Jesus and Religion

Jesus appears to me to be the most non-religious person who has ever lived. In fact, he challenged the accepted religion of his day at every turn. He got into trouble with religious authorities who were convinced of the rightness of their practices. He questioned the legitimacy of traditions and rituals. He challenged the towering edifaces and exposed them as nothing more than high places to human greed and avarice. "Destroy this temple!" "Woe to you, Pharisees, you hypocrites!" "Repent! The Kingdom of God is here!"

It's often said that Jesus sought to reform the accepted religion. I disagree. He sought to demolish it. If there was anything to be reformed, it was the people and their propensity to invent religions and enshrine their pride in faith systems that ultimately oppress those who didn't quite fit in, for whatever reason. This is exactly what Israel did. That's what everyone does.

Throughout the Gospels I see this pattern of Jesus drawing people away from their religion-- religion that had become a slavish substitute for God. And what did we do with this? We took what Jesus accomplished and, you guessed it, made a religion out of it! Silly human race!! We built cathedrals and churches, formulated rituals, invented liturgies, systematized theology (notice the word "system"), wrote sermons, collected money, drew swords, legislated morality, peddled Je$u$ junk, entertained the masses, and served ourselves. Somewhere along the line we crowned ourselves the distributors of God's grace and convinced ourselves that God's forgiveness can only be obtained through carefully orchestrated rituals.

We just might need to start destroying our temples.

Death as Separation

Most instances of death in the Bible had nothing to do with biological demise. Usually it was associated with being taken into exile or banished from the presence of God.

Adam and Eve died on the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is what God said would happen if they disobeyed his express command. They would die on that day. God had no "process" of dying in mind. Death was not put into gradual motion. God distinctly said that Adam and Eve would die in the day that you eat of it. They died.

The mistake many make is to jump ahead to chapter 5 of Genesis to see the death of Adam recorded. He was 930 years old at the time of his death. Did God lie? If we consider death to be solely cessation of biological function, then it would appear to be so. Also notice in chapter 5 that nothing is said of the death of Eve.

To see the death of Adam and Eve, we must go back to Genesis 3:22-24. I'll post it here.

Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever--" therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

This is death-- being denied access to the tree of life. The tree of life was communion with God in His glorious presence. I'm not sure, but at the time of Jesus, the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the Most Holy Place in the Jerusalem temple had cherubim and a flaming sword embossed on it. If this is true, the the tree of life was symbolized in Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple! God was in a cubicle behind a thick veil. This typified the rebelliousness of man and the separateness of God. In short, death was depicted in unmistakable concrete imagery.

The Good News-- this veil was destroyed!! God is out of the box! He is fully present with us, just as He always was. Pray that God would give us eyes to see this reality of humanity having access to God and to the tree of life. Nothing separates us from the love of God that is found in Christ Jesus our Lord.

New Look

I wanted to give my blog a fresh look with a little more pastel flavor, instead of the dark, dank dungeon you used to read. Time to brighten things up a bit!

The "Hurry Up Jesus!" Gospel

Here’s something that might be fun to do. Try it if you’d like. In your Bible, browse Mark chapter 1 and count how many times Mark uses the word “immediately”, or something to that effect. How many did you find? I count 9.

If you came up with a different count, that’s okay. The point is Mark uses this word many times throughout his gospel. It almost gives you the impression that Mark is desperate to get his message about Jesus out to his audience and that there was a certain immediacy to Jesus’ ministry. That’s why I like to call the Gospel of Mark, “Jesus in a Hurry”. What was the rush? Mark gives us the answer in 1:15—“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand…” The turn of the ages, anticipated by many at Jesus’ time, had finally arrived in the person of Jesus. This meant that the present age at that time was on the way out. Many would cling to that present age and they would find that there would be nothing left of that age. Every last vestige and sign of that “present age” would be torn down. Read Mark 13 for what Jesus said about that.

A transformation was taking place, and Mark was urging his readers to climb on board. We in the 21st century are blessed with the fruits of this transforming work of Jesus. Through the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and the destruction of the temple in AD 70 we have fully crossed over from death to life in the New Heavens and the New Earth. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is among us. Christ reigns as King of all creation. There’s nothing left of our sinful selves and the accusations of the Law. It has been obliterated. Sin is dead, and we have died to sin. But through Christ Jesus we are alive to God! We are renewed and transformed, no longer in darkness, but living in His marvelous light!

