Infinite Ocean of Light and Love

The Seven Bad B's

2012-01-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

For years now we’ve heard of the subjugation (and often abuse, mutilation, “honor” killings) of women by the Saudis, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Somalis, etc.—based on Islam. The Quran states a husband is allowed to beat his wife.

Sometimes forgotten, however, are the negative views of women in Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, indeed, in nearly all religions. For instance, according to much of Buddhism there can never be a woman Buddha. In order for a woman to advance to enlightenment she must be reborn as a male!

In early Judaism women were property. “In Jewish law a woman was considered property rather than a person. She either belonged to her father or husband. She was not allowed to study the Law. In the synagogue women were shut apart from the men so they could not be seen. Nor could a woman actively participate in the synagogue services; she had to passively sit and listen. Nor could she teach the children in any formal manner.

One Jewish morning prayer said by free Jewish men was to thank God that they had not been born a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. One Rabbi is quoted as saying not to talk much with women because, Every one that talks much with a woman causes evil to himself, and desists from the works of the Law, and his end is that he inherits Gehenna.’ A strict Jewish Rabbi would not greet a woman on the street, not even his wife, daughter, mother, or sister."
(William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, rev. ed. pp. 66-67 quoted by Dr. Rick McClatchy)

Furthermore, read the verses in Numbers from the Jewish Bible. (See a few paragraphs below.)Very disturbing!

Even today, among some Jewish religious groups, women must be separated by a partition from the men in synagogue worship, etc. When I lived in Israel and visited the synagogue in Bet Shean I was surprised and disconcerted to see the main room filled with only men while women were restricted to a side room separated by a latticework.

And other strong discrimination is happening right now in Israel:
“Taiseer and Lana Khatib will be forced to live apart under a ruling by the Israel high court, which upheld a 2003 law banning many Palestinians who marry Israelis from living in the Jewish state…the husband, an Israeli citizen, will be forbidden legally from living with his Palestinian wife. “ NBC News

"JERUSALEM — January 14, 2012 A few months ago, the Israeli Health Ministry awarded Channa Maayan, a pediatrics professor at Hebrew University, a prize for a book she had co-written on hereditary diseases common among Jews.

For the ceremony, Maayan wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt in deference to the acting health minister, Yakov Litzman, who is ultra-Orthodox, and the other religious people attending. But that was hardly enough. Not only did Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, because men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage.

…ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed; the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform."
The New York Times, by Ethan Bronner

In Christianity, while the situation for women was sometimes better than among other human groups, women still weren’t allowed to preach, to own property, to vote in government, etc. In fact, even now many churches still don’t let women lead in church including the largest denominations—Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Southern Baptist.

What is the basis for this subjugation in religion in all its negative shades from ancient times to the present?

Why are we men so negative toward women, either secularly emphasizing the vulgar or religiously emphasizing their inferior status and imposing restrictions on them?

Much of the problem would seem to be because of men’s 7 Bad B’s:
Brawn, Brains, Boasting, Boozing, Bets, Bucks, Booty

Booty (from the Jewish Bible):
“The men of war had taken booty, every man for himself…61,000 donkeys and…of women who had not known man intimately…32,000
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.
’You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the fathers’ households of the congregation take a count of the booty that was captured…and divide the booty between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation.’”
Numbers 31:17-35, 53 NASB

booty: plunder taken from an enemy in time of war
slang: buttocks, vagina, sexual intercourse
The Free Dictionary

Thank God, this ocean of men’s darkness isn’t the final statement in secularism or religion.

To be continued

What is your perspective on this?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Praying Like Jesus

2011-12-27T12:21:00.000-08:00

Prayed the Lord’s Prayer when I woke this morning.*

“Our Father”: Jesus teaches a way of prayer that emphasizes God is OUR's, not mainly the Father of ME, but OUR communion.

“Father” emphasizes in contrast to the non-theists—whether militant secularists or religious humanists—that the Ultimate Reality of the Cosmos is personal, loving, guiding, disciplining, and generating.

“in Heaven” seems a strong contradiction to the theologizing of so many who now emphasize the omnipresence of God. My understanding of this difficulty is Jesus thinks of God as mainly transcendent, beyond this present physical reality.

How then is God immanent? By his Spirit. For instance, in John 14:20, Jesus says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” And in Luke 3:22, Scripture states, “and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.”

Here, again, God speaks from heaven (as in Jesus’ Prayer), but his Spirit is pictured metaphorically like a dove coming “down” into this immanent world. And in Luke 4:14, the text says, “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee…”

We see this reference to “spirit” on the human level as well when Paul writes to the Colossians at 2:5, “For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit…”

The Bible in John 4:24 states, “God is Spirit." So I suppose, if we want to get into abstract theorizing, then God in his transcendence is “in heaven,” God in his immanence “descends on earth,” and God incarnates into humankind, present in "the Chosen One," Jesus.

But, remember, there has been 2,000 years of tempestuous, violent Christian-infighting over theological theorizing, so to me as a Friend, it seems better to speak experientially and pictorially. Besides, the abstractions almost always make Jewish and Islamic people think we are talking about 3 gods, weakening the central truth of monotheism.

Is it not better to stay with the descriptive focus of Scripture such as in the last book? Revelation speaks of “the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him…and from the seven spirits (“seven-fold Spirit”).”

In most of the Bible, Ultimate Reality is described this way:

__________________________Transcendent Eternal God_______________________________

God’s Spirit
Descending

To
Creation

/ \

/ \

/ \

Then in the “fullness of kairos (the right or opportune time)

|
|
|

Into Humanity
Through Jesus
(“The Chosen One”)

/ \

/ \

By God’s Spirit into each of us,
and into our communities of individuals

This is just a pictorial of the New Testament descriptions, not any claim to ultimate invisible Truth. But it seems to make more sense than the Trinitarian creedal explanations which were esoterically theoretical and didn’t use biblical language but argued over abstract points such as whether Jesus had two natures, etc. All of that gets so complicated, confusing, and contradictory, and makes no sense in human terms.

Besides, of what practical ethical difference did it (does it) make whether Jesus was (is) essentially one Greek term or another, terms most people can’t even pronounce, let alone understand?! Terms that many scholars can't even agree as to what they originally meant. And for which Christians in the past slaughtered other Christians! And for which Christians still verbally attack each other. Terms so confusing that Jewish and Islamic people think we aren’t monotheistic. Terms at the popular level of Christianity that have led to superstition contrary to Scriptural descriptions.

Back to Jesus’ model prayer:-)

Isn’t it odd that Jesus hasn’t taught his committed followers to pray? Instead one of them speaks up when Jesus himself finishes praying and asks to be taught to pray like John the Baptist has already taught his committed followers.

Why didn't Jesus start out at the very beginning to teach his disciples how to pray? Did he assume they already knew how? Or was he intentionally waiting for them to ask? Or did he want their prayers to God to be made spontaneously like his own? Maybe he intentionally, at first, modeled how to pray.

* Meaningful in a way that openness praying and meditation haven’t been in the past few months, and definitely more meaningful than my daily, nearly, constant petitionary crying out to God. I admit I feel much more like the Psalmist in Psalms 88 than George Fox or John Woolman or John Wesley…though such leaders, also, had their “dark nights of the soul.” Fox spoke of “an ocean of darkness” that covered him. At one point in his life he lay in bed for days, oppressed! And late in his life, during a despairing time, Wesley wrote in a private letter that he had never truly loved God!!

But God loves us even in our doubts and our despairing…

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

The Nature of God's Glory versus Some Protestant Theologies

2011-12-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

Not that this brief reflection on God's glory summarizes the whole nature of God (What finite being could do that except some theologians?), but surely this meditation brings out the heart of God as our father, our friend, our lover, our savior…*

God is patient, is kind; God is not jealous; God does not brag and is not puffed up, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek God’s own, is not provoked, does not take into account wrong suffered, rejoices not over wrong, but rejoices as the Truth—covers, trusts, endures:

God never falls.

*A welcome alternative to the wrong emphasis by many famous Christians proclaiming that all human evil actions, natural disasters, sickness and suffering are all planned for the glory and pleasure of God, etc., as if God is a self-centered, jealous tyrant.

Nothing could be further from the Truth.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

All is not calm, all is not bright...

2011-12-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

All is not calm, all is not bright…
One of my favorite hymns from childhood is “Silent Night” by the German priest Josef Mohr written in (or maybe before) 1816.

Needless to say, northern Europe in the early 1800’s was neither calm nor bright, nor holy, nor at peace, nor filled with love’s pure light, nor redeemed by grace.
There was a high infant mortality rate, crop failures, ravaging disease, and horrendous slaughter. Europe had had almost continuous, calamitous war for 25 years! No “calm” there.

Napoleonic troops and anti-French troops had ravaged back and forth. 558,000 French-lead soldiers died during the campaign into Russia. In 1813, over 600,000 soldiers fought in one battle alone at Leipzig, Saxony. As many as 110,000 were killed or wounded.

Approximately 1 million or more civilian died from the war. Total war deaths reached between 3 to 6 million! Then Germany as a confederation was created from parts of the former Holy Roman Empire, however, German nationalists assassinated leaders…

Speaking of assassinations, that takes us back to the time of Jesus’s birth in Roman Palestine under Herod the Great in about 4-3 B.C..

Not a time of love, peace and light either.

Nor was Britain at the birth of the Quaker movement (so dear to my heart). Strangely, not even the early Quakers waged peace, contrary to Friends histories and popular understanding! Many of the Quakers fought in the great slaughter of the English Civil War.

George Fox, who would later emphasize the peaceful way of Jesus, at one point urged the Puritan killer Oliver Cromwell to carry forth his holy war all the way to Rome!! “Let thy soldiers go forth…that thou may rock the nations as a cradle.”

Not at all like the cradled-manger of Jesus.

So much for “silent night, holy night”…

Instead, even with the Friends of Jesus, the Children of Light, we have an "ocean of darkness" at first…

Nor was America peaceful in the time of my own childhood, when in a small Nebraska village, we sang this beautiful carol, shining the God’s light out into the overwhelming darkness of fighting and killing…

Consider this powerful “Silent Night” meditative song by Simon and Garfunkel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZazHqdNeXA

What a paradoxical contrast between the way of Jesus and the, too often, horrific way of us.

May we truly witness of the love and peace of God in this often Christ-less, unholy season.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Heard of the 49er's? Here's the Lines of a 47er:-)

2011-11-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

New poems of Why and Wonder by Daniel Wilcox at hotmetalpress.net:

Missouri's 'Job'

The Mystery of Life

Cape May Light

Ventura Beach

Markers

http://hotmetalpress.net/daniel_wilcox

In the Light of God's Love,

Daniel Wilcox

Why the Violence at Penn State, Oakland, New York?

2011-11-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

None of the violent protests whether in Oakland, Vancouver, D.C., New York...and now Penn State make any sense--
especially in the last case--students rioting in support! of a coach who failed to report sexual abuse! They turned over a news van, tore down light poles, threw cans, attacked police officers!

This is not an isolated incident but has been happening across the nation, even in Canada.

Of course there are superficial reasons--such as in the case of Penn State students, the loss of their favorite legendary coach. But I could sooner understand if the students rioted against the staff for not reporting the sexual abuse of one of their coaches!

Some blame the violence on the violent media these young adults have ingested since childhood, some blame the economy, some blame parents, some blame copy-cat phone messaging, some blame politicians, some blame God,some blame...

What do you think is the deep cause or causes of why so many young adults are turning to violent rioting, even attacking police officers?

In the Light and Peace of God,

Daniel Wilcox

The True Stories

2011-10-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

From Beyond Ourselves

“Where do you get your stories?”

by Stanley W. Green of Mennonite Mission Network

Poet Muriel Rukeyser suggests that “the universe is made of stories, not atoms.” Rukeyser’s observation reminds us that while we can advance our understanding of the discrete aspects of our lives (especially in the physical realm) through the analysis and identification of atomic and molecular structures, meaning is found in the stories that surround those physical particulars.

We were intrigued, inspired, and encouraged as we heard stories from our workers and partners that told of transformed lives and healing and hope that came into the lives of prostitutes, prisoners, drug addicts and alcoholics, among others.

It is so easy to become trapped within the horizon of our own stores—those of our family, our culture, and our country. When that happens, our view of world becomes truncated, even tribal. Our lives become fragmented and we lose sight of our connectedness to the rest of the world…This fosters alienation…may even lead to war and destruction.

When, however, we pay attention to these stories that come to us from beyond…we are able to weave all the fragments of our lives into a meaningful whole…

We are to become responsible global Christians…to value sensitivity, learning and connection…The stories…help us to see and experience people around the world whom God loves…enrich our understanding of the global church and the context in which others seek to follow Jesus.

The world is filled with stories. Many are trivial, trite and banal. [And he could have added, way too many are given to sin and evil. But others] help us to live into God’s vision…the larger story of God’s…

Read the whole article at http://www.mennonitemission.net/Stories/BeyondOurselves/OurStories/Pages/Home.aspx

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

The Problem of Nationalism

2011-10-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

Don't miss reading this powerful analysis of Abbas and Netanyahu at the United Nations, how again nationalism trumps truth and peace. But how the Good News can deliver us from our human nation-self-centeredness.

from the website http://www.musalaha.org/default.asp
Musalaha (which means reconciliation in Arabic) is a ministry of reconciliation in the Middle East, established by Salim J. Munayer. "Musalaha is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians as demonstrated in the life and teaching of Jesus."

"In conflict situations, these two merge more closely, and each side has a historical narrative made up of truth and myth in which “our side” is portrayed in a positive light, and 'we' are always the protagonist hero and victim in 'our historical narrative.'

We saw elements of the Israeli and Palestinian historical narratives in the recent UN speeches. Abbas opened his speech emphasizing the Palestinians’ openness to previous negotiations, their tireless attempts at presenting their position, and their sincerity during the process. But these endeavors proved futile, primarily as a result of Israel’s refusal to “commit to terms of reference” and its continued engagement in settlement activities.

From the beginning, Abbas, in effect, presented the Palestinians as the protagonists who are committed to a two-state solution, arguing that the Palestinians are the reasonable party as the Palestinians came to the negotiating table sincerely and were willing to compromise; the Israelis then are the antagonists, unreasonable and unwilling to compromise. Throughout his speech he discussed the effects of the occupation on Palestinians, and recounts the Nakba of 1948 in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were exiled from their homes. In effect, he established the Palestinians as the victims of the conflict.

While renouncing terrorism and violence and affirming peaceful resistance to Israel, he never recognized the detrimental and traumatizing effects of violent Palestinian actions against Israel. He talked about the Holy Land being a land holy to Muslims and Christians, pointedly excluding the Jewish people from their historical and religious connection to the Holy Land. In spite of the Palestinian people he detailed throughout his speech, he emphasized that the Palestinian people extend their hand to Israel for peace.

When Netanyahu gave his speech responding to Abbas, he constantly emphasized that Israel also extends its hand to the Palestinian people in peace. He stressed Israel’s constant hope for peace and its willingness to make sacrifices for peace, not only with the Palestinians, but with the rest of the Middle Eastern world. In effect, he presented Israel as the peace-seeking protagonist, summoning the Palestinian people back to negotiations. He rhetorically reasoned with his audience, asking if they would wish for danger so close to their cities and families, reminding his audience of the resultant barrage of rockets that followed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

He discussed the suffering of the Israeli people as a result of the rockets fired by Hezbollah in the north and Hamas from Gaza, presenting Israel as the victims of the conflict, never recognizing the detrimental and traumatizing effects of Israeli actions on Palestinians. Consequently, he presented Israel as reasonable in its demand for military presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as he argued this is necessary for Israel’s security.

In effect, he showed that the Palestinians do not understand and are not reasonable in their requests. He argued that the primary issue is that the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Toward the end of his speech, he discussed the ancient and undying Jewish connection to the land of Israel, but he pointedly failed to mention (thereby excluding) any comparable connection the Palestinian people have to the land, giving only a brief nod to them in closing as they “dwell” on the land.

Is it not interesting to note that reading between the lines, they are mirrors of each other? One side is reasonable, the other unreasonable. One side is the aggressor, the other the victim. Both sides claim to extend their hands in peace, yet they make no room for one another in their narratives. Neither side is willing to publicly acknowledge its contribution to and perpetuation of the conflict.

Both sides reference their religious heritage to justify their historical narrative...it is internally focused, often contains half-truths, and when the other side is addressed, it is morally excluded and devalued.

In order for us, both Israelis and Palestinians, to make progress toward reconciliation, we need to learn to truly listen to each other’s needs and be willing to recognize our own shortcomings. The basic needs for mutual legitimization can be found in the speeches of both Netanyahu and Abbas. Words of peace can be found in both speeches, but words of good will quickly dissipate when they are not coupled with acts of good will. Instead of recognizing each other and respecting each other, they belittled and excluded each other. Instead of employing self-criticism, they criticized each other.

...we are all called to repent of our sins and shortcomings and seek peace, but this does not preclude us from reading the Bible in light of our own historical narratives...We can also read the Bible as an ethnic group, taking certain passages and using them for various purposes. We should apply Biblical passages to our own lives, but we have to be careful that we do not do this in isolation. We have to be careful not to read the Bible selectively, overlooking passages that may be uncomfortable to us. Above all, we are called to peace, love, and fellowship. We work for this every day and we hope you will continue to walk alongside us as we pursue peace, encourage love of our neighbors, and journey toward reconciliation."

By Salim J. Munayer
Edited by A. Ben-Shmuel

[1] See “Stages of Reconciliation: Encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs” for more information http://musalaha.org/articleview.asp?offset=20&ID=9.

God's GRACE, Love so Infinite

2011-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

For 50 years, I've fought against the "Doctrines of Grace," the Reformed view of existence, the one of theological determinism, where humans are born without a choice, where in God even planned the Holocaust!

I got so I absolutely hated this religious term, "grace," since it stood for all that is most abhorrent in religion. How sad since once grace stood for infinite mercy, divine love, generosity, goodwill...

But some Christians are seeking to bring back the word from Sheol. Here's a new acronym use of "grace" which delivers the basics of the Good News:

God’s image in us, but broken

Restored and renewed through faith

Atonement from Christ for all humans

Capable of free choice in love

Enduring through Christ

from The Meeting House

In the Light of God's love,

Daniel Wilcox

THE QUESTION

2011-09-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

"Jesus raises the question: 'Are you living now the way you want to live forever?'"

From The End of Religion by Bruxy Cavey
A good introduction to the Way of Jesus.
Get the whole book free via the Internet
at amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/End-Religion-Encountering-Subversive-Spirituality/dp/1600060676/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317414051&sr=1-1

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Change Our Minds/Our Lives (Metanoia)

2011-09-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Great spiritual guidance, life-changing ways, have come from this one Greek word (metanoia: change one's mind) in Scripture. One powerful study on this came from Clarence Jordan, the Greek scholar and Southern farmer, who helped start an interracial community committed to equality and nonviolence in Georgia back in the 1942. Despite hatred, repeated violent attacks and several bombings, the interracial farm shone as a witness to the love of God for all. Not only was their community a powerful example, but the farm eventually led to the founding of Habitat for Humanity.

A second explanation of this enlivening word came today in a spiritual study by Rick Bloom based on 2 Timothy 3:2-5. How are we to change our minds, our lives?

We need to confess humility, pray with tenacity, seek God with intensity.
AND we need to change our minds by turning from these wrongs which plague modern life (as they did ancient times):

TURN from
philautos--self absorbed, egotistical

philarguros--focused on money, greedy

alazon--self-promoting

huperephanos--status conscious, stuck up

blasphemos--God-insulting, contemptible

apeithes--rude, disrespectful

acharistos--unappreciative

anosios--crude, profane

astorgos--unkind, heartless

aspondos--unwilling to forgive

diabolos--slander, gossip

akratess--uncontrolled, impulsive

anemeros--loves violence, cruelty, brutality

aphilagathos--cynical

prodotes--back-stabbing, double-dealing

propetes--reckless, rash, irresponsible

tuphoo--puffed up with pride

philedonos--choosing pleasure over God ("addicted to lust, allergic to God")

Sounds like the description of a new show on HBO or ABC doesn't it? Or a new movie
about the "beauty of revenge"? Or a talk show on the radio? Or the present U.S.A. political campaign for president? Or how we treated our coworker or neighbor or a driver on the freeway yesterday?

Time to change our mind! Time to change our lives!
To know Jesus and to make him known.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Peacemaking versus Warmaking

2011-09-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Insightful points from an article by Dave Zarembka, the coordinator of the African Great Lakes Initiative of Friends Peace Teams:
"Let us imagine that in the last decades the international community had supplied everyone in_____________[Fill in the blank with one of the many places on earth where war is destroying humans]
with clean water/sanitation, basic medical care, universal primary education, decent housing, and those other things are are needed for a wholesome life. To do this for the whole world would have cost much less than what is presently spent on the military.

At the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda, all expatriates who wished were evacuated (while their Rwandan colleagues were left behind for slaughter). This included 257 Americans. However one American, Carl Wilkens, a Seventh Day Adventist aid worker, evacuated his wife and four children but refused to leave his Rwandan colleagues himself and stayed behind. By chance during the genocide, as the interahamwe were closing in to kill the Tutsi boys at an orphanage that Carl was supplying with food and water, he ran into the Rwandan Prime MInister, Jean Kambanda, and asked him to call off the interahamwe. This the Prime Minister did and the boys were saved. In other words, this one American who stayed behind saved more Rwandans from genocide than did the total US Government with its military might of fearful bombs, ships, guns, and billions of dollars."

Now,of course, those who argue for military might probably will point out that often an appeal by a Christian such as Carl Wilkens goes unanswered. But that isn't the point Zarembka is making.

"What if there were 150,000 Tom Fox's [a peace witness in Iraq who was murdered by the Islamic militants or 150,000 Carl Wilkens in ____________?]

What if Christians in the United States and other countries spent as much money on mission outreach as they give to their governments to conduct war?

*Read David Zarembka's whole article in PeaceWays, a magazine of Friends Peace Teams.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"God does not need the cross..."

2011-08-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sometime back I wrote a blog on the Atonement. Since then I came across this prosed wellspring of truth:

"For many with a hurtful understanding of Christianity this is vitally important. For them the cross is something terrible. It shows them a cruel God who accuses and condemns us for something we cannot help and then murders his own son to appease this bloodlust...[but]
God does not need the cross to forgive us or love us. Jesus forgave and loved people before the cross. But some of us needed the cross to be able to really accept that forgiveness. God does not need the cross to love us: God has always loved us. But many of us needed the cross to really grasp that. God does not need the cross to be reconciled to us. But many of us needed the cross to be reconciled to Life, to break the cycle of rivalry and to heal our estranged authority image.

"The cross speaks to us at the point of our need. And while these are not God's problems, but our alienation, still for us that alienation is very real. So to the one wracked with guilt God says through the cross, `I take the blame. I pay the price.' To the one who is locked in self-hate God says through the cross `I love you so much I would give my life defending you.' To the one in rebellion to life God says through the cross, `See me here. I am not a threat; I am love.'"

"On the cross God in Christ took on our sin. That means he at once bore the weight of the harm that we have done, and also bore the pain of the victims. This was not, as [Penal Substitution] would say, God punishing the human Jesus, but the incarnate Jesus revealing the compassionate heart of God to us. On the cross we see that God suffers with those who suffer, and always has. God carries the pain of every victim of rape, incest, torture and starvation. As Christ cries out `my God my God why have you forsaken me' God shows his solidarity with every person so overwhelmed with doubt they don't have the will to believe anymore."

from The Rebel God by Derek Flood

Part 2: Back to the Future of Duty, Honor, Country

2011-08-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

‘Just war’ is just violence, just killing, just suffering, just inequality, just wrong. (Quote from poster by Mennonite Central Committee, a mission agency of Anabaptists including the Brethren in Christ and the Mennonites)

On the way to Vicksburg in the American War of Secession (usually called the Civil War though it wasn’t civil by any definition), Yankees “burned Jackson..laying waste to the countryside…tore up railroad tracks, pulled down telegraph lines, burned cotton fields..killed poultry and livestock, emptied crocks of molasses and vinegar; and burned homes, smokehouses, barns, stores, and warehouses. Other animals and wagons were confiscated. Some soldiers “stole jewelry, china, and silver, slashed feather mattresses; and took clothing..a Union soldier wrote home that he had seen forty or fifty plantations burn in a single day.”

During the bombardment of Vicksburg by Grant’s forces, 22,000 shells by Northern gunboats were launched into the town. The Lord’s house took a direct hit. “a bombshell burst into the very center of the dining room, blowing out the roof and one side, crushing the well-spread table like an eggshell, and making a great yawning hole in the floor…” Like others the Lords soon moved into caves. I suppose you get the irony. The Lords were the pastoral family of the Episcopal Church of Vicksburg. If you recall from Part 1 of this blog, Reverend Lord was a Yankee who had moved from New York 10 years before.

Soon the families and Confederate soldiers were down to eating corn, peas, weeds, and rats, and in one family even a child’s pet bird to stave off the beginnings of starvation. They finally surrendered.

Afterward, martial law was imposed by Grant. People could be jailed or banished from the city for even minor offenses. “In one incident, five women were banished after walking out of a church service rather than participate in a prayer…”

A “Vicksburg hospital took a direct hit from a shell [from a Union gunboat], killing eight and wounding fourteen. A surgeon saved himself from bleeding to death by tying off an artery. His leg was later amputated. Dr. Lord’s wife and youngest daughter almost got hit “when two large shells fell nearby and exploded simultaneously, filling the air with flames and smoke. Mrs. Lord “tried to soothe her four-year-old daughter, saying, ‘Don’t cry, my darling. God will protect us.’ To which the girl replied that she was afraid that God had already been killed.” (From Under Siege by Andrea Warren)

Which he had! At least the god of each side, both of whom were declared to be leading, directing, and supporting the war like so many other horrific wars in history. Consider the words of Abraham Lincoln: “I am almost ready to say this is probably true--that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet.“
And the South’s motto was Deo vindice (“God will vindicate us.”) And in the 20th century, German soldiers wore on their belt buckles “God With Us and British soldiers, “For God, King, and Country.” And this from an American preacher in World War 1 “It is God who has summoned us to this war. It is his war we are fighting…This crusade is indeed a crusade. The greatest in history—the holiest…a Holy War. Yes, it is Christ, the King of Righteousness, who calls us to grapple in deadly strife with this unholy and blasphemous power (from For God and Country or the Christian Pulpit in War Time, 1918). ETC.

Yet James of the N.T. has it right when he says "Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn't it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves...you fight to get your way by force." (JB James 4:1)

And now the gods are fighting again in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. And, again, humans because of duty, honor, country, and God deal out death... Speaking of Back to the Future…

Look instead into the Light of Jesus’ Way,

Daniel Wilcox

The Tragic Nature of Duty, Honor, Country, and God

2011-07-19T13:54:00.001-07:00

Duty, honor, country, God…aren’t these sacred nouns of what dreamed ideals are made? What every good human seeks or should quest after? How could such great exemplars possibly be the source of tragic, unmitigated evil?

