Transformation: What It's All About

With this blog entry, I have reached the conclusion of my Fundamentals Framework. So in this entry, I'd like to share a few summary thoughts on what I think the core of "being a Christian" is all about and why I have chosen Christianity as my pathway to God.

(1) Christianity for me is, first and foremost, about a personal transformation - a transformation to a life that is centered in God and that is intentional about having a deepening relationship with the Sacred. The result of that personal transformation is growth in love and compassion and life that can be lived more fully.

(2) Christianity for me is also about a social transformation that should lead to experiencing the "Kingdom of God" today...that is, the way life on earth (yes on earth, not heaven) would be today if God was ruler. The result of this social transformation is a focus on justice for the poor and marginalized, an indictment of the religious and political elites and a resistence to oppressive cultural systems of unfairness and dominance.

Why have I chosen Christianity as my pathway to God? Well, for me it is what I have always known...and I am comfortable with it. It works for me in that it affirms the Sacred and experiencing the Sacred, and it shows a path of transformation along with practices and traditions that can assist with that transformation and serve as sacraments to the Sacred. For me, the way I currently see and understand Christianity makes sense to me as a path to God.

Thus far in this blog, I have tried to capture my beliefs about Christianity and, in so doing, clarify my own Christian fundamentals (for a summary see My Fundamental Beliefs - Summary). Through undertaking this endeavour, I feel more comfortable that I can avoid answering "yes" to the questions posed in Mark 8:17-18: "Do you still not perceive or understand?...Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear?". Hopefully, in some small way, my ramblings have also helped others avoid answering "yes" to these questions.

POSTSCRIPT: NOT SURE WHERE TO START WITH THIS ONE 3 YEARS LATER. I AM MUCH LESS FOCUSED ON CHRISTIANITY THESE DAYS...SO IT IS STILL THE RELIGION I UNDERSTAND THE MOST, BUT NOT THE FRAME OF REFERENCE I RELATE TO ON A REGULAR BASIS AT ALL. I DON'T BELIEVE IN "RELATIONSHIP" WITH THE SACRED LIKE I MIGHT HAVE 3 YEARS AGO AND UNFORTUNATELY, THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IS SO SKEWED AT THIS POINT FROM A MAINSTREAM CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE, THAT THE IDEA OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION DOESN'T SEEM LIKELY TO ME. FOR ME, LIFE IS ABOUT LIVING IT TO THE FULLEST AND LOVING THOSE AROUND YOU TO THE HIGHEST EXTENT POSSIBLE. HOPEFULLY THAT IS THE TRANSFORMATION I WILL EVENTUALLY ACHIEVE IN MY OWN LIFE.

Routines and Thin Places

Christianity is often defined by its routines like worship, prayer, Bible reading and study, attending church, listening to sermons, baptism, and communion. What is their purpose? How do they fit into Christianity? Are they required?

To answer those questions, I'll start with a concept called "thin places". This is a concept from Celtic Christianity (a form of Christianity that flourished in Ireland and parts of Scotland, Wales and northern England beginning in the fifth century). "Thin places" are places where the visible world of our ordinary experience meets or intersects with God, the sacred, Spirit. Occasionally, we do experience God through everything else...those are "thin places".

(1) I think the core purpose of Christian routines is to help us encounter "thin places" where our hearts are opened to experience God and grow in compassion and justice.

In that context:

• Worship can be a thin place. It can create a sense of the sacred...it can move us to focus on and experience God.
• Prayer and daily disciplines/devotions can be a thin place...see my What About Prayer? blog entry for some input on this.
• Bible reading and Bible studies can be thin places...it can be sacramental (i.e. a bridge to the Sacred)...see my Bible Beliefs blog entry for further thoughts on this.
• Being part of a church/Christian community and having Christian friendships can be thin places...if they nurture and nourish you while also stretching you at the same time.
• Sermons can be thin places (in this case, I emphasize "can" be). Often they aren't, but sometimes they can be a thin place which opens our hearts to God matters.
• Baptism and communion can be thin places as we focus on God by participating in these practices.

When I say these "thin places" help us experience God, what do I mean? I guess I'd say that through these types of Christian routines, we pay attention to God, we focus on topics like compassion and justice, we can deepen our Christian identity, we can be nourished. All these are ways to experience God. It doesn't mean that you have visions or hear voices or get specific direction or a sense of a direction even. But with a view that God is "isness without limits", I think we can "experience" God through these routines, even if only as "centering" activities that allow us to focus on or think through particular issues (sometimes I think this is all they are...but other times, I think you can "sense" God through these routines). I should note that these routines are often seen as chores or requirements for a Christian. I don't see them that way any more...I see them as potential practices that can help deepen our experience of God and lead us to a life of more compassion and justice.

(2) I don't think that Christian routines are requirements, nor do I think that they are always effective - but they can help us encounter "thin places".

In his book The Heart of Christianity, I like what Marcus Borg says about Christian practices: "Christian practice is about walking with God, becoming kind and doing justice. It is not about believing in God and being a good person; it is about how one becomes a good person through the practice of loving God." (1)

POSTSCRIPT: WELL, 3 YEARS LATER, I CAN SORT OF GET MY HEAD AROUND THIS...BUT SIMILAR TO MY VIEWS ON PRAYER, I THINK THESE TYPES OF ROUTINES ARE MORE ABOUT US THEN THEY ARE ABOUT "THIN PLACES" WHERE WE WOULD "EXPERIENCE" GOD - EVEN WITH THE BROADEST DEFINITION OF "EXPERIENCE" AS I EXPRESSED ABOVE.

Notes:
(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

What About Prayer?

“Not as in the old days I pray,
God. My life is not what it was…
Once I would have asked for healing
I go now to be doctored,
I would have knelt long, wrestling with you.
Wearing you down. Hear my prayer, Lord hear
my prayer. As though you were deaf, myriads
of mortals have kept up their shrill
cry, explaining your stillness by
their unfitness.

It begins to appear this is not what prayer is about.
It is the annihilation of differences,
the consciousness of myself in you,
of you in me; the emerging
from the adolescence of nature
into the adult geometry
of the mind…
Circular as our way
is, it leads not back to that snake haunted
garden, but onward to the tall city
of glass that is the laboratory of the spirit.”

- R. S. Thomas, Twentieth-century Welsh poet

I noted in My ‘More Than’ God blog entry that I think we can interact with and experience God, but that I don’t see God as an interventionalist God – otherwise, there are too many unexplainable non-interventions for a God of love, justice and compassion that I believe God to be. Having said that, I also noted that I don’t deny that there are some paranormal and supernatural happenings which can’t be explained. I don’t know if there is some link between these events and God, but I’m content not to be able to take a position on this one way or another at this point in time.

With that as context, what about prayer? I still think prayer makes sense...although maybe not in the way I used to. I’ve come to think about prayer more as us paying attention to God. There are 3 main types of prayer: verbal, meditation and contemplation.

Verbal prayer often involves petitions and intercessions. Given that I don’t think of God as an interventionalist God, one would think that these types of prayer don’t make sense to me. On the contrary, they do. Why? I can only say that they feel ‘right’ to me. It gives me some comfort, it makes me feel like I am, in a sense, caring for (or thinking of) others. Do I think these types of prayers make any difference? Well, paranormal things do happen. I don’t understand why or how, but, given our lack of knowledge of the supernatural, I’m not certain enough to state unequivocally that prayer never has any impact. But I'm not expecting that these prayers will change the mind or will of an 'out there' God so that he intervenes in the normal course of the universe. And, more importantly, regardless of their effectiveness, I think these types of prayer still have the impact of us paying attention to God or to the concepts surrounding God.

The second type of prayer is meditation, which involves reflecting on an image or phrase or text or idea…dwelling on it. The third type of prayer is contemplation, which is the practice of internal silence…sitting silently in the presence of “isness without limits”. It often involves the silent repetition of a single word or short phrase to give the mind a focus so that the ‘self’ can sink into silence. These are sometimes referred to as 'centering prayers'. These quiet times can be powerful mechanisms to enable a person to solve problems, work through issues and fears and step across barriers. Both of these forms of prayer are more common to eastern religions but seem to be in the process of being re-discovered in western religions.

So, in summary, my thoughts on prayer are as follows:

(1) Verbal (petitionary/intercessory) prayer feels ‘right’ to me – it is part of my process of thinking of and caring for others...but I don’t have an expectation that through these prayers I will change the mind or will of an ‘out there’ God so that He intervenes in the normal course of the universe.

(2) Meditative and contemplative prayers can be powerful ‘centering’ mechanisms that allow us to ‘pay attention’ to God and focus on ‘experiencing God’. I believe these types of prayer can impact and change the pray-er, which can then help the pray-er impact and help others .

POSTSCRIPT: WOW...3 YEARS LATER, I MUST SAY MY VIEWS ON THIS HAVE CHANGED COMPLETELY. NO LONGER DOES VERBAL PRAYER FEEL "RIGHT" TO ME...THE ONLY TIME IT EVEN OCCURS TO ME NOW IS IN THE MOST AWFUL OF SITUATIONS WHEN "OLD HABITS" KICK IN. AND I DON'T THINK THE MEDITATIVE/CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYERS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH "EXPERIENCING" GOD...THEY MAY BE USEFUL TOOLS TO CALM AND CENTRE OUR MINDS, ETC., BUT I THINK THEY ARE ALL ABOUT US, NOT ABOUT AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD.

