No End Times?

"Today, you will be with me in Paradise."

~Luke 23:43

That the world will end someday is not in doubt, either by human hands or when the Sun goes Red Giant. That it will end because of some Biblical apocalypse is what is in question here.

In 1 Peter 4:7, Simon Peter (if he is truly the author of this epistle, which does not seem too far-fetched) states something that is clearly false. He says "the end of all things is near." Meaning the return of Christ, the end of this world and the dawn of the new world. And there is no reasonable doubt that he was dead wrong. Here we are 2000 years later, and the world keeps rolling along.

Peter is by no means alone in this, in fact the overwhelming weight of evidence says that the apostles thought that Jesus would return and end this age and inaugurate a new one within their lifetimes or at least very soon. This is in fact a great witness to the document stability of the Synoptic Gospels after about 200 a.d., because surely if any part of the Gospels were likely to be redacted it would be the embarrassingly wrong part about the imminent return.

The overwhelming weight of evidence in the New Testament is that the apostles all believed, and Jesus possibly taught, that the end of the world as we know it would happen soon. Within one human lifetime from Jesus' ministry.

"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death

before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” ~ Mt. 16:27-28

“Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age? . . . This generation will not pass away until all of these things take place.” 

~ Mt. 24:3,34

“You (Chief Priests and Sanhedrin) shall see the Son of Man

sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

~ Mt. 26:64

“If I want him (John?) to remain until I come, what is that to you.  You follow me!”
~Jn. 21:21-23
(According to church tradition, all the apostles

except John died before the destruction of

Jerusalem in 70 A.D.)

“All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not

finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”
~Mt. 10:22-23

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” ~Hebrews 1:1-2

“Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down

for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” ~1 Corinthians 10:11

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not

neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging

one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” ~Hebrews 10:24-25

“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming,

so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.” 

~1 John 2:18

This is all... rather embarrassing, isn't it? I mean, here are all the leaders of the early Church and seemingly Jesus himself saying that a real physical Kingdom of God right here on this Earth is going to happen really quickly. Not 2000 years later, but within a single lifetime. If that is wrong, what else could be wrong? This potentially throws in doubt the entire teaching of the New Testament.

There are a couple things that must be clearly understood to place this into context. The first and most important thing to understand is that the idea of a non-material heaven, a Kingdom of God in an entirely spiritual realm, was completely alien to Jewish thought at this time. Remember that the Pharisees of the time taught a physical resurrection, and that up until relatively recently (prior to approximately the 2nd or 1st centuries B.C.) most Jews did not believe in any afterlife worthy of the name at all. In fact in Jesus' time the leaders of the Temple, the Sadducees, did not believe in the resurrection either. The Sadducees, and most Jews prior to about 200 b.c., believed in Sheol which is a shadowy half-life not really worthy of being called much of an afterlife, and both the righteous and the evil went there upon death. So the idea of a "spiritual heaven" or a spiritual Kingdom was completely alien to the thought of the first disciples. It was not part of their religious lexicon. They were thoroughgoing materialists in that sense. Any Kingdom of God, any heaven, any afterlife, would have to take place physically here on this Planet Earth.

Secondly, the New Testament is not infallible and there are times, times recorded by the Gospels, when the Twelve clearly didn't understand Jesus' message very well. So even if the Gospel writers desired intently to put down their information accurately (which I think is not unlikely,) they couldn't really put down anything they themselves did not understand, except perhaps sometimes as a terse quote without explanation. The Gospels have clearly also been edited, such as is the case with the end of Mark which the earliest texts did not have. This was added material. The Gospels were composed and edited by people who shared this extremely materialistic view of the Kingdom. Since the material kingdom didn't happen in Jesus' lifetime, he was killed, it must happen soon after.

Thirdly, there is plenty of evidence for those who choose to read it that whatever the disciples thought, Jesus thought differently. Jesus himself said "the kingdom is upon you" meaning that it was happening right then. He also told Pilate,

"My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants

would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders.

But now my kingdom is from another place." 

~John 18:36

This is a clear and unequivocal statement that while the Kingdom of God might have been on the Earth while he himself was on it, it is no longer. In Matthew 22 he gives what may be a veiled denial of the physical resurrection:

“At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage;

they will be like the angels in heaven (i.e. not physical but spiritual beings).

But about the resurrection of the dead— have you not read what

God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob?' He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

~Matthew 22:30-32

In other words, that the Patriarchs were alive now in heaven. Also in Luke 23:43 Jesus says to the thief crucified with him, "Today, you will be with me in Paradise." How can he be with him in Paradise that day if he is supposed to have to wait for the resurrection of the dead at the physical end of the world? He can't.

There are also multiple occasions towards the end of John where Jesus is teaching his disciples prior to his crucifixion, that indicate that Jesus' kingdom is not a physical place in this world but a place in God's spiritual domain.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am,

and to see my glory, the glory you have given me

because you loved me before the creation of the world."

~John 17:24

This is clearly something that is to happen in a non-physical reality. "Be with me where I am -" Well Jesus is shortly to leave the world at this point. Could human eyes and minds even perceive a glory of this magnitude? Also note John 14:2-3

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told

you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and

prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me

that you also may be where I am.