In my childhood and youth, duty, honor, country, and God meant nearly everything to me. I still remember standing tall to receive my God and Country Award in Boy Scouts--months after many hours of preparation and achievement to earn the medal--then wearing it, proudly, on the green khaki of my Boy Scout uniform on important days. The award hung there next to my merit badge sash emphasizing exactly those virtues of duty, honor, country and God. And hard work, reverence, etc., all those ethical characteristics of the Boy Scout Oath and Law: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”

But then all hell broke loose…

But before that, wind back to one section of the past, U.S. history, to get a more generic overview of these vaunted words—duty, honor, country, and God. Consider the complicated, convoluted, tragic American Civil War in which two dutiful heroes stand out--Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Take the latter first. Grant joined the war effort to keep Southerners from leaving the Union. Unlike Thomas Jefferson, Grant didn’t think Americans have a right to leave a government they oppose. Strangely though, he had previously violently supported Americans taking land from another country, even killing many for that right!

Oddly, also, his family owned slaves and he worked them. From 1854 to 1858, Grant used the slaves of his wife’s father on the family farm. And Grant bought a slave in 1858, only three years before the Civil War but sold her in 1859. His view of slavery may have been changing. However, The his family didn’t free their slaves until after the Civil War ended and Missouri abolished slavery. So how ironic that Grant was killing many Southerners when his own family back in Missouri still owned slaves!

While Grant gave partial support slavery, he seems to have been committed to an almost mystical vision of country, the United States. Like Lincoln, he didn’t think states had a right to democratically leave. “There are but two parties now, Traitors & Patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter…” So, like Lincoln, he was willing to abandon slavery if it would stop states from seceding. Grant said, “If it is necessary that slavery should fall that the Republic may continue its existence, let slavery go.”

Previously, Grant had served in the U.S. Army invasion of Mexico. Texas had wanted to bring slavery into its portion of Mexico, but slavery was outlawed in Mexico. Isn’t that the beginning of irony—that this Union which Grant so valued, was actually born of land theft, that the U.S. had supported the importation of slavery into Mexico by Americans who had recently immigrated into Mexico!

Already, 15 years before Secession, duty is again shown to be morally twisted.

Isn’t it strange that Grant warred to support rebels who supported slavery against the Mexican Government, but opposed democratically elected states, who supported slavery from leaving the United States? What a moral tongue twister!

And Grant, himself, later recognized the wrong nature of the Mexican War. He called the latter war “unholy.” And said, the “Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations, like individuals are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment..”

But as always with so many well-meaning humans, duty calls: According to Grant, “Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life and history.”

I suppose some people will say, ‘At least in the Mexican War, U.S. soldiers fought dutifully against people in another country, who believed differently, and even looked different. But when duty called in 1861, it called for brother to take up arms against brother. Like the story in the Jewish and Christian Bible-- the senseless murder of Able by his brother! And, in the case of the Civil War, both sides were Cain, though, as the defender against invasion, the Confederacy less so, since they only wanted to go their own way, not invade the North. In fact, technically, the Civil War wasn’t a war about who controlled the nation, but about the North refusing the South’s leaving.

The Confederate general protecting Vicksburg from the invasion and assault by Grant’s troops from the North, General John Pemberton, was himself a Northern. Two of his brothers, in contrast, joined the Union army, supporting the Northern invasion of the South! How tragic!

The rector at Vicksburg’s Christ Episcopal Church, the Reverend W.W. Lord had also moved from New York 10 years before. He and his wife, also, supported the Confederacy!

So, hopefully, it is clear, that while a major ruling class of plantation planters owned slaves, many Southerners fought against the United States of the North, not because of slavery but because the Yankee army invaded their homeland.

This was exactly the case of Robert E. Lee. Known as the soldier’s soldier, Lee was admired even by his enemies. As a Christian and a Southern he followed duty and honor and country and God, enlisting in the Confederate Army even though he himself opposed Secession. He had, at first, been offered command of the Union forces set to invade the South, but he said he wouldn’t attack his own state of Virginia. No, he but would defend his home.

Like Grant, Lee and his family owned and used slaves. Like his opponent Abraham Lincoln, Lee supported the freeing of slaves and having them emigrate to Africa. He did recognize slavery as a social evil that, hopefully, would eventually be ended. Lee wrote to his wife in 1856, “In this enlightened age, there are few I believe but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any Country.”

Lee chose to obey the state government of Virginia (and other Southern states, rather than the northern states who had a monopoly in the U.S. government) He stated, “Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character. But weren’t he and his state rebelling against lawful authority?

Wasn’t Lee one of the “traitors” that Grant railed against? Not according to Lee and millions of other Southerners. They weren’t rebelling but withdrawing from a democratic voluntary association, just as Thomas Jefferson, also a Southerner, had said is a human right to do.

Unlike many a human when violently attacked, Robert E. Lee didn’t hold to revenge. He even emphasized forgiveness. “We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them.” Not the usual image of the battle-hardened soldier in either historical tomes or popular media is his famous statement?

Yet here is the tragedy, the moral evil: Lee ordered hundreds of thousands of Americans into battle to kill other Americans, Christians to kill other Christians. By following duty, honor, country, and God, Lee was directly responsible for many thousands of deaths. Of what use is it to pray for your enemies, and to forgive them, if you order them killed?

Keep in mind that some of his opponents in the Union Army were also Christians who believed in prayer, forgiveness, duty, honor, country, and God! Yet they invaded and killed countless numbers of Southerners, stole their produce and animals, confiscated and burned their homes and factories, causing untold suffering and anguish that lasted for many years!

Furthermore, many Northerners were racists, even in the Union army, and opposed Black equality. After the Civil War, racist Black Codes came into being in the South, but they were also evident in places in the North. Well (sick) into the 20th century, there were Sundown towns such as Hawthorne, California which had a sign outside its city limits in the 1930's which read, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne."

So much for honor and that God loves everyone, "red and yellow black and white..."

What came of all this high-sounding moral code of duty, honor, country and God? Over 600,000 needless deaths, the ravaging of half of America, untold suffering, die-hard racism that lasted over a hundred years, etc.

One major secular philosopher, Immanuel Kant, emphasizes how duty shines above all, how duty is the highest call of humankind—the one true ethical act.

But not in the case of the very unCivil War.

The one good side effect of the war was the emancipation of the slaves, though when Lincoln emancipated slaves, he did so only for in the Confederacy. Most historians say that Lincoln did this primarily as a war measure.

Slaves in the North continued to be slaves until the end of the war! The Emancipation didn't apply to them! Lincoln advocated that freed slaves should leave the United States. In March 1861, Lincoln said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

He further stated, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it…”

“I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Etc.

Of what strange things are duty made, and the slaughter of others, and the hypocrisy of religion.

To be continued…

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Sacred Act of Pole-Vaulting and Other Conceits

2011-07-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Sacred Act of Pole-Vaulting and Other Leaping Conceits
‘Donne” While Surveying and Surviving the Tragic and Absurd Conundrum Called History and the Human Condition

When a young teen in P.E. one year, I jumped the pole vault a few times. The anticipation for and mild fear of the run and leap, tensed us up. The vault didn’t rank with the sheer frighted fearfulness of the high dive in swimming, but it sure beat the dickens out of pushups. As difficult as it was to run and leap up balancing on the wobbly rise of the limber pole, in its back arch and then its swinging forward, up, and over the cross bar, I did manage to clear the bar at low levels. The eventual goal aimed toward was to set the cross bar higher and higher and yet still achieve the swinging leap up and over. But the higher the bar the more difficult the leap with the rise of the pole and the more dangerous the fall, even if one succeeded in clearing the cross. Fortunately, pole vaulting lasted only a week or two for us P.E. students, was not required on a regular basis like for the athletic superstars of track and field. Still, isn’t this all intriguing that after many years of hectic adult life with career and family-raising, a few minutes of pole-vaulting still comes back to me so vividly?

Rather conceited wasn’t that opening paragraph? Not proud like a rooster, not like a guy who acts brazenly self-centered, always leaping into the center of any discussion. No, in this short article, we are talking about the extended over-reach of a long-winded, leaping metaphor, in the manner of the metaphysical poet John Donne (you know the 17th century English writer who spent a whole poem comparing his love for his wife to a geometric compass!). Anyway, such a conceit, an extended metaphor of track and field makes a powerful analogy for the spiritual ‘pole-vaulting’ of faith in the sacred. Consider Christian history.

The bar of belief and action was set very low when Jesus first called his disciples. But then he spoke more and more in metaphoric theological conundrums and esoteric parables such as when he compared Christian faith to a vulture gathering over a dead body! Obviously the bar was being raised higher and higher--incredibly high, and the disciples balked, scratched. Scratching in pole-vaulting means one steps over the line or somehow misunderstands or violates the rules. And many disciples and other humans scratch at life down to this day. Metaphor.

One of the most difficult high raisings of the bar came when Jesus didn’t return in the ‘soon’ time of Paul and John (I Thessalonians and Revelation), but somehow Christians adjusted the bar down and up at the same time! Some biblical theologians reinterpreted the word ‘soon’ to mean ‘rapidly’ rather than in the common sense definition of ‘in the near future.’ They said the return of Christ could happen thousands of years in the future, but when it did it come, it would be ‘rapid’. This seems a very dishonest scratching of language. It is more than an accidental rule violation, but a situation of sure chicanery--straining the gnat and swallowing the camel. Such fixing of the pole vault should be disallowed. Other Christians have said that ‘soon’ is different for God compared to us, (again a suspect vault, sounds like a scratch).

‘Liberal’ Christians admit Jesus and the NT authors were mistaken, but in so doing they are trying to pole vault up a steep incline while sliding down the slippery slope of increasing doubt and skepticism. If the NT isn’t historically accurate about such a key doctrine as the return of Christ, many ask, how could one rely on Scripture being accurate about anything else? After all, the bar of requirements for historical writing has been set very high in the modern age. All things, people think, need to be factually accurate, inerrant to be of value. Religion, the spiritual, and the transcendent all need to be judged with the measuring tools of science. A compass of accuracy needs to discern the geometric lines of theology and faith, to eliminate and banish any heresy that deviates from the true.

The nature of truth is a difficult subject bar none (to throw in a pun and lighten this heavy post;-) The difficulty of faith versus delusion (false faith) and reason versus despair (false reason) is a very high bar indeed--one which guides and misguides. Let us pray moment by moment and think moment by moment so as to rise upward into the transcendent, knowing within that we are loved by God as Jesus said.

Another difficult raising of the cross bar of Christian faith came 1,500 years after Jesus, in the time of Galileo and Copernicus. The Church claimed supreme understanding and control in all matters. Yet a minority of scientists contradicted the teachings of the Church and, allegedly, the Bible. They claimed to have proved that the sun doesn’t round the earth each day; indeed, the earth is not the center, not the focal point of all creation as Genesis claims. Soon science increased its claims--our sun is only a very minor star. Contrary to the Scriptures’ statement, “God made the stars also,” in actuality, those stars are much more vast than our puny solar system. We are on an edge of a galaxy, which is one of millions of other galaxies! So much for the literal understanding of the Bible and common sense! Scratch!

Of course, many choose to twist the plain text in the Bible, cheating again in the sacred game of pole vaulting. They argue Genesis describes the creation of the sun on the fourth day from the perspective of God’s Spirit at the level of the surface of the planet looking up, so it does look like the sun comes after the earth rather than before. What has happened? A dense, heavy cloud of vapor has hidden the sun during the first three days. The sun finally appears above the earth on the fourth day. But the verse in Genesis doesn’t speak about the sun appearing from behind fog on the fourth day, it says: “And God said, 'Let there be light in the vault of the heavens to light up the earth.' And so it was. And God made the two great lights…” (Genesis 1:14-16) Yipes, what convoluted rhetoric! Another scratch. Disqualified.

Other faithful humans leaped, instead, out of fundamentalism, and so out the metaphysical window plummeted the 3-storied universe. These Christians leaped over the new cross bar level to a spiritual universe where Heaven still exists with its pristine streets of gold ‘up there’ and Hell abysses ‘down below’ though this spiritual reality has nothing to do with the observable world measured and manipulated by science and technology. So we got a dualistic existence, where science concerns itself with the observable, and religion concerns itself with the spiritual and moral. Many Christians of the present time manage to make this philosophical leap. I made the leap as a young adult. However, I feel uncertain, in brutal honesty, whether I only scratched.

But the bar for Christian faith when faced with the conclusions of science kept ascending. Much more difficult to leap over—maybe impossibly so—was the discovery by Darwin in the 1800’s that life proceeds not by a sudden miraculous creation 6,000 years ago, but by a combination of cosmic luck and survival of the fittest over millions and millions of years. Later in succeeding years, other scientists tabulated their technical findings and showed the earth came about 4 billion years ago, not 6, 000, and the universe has existed at least 16 billion years!

This setting of the sacred bar careens outrageously high so that only the most blind, or most compartmentalized, or the most ultimately determined can leap the bottomless chasm up and over the cosmically high crossbar of faith. For where is God if all comes about by accidental meandering and by dog-eat-dog, possibly dog-lick-dog evolution? Is not God reversed in a kind of spiritual dyslexia, into dog?!

Evangelical Christians simply reset the bar slightly lower, explaining God started Life, so there! Intelligent Design! We get the God-of-the-Gaps, a creator who hides in the shadow areas of existence where scientists haven’t yet figured out methods of inquiry and extensive evidence. So this compromise hardly solves the problem. (And don’t forget the dogged Fundamentalists and Calvinists. They, despite over whelming evidence, continue to claim scientists are just closet atheists, or brazen ones like Richard Dawkins, who are only rebelling against God by coming up with preposterous geological and biological lies.)

But none of this is very encouraging for the honest and the circumspect individual. Why would the Creator start a creative process but then not guide it if God is all Loving, all Kind, all Good, all True? Why would God major in pain, allowing or predetermining for billions of animals to suffer for countless eons and then go extinct, and for millions of humans to agonize, living excruciatingly painful lives down through a chaotic and vicious history? Why one endless moral/ethical scream?

And what happens to the bar (not speaking of the legal court or the local drinking den;-) if, as many scientists claim, eventually science will be able to explain from a natural point of view even abiogenesis, how first life started? Then won’t God, the Creator, be simply a superfluous empty word, unneeded (as many scientists claim is already the case) and unwanted? Then religion will be reduced to the garbage bin like other popular superstitions—astrology, phrenology, humoralism, etc. Astrology led eventually to astronomy, but once scientists understood the mechanism of the scientific method, astrology became so much delusionary baggage to be jettisoned. The same goes for religion, so they say; once religion gave meaning to humankind, but now science gives meaning to our lives. The account in Genesis has been shown to be fallacious. Of what use are fanciful myths like the Garden of Eden or six days of creation? They smugly point out that Christians and other religious people have been crying “God,” like the boy of long ago who cried wolf, for so long without any evidence. Now the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Why should anyone listen to our theological yelling?

A few humans take one last incredible leap. They point out that while the natural observable world is as Darwinians say—a naturally meandering survival game—such a scientific scenario doesn’t prove a Creator doesn’t exist, for the true God is hidden, is a philosophical reality “outside” of the province of the scientific method. While this is perfectly arguable—this author is embarrassed to admit, in the past, he himself sometimes used the method--this philosophical God is, obviously, not the Creator in Genesis, not the God of Scripture (the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Scriptures) who micromanages every moment from eternity. Thus, this last incredible leap is the most impossible of possibilities (to paraphrase a statement by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr).

This last impossible leap of spiritual pole vaulting jumps so incredibly high ones seems only able to do it by the sheer choosing—an existential leap, philosophical choice, in the manner of Kierkegaard, where one doesn’t weigh the possibility, or the rational doubts, but leaps, because not to leap is to despair.

Martin Gardner, the famous skeptic in his powerful philosophical book, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, says he made this spiritual leap, and continues to trust in God because, the leap of Fideism, is worthy, and provides hope.

I am skeptical of fundamentalism, materialism, and fideism. They all seem to scratch.

Oddly, unlike Gardner, my faith in God isn’t mainly emotional, but intellectual. But like him and other thinkers I admire, I know my days are numbered now that I have passed the halfway bar in my brief life, compared to incomprehensible cosmic deep time.

To half quote the famous metaphysical poet of extended conceits, John Donne: “When one has ‘donne’ his best, one is not done but have more” (from his poem “A Hymn to God the Father”). There are still more difficulties, higher bars to jump over. Try leaping over not only the moon, but the universe!

The best answer would seem to be Hegelian—that a synthesis is better than either the former thesis (Christian orthodoxy) or antithesis (the Enlightenment). We humans both yearn and learn. Francis Collins, a Christian and a scientist, the leader of the Human Genome Project has created one such synthesis and created the Biologos Foundation: Science and Faith in Dialogue.

We spend whole life-times seeking, and yet still have difficult questions. Be honest, avoid scratching. Leap with faith and reason; keep them in creative tension, and cross the bar of existence with zest, not only with confusion and “my God, why” despair but, finally, in purposeful “it is finished” hope.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part 2: Sexuality

2011-07-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

Since the word “sex” only has three letters, how did it become a four-letter word (the “plow” word and the “love” word)? How does an instinctive procreative act characteristic of all humans (and most forms of life down to fish and below) come to mean everything from the degrading and sadistically obscene to the uplifting and creatively divine, from the violently aggressive to the joyfully receptive?

Regardless of one’s worldview most humans (except, of course, for the theologically and materialistically fatalistic), including many scientists, think humankind has reached a state in evolution wherein individuals of the species can creatively use human innate characteristics, adapting them for many different purposes and in very different ways.

The “plasticity” of human abilities enable individuals to use their physical and brain skills, not only for time-immemorial practical acts such as plowing a field or constructing a building but more importantly humans can use those same muscles to do acts that have no practicality at all such as play exciting sports in the Olympics or dance in complex moves across theater stages.

This “plasticity”—for good or ill--is, especially, true for human sexuality as shown by the wide variety of statements about sex by famous individuals in the first installment of this series. Here is another example: Alan Watts, a former Episcopal minister, became a prolific writer and famous transmitter of Buddhism to the American cultural scene. I remember, when I was a teenager, and still a Baptist, watching his show every day on PBS at 6 pm, marveling at his spiritual points and esoteric philosophical explanations. Thus it was very shocking when I read his autobiography, In My Own Way.

Alongside such spiritual gems that Watts quotes such as “The cross is at the heart of the universe,” he then describes his view of human sexuality. “…Deep down inside, almost everyone has a vague sense of eternity. Few dare admit this because it would amount to believing that you are God…My own sexual mores…I do not believe that I should be passionately in love with my partner…and still less, married. For there is a special and humanizing delight in erotic friendships with no strings attached…My life would be much, much poorer were it not for certain particular women with whom I have most happily and congenially committed adultery…” Alan Watts

HUH? Most of us aren’t too surprised by the sludge coming out in the media or by so-called red-necked vulgarity. The guttural view of sex has probably been around since cavemen first spoke;-) but when a highly educated, philosophical, spiritually oriented individual such as Alan Watts glorifies promiscuous sex we surely know that human sexuality is very ambiguous with many strange variations, many of them destructive and contrary to the Truth, the Good, and the Beautiful. We’re all sexual, but in so many different ways.

Speaking of Buddhism, actually the latter for most of its history had a very different view of sexuality than Watts. Some forms of Buddhism have such a negative view of sexuality they even state that women must become men before they can be enlightened! “…a large part of Theravada texts is devoted to the depiction of women as disgusting creatures too repulsive to touch.” (Rev. Patti Nakai)

Touching, now that reminds me of my own spiritual tradition—the part I hated as a fundamentalist teenager, words from good ‘ol Paul: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.” I Corinthians 7:1 Maybe that would have been good advice for Hugh Hefner and most of the individuals I knew at university, but for me going out on dates with friendly Nebraska country girls, it was exasperating. Don’t get me wrong. I am talking about handholding and kissing, traditional “necking,” not anything below the neck.

But get it, my even having to explain my particular religion’s very conservative sexual understanding shows how wide human sexual understanding is. Why, hey;-), when I was in junior high, our Christian books had so warned against kissing that I really thought girls got pregnant from kissing! Shows I lived in a small village, not on my grandfather’s farm where the animals probably did it all the time.

Contrast this religiously-sheltered ignorant upbringing with the ninth grader I encountered when I moved to the capital city of Nebraska. He smirked and demanded to know if I knew all about “69”. I knew it was 1962, but also knew the “6” and the “9” wasn’t talking about years, but about something sexual and forbidden. Just what I didn’t know.

Enough on autobiographies from Watts to Wilcox, from New Age Buddhism to fundamental Baptist Christianity, I’m sure you get the general point, without my bringing in Secularism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism’s negative views of women, (such as the ancient Jewish prayer men said daily thanking God for not making them a woman or a slave,) and their contradictory instructions about sex, etc. Yes, sexuality is a very powerful force/drive within humanity which has been shaped like soft plastic into countlessly different configurations by humans.

The earlier modern quote about the basketball player and his wife catches the true spirit of human sexuality, as God intends sexuality to be—monogamous daily choice by two equals. Sexuality is a whole life response by a couple committed to a life-long relationship, not temporary glandular instinct nor a restricted negative necessity.

Here’s another fine explanation: “…Your understanding of love will change as you get older…I remember my second date…I totally lost my cool and told her I loved her. On our SECOND date!! You know what? I recently told that very same girl how much I love her, and how glad I am that I married her…But what I meant when I really meant it 23 years ago is a lot different from what I mean when I really mean it today! In 23 years, I’ve learned to put aside my selfishness more often, and I’ve learned more ways to love and cherish her…the heart of genuine love [in human sexuality] is an immovable decision to put” your lover’s joy and welfare ahead of your own. Usually, you don’t fall into that kind of love; you climb into it. It’s not just something you feel [nor an instinctive urge]. It’s a decision you make.” Duffy in Breakaway

Sexual love is a monogamous life-long commitment, a unique “ultimate” relationship—where two individuals give themselves to each other emotionally, mentally, and physically. That’s true love.

True love (in the marriage sense) is unlike any other human relationship, except in sacred writing where God is often spoken of as each human’s lover. Indeed, romantic sexual imagery is often used in literature to describe the ecstasy of “knowing” God intimately. Makes sense doesn’t it? After all, the Creator came up with the ideal and the actual actions of human sexuality.

In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox

The Meaning of Human Sexuality

2011-07-01T14:04:00.001-07:00

Surely, I must be joking? Thinking I can take on the herculean (adam-evesques) task of explaining the meaning of human sexuality? That would be like climbing Niagara Falls or trying to explain the theological significance of Viagra;-).

The meaning of human sexuality is so deep and so transcendent and so complicated and so controversial, it would first be better to tangle with the behemoth or leviathan mentioned in the Book of Job. But since none of us can get away from the topic (and I seldom have ever wanted to except when revoltingly sick).

Here goes—

A little introductory humor:
How can you tell if a man is thinking about sexuality? Is he breathing? LOL

A few quotes to set the tone before the texted tome, and to show the inexplicable contrariness and contradictory outlook of various human beings toward this incessantly fascinating topic:

And God created the human in his image,
in the image of God…male and female…
And God blessed them, and God said to them,
Be fruitful and multiply
…and, look, it was very good.
Genesis 1:27-31

"The [marriage] vows should be written like a dog's license that has to be renewed every year…I think vows should be changed because they've been in existence for 600 years when people used to live until they were only 35. So they only had to be with each other for 12 years, then they would die anyway. But now it's a big commitment because you're going to be with someone for 50 years. It's impossible…It's such a rarity for people to stay together that 68% of marriages fail. I don't want to urinate on the party, but one must consider that before getting married.
Rock Musician Rod Stewart

“Sex is like pissing. People take it much too seriously.
Painter Diego Rivera

“If I ever loved a woman, the more I loved her, the more I wanted to hurt her. Frida was only the most obvious victim of this disgusting trait.”
Painter Diego Rivera

“Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?”
Yeshua, the Messiah (Anointed One)

“Chastity: The most unnatural of the sexual perversions."
Aldous Huxley

"I think I could fall madly in bed with you."
Anonymous

“Vanity, revenge, loneliness, boredom, all apply: lust is one of the least of the reasons for promiscuity."
Mignon McLaughlin

“To me heaven would be…two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors.”
Ernest Hemingway

“The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.”
Philip James Bailey

"Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.
John Ciardi

"I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love."
Henry Ward Beecher

Roman and Grace are a married Spokane Indian couple. He is standing close to her with his basketball between them, as if the ball represents the expectant infant they will soon create…
“Michael Jordan is coming back again,” he said.
“You can’t fool me,” said Grace. “I heard it. That was just a replay.”
“Yeah, but I wish he was coming back again. He should always come back.”
“Don’t let it give you any crazy ideas.”
Roman pulled the basketball away and leaned even closer to Grace. He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love—it just happens!—but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit. Of course you chose who you loved. If you didn't choose, you ended up with what was left—the drunks and abusers, the debtors and vacuums, the ones who ate their food too fast or had never read a novel. Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. Yet, year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together.

In their marriage bed, Roman chose Grace once more and brushed his lips against her ear.

From “Saint Junior” by Sherman Alexie

To be continued in Part 2: Since sex only has three letters, how did it become a four-letter word (the "plow" word and the "love" word)?

In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox

Part 4: Only Visiting—a Mere Breath

2011-06-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

We humans are a “mere breath” here for a brief time and then gone—so very finite, as religion and modern science both teach us.

None of us can permanently “own” anything. The sheer delusion of history has been and still is that anyone--any individual, any group, any nation can “own” land and that their owning this land gives them the right to kill other human beings created in the image of God.

Only God is eternal, only God theoretically “owns” any physical reality. When God gives land to groups of humankind for a finite time (“…he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation,” Acts 17:26), God does so in order that each particular nation or ethnic group may be a blessing to others! Life is not about taking, but about giving.

Even when God chooses one people to be special messengers to bless humankind and then gives this group a portion of land, their living on the land is always to be based in justice and mercy as the prophets say. “But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:24 and “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does God require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8 and “… if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness.” Isaiah 58:10 ETC.

The horrors of human history and the tragic news of the present day show what happens when humans turn to lethal violence in order to “own” land.

No national group has an ethical right to claim sole ownership of any land irrespective of the needs of others--of goodness, love, and justice. Instead, we are to give, to be generous, to share, even sacrifice.

The Spirit of God divides asunder all the honest misguidance, illusion, and pretension of both Israelis and Palestinians who claim some parcel of land is theirs alone! Wait 100 years and the proud “owners” will be gone. These warring nationalistic individuals will be gone with the wind. Only God knows where.

But, agonizingly true, the deeply, incredibly difficult agenda is how to implement a loving, just, fair policy for all people in the Middle East. How does one put into practice the spiritual truth that Jewish people and Arab people need to share, because they are only visiting this earth like the rest of humankind?