Revisiting Sin, Salvation and the Afterlife

It’s interesting to me that this blog entry has been so challenging to get my head around; but when you think about it, maybe more than anything else, the concepts of sin, salvation and the afterlife are the most emphasized in fundamental Christianity. Certainly in my Christian upbringing, these concepts were central to everything. I said in one of my first blog entries that if someone had said to me in my early Christian life, that there was proof that there was no afterlife, I would have had no idea why I should be a Christian – getting saved and not sinning SO THAT you could have eternal life was what it was all about.

And a big part of what I grew up with was a guilt factor around sin and a scare factor about salvation and the afterlife. You’d go to church and the congregation would be "preached" at from the pulpit about what awful people we were (i.e. man's fallen nature); we would be asked to think about how we had sinned that past week, month, year, etc.; and we would be challenged about whether we were really saved. And if not, repent…lest you spend eternity in hell. So for me, even though my thinking has changed on a lot of topics (as evidenced in my previous blog entries), I still find it difficult to get out from under the guilt of sin and the scare factor surrounding salvation and the afterlife. So all that to say, this blog entry has been challenging to write.

Let’s start with sin. What is it? Well, most would think of it as disobedience – against God’s commandments and laws. Others would describe sin as being focused on pride or self-centeredness. Others would focus on estrangement or separation from God. Others would say it relates primarily to unfaithfulness (i.e. not loving God with all your heart, mind, etc.). Others would say that sin is not about evil and moral depravity…it is more the actions that result from the survival nature within the human life and is just a part of the reality of humanity’s wholeness (as opposed to resulting from humanity’s fallen nature).

For salvation, most would describe it as “going to heaven” because you’ve believed or done (or not done) what is necessary. As an aside, it’s interesting to me that with such an emphasis in Christianity on faith (i.e. “believe and you will be saved”) and grace (i.e. not works), that everything still seems to come down to WHAT you do (i.e. did you sin and did you get saved). Many would say this isn't the case, but, in my view, the overriding preoccupation in fundamental Christianity is on exactly this topic.

So where am I at on the three concepts of sin, salvation and afterlife topic? Well, let me start with a fourth concept - repentance. From what I’ve read, the Hebrew biblical concept of repentance is more about resolve than contrition. It is about returning “from exile”, reconnecting to God. And in the New Testament, the focus of repentance is on following “the way” of Jesus - that is, the path of transformation (see my blog entry The Way). “The Greek roots of the word combine to mean ‘go beyond the mind you have’…go beyond the mind you have been given or acquired…go beyond the mind shaped by culture to the mind that you can have in/with God. " (1)

In terms of the concept of sin, it seems to me that it is more about mankind’s separation from God (or estrangement from God or lack of centering in God) than it is about disobeying a set of “divine rules”. From the time we are infants, we naturally begin to take on a more self-centered perspective and, by doing so, become less and less centered in God and God’s character (e.g. love, compassion, justice, etc.). If we think of that condition as being in exile from God (or having a life that isn’t centered in God’s character), that is how I would describe the condition of sin. Now, I’m not implying that we should go about doing whatever we like and ignore the implicit moral code that was present in many of the traditional perspectives or teachings on the classic sins. The result of that type of lifestyle would be to continue to hamper one’s ability to be centered in God and God’s character. What I am implying though, is that sin is not about disobeying a set of “divine rules” and suffering the consequences (e.g. eternal damnation).

In terms of salvation, for me it is about a personal transformation that results in a life that is centered in God and God’s character. It is about becoming conscious of our relationship with and connection to God. It is about becoming intentional about deepening our connection with God by experiencing God and trying to center our identity in “the sacred”. “Spirituality is the midwifery process of salvation – it midwifes the process of birthing the new self.” (1) The result of salvation (or the process of salvation, or the process of being “born again”) is a life marked by freedom, joy, peace, love and compassion (or as John Shelby Spong would say a life that fully loves and is fully lived). It is about a life centered in the presence of God.

Finally, the afterlife. I believe there is something after this life. There are enough snippets of thought on the afterlife, as well as experiences and reports of near-death experiences that make me think there is something beyond this life. What will it be like? I have no idea. There are so many versions of what people think it will be like that I don’t see how one can even start to try to decipher which is right. All I know is that we will die. And my hope is that when we do, we die into God’s presence…and if that’s the case, that can’t be a bad thing, now can it?

Will everyone experience an afterlife? Again, I have no idea. But my gut feel is that the answer may be no…I sometimes wonder if the degree to which we “experience God” and achieve a connection to God in this life is preparing some part of our spirit (or soul?) to experience God in the afterlife. I don’t know…just a thought. And if I’m right and some don’t connect with God in the afterlife, I don’t think there is an alternate afterlife experience (e.g. “hell”)…I think there is just eternal separation from God…nothingness...which is how some define hell (although most of the time, there are a set of flames to go with this description).

As an aside, the thing that is really interesting to me is that the concept of the afterlife doesn’t seem to hold the same importance it once did to me within my Christian beliefs. I think that is because I’m no longer scared of “going to hell” if I don’t believe, say and do the exact right things. It’s all up-side...there is a chance I can connect with God both in this life and in the afterlife! Is that just wishful thinking? Again, I don’t know, but I guess that’s part of working out these types of things with “fear and trembling” (or not “fear and trembling” in this case!).

So in summary, where am I at on sin, salvation and the afterlife? If I had to summarize at this point, I think:

(1) The concept of sin relates mainly to mankind’s natural separation from and lack of centering in God and God’s character. It is not about disobeying a set of “divine rules” and suffering the consequences (e.g. eternal damnation).

(2) Repentence is not about contrition and guilt, but about resolving to reconnect to and center oneself in God and God’s character.

(3) Salvation is about a personal transformation that results from a conscious and intentional centering of one’s life and identify in God and God’s character. The result is a life that fully loves and is fully lived; a life that is characterized by love, freedom, peace, compassion and justice.

(4) The afterlife is a great unknown, but I believe there is something after this life, and I’m hoping it is us dying into God’s presence – which would be the ultimate experience of and connection with God.

POSTSCRIPT: 3 YEARS LATER, I PUT MUCH LESS THOUGHT AND EMPHASIS ON ANY OF THESE CONCEPTS. I THINK THEY ARE PRETTY MUCH IRRELEVANT AND HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH LIVING A FULL LIFE...WHICH IS WHAT I THINK IT IS ALL ABOUT. I HOPE THAT THERE IS AN AFTERLIFE, BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT WOULD BE LIKE...THAT'S IT...NO IDEA. AND REGARDLESS, I AM LIVING MY LIFE NOW ASSUMING THERE ISN'T AN AFTERLIFE...SO THE GOAL IS TO LIVE FULLY NOW. AGAIN, THAT DOESN'T MEAN IGNORING BASIC HUMAN MORALS AND DECENCY...BUT I DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT THE CONCEPTS OF SIN, REPENTANCE AND SALVATION WHEN DECIDING WHAT I WILL DO OR NOT DO.

Notes:
(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

Faith Matters

What do you think of when you hear the word “faith”? Dictionary.com defines faith as “belief that is not based on proof”. I would suggest that this is the most common understanding of “faith” today. And certainly within Christianity, the concept of faith means believing a set of Christian beliefs to be true (sometimes interpreted as believing questionable things to be true and ignoring scientifically proven evidence in the process). Interestingly, there are other meanings of “faith” throughout the history of Christianity, which I will touch on later, but for now, let’s deal with the most common understanding of the word, as described above.

The belief-focused understanding of the word “faith” is so prevalent and emphasized in Christianity today that its effect has been that “Christian faith has turned into a ‘head matter’. Faith has become primarily a matter of the beliefs in your head – of whether you believe the right set of claims to be true. That Christian faith is about belief is a rather odd notion, when you think about it. It suggests that what God really cares about is the beliefs in our heads – as if believing the right things is what God is most looking for, as if having “correct beliefs” is what will save us. And if you have “incorrect beliefs”, you may be in trouble. It’s remarkable to think that God cares so much about “beliefs”.” (1)

For me:

(1) While faith should not be about believing things that go against our factual knowledge of the way things are, I do firmly believe that faith is a required component of a Christian life.

Why? Because, ultimately, for me, being Christian means affirming the reality of God (see My More Than God). In addition, Christian faith means affirming the centrality of Jesus (as a disclosure of God and what a life full of God looks like – see Jesus…“My God”, Man), and affirming the centrality of the Bible (not as the literal words of God, but as the foundational document for the Christian tradition – see Bible Beliefs).

Can these three things be proven beyond doubt? No. Can they be disproved beyond doubt? No. All three of these things require some degree of belief (or affirmation) in things that cannot be proven scientifically - that is, there is not "certainty" about these things. Ultimately, though, in my opinion, affirming these three things is central to being a Christian (i.e. these are central Christian convictions). And to hold these convictions requires faith.

I noted earlier that the understanding of “faith” as a set of beliefs is a fairly recent development (i.e. within the last few hundred years). Prior to that time, faith was more a matter of the heart than the head. Two developments led to this change in understanding of faith – the Protestant Reformation (with its focus on beliefs) and the Enlightenment (the birth of modern science and the emphasis on verifiable factuality as being the sole basis of truth).