Where is Jesus' Father's house? In Jerusalem? Maybe Miami Beach? No, God's house is in God's realm. And that is where Jesus is referring to when he says "that you also may be where I am."

So the coming "End Times" which so many Christians so eagerly wait for, aren't coming, any more than they were for the first believers. Rather, Jesus' only Earthly kingdom was when he was here on Earth, and afterwards his kingdom is entirely spiritual. There is no physical resurrection of the dead, no physical kingdom on the physical planet Earth. Your devout loved ones don't have to wait 2000 years for Jesus to arrive and reanimate their bones a la Herbert West. They are with Jesus immediately upon death.

My Desert

Image by Edal Anton Lefterov

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness

to be tempted by the devil.

~Matthew 4:1

I have two different ideas about what I might like my future to look like. One vision of my future, if God wills me to be around then, is a garden. A lovely rural farm with plenty of green growing things. This is the more practical vision: it makes sense. With a lovely small rural farm I might have all that I need: water, shelter, and a variety of foods I could grow. And I love gardens. Surely I should desire this.

The other vision is much more strange, much less practical. There is in fact almost nothing that could appeal in such a vision. A mountain in a desert. A primitive home hewn from the rock. This is not so much a home as a tomb. Who would want this? To quote Prince Feisal in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, "There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing."

There is something in the desert, and it is this nothing. Why did so many of the Old Testament prophets go wandering in the desert? Why did John the Baptist live in the desert when he wasn't baptizing in the Jordan? Why did Jesus go into the desert? This. When you are in the desert, there is nothing and nobody but you, God and the Devil. That's all you get. This would be a truly frightening prospect for most people. People go mad in the desert.

The problem with NOT living in the desert though, is you have so many exciting things to distract yourself with. Maybe this morning you will start your day out with a nice double cappucino, go on to a challenging and interesting day at your workplace, leave and go out for a nice meal at that new restaurant you have been hearing so much about, and then to round out the evening watch the new Avengers movie on DVD or play the latest games. And you are diverted from ever once thinking about yourself or God. Certainly you are diverted from paying attention to any failings or weaknesses you may have as a person. You don't have to improve yourself.

I don't really want to be a part-time child of God. I want to do it full-time, intently, seriously. Do you remember the story of Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus in Bethany, and how Martha was so busy with the preparations for the meal and making things ready for her guests and so on? Meanwhile her sister Mary was just sitting at Jesus' feet, listening. Martha was unhappy about this and so asked Jesus to tell Mary to help Martha with the work.

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,

but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better,

and it will not be taken away from her.”

~Luke 10:41-42

God bless the Marthas of this world, but I am not one. I'm like Mary. I'm going straight for the good stuff. That is why I sometimes dream of a cave in the desert. I don't want to read about the god-mad saints and prophets, people like John the Baptist, people like St. Anthony. I don't want to read about the mystics like Meister Eckhart or Marguerite Porete or the Beguines or St. Francis. I want to be like them. That's a steep mountain to climb, I know, but why settle for the washing-up?

However, the problem with somedays is that they don't exist. Someday never comes. If I ever do live in the desert, it won't be someday, it will be that day's now. If I live on a farm, that will be that day's now. You think about someday and in so doing don't focus on where you are here and now, which is the only thing you know you have.

So I have to live in my desert in the here and now, in a suburb of a major city. That is rather difficult. So many distractions are near at hand. But this is the desert I got. I am fortunate in that I don't have to work, or at least not to any significant extent. I don't have a car, I have to bike anywhere I want to go, so that cuts down on recreational activities. So it is not that different from a desert. But I do have distractions far too readily to hand.

One thing I am learning is how little I can live on. Today I had a yogurt and some slices of homemade whole wheat bread and some chocolate. I'm not hungry, I just don't want more than that. I don't have a car, I have my bicycles including a cargo tricycle to carry groceries in. So when I need stuff I can get it but there is some austerity involved. It's not like popping round to the shops in a car. Hauling 60 pounds of grub on a big heavy tricycle that might as well be made of cast iron, it's not hardly convenient. But it's good. Keeps me from doing it casually.

This is not something most people would do, but the consolations I have already received from following this path however imperfectly are such that I cannot imagine not doing it, wherever the future might bring me.

Why go into the desert? Why live like I am in the desert when I am here? Because being in the desert with intention is how you burn away whatever is in you that keeps you from God.

Mango's Father

My cat Mango

"We are all creatures of one family."

~St. Francis of Assisi

I was praying my regular prayer* and I got to the part where I chant "Kyrie Eleison" and "Christe Eleison." I was sitting cross-legged on the bed and my cat Mango was curled up right in front of my legs, happy in my presence and maybe my singing (because I sing silly songs to him from time to time.)

I had actually had a kind of rough prayer session to start out with. When you have obstacles, you know it when you pray, or I do anyway. By the time I started the chanting part, things were much better. And I looked down at Mango who was curled up there so happy, not quite in my lap but right in front of it.

And I thought, "there he is, resting in the love of his adoptive human father. And here I am, resting in the love of my adoptive Father."

Would that everything in life could be as simple, as graceful, as beautiful as this.