#1 The first step would seem to be for the warring parties to become “compassionate listeners” (http://www.compassionatelistening.org/about/history). Tragically most Israelis and Palestinians avoid each other. Not only do they not share, they often do not know each other, let alone have deep open honest conversations. They need to listen to the grievous hurts of the other.

#2 Secondly, they need to ask each other for forgiveness for the past. Horrendous acts of violence, theft, lying have been committed by both sides.

#3 Thirdly, the Israelis and Palestinians need to remember that they as individuals created in the image of God are far more important than any land claims.

#4 Fourthly, they then can go about the difficult task of working out how to function together despite having different cultures, different religions, different mindsets.

#5 Lastly, they will then be able to tackle the issue of how to SHARE the land, not to “own” it, not to fight over it, not to claim exclusive right to it.

There are many more steps, all of them difficult.

Having lived and worked in Palestine/Israel myself, and knowing how difficult human relationships are in my own life, I realize, none of this will be easy nor will it come about in a few years.

But agreeing to LISTEN and agreeing to SHARE are a good place to start.

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Part 3: Jew or Arab? History and Religion

2011-06-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

Historic claim when it comes to ownership has much appeal and quite a bit of historic precedent. If you have owned your car since it came from the factory, but then someone steals it, then it makes not only legal sense, but common sense and I dare say philosophical sense, that the property should be returned to its original owner—you.

If your family and ancestors have lived on the same land for hundreds of years, maybe in a few cases even a thousand years, then unless you are a murderer, etc., it would also seem common sense to assume you have the right to stay there.

But this is where the case of historic claim gets tricky, and downright conundrumed! What if another family’s ancestors lived on your little spot of heaven before your family, way back many hundreds of years ago. Now they have returned and want their ancestral land back?

To use the simplistic crass example, what if the car you have owned for 29 years didn’t come to you from the factory but was passed down to you by your grandfather? What if it turns out your grandfather originally bought it from a neighbor, who bought it from a friend who it turns out stole it from the original owner? Who gets it? Who’s on first?;-) We end up with a complex semantic confusion of mumbo-jumbo absurdity very quickly, not unlike the Abbot and Costello baseball skit. 'Whadad' you say?

This is where lawyers and court justices make their living, trying to sort out all the legal complexities of complex conundrums of claim.

And, of course, the simplistic example is just that. Though complex from a legal standpoint, it’s simplistic in comparison to figuring out the historic nature of land ownership covering hundreds, even thousands of years! In real life it so convoluted. For instance, in Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh, the author states his family first came to Palestine in the 7th century. Think of it! His extended family has lived in the area for 1,300 years! Then how could Jewish people moving from the United States in the 21st century possibly claim land ownership? Because they go even further back, another 600 years backward, to when the Romans decimated the Jews and their Jewish leader Bar Koba in 132-136. Before then, they claim Jews continuously owned the land for a long time, well, except when it was owned by the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Philistines, etc.

Of course, some Palestinians such as Yasir Arrafat, claim they can out trump such long-winded history, stating their own ancestors were the original Canaanites, who owned the land before the Jewish conquerors came, slaughtered them and took their land away from them.

And so if we rely on the historic claim, we end up becoming sleuths of history, mining the ancient past for evidence. The most huge difficulty of all this is, as any student of history knows, nearly everybody came from somewhere else at some time so living by historical claim not only gets questionable (based on various countering reports by historians, turning into an imponderable legal question), but nearly everyone everywhere now would have to move from their land.

Californians would have to leave their land of the last 150 years and give it back to the Mexican government who would have to leave and give it back to the Chumash, etc. who need to leave and give it back to what unknown tribe who now claims to have a previous claim. The English would have to leave England, the Scots Scotland, the French France, etc.

Also, the historic claim often leads to the next claim--the religious/worldview one. For instance, historically the Jewish people have claimed that God ordered them to take over the land in question and to slaughter every man woman and infant of the Canaanites.

Thus, we have a religious claim by the Jews that the God of the universe ordered them to take the land versus the opposite religious claim of the Arab Christians and Muslims who present alternative claims for the Trinity or Allah ordering them at some point in the past (the Crusades or the Jihad) to take over the land and kill the inhabitants. Many modern American Evangelicals/Fundamentalists argue that the Israeli government is going against God now if it gives even a few yards of Gaza or the West Bank to Arabs!HAMAS claims God is on their side. I wonder what Buddha thinks;-)

Sheesh! See why most humans, when faced with land ownership in the Middle East throw up their hands and cry, “It’s hopeless.”

But I don’t think the final answer, Visitor Status, is hopeless. Come back for the fourth installment:-)

In the Light of God—the Ultimate Reality of the Cosmos who loves every single human who has ever been created and who loves the whole cosmos, and who is wooing all toward Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Love in the final consummation.

Daniel Wilcox

Part 2: Who Owns the Land in Palestine-Israel?

2011-05-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

As I explained in Part 1, there is no easy solution to this many-thousanded year old dilemma. Surely the folly and tragedy of inhumane history, especially, the last two hundred years of failed diplomacy, war, and genocidal hatred must caution us against quick or even slow solutions to very complex situations.

How does one even begin to deal with Israeli settlers or Palestinian HAMAS—both who claim the Ultimate Reality of the Universe is exclusively on their own side, that their opposing Gods call them to kill their enemies?

How does one get two diametrically opposed killing nationalities to reconcile?

What would we do if our enemies played soccer with the decapitated head of our son, as did Palestinians with an Israeli soldier’s head in 2004 in Gaza?”!

What would we do if we were caring doctors, but while we helped the women of our enemies, they dropped large shells on our house and killed four of our daughters as did an Israeli tank in 2008 (I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza’s Doctor on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish)?

To be utterly honest, even given my faith, I don’t think I could handle such horrible actions. Only in a Godly love as displayed by some individuals like Jesus, when he forgave the very Roman soldiers who tortured and crucified him, can we hope.

At present, I find it difficult to deal with several people lying about me. I’ve prayed to forgive them, but these individuals’ actions have deeply harmed me and my family, and will have very bad results for years to come. I admit, though I am writing this article in hope it will be one tiny blossom for peace in the Middle East, I, myself, wouldn’t know how to handle what Israelis and Palestinians go through daily—the oppression, the lying, the stealing, the cruel actions, the killing…

Also, keep in mind, very ironically, that many Palestinians and Israelis are actually closer to each other than they are to their own ethnic/national groupings. Did anyone see the video of Palestinian Fatah members who had their kneecaps/legs shot off by their “brothers” of HAMAS when the latter attacked them in Gaza? They are being helped, strangely enough, in an Israeli hospital. And don’t forget the tragic story of the Palestinian gynecologist who helped treat Israeli women for infertility but lost his three of his daughters, killed by Israeli soldiers!

Or what about the Israelis who agree to meet in equality with Palestinians in reconciliation groups such as the grieving parents organization, Parents Circle—Families Forum, and Musalaha, who share more in common with their “enemies” than with the Israeli government of Netanyahu?

What about the Palestinian Elias Chacour (the author of Blood Brothers and We Belong to the Land) who has founded a school for hundreds of children? The school includes Muslims,Druze, Christians, and Jews all working together!

The solution of the unending crisis has been tried by at least eight methods. What about #6 Diplomacy? We have seen over the last 50 years, political diplomacy, even at its best, is usually little more than a smoke screen for furthering one’s own national agenda. While the Israelis claim to be seeking reconciliation with Palestinians, they continue to confiscate land from Palestinians, siphon off far more than their share of water, water needed much more by the Palestinian Arabs, abuse and demean the latter, etc.

And while Palestinians claim they want peace with Israel, they actually continue to stock arms, and tell their own people, teach in their schools, that they plan for the eventual extinction of Israel. Their diplomacy is for most Palestinians only a mask for their real intentions.

As for #7 Legal Claim, surely anyone who has dealt at all with the convoluted legal system in the United States, knows this method is by far the worst of the eight for the tragedy of the Middle East. Legality seldom if ever has to do with what is ethically good, loving, and kind.

If you think #3 Present Possession is the key, are you prepared to give up your car to the thief who stole it last week because he is now driving it? Present possession for the most part is only the frosting on the cake of #4 Military Might. The latter is, of course, the most popular and the most successful of land decisions. If in doubt ask the Indians why they don’t control California, or the Mexican Government. Or why the Saudis, one of the most oppressive governments in the world, is still in power after nearly a hundred years. It’s called survival of the fittest, meanest, cruelest…

But I presume if you have come to this site, which has the longwinded name, Infinite Ocean of Light and Love, you are not among the millions of humans who espouse stomping out your enemies and so do not want to hear a defense of that method. There are endless websites and books for those who do.

Does anyone think #5 Best Use is ethically sound? Strangely enough, many Israelis claim they get all of the land because they are better builders, farmers, scientists, etc. than Palestinians. But no doubt you know what infamous political group in the twentieth century actually espoused this doctrine before the Israelis. It’s very strange that Jewish people would dare touch this view let alone strongly support it.

Now we come to the three best methods, but they, too, are fraught with severe problems…

To be continued in Part #3

In the Light of God (The God who loves every single human who has ever been created and who loves the whole cosmos, and who is wooing all toward Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Love in the final consummation.)

Daniel Wilcox

Who Owns the Land? By What Right?

2011-05-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

“According to Beinin and Hajjar, the Turkish census for 1878 listed 462,465 Turkish subjects in the Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre districts: 403,795 Muslims (including Druze), 43,659 Christians and 15,011 Jews. In addition, there were at least 10,000 Jews with foreign citizenship (recent immigrants to the country), and several thousand Muslim Arab nomads (Bedouin) who were not counted as Ottoman subjects.”

“By 1946, Jews had purchased 6 to 8 percent of the total land area...” *

How then has a Jewish state, Israel defined by the current Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, come to “own” most of this area and control all of the area?
How have Arabs such as Sari Nusseibeh, whose family has lived in the area since the 7th century, been left with no country? (Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Nusseibeh)

It’s long and complicated, convoluted, hate-filled, prejudiced, violent, genocidal, discriminatory, unjust, unmerciful, unloving, and ungodly. Most people know of the Jewish side, how many of the Arabs sided with the Nazis!, how some fanatic Arabs repeatedly rioted and killed innocent Jewish civilians…

Not as many know of the Arab side, but one can read a moving account in Eli Chacour’s short autobiography, Blood Brothers, which tells of how his father emphasized that they as Christian Arabs should help and love the Jewish people. But then the Jewish army kidnapped this loving man and a couple of his sons, blew up their church, and destroyed their town!

I’ve read thousands of pages about this area, the unending conflicts going back thousands of years, and lived and worked there the better part of one year. Then for many years taught the history and selected literature of the area to high school students.

How can this question “Who Owns the Land?” be resolved? How can contrary different religions get along? How can people learn to share?

My Cliff Notes version for those who hate long blogs: There are no easy answers. Skip to the poem for the best answer.

For Part #1 of the long answer:

In the last few thousand years this area, this land, has been ‘owned’ by the Phoenicians, Canaanites, Hebrews, Babylonians, Arabs, Turks, British, French, Jews, etc.

So who gets it now and upon what basis?

Here are eight possible views of land ownership:

#1 Historic Right

#2 Worldview/Religious Claim

#3 Present Possession

#4 Military Might (The most popular view with most people in most of history.)

#5 Best Use

#6 Diplomacy/Compromise

#7 Legal Claim

#8 Visitor Status (No one group, nationality, religion “owns” the land. Humans are merely visiting. We must share.)

Three Sons No Longer Fight

Disking the rock strewn
Objected earth near Bet Shean,
Underneath the Middle Eastern sky
Rows of mean earth riven by the blades,
We cut away our anger, hate, and pride,
Stopping to drink, not from the liquor of
Fanatic corruption but from the
Precious water welling up,
Our oasis of Jacob'd sharing,
In this Hanukah season
Of Christ's mass after
Ramadan.

We three sons of Abraham,
Muslim, Jew, and Christian,
Fight the true battle
Not each other but
To be found worthy
In compassion
Giving,
And purity--
The true
Submission
To God
Over
All.

Previously published in outwardlink.net

* http://www.mideastweb.org/
“The major goals of MidEast Web are:
Popularizing Humanitarian Values
Building a Common Reality
Building a Human Network
Amplifying the Work of Others
Reaching Everyone
Building Friendships and Skills
Humanizing the "Enemy"
The Future Must be Better than the Past”

To be continued…

In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox

Don't Miss "We Refuse To Be Enemies"

2011-05-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

This week, I have been filled with a deep sense that I need to be doing even more than my family and I are for Christ in meeting the needs of so many people and challenging the injustices, poverty, and other sins of the world.

I was praying about where I could get involved more when I came across World Vision's powerful article on peacemaking in Palestine/Israel. "We Refuse to be enemies" by the president of WV. Again, like his powerful writing in his book The Hole in Our Gospel, Richard Stearns grabs us with the call of Jesus to reach out to those mistreated--to go deeper than the nationalism, secular politics, and distorted religious zeal of this world.

Read and be changed:
http://blog.worldvision.org/stories/we-refuse-to-be-enemies/

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Pure and Profane Speech

2011-05-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

Notice how humans, mostly, seem given to extremes, especially when it comes to speech. I grew up in the corner of one extreme, a religious community in the Midwest. I couldn’t refer to my rear as a “butt,” had to say “my seat.” I was instructed not to say “golly” or “heck”—those are “minced oaths.”

Sounds a bit like in the late 19th century when a woman’s pregnancy couldn’t be mentioned in mixed company. Supposedly, people in polite conversation didn't even speak of the "legs" of a table.

The advantage to my fundamentalist upbringing is that it taught me the importance of words. I learned to take great care to moderate my speech as Scripture says, though I did find myself saying “Shoot” a lot when frustrated. I wonder what minced oath that refers to;-) And I became a literature and writing teacher—dealing endlessly with words both spoken and written.

And I suppose I don’t need to inform anyone who has been out in public, gone to work, watched a movie, surfed the Internet, listened to radio, especially paying radio, or seen and heard TV or served in the military, etc. that the other extreme from minced oath prohibition is to be overtly vulgar, obscene, and profane in one’s speech, especially when one is mad or in great spirits.

I used to drive a truck for a chrome company after college (before becoming an English teacher) and at that job I learned plenty of words that our Sunday School teacher never taught us.

The most popular word today heard almost incessantly is the one whose etymology is “to strike” or “to plough.” Notice how in so many situations people use this “ploughing” word for nearly everything from bad drivers to great food or nosy neighbors or non-functioning equipment. Sometimes it is even used to refer to its central meaning…

What’s the point? Why skewer daily conversation with vulgarities? I mean I can understand Mark Twain’s caustic comment that cuss words are important for certain situations. But what is the purpose of running every conversation through the sewer?

And don’t forget profanity. For uncertain reasons, many people speak of Jesus Christ much of the time, in any and all situations, sometimes even give him a middle initial, and say his name louder than the other words of their speech.

I wonder if these same individuals would be happy if people around them constantly, anytime they were angry, or when they were shocked, or when they had nothing else to say, kept using the personal first names of these same individuals’ sweethearts/wives as throwaway curse words?

But Jesus Christ is the love-heart of humankind, the one who chose loving sacrifice instead of violent rebellion against the ruthless invaders of his country.

Why do so many flip off his name, as if he were dung?

I must admit, I am baffled by this lust-affair that so many humans and the media have with vulgarity and profanity. Maybe my confusion comes because of my background at the other extreme.

Could we not agree, however, obscenity and profanity don’t fit in the pursuit of the good, the true, the beautiful, and the loving.

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

Obscene, flippant, or vulgar talk is totally inappropriate. Instead, let there be thanksgiving. Ephesians 5:4

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

So according to some Christians, God caused the Japanese earthquake?

2011-04-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

What's happened to American Christians?
I've about had it with all religion and politics. Where is there the love of Jesus in any of it?

I'm just back from swimming, but even after a bunch of laps I couldn't out swim the religious and political sludge of this present time...

Like the famous pastor in Minnesota who claims God caused the earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of Japanese...

Tell that to the missionaries we support in Japan through Mennonite Mission Network.

What ever happened to the kind of Christians in the U.S. like Youth for Christ (back when I attended, like one night in 1961)? I remember the wonder of the infinite love of God, the God of all compassion and holiness. I remember singing "Everybody Ought to Know Who Jesus Is."

And then there is the horror of abortion on demand, but I've already ranted about that...

And let's not forget all the Americans who are all upset about whether Obama was born in the United States!

Who gives a rip?

I didn't vote for Obama and do oppose most of his policies, but, give me a break. When over 4 million people have been murdered in the Congo, when many are suffering in Japan, when people are being jailed and murdered for their faith in various countries, when there are so many children still in poverty, when so many are lost to substance abuse...

what does it matter where someone was born?

Of course, it is a legal question,
But what if we, instead, all concentrated on loving others and giving the good news of God's love to everyone?

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Imagine There's No Heroin, No Hell Within, But Love Wins

2011-04-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

Imagine There's No Heroin, No Hell Within, But Love Wins...
Just finished the powerful but tragic book The History of the Beatles by Bob Spitz and Love Wins by Rob Bell…

Imagine if John could have a second chance to give peace…

Imagine there’s no heroin (in John’s life and so many others)
It’s difficult if you try,
No hell within us
Above us only why
Imagine all of us
Living for this present…

Imagine there’s only one country
It is very hard to do,
One people of humility, compassion, love, and joy,

Living for the true,

No religiosity, no drugs, no adultery or verbal cruelty,
But now John, alone, opening the door to Cynthia when she returns from Greece,
Asking her forgiveness for his infidelities, throwing his arms
Around her in unselfish love;

And saying to his comrades, he’s sorry for how he treated them, the cruel things he's said.

And no
Assassin’s bullet…

Imagine this new life,
This good news for John Lennon, and the other three Beatles, and Brian

Living for humility, compassion, love, peace, and purity--

Not only Heaven above and beyond,
But as Yeshua said,

Heaven within us.

Imagine this for everyone, the whole world, no exceptions…

But imagine this first for yourself

Right now, at this moment—

I choose to.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Down Jericho Way

2011-03-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

A serendipity, an unplanned blessing, came one morning as I drove down Bradley Road. Very unexpectedly, as I had been struggling through a severe spiritual crisis, yet another pilgrim's regress. (Sometimes I wonder, doesn't a person's spiritual journey ever reach the proverbial mountain top, or at least a peaceful oasis in the barren desert of ached spiritual longing?)

It's Saturday. I drop off my son at his school to take his SAT class and head home, ruminating on Life's problems. But then I see the elderly man, the one who stands by the corner hitchhiking most days of the week. Normally, I don't stop because the traffic is heavy and there is no side lane, and there are miles to go before I rest, but today no cars are crowding me, so I listen to an inner feeling and stop for the man. He is in old wrinkled clothes, almost looking homeless, and hunched as if someone has curled his spine; his one gnarled hand holds a small trash bag, evidently his lunch.

When he thanks me I can hardly understand him as he speaks with a heavy Spanish accent and has a voice impediment. He climbs into the van and sits there bent forward, his face weathered, like dark brown parchment. I find out he has 13 grandkids and his wife died from cancer 18 months ago and that he works at a carwash and is 82 years old!

We commune, even though it is hard to understand him. My heavy load of grief lightens. I leave him off near his work where he baptizes cars. I'm not even a Samaritan, more like a prodigal son, but our Father met us on the road there that morning, even though we spoke no religious language. The hitchhiker and I were in a precious moment, a present meeting.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Christian Faith and Inhumanity, Torture, Ad Nauseam

2011-02-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

"Today torture has been reestablished. In many countries the system of justice quietly tolerates torture being applied before and simultaneously with the regular proceedings of police and prison officials in order to extract confessions form those accused. The amount of suffering thus caused every hour surpasses imagination. To this renewal of torture Christianity today offers no opposition even in words, much less in deeds."

Is this a news comment on the actions of the United States and its allies over the last 10 years? Is this the beginning of a critique from one of the new Secularists lambasting American Christian leaders for their support of torture,inhumanity,nationalism, oppression of unducumented persons, preemptive war, ad nauseam?

Tragically, no. But thank God, a Christian once did speak out these words, though it came long ago in 1931. Isn't it ironic, how in some ways so little changes in human ethics, especially not in Christian ethics, year after year? Why is it that so many "Christians" now support actions that are so contrary to Jesus' words from 2,000 years ago? Not too long ago, I even read of Christian leaders at present who claim slavery isn't immoral because Scripture doesn't condemn the institution!

But at least this one follower of Jesus did speak out 80 years ago against all oppression in the name of Jesus.

Here are a few more of his comments:

"Christianity has need of thought that it may come to the consciousness of its real self. For centuries it treasured the great commandment of love and mercy as traditional truth without recognizing it as a reason for opposing slavery, witch burning, torture, and all the other ancient and medieval forms of inhumanity in its name.

Only when it experienced the influence of the thinking of the Enlightenment was Christianity stirred up to enter the struggle for humanitarian principles. The remembrance of this ought to preserve it forever from assuming any air of superiority in comparison with thought.

If Christianity, for the sake of any tradition or for any considerations whatever, refuses to let itself be interpreted in terms of ethical religious thinking, it will be a misfortune for itself and for mankind. Christianity needs to be filled with the spirit of Jesus, and in the strength of that shall spiritualize itself into the living religion of inwardness and love that is its destiny. Only then can it become the leaven in the spiritual life of mankind.

Because I am deeply devoted to Christianity, I am trying to serve it with loyalty and sincerity. I do not attempt to defend it with the fragile and ambiguous arguments of Christian apologetics. I demand from Christianity that it reform itself in the spirit of sincerity and with thoughtfulness, so it may become conscious of its true nature."

Albert Schweitzer
Out of My Life and Thought
p. 183, etc.

Healing news from the past needed for today's religious blindness.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

A Cure for Religious Cancer

2011-02-01T07:10:00.000-08:00

A C.U.R.E. for the religious cancer of T.U.L.I.P. that has invaded the Christian faith of so many churches and denominations:

The Good News of Jesus Christ--that God loves everyone so much and calls us to turn from our selfish ways and live in love, truth, and goodness.

Able to accept or reject the Truth that God's Spirit gives us

Conditional Election, based on God's foreknowing of our acceptance of his unlimited, endless, eternal love and goodness

Unlimited Atonement by Jesus, efficient for every human ever born

Reassured that God's Spirit woos everyone, that his love and desire for our rescue from sin is eternal and never ending

Essentially and eternally secure in God's love and truth and goodness

*Reposted from a year ago, because so many people need to hear the Good News instead of the bad news.

In the light of God's endless love for every single human through Jesus Christ,

Daniel Wilcox

The Slogged SOGGY Way of American Politics

2011-01-25T12:17:00.000-08:00

Contact your government and call for an end to intolerance and the denial of freedom of religion (the right to change from the religion of your parents and your country) in (supposedly) Islamic countries.

Read my blog post at Groove Studio One on the arrest of another Afghan by the U.S. sponsored government: http://www.groovestudio1.blogspot.com/

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

What's in a Name Bowdlerized?

2011-01-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

“What’s in a name? That which we call a “slave”
By any other name wouldn’t drive home Twain’s anti-racist satire.”

Well, that isn’t exactly how Romeo and Juliet goes, but, heck, the old play needs to be updated to keep up with the modern Orwellians who have improved on Huckleberry Finn in a new edition, just like Thomas Bowdler who in the early 19th century improved on Shakespeare…er I mean his sister Harriet did, but she couldn’t be recognized, you know, because of being a woman. But, of course, we can’t expect students to understand such historical wrongs, right? We need to hide the fact, distort the text; “war is peace”; it might offend and harm little overly sensitive girls and boys somewhere.

I can’t wait to see what these new publishers will do with the Song of Songs in the Bible.

I hope Orwell and Bowdler won’t sue me from the nether regions. Well, technically, Orwell wasn’t really Orwell, nor was Twain, Twain. (Was Bowdler, Bowdler?) But two chose to alter their names themselves, didn’t give others the right to write their works, right? Right on!

I hope hog farmers don’t change Animal Farm too. Or sue me…you know, sooey, sooey! Suing, it ain’t right! Oops, some ignoramus out there may be upset that I didn’t follow the rules of standard usage. “Ain’t” might harm some student somewhere who can’t learn the difference between dialect usage; ain’t likely, isn’t that right?

And speaking of suing, that makes me think of the controversy of white people using the word Sioux. Allegedly, a few Indians are protesting. In’jun Joe isn’t among them as he has been eliminated in the new Huckleberry Finn, that is his name has been changed. Why would they be upset at anyone using the French name, since according to scholars it had negative connotations?

What if, for heaven’s sake, we let literature including terms and names remain as the authors created them? What if, instead, we taught students how to interpret the texts rather than alter the texts?

All of this political correctness reminds me that back in the 90’s, allegedly, a school named Mark Twain Junior High School banned the book Huckleberry Finn. I wonder if that improbability actually happened. A real grave turnover of Twain. Nah, no one would do that or change the title of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, because California wineries got upset at the disapprobation of wine grapes—might hurt them;-) LOL

Seriously, we adults can still be sensitive to the needs of students. When teaching Huck Finn to remedial high school students years ago, I was concerned about the word, concerned that one African-American (Black, then) might be offended, so I discussed it with him. He laughed—turns out he understood literature enough to realize that offensive words in a novel aren’t a personal attack on him. But he said, still grinning, what I could do is say “brother” out loud whenever the word came up, just in case some students might be troubled.

So I explained to the class the reason Samuel Clemens used the term, how he was writing an anti-racist but realistic, local color story, a narrative that uses five authentic dialects of English. Students were to read the actual text in their books, but I said I would use the word “brother” in my daily oral reading. I did and it all worked out fine. Indeed, dealing with the controversial term actually helped the weak readers gain an understanding of satire, 19th century literature, and controversial words. Plus, the minor humor added to the laughter students often experienced as they read along in this, one of the funniest books ever written.

Individual words are very important in literature (ala Edgar Allan Poe), not just fluff which can be excised or altered by censors. Consider, for instance, a character named Rennis, in one of Anthony Burgesses’ novels. When a reader asked Burgess why he called his character such an unusual name, Burgess said he didn’t know. Rennis was a good person who regressed backwards gradually turning to more and more evil behavior. A critic noticed the character’s name Rennis is an anagram, a characteronym, “sinner” spelled backwards just like his behavior!

Lastly, remember if someone in print calls me a “paddy” because I am Irish, I’m not going to sit in the corner and cry or pout until a publisher alters the term to Finn;-) or “slave.” Talk about slavish political correctness! Roll over Twain…rolling on the river of life, on the mighty Mississip…

I'm going to light out for the territory with Huck and Jim...we all need to be free.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Review of Hyman's Seafood of Charleston

2011-01-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

For something different in the new year--delicious food. I'm taking a brief break from fighting the dragons of theological discord and written a cuisine review of an outstanding restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina for Groove Studio One:

http://groovestudio1.blogspot.com/

I may have to cook salmon for lunch:-)

Daniel Wilcox

George Fox's conversion and the New Year for You

2010-12-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

God is Ultimate Reality; the essence of ethical religion is real and true, though religion itself is not literally factual. The way to Truth is relational not propositional, though speculating about philosophical and theological abstractions is productive and creative if such theorizing leads to enhanced ethical action. On the other hand, much in the way of theology and ritual—that which divides, causes intolerance, ethnocentrism, suffering, and war—is wrong, not divine at all.