In Marcus Borg’s book The Heart of Christianity (1), he describes four meanings of the word faith from Christian history, three of which are heart-focused and one of which is head-focused (sort of). In highly summarized form, Borg describes the four meanings as follows:

• Faith as Assensus (this Latin word is closest to the English word “assent”) which is faith as belief – giving one’s mental assent to a proposition. However, it should be noted that, prior to the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, faith as assensus was quite different than today. Before mankind developed such substantial knowledge about so many things, it was more or less effortless to believe in things like the Bible, as there was nothing else to consider as possible alternative truth.
• Faith as Fiducia (this Latin word is closest to the English word “trust”) refers to radical trust in God (not trust in a set of statements about God, but trust in God himself). The opposite of fiducia would be anxiety or worry. Faith, when viewed as radical trust, has great transforming power.
• Faith as Fidelitas (this Latin word is closest to the English word “fidelity”) refers to faithfulness to our relationship with God. That is, loyalty, allegiance, the commitment of the self at its deepest level, the commitment of the heart – a radical centering in God. How do you do this? By paying attention to the relationship and by loving what God loves (e.g. compassion and justice).
• Faith as Visio (this Latin word is closest to the English word “vision”) refers to faith as a way of seeing. That is, the way we see “the whole”…the way we see “what is”. We can see “the whole” as hostile and threatening (i.e. death will get us) which results in a defensive response to life. Or we could see “what is” in an indifferent manner (i.e. the universe is indifferent to mankind – this is the most common modern secular viewpoint). This view usually results in a concern primarily for ourselves and those who are most important to us. The third way to see “the whole” is to view it as life-giving and nourishing. “What is” is filled with wonder and beauty, even if sometimes a terrible beauty. This way of seeing the whole leads to radical trust, and generates a willingness to spend and be spent for the sake of a vision that goes beyond ourselves (i.e. the kind of life we see illustrated in Jesus’ life).

Martin Luther is likely as responsible as anyone for “faith” being central to the Christian vocabulary. But what form of “faith” was Luther’s? Not primarily assensus. “After entering a monastery after being struck by lightning, he went through a decade of agonized terror and ascetic self-denial, seeking to be righteous enough for God. During these years, he had assensus aplenty – and it terrified him. Perhaps because he believed “all of it”, he was filled with fear and anxiety. His transformation occurred through an experience of radical grace that transformed how he saw (visio), led him to see that faith was about trusting God (fiducia), and led him to a life of faithfulness (fidelitas) to God. For Luther, saving faith was not assensus. It was about visio, fiducia and fidelitas.” (1)

POSTSCRIPT: NOT MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THIS 3 YEARS LATER. I'D LIKELY PUT LESS EMPHASIS ON THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF "FAITH" BECAUSE IT IS SO FIRMLY ENTRENCHED IN TERMS OF HOW IT IS UNDERSTOOD TODAY. AND FOR ME, I WOULD HAVE LESS EMPHASIS ON THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE...AND MORE JUST ON THE "GOD" PERSPECTIVE.

Notes:

(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

The Way

Okay, so I grew up with a "Jesus is the only way" understanding in terms of the path to God. That's it. No compromise, no if's, and's or but's...Jesus is the way. Take it or leave it. Any other way is the wrong way.

Interesting! What were we thinking (or not)??? The whole notion that God has decided to be known through only one religion is somewhat strange in itself, when one thinks about it. But, fortunately, we (in my case, the Christians) were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be taught that one way. What about all the others throughout the world who were brought up Hindu or Buddhist or another major religion? Well, too bad for them, right?

Here's an interesting scenario to think through. If you were brought up Christian, think about your experience of coming to know about Christianity. It was more than likely taught to you as truth and you accepted it as such. And did you believe the other religions were also the truth? If you are like many, probably not. But what if you happened to be born on a different continent and were brought up as a Buddhist? Do you think it would have been taught to you as truth and you would have accepted it? Would you believe that other religions were the truth? Similarly, probably not.

And depending on your religious upbringing, it might get even more complicated (or convoluted). I'll stick with Christianity (since that's my background). If you were born a Protestant Christian, you likely thought that the Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians also had it "wrong" to some degree. Not as bad as those from other religions than Christianity, but somewhat wrong nonetheless. And let's say you were raised Pentecostal (or United or Anglican, etc.), you probabaly thought that those other Protestant denominations had it slightly wrong as well. Again, not as bad as the Roman Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on, but still, they didn't have it all right like your denomination did.

Hmmm...isn't that convenient. You just happened to be raised up and taught the exact right teachings about the one pathway to God. Whew!!! What luck...otherwise, you'd be finished. What's that? Your one slice of the religious pie is just a small proportion of the overall religious landscape? Well, again, all the more lucky for you right?

Okay, you get my point. So what do I believe about pathways to God?

(1) The enduring world religions are mediators of the absolute (the sacred) but, like Christianity, are not absolute in themselves.

(2) Christianity, as one of the world's great religious traditions (and my personal religion), is my pathway to God.

By extension, though, this doesn't make each religion the same. Marcus Borg notes the following similarities in his book The Heart of Christianity (1):

• They all affirm "the more", "the sacred", etc.
• They all affirm a path of transformation of the self.
• They all provide practical means for undertaking "the path" or "the way" of transformation.
• They extol compassion as a primary ethical value of life.
• They contain a collection of beliefs and teachings.

It is often the last point noted above where the religions are most different - in their specific stories and beliefs, largely driven by the cultures and histories that shaped them.

As a Christian, than, how do we deal with the exclusive language often referenced by fellow Christians? The most famous 'exclusive' reference is "I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). A few thoughts on this:

• This verse is found in John - the last gospel to be written. This "I am" language isn't found in the other gospels, and is thought by many to be more of an interpretation of the early Christian community than the words of Jesus.
• What is "the way" being referred to? The way is the path of death and resurrection - dying to an old identity and being born into a new identity...a personal transformation. "The way" is not a set of beliefs about Jesus..."as if one enters into new life by believing certain things to be true or as if only those who know the word "Jesus" can be saved. Thinking that way virtually amounts to salvation by syllables." (1) Rather, for us, as Christians, "the way" is represented in Jesus - Jesus is "the way" for us...even though not the only expression of the way.
• This verse should be seen as being written in the language of devotion. As Christians, Jesus is our "way". As such, written as it is, it represents the language of devotion of the early Christian community. It doesn't have to be interpreted as exclusive language.
• Finally, the historical setting within which this verse was written was "a situation of bitter conflict in which John's community of Christian Jews was experiencing sharp social ostracism from non-Christian Jews. As a result, some of John's community would have been tempted to return to their community of origin. So when John wrote these words, he was thinking not of all the religions of the world, but of the synagogue across the street. He was saying, in effect, 'Stay within the community of Jesus. Don't go back to the way you left behind. Jesus is the way; that way isn't.' " (2)

So in summary, for us, as Christians:

(3) Jesus is "the way". He is the disclosure of what a life full of God looks like. This is who Jesus is for us...and we can say this without saying that God is known only in Jesus.

POSTSCRIPT: ON REFLECTION (3 YEARS LATER), MY VIEWS HAVE CHANGED A LITTLE ON THIS ONE...BUT NOT DRASTICALLY. I WOULD PUT LESS EMPHASIS ON CHRISTIANITY BEING MY PATHWAY TO "GOD"...I AM MORE OPEN TO WHATEVER WISDOM WRITINGS HELP ME EVOLVE IN MY HUMANITY AS OPPOSED TO BEING SO CLOSELY WEDDED TO CHRISTIANITY. ALSO, I WOULD TEMPER MY COMMENTS ON HOW ALL THE MAJOR RELIGIONS PROVIDE A PATH OF TRANSFORMATION, ETC. - I THINK SOME DO, BUT OTHERS HAVE SUCH FUNDAMENTALIST TENDENCIES, THAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY MORE DAMAGING THAN NOT.

Notes:

(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

(2) Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001).

Jesus…“My God”, man!

First, let me explain my title. A few years back, a pastor at the church I attended did a series on Jesus. The sermon titles were things like “Jesus, my shepherd”, “Jesus, my healer”, and so on. Our collective favorite title (it still makes me smile now) was “Jesus, my God-man”. It amused us only because a common exclamation we used was “My god, man…” (as in “My god, man, what were you thinking to stick that fork in the electrical outlet?”). So this blog entry is done in fond memory of that pastor…although, he’d likely be rolling in his grave if he read this blog.

Now onto the heart of this blog entry…who is this Jesus we speak about? Was he real and how do we know about him? What was his mission and message, and why was he killed? Was he born of a virgin? Was he raised from the dead? Was (is) he divine - the messiah?

I need to preface this blog entry by giving credit to Marcus Borg (I borrow from his writings a lot in this blog entry). While I have now read a fair collection of writings about Jesus, Borg’s thoughts do sit right with me. I take snippets from others such as John Shelby Spong and N. T. Wright, but their ‘takes’ don't fulfill my thinking as much as Borg’s does. I’ll also say at this point, that I anticipate some will like this blog entry, and some won’t…claiming it is, in places, to wishy washy. My response? So be it. One of the things that is clearer to me today than ever before is that too much certainty can be misleading. So am I certain about what I write here? As certain as I can be…but I recognize and admit that I can’t prove what I write either. Nor, however, can potential critics disprove it. With that out of the way…let’s proceed.