*I have a regular prayer that I pray, I pray it on Rosary beads but it is not the Rosary. On the main beads I pray the Jesus Prayer a little more than halfway up, and then on the main beads I alternate between chanting "Kyrie Eleison" and "Christe Eleison," one on each group of beads. So in other words I chant the one on one set of beads, and the other on the next set and so on. For the beads in between, the ones that separate the groups, I pray "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy." Then when I am finished with praying and chanting the whole of the beads and am back at the cross, I say the Our Father. I pray this way because it is very good at silencing the mind and bringing to the forefront any issues you are having. And the chanting part is very beautiful, or at least it is to me. 

Passers-by

Image by Greg Willis

"Be Passers-By"

~Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas

Many of the things I used to do up until very recently, I don't do very often right now. Computer games, I used to play for hours a day not infrequently. It has been days since I played any. News, I used to be a news junkie, now I avoid it more. I don't turn on the television, though I was an infrequent watcher anyway. I don't watch the people I am subscribed to on Youtube, I used to watch them every day. Yesterday I started to play one of those videos, and I was seized by a very strong and sudden feeling - like God was saying, "don't look away from me." Look at me, always look at me. And so I try.

Strangely, things I tend to think of as very problematic sins of mine, I have not been freed from. I still smoke, not nearly as much as I did before my most recent quitting attempt, but I still smoke. I have received no such conviction on that. Facebook, I spend too much time hunting chit-chat on Facebook, though I have been somewhat convicted on that. On other things, the message is clear: don't be distracted. Don't look away. Look at me.

Since I started praying regularly 3 times a day (though today I wasn't feeling well and only did two) I have started having an experience of very keen awareness of a kind that is hard to describe. Being awake, and having a very accurate appraisal of everything that keeps me asleep, that makes me dull. Everything is pared down, all my usual mental chatter is pared away, and the, I guess luminousness, of the permeation of God in and through the world comes forward. I don't know how to say it better than that. I get pared down. He increases, I decrease. The BS of my thoughts that I have usually not even been aware of, gets pared away. What did Jesus say about the idea that even thinking of murder or adultery or whatever, is itself a sin? It's in Matthew 5. He may have been talking about that, that all the time, unawares, we have this background noise in our minds of thoughts and those thoughts are usually not of God. 

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment."

"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

That quote, that even thinking of sin in your heart is a sin, is something that a lot of people really treat as a throwaway statement of Jesus. They don't spend a lot of time on it. How can you control what you think? By the time you think to control it, you have already thought it! Well you do that by prayer. If God has the upper hand in your heart, the other guy can only nibble around the edges, jabbing at you from the perimeter. He can't plop himself down at the dining room table or in front of the TV and demand you bring him a beer.

But as my distractions begin to get pared away, I start feeling more and more the conflict inherent in my situation. It is like I am on an island and the world is passing around me, oblivious. And meanwhile everyone is buzzing around buying and selling and staring at their phones and watching sitcoms and doing all the things that "normal" humans do, worldly humans do, and I feel more and more alien. Not that I wish to imitate them at all, but I wish to seize someone and tell them about God, or be seized by someone capable of teaching me, and that just won't happen. I become more and more aware of not being part of the world. And there is largely really no point in talking about it to the people I know, because I know they just won't get it and just aren't interested. I am a passer-by in the world.

And there's no point in going to church. The church is not the church. It's a church of the world. And I, according to the doctrine of every single Christian denomination on Earth, am a heretic. So that's that. :) The further I go in seeking to keep looking towards God, the more a stranger on Earth I become.

Cracked Cross

Image by Romary

I initiated this blog in a somewhat arrogant way - saying that the church of the present day is essentially pharisiacal and not true to what the Gospels said. I was speaking honestly, but I was also speaking from my own blind spots as I was speaking to the blind spots of others. I was doing both. Pointing an accusing finger is rarely that helpful, is I guess what I am saying. I have a lot of pride and arrogance. I am quite ready to find the faults (of which there are many) with others who call themselves Christian, but pointing that same analysis towards my own faults is not as easy.

It is one thing to point out the failures and inconsistencies of those who call themselves Christian when you are not one - I was in that position much in my life. It is much more troubling to do it when you ARE one, or at least you claim the same Christ. It raises the question: why is "Christianity" so very broken? And it is, it is very broken. When you have the leader of a local church standing up at a football game suggesting people should be lined up and shot for refusing to stand during the national anthem - he claims the very same Christ I do. And we can't both be right. Of course we can both be wrong, as I am sure we both are in various ways.

One issue is, Christians on the authority of the Gospels say that Jesus is the only way to God. And the gospels DO say that. And so that tends to lead to a "my way or the highway" approach that says that everyone else is WRONG, and so Christians dig themselves into ever deeper and more walled trenches to defend themselves against the horde of the "other" and become more and more inbred in their error. Which it is impossible to ever imagine Jesus doing that. It is impossible to ever imagine Jesus doing many of the things that are claimed in his name right now, never mind throughout history.