This was so creatively experienced by George Fox, the founder of the Friends. Though he often acted in un-Christlike ways including seeking judgment against his enemies, God’s love was powerfully manifest in his life when he lost all hope in formal religion, reached the end of his own human efforts, and experienced God’s eternal love and care. Out of that transforming experience, he preached the Good News of Jesus all over Britain and in colonial America.

Here is his own account of his spiritual/mystical encounter with Christ Jesus:

“But as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers, also and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. When all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing upwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said,

"There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition"; and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.”

Have you, too, found that so often the secular side of life, politics, and especially religion, in particular the Christian churches, have let you down, and haven’t provided the mercy, peace, and compassion and communion that you and all human individuals so long for?

If so, turn (metanoia in biblical Greek) to Christ, and be transformed in this New Year.

In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox

One

2010-12-20T09:24:00.000-08:00

One

So awe fulled the birthing
of God’s presents, new cauled
in humble manger’s destiny,

The base and apex of
a starred cave’s presence
of all future festivals

Yet abandoned, forsaken to
the crowned world’s nails,
every man’s cursedness;

Farthest reach of faith
this Apocalypso dancer
crosses the Cosmos,

Morning us night-less;
he compassions Earth
ever peopling Heaven,

Emptying the pitiless bottom
zeroing Apollyon
into ever’s Now

Beloved one, Yeshua
child of the masses
point man for us all.

Have a blessed Christmas.

Daniel Wilcox

Previsously published in The Greensilk Journal

To Us a Baby Is Given

2010-12-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

Toward an Understanding of Childhood...

What is an infant? Don't ask theologians or become entangled in illusions and delusions, long-winded metaphysical splits/spit;-) of religious thinking.

What if we didn't focus on abstract philosophical doctrine, but viewed each baby as a gift from God, just as Christmas does?

Instead, most traditional churches claim the doctrine of original sin-- that all babies are born guilty sinners. In contrast, is the New Thought view, all babies are born divine. What a philosophical split! What does either doctrinal extreme have to do with the real living being who is birthed from her mother?

Human beings at birth are neither divine nor depraved. A baby is a natural offspring of a primate species. But uniquely (probably unlike any other species of life, even dolphins and chimps) a human being has the potential to grow spiritually--to create for her Creator, since she has been created in the image of God!

What a wonder a baby is! I recently held my first grandchild. Experientially, the moment was blessed. How perfect her tiny living body. What a true gift from the Divine. But a little later, when she got hungry, wow, what lungs and what a puckered face she suddenly developed!

I must admit, I don't think something called a "soul" enters a baby at conception, or for that matter anytime later.

At conception a new life begins with amazing characteristics from the genes of her/his ancestors. At conception, the life appears to have no awareness. But brain wave activity begins early in the womb.

Even after birth, however, a baby is sort of an eating and pooping blob;-) She has awareness, but probably not much except she wants to be fed, and fed now!

Then gradually her awareness grows month after month. Finally she becomes self-conscious. Then later her sense of conscience develops.

Finally, an awareness of her finiteness and the mystery of existence comes into her consciousness.

No, a baby doesn’t come into the world a walking, talking, mentally active philosopher/theologian/moralist/saint.

On the contrary she is a living breathing consciousness at the most simple level.
As she grows in the next 6 to 7 years in her consciousness, self-awareness, and her ethical conscience develops with a sense of ought, then she becomes a moral and spiritual actor, though even here she is still an innocent struggling to function and to understand and to fulfill needs and desires, and the demands of the big people in her life.

Is not this the stage that Jesus referred to when he said those who enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child? And where he said to people to let little children come to him for of such is the Kingdom?

And this was my own personal experience—when so young. I don’t remember being a sinful-driven child that fundamentalist Christians claim all babies and small children are. Instead, as far back as I can remember, I had very deep desires to do good, to be good, to know God and to love him. And I had a lot of childlike wonder questions about God, life, others…always asking why about everything:-)

Of course the slither of wrong thought, wrong action, wrong living does come to us all, but not yet.

A child's awareness will grow if she is introduced to God and is shown her responsibility to share, to think of others and their needs, even though she still doesn’t voluntarily give outwardly if it is to her own privation.

Finally, the ethical consciousness kicks in mid-childhood. At each given moment, there will be a tussle between her babyhood past (all spontaneous need and desire) and her adulthood future (potentially all give and bliss).

At that moment by moment juncture—that possibility moment--she must make continual ethical, spiritual decisions. She is finite and so will make mistakes and fail. She is learning in her emotions, her mind, her conscience, and her body as she moves through time. Her choices are a much more complicated version of the way she learned to walk and to talk three years earlier--by trial and error.

But now a new possibility rears its ugly or saintly head. If she doesn’t continue to develop holistically, widening outwardly her care, her helpfulness, her compassion, then she slows, stalls, or even regresses backward to a total need/want level. However, since she isn’t an infant but has the outer body and will and growing mental ability of a six or seven year old her regression hurts herself and other persons.

To try and fulfill life as a growing child, by returning to the barely conscious self-focused life of an infant actually distorts life and will bring harm to others to varying degrees.

Continued growing, in contrast, takes her through new stages of human development and new challenges. Each developmental advance brings new ethical and spiritual choices—either good or bad, advancing or regressing or a combination of both.

As anyone knows, when climbing a mountain, the higher one goes the more dangerous the climb becomes—not because the action of climbing mountains is evil, or because individuals who climb mountains are depraved sinful beings, but because the very nature of going "higher" also offers more options of choosing wrongly and plummeting to the bottom.

If a baby cries when she hungry that doesn’t show she is sinning. On the contrary that is how God designed an infant, to get the attention she needs to survive. If a four year old, throws in a tantrum and takes her little brother’s bottle because she thinks she isn’t getting enough attention from her parents, while her action is wrong and to be corrected, it isn’t a sin yet as she hasn’t developed enough in her conscious awareness and ethical conscience to make altruistic decisions.

However, if at 8, she hides her little brother’s medicine, because she wants all the attention instead, this is sin because by then her mental, moral conscience has developed enough to know that is not the right way to get attention. And, besides, by this point she should be widening her compassion and care for others out beyond her own needs and desires.

If at 18, she steals her younger sister’s boyfriend to build up her own ego, deep sin has occurred. By 22 if she joins with her countrymen and demonizes some other country and lies, steals, and kills the enemies, we do have actions of sin, just as if in contrast, she joins an outreach organization such as Habitat for Humanity or World Vision and sacrifices her time, talent, and money and inspires her younger sister to do so as well, we have actions of goodness. Then the two sisters think of a way to get other people in their neighborhood, school, and city to get involved. One such inspired girl, about 13 years of age, raised thousands of dollars for starving, hurting people in a far off country.

See how the ethical growth of human beings happens. A human being is in process from simple surviving to becoming the acting being of ethical truth.

Now that is the beginning of Good News. Reminds me of several of Jesus’ ethical parables…

Go and do thou likewise…please stop talking about babies being guilty sinners…
Think instead of Christmas’ joy—

“Holy infant so tender and mild*,” except when she cries at 3 a.m. and the parents haven’t slept through the night for weeks;-)

Have a Blessed Christmas,

Daniel Wilcox

*”Silent Night” Christmas Carol

Leaving Death Boat Ethics

2010-12-02T14:54:00.000-08:00

At times, doesn’t much of religion and politics seem like a lot of crock? Yes, and so it did at the time of Jesus’ birth. And, even now, not much has changed.

Consider the modern views of the popular religious thinker Ken Wilber and his system of Integral Theory.

He, himself, takes a rather dim view of some forms of religion: “Worse, their [fundamentalist and evangelical Christians] real or authentic state of experience of love will actually reinforce their ethnocentrism. Only those who accept Jesus as their personal savior can find salvation; everybody else is consigned to eternal damnation and hellfire by an all-loving and all-forgiving God. Does that intense contradiction make any sense? Well, it does if you use the W-C Lattice...
Begin using IOS and suddenly it all starts to make sense, at least enough to climb out of the nightmare of fundamentalism…” from The Integral Vision by philosopher Ken Wilber (pages 147 and 155)

Let’s start out with a positive point about Wilber’s own religious worldview of Eastern thought—yes, we’ll light a candle first, before cursing the darkness;-) A number of Ken Wilber’s key ideas and concepts are powerful and demonstrably practical. For instance, his “Four Quadrants” map (page 71) shows how modern atheists leave out much of reality by confining the real to what is scientifically testable.

And Wilber makes plenty of other insightful points in the Vision and his other books. He shows the fusion of a vast amount of learning and much creativity, and has a light-hearted sense of humor as well. His Integral Theory seeks to combine modern psychology, spirituality, and science into an integrated whole. No small undertaking!

BUT…there is a definite downside to his philosophy/spirituality-- sharkish worms, dare we say maggots, lie deep in this shiny-appled vision.

The devil in the “Integral Vision” is hidden in the ethical details. Wilber’s worldview turns out to be much worse than the fundamentalist Christianity he thinks is a “nightmare.” His own philosophical dream makes even less compassionate sense.

How can such a brilliant, knowledgeable, insightful individual be so deceived?
Some ethical issues are so difficult, so ambiguous that morally concerned individuals may disagree. For example, I could agree to disagree with Wilber’s strong support for execution. His adamant support for capital punishment doesn’t seem to square with his own spiritual philosophy, but every ethical system has its conundrums. And, besides, capital punishment is a tough, ambiguous issue.

However, Wilber’s attitude/tone is very troubling. When asked if he thought that criminals guilty of murder should be helped to turn from their actions, to change ethically, he said that he didn’t think it was worth society’s effort to help them. And besides, with reincarnation, the criminals would be reincarnated anyway, so it’s time to “recycle” them. (Ken Wilber’s answer in Kosmic Consciousness tapes)

Again, here is displayed a tragic, uncaring attitude that has often clung like dung to the belief of reincarnation in the past, where the doctrine contributes to the problem of human evil rather than encourages humans to try and solve and deliver sinners. Why help the low class, low caste? why help criminals? Those humans did something wrong in their past lives. Or since ‘they’ do evil now; why help them? They’ll be back soon with another life.

That’s definitely not the way of Christ. Jesus showed compassion for all the lost, even for criminals and terrorists. While no one should be excused for murder, (like often happens in U.S. courts today, where intentional murderers sometimes get off with only serving as little as 4 years in prison), mercy to help is vital. All of us need to keep in mind that something like 80% of criminals in prison were abused as children. As Thich Nhat Hanh so wisely pointed out, how do we know that we wouldn't be like the individuals we condemn if we had grown up in their abusive environment?

Though their evil actions as adults are inexcusable, and they do need to be separated from society to prevent harm to others, surely these morally deformed individuals (some of whom had their arms burned by their mother’s cigarettes or were bashed in the face, or sexually abused, etc.), surely they do deserve to be rescued. Hopefully, they will choose to change. At least that is the philosophy of such organizations as Christian Prison Fellowship and 12 Step Recovery Programs.

Ken Wilber does show thoughtful discernment in his nuanced support of early abortion but opposition to late term abortion.

What of stopping massacres? It is necessary, as he says, that the nations of the world stop tyrants if they are killing unarmed civilians. But keep in mind that the United States in just two years killed almost ½ million unarmed civilians far more than any Islamic Jihadists have done. And we did so in the name of the Christian God. So we need to be sure to take the beam out of our own eye before we attack others preemptively and self-righteously.

But Wilber’s own ethical system takes a bizarre turn downward. He begins to argue for “Life Boat ethics.” According to him, not all humans can live on this earth; we higher ones must decide which lesser humans—people of less value-- to cast over the sides to their deaths. How tragic is Wilber’s strong support of war (based in part according to him in the Hindu idea that it is our duty to kill others, even our relatives, because Krishna says so). This is according to his “depth and span” ethical system. We should/must throw out lesser people from the Life Boat to their deaths! (Kosmic Consciousness Interview tapes)

Here we have the fallacious view that the “end justifies the means.” It is from just such ethical systems that so much of the horrific tragedies of the 19th and 20th Centuries came about. Haven’t you noticed that when the “end justifies the means”, it is to our own advantage. If other countries torture, that is horribly wrong, but if we do it, well, it’s not really torture, and besides the end justifies the means for us. If someone else lies, how wrong, but, of course, if we lie, it was necessary. Yes, Wilber defends some forms of lying!

And then, his views get really weird and morally sick: Wilber says that it’s okay for husbands and wives to have sex with individual outside of their marriage in an "open marriage! (Ken Wilber website)

Furthermore, he seems to agree (?) with another author that Jesus may have had sex with Mary Magdalene. (“The Meaning of Mary Magdalene” by Cynthia Bourgeault and Ken Wiber, kenwilber.com)

These “Life Boat” ethics are really anti-life. They go against the moral views of Jesus and Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh and Abdul Ghaffar Khan. It’s time to realize that all such “Life Boat” ethical systems are really a moral death boat.

Of course, according to Wilber many of the humans who oppose his system are lowly “oranges” on his rating scale of human development. What is an “orange”? Don’t ask; it’s not good; a large number of stages down below Wilber’s own advanced spiritual trans-human stage.

Well, at least it’s better for us to be “orange” rather than being “red”. They are even worse. Wilber points out that we do need to include the lesser valued humans, up to a point, unless we have already bombed/executed them, of course. And besides, they will be reincarnated (my sarcasm intentional).

Doesn’t this sound a bit like the designations of humans in the highly satiric novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? Or George Orwell's very bitter fable, Animal Farm?

What about Jesus’ statement to “to turn the other cheek” and love your enemies? No, Wilber emphasizes the opposite. He thinks even in a thousand years that humankind probably won't overcome the need to use violence. In his novel, he has one character say “turning the other cheek is exactly what you don’t want to do with pre-orange memes.”

But Jesus, in contrast, reached out to the marginalized “less integral” humans, to his political enemies, to the ruthless Romans, to criminals, even to terrorists, etc. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus even said that we should show love to ruthless enemy soldiers.

But as mentioned above, Wilber emphasizes that it our duty to kill. Like in the Hindu religious classic when Arjuna doesn’t want to kill his relatives in war, the God Krishna tells him it is his duty to go into battle and kill his relatives. So the War in Iraq is justified and other wars which our particular nation thinks we should fight out of duty.

Again, the end justifies the means.

Are we to forget about the nonviolent ethics of Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Eli Chacour?

Jesus dealt with the powerful immoral Roman Empire, with ruthless Roman soldiers who crucified thousands of Jewish individuals, yet Jesus didn't become a zealot and slit their throats saying they hadn’t reached his level of spiritual development. Instead, he emphasized the way of the cross. He even forgave the soldiers who executed him!

So have many other spiritual leaders down through history, going against the dominant human way of killing one's enemies.

In contrast, Ken Wilber’s view (as expressed by his characters at wilber.shambhala.com and in an extended interview in Kosmic Consciousness by Sounds True) is that nonviolence only works when your nation’s enemies are , basically, nice people.

Also, Wilber emphasizes that humans can’t/shouldn’t live by nonviolence because, not only does peace-living not work, but “your death doesn’t even buy you good karma, but the karma of the coward”!!! (wilber.shambhala.com)

What? By implication Jesus is a coward?! Wilber claims if we don’t kill in war, we are responsible for what the enemy does! So were the disciples and early Christians guilty for what Emperor Nero did, etc.?

And what makes this all the more confusing is that Wilber has one of his characters later say that God is actually ‘behind’ all such human evil (after talking about the necessity of killing humans in war, etc.):

"Precisely because I am not this, not that, I am fully this, fully that. Beyond nature, I am nature; beyond God, I am God; beyond the Kosmos altogether, I am the Kosmos in its every gesture. Where there is pain, I am there; where there is love, I am present; where there is death, I breath easily; where there is suffering, I move unconstrained. On September 11, 2001, I attacked me in a distant part of the galaxy on an unremarkable planet in a speck of dust in the corner of manifestation, all of which are wrinkles in the fold of what I am. And none of which affects me in the slightest, and therefore I am totally undone, I cry endlessly, the sadness is infinite, the despair dwarfs galaxies, my heart weeps monsoons, I can't breath in this torture.
"Totally insignificant, infinitely significant--no difference, truly. Atoms and Gods are all the same, here in the world of One Taste; the smallest insult is equal to the greatest; I am happy beyond description with every act of torture, I am sad beyond compare with every act of goodness. I delight in seeing pain, I despise seeing love. Do those words confuse you? Are you still caught in those opposites? Must I believe the dualistic nonsense that the world takes as real? Victims and murderers, good and evil, innocence and guilt, love and hatred? What dream walkers we all are!” (Ken Wilber Website)

So Wilber’s God is the One behind all the evil (as well as the good)!

Yet Ken Wilber thinks the “God” of Fundamentalism is a “nightmare”! (Page 155)

Think about it: Somehow in Wilber’s philosophy humans need to be executed and bombed, but behind it all, this is really Ultimate Reality playing:-(!

“until I decided to play this round of hide and seek, and get lost in the objects of my own creation.” (Page 204)

I am without words…other than I want to emotionally and spiritually puke.
Instead, I will pray that Ken Wilber may find the Light of the Real Truth.

Daniel Wilcox

The Arrival of Advent in the Storm

2010-11-26T13:57:00.000-08:00

Advent comes to us from God, in the midst of our trouble. The word Advent, from Latin, means “arrival,” the arrival of hope in the midst of despair. Think of the horrific times that Joseph and Mary lived in. And consider many peoples’ tragic struggles now today in Haiti, Pakistan, the Congo, and Afghanistan. Think of the young child with cancer, the elderly person with Alzheimer’s disease. Yes, the storm of wrong seems endless.

Our own bad experiences probably are slight in comparison. But all hurt hurts, does it not?

What about the last time events blindsided you and things even seemed hopeless?

About a month ago, I faced relatively rough circumstances, one more challenging day in a slew of them. I was alone and hurting so I turned on Christian radio seeking inspiration and comfort, but tragically, the minster was preaching that all humans are without value, valueless. Then he kept repeating these bad news words—humans are valueless, worth nothing. According to him, God only loves a few humans. I snapped off the radio, devastated, much worse off than before. I had needed good news, not fatalistic despair.

In wondrous contrast, the verses of Titus 2:11-14 in the New Testament give us the glad tidings of God’s love for everyone. Despite the worst that existence does to us, the blessed words speak comfort to our despairing hearts: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”

Isn’t that last word glorious? The Good News to Mary, then to Joseph and outward from there, not limited to a certain few, but to all creation. These precious words “arrive” telling us about the incarnation—how God loves us even at our worst and isn’t willing for anyone to perish. Yes, even the natural world will eventually be redeemed.

And not only do these words of wonder bring us loving kindness now, they train us to renounce impiety and wrongful passions. They give us practical guidance and strategies of how to face our daily struggles and hard times. They give us a living blessed hope for the future.

Consider this humorous but insightful story.* In the current severe recession, a door-to-door salesperson walked up to one more elegant house, pushed the button and waited to share his product. When the door opened, a gruff man grimaced, and said, “No we don’t want any” and shut the door.

Not discouraged, the salesperson came back the next week. This time when the door opened, the occupant cursed at him and slammed the door. When the third week came and the salesperson walked up to the door and rang the bell, the antagonistic man raised a fist and spit in his face!

The salesperson pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his nose and eye, then looked up at the clear sky and said, “It must be raining.”

Think about it. If we had been the salesperson, we might have gone away disheartened, or angry at the man’s rudeness or disappointed, wondering why our product wasn’t of value to the customer or why he personally disliked us. Have you been hurt lately by thoughtless words, or snippy gossip? Even been cursed out lately? Falsely accused?

How did you respond? How are you responding?

The salesperson in the spiritual parable (from a Jewish rabbi) doesn’t live in his circumstances, even of the spitting variety. He knows the “company” he belongs to, knows he will not be fired, that he isn’t judged by the depressed economy, that his “boss” highly values him for himself, and that many will benefit from his product—“the love of God.” He has seen by faith the future and knows Truth and Love and Faith are eternally true. So when he is spit upon, he thinks of the benefit of rain.

Has it been raining—even hurricaning--on you today;-)? Look up to the blessed hope of the Advent.

Prayer: Dear Father, We thank you that You are the God of all comfort for everyone, that your love extends to all as the famous gospel song* says, “Could we with ink the ocean fill…to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry.” Please help us today to remember that when negative circumstances attack us, we can “reign” over them in You.

Thought for the day: When bad storms rain, God’s love pours, reigning over all for all.

*Paraphrased from Mitch Albom’s book Have a Little Faith
*Frederick M. Lehman, “The Love of God”

May you experience the love of God,

Daniel Wilcox

The Paradox of Truth

2010-07-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

Christian thought often seems dysfunctionally extreme, so very false. On one side are the exclusivists, the theological determinists (who I have already dealt with in past blogs), ones who claim God only wills to save a limited number of humans, and the rest of us are preordained to Hell for his pleasure and glory. Pray tell me where the Good News is in that hopeless despair.

On the other side, are the inclusivists, the universalists who emphasize that all humans will be saved, that Hell will eventually be emptied. This sounds so good and has found strong support among great Christians of the past from Origen to the Greek scholar William Barclay. The position has recently been championed by the Quaker writers Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland. But there is a huge problem here as well. See below.

In the New Testament, Jesus, instead, speaks in paradoxes. Consider this statement:
Matthew 7:14 NASB For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Why does Jesus talk so exclusively at this point when elsewhere in the biblical text, he is the ultimate inclusivist/universalist? He emphasizes how God is not willing for anyone to perish in his or her wrong ways, that God is like a father who longs for the return of his wayward son, like a woman who rejoices when her precious possession that was lost is found.

Here’s the key:
As appealing as the universalism of the Good News is—For God so loved the world; God sent not his son into condemn the world John 3:16-17—of what use is it to tell everyone that all people are saved, if we don’t help each individual change? For in fact, at this very moment millions of particular individuals are living in minor or major hells on earth or ‘living like hell’ hurting others. Of what use are liberal religious platitudes, no matter how wonderful they sound theoretically, if in fact we aren’t seeking to help ourselves and others to change right now? Of what use is theology claiming truth when at present Christians and Muslims are killing each other allegedly for God? Of what use is universalism when at present millions of individuals are suffering loss, being selfish, living immorally, being discriminated against, drinking to excess, abusing others or being abused, making war, living in greed, lust, envy…?

The Truth, the Good News, is only universal in the here and now when it is accepted, when we turn from our wrong thoughts, deceitful choices, egocentric ways, bad actions.

God doesn’t cease being True, Good, and Loving, but when we as humans refuse to respond to the Truth, the Good, and the Loving, God incarnate is again crucified within us and others suffer.

This is Jesus’ point! For example, Jesus loves the rich young man, but he can’t help him when the young man refuses to personally accept the truth and change.

The way to Truth is narrow though the Truth of the way is as wide as infinity:-)

In the endless Love of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Troubling Thoughts: David, a Terrorist, Thief, Liar...

2010-05-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

David of the Jewish and Christian Bible receives much adulation from so many religious people, but I find his immoral actions very troubling. I am confused by his overly conscientious scruples but, contradictorily, brazen violations of some of the 10 Commandments in their essential meaning. This is not even considering or dealing with when he became king, committed adultery and killed one of his own soldiers. His sinful actions started long before that.

As a young adult, he lived as a terrorist in the strongholds of the desert and attacked towns (I Samuel 22:1-2, 27:9). How is he a man after God’s own heart, the apple of God’s eye when he acts like Osama ben Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban? Surely, David’s more like a rotten apple.

I guess like most of us. None of us are as we should be; certainly, I struggle, too, to live in God’s love to others, and not live in self-centeredness.

But David actions are horrible. He is supposed to be a spiritual example for us. While he feels guilty for a minor wrong action that hurt no one, he brazenly violates essential ethics. He kills two hundred men, mutilates their sexual organs, giving their foreskins to King Saul so he can marry the king’s daughter Michal! (I Samuel 18:26-30). Then the verses say that “the Lord was with David” and “that David behaved more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so that his name became highly esteemed.”

What?! No wonder that the nonreligious and the skeptical have doubts about Christian faith. Ben Laden and the Taliban don’t even act as evilly as this.

How can David be so conscientious, yet commit such abhorrent acts?

When King Saul is sleeping, David secretly cuts a corner of King Saul’s robe. I Samuel 24:5: “David’s heart troubled him because he had cut Saul’s robe.” Seems very conscientious here, does he not?

Yet, David shows no sorrowful guilt for the repeated slaughter of women as well as men (I Samuel 27:9). This wasn’t self-defense; the people hadn’t attacked him; besides, killing women smacks of modern terrorists like Ben Laden who kill not only enemy soldiers, but unarmed women.

Then David steals their possessions to boot! It’s bad enough to kill people in towns, but to then take their possessions while they lay there bleeding! That reminds me what the atheist revolutionary Che Guevara did: stole an individual’s wrist watch after killing him.

Then David lies about his terrorist acts (1 Samuel 27:10-12).

Furthermore, he then takes a widow to be his wife soon after her husband dies. Plus, he marries another woman too, Ahimoam. He thus has two wives (I Samuel 25:39-43), neither of them his wife Michal that he killed two hundred men for. Should he not have waited and tried to get Michal back, especially since she helped him escape (I Samuel 19:11-13)?

It would appear that David also violates the law against coveting too, is into revenge such as telling others to get revenge for him after his own death:-(. Etc.

But let’s stop here…

Now, of course, apologists try and excuse David’s immoral behavior. They point out that standards were different, that this was before Christ, etc. But that is all beside the point. David is supposed to be a shining example, a prefigure of Christ, which he is not, by any stretch of the imagination.

It is not so surprising that later David commits adultery and kills one of his own countrymen. He had violated the most basic of ethical truths early on in his life.
What a very sad commentary.

Don’t look to David; look to Jesus.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Be Perfect, as Your Heavenly Father is Perfect

2010-05-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

God, contrary to what many theologians claim, isn’t self-focused, doesn’t seek his own glory, never acts for himself. On the contrary the wondrous glory of Jesus’s God, is eternal love--that of a loving, forgiving, self-sacrificing father. The opposite of the sovereign determiner, the true God is endless, limitless love for every human being ever born and ever to be born.

Of course, this doesn’t make rational factual sense; it’s the “foolishness of the Good News.” Like the foolishness of holding that all humans are created equal, when we all darn well know that no humans, from a factual scientific point of view, are equal in any shape or form—not mentally, not physically, not economically…

But ideally, spiritually, transcendentally, humans are all equal, all precious, all valued.

Consider Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son where the father waits, watching, longing, and then embracing his formerly rebellious, sinful son who squandered his inheritance. (Luke 15:11-32)

This is the God who is love of I John, I Corinthians 13, Luke.