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Amended)

After a grueling morning working to get my yard spiffed up for summer I decided to clean myself up a bit and go see Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary hosted by the affable, but dry-humored, Ben Stein. The following is my impressions and thoughts after I reflected a bit about what I saw.

First, I don't think that scientists who see signs of Intelligent Design (ID), and have honestly examined the evidence to the best of their ability according to their own calculations and experiments, are trying to push God back into public schools. From what I can see, it's people who want religion, God, and creation science-- especially of the Christian brand-- using the findings of ID scientists to push their agenda into public schools. The thinking behind this is the sense that America has lost its moral underpinnings when God and school prayer were outlawed. Schools could regain lost moral ground if God and prayer were allowed back into school. Supposedly, school children would be better behaved and would not indulge in sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Having attended Christian schools for most of my life, I can safely say that having God and prayer in school really doesn't make much difference in the behavior of the students. Speaking from my own experience (and yours may be different) a parochial school has just as much unruliness as a public school. Morality and religious faith are best kept in homes and churches. Parents cannot depend on schools to teach this with great effect.

It wasn't the point of the movie that creationism should be taught in public schools as a viable theory of how things came to be. The running theme throughout the movie was the investigation of the castigation of scientists who would dare mention ID in scholarly and scientific papers, and who might even present it in the university classroom. Many of these scientists were interviewed by Stein, and they seemed to me to be articulate, intelligent, and curious. They didn't appear to have any religious agenda. Many of them were once at the top of their fields, such as molecular biology, astronomy, mathematics, and physics. Their supposed "crime" was mentioning the possibility that ID may have some validity to it. All of them, from what I remembered, shied away from using the word "God" simply because it isn't a scientific term. These people promptly lost prestigious positions at leading universities, were fired, lost tenure, denied research grants, or blacklisted. I found this to be oddly humorous because this sort of thing happens in institutions of higher learning all of the time. It seems to be a rule of thumb that whoever dared to challenge the prevailing sentiments and worldviews of the establishment were excoriated (sometimes publicly) and removed from teaching positions.

I myself have Scriptural views, especially in the area of eschatology, that some would consider odd. But I'm not trying to buck the establishment, nor am I trying to lure unsuspecting people into a quick trip straight to hell. I believe the conclusions I've drawn are correct unless I can be persuasively shown otherwise. My studies are honest for the simple reason that I seek answers to some very deep questions that have plagued me for much of my life. I'm not a scholar and I don't play one on TV. I'm the kind of person who has to know why things are what they are claimed to be. I'll admit to certain biases; everyone should if they're honest. I never claim that I'm right or that my arguments deserve to be hermetically sealed in a vault and enshrined somewhere at Fort Knox. I'm wide open for discussion on these issues with the hope that I would not be castigated or labeled.

This, as far as I can tell, is the position of the ID scientists in the movie. They want honest discussion and civil debate on the scientific issues and theories that they deem should be reexamined, such as Darwinian Evolution (DE). They truly believe that the theory has holes in it. The burden of proof is on them to present the evidence. On the other hand, if ID is scientifically inferior, as the establishment DE proponents say, then the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate where ID is flawed scientifically. None of the DE scientists interviewed in the movie seemed willing to do so. Of course, that could be because of slick editing. The DE scientists also seemed articulate and intelligent. It seems to me that scientists of both stripes should get together in a mutually agreed upon venue and talk shop. I would love to see Dr. Eugenie Scott and Sir John Polkinghorne in such dialogue, or Dr. Richard Dawkins having scientific debate with Dr. Gerald Schroeder. I would love it even more if such discussion took place on bar stools! I'll understand very little of the conversations simply because I'm not a scientist. But just to know that such conversations are taking place would speak volumes about the intellectual integrity and dignity of the scientific community. We are, after all, talking about flesh and blood human beings with self-evident inalienable rights to use their minds and speak about what they have discovered.

Moved

The surface of the earth in the Midwest has adjusted itself a few feet after a 5.2 magnitude earthquake in southern Illinois. It was strong enough to be felt for hundreds of miles. As far as we know no one was killed or injured. There were pictures of minor structural damage in Louisville, KY.