And so you have Jesus, and then you have WE sorry lot, we who call ourselves by his name. And as a whole, and to a degree I include myself, we aren't like him. To quote Gandhi, "you Christians are not like your Christ." The totality of people who call themselves Christian, and especially in this country - we're a damn mess. We've got gun-toting Christians, anti-immigrant Christians, God Hates Fags Christians, Line Em Up And Shoot Em Christians, Starve The Poor Christians - I won't go on. Why is a religion based on peace and brotherhood so seriously fucked up?

And while nobody has really commented negatively on my re-conversion to Christianity, they could be excused for wondering "why in the hell is he going back to that screwed up religion of haters, gun-toters, immigrant-haters and nuts?" Well it certainly isn't their religion, and sometimes it isn't my religion. It's Christ's religion.

Getting back to what I said before, yes the Gospels quote Jesus as saying, "I am the Way. Nobody gets to the Father except through me." It doesn't say anywhere that people have to KNOW that Jesus saved them, or what form Jesus will appear to them. You can't put a limit on how God helps people. I have been down too many different roads, good roads, to think that no other way of seeking God has merit.

I also have been down the Christian road too many times to think that just saying you follow Jesus or are a Christian or are saved by his blood is of any worth in itself. You think you are saved by the cross? You're not. You're saved by doing what he says to do. By obedience.

In times past I have been a BAD Christian. I have been the same kind of guy I criticize so piously today. If I have any hope at all, it is not because I was that kind of Christian but DESPITE having been that kind of Christian. The judgmental kind. The "my way or the highway" kind.

Why are we who (maybe mistakenly) call ourselves by his name so really very screwed up? Well I suppose you could say that human wickedness or Satan or whatever you want to call it, is very subtle. He loves to yank the robes off of would-be prophets, and to help them be their own worst enemies. Help them dig their own graves. You don't underestimate that, you don't underestimate him. You don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Most people really have no idea how screwed up they are. I am, the God Hates Fags guys are. All of us, in our own different ways. It's like you go to scoop up some dog poop on a mountain, and once you scoop up some you see some more, and then you realize the mountain is MADE of dog poop.

Maybe that's why Jesus attracts such severely broken defective people to him, because they are the ones who need him the most. As always, hanging out with the tax collectors and the sinners. ;) Hanging with the low-lifes. And sometimes with the bigots and the haters. Because they need him the worst, because they are the most desperately lost. Because he came to help the sinners, and there are few sinners worse than they. The bigots and the haters are a shame to we who say we really do follow Christ, but to him they are just other sinners. No different really from us.

And that is why although my first posts in this blog were truthful as far as that goes, they were not wise. Wise would be, there goes more sinners and hypocrites and whitewashed tombs, just like I have been in my life. There is a point where the harsh edges of those posts has a purpose, because these people who lead "Churchianity" claim to be leaders when they are just blind guides and pharisees. But their sin is not really my business, is it? My sin is.

Why despite the brokenness of everything that is called "Christianity" do I follow Jesus? Not because of "Christianity" which is a catalog of broken toys. Because of Christ. Where else do I go? In the end, it is always about him.

Pacifism

"The Deserter" by Boardman Robinson.
First published in "The Masses" by John Simkin

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor

and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray

for those who persecute you, that you may be

children of your Father in heaven."

~Matthew 5:43-45

I was inclined to believe two seemingly related things. One, that we should never repay violence with violence. We should not commit violence at all. And two, that God would never command a person to commit violence.

Now the first I think is very solidly founded on the Gospel. It may seem stupid to have to say this, but you can't LOVE YOUR ENEMY while trying to hurt or kill them! Turning the other cheek and sticking a bayonet in someone's eye are not compatible ideas. I believe that the Gospels state that, at least short of a direct command from God otherwise, one should never commit violence for any reason. Not for war, not for self-defense, not for any reason.

This is a very hard pill to swallow. This is a significant stumbling block. That's probably why almost every branch of the Christian church has chosen to ignore it, and to give its blessing to violence both for self-defense and for war. From a worldly point of view at least, it's really hard to fault them for that. But then that's the problem with the church, it is very accommodating to a worldly point of view. Jesus didn't teach a worldly point of view or else he would have said to love your neighbors and fight your enemies. He said "my Kingdom is not of this world." I take it as given that Jesus never gave people leave to commit violence for their own reasons, however legitimate they may seem. You should count the holiness of your soul as a higher priority than the integrity of your body.

However this post is not about that, actually. It's about the second of the two things I mentioned. Can or would God ever command you to commit violence? Of course if you take the Old Testament seriously, He did so all the time. The Old Testament is full of holy ass-kicking. I don't take the Old Testament nearly as seriously as most Christians: it is a limited and faulty word of God, as versus the perfect word of Jesus. Or at least it was the word of God through a glass and very darkly. As the Gospel of John states, "The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (so the Law was neither fully graceful nor truthful.) So I assumed that the answer is no, that God would neither command you to do violence nor condone it.

Some things have changed my mind, however. While I do believe that the Gospels tell us to never commit violence against another person on our own initiative, even for self-defense, I think God has told people to violate that rule. The thing that changed my mind was the life of Joan of Arc. Now with Joan, we must either believe that God never commanded Joan to do anything, or else He did command Joan in fact to lead up the armies of France and go kick some Burgundian butts. And I find it very hard to believe that Joan was hallucinating. This was an illiterate farm girl, who wound up commanding the armies of France and leading them to victory, and who besides showed on many occasions that God was with her. And if God was with her, then He told her to lead men into violence. I believe her, I think she is very credible.