Let’s start with the basics. Was Jesus real? That is, was there ever a historical Jesus? I’m not going to dwell on this question much since even most of the very skeptical Jesus scholars don’t try to argue that Jesus never existed. They may argue about many other things about him, but there is enough evidence (including Biblical writings and other writings about Jesus – such as Josephus) to suggest he did exist that to argue otherwise requires a high degree of skepticism and perhaps a good ‘conspiracy theory’ mind. As with a lot of historical figures, we don’t have the video evidence that we’re used to in today’s age…but we don’t question whether they existed. And I’d add one more thing to think about when discussing this topic…if Jesus didn’t exist, Christianity is a much more incredible phenomenon than ever, isn’t it?

So how do we know about Jesus. Primarily through the gospels in the New Testament. It is important to understand that the gospels were written between 40 and 70 years after Jesus’ death. So some of the material in the gospels goes back to Jesus, and some is as a result of the tradition that developed around Jesus after his death. It is also interesting to note that most biblical scholars believe that none of the gospels were written by any of the 12 disciples of Jesus. With that context, the gospels should be read as the product of a developing tradition. That is, they are a mix of “history remembered and history metaphorized” (1) – so some of the content is history remembered (or material as passed along by eyewitnesses) and some is metaphorical narrative that evolved as the traditions surrounding Jesus evolved in the decades between his death and the writing of the gospels. This is important for many today since much of what they read in the Bible can’t be believed literally. As I noted in an earlier blog though, it is important to remember that a metaphorical narrative doesn’t have to be literally true for it to still speak the truth. On top of that, a metaphorical reading often leads to a richer meaning than a purely literal reading.

In terms of how to think about Jesus, I like Borg’s dual view of the “pre-Easter Jesus and post-Easter Jesus” (1). The pre-Easter Jesus is the historical Jesus…that is, Jesus before his death. The post-Easter Jesus is what Jesus became after his death…that is, “the Jesus of Christian experience and tradition” (1). In terms of the pre-Easter Jesus, Borg describes Jesus in five ways (the following is a paraphrased and shortened extract from Borg’s The Heart of Christianity (1) on this topic):

1. He was a Jewish mystic. Mystics are people who have vivid and typically frequent experiences of God. Found in every culture known to us, they are also central to the Jewish tradition (e.g. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Elisha and the classical prophets, Paul, Peter, etc.). Whatever else needs to be said about Jesus, he was one of these. According to the gospels, he had visions, fasted, spent long hours in prayer, spoke of God in intimate terms, and taught the immediacy of access to God – something mystics know in their own experience. As a Jewish mystic, Jesus lived a life radically centered in God. His life was so fully lived that this is clear.
2. He was a healer. Even nonreligious scholars agree that Jesus performed paranormal healings and what he and his contemporaries experienced as exorcisms. More healing stories are told about Jesus than any other figure in the Jewish tradition. He must have been a remarkable healer. Or at least the experience people had with Jesus caused them to associate that type of power with the one whom they experienced.
3. He was a wisdom teacher. Teachers of wisdom teach a way, a path, of life. The “narrow way” of which Jesus spoke led beyond the “broad way” of convention and tradition. At the heart of the alternative wisdom of Jesus was the path of death and resurrection understood as a metaphor for an internal psychological-spiritual process. The new identity and new way of being was a life radically centered in God, in the Spirit of God Jesus knew in his own experience. He was not constrained by the religious dogma of the day...he was focused on wisdom beyond that...wisdom related to a way to live life fully, love completely and to fully be.
4. He was a social prophet. Social prophets were God-intoxicated voices of religious social protest against the economic and political injustice of the domination systems of their day. Jesus was a prophet of the Kingdom of God – of what life would be like on earth if God were king and the kings and emperors of the world were not. As such, he was a radical critic of the domination system of his time that channeled wealth to the few and poverty to the many.
5. He was a movement initiator. A movement came into existence around him. Remarkably inclusive, it subverted the sharp social boundaries of his day.

But the pre-Easter Jesus was killed…executed actually. Why? Likely because of his social protest and the movement that was building around him. If he was only a mystic, a healer and wisdom teacher, he likely wouldn’t have been targeted. In summary, he was killed “because of his politics and his passion for God’s justice” (1). With that perspective, it doesn’t seem likely that Jesus saw his life purpose as “dying for our sins”. When you think about the concept, it’s a little strange anyway. Why would an almighty God be so limited in his power to forgive that he would have to send his son to die (not to mention that this requires thinking about God as "out there")?

In fact, the whole question of messianic consciousness has always intrigued me about Jesus…even before I embarked on this prospecting journey. I was always intrigued by the fact that in many places within the gospels, Jesus doesn't come out and state that he is the messiah when asked. In fact, if you look at the gospels, the self-claims of messiahship seem to develop throughout the tradition. If you look at Mark (the earliest gospel written…and a gospel which Matthew and Luke would have had as a reference when they wrote their books), when Jesus asks who people say he is, Peter says the messiah, but Jesus tells them not to tell anyone about him. In Matthew, this story “develops” in that Peter says Jesus is the Messiah, Son of the Living God. And Jesus replies that Peter is blessed as Jesus’ Father in heaven has revealed this to him. A similar example can be seen when Jesus walked on water. In Mark, the story ended with the disciples confused, not believing and with hard hearts. In Matthew (remember, he would have had Mark’s gospel and written his afterwards), the story includes Peter coming to walk on the water as well and the story ending with the disciples worshiping Jesus and saying “You really are the Son of God”. Similarly, the gospel sayings that would suggest that Jesus thought of himself as the messiah (for example, the “I am” sayings of John) are seen by many scholars to represent the post-Easter Jesus tradition that built up around him and sought providential purpose in his death (as opposed to sayings that Jesus himself said). And as shocking as this suggestion may be to traditional Christians, when you think about it, does a messianic consciousness really matter? Whether Jesus thought of himself as the messiah or not, he still is the messiah for Christians (more on that later).

While we are on the metaphorical language about Jesus’ messiahship, I find it interesting that of all the metaphors used to describe Jesus (e.g. bread of life, true vine, light of the world, lamb of God, word of God, son of God), we have tended to literalize only one of them – son of God. We don’t have any problem seeing the other metaphors for what they are – that is, we don’t think Jesus is literally a vine, bread, lamb, etc. But we do literalize son of God – maybe because it is an easier metaphor to literalize. It is interesting that in Biblical times, the phrase son of God was used to describe many people/nations – nation of Israel, kings, Jewish mystics, and angels. It was seen to infer someone whose relationship to God was very intimate. So we should be cautious when we throw around the 'son of God' metaphor and just assume that we can literalize it.

Let’s move on to the topic of the virgin birth. I find it interesting how many people are truly tied to this as ‘required truth’. John Shelby Spong has an interesting discussion on this topic in one of his books. He talks about how the thinking of the day would have been that all genes would have come from the male. So the virgin birth was a good explanation of how Jesus was conceived as the son of God. However, when knowledge evolved to show that half the genes of a baby comes from the mother, the church had to revise their thinking on this topic and blend in the idea of an immaculate conception of Mary to preserve the purity of Jesus’ heritage. Based on my current understanding and thinking on this topic, I think the idea of a virgin birth is a metaphorical narrative that evolved as the tradition of Jesus developed following his death. If you look at Paul’s writings and Mark’s gospel (our earliest writings after Jesus’ death), they don’t mention the miraculous birth (a rather stunning thing to leave out don't you think?). As the tradition developed, both Matthew and Luke have added virgin birth stories to the Jesus tradition (note though that there are many differences between their birth stories – genealogy, home, birth visitors, Herod’s plot, use of the Hebrew Bible – which makes one think even more that these stories developed over time).

What about the resurrection stories of Jesus? Well, from what I can tell, something must have happened at Easter that had startling and enormous power. Whatever it was, it “reconstituted a scattered and demoralized band of disciples, it turned a denying Peter into a witnessing and martyred Peter, to turn disciples who fled into heroes willing to die for their Lord, it created a holy day” (3)…in fact, it resulted in the whole Christianity movement. So what exactly happened? Was Jesus physically resuscitated or were the resurrection experiences something other than encounters with a physical Jesus? Well I think there were encounters - yes, experiential realities involving Jesus! Based on the language used in the Bible, it would seem to me that the encounters were not with a physical body…they were more like visions or apparitions. Paul notes that he also saw Jesus…and his language was certainly vision-like. As well, in the resurrection stories, Jesus appears and disappears…not something that a physical body does. So what the encounters seem to have been were experiences of the power of Jesus’ spirit – similar to the experiences they would have had with Jesus when he was alive. But the important point is that it does seem that they did have these experiences – so the post-Easter Jesus is not just a tradition but also an experiential reality. “And Christians throughout the centuries have continued to experience Jesus as a living spiritual reality. Those experiences have taken a variety of forms, but at their heart, I believe they are realizations of what Jesus represented...a vision of God (not literally as a human who was inhabited by the divine; but as a human who so fully lived, loved and was, that this experience we have is as close to our ability to describe a God-experience as humans can manage. As a result of these experiences, the post-Easter Jesus “lives” and “is Lord” – the post-Easter Jesus was experienced as someone who was ‘one with God’. That is who Jesus is for us as Christians. Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus is a revelation of “the way” – that is, an internal transformation which results in growth in love, life and being.