And the message for us is that we are to be perfect like God is perfect. How is that? Obviously, not in infinite ultimateness, nor in any or all of the omni's that religious people like to throw up skyward, attempting to describe the glory of God.

No, Jesus says we are to be perfect like our heavenly father is perfect by loving all others--that means everybody. (Matthew 5:48, the Sermon on the Mount)

We are called to perfection like Martin Luther King says in his famous statement: "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."

We live in God's love and let God's eternal love spring up to others.

We won't become perfect for a long, long, long time, but now is the time to start:-).

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Stories of Truth: Part #1

2010-03-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

Unlike so many Christians and other religious people of the present time who fixate on how they belong to God and are good Americans (insert your own nation) unlike "them out there"--whoever that "them" happens to be: undocumented workers, those preordained to eternal torment, people of enemy countries, heretics, those of other races, creeds, or ethnic backgrounds, the down and out, homeless transients, druggies, criminals, prostitutes...

Jesus was just the opposite--he spoke of how he had come to call all the "thems," all the lost. If anything, he tended to criticize the very religious us'es, the ones who outwardly look like they are good. Notice in the story of the rich young leader in Mark 10:17-22 and Luke 18:18-23 that Jesus reserves the adjective "good" for God alone. He won't accept the term for morally upright religious people or even for himself!

Jesus, the Son of Man loves the rich young leader who is so morally upright, but he is not impressed! Shock of shockers! It isn't enough for a human to keep all the 10 Commandments from his youth up!

Imagine the consternation and chaos and church splits, if the ministers at some of the mega-churches in the U.S. got up and said "Jesus is calling all rich Christians to give their money away for outreach to the countries where most people only earn less than a dollar a day, where millions of children die for want of basic clean water and food, where many don't even have one Bible to read"?

Of course, some individuals do heed Jesus' call to live sacrificially for God. The millionaire founder of Habitat for Humanity gave sacrificially of his large resources. R. G. LeTourneu the inventor of earthmoving equipment, allegedly was giving 90% of his income away by the time of his death!

Then is the meaning of the story of the rich young leader that we are "in" if we give up all our money?

No, Jesus is speaking much more broadly and much more deeply than that. He is speaking to our inner heart, our deepest motivations, our ultimate concern (to use the phrase of the theologian Paul Tillich). Until each of us gives up putting some finite thing, interest, person--including ourself--as ultimately important...and give our all to God, we are lost and have no opportunity to live in God's presence, the ultimately Good.

God the Truth and Love must come first. Even nice people fail to measure up to such Truth, even those who try and keep all the 10 Commandments.

Some of us, if not all of us, at this point may feel that this is an impossible demand of Jesus.

But it's not. Jesus says we must come to Truth like a little child comes to her loving father or mother--openly, sincerely, spontaneously, humbly... We need to realize that such little children are what God's reign is like. And we need to remember, contrary to how most religious people spend much of time putting down others different from themselves, that Jesus is not willing that any human should perish, be lost. Jesus is seeking those who are are spiritually needy.

And he emphasizes that God rejoices when even one person "changes his mind" (metanoia in Greek). This is far more important than all the seemingly nice people in the Christian churches who seem to, at least outwardly, need no repentance.

To emphasize this, Jesus tells the story of a rancher who has lost a cow and is trying to find it.(Well, that's my version since I used to work in Montana and grew up in Nebraska--the beef state;-)

To be continued

In the Light of the limitless love of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Part 2: The Abyss of Meaninglessness

2010-02-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

Ecclesiastes 1:2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." (NIV version) and Ecclesiastes 1:14, 17-18 I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is futility and striving after the wind...to know wisdom...is also striving after the wind. Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge, increasing pain.

Rather totally pessimistic about everything, isn't the Speaker? But there is some superficial truth, I suppose to his nihilism. When I was a young Christian fundamentalist growing up in a small village in Nebraska--before I had gone to several universities, read extensively, suffered tragedy, lived in various places in the world, met humans with totally contrary worldviews, etc.--I didn't understand this hopeless wail. I thought I understood life and God and the world. Though I was ensconced in much illusion and some delusion, I didn't know it, so I was happy and productive and filled with hopes and dreams. Aren't most kids, before the harsh realities of life wear us down?

But even after some very tough times, I still wouldn't have identified with the Speaker's utter feeling of futility, because I had a secure foundation in my faith. My faith in God gave me a deep spiritual life. Thank God, I didn't live on the surface of life chasing after this world's glitter or, worse, its glut.

But then tragedies came...

Well, you get the point...And now at 62, after doing spiritual battle for so many years against inner failings and testings, and destructive worldviews, trying to help others caught in confusion and dysfunction and sin, and grieving over unanswered prayers, and experiencing deep heartache, I sometimes, too, understand what the Speaker means when he finds even wisdom to be a striving after the wind.

And what do we do, when more and more modern Quakers are claiming that there is no Ultimate Meaning or Purpose to existence, but instead identifying with non-theism? And when so many leading Christians are adopting a hopeless theological determinism which claims the vast majority of humankind is preordained to eternal torment? And when a certain political figure is elected on the theme of hope, but then reverses many of his solemn pledges and ideals? And when the natural world heaves, and the striving of hurricane winds and drought and disease and more kills millions?

No doubt, someone will point out that this is the way life has always been--tragic, brief, and short. And, no doubt, the person is correct. That is why Ecclesiastes came to be written by a Jew living about 250 B.C., because so many of the promises of God in the Torah and the Prophets and in Proverbs and the Psalms hadn't come true. Where had the Psalmist been hiding that he could claim, "I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken Or his descendants begging bread (Psalm 37:25)?

So sometimes, like millions of others at present, or in the past, I too drown in the abyss of meaninglessness, plummet for days down into the bottomless pit of despair.

If as the Speaker emphasizes through most of the book, we only have this life, we then are only like a live dog versus billions of dead lions and dead dogs who have gone before us. Is not this life then a senseless striving after the wind? An emptiness and meaninglessness like a transient vapor--here and then gone?

This is where Paul's statement in the New Testament shocks contradictorily and is life-saving: For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21

As I teen, I loved the first part of that verse. Jesus was my ideal, my hero, my best friend. As for the latter part, I couldn't see Paul's view at all. But now many years later, past innumerable struggles and heartaches, I can see how, for Paul who suffered much, that Heaven did beckon.

And in times of deep despair when all does seem hopeless and meaningless--like this last month--I remember that for me to live is Christ, and that when I come to death I will be dying into Jesus Christ."*

In the Light of Christ,

Daniel Wilcox

*a paraphrase of Hans Kung in his powerful book Eternal Life

Of Skepticism and Meaninglessness

2010-02-27T12:44:00.000-08:00

Speaker of one among the gathering (Ecclesiastes 1:2-4a)
Vapor of vapor, says the speaker,
vapor of vapor! All is vapor.
What's the profit of all the hard work under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes..

Not very encouraging words. But then the Bible isn't often a pie-in-the-sky book, contrary to what many people think. Consider that this is the volume which quotes the Son of God as saying, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" It is a book which often dwells upon the worst and the most horrible in life. If you doubt this, read through Judges and several of the prophetic books in one day. For Jeremiah, things weren't getting better and better. Then there's Job...

True, at the end of the Scripture, Goodness, Meaning, and Purpose do win, but that is getting ahead of the story:-) and of this particular reflection.

Most of us are in the middle of life somewhere, not either still bright-eyed and tale-dreaming, very young ones with endless hopes and dreams, nor old codgers (and codgerettes;-) at death's door, living in pain and suffering, There are a few oldsters who are healthy, spry, and accomplished with no regrets. I heard of one who still drives his own car at 106 years of age and cares for his younger wife!

But that isn't the experience of my own extended family or anyone I know personally. Most humans deal with plenty of problems, sometimes so overwhelming they seem hopeless. Or when successful, still ask, "Is that all"?

Even the rich and famous and brilliant, (as the news this week repeatedly showed), suffer and come to the end of their rope. It doesn't matter if it is threaded with gold cordage. As the Speaker says, "a live dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything..." E.9:4

But most of us live in the middle, in transit--experiencing both the positive and negative of life, though too often for too many, the negatives far out weigh the positives. At least that is where I live.

I know that outwardly, when it comes to necessities and creature comforts, my family and I are in the top 1% of humans who have ever lived. But then why am I so dissatisfied, so often given to a vivid sense that life doesn't make sense, that at times it seems pointless, empty, meaningless, fleeting, futile, etc.?

And this empty despairing place is where the Speaker complains from. He, indeed, is so pessimistic, I've often wondered how his book ever got included in the Jewish and Christian Bibles. Yes, in my time, I've heard plenty of sermons on the book, but most of them seemed to be reading a book other than the one that is in front of me. They mostly seemed to read and speak of Ecclesiastes through rose-colored glasses.

Instead, the book has much more in common with Albert Camus, the French Existentialist who said that life is absurd.

So here we go...

Women in Tragedy: Ruth, Part 4

2010-02-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

What does one do when all chaos breaks out, when everything collapses to hell, when all hope and joy is yanked low and hanged?

Where can Haitians in the midst of over 200,000 dead and a million homeless find hope and joy? Where can the wife who just lost her husband in a terrible wreck or to cancer ever find meaning and hope?

The book of Ruth starts out in such deep tragedy. The story is set at the time of the judges (probably a better translation of that for contemporary understanding is "chieftains") when as Scripture says, everyone "did what was right in his own eyes." Judges 17:6 That phrase says so much of the evil that was in the land. When everyone lives by subjectivism, not transcendent values, but only by their own culture's mores or their own wants or ideas, look out.

Furthermore, "there was a famine in the land." Elimelech and Naomi leave their country for Moab--the despised enemy country across the river. And then it gets much worse for the couple, Elimelech dies--doesn't say how. And then Naomi's young sons die too.

The story-teller is setting us up for truth she wants to share. Notice (as I mentioned last week) that the author of the book has given allegorical/parabolic names to the characters and places. Her home where the famine comes is Bethelehem which in Hebrew means "house of bread." How ironic!

Naomi's two sons who die are Mahlon ("illness") and Chilion ("cessation").* Naomi means "sweetness," before the tragedies. When she returns home bereft and hopeless, she says call me "Mara" ("bitter"). So not only has she suffered greatly, but she is bitter about her lot in life. And she, like so many humans past and present, blames God.

In our own time countless famous American leaders have given God the credit for everything from war to disease to catastrophe, as do even insurance documents: This policy insures you except for acts of God--meaning flood, earthquake, etc. God is left holding the bag of wind, is caught opening Pandora's box, is the destroyer, the master puppeteer who majors in destruction. So the story goes, in the book of Ruth and for countless religious people even to this day.

But that's the bad news.

What about the good news?

Enter Ruth and Orpah. They plan to return with Naomi/Mara to the House of Bread. But then Naomi/Mara tells them her life is over and that they should stay in Moab and make new lives for themselves. Both Orpah and Ruth genuinely care for Naomi/Mara, but finally Orpah goes back (her name literally means "back of the neck," meaning "back-turner."*

In contrast, Ruth clings to Naomi/Mara and refuses to leave.

Let's cut to the end quickly--ie give you the short version (what my wife's always asks of me when I start talking;-)

It is intriguing and refreshing that in the Jewish Bible, which usually focuses on men's exploits and faith journeys, that the book of Ruth was included: a story where at this point, no men are involved; they're dead. This instead is a story of women, about a woman's initiative, a woman's commitment, a woman's loyalty, a woman's humbleness, a woman's hard work , a woman's ingenuity, a woman's...well, you get the point. Too bad that Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, and other religious groups which still deny women equality with men don't.

While there has been much questionable allegorizing of Scripture since St. Paul and Origen, the book of Ruth does appear to be an allegorical story.

Ruth represents the true follower of truth, the friend who sticks closer than a sister. Indeed, her name "Ruth" probably, etymologically, means "companion, friend." It's not that Orpah isn't a nice person; she isn't a dabbler or fair-weather friend; but when all goes to Hell, she is the one who finally leaves, looking for a better life.

In contrast, Ruth's commitment is to death, loyalty without end: "for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die..."

One point: in relationships with others, and, of course, ultimately in following God, we should give our whole heart and commit totally--no matter how terrible the circumstances.

In the Light,

Daniel

*Quoted again from Brettler

Ruth: A Love Story?

2010-02-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

When I first heard sermons on Ruth as a teenager, the book was called a love story. But I didn't get it. I would re-read the few pages looking for romance, passion, even a little affection--and find little to speak of (speaking of Cupid). Where were the passionate verses like in the Song of Songs?

And what was this? Ruth obeys her mother-in-law to go see an old man named Boaz rather than meet a young guy? Lastly, near the end of the story instead of a marriage celebration, the verses focus on Boaz being involved in a complicated legal land deal related to Ruth. Where's the details of their relationship after the meeting night and their wedding?

So why am I, then, writing this blog on Valentine's Day weekend?

Because, later when I studied the story academically, I discovered the nuances and euphemisms, and the transcendent themes in the book. Consider the pivotal scene of the story: Ruth 3:3-7 Ruth washes herself, anoints her body, puts on her best clothes and then goes down to a dusty farm workplace in the middle of the night to secretly sleep next to Boaz, a rich man. Sounds rather suggestive does it not?

But the literal Hebrew is even stranger, more provocative. After Ruth sneaks into the workplace, she is to "uncover his feet and lie down" next to where Boaz is sleeping. In Hebrew, "the feet" often refer to human private parts. For instance, angels are said to cover their feet with their wings; the text isn't talking about their toes.

Furthermore, the words "lie down" are often a euphemism in Hebrew for sexual intercourse. Notice in verse 4, that "lies down" is referred to three times and then again in verses 7, 8,13, 14. Also, Boaz who was eating and drinking until merry is sleeping near a heap of grain. And he later gives Ruth much grain. These images "eating and drinking" and "grain" are images used for sexual lovemaking in the Song of Songs--probably so here too. And there are more such implications in the verses, but this probably suffices for the plot line.

By now, you probably, also, are beginning to notice some intriguing comparisons and contrasts between the books of Esther and Ruth. In both a foreign young woman marries an old leader; in both people are eating and drinking. But in the former the leader is lazy, superficial, and selfish while in the latter, he is hard working, deep, and generous. In the former, Jewish separate identity is the focus, in the latter individual choice is emphasized, not ethnic background, nationality, or bloodline. In the former, it ends with a slaughter of one's enemies (probably including women and children); in the latter the story ends with love of opposites, the marital joining of two opposing human groups in the conceiving of a baby. Sound familiar? Hold on.

One of the central themes of this love story is openness to others, even enemies and an ethical polemic against ethnocentrism and religious exclusivism seen elsewhere in the Jewish Bible. For example, Deuteronomy 23:3-6 says "No...Moabite shall enter the assembly of Yahweh; none of their descendents...you shall never seek their peace or their prosperity..." and Ezra 9: 1-2, 10:2 ..."The people of Israel...have not separated themselves from the...Moabites,,,for they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves...And Shecaniah..said to Ezra, We have been unfaithful to our God, and have married foreign women...so now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children..."

Instead, at the end of Ruth, the text says "Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And Yahweh gave her conception, and she gave birth to a son...Blessed is Yahweh who has not left you without a redeemer."

Without necessarily arguing that the story of Ruth was originally intended as a messianic promise, one can see how followers of Jesus the Redeemer saw in all of this an allegory. Jesus was a descendent of Ruth, a Moabitess, a hated enemy of the Jews, and allegedly the Moabites were a despised result of incest. Yet from this union of Moabitess and Jewish leader came a child. And so in the case of Jesus, Ruth's descendent, another child born of a foreign woman under questionable circumstances which would reconcile enemies, and bring love to all humankind.

What if instead of emphasizing ethnic identity, nationality, religious differences, and bloodline, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would fall in love at the "threshing floor"? What if they would join together, not separate or battle one another? What if they would marry, become one in love?

There is truly good news--the true meaning of Valentine's Day, not heart-shaped cards, but open hearts of love for others.

Don't be ruthless;-) like most humans, playing to divisive religious texts or nature's lowest denominator. Instead, become like Ruth and Boaz--be passionate and generous and loyal, live for others, and love your enemy.

To be continued

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Esther versus Ruth: Part 2

2010-02-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

The book of Esther is so filled with reprehensible characters and abhorrent behavior, it baffles me as to why Jewish people have celebrated Purim for centuries. The Persian king and his cronies come across as completely evil jerks, but even the heroes, the persecuted Jews seem to descend to their enemies' own sinful levels. When the king establishes a decree for the Jews to kill all their enemies--men, women, and children, the Jews kill 75,000 people.

Instead of getting such revenge, why didn't the Jewish people reject the king's decree? Why didn't they explain to the sovereign that they, as followers of the God of hesed and justice, wouldn't stupe to the evil behavior of their enemies?

Also, what's with the total war? Or did the Jewish killers ignore the evil king's decree and only kill the adult males of the households? But then what happened to all of the women and helpless children?

Lastly, as admirable as Esther is because of her courage, should she be held up as an ideal when she agrees to go into a foreign emperor's haren, especially since she is replacing the heroic queen, who refuses to be treated like a plaything?

There are so many troubling issues and actions in this Jewish Bible story. I wonder how I ever read and heard it lectured on as a kid.

Last but not least, it is puzzling why God isn't avidly involved in the story.

That's the bad news.

Next time, we'll take a look at Ruth, a heroine of so much good news.

In the Light,

Daniel

Two Biblical Women Fight It Out

2010-02-03T11:56:00.000-08:00

Quoting from Brettler*:
Esther [addressing Boaz]: "How can you stand being married to your Moabite wife? Don't you know that Moabites are the worst--they sin and cause others to sin! [Deuteronomy 23:4-7] And if that isn't enough, they are all the result of incest! [Genesis 19:30-38] You are going to dilute our "holy seed" by having children with her!"

Ruth [upon hearing Esther's verbal attack]: "Moabite, shmoabites! People are what they become, not how they are born. A Moabite woman who performs acts of kindness is better than a Jewish man who doesn't. Don't listen to that fanatic "holy see" notion--it is just plain wrong. And, while we are at it, your tone makes you sound like you don't like women too much either."

Esther [responding to Ruth]: "That's an overstatement. Some women are wonderful to look at, and when they listen to their husbands and other male relatives, good things happen. But beware the woman who shows independent initiative. She is the "highway to Sheol (hell)" (Proverbs 7:27) --stay away from her!"

Ruth: "That view sounds shortsighted: 'Beauty is illusory' (Proverbs 31:30). But more important, it's unduly harsh and judgmental. I prefer to judge women as we judge foreigners--by what they do, not by what they are. Don't you know that a Moabite woman was the ancestor of King David?" [and according to the Christian scriptures, a greats-grandmother of Eashoa!]

Esther: You don't expect me to believe that myth, do you?*

*from the chapter "Ruth vs. Esther" in How to Read the Bible by Marc Zvi Brettler PhD, chair of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University

For many years, I've had conflicting, paradoxical views toward the books of Esther and Ruth. I could say they rub a reader the wrong way, but realize the double entendre of that. An individual must use care when trying to write a serious article. A few students in my literature classes couldn't seem to get through their homework but were brilliant at noting possible double meanings in innocent words in lectures...when talking about a counter point in, say, The Scarlet Letter, "... critics can't bear this, but we need to look..."

First, let's consider the probability that both books are historical fiction. Contrary to what fundamentalists claim, they aren't inerrant history but are short stories of the Jewish Bible. Brettler makes an intriguing point that the personal names in Ruth are symbolic. They are characteronyms, names assigned to carry the story and to instruct, "clearly symbolic: her sons who die young are named Mahlon ("illness") and Chilion (Cessation"); and the daughter-in-law who follows Naomi only partway to Israel is named Orpah--literally "back of the neck" meaning "back-turner."* As TV's Huell Houser so often says, "Amazing."

In the book of Ruth what we have is parable or allegory. And what of Esther? Why were the books written? What do they teach?

What do these stories of two women so long ago mean for us at this moment, in this time?
Why are they so different, indeed, so contradictory? Of course, obviously, I will be speaking from a man's viewpoint:-) giving that particular point of view.

Hopefully, we will discover, to use the question of many spiritual teachers, "What is God saying to us?"

To be continued

**A funny event happened on my way to write this week's blog. I was set to get prophetic (one of those books) when my current research in the Jewish Bible--
am currently reading Brettler's book, and reading Robert Alter's literal Hebrew translations and commentaries, The Book of the Psalms and The Five Books of Moses--
uprooted the planned apple tree;-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #4: The Most Personal Is the Most Ultimate

2010-01-25T16:11:00.000-08:00

In my speculative opinion, I would say Jesus of the Good Messages in the New Testament is the meeting point of God and the human, that Jesus' message and Jesus himself are the crossing of the finite and the Infinite. Jesus is the Chosen One. The nature of Ultimate Reality (God) is Good, Personal, and Loving. What is most personal is most Ultimate.

Jesus represents not only someone who had ethical insight such as in saying "Love your enemies"; more importantly he personally lived out his statements (when he rose above his own ethnocentrism, which sometimes shows up in his speaking).

He demonstrated the love and moral idealism he spoke of, became the image of God. He revealed God most clearly in not violently resisting the Romans, in rejecting the tempting motivation to mount a revolution like the Messiah was expected to do according to the Jewish Scriptures. He also rejected other temptations many charismatic individuals have succumbed to in history such as to use their power and influence to control and manipulate. Instead of giving into humanity's incessant egotism, he humbly gave of himself ultimately.

Infinite Truth and Goodness and Love showed through his temporal self.

Exactly how all of this works out depends on one's Christology. I tend toward a lower Christology similar to Henry Emerson Fosdick or Walter Rauschenbusch.

I think God at times shines through other "human windows or images" too such as Martin Luther King, but often the Infinite in the finite is tragically marred, distorted, or destroyed by the sinful acts of the human. For instance, in MLK's case the FBI caught him committing adultery repeatedly, being very unfaithful to his wife.

Of course, as I referred to in my first post, we don't know what weaknesses Jesus had that didn't get written down that may have dulled his being the Son of Man, Son of God. However, I am not one of those kind of textural critics who think they can get behind the text, not of the sort of scholars who cast doubt on most of the received text or even question whether Jesus ever lived. Nor am I like the more conservative ones who think we have a mostly accurate recording of Jesus' words and acts. I think Jesus was very much a human being in whom God indwelt.

I also think the personal is reflective of the Ultimate, that Jesus is the Christ because I've been influenced by the philosophical views of individuals like John Cobb and Daniel Day Williams who considered personhood as more real and more important than the physical and the cosmic. It is via the personal that the universe is being influenced eventually to move toward the more spiritual.

Currently many of the big weights in science and philosophy consider human consciousness a "fluke," and they laugh dismissively at those who think that human consciousness represents anything real or important in the Cosmos. They call such theistic outlooks "species-ism" and emphasize that on the contrary, humanity is just one twig on a branch of evolution existing for no reason or purpose.

In my opinion, they are woefully wrong and we can already see the very bad influence such thinking has on humanity.

In the past, I've also had spiritual experiences which have given me a new way of seeing Life. On a rather mundane level, I've encountered a deep love for Jesus to the point I've been overwhelmed.

On several occasions, I've experienced God in what I suppose would be called "openings" or mystical awarenesses which also lead me to think that what is most personal is most Ultimate.

In those very personal encounters with God, I was highly aware, most rational, not overwrought emotionally or out of control, but very much balanced, not delusional. I was so aware of my finiteness, yet expansively aware of the Infinite. And felt boundless love despite my very temporal insignificance.

Later when I was reading Friedrich Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, his passages about the Infinite encountering the finite suddenly jumped off the page reminding me of my own encounters with God.

Change your mind, take up your cross and follow Jesus:-)

To be continued:-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #3: Son of Man, Son of God

2010-01-24T11:50:00.000-08:00

What do these long-ago N.T. terms mean for us in the 21st century? Let's use Aramaic again, the language Jesus spoke to help get us out of our verbal, cultural, and theological mindsets...maybe ruts.

In the Good Message of Mark, the opening line says "The beginning of the good message of Eashoa the M'sheekha, the BarElah (Son of God). And later Eashoa is called and calls himself the Barnasha (son of a human).

First, many scholars agree that Eashoa and the other N. T. writers meant two paradoxical meanings when using the term Barnasha (son of man). First Eoashoa was probably referring to the Jewish Bible's meaning of "human being." We see this often in Ezekiel's calling of himself "a human" and of the same meaning in the Psalms and other books of the Jewish Bible.

Eashoa is emphasizing he is one of us, a human born of woman like every other human being. The term often is used in a humbling sense, as a contrast from all that is exalted. (I remember studying this for my term paper on the Book of Daniel at the University of Nebraska, but now days, you can find much about the term without going to a university research library; just do a google search.)

That leads us to the second definition: "the Son of Man" is an exalted term, a reference to the heavenly being at the right hand of God in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 7:13-14), a messianic and eschatological reference. Unless you are willing to take the view of a minority of secular scholars, it would appear that Eashoa and the N.T. writers are emphasizing that Eashoa is the messenger of God/from God, the one who is bringing in the everlasting reign of which Daniel 7 speaks.

One of the best results of my writing a term paper on the Book of Daniel for my philosophy of the Jewish Bible class at the University of Nebraska is that it helped me realize how almost no one agrees with almost anyone else when it comes down to the details of these passages. Millions of pages have been written in the last 2,000 years on this issue. Even today, liberal scholars, not only disagree with conservative scholars, but they disagree with each other, and fundamentalist scholars disagree with other fundamentalist scholars. Many brilliant humans have shipwrecked on these verses including a NASA engineer who wrote a book about this prophecy, and so many countless PhD's who had degrees in Semitic languages, etc.. None of that kept them from getting lost in the words.

Thank God, I was overwhelmed early on in my life by all of this and thus have mostly avoided the endless arguments about prophecy. But if this is so--if prophetic terms such as BarElah and Barnasha are so difficult to understand even after 10 years of Middle Eastern language study, of what possible meaning can the terms have for regular human beings?

#1 Point one is that we don't have to learn Aramaic and Hebrew and study theological tomes to see a basic truth: Eashoa represents to us the meeting point of the temporal and the transcendent, the joining of the human and the divine, the expression of eternal truth in mortal presence.

Surely all varieties of people--at least all individuals open to a little religion--from different backgrounds and contradicting theological biases can agree that Eashoa (Jesus) is at the very least, the image of the Eternal (even if they do strongly disagree about what exactly that means).

All the kinds of intricate theological descriptions and explanations from conservative evangelicals like William Lane Craig to the ultra-modernist exBishop John Shelby Spong agree that Eashoa is important, is a way to God. Some Jews who reject Christianity, still see Eashoa as a Jewish prophet who said truth. And Muslims hold Eashoa (Isha) to be from God, as do various versions of Asian religions and many theists.

#2 Eashoa's parables of truth and ethical insights can be fervently followed even if one is uncertain about the abstract theological doctrines and creedal statements of Christianity. Eashoa's life-giving is present to rescue every human even if one doesn't understand how. Change your mind and follow the Son.