And this is actually a much bigger barrel of fish to open than simply whether on our own initiative we should commit violence or fight back or participate in a war. Jesus' words of nonviolence are in a way much simpler than this if more unworldly. If you believe the condition of your soul is much more important than the condition of your body or whether you continue to live, then Jesus' words are very understandable if contrary to natural human instincts. To then say on top of that, "Well, but God could tell you otherwise under certain circumstances" is much more problematic in a way. This has been my problem from the earliest versions of my Christian faith many years ago: Moses and Joshua did really horrible horrible things to people, really nasty things that they said were at the command of God. Could the God of love, mercy and forgiveness have really commanded them to do that, or were they just going out on their own limb?

For Moses and Joshua, I do not know if God commanded them to do those horrible things. With Joan I feel pretty certain God did tell her to command armies that would rend and tear and murder and slaughter and all the rest. How does that make any sense?

Lets say you were living in 1915, and one fine day God commanded you to go kill a person you didn't even know. The acts which this man had committed were no different from the usual acts a person would commit in World War I, he was not particularly set apart in his evil acts. He was a nobody. He did not seem particularly important enough for God to tell you to go get a gun and go blow his brains out in cold blood. Not to mention that this would likely mean you would go to prison and maybe be executed. You might well go, "God, wtf??" You would have no way of knowing that this man, Adolf Hitler, would go on to create new forms of mass murder unimagined in your world. Forms of horror your time had never yet imagined. Knowing what we know now, we would think that this murder was not only justified, it was pretty much obligatory.

But this is not in fact what happened, which is even stranger. What happened was that Hitler went on to kill 10 million people in concentration camps in addition to millions on the battlefield, and 6 million of those who died in the concentration camps would be God's own nation, the Hebrews. Now what the hell is going on with that? Would the Jews not be right in thinking God had either abandoned them, or didn't exist at all?

I can only assume that the alternative to 6 million dead Jews would have been a hundred million dead somewhere else. That the pointless slaughter at the very dawn of the human capacity for mechanized mass destruction happened to teach us something, to keep us from doing far worse things. Why did America only finally perfect the atom bomb at the very end of the war? To keep us from thinking that we needed to go dropping the things willy-nilly? Two bombs, at the very end of a war which inaugurated mass extermination: a permanent lesson and monument to the horror Man can achieve. I can only speculate. I can only speculate that 6 million Jews died because the alternative would be a hundred million people dying. But that is just a speculation.

I can also only assume that God continually tries to make us all see reason. And that the inauguration of World War Three and the murder of most or all of the world's population would interfere with that mission. And so 10 million died plus the millions who died in the war plus the people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all so that we would not finally destroy ourselves. So that we would have a clear signpost in history: this way leads to the total death of everyone and everything.

Everything had to happen just as it did, and not one iota different, or nobody would be here now, and I would not be typing this. I would never have been born.

So I can judge that God did talk to Joan, but I can't judge what He told her to do, because I don't have that perfect insight into what it takes to save the world from itself. What if Joan had not been told to lead the armies of France? Decades, maybe centuries, of continued war? To save many lives at the cost of some, that is a judgment God can make. It is not a judgment we can make unless like Joan we talk to angels, so unless told differently, a true Christian must not kill. Not for defense, not for war, not for any reason.

If like St. Joan angels tell us differently, then we must do what we must.

The Beauty of the Truth

Image by Tom Adams

For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

~John 1:17

I originally posted this in a closed Facebook group created by a good online friend, a man I have never met in person but through a decade and more of wrestling with each other over ideas I think I can truly call a friend. Anyway his original question in the thread in which I eventually posted this was why people immediately dig in their heels to new ideas or to change of any kind, as a kind of default response.

"Faith in the beauty of the truth... the belief that somehow the real truth

is not only as good as (the opinions) you have left behind,

it must be much better, even if you don't understand what it is.

This is the real dividing line in humanity, far more so than

ascribing to any particular version of the truth. There are some

who believe that the truth must be beautiful and that the world,

however flawed and ugly, is meaningful. And you don't start out knowing

what that beauty of truth and meaning in existence is,

you must continually push into it.

And there are some who don't believe this, and this is the real divide in the human race.

If you think it is all meaningless, then the point is to avoid the pain

that you know is out there waiting for you. If you believe it is meaningful,

however limited your understanding of that meaning may be, you will

embrace pain for that meaning, for the beauty of truth, which you believe ultimately to

really be beautiful and not pointless and ugly.

And to approach what can be a very painful and ugly world with that attitude

is not a matter of anything that can be decided logically.

It really is a matter of faith."

People who truly have faith in the beauty of the truth, who continually correct themselves in pursuit of the truth, and who have faith that existence is not pointless are probably closer to God than a lot of Christians. Saying that you believe in God and his Son Jesus Christ is alone of little value. Many grievous sinners have also said that they believe, people who defend their sin while they claim to belong to God. Some have been murderers, rapists, and molesters. According to some, how recklessly you sin and how brazenly you defend your sin doesn't matter - as long as you say you believe Jesus died for your sins, you are somehow covered.