So in conclusion, is Jesus divine? Well, my answer is yes. The pre-Easter Jesus can be seen as an incarnation of God. His spirit seemed to be incredibly open to the presence of God (some refer to Jesus as having an extreme “emptiness of spirit” that allowed for a powerful experience of God’s presence). Those who experienced the pre-Easter Jesus did not experience an ordinary person. Spong alludes to Jesus as being an amazing example of how to live life fully and love completely. And the post-Easter Jesus is experienced as someone who is one with God – that is, Jesus is a view into God. I like the analogy of masks – God can be seen through different masks, one of which is Jesus. For Christians, the decisive mask for us is Jesus. He is our decisive revelation of God. And note that this does not require affirming that Jesus is the only adequate revelation of God. But Jesus shows us, as Christians, what a life full of God is like, and is our ultimate sacrament of God. Through Jesus, we see the heart of God.

So, in summary, here are my fundamental beliefs about Jesus:

(1) There was a real, historical Jesus.

(2) Our primary source about Jesus, the gospels, are the product of a developing tradition and include a mix of history remembered and history metaphorized.

(3) I like the dual view of a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus. The pre-Easter Jesus is the historical Jesus…that is, Jesus before his death (Jewish mystic, healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet and movement initiator). The post-Easter Jesus is what Jesus became after his death…that is, the Jesus of Christian experience and tradition.

(4) Jesus was killed because of his social protest and the movement that was building around him, not because he was a mystic, healer and wisdom teacher. With that perspective, it doesn’t seem likely that Jesus saw his life purpose as “dying for our sins”.

(5) I do not think Jesus was born of a virgin. I think the idea of a virgin birth is a metaphorical narrative that evolved as the tradition of Jesus developed following his death.

(6) I believe that something must have happened at Easter, and it must have had startling and enormous power since it resulted in the whole Christianity movement. I think there were Easter encounters with Jesus (experiential realities involving Jesus) and Christians throughout the centuries have continued to experience Jesus as a living spiritual reality. As a result of these experiences, the post-Easter Jesus “lives” and “is Lord” (i.e. one with God) for us as Christians. Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus is a revelation of “the way” – that is, an internal transformation which results in growth in love, life and being.

(7) For Christians, the decisive revelation of God is Jesus (note that this does not require affirming that Jesus is the only adequate revelation of God). Jesus shows us, as Christians, what a life full of God is like, and is our ultimate sacrament of God. As such, Jesus is divine.

POSTSCRIPT: OKAY, I MUST ADMIT MY THINKING HAS CHANGED SINCE I WROTE THIS BLOG 3 YEARS AGO. THE WHOLE "HEALER" DIMENSION DOESN'T WORK FOR ME AT THIS POINT...I WOULD ATTRIBUTE THAT TO THE DEVELOPING TRADITION AS OPPOSED TO ANY PRE-EASTER REALITY. AND MY THINKING ABOUT EASTER HAS COMPLETELY CHANGED...I DON'T BELIEVE FOR A SECOND THAT ANYONE HAD ANY REAL PHYSICAL ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS. SOMETHING OCCURRED, BUT I WOULD NOW ATTRIBUTE THE "SOMETHING" TO BE MORE LIKE A NEW THINKING ABOUT JESUS WHICH INSPIRED HIS FOLLOWERS ANEW AND CAUSED THEM TO PUSH THE MOVEMENT FORWARD. THERE IS ALSO A DIMENSION OF POST-EASTER ELABORATION ON THE STORY OF JESUS AND THE EASTER MOMENT WHICH MAKES IT SEEM LIKE A "MOMENT IN TIME" WHEN IN REALITY IT SHOULD LIKELY BE SEEN MORE AS THE EVOLUTION OF THINKING AND HOW THE MOVEMENT EVOLVED OVER TIME.

Notes:

(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

(2) Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1999).

(3) John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991).

My ‘More Than’ God

The next stop on my prospecting journey deals with God. As a child, I had the “old man in the sky” image that many people have when they are asked to describe God. My God was a being “out there” who had created the universe. You would praise and pray to God, hoping your prayer would be heard and responded to. Yes, my God was an interventionalist God - well, when God decided to intervene. And when God “decided not to intervene”, we could rationalize this with a variety of reasons like: God is doing this for our growth, or there is a longer term benefit we don’t understand yet.

Why did I think about God this way? Well, first, that is what was “taught” in church. Secondly, since I saw the Bible as literal truth, the many Bible stories that would lead one to this model of God were clearly implanted in mind. Thirdly, I was pretty fortunate in life and was able to attribute at least some of that to the intervening of God to help out along the way. And finally, I didn’t spend much time thinking about or considering this topic.

As I have thought about God over the last few months, it has been surprising to me how difficult it is to describe God. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, I guess, since scholars throughout time have struggled with this very topic. So this blog entry may not do justice to a description of God, but for now, this is where I am at in describing my fundamental beliefs about God…

(1) God is ‘more than’ language can describe…but within that constraint, I like “isness without limits” as a description of God

• Although this may seem like a bit of a cop out, I thought I should start with this belief. I think God is ‘more than’ humans can conceive of and describe. So human words and language can’t adequately describe God (having said that…I’ll still do what I can in this blog entry).
• Paul Tillich, one of the most important Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, tries to describe “God” and uses phrases such as: “what is”, “ultimate reality”, “the ground of being”, “Being itself”, “isness”. I particularly like “isness”, but I would suggest God is more than just “isness”…I’ll get to that a little later.
• Thomas Keating referred to God as “isness without limits” which I personally like as a description. (1)
• In Exodus 3, the story speaks of a conversation between God and Moses and God describes himself as “I am who I am”...an interesting description for the author to use.

(2) God is ‘more than’ can be proven with evidence…but even without irrefutable evidence, I believe that God is real

• Is God real? That’s the question asked throughout the ages. I can only say that my fundamental belief is that God is real. Having said that, I recognize that there is no single proof or piece of evidence that can be referenced to back up that belief beyond the shadow of a doubt. So for me, it’s just that…my belief.
• So what has led me to that conclusion? Well, I’m sure that my Christian upbringing still has a huge impact on this. That is, I have always believed in a God. And there is no proof that there isn’t a God. And there are enough other factors that make we think that a belief in God is as rational and believable as a belief that there is no God. What factors you might ask? Well, the concept of “God” has been with humanity throughout history and throughout the religions around the world – this makes me think that these experiences point to something being there. Creation itself is so mind-blowing to me that I find it incomprehensible that there is nothing better to explain all of its mysteries and wonders than just matter and space. There seem to be a variety of “ecstatic” (i.e. out of oneself, or outside of one’s ordinary state of consciousness (2)) religious experiences (e.g. visions, shamanic experiences, mystical experiences, near-death experiences, and sometimes just a deep awareness of God’s presence) that seem to point to another layer of reality that leads me to believe there is a God. And it is clear that humanity continues to learn – that is, our scientific worldview is incomplete…we don’t know everything and can’t prove everything that explains all of life’s experience. Even “science” is finding out or understanding more all the time that there seems to point to the fact that there is more than just time and space to existence as we know it. So, in my opinion, we shouldn’t discount the concept of God merely due to a lack of scientific proof…this is too arrogant for my thinking.

(3) God is ‘more than’ just “right here”…God is an encompassing Spirit within which everything is, but God is also more than everything

• There is a concept known as panentheism (Greek words: πάν ( 'pan' ) =all, en=in and Theos=God; "all-in-God") which views God as both immanent and transcendent.
• As opposed to the “old man in the sky” concept of God, panentheism suggests that God is the encompassing Spirit in whom everything is…sort of like Tillich’s “ground of all being” and “isness”. This concept has been seen and talked about regularly in Christian circles (although not often referred to by this name). In Acts, God is referred to as the one in whom “we live, move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Psalms 139 says “Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” So with this thinking, God is right here (not some distant supernatural being who just sits in heaven from afar and looks down on us).
• But unlike pantheism, panentheism does not merely equate God with the universe. Instead it holds that there is more to God than just the universe itself. In Marcus Borg’s “The Heart of Christianity”, he uses the phrase “everything is in God, but God is more than everything” (1) to describe this thinking. More about this in the next belief.

(4) God is ‘more than’ just the source of love, life and being…God is also personal, relational and can be experienced

• John Shelby Spong tries to describe the essence of God in his book “A New Christianity for a New World”. He uses a three-pronged description which I like as a starting point. He says that God is the ultimate source of life; God is the ultimate source of love; and God is Being – the reality underlying everything that is. Spong suggests that we worship God by living fully, by sharing deeply, by loving wastefully, and you must be willing to risk all, abandoning your defenses and your self-imposed or culturally constructed security systems (3)
• And while I like the description as a starting point, there is something in his description that doesn’t resonate fully with me. I believe that God is more than a source or energy or force. I think Spong would agree, but it doesn’t jump off the page to me when I read his work. I think of God as more of a presence than just a source.
• In that light, I see part of God’s essence as being personal and relational in nature, and I believe that we can interact with God. As an aside, I know many people don’t like the personal language we use to describe God. Personally, I think that I’m okay with personal language for God mainly because it is human nature to use this type of language to describe things (see belief #1 above on the inadequacy of language!). I would just caution against literalizing the personal sayings or it tends to distort who God really is.
• As a personal and relational God, it follows that God can be experienced as an experiential reality. That is, God is experienced firsthand rather than a secondhand belief. Some people seem more open than others to experiencing the presence of God. “Some writers on spirituality speak of “emptiness” as a condition of the psyche that makes possible being filled by God. For whatever combination of reasons (genetic inheritance, socialization, spiritual practices, and so on)” some people are so “empty” that they can be more filled with the Spirit. (4) In my future blog entry on “Christian Routines”, I hope to return to this topic.
• Through this experiencing of God, I think we interact with God and God with us. I don’t see God as interventionalist God – otherwise, there are too many unexplainable non-interventions for a God of love, justice and compassion that I believe God to be. Having said that, I don’t deny that there are some paranormal and supernatural happenings which can’t be explained. I don’t know if there is some link between these events and God, but I’m content not to be able to take a position on this one way or another at this point in time.
• And while God may not intervene, he is a presence within our lives, and by interacting with God, we get to “know” God (not know about God, but experience God). On a side note, I recently noted that in John’s gospel, “eternal life” is defined as “to know God”…as opposed to an afterlife/heaven which is the typical interpretation of “eternal life” in John’s gospel (especially in the context of John 3:16).