I'm pretty sure that someone in southern Illinois is to blame for this. Just on the off chance that there may be people down there who oppose Israeli policies toward Palestinians, we might be seeing God's curse upon those in smalltown Illinois who curse God's chosen. If that's the case, I'm shocked that it wasn't a stronger quake with massive skyscraper collapses and numerous casualties in cities such as St. Louis and Indianapolis. Perhaps this was just a warning shot from the Almighty!

So beware! Don't make God angry. Support Israel!! Send all of your money to John Hagee Ministries, Rod Parsley, and The 700 Club, giving God's blessing to those who bless Israel to assure that these warriors for the Chosen can ride in their stretch limos to their megachurches/TV studios in style and forthrightly avert a major earthquake in the Midwest.

And I'll be watching you.

Soul. Man.

... then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

I was thinking about "soul" this morning, and I thought of this passage from Genesis. It's very peculiar for a couple of reasons.

First, the Hebrew word for "living being" is nephesh, which we normally translate as "soul".

Second, we're told here that the man became a nephesh. He became a soul.

I was beginning to wonder if the word "soul" is descriptive of what we are, as opposed to something we possess. Many passages of Scripture make it appear as if we are infused with this "ghost in the machine" called a soul, and it's clanking around inside of us like a bumblebee in a glass jar, which then escapes at the moment of biological death and "goes to heaven" (whatever that might mean). It could be that our interpretation of Scripture is faulty as we impose our Greco-Roman, Neo-Platonic mindset onto its pages.

I know it's a bad practice to base a teaching on one passage of Scripture, and I have criticized this hermeneutic many times. But Genesis 2:7 seems quite clear to me. Soul is presented as a description of our being. We don't possess souls. We are souls!

This would require a gargantuan paradigmatic shift in our thinking to embrace this. But ponder the implications this would have in our relations with one another! Before I delve into this, I want to first examine where we've been and what the old paradigm has done to us.

With our western left-brained mindsets we have viewed others as bodies which contain an animating, invisible force which we have called "soul". Our physicality is then seen as the greater reality of our being. We have essentially reduced ourselves and others as objects to be used according to baser desires for our own advantage. Sex, violence, and drugs readily come to mind. What this means is that we have become a gnostic society-- indulge and/or punish the body in order to free the soul so that it can take on wings of magical flight back to its source. In short, the traditional view, so imbedded in our thinking, has actually succeeded in turning us against each other. We consume one another. But we don't bat an eyelash over it because people contain immortal souls anyway, which will escape them at death and travel to realms of unbridled bliss. Give 'em hell now; heaven comes later.

But what if we rethought all of this? What would change if we thought of ourselves as being souls, as opposed to having souls? What if you and I are souls? What is "soul" anyway? Here's how I would define the term:

Soul is who you are as you are shaped and given identity in union with God and all other sentient beings through the Spirit of Christ.

To put it more simply, a soul is a person who is fully reconciled to God and others solely by the grace of God.

To put it even more simply, heaven is a gift that is bestowed and not an ethereal destination which is completely unknowable until we die.

In this paradigm, people (including you) are no longer objectified. Our connections with God and one another are more profound than what we had first thought. This is the greater reality that we must train ourselves to more fully realize. This will take effort. I willing to expend this effort. Won't you join me?

Please give your thoughts on this. I'm not so brash and arrogant as to believe that I'm completely right.

Holy Conversations

I wonder what would happen if all churches in America closed their doors and instead took it upon themselves to engage others in conversation about faith, Christ, God, etc. in any place. What would that do to Christianity?

No motive on my part. It's just a question. Thoughts?

Shepherd

This Sunday is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday, who is Christ. It's customary to talk about shepherds in general and then how Jesus is just like a shepherd. But there's a problem with this approach, and it has to do with the direct article "the".



Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd." (John 10:11). He didn't say, "I am a good shepherd." He didn't say, "I am like a good shepherd." Jesus was talking about a concrete image, the specificity of which often escapes us.



Jesus was master at using images that were already in the Jewish tradition and applied them directly to himself. That is what we find here.



In the OT, the image of a shepherd was used to denote kings and rulers. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel pick up on this. Ezekiel 34 is especially pointed in it's criticism of Israel's kings, calling them shepherds. To wit, verses 1-6:



The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.



The kings were lousy shepherds of Israel. Things were a mess. What is God to do with these kings? Verses 7-10:



"Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.



The kings and rulers, the shepherds, will be handed their pink slips promptly! But this raises a quandry: Who will then shepherd Israel? Verses 11-15:



"For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD.



