Dear Jane

Dear Jane,

One of the “features” of churches is they tend to present one version of many interpretations as if it was the one and only truth, and Revelations is a good example. The “Left Behind” series served to scare the shit out of everyone and help convince us that Jesus is about to return any day now. What the churches do not tell us is that Futurism is only one of three ways of dealing with Revelation, and that there is also the Literary theory and the Praeterist Theory.

Praeterism (for example) says that Revelation was all (or almost all) fulfulled within the generation that lived with Jesus. The disciples asked “when will these things happen” and Jesus answered “some of you will not taste death … this generation will not pass away before ..” What did he mean? I could argue very effectively that the return of Jesus happenned in AD70 when “Jeruslaem was surrounded by armies.” Of course the modern church does not teach this because they do not want to upset the masses or be shown that they could have been so grossly wrong (and risk losing a big chunk of their tithe-giving clientele).

Chuck Missler is just one more fear-monger dressed up in sheeps pseudo-intellectual clothes but is really doing nothing more than building his own Christian book-selling speaking-engagement business. His biggest crime – and he really does know better – is only presenting a “modern church friendly” version of “the truth” and conveniently missing out a big lot of other stuff that is nowhere near as cut and dried black and white as he makes it appear (just like YWAM!)

It upsets me to see beautiful people like you sucked into the shallow modern day christian theology when there is so much more richness of thought out there.

Jon

Before you become a christian …

Before you decide to “become a christian” there’s a few things you might like to think about:

There are lots of religions in the world – what makes you think christianity is the only right one?

There are lots of holy books in the world – what makes you think the bible is the only right one?

Your teachers tell you that God gives us free will – but what kind of free will is it when choosing one thing over another brings condemnation?

Your teachers tell you that Jesus prayed for unity, yet over the years there have been hundreds of different “denominations” that cannot agree on the most basic common ideas and – worse still – fight amongst themselves.

Your teachers use fear – the antithesis of all they say that God is – to gain your assent to their petty teachings. “Believe as we say or Perish!”

Over the ages, the christian church – both protestant and catholic – has been responsible for the murder of countless thousands of people (witch hunts, crusades, inquisitions, hugenots)

Believe what you like, but think it through!

Jessica’s question

My 14 year old daughter asked me “If you are gay or lesbian or bisexual, can you still be a christian?”

My response was to ask her what she meant by gay, and what she meant by christian. Although she seemed reasonably clear that gay meant “you were born liking other guys” she was fuzzy to say the least about this troublesome christian word, giving up after something like “someone who believes is God and tries to live the way the bible says you should.”

I then asked her to pretend she was a christian, and answer the question herself. She proceeded to ask me straight back what the bible said about homosexuality. From this, I asked her if that meant that her basis (as a christian) for determining whether something is right or wrong was “what the bible says”, which got met with a mumbling sort of yes. As for me telling her what the bible says about homosexuality, I pointed out that it isn’t all that clear, as christians from both sides of the fence argue their viewpoint by each quoting different verses at each other (as they do for many other issues). So then I suggested we just pretend that the bible was crystal clear that being gay was wrong – what would she think then? This was greeted with more grumbling as she clearly did not want to agree with this, but also did not want to disagree with the bible.

Finally I asked her how people of other cultures and religions would resolve the same question. So this left her with the questions of not only how do you determine the “correct” message of the bible, but also even if you do, what difference does that make as there are lots of other “bibles” out there. How can she know whether or not the bible can be trusted as divinely authoritative, or whether it is just another religious book devised by man.

After all this which was way more thinking than she was expecting, she decided to leave it at that.

What would you say to her?

Free Will is actually Free Will

Above all, you are not to ask such logical questions as “If God wanted strict obedience to His laws, why did He create the possibility of those laws being violated?” Ah, your teachers tell you – because God wanted you to have “free choice”. Yet what kind of choice is free when to choose one thing over another brings condemnation? How is “free will” free when it is not your will, but someone else’s which must be done? Those who teach you this would make a hypocrite of God.
(quoted from Conversations with God, Book 1, p62)

When I first read these words I was astonished that I had never made this self-evident observation for myself. But of course I had no choice but to ignore its obvious truth, otherwise my whole christian house of cards would have to come tumbling down. To be quite honest, sometimes I am so overwhelmed with gladness to have finally broken free from the tyranny of christian fundamentalism that I feel like weeping for joy.

The joy of …

A few years ago I decided to certify in the Microsoft Windows Server 2000 products and spent 8 months studying many volumes all about this product. Many times I would experience an inner thrill as the lights switched on in my mind as I realised what they were on about and how a particular component actually worked.

It’s a great feeling. The joy of learning and discovery. The delight that comes with understanding.

It’s the same feeling David had as he studied the Hebrew law and delighted in learning and discovering its wisdom and its message for him.