Thus far in this blog entry, I have focused on God as a being and our relationship with God. Before ending this blog entry, I want to touch on God’s character. I won’t try to dive into these characteristics individually here, but I will address them further in future blog entries:

(5) The essence of God’s character is love, compassion, justice, and peace.

• Through our relational experience with God, the goal is for a transformation at the deepest level of our being so that our lives emulate these characteristics.

Finally, I want to summarize two different models for imaging God which were outlined by Marcus Borg in “The God We Never Knew” (2). I found the models very enlightening in how different people image God, so I thought I would share them here. The two models are the monarchical image of God and the spirit image of God.

• In the monarchical model, God is imaged as king, lawgiver and judge – a distant powerful being. The effect of this image is a “performance model” for Christian life. Sin and guilt are central to this model with a focus on required repentance and salvation from sin. As a result, the Christian life quickly becomes focused on “meeting requirements” or “measuring up” – the self is perpetually “on trial”.
• In the spirit model, God is seen as near (as opposed to a distant king), personal and relational. The effect of this image includes creation looking different (it isn’t what God did to create the universe, but what is continuing to happen in terms of the relation between God and creation), the human condition looks different (humanity’s central problem is not sin but estrangement or blindness to the presence of God), and sin and salvation look different (sin isn’t “breaking rules” but more focused on unfaithfulness – that is, making something other than the Spirit central; and salvation isn’t about the future and after death, but focused on something that happens in the present in our relationship with God as Spirit).

POSTSCRIPT: 3 YEARS LATER A FEW CHANGES...I STILL BELIEVE IN "GOD", BUT NOT AT ALL DUE TO ECSTATIC OR RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. AND I DON'T SEE GOD AS "RELATIONAL" OR "PERSONAL" LIKE I DID AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS. AND I DON'T THINK WE "EXPERIENCE" GOD AS I WROTE. AND I WOULDN'T DESCRIBE GOD'S CHARACTER IN THE SAME WAY. I NOW SEE "GOD" MORE AS A CONCEPT THAT HUMANS CAN USE TO DESCRIBE HOW OUR LIVES CAN EVOLVE TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST.

(1) Thomas Keating remark referred to Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).
(2) Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).
(3) John Shelby Spong, A New Christianity for a New World (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001).
(4) Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1999)

Bible Beliefs

I have decided to start my fundamental belief blog entries with the Bible. Why? Well, in my own personal experience, how you view the Bible has an overwhelming impact on your approach to Christianity and on your theological beliefs.

Like most protestants, I grew up with a divine, literal view of the Bible. First and foremost, the Bible was seen to contain the very words of God (i.e. it had divine authority). As a child, I could almost envision God reaching down and holding the hands of the Bible's authors to ensure they got everything exactly as God had intended. So with that perspective, when you read something in the Bible, you read it as if it was God himself (I know...herself, itself, whatever) was standing there mouthing the words along with you. So you didn't question the logic or rationale or applicability to today's world and culture, you just accepted it as God's words. (As a sidebar, it is interesting, isn't it, that we assume the Bible must be read literally - it is as if we have concluded that the authors of the day, even if one still believed that God was the author, couldn't have written in metaphorical language.)

And not far behind the divine authority thinking was the literal thinking. Yes that's right...the Bible is to be read literally unless the language is CLEARLY metaphorical. So the earth was created in six days (not five or seven) . Adam and Eve were real people in a real garden (apparently having a lot of sex since they needed to populate the entire planet...but as a child, this didn't really mean much I guess), and there was a real tree with apples and a real snake going around convincing people to take a bite. And of course there was a flood and an ark...how else to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs? And yes, that Red Sea parted upon command, and there was a guy named Jonah who was actually swallowed by a whale and lived there for a few days (And why not? You couldn't beat the rent I bet.). And that's just a few highlights from the Old Testament. Wait for the New Testament...Jesus was born of a virgin, a star lead people to Jesus, Jesus walked on water, turned a few loaves of bread into a feast for thousands, turned water into wine, physically rose from the dead, and so on, and so on.

And I'm not kidding...I saw it all as literal (except for those few parts of the Bible that the preachers and Sunday School teachers didn't like so much or couldn't explain...so those were a little more fuzzy and confusing). "Come on" you must be thinking. And to my own defense, let me say (with all modesty), I'm not a stupid or gullible person. But when you grow up on this stuff and it is taught to you the same way that 2+2=4 is, it tends to have quite an impact on your normally rational brain.

Now like many, though, as I got older, certain things didn't seem to make as much sense. But, to be honest, since I didn't dwell on those types of questions that much (otherwise, I'd being going to hell, right?), there weren't a lot of Bible stories I needed to come up with a rationalization for. But things like Adam and Eve populating a planet, for example, you start to question. And not eating certain foods or mixing different fibres in clothing...oh yeah, those we were able to justify as being "Old Testament teaching"...the New Testament overrides all that law stuff...well, except for the Ten Commandments, and that verse on homosexuality, and...well, you get the idea. And of course, then there was the Revelation material. Parts of that just didn't seem right...I couldn't envision all those coloured horses, for example. But don't get me wrong...I got to watch all the classic end times movies as a child (you remember the ones...where the characters were forced to get 666 branded on their wrists or foreheads - or with embedded microchips if it was a really advanced movie; and who could forget that guillotine in the middle of town chopping off people's heads who didn't get "the mark" - more than one person went running up to "get saved" after seeing that). So regardless of how strange some of it read, there was a lot of Revelation that you were sure was going to happen (somehow)...you were still waiting to hear that trumpet (literally!).

And then I read a book called The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur, who argued, amongst other things, that many of the Bible's stories were essentially based on earlier Egytology stories. To be honest, I didn't particularly enjoy the book or respect Harpur's research and writing skills. But, the book did trigger my interest so, for that, I owe it some gratitude. My next stop down the Bible prospecting path was a book called Misquoting Jesus, by Bart Ehrman. This was a very interesting book focused on textual criticism of the Bible. From this book, it was clear to me that the words that are in the Bible have changed so much over the hundreds of years since they were written that if they ever were the "direct words of God", they aren't anymore. Several books later, I came across Marcus J. Borg's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. This is a fabulous book that I would recommend to anyone who has read or may read the Bible. This book, along with several others written by Borg (which I will refer to in future blogs) have helped shape my current thinking to a large degree. I won't be able to do this book any justice in this short form, but suffice it to say that my fundamental belief statements below have been heavily influenced by and drawn from a lot of Borg's material.

With that, I will attempt to summarize the essence of my fundamental beliefs about the Bible:

(1) The Bible is a human product - capturing the experiences of the ancient Israel community and the early Christian community and their responses to God and Jesus. It does not contain the very words of God.

• As such, it is not a divine product (i.e. not the very words of God).
• It contains these ancient communities' "stories about God's involvement in their lives, their laws and ethical teachings, their prayers and praises, their wisdom about how to live, and their hopes and dreams. It is not God's witness to God (not a divine product) but their witness to God. (1)"
• Specifically with respect to the early Christian community's stories, the gospels (i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are the product of a "developing tradition" (1). That is, in the time between Jesus' life and the time when the gospels were written, there was an evolution of thinking about Jesus' life, message and mission. As a result, the gospels "contain some material that goes back to Jesus and some that is the product of the early Christian community - to use a vocal analogy, the gospels contain more than one voice: the voice of Jesus and the voices of the community." (1)
• With this belief statement, I do not deny the concept of inspiration, but I do not see it as direct inspriration of the words. I believe the authors had God-experiences (in a variety of forms) which inspired them to write their books/letters. But the words and thoughts are their words, not God's. Having said that, I also do not deny the wisdom and insight we can get from the Bible (more on that in belief #3 below).
• My reasons for concluding that the Bible is a human product as opposed to a divine product are many. Overall, though, to claim that the Bible has divine authority seems to me to be an arrogant and almost incomprehensible argument. If it has divine authority, how does one explain the inconsistencies and errors in the Bible itself? How do you reconcile this with the canonization process that took place where man (or men) decided what would go into the Bible? How do you deal with the changes to the texts that have been made over the years as a result of translations and mass production of the Bible? How do we justify the suggestion that God stopped communicating to man in any form that should be documented and seen as sacred as of about 135 CE (nothing from folks like Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Graham)? And does it make sense that God only spoke to Middle Eastern men (i.e. no women and no other ethnicity)? These are just a few of the types of questions and considerations which have led me to conclude that the Bible is a human product (maybe more on this topic specifically in a future blog entry).
• Interestingly, with the view that the Bible is a human product, it allows one to read and appreciate the sacred writing of other major religions and recognize them for what they are - a human response to "the sacred" (a term Borg uses a lot in reference to God, and a term which I have grown fond of) reflecting their language and culture.