My commitment to Eashoa, to his Way of Life has continued with me, in me, through many outward and abstract changes in my life. I've traveled a long spiritual journey from Fundamentalist to Deist to Quaker to Evangelical to Mennonite to Quaker again to Theist, etc.

But amazingly enough, my faith in Jesus (Eashoa) and his ethical way has been a continuum in the midst of all that intellectual and social change.
I see great truth here. Living for Eashoa, isn't a religious organization, nor set of doctrines, nor a complex philosophical system, or an intellectual outlook, or a political plan...

Being a follower and friend of Eashoa is the Way of peace, love, and hope.

To be continued

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part 2: Change Your Mind

2010-01-16T18:17:00.000-08:00

How do we humans overcome the ocean of darkness that inundates and blinds us? What are some steps for personal and cultural transformation?

#1 First, we need to realize that we are in the dark and that we need help. Then we need to seek, to have hope that there is Light, Truth to be found.

Listen to the words of Scripture:
"Eashoa came into Galilee proclaiming the good message of God, and saying, 'The time (kairos in Greek) is fulfilled, and the reign of God is come near; change your mind (metanoia) and put your trust in the good message...and Eashoa said to them, 'Follow me...'" Mark 1:14b-17a

#2 Note that Eashoa first emphasizes the positive. The message he has for humankind is of the goodness of God. All the bad news of our world especially the ponderous negativity of religions isn't the Truth.

#3 Become aware of the time. Eashoa isn't speaking of chronological time. After all, he came into northern Palestine/Israel and spoke these words nearly 2,000 years ago. If it's a matter of calendar time, it's a bit late:-)

What Eashoa refers to is the right time, the time of decision.

When is the time for you to seek Truth with total commitment? NOW. Don't tell yourself, "At present, I am too busy, but later..." or "I have plenty of time." We may or may not have plenty of chronological time, but we all have crisis time now.

#4 The reign of God is come near. Wow, what a deep philosophical concept! As a literature teacher and writer, not a biblical scholar, I don't presume to know all that this central key idea of the N.T. means. But at least the starter point is Eternal Truth/the Ideal/the Transcendent/the Perfect/Ultimate Reality has come near, has shown Light into this world. The inequities and iniquities of human governments and cultures and individuals are to be defeated. The ruthlessness in Nature is to be overcome. Matter, Energy, and Chance aren't the last word, not the only reality. Indeed, they are only temporal. The Eternal Personal is the ultimate Truth.

#5 Change your mind. That is what the cliche word "repentance" means in the N.T. Eashoa isn't talking about beating yourself up emotionally or physically (like some religious individuals do) for your wrong thoughts and acts, nor of seeing yourself as worthless, totally depraved. Nor is this time to have an endless cycle of pity wallows.

Instead, if you are impatient, given to outbursts of anger, change your mind. Practice walking/working meditation of God's presence. Learn to pause when given to emotionally negative feelings.

Instead, if you think your earned income is your own, or even your family's, change your mind. If you already give 10% of your income to others for God, change your mind and adopt the graduated giving method suggested by Ronald Sider of the Brethren in Christ. As you earn more money (or have more time), you give more of it away--giving more and more to others in need as you income (or free time) increases. Some followers of Jesus have reached a level of giving 90% of their earned income to meet the need of others and to proclaim the good message of God! Give of yourself to an organization working to heal and transform such as World Vision, Mennonite Central Committee, Compassion International, Habitat for Humanity, Care Net Crisis Pregnancy Centers.

Instead, when you are at your computer on the Internet and see an alluring image, change your mind. Click out and go help your spouse, or maybe find time for a few moments of holy passion;-)

Instead, when people all around you are living in the "God bless America"-mindset, change your mind and defend undocumented workers, dysfunctional teenagers, even misguided Muslims. Remember the shocking point of the leader of Open Doors: I.S.L.A.M. for every person who follows Jesus should stand for "I Sincerely Love All Muslims!"

Change your mind like Clarence Jordan, the N.T. Greek professor who started Koinonia Farm (Greek for communion), an interracial reconciliation community in Georgia in the 1940's. His integrated farm was attacked by racists. Despite several bombings and other violence, eventually its influence grew and has helped change the world. For example, one very rich couple that joined the farm, Millard and Linda Fuller (millionaires), helped found Habitat for Humanity.

Instead, when you think you need to buy a new lawnmower, paint set, power saw, change your mind and buy the item with friends, sharing the equipment amongst the group. Then use the surplus money to invest in micro-businesses in impoverished countries.

Instead, when attacked, slandered, or verbally maligned, and you understandably feel resentful, change your mind. Do as Eashoa said in the Sermon on the Mount: Forgive and pray for and bless your enemies! Not easily done! I am still very upset because I was slandered, not defended and trusted, and thus lost my career! It deeply hurts and grieves me and probably will for the rest of my life. Yet each day, I remember that I need to forgive.

C.S. Lewis tells of how it took him many years to forgive someone who mistreated him when he was a youth. And think of how difficult it is for those whose loved ones have been killed. To forgive is definitely divine, comes from God.

#6 Follow Eashoa (the real Jesus). Those two words encompass many pages of concepts and actions so that will have to be put off for another post.

In the Light of God and Eashoa,

Daniel Wilcox

Encountering the Son of Man

2010-01-13T12:28:00.000-08:00

Of late, like the psalmist of the Jewish Bible times and George Fox at the start of the English Civil War, I have despaired observing the ocean of darkness that is again inundating, drowning this present generation.

Fundamentalists of all stripes justify violence, from Christian rightists to Israeli settlers to Muslim jihadists to Hindu extremists. Even Buddhists are getting into the attack mode in the name of truth. And while this bloodletting stains the world on the physical level, all manner of darkness comes forth from various worldviews twisting our understanding of Life.. Some polytheists claim that malaria and Death aren't evil; religious nontheists assert, with amazing certainty, that there is no Ultimate Meaning or Purpose to Existence; Reformed leaders inundate the Internet and bookstores with their claims that God loves and wills only a limited number of humans to find the Truth. They assert that God preordained the vast majority of humankind to be eternally damned for his glory.

On and on this deluge of despair keeps 'reeking' havoc in the lives of human beings.

So, again, I turn to the one who I follow for rescue--for hope and joy and peace and love.

Let us encounter again this one human who lived 2,000 years, this "son of man" (his own term) who stood against the evil of his generation to the extreme point of torture and death. Tragically, however, this individual now has so many false selves, so many utter distortions and reversals of what he stood for that I am going to use his name in Aramaic/Hebrew for a few paragraphs rather than the common English version.

Hopefully, this will keep reminding us that the one I am referring to isn't the religious figure who Augustine, the crusading Popes, Cromwell, Dabney, Sproul, or Piper follow. Of course, I realize that this is my own limited perspective. I am an average joe:-) academically. I don't read Aramaic, and only started Hebrew class when in Israel/Palestine so I am not a scholar, but rather simply an individual who hopes to help shine a little of God's light into this current overwhelming darkness.

The story of Eashoa/Isho'/Yeshua Bar Yehosef/Yeshua Nasraya in the Good News of Mark starts with a prophet named Yokhanan HaMatbil "who appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins...And it came about in those days that Eashoa came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by Yokanan in the Jordan." (NASB Mark 1:4 and 9, except for Aramaic names)

If we take these verses in the plain sense of the text, (without theological abstraction or tradition) it would seem to be that Eashoa came to be baptized for his sins! But of what sins? Traditionally, most followers of Eashoa have claimed he is perfect and sinless. Most even claim he is omniscient, is God.

So what sin could this Eashoa have committed that led him to want to be baptized for repentance? Only one is mentioned in Scripture. Eashoa is shown to have "missed the mark" ie sinned when he took off for three days without permission and without notifying his parents. At least most parents, whose kid at 12 years of age takes off without permission and disappears until they finally find him three days later, would consider this less than perfect behavior. Luke seems to be aware of this difficulty because he emphasizes that after this Eashoa was obedient to his parents and "kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men." (NASB Luke 2:52)

Also, note that at this point, (as well as later in his recording of the disciples'' speeches in the Book of Acts), Luke describes Eashoa as a human being, not as God, certainly not omniscient. Luke emphasizes that Eashoa is separate from God, but increases in favor with God and in wisdom.

This is a very different picture of Eashoa from the Nicene Creed. As a student of religious history I understand what motivated ancient church leaders to create the Creeds. But I never have seen Eashoa as God--not even when a young and fervent fundamentalist Baptist, nor as an educated Evangelical, etc. It's been much clearer for me to understand my rescuer and leader as Colossians 1:15 says: "And He is the Image of the invisible God..." In this I follow William Barclay the N.T. Greek scholar, and others, who point out that the vast majority of Scriptural texts emphasize that Jesus (Eashoa) is the Son of God, not God.

Barclay says there are only two verses in the Bible which assert Jesus is God. The familiar statement of Thomas after the resurrection and in some manuscripts of Titus 2:13 "our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." However, Barclay points out that some manuscripts say instead "the great God and our Savior Christ Jesus."

While some early followers of Jesus, even in N.T. times, must have seen him as God, generally this is not the N.T. view. Even the book of Revelation one of the last books of the Bible separates God and Jesus. Contrary to many Christians in history and today who claim Jesus is God, including being omniscient, the author of Revelation says this: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him..."

Notice that even though this is at least 70-some years after his resurrection, Jesus isn't omniscient, nor is he God in other ways. The text states God gives Jesus a revealing of the end of the world. Also, while there is great value in the Book of Revelation, observe that the author of the book gets verse 3 wrong: "for the time is near." But, of course, if one reads the plain meaning of those words, they are incorrect. Nearly 2,000 years of human history have passed and the end of things hasn't come yet. Obviously, the author was in error.

So what's the first point of this reflection?

#1 Jesus, at least in the openings of the Good News of Mark and in the Book of Revelation isn't like what most of church history has theorized him to be. And, to me, at least that is a relief--is indeed wondrous Light, for it means that the "Jesus" of theological determinism, of the Inquisition, of the many Christian wars, etc. isn't the real Eashoa.

There is in Eashoa an infinite Ocean of Light and Love which overcomes the ocean of religious darkness.

To be continued:

How does this give us hope?

Why did Jesus call himself the Son of Man?

How is Jesus the Son of God?

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?

In the Light,

Daniel

ONE

2009-12-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

So awe fulled the birthing
of God's presence, new cauled
in humble manger's destiny,

The base and apex of
a starred cave's presents
of all future festivals

Yet abandoned, forsaken to
the crowned world's nails,
every man's cursedness;

Farthest reach of faith
this Apocalypso dancer
crosses the Cosmos,

Morning us night-less;
he compassions Earth
ever peopling Heaven,

Emptying the pitiless bottom
zeroing Apollyon
into ever's Now

Beloved one, Yeshua
child of the masses
point man for us all.*

A poem I wrote a couple Christmases ago through God's Spirit. The verse
still warms my spirit during this cold time, and hopefully will speak to all of you.

May you have a blessed Christmas,

Daniel Wilcox

*Previously published in The Green Silk Journal

Car Sign Close to the Heart of God

2009-12-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

Car signs come and go. I've followed them for years down the freeways and byways-- slogans or pictures so political, athletic, off color, scenic or religious: the countless Fish symbols, more recent Darwin images eating the Fish, signs extolling various candidates who quickly disillusion even their drivers who can't get rid of the stickers from their bumpers so they accelerate faster and faster hoping to leave "them" behind.

Fascinating, sometimes disgusting, the signs and decals stick to my mind, but the only ones that really trouble me are the "God bless US" ones. Yes, the "God, give to the U.S., because we are the greatest nation---us, us, us...

Not only is the sentiment arrogant and self-centered, but it fails to consider those who really need God's blessing--the lost, the hurting, the hungry, the destitute, and, yes, even the bad all the world round.

That's why when I first saw the bumper sticker which said "God Bless the Whole World: NO EXCEPTIONS"
I was truly thankful and rushed out to get myself a copy.

Imagine that, a sign which doesn't fixate on us and our own, doesn't exclude or denigrate, but instead gives to everyone else, which blesses all others, a sign which is an evangel to the world to all those who are so in need. Yes, a call for those of us who have plenty to focus on all of humankind and be generous, peaceful, and kind.

May we live that car sign out.

I John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another; for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God...because God is love.

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2009-11-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's time to be a bit prophetic--to stand with a 'clint' in the eye, and a cigar (unsmoked, that causes cancer), to be honest and tell it like it is:

The Good:
Jesus, when he forgave all of humankind, even the worst of us, from the cross.

The Bad (actually the evil):
John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, John Knox, the Popes, Oliver Cromwell, etc. when they supported the killing of other Christians, those who disagreed with them theologically. The Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church burned Christians at the stake, drowned them, horribly tortured and "legally" murdered the innocent who had done no evil.

In August 2009, Israeli police ejected two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem where they had been living for 50 years, and allowed Jewish settlers to move into the houses!

The Ugly:
Ex-Bishop John Shelby Spong when he claims theism isn't true, argues for the killing of pre-born babies, and supports acts of suicide:-(

The Southern Baptist minister when he prayed for the death of President Obama.

President Barak Obama, when he wins the Nobel Peace Prize yet promotes abortion, war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Conservative Protestant Christians (those who support Defense of Marriage legislation against same sexual individuals)actually have the highest divorce rate according to the Barna Research Group. According to Donald Hughes, author of The Divorce Reality, 90% of divorces among born-again Christians occur after they have been saved:-(

In the sixties, in our town a young woman married a Chinese guy. The comments went around,"Couldn't she find a man?"

When I yelled at a student for not doing her homework for a week, (my not being patient and sensitive), only to discover later that her father had abandoned her:-(

To be continued

Feel free to weigh in with your own heroic, abhorrent, and despicable choices.

In the Light of God

Daniel Wilcox

How to Find Truth--a Survey

2009-10-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Back, so long ago;-) when I was a teenager, I listened to radio call-in shows. What is your favorite new song, band, type of music? Surf City;-) The Yardbirds? Classical?

While I am finishing up on my blogs on Heaven and Hell, I would like to invite all you blog readers out there to "call in" and give us your view in the comment box on how humans can come to the Truth.

Here are some of the traditional answers:

The Councils?

The Creeds?

The Popes?

The Bible?

The Holy Spirit?

The Faith Community?

Human Experience?

Intuition?

Reason?

Science?

Do you trust in one or more of these?
Why?

If not, where do you look for the actuation of Eternal Truth?

Or is Eternal Truth an illusion or delusion as nontheists assert?

If so, then by what method do you seek to live your life beyond
the instinctual, cultural, and national levels of existing?

This questionnaire/survey is designed from a western theistic framework,
however, we are deeply interested in other perspectives as well--Buddhist,
Hindu, Islamic...

Please call in and win the latest virtual prize;-)

Daniel

Heaven and Hell

2009-10-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

The Beginning and the End, the Ancient of Days, the Satan, the Height and the Depth, Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the Sheep versus the Goats, the Third and Seventh Heavens, the Heavens of the Heavens, the New Jerusalem, the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, the Alpha and Omega--what do all these eschatological words mean?

I've got the theological tomes The Flame that Consumes, The Dogma of Hell, The Sovereignty of God, Heaven, on and on, but here I am at 62 full of endless head notions theorized by countless theologians who've never been to either Heaven or Hell, so I am not going to regurgitate their speculations, at least not yet.

Instead, let's dive into Jesus' vivid imaged words. And remember, Jesus speaks in symbols, metaphors, and hyperbole. He is mainly concerned with our motives and actions of goodness, not how theologically, doctrinally correct we might be. After all the Scribes, knew the Bible better than any living humans yet they failed to live loving lives.

Also, let's try to forget everything we've heard or read about the End of Things. Too often people take Jesus literally and thus miss his message altogether. Too often the Good News Jesus came to declare and give to all has become bad news of the worst sort, even downright evil.

Matthew 5:29-30: "And if your right eye causes you to sin," Jesus says, "gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna."

One extreme statement of Jesus' many extremist statements. But what does it mean? The first point to see, based on an understanding of Jewish imagery is that Jesus is not talking literally. Beside, no disciple in the New Testament is ever spoken of having actually gouged out his eye or cut off his hand.

If Jesus is not speaking in prose, not in legal terms, then what is the message?

And what is Gehenna?

What ever Jesus is saying, it can't be what a lot of religious people mean when they speak of God hating sinners and wanting to send them to Hell, some Christians even claiming that God preordained this before the beginning of Time. For in the same section of Scripture as the Gehenna statement, Jesus says we are to love our enemies like God loves all humans, that indeed to love others is the way toward perfection:
"I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteoous...Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect."

Yes, God loves us deeply, limitlessly and is not willing that any individual should perish (11 Peter 3:9).

But what of Hell then? What is Gehenna for if not for humans as the Catholics and Reformers, and Muslims, and other claim?

First, Jesus' words in Matthew 25:41 say that "the eternal fire" was prepared for the eternal destruction of evil (the devil and his messengers). And later in the New Testament, it says that "the Lake of Fire" was prepared for the destruction of Death!

So why then does Jesus speak of individuals who don't help the poor and the hungry and the persecuted as being told to "depart" into the eternal fire?

Because when humans refuse goodness, even embrace evil, they identify with evil. And evil is bound for destruction if there is any justice in the Cosmos.

Another way of perceiving this is the outlook of Eastern Orthodox theology which emphasizes that God (like Scripture says) is a "consuming fire." The Orthodox church says God is the fire of eternal love which purifies and redeems all who willingly live in love.

In contrast humans who focus on, live in, selfishness, greed, lust, hate, and revenge--are consumed by those evil actions and cannot experience God's love as purifying because they refuse to love the truth.

Also, keep in mind none of this is literal! How could Death be thrown into Hell? That doesn't make any rational sense; it's not factual statement of prose, of science. We are speaking here of spiritual truth in the language of metaphor and imagery.

But even beyond this, some followers of Jesus (such as Origen, C. S. Lewis, William Barclay, Keith Ward, etc.) have hope that since God is perfect love, that God will never give up on even the most evil-choosing humans, the ones utterly given to the seven deadly acts of depravity. Hopefully, at some distant point in eternity, even the most rebellious and reprehensible will come finally to the truth and be saved.

Let us look briefly into this term Gehenna.

To be continued

In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox

The Beginning of Wisdom

2009-10-07T21:19:00.000-07:00

Remember we spoke last time of how Scripture is paradoxical, of how the Bible is mainly pictorial, symbolical, and mythical and less often or seldom logical, philosophical, and scientific. Poetic utterances come forward more often than journalistic prose.

So how does this help us to understand biblical contradictions? Consider Psalms 110:10-112:1 saying "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom..How blessed the man who fears Yahweh..." versus I John 4:7-21 saying "Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God..God is love..There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love."

First, notice that humans are "blessed" who fear God. In Scripture, to be blessed is a wondrous happiness. Obviously, the writer isn't dealing with the kind of fear that we often think of when we use the word today. When a person says he has a fear of terrorism, he is not "blessed."

Second consider a rather simplistic analogy: I both fear and love the Grand Canyon. I've never cringed toward the Canyon; that is not what I mean by fearing the Canyon. Rather, when I was on one of my many trips into the Grand Canyon backpacking, I had to crawl across several rocks slides and move along a trail only as wide as a large book and slanted toward a cliff which plummeted straight down over 1,000 feet! The wind was blowing, yanking on my 60-pound backpack. Let me tell you, I was aware of the awesome danger--that this was real not some virtual game or safe tourist area. I feared the Canyon!

Yet contradictorily, I loved the Canyon. Few times in my life have I ever felt so in love with any place, any scene. To descend down dangerous trails, being able to look back geologically millions of years and outward visually for miles and miles, the vista so vast that I almost ended in ecstatic awe!

Extrapolate this basic example to fearing and loving Absolute Goodness, Total Truth, Ultimate Reality. Fearing and loving God are complimentary responses/actions. Ecstatic awe and deep intimate relationship with the Eternal are together as one. At least that is Jesus' view.

When I John writes that there is no "fear in love" he isn't speaking of absolute awe. Rather the writer is saying that an individual who responds to God's love will no longer have a cringing kind of fear of God. He or she will live in the Beloved.

Consider this modern version of these scriptural passages: "The Love of God is the beginning of wisdom."

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Part 2: Fear, Hate, and Hell

2009-09-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

Whenever trying to understand a text, one first needs to define terms, figure what kind of genre the text is, etc. So many bad errors--often with horrible results--have come about through sincere individuals and groups misunderstanding and misapplying writings from the past. I've already given the horrendous examples of people of faith justifying war in previous blogs so I will skip that. One of the more sad personal examples is the case of Origen, a great thinker, writer, and interpreter who literally mistook Jesus' hyperbole and mutilated himself. Even more tragic are the parents who try and follow the Bible literally. Several years ago one mother in the United States thought she should follow Abraham--have enough faith to let her baby die from a serious illness, but then God would raise her little one to life. This terrible evil has happened repeatedly.

I was once told by a youth leader that God will call us Christians to sometimes commit immoral acts! What was his basis for this horrendous advice? He said that God had told Hosea to marry a prostitute. In the first place, this leader had misunderstood the book of Hosea in my opinion. Hosea wasn't being called to do anything immoral. In the second, this action of Hosea wasn't some kind of all time moral pronouncement that all followers of God should know God will call them to do what is wrong.

The first step we need to learn about ancient Middle Eastern thought is that it wasn't primarily logical or rational, but image-based and often given to exaggeration to emphasize a particular point, not usually to make a legal universal standard. To a certain extent this is still true today. Read many Middle Eastern newspapers or websites and you will be astonished by the extreme exaggeration, even heavy diatribe.

Various biblical scholars from William Barclay to James Kallas have pointed the paradoxical nature of much of biblical literature. Furthermore, the Bible seldom gets philosophical and almost never dwells on the empirical in the Greek or scientific sense.

Also, keep in mind that even in the modern West, we often use exaggeration for effect, sometimes very superficially. Many times I've heard individuals say "I'm starving," yet they have eaten not more than 4 or 5 hours previously, and have never been without plenty of food.

When Jesus in the space of two verses seems to contradict himself, saying both to fear not and fear greatly, he isn't thinking or talking like a philosopher, but as a prophet, in strong poetic language not legal prose. You won't understand Jesus' way if you are looking for a logical system. Jesus focuses on vivid, even stark, images and extreme hyperbole. Remember at one point he gives a parable where he compares himself to a sneaky thief; in another parable he says disciples should act like an embezzler; he talks of God as our loving father, yet speaks of God throwing people into the burning garbage dump of Gehenna. What father would do such an act? (At first I was going to supply the verses for these comments to verify what I am saying, but then realized that would miss the whole point. I am not trying to proof-text a few verses in the New Testament, but rather to show that we need to approach poetic literature such as the Bible very differently from how modern fundamentalists and skeptics do.)

For instance, consider the "hate" passage. In Luke, Jesus said we must "hate" our parents, our wives, our children, our selves, etc.! But we must read this in context. In the first place, this isn't a call for hatred in the modern sense of active hostility. It's an extreme case of hyperbole. In comparison to our dedication to Ultimate Truth, the Absolute Good--we need to love our close, but finite loved ones less.

We can see this is so by cross-referencing the same passage in Matthew where the words of Jesus aren't of "hate" but rather "he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." Either Jesus varied his message or the writer of the Matthew thought he needed to soften the force of the hyperbole because people might misunderstand, as indeed they have and still do.

Some people ask, why didn't Jesus speak in legal code or philosophical moderation? I've even wished at times Jesus would be more reasonable. But Jesus seeks to get behind legality, respectability, the intellect, and even our moderate civility, to our inner self. He doesn't want "nice" people--such humans often judge, expel, even kill those different from them. What God wants are individuals who are committed unconditionally to Truth, Goodness, and Love, ones who reach out to rescue the lost, the despised, the poor, the bad, even the evil people.

For another extreme example consider that Jesus said if we wanted to be his disciple we need to be electrocuted in our electric chair/asphyxiated in our gas chamber! We need to be hanged. Well, in his case he was referring to a much worse form of execution that included long torture before dying--the Roman method of crucifixion reserved for only the worst sort of individuals.

Why would Jesus use such extreme words--to some a very revolting and repulsive statement? Well, that is at least another long blogpost:-) Right now, I am only trying to deal with just three words--fear, hate, and Hell. And, I've only given the background so far.

Also, check out the comment by Ken Schroeder in the responses. He explains all of this from a somewhat different angle but is very clear.

To be continued

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Encountering Jesus Part 2

2009-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Luke 12:5

What? Sounds like a horrible contradiction to Jesus' emphasis on love in Luke 12: 6-7, does it not?

And what about 1 John 4:18? There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

And 1 John repeatedly claims, God is love. Yet is God also fear? And doesn't all of this sound like so much double-talk?

Should we teach our children to react to God like many religious children of the past and the present, who grovel in fear and anxiety so very afraid they might not be of the few predestined to salvation or that God loves to cast millions of them into Hell?

As a young adult trying to understand the Bible, even after college, I tended to see verses propositionally and logically--the fading shadow of my fundamentalist upbringing. So I was baffled and had no answer for skeptics. Whenever Scripture made extreme statements, especially ones which seemed contradictory, I got confused and lost my way.

Check out Luke 14: 26 If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Now there's a winner. Probably won't gets points from Focus on the Family. And it's an isolated verse atheists love to heave at people of faith, like a biblical Molotov cocktail.

So now we have Jesus demanding we fear God, fear Hell and then Jesus also orders us to hate our family!

I don't claim there are any easy answers to such difficult verses--and there are many pages of them in the Bible. However, I do think we grow when we sincerely struggle spiritually.

What I don't want to do is to twist the verses into easy answers. It used to frustrate me to no end when reading commentators and they would try and get around (or eliminate) difficult minefields like this. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the famous German theologian hanged by the Nazis) gave a brilliant satire on this habit of humans in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. He made fun of those who turn Scripture into the opposite of its plain meaning:

Where Jesus says to give up all you have to become his disciple, Bonhoeffer has the modern Christian say, what Jesus really means is to keep all you have and get more.

I have learned much over the years about what Jesus means in Luke 12, but before I share my understanding this time, I thought, first, I would throw out the spiritual grenade;-) to you other bloggers and see what your take is on these vitally important verses.

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Encountering Jesus Part #1

2009-09-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God..Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. NIV Luke 12:6-7

These loving words mean so much--that God cares even for the sparrows and so very much for all humans, every single unique individual who has ever lived. Indeed this may be the central reason to be a theist--that we can have deep hope for all people we meet now, and that there is hope for the millions lost to this life--including especially the ones who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia,the pestilences of AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death in the past and the millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood..

NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING as in a nontheistic cosmos.

No!

We have God's Yes--Faith, hope, and love are eternal:-)

For those millions of humans and all others, and even countless lesser creatures--they all are loved by God and cared for living within God, and as the NT says, and many people of faith have trusted, God will bring all into the loving realm of total goodness and blessedness in the end.