I do not believe that. If you say you are God's and say you preach God's word, and yet you brazenly and unapologetically sin, you are just an evil hypocrite. There may be some unfortunate condition in life that excuses such behavior, but certainly such people should close their mouths and not claim to follow Christ, much less teach about God. It is better to be honestly and unrepentantly evil than to be evil while wrapping yourself in the cross.

The Children of God are continually corrected and chastened by God, and humbled by God. May all His Children express their undying gratitude for that blessing. And the Children of God continually push into the beauty and truth of God and into his righteousness and into the glory of obedience to Christ. Not thinking they already possess knowledge and virtue in fullness, but constantly seeking God and seeking to know His glory more and to be obedient more and to understand the Gospels more clearly.

The other side of this is that if you do not listen to this correction and chastening, He will remove his Spirit from you. 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit,

while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes

so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word

I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you,

you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away

and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned."

~John 15:1-6

I fall short in many ways. But I do not say that I don't, I know I DO. I know what I ought to do, too, but laziness and apathy kicks in. I don't say these are virtues, they are weaknesses and I know they are. I probably fall short in ways that I don't even know about yet, I am guessing I will learn what these are when I have cleared my plate of the things I do know. But how you overcome these weaknesses, is to continually push towards the beauty of the Truth. Slowly, gradually, this glory of God becomes so important in your life that you hate anything that diminishes your unity with that glory. This is how it is with me, I am weak and continue to not do the things I should and to do the things I should not, but my strength to conform myself to God's will grows as my love for the glory of God grows. Love for and faith in the beauty of the Truth. 

The Prince of this World

Image by Sebaso

As it is, you do not belong to the world,

but I have chosen you out of the world.

That is why the world hates you.
~John 15:19

Now the prince of this world will be driven out.

~John 12:31

Do not love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

~1 John 2:15

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:

to look after orphans and widows in their distress

and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

~James 1:27

John makes it very plain: the ruler of the earth is Satan. It may be a conditional rulership, but it is rulership nonetheless.

Now it is very easy, and I have done the same thing in the past, to think of Satan as not so much a real entity as a symbol. In other words, that there is not a real power over this world called Satan, it's a metaphor for human sin and perhaps general misfortune. It is very reassuring believe that there is no uncanny power outside of the normal human propensity to be bad. It is however harmful and dangerous NOT to understand the great power of evil. Satan, however you wish to rationalize him, is the prince of this world. To me, nothing else explains the condition of the world and the clear distinction between this world and the world as God would have it be.

This power extends to corrupting people and institutions who call themselves Christian. You don't think he would leave that alone, do you? The fact that there are people who proclaim themselves Christian on television yet hate the poor and the unfortunate, people who proclaim themselves Christian who rob the poor and the unfortunate. Self-proclaimed Christians who bring forth condemnation for others despite being explicitly forbidden from judging others by the one they claim to follow. Of course they don't follow or know him. After the original disciples of Jesus, the ones who inherited that mantle of "apostle" started understanding less and less of what Jesus taught and more and more of a human gospel, that is how they could wantonly murder people who disagreed with their version of the Good News. For centuries the Church did just that, murder persons of opposing views. Any man who seeks the death of another man is under no circumstances really an apostle of anything but evil.

And so 2000 years after true apostles like James and John, we have a condition where virtually every Christian church is a false church, a human church, which follows human and worldly wisdom and not the wisdom of God because they don't have it and probably don't want it. This is not to say that no one in such a church is really a Christian. However, one would think that a true Christian would look into God's word more closely and listen to God better than to belong to a human, and dare I say it a demonic, false church. However I do not doubt that there are some such.

How did Satan accomplish such a master stroke, of turning the supposed church of God into his servants? There were innumerable twists of the knife and twists of minds that made it possible, but there are a few blows that can be called the most crucial:

1.) One is the Protestant heresy that believing that Jesus died on the cross for your sins is the important matter, and once you believe that, you are saved even if you live in a worldly manner. John and James were both clear on this: you are expected to live and act as God wants you to. Granted, all men stumble, but you are expected to apply yourself to obeying God more than doing anything else in your life. A branch that bears no fruit is to be cut off, cut off from God. Whether you believe Jesus died for your sins or not.

Also, if you follow Jesus because of fear of hell and not because of the glory of God, you don't really know him or God. This is what is being sold: fear and self-interest. Saving your own bacon. Not the glory of God.

2.) The next one is closely related, the idea that the purpose of Jesus on Earth was for him to be a primitive Old Testament blood atonement sacrifice. Jesus and indeed many of the prophets spoke directly to the futility of blood sacrifice to wash away any sins whatsoever. And yet Christians who do not practice these barbaric rituals do insist on the importance of this one. Why did JESUS HIMSELF say he came, according to John?

“You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born

and came into the world is to testify to the truth.

Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

~John 18:37

What is the truth? God is, Jesus is. Elaborating a bit, the purpose of Jesus coming to the Earth was to bring those human beings who God has foreknown into alignment with God's will. So that they know the will of God and act on it - this is the meaning of the Spirit entering people, which in John is depicted as happening to the disciples before the crucifixion (therefore the idea that the crucifixion was necessary for the Spirit to enter people is wrong.) This is the core of the Truth who Jesus was, a means of bringing human beings back to knowledge of and obedience to God through himself. This they do, not by believing in a simplistic creed of blood redemption, but by having God's spirit enter them and following what the Spirit says and what Jesus said to do during his ministry.