(2) The Bible contains a mixture of history and metaphors. As such, it should not be (and was never intended to be) read literally. Instead, readers should adopt a "historical-metaphorical approach" (1) to gain a more complete understanding and appreciation of the Bible and the meaning of its stories.

• The Bible clearly contains some stories that are grounded in history. Likewise, there are clearly metaphors and metaphorical narratives in the Bible.
• After adopting my first belief about the Bible, there was a bit of a domino effect. If the Bible doesn't contain God's words, then I don't need to see the words themselves as literal, infallible and absolute truth. Instead, the words are related to the time and place of the authors and grounded in the culture of their time.
• As such, the Bible should be seen through historical and metaphorical lenses (1).
• The historical lens refers to reading the Bible in the context within which it was written. For example, understanding the state of political and social dynamics of the time sheds a great deal of light on the Biblical texts. (Reflecting on my experience within Christianity, it seems to me that we tend do this only for certain passages that we would like to "explain away" - for example, the role of women in the church, etc.) It should be noted, however, that the danger in just employing a historical approach is that it will become only a factual, scientific view of the texts looking only for the historical meaning and thereby not addressing (or ignoring) texts which are "saying something about God or about events that go beyond the boundaries of what is deemed possible by the modern worldview" (1) and not interpreting the potential meaning of the text for current-day readers.
• The metaphorical lens recognizes that much of the Bible's language is obviously metaphorical and that the Bible contains both history and metaphor (i.e. some events really happened and, in other cases, there may be little or not historical factuality behind the stories). As such, it seeks to understand the metaphorical meanings of the text, regardless of the historical factuality of the events themselves. The metaphorical lens emphasizes that the Bible can be "really true" even if not "literally true". As a lens, it emphasizes "seeing, not believing - the point is not to believe in a metaphor, but to see in light of it" (1). The danger with adopting only this lens is that the reader's imagination will "roam too freely, producing uncontrolled, fanciful interpretations that have little or nothing to do with the actual text" (1). So the metaphorical approach is balanced by the historical approach as well as the "discernment of the community" hearing the metaphorical meanings being suggested.

(3) The Bible is a sacred document for Christians. It is the foundation document for our faith with which we should be in "continuing conversation" (1) and from which we can better understand the character and will of God.

• In this context, sacred does not refer to the Bible being of divine authority (see belief #1 above). It refers to the fact that the Bible is sacred because of its "status and its function. Its sacred status for Christians means that it continues to be the most important collection of documents we know. As sacred scripture it functions as...our foundation document, our identity document and our wisdom tradition. To be Christian means to be in primary continuing conversation with the Bible as foundational for our identity and vision...for the Bible is at the heart of Christianity." (1)
• Given that the Bible is a human product, the "continuing conversation" should be both from a critical viewpoint (i.e. deciding and discerning what passages are relevant to our time, or discerning/interpreting meanings of texts) as well as from a more open viewpoint whereby we allow ourselves to learn from and be shaped by the wisdom in the Bible.
• As such, as Christians, the Bible should be used to help us deepen our relationship with God (by better understanding His character and will) and transform us. This is done by seeking the wisdom and meanings of texts and stories from the Bible.

(4) The Bible is a mediator to God (i.e. a sacrament).

• A sacrament is "a finite, physical, visible mediator of the sacred, a means whereby the sacred becomes present to us"(1).
• As Christians, the words of the Bible can become a mediator to God, addressing us in the present...helping us better understand the character and will of God...helping us to transform our own lives and deepen our relationship with God.
• For many, the Bible as sacrament is experienced in daily "devotions" (e.g. reading of the Bible and prayer). For others, it may be contemplations of specific Biblical passages or meditation upon the Bible.

In summary, I provide a quote from Borg's book "The Heart of Christianity":

"The Bible - human in origin, sacred in status and function - is both metaphor and sacrament. As metaphor, it is a way of seeing - a way of seeing God and our life with God. As sacrament, it is a way that God speaks to us and comes to us. Within this framework, being Christian is not primarily about believing in the modern sense of believing certain propositions to be true. To be Christian means a relationship with God, lived within the Christian tradition, including especially the Bible as the foundation of the tradition, as both metaphor and sacrament. The Christian life is about a relationship with the one whom the Bible both points to and mediates - namely, a relationship with God as disclosed through the Bible as metaphor and sacrament. To be Christian is to live within this tradition and let it do its transforming work among us." (1)

POSTSCRIPT: ON FURTHER REFLECTION, THE ABOVE BLOG CONTINUES TO REFLECT MY BELIEFS ON THE BIBLE (3 YEARS LATER) ALTHOUGH I WOULD PUT LESS EMPHASIS ON A "RELATIONSHIP" WITH GOD, AND I WOULD ADD AN EMPHASIS ON LEARNING FROM OTHER "SACRED" TEXTS.

Notes:

(1) Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) and The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003). Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1999).

My Fundamental Beliefs - Summary

This blog entry summarizes my fundamental beliefs (using the "Fundamentals Framework" established in a previous blog entry). The beliefs summarized here have been expanded upon in other blog entries within this blog.

Hopefully, this summary provides insight into my core beliefs (NOTE THAT 3 YEARS AFTER I WROTE THIS, MY THINKING HAS CHANGED...I HAVE ADDED POSTSCRIPTS TO MY OTHER BLOG ENTRIES...I TRY TO NOTE BELOW WHICH OF THE FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS STILL RESONATE WITH MY CURRENT THINKING):

The Bible (see Bible Beliefs)

• The Bible is a human product - capturing the experiences of the ancient Israel community and the early Christian community and their responses to God and Jesus. It does not contain the very words of God. (AGREE)
• The Bible contains a mixture of history and metaphors. As such, it should not be (and was never intended to be) read literally. Instead, readers should adopt a "historical-metaphorical approach" to gain a more complete understanding and appreciation of the Bible and the meaning of its stories. (AGREE)
• The Bible is a sacred document for Christians. It is the foundation document for our faith with which we should be in "continuing conversation" and from which we can better understand the character and will of God. (AGREE BUT I WOULD PUT MORE EMPHASIS ON OTHER BOOKS OF WISDOM AS WELL)
• The Bible is a mediator to God (i.e. a sacrament). (DISAGREE WITH THIS CONCEPT)

God (see My 'More Than' God)

• God is ‘more than’ language can describe…but within that constraint, I like “isness without limits” as a description of God (AGREE)
• God is ‘more than’ can be proven with evidence…but even without irrefutable evidence, I believe that God is real (AGREE)
• God is ‘more than’ just “right here”…God is an encompassing Spirit within which everything is, but God is also more than everything (AGREE)
• God is ‘more than’ just the source of love, life and being…God is also personal, relational and can be experienced (DISAGREE WITH THE CONCEPT OF A RELATIONAL GOD)
• The essence of God’s character is love, compassion, justice, and peace. (AGREE)

Jesus (see Jesus..."My God", man!)

• There was a real, historical Jesus. (AGREE)
• Our primary source about Jesus, the gospels, are the product of a developing tradition and include a mix of history remembered and history metaphorized. (AGREE)
• I like the dual view of a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus. The pre-Easter Jesus is the historical Jesus…that is, Jesus before his death (Jewish mystic, healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet and movement initiator). The post-Easter Jesus is what Jesus became after his death…that is, the Jesus of Christian experience and tradition. (AGREE)
• Jesus was killed because of his social protest and the movement that was building around him, not because he was a mystic, healer and wisdom teacher. With that perspective, it doesn’t seem likely that Jesus saw his life purpose as “dying for our sins”. (AGREE)
• I do not think Jesus was born of a virgin. I think the idea of a virgin birth is a metaphorical narrative that evolved as the tradition of Jesus developed following his death. (AGREE)
• I believe that something must have happened at Easter, and it must have had startling and enormous power since it resulted in the whole Christianity movement. I think there were Easter encounters with Jesus (experiential realities involving Jesus) and Christians throughout the centuries have continued to experience Jesus as a living spiritual reality. As a result of these experiences, the post-Easter Jesus “lives” and “is Lord” (i.e. one with God) for us as Christians. Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus is a revelation of “the way” – that is, an internal transformation which results in growth in love, life and being. (AGREE SOMETHING HAPPENED, BUT DON'T BELIEVE IT WAS AN EXPERIENCE...MAYBE A REFINED THINKING THAT BUILT MOMENTUM FOR THE MOVEMENT)
• For Christians, the decisive revelation of God is Jesus (note that this does not require affirming that Jesus is the only adequate revelation of God). Jesus shows us, as Christians, what a life full of God is like, and is our ultimate sacrament of God. As such, Jesus is divine. (AGREE, BUT WOULD EMPHASIZE THAT WE CAN LEARN FROM OTHERS AS WELL)

Pathways to God (see The Way)

