – and the issue of understanding. Here, while Jesus and the disciples are sitting yet again in their boat (8:14 – the final reference to boats in the Gospel of Mark), Jesus castigates the disciples harshly, in several different ways, because they do not yet understand (νοεiτε) or realize (συνίετε). This pericope is filled with Greek verbs related to the thinking faculties of people (thinking faculties which include input from the senses): the disciples "forgot" the bread (8:14); Jesus cautions them to "see" the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod (8:15); the disciples "reasoned" among themselves (8:16); Jesus "knows" their attempt at reasoning and asks them why they are still "reasoning" that way instead of "understanding" and "realizing" (8:17); have their "hearts" been hardened? Jesus asks (8:17); do they have "eyes" that don’t see, and "ears" that don’t hear? (8:18); do they not "remember"? (8:18); do they not yet understand? (8:21). Verses 14-21 of Chapter 8 can be seen to conclude and epitomize the first half of Mark’s Gospel, as some scholars have suggested (Perkins 131); however, reading the Gospel in this way does, as Perkins points out, present "as much of a challenge to the audience as the ending of the Gospel does" (131) because of its critical depiction of the disciples. The disciples, both male and female, lack understanding and strength. They have not applied "all their mind" and "all their strength" to loving God or their teacher, Jesus, and therefore – unlike the scribe of 12:28-34 and perhaps unlike Joseph of Arimathea – they have not been able to draw near to the kingdom of God. It is not enough to be loyal, according to Mark. It is not enough to be close to the Rabbi. The disciples will not be able to understand what the kingdom of God is like until they give themselves heart, soul, mind, and strength to the praxis of loving God and loving other people, the sort of praxis which Jesus models on every page of this complex gospel.

ENDNOTES

1. The two covenant thesis in the Jewish Bible is convincingly argued by W.M.

2. Not all scholars agree that 12:29 commands people to love themselves (Klassen 389).

3. Mark does not tell us how Jesus acquired his understanding. We know only that God has adopted Jesus as his son (1:11 and 9:7), and is well pleased with him.

4. In marked contrast to other New Testament authors such as Matthew, Luke in Luke/Acts, and Paul, Mark uses the words "peace" (only 3 times), "hope" (zero times), "love" (X 4), "joy" (X 1), "freedom" (X 0), "glory" (X 3), "just/righteous" (X 3) or "holy" (X 7). (Nelson's Concordance)

5. I have not yet figured out how "artos" is being used in these passages.

6. In this context, the numerological references in the two miraculous feedings (e.g. 5,000 people, 12 baskets of leftovers, 7 loaves) can be read as being indicators to treat these passages allegorically (unlike the healing miracles, which Mark treats in a factual way).


WORKS CONSULTED

Berlin, Adele and Marc Zvi Brettler, Eds. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.

Cameron, W.J. "Soul." New Bible Dictionary. 2nd Ed. Ed. J.D. Douglas. Leicester and Wheaton IL: Inter-varsity and Tyndale House, 1982. 1135.

Carrigan, Henry L. "Soul." Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Ed. David Noel Freedman. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000. 1245.

Coogan. Michael D., Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, College Edition. 3rd Ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Ellison, John W., Ed. Nelson’s Complete Concordance of the Revised Standard Version Bible. New York: Nelson & Sons, 1957.

Harder, Georg. "νοuς." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 122-130.

Harder, Georg. "ψυχή." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 676-689.

Goetzmann, Jurgen. "σύνεσις." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 130-134.

Holloday, William L., Ed. A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988.

Klassen, William. "Love in the New Testament and Early Jewish Literature." The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 4. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 381-396.

Morrison, Clinton. An Analytical Concordance to the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979.

Perkins, Pheme. Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007.

Sakenfeld, Katharine Door Sakenfeld. "Love in the Old Testament." The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 4. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 375-381.

Schattenmann, Hans-Georg. "Iσχύς." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 712-716.

Sorg, Theo. "καρδία." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 2. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 180-184.

Stanton, Graham N. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.