That, dear Friends, is the Good News, the Glad Tidings, the Ocean of Light--God IS and loves us deeply and endlessly:-)

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

The Love of God
by Frederick M. Lehman and
Meir Ben Isaac (from his Jewish
poem Hadamut written in Aramic
in 1050 A.D.)

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Refrain

Next in part 2 we will look at the rest of the Luke passage.

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

10 Acts from the N.T. in Modern Language

2009-09-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

1. Love "I Am/I Will Be"--the Personal Ultimately Real, the Eternal Good, Truth, and Loving with all of your self, all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your strength.

2. Don't make any finite thing, idea, goal, or person the center of your life. Your focus is to be the unseen Center, the Eternal 'behind' all that is visible and temporary.

3. Be sacred in your words and thoughts. don't ridicule what is true or ultimate.

4. Take at least one evening and day a week for worship, reflection, and re-creation. This time is to help and revitalize, not to limit or to legalize.

5. Honor and help others, especially your own aging parents.

6. Love all, including your enemies as yourself. Don't violate others in thought, word, or deed, certainly don't kill anyone.

7. Be faithful and loyal to one other person for life, in an ultimate sense through intellectual, emotional, and physical union. Sexual fidelity and purity are very important.

8. Share your things with those in need. Don't take what doesn't belong to you.

9. Speak the truth always in love, in compassion and mercy. Be honest and forthright.

10.Simplify; be content with what is good and necessary. Don't long for what others have.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Ocean of Light

2009-08-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

Mathieu sat looking dumbfounded as the red liquid seeped out on the wood of the cafe table.

In Jean-Paul Sartre's classic novel Age of Reason, the main character Mathieu suddenly comes to a shocking nadir of awareness--his own "age of reason"-- realizing how much of what he has thought, perceived, and done that is all so delusionary (as will most humans shortly because it is 1938 and only months before the Nazis launch humankind's own nadir, one of absurd unreason).

So suddenly, Mathieu, shocked with this personal awareness of the existential, stabs a knife through the palm of his hand daggering it to the scarred wood of the cafe table in Paris. And looks confounded as his blood seeps out while his friends look on bewildered.

I've encountered my own nadirs, and that's how I've felt, metaphorically, like a knife jabbed through me.

Would you like me to get melodramatic;-)?

Despite his pierced hand, Mathieu is no christ (he's getting his mistress to have an abortion).

And neither am I like Christ...though I seek to be, though I yearn to be.

I've been reflecting back through my recent posts of the last few months--times of deep spiritual crisis where I've lost my spiritual home, discovered I've been living in religious illusion. And now realize anew, I spend way too much time ruminating on and grieving over the "no" and "the ocean of darkness," and not nearly enough time on the "Yes" and "the Infinite Ocean of Light."

So here's a few of my Lightful lines:

Perception in Late Night

I work the graveyard shift in ‘67
Stock shelves of Marlboro ‘Country’
For California slickers, tubes of
Ultra Brite ‘sex appeal’
Brushed by grim oldsters,
And Olympia, ‘it’s the water’
For partying young adults;

I close the flashy cooler,
Pick up the empty card boxes,
Crumple and dump them in the trash bin;
Across the street a Texaco filling station
Slogans forth still, “Trust you car to the man
Who wears the star,’ but its ‘vacant for lease’ sign
Came from the only auto to ford
Those shallow words.

I lean on a metal stool behind
The counter, no customers; its past
The midnight hour; so I
Close my tired eyes,
Rub my warm forehead,
The feel of bone so arched like a vault,
My skull under skin
Almost Neanderthal,
And my sense of self in that inner cave
Of stored ads, memories and procedures;
What will be left in the finite end?

Suddenly like a lighted tidal wave
Overwhelming self and night,
Wide a w a r e n e s s
Oceans deep--
Awash in God.

______________________

The Mythic Mask

The vast kaleidoscoped cosmos
On black velvet background
Galactic star swirls,
One great masked Chagall
Above us in infinite light years,
Visioning vivid rose and royal blue,
We cover the earth,
Weeping colors of bowed rain
In this troubled world’s lastness,
From the very beforeness,
Out from
The great cosmic Blast,
A hooded violet trope
That hurtled
Us into the question
Before the asking;

Our distraught masks
Cascading;
Yes, we turn our
Stained-glassed faces
Away from the harshness
Of wintered survival rage
To stare at the flaming sun,
Ruby, emerald, and sapphire
Gleaming through,
Not mindfully blind
Behind metaphor’s
Translucent veil,
Seeing the True Face,
Ever-becoming visually real.
One finally white endless strobe
Of the brightness of becoming,
Unlimited strophe of the Masque
Of all Dancing.

In the Ocean of Light,

Daniel Wilcox

What is Love?

2009-08-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

Christians for many centuries, over and over, have stated, "God is love." Most famously, St. Augustine said, "Love God and do as you like." And, of course, countless devout individuals through out history have emphasized everyone should love others. All this sounds so good, so pious, so wonderful, but tragically like so many philosophical and ethical assertions, the devil is in the details:-(--not the God of Jesus the Christ. Rather in the details of actual Christian actions are obscene horrors.

The same St. Augustine of the famous quote also supported the persecution of other Christians, torture, killing, etc. From his era to the present Christian Churches in the name of love have poisoned forth all the horrific acts of 2,000 years of hell on earth. Millions of humans have been slaughtered, burned, hanged, shot, bombed, and drowned--all in the name of Jesus and this religious ideal of Christian "love" (I won't itemize some of the terrible actions now; I have done that in a previous blog). A more recent case is that of Stonewall Jackson and R. L. Dabney who ordered the death of thousands during the American Civil War, giving all thanks to Jesus Christ and God and emphasizing the importance of love to God and others. I just finished the excellent and powerful biography of Stonewall by John Bowers. What a great general Jackson was! And what a devout believer and how personable and kind to those of his own kin and group. But what a ruthless killer of others, and in his killing, he gave all the praise for his successful slaughters to God! He often prayed, worshiped, and read his Bible in the midst of battles!

Not that Christianity has a corner on these strange demonstrations of "love." When I lived in the Middle East, I visited a restaurant. On the wall was a sign which listed all the characteristics of love in Islam. Yet, then (and in the past and now) Muslims quote the Koran to justify slaughtering civilians. So it goes.

And check out secular history. Humanists who reject religion for all its horrors also often define "love" as a worthy human goal, only their actions are contrary too.

On a minor note back during my university days (late 60's), Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlavsky came to the University of Nebraska to do a poetry reading. Allen emphasized that "love" is the answer to the world's problems. I, a naive, small town kid was impressed, but an older former beatnik told me not to be deceived. I saw what he meant when later one of the young girls in our group was allegedly left pregnant and alone by Orlavsky who moved on to their next poetry reading. Young men of other worldviews tried to persuade us that a man could have multiple relationships with women and it was "love." Forget all the tragic results of these "love" affairs.

And since then all manner of distortions continue to be put forth as loving. Thinkers have even claimed the intentional bombing of thousands of civilians and acts of euthanasia are expressions of love! Indeed, the devil is in the details. Evil hogs them.

Why is it God always gets left holding the bag of evil?

Enough of the bad news!

What is the nature of true love--the kind that doesn't result in hell on earth? The great Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh has some very good clear examples if you wish a definition which isn't centered in the New Testament. However, since I am a Friend of Jesus, that is where I find my understanding of what love is.

Check out Luke 10:27. Jesus said, YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.

Well, the problem is in the details again though, because most of the killers, slave-owners, etc. of the last 2,000 years have claimed to believe Jesus' words, indeed have done their evil with this verse on their lips, praying to Jesus and reading the Bible as they did their horrific deeds.

So we need to go deeper.

A lawyer questions Jesus--sounds legalistic doesn't it--asking exactly, WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

Jesus isn't going to be caught in parceling out humankind, the ones who we must love versus the ones we can ignore or even hate such as, say, the Romans or the national traitors or bad sinners. (Remember, in Jewish culture, the men wouldn't even eat with Gentiles!)

Jesus reverses the thinking of the lawyer with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, pointing out we should be loving like a heretic and national enemy and show active compassion and practical deeds of help including personal involvement, the giving of our money and our time.

This is a continuation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 38-48) where he even contradicts such Jewish heroes as David and says that we should love our enemies. And so his followers wouldn't get the wrong idea (like so many later would despite his very words), Jesus emphasizes that "loving one enemies" means practical actions on our part. For instance if an enemy nation conquers you and its soldiers abuse and execute your people and these killers demand you behave as a servant by carrying their soldier bags for a mile, then you are to offer to carry these enemy killers' stuff for another extra mile.

When enemies HATE YOU, BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU, PRAY FOR THOSE WHO MISTREAT YOU (Luke 6: 27-38).

Of course, for most of us (as for Jesus' disciples who wanted to kill the Romans and call fire down to destroy the Samaritans, etc.)
we need even more directions of what the word "love" actually means and so the N.T. provides many more definitions and examples. The best is 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. (NASB)

No doubt these love commands from Spirit of Christ are overwhelming. Probably that is part of the reason why the disciples and Paul felt then that it was impossible to be a true follower of Jesus.

How can we possibly love individuals of the Taliban? Insurgents in Iraq? the planners of 9-11? the criminal who stabbed us? the parent or leader who abused us? the co-worker who lied about us?

Yet this is Jesus' walk, what it means to be Friends. If Jesus loves and died for all of us, how can we do less?

Jesus' call: To love everyone into the realm of God:-)

In the love of Jesus,

Daniel Wilcox

Am I Weird or Deluded or What? And being a pinball...

2009-08-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

Am I weird or deluded or what? Or just still a very naive Nebraska village kid? For some reason I yet think most humans I meet are--underneath their vocalized differences and doctrinal tags--basically of similar spiritual faith and inner devotion and ethical concern.

But again this weekend, I discover for the umpteenth time--It AIN'T So.

Years ago, I became of the Friend's persuasion, leaving Evangelical Christianity partially because so much of the latter represents that which is most abhorrent in religion.

And I am a Friend because I love the centrality and experience of open worship where God is present right now in deep biblical "knowing."

Yet more and more I am finding there are many Friends who don't think God is. I keep trying to understand their view (such as the dialogues I've had with the bloggers on Nontheist Friends.org and elsewhere).

But I admit Untheism baffles me. If the God whose essence is love (of the NT and Friends for 360 years)
ISN'T,
then why are we meeting for worship? Are we not truly deluded as Richard Dawkins claims?

And in my dialogue with Evangelical Christians again this week, I realize to an abyssed degree that not only do I disagree with their central beliefs, but I don't really have faith in the same God as them. We use many of the same biblical terms but mean very opposite values.

I do live in a totally different cosmos from such humans.

Where is there a window where I can go and scream...

And last night, I was invited over to a couple of my friends and we had a great talk fest for four hours! At least we are in the same cosmos:-) but their views also seem so contrary to everything I trust and think true.

So I am like the small pinball in one of those classic game machines that bounces from other worldview to other worldview, all so incredibly different from my own faith and wondering where all of this is leading.

I am too much of an intellectual doubter to think everyone else must be bonkers;-) and only my group--Theistic Friends--understands Reality. So I struggle.

On my more despairing days--for instance yesterday, the day for worship--I wonder if maybe Friends, and indeed all religion, is delusion.

Maybe only Existentialism is true.
Maybe this is an absurd world like Albert Camus said and where The Plague wrecks havoc and we are brief consciousnesses for no reason and then the abyss...

Thank God, today I have renewed hope. I may be hanging in emptiness or am pre-damned, etc.,
but today I experience God's love
and am
in God's
Presence.

7 Loves and 7 Hates

2009-07-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

For a number of reasons, I've been thinking of what are the vital basics of Life. Here's my short list of the truths I love and the falsehoods I hate.

Love:

Yeshua, the Jewish Son of Man who was and is the Image of the Invisible God who gave humankind the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and other practical life-changing words. His eternal love for every single human being is so true that he rejected violence, suffered and died for all of us instead.

God in whom we live and move and have our being, the Ultimate Reality beyond our understanding.

The ideals essential within God's eternal nature: love, mercy, justice, truth, goodness, purity...

All groups who reach out in love and help to the neediest of humans such as World Vision, Compassion International, Habitat for Humanity, Open Doors, Pilgrims of Ilbillin.

The wonder of the visible cosmos and that God gave us the mental ability to search out and seek to understand.

The creativity God has given us so we, in God's image, might be finite creators in the sciences and the arts.

The many individuals of deep faith and limitless love, who though flawed and sometimes sinful, have inspired us to reach deeper into trusting God and seek to change the world by his love. Spiritual leaders like Origen, John Cassian, St. Francis, Erasmus, Menno Simons, Michael Sattler, Sebastian Castellio, Jakob Harmenszoon, George Fox, Margaret Fell, John Wesley, John Woolman, Elizabeth Fry, Levi Coffin, Lucretia Mott, Charles Finney, Martin Luther King Jr., Brother Andrew, Mother Teresa, Henri Nouwen...

Hate:

All forms of theological determinism, especially Reformed Christianity with its despairing news that most humans are pre-ordained to eternal torment (except for the pre-chosen few), are born sinful, have no choice to do good and are incapable of responding to God. And for its past and present intolerance, support for persecution, execution, war, inequality, superstition, etc.

All forms of injustice, violence and war, especially the killing of civilians, the justification of collateral damage and torture.

Nationalism and ethnocentrism where persons of faith get caught in group egotism thinking their nation, group, and kin are more important than distant others.

Inequality including various types of subtle racism and prejudice that still live within us like unseen cancer.

Poverty and the misuse of wealth where some political and religious leaders spend 11,000 dollars on one night hotel accommodations or 400-dollar haircuts while millions live on the edge of hunger.

Superstition and opposition to science in which people of faith believe miracle claims without hard empirical evidence, reject scientific factual theories such as evolution, and trust in unfactual doctrines such as the "inerrancy" of the Bible or the Koran.

Popular media which twists and panders to humans' worst failings and proclivities from revenge to lust and also wastes millions on the violent and the gaudy and the superficial.

All praise to the One in whom we live,

Daniel Wilcox

Discerning True Guidance

2009-07-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Growing up naive, sincere, pietistic, and goal-oriented, I was very concerned to know God's will for my life--what was to be my central mission? Who would I someday meet, love, and wed (and let it be soon;-)? Which theological doctrine was true and which false? What career should I choose? Where would God have me serve? How best should I prepare for all this? Even where should I live?

I prayed, listened to umpteen sermons and read countless books and pamphlets on the topic. I was all into the "How To." One of the best theological booklets, The Will of God, by the British Methodist pastor, Leslie D. Weatherhead, written many years before during the worst days of World War II surprisingly didn't even deal with "how-to." Don't miss this deep meditation and reflection if you can find the booklet. Weatherhead shows the central message related to God's will is not a series of abstract theological points, nor even a bunch of practical steps, but to know God, to experience God relationally, to live in God's love. Indeed, that thesis was in all the best books: Live in and for God now, and the path of life for you will unfold as it ought.

I wish I could say then, everything worked out well for me, but it didn't. Nor has it for most people! History often seems one long deranged wreck. At times, when hearing of all the heartache, even from successful leaders, I wonder if there are any truly blessed God-centered people. Consider that at one point in his ministry, George Fox lay in bed listless for two weeks overwhelmed by an ocean of despair. And he could be mean and petty. For instance when he visited James Naylor in prison, Fox demanded that James Nayler kiss his foot before he forgave him! Mother Theresa, near the end of her life, said she hadn't felt God's presence for years! John Wesley, after leading thousands to Christ, meeting the needs of the poor and needy, helping to transform the lives of so many lost people, wrote in a letter to his brother Charles, during one severe depression, that he felt he had never really loved God. Even John the Baptist, when in prison, came to severe doubts as to whether Jesus was really the Messiah, the One sent from God.

Sometimes, even in my earnest love and seeking to do God's will, the brokenness of myself and others and chance circumstances got in the way or led to dead-ends. Once I strongly felt and reasoned through that I and my wife should help start a peacemaking, socially-concerned church. We did, investing many hours in the effort, praying fervently that we would reach many people,, giving out to the community--but then in only a matter of months everything came crashing down. Why, when all seemed right?

According to statistics, hundreds of worshiping communities fail all the time. I suppose one could argue that God is not responsible when a Christian business fails. After all Jesus saves people, not money--to quote the current joke. But why does God allow the vagaries of circumstances and time to strangle meetings in the Body of Christ?

When doing my very best as a high school teacher, I had several students lie and claim that I had shoved them! What a ridiculous slander if the charge weren't so serious. That horrible slander left me feeling angry at the school district and abandoned by God. I wasn't so upset at the students. They were at-risk students who often caused and got into trouble. Their lies could be understood. But what of God's will? Why? To tell you the truth, I am still not over the tragedy. But it has finally dawned on me that Jesus, early on in his ministry, warned us we would be falsely charged and unfairly maligned, and yet we should bless those who lie about us. So I do. I pray for the people who so hurt me, and I pray that someday I will be able to live completely in God's peace.

The hard truth of life finally comes to most of us: though we do experience God and seek to live each moment in the Spirit, and though some choices are morally and spiritual far better than others, in this open-ended path of becoming, there are no easy sure-fire methods or step-by-step trail maps. Scripture does say "In all things God works together for good" but God's working is within the finite--our best choices, circumstantial chance (the openness of this life of being), the natural order of survival, and the sinful--so every person of faith doesn't end up being healthy, wealthy and wise, let alone happy and successful.

When we speak of finding meaning and purpose--God's will for us--we aren't thinking of the glossy success of the pop evangelical Christian books that flood the U.S. market, where if one does the three steps or the seven points, he will achieve what is meant to be. Nor are we talking of the doctrinal tomes that weigh so heavy they twist and bend nearly every individual who carries them around within his psyche.

Some individuals do seem blessed with temporal success, but so many humans go through present hell--the deepest levels of Sheol, dropping deeper and deeper year after year, and only their centering in God's love, despite the wreck of life, keeps them from plummeting into an abyss of despair. In the Bible why was it that Job after all his trials became happy and successful, but Jeremiah's life ended so terribly, his people and country destroyed, he himself kidnapped and taken to a foreign country? Why did Peter escape jail but James got beheaded by the government? Why, if everything works out for good, did all of the apostles' lives, but one, end in very violent death? Why did so many early Friends have to languish in prison for years, many dying? Why are many thousands of followers of the God suffering now as I type, in Orissa and North Korea and Saudi Arabia and...

Finding meaning and your destiny in the Light doesn't mean all will be well in the short run or that you will achieve the American dream or that you will only have personal setbacks like I did in ministry and career. On the contrary, millions of humans suffer natural disasters, disease, and evil behavior by individuals or governments. In fact, often the worst seems to come the way of the devout. Think of Elie Wiesel, age 12 and a fervent lover of God, suffering in Auschwitz, his father dying, his head bashed in by a Nazi club. Elie lost most of his family who were gassed and turned to horrid smoke drifting up into the Nazi sky. Think of the loving persons lost in the tsunami which raved over Indonesia killing over 230, 000!

Far too often this life journey is difficult and lonesome and tragic--as the old gospel song wails. What of a lady friend of my family who developed cancer, died all too soon leaving behind her three little kids with no mother?!

Evidently, finding God's will is not at all what most people have thought, certainly not what I thought for so many years. Even Yeshua, who lived in God's presence from moment to moment, in his last seconds cried out in agony, feeling totally abandoned by his Father! And strangely of all, in all of this--in all suffering in the cosmos--God suffers most, endures the agony each of us suffers! God is closer to us than our own heart.

What is the point of this reflective wallow in the "ocean of darkness"?

What I am trying to do? Get us all depressed and make us feel hopeless? Have I been reading too much history? Too many biographies? Are facts such as that half of all babies in 17th century England never survived to their 5th birthday obsessing me too much? Or that every year in the present time, 6 million children die from malnutrition?

Not at all!

But we do need to realize down to our innermost being what St. Paul stated and what the theologian Paul Tillich and others have so profoundly pointed out--when we live truly spiritual lives we must do so living "under the Cross." Both liberal and traditionally conservative religious views are too often filled with human illusions of their own particular distortion. The depth of evil is so great that, as one mystic writer wrote, "At the Heart of the Universe is the Cross." Thank God that no matter how deep and wide the abyss of evil, Eternal Love is deeper and wider and higher and further.

In this difficult reflection, I am seeking to walk very circumspectly--looking soberly and realistically at the facts before I suggest one small method toward seeking to do God's will, to finding in each moment God's meaning and purpose for us that we might in our own small way be a part of the Spirit's counter to the juggernaut of natural and human history. That we might be one tiny step forward by God's love toward what Teilhard de Chardin called the Omega Point, the Scriptural metaphor of the Kingdom of God, the union with Ultimate Reality.

Here's my suggestion, the result of all of the above:

I've made it into an acronym (though some may find that sort of cheesy), because I need daily a quick method to remember to remember to seek to live in the Light, not in my own designs, and certainly not in my own selfishness, my culture's twisted perspectives, or the tragic brokenness of human history.

Guided by God's Spirit

Understand by Reason

Inspired by Scripture

Decide through Clearness of Community

Enlightened in Experience and Practice

Here's an example of how this has played out in the past:

In the 18th century the vast majority of Christians, and people of other worldviews, supported slavery. They were morally blind to the terrible evil though many of them saw slaves every day. Indeed, Christians were the strongest supporters of the slavery, citing the Bible as proof. Friends, from their birth in the leveling movement of England in the 1640's, had emphasized equality for all humans yet most contradictorily they didn't actively oppose slavery. Many Quakers in the 1700's owned slaves and supported slavery!

Scholars think this is so because Quakers were already being persecuted for their faith and didn't want to be seen as supporting slave revolts and insurrection. Many Friends had been imprisoned for years because they were considered dangerous revolutionaries, even though most of them clearly were not. So it would seem that George Fox and other early Quakers practiced the subterfuge of St. Paul, who also emphasized the quality of all humans in Christ, yet supported the institution of slavery so as to not receive more persecution from the Roman Empire.

This, of course, seems unethical to us now, but we ought to be careful in our judging, unless we are willing to stick our neck out on other controversial ethical standards. How many Quakers regularly protest against the murder of pre-born infants now when our society is so committed to the right of abortion on demand? How many of us are deeply involved with supporting suffering Iraqis or Orissians?

Some Friends did protest strongly against slavery. One of the best known protests occurred in 1688 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. However, by the time John Woolman was a young person working for a Quaker merchant, most members of the Society accepted slavery or remained quiet in their disapproval.

Guided by God's Spirit
When John Woolman was directed by his employer to write a bill of sale for a slave, he felt suddenly slavery was wrong and that he shouldn't write it. But he did so because he had been assigned the task, but then later he deeply regretted his act. The next time he ordered to write a legal document dealing with slavery he followed God's guidance and refused.

Understand by Reason
I have just started a major biography on Woolman and haven't yet found the part dealing with how John dealt with the pro-slavery verses in the Bible which most Christians used to justify the institution. I will fill this in later. Sorry.

Inspired by Scripture
Later as Woolman became more and more convinced of the evil of slavery, he reasoned that he should not buy or use products available in the market if they came from slave labor.

Decide Through Clearness of Community

Though he was sure of the rightness of his cause, he sought confirmation from other Friends, and never became self-righteous but traveled about among Friends seeking to convince them in the Light that they needed to oppose slavery too.

Enlightened in Experience and Practice

Based on his guidance from God, his understanding of the central meaning of the NT, his interpreting his concern with reason, he then more and more applied this to his experience.
At one point though he himself had been a successful business man, he stopped wearing dyed clothing because the dye came from slave labor. This lead other well-to-do people to look at him as an odd duck, but he followed God's Spirit putting into practice his concern, without regret.

There is no money back guarantee;-) Besides, the ideas for this aren't mine. However, after a life time of reading and hearing wise counsel, trying to implement and live in the Light, yet encountering roadblocks and sometimes suffering serious car wrecks and the daily drudge, I do find Light in G.U.I.D.E.

Reflect and go forth to walk over the earth cheerfully as George said 450 years ago:-)

In God's limitless love,

Daniel

The Atonement

2009-06-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

The etymology of atone: at + on one. But if you know even a tiny amount about Christianity and its tragic history, you know that there is no oneness at all among Christians when this vital and central subject comes up. The very word "atonement" is incredibly divisive. Millions have been killed ruthlessly, cut down young by sword, pike, and gun, or the results of such religious fighting--all because of this word . A third of all the people in Germany died in the 17th century because of this concept and its related ideas.

So why am I attempting to deal with such a historically destructive and impossibly difficult theological doctrine? Because how one views this doctrine, dramatically affects how one views God, others, and how one will live.

So let's jump into the Grand Canyon or leap to the end of the Cosmos:-)

Enough in my past blogs has already been said about the abyssed divide between Limited Atonement versus Unlimited Atonement, so I won't repeat here but go onto the next step, to better things. Given there is universal atonement in Christ, how and why exactly did God in Jesus bring the miracle about? Why was Jesus "slain from the foundation of the world"? (Revelation 13:8b) And what could Scripture possibly mean to say Jesus died on the cross before dinosaurs ruled, before even this solar system and earth came to be, long before humans appeared on the scene? (Ah, and the question of evolution; no I'm not going to pull on that animal "tail.")

Being a Friend, I wanted to start with Quaker thinker Robert Barclay's view, but it has been years since I've read in his Apology and I couldn't seem to find a quick answer. (Please rescue me Quaker Theologians;-)

Let us go back to the good Fox himself who was wary of theological notions but had a deep sense of practical biblical doctrine:
Soon after there was another great meeting of professors, and a captain, whose name was Amor Stoddard, came in. They were discoursing of the blood of Christ; and as they were discoursing of it, I saw, through the immediate opening of the invisible Spirit, the blood of Christ. And I cried out among them, and said, "Do ye not see the blood of Christ? See it in your hearts, to sprinkle your hearts and consciences from dead works, to serve the living God"; for I saw it, the blood of the New Covenant, how it came into the heart.