The past year I have been reading and re-reading (and re-reading!) the three books of the trilogy “Conversations With God” and almost every time  I read I feel a delicious welling-up of joy as my soul and mind respond to its simple message. While I don’t agree with every word that is written in its pages, I love the overall message of the book and I embrace it as my own. It has become a “lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” and I am grateful that this message has been given to mankind at this time.

WWANAD?

During my christian days, one method of resolving moral/ethical conundrums was to apply the WWJD method. (For the dim and slow-witted amongst my readership, this stands for What Would Jesus Do). Or even better (but I digress), the classic variant “Who Would Jesus Bomb?”. Anyway, this leads me to wondering what answers we would come up with to similar questions with WWANAD. (What Would A New Ager Do?)

Thus here some questions I propose for our next discussion group (which will be Wednesday 27th at my house, 7:30pm)

“Is abortion OK? If not, why not?”

“Is watching porn OK?’ (you would simply not believe how many search hits this blog gets each day with poor christians tying themselves up in knots over porn and masturbation)

“Should marriage be abolished?” (Stats show that marriages are busting up faster than ever, and that many that are married are just going through the motions. Is there a better way of doing this?)

For these, and whatever similar questions arise out of the discussion, the underlying question of course is “on what basis do you make your answer?” For christians, the appeal is to the bible of course. But New Agers don’t have a bible, so who says which answer is right? How do we decide? How do we know? Hmmm.

The problem with …

The problem with evangelical fundumentalists is they’re too narrow-minded

The problem with liberals is they’re too broad minded

The problem with a limited-atonement gospel is it is too exclusive

The problem with a full-atonement gospel is it is too inclusive

The problem with a literal bible interpretation is it is too objective

The problem with a symbolic bible interpretation is it is too subjective

The man who says there is no god is a …

Watch and weep.

What difference does it make?

Over these past few months I have been studying New Age teaching, and really trying to understand the key ideas they are on about. Certainly very very different from anything I have heard from my years of sitting in churches! No right or wrong. God doesn’t care what choices I make. No heaven. No hell. No judgement or punishment.

So I have studied this and now I face myself with the question “What difference has it made to how I live?”

How do I live my life differently now? What’s changed? Has anyone else noticed a difference?

Many years ago a friend of mine was at Bible college, and one afternoon a friendly game of football had been organised. He commented that the character he saw spilling over onto the field was anything but godly! Or another friend of mine who is such a calm, peaceful, easy-to-get-along with guy. Well, that is until you cross his will. And what about me? Am I really any different deep down on the inside now having read some New Age books?

The answer is no. I’m still basically the same old Jon I was, and have always been.

I wonder what are the elements of life that really change who we are on the inside? Is it what we say we believe? That We Are All One, or that Jesus is the Son of God, or that there is only one God Allah and his prophet mohammed?

My answer now is the same answer it has been during my years sitting in churches.  We see the real us in times of stress, crisis, pressure and pain. When life suddenly bumps or shoves us from out of left field when we least expect it, and before we have time to think the real us just spills out for all to see. That’s where the real opportunity for change is. In the midst of difficulty, pain, discomfort, and crisis. That’s where life offers me an opportunity to see myself as I really am. It seems to me that the human soul is fashioned on the anvil of suffering. That’s where we are truly changed.

My imaginary friend

Hi. I’d like to tell you about my imaginary friend. He’s very nice, very caring and very loving. When I feel lonely or scared I talk to him and I can feel him warming my insides and hugging me. When I feel small and weak he gives me strength. Sometimes I do things he doesn’t really like, but when I’m sorry he just says it’s all better and not to worry. What a lovely friend I have. He especially likes it when I sing songs to him. My imaginary friend is so nice that I just want everyone else to know him the way I do.

I learnt all about my imaginary friend from this very old book I read. Some of the bits in this book are not very nice and don’t sound like my friend at all, so I just skip over those bits. But the nice bits really are very, very nice. All that love! Love here, love there, love everywhere! Lovely!

Some people get angry because they don’t know my imaginary friend the way I do. Some of them even say he’s just a “transference of my ideal” whatever that silly term might mean. Of course the real reason is their hearts are hard and unbelieving. But never mind, I’ll ask my imaginary friend to help them so that one day they will be happy and loving like me.

Some people say that the very old book I read says that my imaginary friend will do some very nasty things to people that don’t love him like I do, but my imaginary friend is just too big for my little mind to understand, so I’m sure he will sort it all out. When I talk to others about my imaginary friend, I don’t really mention the nasty side of my friend too much – no point in scaring people needlessly I say.

Amazingly, I know other people who have an imaginary friend very similar to mine, so we meet together and “collectively reinforce our model”. Not sure what that means, but I’m sure it’s good. When we meet, we all make sure that we have the same ideas about our imaginary friend. It just upsets everyone if someone starts talking about something different so we really discourage that sort of thing. Cloneliness is next to godliness.

Oh how I love my imaginary friend. He’s everything I could ever wish or dream for!