Why then did Jesus have to be crucified? There are many reasons, but among the most important is that Jesus said he was Life and that those who were in him would not die. Now many of his disciples would have to face death for following him, as many true followers even faced death at the hands of Christians so-called during inquisitions of various kinds. This he set an example for himself. He died for the Truth, and yet he lived.

To believe that the purpose of Jesus on the Earth was to be a human lamb for the slaughter, in order to satiate some Old Testament deity's desire for wrath, is also very convenient for those who do not wish to do as Jesus did and said to do. If you are covered by the Blood, you can go on being a child of Satan. This is very much as Satan wants it. What he wants least of all is for anyone to start following what Jesus actually said: loving enemies, not lying, not judging, not stacking up riches, not being concerned for the opinions of other men but only for what God says. The ideology of salvation by belief and blood sacrifice is extremely convenient for a worldly church, but it's not what Jesus said.

3.) Blasphemy in the name of Christianity. There is nowhere in the Bible a mention of any Trinity, yet virtually all Christian churches believe in it. Why? Well the answer is very simple if you understand who it is who has the real authority in such churches. In a stroke of pure genius (nobody ever said the devil was dumb,) the real relationship between Jesus and the Father was twisted to make Jesus co-equal to God. Jesus in the New Testament and specifically in John repeatedly denies such a thing. The opening of John, "the word was God" has been misunderstood to mean that Jesus is part of the same godhead as God the Father. Jesus himself repeatedly refutes such an assertion in the body of John.

"Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself;
he can do only what he sees his Father doing,
because whatever the Father does the Son also does."
~John 5:19

Jesus himself confirms the ancient commandment, the Shema:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.

Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, 

“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this:

‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is ONE."

~Mark 12:28-29

This and loving one's neighbor are the greatest commandments, he said. No others are as great as these. Yet Christians violate the first one every Sunday. Moreover, although the Sabbath Day is not that important in itself, Jesus gave no permission to change it to Sunday. It was Saturday when Jesus observed it, and he made no comment about changing the day. It was changed to Sunday to satisfy human desire, to have the Christian Sabbath on the same day as the day of a pagan god.

So what is the true relationship of Jesus to the Father. He himself said it: that he did pre-exist the world with the Father and that he created the world by the Father's power and permission. He is the Son of God, and the mediator between God and men. He is not however himself God, and the body of Jesus' statements confirm this.

By making Jesus God, the truth is twisted and the majesty of the Father is ignored. Thus by making Jesus God, Satan seeks to undermine the Father who is the only true God. The unity of spirit between Jesus and the Father does not mean they are the same: this unity is what Jesus refers to when he says "when you have seen me you have seen the Father." Not that Jesus is the Father, but he exists in perfect harmony to God's will and would not ever say or do anything that was not the will of the Father. In this sense, seeing him IS seeing the Father because the Father is expressed in fullness through him.

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE. The false doctrine of the Trinity defiles the truth of this first and most sacred commandment. As one would expect a church run by the prince of lies to do.

Of course the Church is hardly alone in bending the knee to Satan. Satan's people are everywhere seen, and God's own children scarcely heard. The oppression of the Earth and it's people should be more than adequate testimony to the fact. We have people in positions of wealth and authority who say that human beings have no right to even a drink of water, we have people who despoil the Earth for all time for their own profit. But don't be confused by them: whoever lives to satisfy the senses and does not serve God, whoever judges and is wrathful, whoever lies, whoever loves wealth or worldly power, whoever has no compassion, whoever is violence or endorses violence in any form, whoever does not seek to admonish himself and have God's admonishment, is not God's, whoever he may say he is. The Pharisees are alive and well, and call themselves Christians. They call themselves many other things as well: businessmen, political leaders, wise men, preachers, members of the media. Satan was once called the Prince of the Air: he is the Prince of the Airwaves and of cable as well.

New Wineskins

"And no one pours new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine

and the wineskins will be ruined.

No, they pour new wine into new wineskins."

~Mark 2:22

You can see my old blog here: http://myanimism.blogspot.com/

Why a new blog? Well, I start a new blog whenever my views change sufficiently to warrant it. Someone who only wants to read my animist stuff can do so. Anyone who wants to see this one can do it.

Am I still an animist? Yes I am, in the most general sense that I believe that the world is alive and should be treated as alive, treated with respect. None of that has changed one bit. To me this is basic level stuff, if you can't at least TRY to treat the world and your fellow creatures with respect, you shouldn't be in the world.The world doesn't need more such people. You don't so much as kill a bug without a reason. You don't break a leaf without a reason. These things don't belong to you, they belong to themselves. They belong to god. In all these ways I am and will ever remain an animist.

What's different then? There we get into tricky territory, so to make sure there is no confusion I'll tell a story.

Once upon a time there was a Mexican, and this Mexican lived in a society of peace and justice without racism. But one day he fell asleep under a magic chestnut tree and he slept for two thousand years.  