• The enduring world religions are mediators of the absolute (the sacred) but, like Christianity, are not absolute in themselves. (DISAGREE THAT THEY ARE MEDIATORS)
• Christianity, as one of the world's great religious traditions (and my personal religion), is my pathway to God. (SORT OF AGREE BUT I DON'T ALIGN MYSELF WITH THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION LIKE I USED TO)
• For Christians, Jesus is "the way". He is the disclosure of what a life full of God looks like. This is who Jesus is for us...and we can say this without saying that God is known only in Jesus. (AGREE, BUT WOULD EMPHASIZE THAT WE CAN LEARN FROM OTHERS AS WELL)

Faith (see Faith Matters)

• While faith should not be about believing things that go against our factual knowledge of the way things are, I do firmly believe that faith is a required component of a Christian life. (DISAGREE)

Sin, Salvation and Afterlife (see Revisiting Sin, Salvation and the Afterlife)

• The concept of sin relates mainly to mankind’s natural separation from and lack of centering in God and God’s character. It is not about disobeying a set of “divine rules” and suffering the consequences (e.g. eternal damnation). (DON'T REALLY FOCUS ON THIS CONCEPT AT ALL ANYMORE)
• Repentence is not about contrition and guilt, but about resolving to reconnect to and center oneself in God and God’s character. (DON'T REALLY FOCUS ON THIS CONCEPT AT ALL ANYMORE)
• Salvation is about a personal transformation that results from a conscious and intentional centering of one’s life and identify in God and God’s character. The result is a life that fully loves and is fully lived; a life that is characterized by love, freedom, peace, compassion and justice. (DON'T REALLY FOCUS ON THIS CONCEPT AT ALL ANYMORE)
• The afterlife is a great unknown, but I believe there is something after this life, and I’m hoping it is us dying into God’s presence – which would be the ultimate experience of and connection with God. (AGREE)

Prayer (see What About Prayer?)

• Verbal (petitionary/intercessory) prayer feels ‘right’ to me – it is part of my process of thinking of and caring for others...but I don’t have an expectation that through these prayers I will change the mind or will of an ‘out there’ God so that He intervenes in the normal course of the universe. (DON'T REALLY FOCUS ON THIS CONCEPT AT ALL ANYMORE)
• Meditative and contemplative prayers can be powerful ‘centering’ mechanisms that allow us to ‘pay attention’ to God and focus on ‘experiencing God’. I believe these types of prayer can impact and change the pray-er, which can then help the pray-er impact and help others . (DISAGREE ABOUT THE "EXPERIENCING" GOD CONCEPT RELATED TO ANY KIND OF PRAYER...UNLESS THE MEANING OF "EXPERIENCE" IS REALLY LOOSE)

Christian Routines (see Routines and Thin Places)

• The core purpose of Christian routines (such as worship, Bible reading, prayer, attending church, sermons, etc.) is to help us encounter "thin places" where our hearts are opened to experience God and grow in compassion and justice. (DISAGREE WITH THE CONCEPT OF THIN PLACES UNLESS A VERY LOOSE INTERPRETATION IS GIVEN)
• I don't think that Christian routines are requirements, nor do I think that they are always effective - but they can help us encounter "thin places". (DISAGREE WITH THE CONCEPT OF THIN PLACES UNLESS A VERY LOOSE INTERPRETATION IS GIVEN)

Christian Life Focus (see Transformation: What It's All About)

• Christianity is, first and foremost, about a personal transformation - a transformation to a life that is centered in God and that is intentional about having a deepening relationship with the Sacred. The result of that personal transformation is a growth in love and compassion and life that can be lived more fully. (DISAGREE WITH THE RELATIONSHIP FOCUS OF THIS)
• Christianity is also about a social transformation that should lead to the experiencing of the "Kingdom of God" today...that is, the way life on earth (yes on earth, not heaven) would be today if God was ruler. The result of this social transformation is a focus on justice for the poor and marginalized, an indictment of the religious and political elites and a resistence to oppressive cultural systems of unfairness and dominance. (DISAGREE, AS UNFORTUNATELY I DON'T SEE THAT THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN ITS CURRENT FORM IS EVEN CLOSE TO BEING ABLE TO DRIVE SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION AS ENVISIONED HERE)

"Fundamentals" Framework

Background
I had initially envisioned this blog entry to lay out my own version of "The Fundamentals" in summary form. That is, I intended to document a series of concise statements which outlined my current beliefs across a variety of topic areas.

While this may sound like a simple feat, I would suggest that it is challenging, complex and at times daunting. So as I pondered this blog entry, I concluded that since my future blog entries are largely intended to expand on each of the "fundamentals" that were to be summarized here, I would likely end up wanting to change or revise the "fundamentals" in this blog entry as I work through the future entries.

So...I've changed my mind about the content of this blog entry. Instead of providing the specific fundamental statements themselves, I am going to provide the framework that I envision using to develop my "fundamentals". The framework will attempt to outline the topic areas and types of questions that I will address with "fundamentals" statements and that I will expand upon in future blog entries.

You will note that my framework is based on a Christian perspective. This bias, however, should not be interpreted as a criticism or snubbing of other religions. The fact is...I am a Christian...I have been one all my life, and consider myself to still be one (although one with different views then I have held previously). So I make no apologies for my "fundamentals" framework having that slant...that is a part of who I am (for more on my background see the "My Starting Point" entry previously in this blog).

As I complete future blog entries, I will return to a summary blog entry (see the "My Fundamental Beliefs - Summary" in the next blog entry) to update the framework with the actual statements along with a link to the blog entry which expands upon my thinking. Eventually, then, there will be a summary of my fundamental belief statements in one blog entry.

Confusing enough for everyone? Okay then...now onto my "fundamentals" framework...

Fundamentals Framework
The topics I intend to address include the following:

• The Bible - Is the Bible the very "word of God"? How should it be read and interpreted? What is its purpose?
• God - Is there a God? If so, what is the essence of God? What is his relationship with humankind? What is the nature of God?
• Jesus - What was his mission and message? Why was he killed and was he "raised from the dead"? Was he born of a virgin? Was he divine (i.e. the Son of God)?
• Pathways to God - Is there an exclusive path to God? How does one deal with the exclusive language sometimes attached to Christianity? If there are multiple pathways to God, are all religions essentially the same?
• Faith - How much should faith be a driver in forming one's beliefs?
• Sin, Salvation and the Afterlife - What is "sin"? Is there such a thing as "salvation" and, if so, what does it refer to and how do we achieve it? Will Jesus "come again"? Is there an afterlife?
• Prayer - What is prayer? Why pray? Does God answer prayer?
• Christian Routines - What is the purpose of the various Christian routines (e.g. going to church, worship, community service, daily "devotions" such as prayer and reading the Bible)? Are they requirements for Christians?
• Christian Life Focus - What is the essential focus of being a "Christian"? Why be a Christian?

Other Topics of Interest
In addition to future blog entries on the above "fundamentals", there are other topics that are of interest to me and which I intend to address (I will likely scatter these types of topics into the blog as I feel inspired).

If I find interesting nuggets (e.g. quotes, links, cartoons, stories, etc.), I'll post them under the caption "Pay Dirt"...in keeping with my prospecting theme.

I am sure this framework will need to evolve throughout the life of this blog, but for now, this is my envisioned path. Now, I just need to decide where to start. Hmmm....

My Starting Point

Before I get into the content of blog itself, I think it is important that I provide a brief overview of my background, as this will likely help to explain the position from which I am writing this blog.

As I start writing this blog, I am 36 years old. I am a male, married with no kids and one dog. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, which meant, among other things, that I grew up believing in notions such as:

• a literal understanding of the Bible as the "Word of God" (this has a huge impact on all other beliefs and emphases)
• the exclusivity of Christianity in terms of providing a path to God
• an emphasis on believing and faith
• a focus on humanity's sinful nature, guilt related to that nature, and the salvation that is required as a result to enable you to spend the afterlife with God (i.e. rights and rewards)
• a fixation on the afterlife (to the degree that if someone walked in and said that there was proof that there was no afterlife, I would have had no idea why I should be Christian - that was what it was all about)
• an emphasis on "being good" by living in accordance with the Bible

The particular form of fundamentalism that I was part of for the first 25 years of my life was Pentecostalism. For the last decade or so, I have been associated with the Wesleyan denomination.

And while I grew up in a modern Canadian town in a modern household and have lived in a major urban centre for the past almost 20 years with a professional job, I haven't (until the last year or so) really thought about questioning any of the above notions. In that sense, I consider myself to have been a "natural literalist" (not even thinking to question the tenets of my faith...just believing it because that is what I grew up with).

And while I have been involved (sometimes heavily) in the churches I have attended over the year, as I have reflected in the last year or so, I would suggest that I have not been overly focused on theology or theological matters. By that, I mean that I didn't THINK a lot about my theological beliefs. Of that fact, I am not proud; having said that, I don't think that I am an "unusual" Christian in that regard (at least the Christians that I have been associated with in my lifetime).

As I write blog entries, I will endeavour to point out the relevant portions of my background and the beliefs I have held most of my life. I will do this for two reasons. First, to help readers understand why I might be approaching a topic the way I am (that is, the perspectives that would have shaped my beliefs related to that topic for most of my life). Second, to help readers better associate with my starting point and recognize any similarities between their current beliefs and my "historical" beliefs - thereby (hopefully) increasing the relevance of the blog in helping them better assess their own perspectives in relation to my points of view, and decide whether the positions I put forward are worthy of their further consideration.