The question is answered: God Himself will seek out and rescue the sheep!!



When Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd, this is what he's talking about! The chief priests and rulers of Israel have had their day bringing the nation to ruin. It was time for them to be handed their walking papers and for God to take over. In Jesus, God searched for His lost ones and rescued them from the jaws of those who would devour them. After God rescues, feeds and cares for His sheep, He covenants with them and leads them to peace. I'll let you look up and read verses 25-31 on your own.

Disappointment With God

The account of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 shows how the risen Jesus appears among them in the midst of disappointment and hopelessness. Things didn't pan out the way they had hoped. There was nothing left for them to do but go home and wait for another messiah to come along.

But the stranger in their midst (they were kept from recognizing him) gently showed them that their hopes and dreams for their people had not been dashed, but in fact had been fulfilled in an unexpected way. And it's all there in the Scriptural narrative!!

And beginning with Moses and the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Jesus showed them that there was a different way to read and understand their Scriptures-- one that they weren't used to. This is perhaps a cue for us.

On several occasions Jesus said that the Scriptures in their entirety were about him. It's all too common to find Christians reading the Old Testament Scriptures as a collection of rules and regulations to appease God, while Jesus is merely tacked on at the end as a very nice man who shows us by example how to live our lives. In other words, many project themselves onto the pages of Scripture. Reading Scripture this way will always lead to despair and guilt.

The Old Testament must be read in light of Jesus, not of us. Jesus, not us, is the utmost and final interpreter of all Scripture. Anything in the OT must be read through the lens of Jesus. This is what the Emmaus disciples failed to do initially, but after Jesus showed them what the OT was REALLY about, their hearts swelled with rejoicing. Their disappointment with God was transformed into the beautiful realization that their hopes in Jesus were not in vain and that God did everything that He promised to do.

Now, I'm going to suggest that in many ways we've even misunderstood the New Testament. Many read the NT in the same way they read the OT by projecting themselves onto the pages, making the NT about them. They read the warnings and the promises of wrath as fully contingent on themselves and then begin to think that they're doomed. I've had a few people pull out a verse from, say, James, apply it directly to themselves, and then begin to think they're toast!

What I've tried to get people to see is that the Bible was not written to us. You and I and everyone living today are not the original audience. Scripture does not directly address us today, not only because it wasn't written to us, but also because it's not about us. It's about God as He is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. It's the narrative of how God freed humanity from the bondage of trying to effect its own salvation.

I'm just thinking out loud here. Thoughts?

A Place Called Vertigo

I now have two doctor appointments scheduled for next week. The first one is with an audiologist. Given my diagnosis of Benign Positional Vertigo, this is automatic. I have no idea what said audiologist will do, but I’ll consider it to be necessary in finding out why I have BPPV.

The next appointment is with an ear, nose, and throat specialist. The ENT will evaluate the results from audiology and hopefully follow through with a thorough inner ear exam. I’m not sure what to expect, but in the mean time I’m still taking Meclizine to ward off severe dizzy spells.

I really hope I get to the bottom of this. I’m tired of feeling like I’m perpetually buzzed. It's becoming apparent to me that I'm starting to get loopy because I’m calling this feeling "The Cloud of Unknowing." I know I’m in trouble when I start sarcastically naming my infirmities.

In the Last Days

And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young me shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.-- Acts 2:17-21

Peter spoke these words quoting Joel 2:28-32 to explain to the Jewish people the events of Pentecost. Peter ascertained from what was happening that he was living in the time of the last days. The book of Acts goes on to explain that miracles, signs, and wonders were still being performed through the apostles (2:43).

This begs the question: If we are still in the last days, shouldn't there be some kind of apostolate that still performs these miracles, signs, and wonders in and around Jerusalem? I don't think these things are happening, or at least I'm not aware of these thing happening.

This begs another question: Have we misunderstood what is meant by "the last days"? I think we're all agreed that the last days occur prior to the "great and magnificent day of the Lord". But we may have extended the duration of the last days beyond their intended scope. Perhaps "the last days" should be limited to the apostolic era. This sounds correct to me. If it is, then "the day of the Lord" has already occurred at the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70.

If we are still in "the last days", then something isn't adding up. There are no apostolic signs and wonders indicating that anything is about to occur. We might be tempted to say that "the sun has turned to darkness" via solar eclipses. But this betrays an ignorance of the nature of apocalyptic language.