When he woke up, everything had changed. Now the word "Mexican" meant "rapist." So he went into town with his 2000 year old clothing, and people didn't know what to make of him, so they asked him what kind of person he was and he said, "a Mexican." Upon hearing that, they seized him and threw him in jail. When the judge sat in judgement over him, he asked him: "You said you were a Mexican. Is that true?" Whereupon the Mexican of course replied, "Yes, I am a Mexican, why am I in jail???" The judge said, "He said it himself, he confessed to the crime" and he sentenced him. 

Words are for communicating with. If I say "apple" and you think that means "dog," then we aren't talking about the same things. I am not what is generally called a Christian, nor will I ever be. What I am, is someone who thinks Jesus was filled with god and so I listen to him. He said himself he didn't come on his own account and was not speaking his own ideas. He is not a person of the Trinity, there is no Trinity. It's a pernicious lie. What he was, was a human being whose will was entirely consumed by god's will, and therefore it was true that god was speaking through him, but not true that the person Jesus is a different personality of the godhead. If you won't believe me, believe him:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.

...He asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One."

~Mark 12:28-29

One. Not three in one, not three, just one. All you Churchians who say to take everything literally, start taking THAT literally.

Of course, Christians or should I say Churchians try to get around that with a bunch of three-in-one bullshit, which is just what it is, bullshit. Jesus was a human being who was completely surrendered to god, and in this way what he said was in fact god's will, but not because he himself was god. For every three passages in which Jesus says he's not god, Churchians will point out to one that seems to say he is. By deifying him they avoid doing what he said to do; by putting him on the throne they crucify him again.

Truthfully, the pharisees of ancient days have nothing on today's so-called Christians. Everything Jesus said about the pharisees goes double for today's Christians. You see people with fine houses and nice cars and nice clothes and they are all talking about Jesus and morals and such.

What do you think this statement by Jesus means? What is he communicating?

"As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.

Night is coming, when no one can work. 

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 

WHILE he is in the world, it is day and they can work, right? When he is not in the world, it is night. Night in this context means ignorance, confusion. So once he is gone, it is night (there is ignorance and confusion.) Okay, if you follow me so far, what exactly was this period of night he was talking about? Just the period of time between the crucifixion and Pentecost? Or is it the entire time he has been gone up until now? If you trust what the church fathers say, it's just until Pentecost. If you trust what history and common sense say, and if you take Jesus at face value in this statement, it is every single day up to and including this one.

Why do I say this? Because the entire history of Christianity after the crucifixion was a history of people who utterly failed to understand Jesus. Imagine this: you have a message, and it is very important that this message is available to everyone going forward, including people in the distant future. Most of the people of your own time (or any other) won't understand the message, but some will. What do you do? You gather a bunch of people around you who firmly believe that every word that falls from your mouth is critically important, even if they misunderstand why it is important. They record them, they pass them from one to another and copy the words and copies are made from those copies and so the words come down to the future. Even though... hardly anyone actually understands them, but the guy who said these things did miracles so his words must be important. From the point of view of keeping the message going, it doesn't matter much if the people who accomplish this are idiots or they kill people in your name or burn them alive in your name - the message is still being transmitted to those who ARE able to understand it.

What message could be so important? What did Jesus come to give us? Expiation from our sins? That's the conventional explanation, but as I said, for 2000 years church leaders haven't got it, and they usually burned people who did get it.

If your primary interest is in expunging your own guilt, you don't get it and you probably never will. 

Your guilt is utterly unimportant in a larger sense. The Earth has drunk more blood than you could ever shed. The modern church's obsession with the expiation of sins is utterly narcissistic. The modern church is self-absorbed, self-loathing and loathing of everyone else who isn't a member of their club.

The glory and goodness of god is an immensely more important matter than anything, far more than saving your own petty hide. If you don't understand this glory you aren't "saved," no matter how many times you have been dunked in water or what words you say or what you believe.

Jesus' message was this: god-with-us. God in us. What does that mean? It means we stop thinking with our mind and start letting god think and act through us as Jesus did. Jesus himself was "god-with-us," not as a person of the fictitious Trinity, but as a person consumed by the spirit of god. However, even saying this is not enough: every idiot who thumps a bible thinks he is doing the will of god. This state of "god-with-us" is not subject to analysis, it is a divine and not an earthly reality. It is not accomplished by following a list of things you need to do to be a "good Christian." Contrary to what the early Church thought, you can't get it by laying on hands. There is no formula for this, no creed, no position statement for it. Going to church and saying Jesus died for your sins doesn't get you there.

What does then? Unfortunately you won't hear this unless you already hear it.

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them."

It is absolutely out of your hands. Nothing you say or believe will change that. Why? Because the information that Jesus is bringing is absolutely unworldly. You can never connect the dots from here to there. You will never reason your way to it. It is not a kind of information that human brains are capable of receiving without help, and no other human being or any of their teachings can give you that.

The reality that we are faced with is that we have a church that is actually anti-Christian. A church which is the church of the pharisees. And so all of our language is corrupted when speaking about Jesus, because of 2000 years of church corruption. But the message is still there, "for those who have ears to hear." For those the Father (not men, not churches) has called.