This startled the professors, who would have the blood only without them, and not in them.

from The Journal of George Fox

Commenting on this and other passages related to the Atonement, the Quaker historian Howard Brinton says:
This identification of blood and life indicates that we are regenerated, not so much by the death of Christ, as by his life in our hearts...In it symbolic meaning blood represents life...What was more natural than that Jesus, knowing that his own blood would be shed on the morrow, should refer to the blood of the new covenant foretold by Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31) which was written in the heart. Like the blood of the old covenant, his blood would create a living bond between God and man. His was to be that third life which would bridge the gap between the divine and the human, overcoming the isolation and estrangement of the human individual. This would be at-one-ment, a uniting of that which had been separated. So Paul writes: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who has made us both one, and broken down the dividing wall of hostility (Eph. 2:13,14)

from Howard H. Brinton, Friends for 300 Years

In the last two thousand years, a wide variety of other views on the Atonement have been put forward. Here's two interesting outlines naming them:

Problem: We Were Cursed
Solution: Jesus Became a Curse for Us

Problem: We Were Unforgivable Sinners
Solution: Jesus Expiated Our Sin and Gave Us Access to the Father

Problem: God Hated Us As His Enemies
Solution: Jesus Propitiated God and Made Peace Between Us and Him

Problem: We Were in Slavery to Law, Sin, and Death
Solution: Jesus Redeemed and Ransomed Us from Slavery

Problem: We Were Guilty Before the Father
Solution: The Father Justified Us, Declaring Us Innocent in Jesus

Problem: We Were Unrighteous
Solution: The Father Imputed Jesus’ Perfect Righteousness to Us

Problem: We Deserved Eternal Punishment and Forsakenness
Solution: Jesus Was Punished and Forsaken In Our Place (Penal Substitution)

Problem: We Were Under the Dominion of Satan and Death
Solution: Jesus Conquered Satan and Death and Transferred Us Into His Kingdom(Christus Victor)

Problem: We Were Faithless
Solution: Jesus Was Faithful On Our Behalf, Purchased Our Faith, and Taught Us Faithfulness (Christus Exemplar)

Problem: We Were Spiritual Orphans
Solution: The Father Adopted Us in Jesus and Reconciled All Things

Listed on the Web by Darius at http://zealfortruth.org. (I was unable to find the original source to credit the author. If someone knows the author of this lucid outline let me know. Thanks.)

Here's a second, shorter outline:

Ransom to Satan: This view sees the atonement of Christ as a ransom paid to Satan to purchase man’s freedom and release him from being enslaved to Satan...

Recapitulation Theory: This theory states that the atonement of Christ has reversed the course of mankind from disobedience to obedience...

Dramatic Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as securing the victory in a divine conflict between good and evil and winning man’s release from bondage to Satan...

Mystical Theory: The mystical theory sees the atonement of Christ as a triumph over His own sinful nature through the power of the Holy Spirit...

Moral Influence Theory: This is the belief that the atonement of Christ is a demonstration of God’s love which causes man’s heart to soften and repent...

Example Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as simply providing an example of faith and obedience to inspire man to be obedient to God...

Commercial Theory: The commercial theory views the atonement of Christ as bringing infinite honor to God. This resulted in God giving Christ a reward which He did not need, and Christ passed that reward on to man...

Governmental Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as demonstrating God’s high regard for His law and His attitude toward sin...

Penal Substitution Theory: This theory sees the atonement of Christ as being a vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice that satisfied the demands of God’s justice upon sin...

From http://www.gotquestions.org (No author listed)

Other views or ones with different names:
Scapegoating, Satisfaction, Covenant, Hilasmos, Pardon, Warfare Motif, Community, etc.

Here's part of a Quaker reflection by Bill Clendineng (Plainfield Friends Meeting):

For early Quakers atonement was not an external transaction, but an inner experience of what George Fox called the “true Cross,”. Christ is the type, allowing himself to be put to death on the cross, so that we can experience the antitype by allowing all that is outward to be put to death in us. Barclay refers to the description of atonement in 1 Peter 2:21-24: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed (KJV). The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ is a demonstration of the power of God over the power of sin. We experience this power by following Christ to the true cross within.

In contemporary theological categories, early Friends would fit into the “moral example” understanding of atonement, with some qualification. Atonement for Friends was not just a theological concept. Following Jesus to the cross meant a radical personal transformation. Nothing could ever be the same again. Religious symbols and rules (“voluntary humility”) fade into the background when living in Christ’s kingdom (“the regeneration”). Shewen describes that radical transformation in his “Meditations & Experiences.”

Check out Bill's full blog at http://billclen.sc104.info/wordpress/2009/06/the-true-cross/

What is my own conclusion? I reject totally the view that Jesus had to die because God couldn't forgive humans unless he did. Not only does such a view severely limit God, but it demeans and distorts the character of God--his total holiness, absolute goodness, incredible mercy, and limitless love. According to I John, God is love. Jesus repeatedly emphasized God is love--metaphorically, a father who loves all humans with limitless love, even loving the most heinous of us.

I find much appealing in a number of the good views. But to tell you the truth, I don't know which one is the sole Truth. I'm much more concerned with the "soul Truth."

This isn't meant to be a cop out. I am writing about the Atonement because it is so central to faith, but I don't have the spiritual maturity or the intellectual genius to know which view is the most true, or the only true. Besides, at least in my limited understanding, the theories of the Atonement (and for that matter all theology) seem analogical, symbolic and poetic,--not literal prose, not factual, not abstract propositions (except for some theologians who try to bottle the Wind).

Furthermore, if deep-thinking Christians over nearly 2,000 years of theological speculation haven't been able to agree, and have come up with so many very different, and at times contrary, theories, there seems to be a question of whether we are meant to narrow our view to only one method. Indeed, since the wonder of the Atonement is so limitless, maybe God encourages us instead to wrestle with the great miracle and be moved to love God more and more.

Besides, I am much more concerned with the practical results of the Atonement than with theory. Like the early Friends, I want to deeply experience and live in and for Christ much more than I want to theorize.

Having worked in various social capacities from mental hospital care worker to high school teacher and in many manual labor jobs as well, and having read too many depressing books of academic history, I am very aware of the evil that pervades humans within and without. And even if I had avoided reading about all the evil of history and not seen sin played out in many families' lives, there is still the cussed sin and selfishness in my own life.

Even if no one else ever needed the Atonement--the loving, reconciling, merciful action of God--I certainly did. And am so thankful God loved us universally with an eternal love.

My prayer is that more and more we could live in such a way as to draw the seeking, the lost, the needy, and the rebellious--all individuals everywhere--into God's eternal, limitless Ocean of Light.

In glad tidings,

Daniel Wilcox

Who Is Jesus the Christ?

2009-06-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

Who is this Jesus that the Nebraska village kid accepted into his life at eight years of age, the historical figure who many millions have allegedly turned to and sought to follow in the last 2000 years?

Tragically, like so many other words, "Jesus" has come to mean almost anything--another semantic empty bucket to be filled by human speakers whether with silver or slop or manure. The first thing which comes to mind is how Jesus gets used for excitement, frustration, anger--"Jesus F. Christ! Look what that idiot driver just did!

Such cursed meaning grieves deep. Think how we would feel if every time someone got frustrated they used the name of our sweetheart as an expletive.

My earliest memories of Jesus aren't from some creedal statement. I don't know if this is normal for being a kid or because I didn't grow up in a creedal church. We were American Baptists, my father a serious pastor of a small village church of probably about 30-40 town people and farmers. What first comes to mind now are the pictures of Jesus from the walls of the church and our parsonage and from Vacation Bible School. Jesus was my savior, my shepherd, my friend...yes there were those warm pietistic hymns I so loved..."What a Friend We Have in Jesus," "Shepherd Like a"..."Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"..."Nothing but the Blood of Jesus"...In this indifferent, sometimes hostile world, I knew Jesus cared for us--he loved me so much that even if I had been the only sinner in the whole world, he would have died for me. "The Wonder of It All"...another great song rises out of my memory.

Even when I reached my teens and began to seriously abstract and to consider complex doctrine, I never could find a home in the doctrine of the Trinity. I, of course, as a good Baptist accepted the concept, but it seemed unreal. Jesus, as Son of God, I could understand. And God as Father...And the Spirit was God's influence here and now, his inner presence within us, guiding us, correcting us.

Indeed, to me that is the wonder of the Friends way of viewing all of this; its key phrase is "that of God" in each person--the Spirit/Light of God either wooing those still prodigal and lost, or guiding ones now seeking and following. So God (Ultimate Reality) isn't a group of fickle supreme beings or impersonal Fate (like the Greeks), not an animal or an urge (like other pagan religions) or Chance, Energy, and Matter (like modern Non-Theism).

No, Humanity--in their essence--is the image of True Reality. To most Friends for the last 360 years, Jesus, the Christ, is the true Image of the invisible God, the Ultimate Reality beyond our finite minds' ability to intellectually grasp. This is what the Incarnation is all about--not some abstract theological doctrine--but that Ultimate Reality is revealed in the life of a common laborer born in a despised backward corner of the Roman empire, illegitimate in birth, rejected by family and community, and finally executed by the political and religious leadership as a dangerous revolutionary.

The strangest of all quandaries, however, is how did this Son of Man--both a term emphasizing his common humanity with all humans and his prophetic supernatural reality, one who showed great compassion to all types of individuals caught in their sinful ways, from the rich and famous to the poor and despised--come to be the poster boy for endless forms of war, oppression, cruelty, torture, slavery, intolerance, discrimination, prejudice, and unkindness?! 2,000 years worth of mostly horrible abyssed distortion and going very strong now as many modern Christians continue to wax intellectual about Jesus being the Son of an amoral god of powerful sovereignty who destroys most humans for his own glory.

I suppose all of this is the strongest reason to consider whether maybe there is no meaning or purpose to the cosmos--that the nontheists are right--that Jesus was one deluded Jew, pathetically wrong. And we humans are here only briefly and absurdly alone in an indifferent cosmos going no where for no purpose, as Bertrand Russell said--from darkness to darkness.

Only of course, I didn't choose such a path, nor many of the other human ways of perceiving existence, nor do I now. Despite the naysayers and twisters of all types, I still respond to the love of Ultimate Reality revealed in Yeshua, the Chosen One.

Next, we will consider the issue of the Atonement.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Nature of Conception and Childhood

2009-06-17T16:48:00.000-07:00

My earliest recollections of life are of excitement, mystery, and joyfulness. I personally don't see how so many Christians can think babies are born sinful, that little children are full of original sin.

When our own first son, while still in the womb, used his feet to kick out bulges in the side of my wife's rotund stomach, I never once, not in the wildest imagination ever thought, let alone said, "There's our sinful pre-born baby, pre-ordained to be totally depraved..."

And I don't know any traditional Christians, not even any fundamentalists, who actually treat their new born babies as sinful, yet so many Christian leaders claim babies are "wicked sinners." In one famous Christian apologetic book, a Christian theologian explained the reason millions of babies die in infancy is because they are innate sinners.

Contrast this theological view with Jesus' way. When the disciples tried to keep children from coming to Jesus, he didn't say, "Don't bring the sinners any closer!"

He said instead, "Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these."

Doesn't sound like Jesus thought little children were totally depraved.

Yes, I know there are a few verses in the Scripture one must deal with such as Psalm 51:5 "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." I suppose that verse might be the one that allegedly led Augustine to think a man's semen transferred original sin to a conceived infant.

However, keep in mind that the Psalms are poetry! In poetry, then as now, hyperbole is often used. Have you ever said, "I'm starving!" when you hadn't eaten for half a day?

One of my mom's favorite phrases was "There's no rest for the wicked." She wasn't making an obtuse theological statement but poetically declaring it is important work hard in life. She certainly didn't think my sister and I were wicked, but that sometimes we didn't work as hard as we ought. Her comment had nothing to do with our spiritual or moral inner nature.

Even, if one dismisses the hyperbole argument (which is my own view; I taught literature for 26 years and am a published poet who loves to use hyperbole), a person still needs to be awfully careful of taking every word in the Bible as eternal truth, as a literal command, especially in the O.T. Consider the countless humans who have read the Abraham and Isaac story and sacrificed their own child because they erroneously thought God wanted them to do so. This tragically happened just last year back in Indiana or Ohio. The mother believed God would raise her little girl back to life if she had enough faith and killed her (like she thought God had told Abraham to do to Isaac)!

Babies are born innocent--natural. While conscious, a baby doesn't have a developed self-awareness, wherein he/she chooses to defy God and to hurt others.

Of course, when we grow, we do discover our finiteness. We then become aware of our self-focus and how our desires have no seeming limit. We then enter a stage where we are more than natural--and two opposite ways beckon. We are tempted toward selfishness. And yet we too sense our deep desire for the Ultimate--for truth, goodness, and love. How we respond shapes our lives. We are given the choice to respond to the wooing of Love or to choose our own selfish way even if it hurts others and ignores the Truth. And depending on our own culture and family some of us grow up potentially capable of more good or more evil.

Scripture from Genesis to Revelation emphasizes that we as humans should choose. I am aware of the few problematic verses which seem to posit God as an amoral supreme being who manipulates humans like unwanted pots. But the general trend of the Bible is God as mercy, as God as father, God as love--God who chooses us, not in order to damn others, but to bless all nations.

When a child, I don't ever remember thinking of God as an almighty sovereign who treats us kids as sinful objects created for destruction. In fact I've never met a child who thought of God in such a way, though I suppose it is possible there are children who think thus. More likely the view of babies as "totally depraved" comes from adults' philosophical/theological analyzing--and terribly misguided thinking that is.

About the age of 7, I came to what some Christians term "the age of accountability."--when a child reaches a moral awareness, an awareness that he/she, as good and precious as he/she is, has still "missed the mark,' that he/she has fallen short of all one could and should be.

I became aware that I was sometimes selfish, sometimes teased my sister, sometimes disobeyed, even had stolen a paint can from down the street and tried to help steal candy money out of my gramma's purse.

I came to sense deeply my moral failings, my sins. I remember once having a nightmare of Hell. I was no angel, but the ornery preacher's kid.

But notice, I wasn't a totally depraved sinner either. In the midst of my failings, there were also joys and times when I responded to Love and Truth and Light, when I experienced the joy of worship to God with all my heart, when I loved my sister dearly, when I helped my parents and the elderly women in our neighborhood, when I sought truth with all that was within me.

The Holy Spirit of God was wooing me as does God's Light within every person ever created. We are created on the dividing line of nature--finite beings with infinite desires. As the Bible says, God has put "eternity in our hearts." Whether we yield to the Truth and find the Infinite or yield to a self-centered focus, trying to make all others and life to swirl around us, or somewhere in between. It's up to us whether we respond to God or reject him.

It was a Thursday night after Bible study and prayer at our small Baptist church in the tiny village of Adams, Nebraska about 100 miles from the Missouri River. We were headed home in our 50's Chevy driving down a gravel road. My little sister, Margie, and I were in the backseat. Unlike usual I was very quiet. I felt the tug of God. I knew I wanted to respond to God's voice within. Whether the sermon that night was really any different than many others we had heard before is uncertain. But I felt God urging me to respond. I leaned forward to the front seat and told my dad I wanted to "ask Jesus into my heart" (a Baptist pietistic phrase meaning an individual was asking forgiveness for what he had done wrong and wanted to follow Jesus in his life).

My father slowed the car and pulled to the edge of the road. And that night was the beginning of my life journey to follow Jesus.

Never in that first major decision, nor in any wonderful times of spiritual inspiration over the last 54 years with God did I ever feel or think of myself as a "dead object of original sin" who God irresistibly made follow him, or worse, was preordained to Hell.

So then where does the complex theology of original sin, total depravity, etc. come from? Let me the philosopher butt in here for a moment. In my opinion the trouble seems to be one of epistemology. Instead of taking religious truth as story, as transcendent RELATIONSHIP, many theologians have tried to treat religious truth as factual propositions. But religious truth is poetry! Not prose. It is art. Not science. Religious truth is I/Thou, not I/it.

Okay, back to my narrative;-)

My life was transformed. I no longer stole; stopped teasing my sister as much. I even tried witnessing of Jesus' love to neighbor kids. Collecting the autographs of missionaries who came to our church to speak became my passion. I experienced a deep, deep compassion for those in need.

Dear to my heart (even at 62), is a transforming experience at a Youth for Christ rally when I was about 13. We were singing "Everybody ought to know who Jesus is" and I filled to bursting with love for Jesus and for others. Welled up with joy and love beyond measure--experienced true worship, a gathered meeting. Like so many other humans--encountering God, the Infinite filling the finite. Fox, Wesley, Woolman, etc. all spoke of times when their heart filled with limitless love.

This was before I had ever heard of complex, strange doctrines or read depressing sermons such as Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" where God is pictured as hating us and desiring to gut us and that we are filthy spiders he holds over the flames of Hell" and that God even willed Adam and Eve to sin, and that God ordains humans to be sinful so he can get glory. What a travesty! What twisted theology brilliant humans can come up with when they don't focus on Jesus' Parable of the Prodigal Son or the Lost Sheep, the Good News of the Gospels.

That is one of those baffling questions: Why do religious scholars from the Pharisees and scribes of Jesus' day down through church history, to the present often turn God's loving good news into a twisted message of despair?

It is true Jesus did warn of Hell, allegedly used the word more than the word Heaven. And, if I don't keep getting sidetracked we will get to that topic soon. But check out the Gospels. Jesus didn't throw Hell down on individual sinners caught in their own wrong choices. No, he spoke with tenderness whether it was to the woman caught in adultery, the rich young ruler, the tough fisherman, the woman at the well, the turncoat traitor and cheat...

He, as some theologians rightly point out, saved his hell-fire messages for general sermons against religious hypocrites, the power elite, those who abused the poor. And his warnings were just that, warnings, that even the arrogant might turn from their sinful ways and be rescued.

Well, I lost my narrative path and started preaching:-) Next time I will get back to further experiences of the joy and hope and faith in God and how like all humans, I, too, faced times of testing and despair. Life is a difficult journey, a crucible of testing.

Indeed, only a short ways up ahead in my story, I will encounter the secular world and the idea everything has no meaning...

To be continued

Daniel Wilcox

The Nature and Destiny of Existence: Introduction

2009-06-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

The title of my long reflection is, of course, a reference to Reinhold Niebuhr's famous theological tome--one of the best and deepest! I love reading all kinds of theology and philosophy--at least the parts I can comprehend;-);
HOWEVER,
And that is a "how" that goes on "forever,"
I am a pretty average guy and I've never stopped wondering how it is that famous theologians and philosophers of all stripes and spots think they know so much about Ultimate Reality. The Reformers and the Catholic Church, for instance, thought they knew God's reality and will so well that they executed (by drowning and burning) other Christians who didn't believe in infant baptism! Yet these same theologians and philosophers who "knew" God's eternal nature and hidden decrees didn't even know the basic nature of our local solar system or why people get sick (must be God's will).

And then there's the opposite extreme: the other Know-It-Alls, those of Nontheism who while being, also, only finite conscious mammals are sure, to a strong degree that there is no objective Meaning, no Purpose, no Truth, no Goodness in the Cosmos. We humans are a brief fluke of cosmic chance, one evolutionary twig on the natural selection bush (according to Stephen J. Gould, the famous Darwinian biologist).

Seems rather presumptuous. Of course, I've had my own times with humankind's dear friend, Pride, too--when I thought I "knew" much more than I actually do. As I get older and older, I know less and less.

So if you are misguided by the title of this reflection and think I am going to pontificate about knowing the Ultimate nature of everything and the whys and wherefores and to-dos for all, etc., you are about to be disappointed or relieved.

My goal here is very personal and very basic. Rather, by the love of God, I hope to share my own narrative experiential theology--how I have experienced God (at least in my own perception) and what difference that has made in me and my limited influence on others and the world.

For those who want the quick short version, rather than my own long-winded journey, here's a quote:

And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly, to help me; nor could tell what to do; then, O then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition": and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. (...) Thus when God doth work, who shall let [i.e., hinder] it? and this I knew experimentally. My desires after the Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of God, and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing. For though I read the scriptures that spake of Christ and of God, yet I knew him not, but by revelation, as he who hath the key did open, and as the Father of life drew me to his son by his Spirit. Then the Lord gently led me along, and let me see his love, which was endless and eternal...
The Journal of George Fox

I think George Fox's statement (of his experience in life, his spiritual search, and encounter with what he perceived to be Truth) says its best.
Even though
I know all the naturalistic vultures;-) are circling waiting to pick Fox's experience clean until there are only factual bones of meaninglessness left.

Well, each of us takes our life journey and what trail we walk makes all the difference...

To be continued

The Irony of Justified Killing--Just a War--Just a Baby

2009-06-01T15:39:00.001-07:00

Please hold the family of Dr. Tiller in the Light, especially his wife who must be suffering deeply.

What caused this tragedy? The immoral atmosphere and faulty Christian ethics we have developed.

Isn't it highly ironic that many Americans--many of the same ones who justify war including the killing of civilians in Afghanistan and Hiroshima, etc.--are quick to condemn the killer of Dr. George Tiller? Before we rightly condemn the murderer of a doctor, let us consider the evil of this whole situation.

Doctor Tiller has been responsible for the killing of thousands of late-term babies! We're not even talking here about the questionable practice of terminating a pregnancy of an embryo when the little one is an inch long or there are severe complcations for the mother. No, we are speaking in horror about an abortion doctor who executes late term babies including those six to eight months old, ones who if wanted could survive the womb! Babies dearly loved of God. Dr. Tiller is one of the worst killers in recent history!

As for the individual himself--the human being behind the doctoral killing mask, George Tiller--he was and is loved of God no matter how evil his actions of the last 30 years. He is answering to his Maker now as we shall some day.

How many of us pray every day for abortion doctors such as Dr. Tiller that they will turn around from their immoral actions and live in the Light? Isn't it ironic that Dr. Tiller who killed thousands of innocents was an usher at a Christian church?

As for the killer of the killer... Even though his killing wasn't as horrendous as Dr. Tiller's--for who can be a worse killer than innocent infants?!--still, who gave the killer the perverted notion that the end justifies the means?

All the rest of did, the ones of us who in so many situations justify and commit wrong actions in order to achieve supposedly good results. Many well-meaning individuals justify America's slaughter of civilians, saying that it is necessary.

And isn't that what the Supreme Court and countless Americans did when they unleased the 'killing fields' in 1973? Since them millions of infants in the United States have been gutted, gassed, etc. America sought to help women. We sought to support human rights for women. But as always happens when we seek to use immoral means to accomplish good ends, we end with evil, sometimes horrendous evil.

Are we praying for women who made wrong choices, women caught in pregnancy because of our immoral men and our salacious media? Are we supporting crisis pregnancy centers? Are we helping women who killed their own little ones now find forgiveness? Are we praying for criminals such as the murderer who shot Dr. Tiller? Are we praying for the other killer-doctors in our midst?

How has our faith in God become so passive? Where is the moral passion that motivated earlier Friends such as John Woolman, Levi Coffin, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony to oppose evil?

May Jesus Christ flood us with his love, mercy, and goodness.

Daniel Wilcox

The Blessing versus the Bane of the Bible

2009-05-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

As a liberal Friend (as in progressive Hicksite, Beanite, Anthonyite, Woolite;-), I am very biblically focused, which sometimes confuses people who tend to think of the Bible as every thumper's rigid rule book which he uses to chastise others, bludgeoning them over the head, trying to drive out a legion of modern liberal ideals. Isn't living Scripturally fundamentalist?

And there is, too, right up front, the chameleon-likeness of how Scripture often seems to act as a Rorschach inkblot of squiggles, worded phrases where any and all humans find whatever they wish to see. Slave owners see justification for human bondage, but abolitionists see the truth of liberty. Luther and Calvin see mostly a God of power, one of theological determinism, but Erasmus and Arminius see God as empathetic father with limitless love for everyone.

One can even become fluent in Greek and Hebrew and read enough tomes for a PhD. and still fall victim to the humor (or is it the tumor?) of proof-texting:
A person wants to know God's will. He opens his Bible and reads:
>And he went and hanged himself.
The person worries; there must be more than such an awful command. So he opens to another verse:
>Do thou likewise.
Surely that must not be God's will. The person flips to another page:
>What thou doest, do quickly.

Also for many Christians (not many Friends), the Bible is a flat inerrant book. Moral actions in I Samuel are given equal weight to what is said in Matthew. Joshua and Judges carry equal weight with Jesus and Acts. That is why Bernard of C., Oliver Cromwell, Stonewall Jackson and Dabney, Wilson and Truman could justify the slaughter of countless thousands of humans in the name of Jesus. They held that O.T. actions and commands are still valid for Christ-followers.

Evangelicals think the Bible must be inerrant because Scripture is the very words of God, and God wouldn't create a book of errors. In contrast, thank goodness, early Friends realized that the words of the Bible witness to Christ, who is the Word of God. Scripture must be interpreted by Christ's Spirit, not by a theological flat literalism.

So how then is one to be instructed, guided, and inspired by Scripture as a liberal Friend?

Here are a few suggestions that I learned the hard way. I kept bumping into the low theological literal doorway until I finally realized there was a wide-open-to-the-heavens alternative. Some of this came by the help of wiser persons of faith.

#1 Written by humans (as well as inspired by God), the Bible is ancient literature which needs to be interpreted like other writing. For instance, in Genesis 1, a reader doesn't assume this poetic praise to God for creation is a modern scientific explanation of the cosmos.

#2 Unlike secular literature, within Scripture there is a witness to God--to Truth, Goodness, and Love. This is true sometimes in spite of the literal meaning of the text, not because of it. And there are many key passages throughout the Bible which will transform our lives if we live in them. For example, try this. Read I Corinthians 13 every day for a year. Whenever the subject refers to love, insert your name. [Dan] is patient; [Dan] is always kind; [Dan] is never envious or arrogant with pride...
Practice those words of ethical truth. I'm still working on the very first one;-)

#3 The whole Bible is not one consistent theological treatise using 21st century standards of rationalism and logic. On the contrary, the books of the Bible often disagree and are filled with symbolism and much paradox. Hebraic thinking was mostly image-based and concrete, while modern people often expect information to be logical and abstract. The Bible doesn't try to philosophically prove theism. It assumes God IS and focuses on images of what God is like--a father, a mother, a romantic lover, a shepherd, a just king, a strong tower, a shield, a consuming fire...(Thanks to Professor James Kallas for helping me to see the paradoxical nature of the literature in the NT.)

#4 When interpreted by people of faith with the help of the Spirit of Christ, an individual can find true guidance from God. This isn't easy. But when was Life ever easy? Life is a dangerous journey not a walk in the park, not the Garden. But God promises to guide us if we seek the Truth with our whole self. And we can be thankful that God loves us and seeks us first.

#5 Much of the Bible is filled with stories of individuals encountering God. These encounters (and even some ethical rules) are told from the humans' point of view and often display distorted, at times even evil twists. For instance, when the Pharisees said that divorce was okay because Moses had gotten the Jewish law from God, Jesus countered that divorce had never been God's idea, not the Truth, but Moses permitted divorce because of the "hardness" of humans' hearts.
Mark 10:2-12:
2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away." 5 But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Jesus held to very strict ethical ideals! For a primer on how to live as a Friend of Jesus, read the Sermon on the Mount.

On the other hand, Jesus is very compassionate when we fail. When he met a woman at the well--an immoral one who had had five husbands and was living with another man-- Jesus didn't launch into a condeming speech. He asked her for water. Imagine that! A Jewish rabbi asking an immoral woman in public for water. Furthermore she was an enemy of the Jews, a despised minority and a heretic too, but Jesus loved her and shared with her Living Water.

#6 Scripture is not the end of revelation but the foundational beginning. Revelation continues. For example, early in the biblical narrative (I Samuel),God is claimed to have tempted David. Later however, in Chronicles, the text states Satan tempted David. And James in the New Testament says God never tempts anyone. In the O.T. Israelites slaughtered children and infants. Indeed, Psalm 137 blesses people who bash babies onto rocks to kill them, but in the New Testament, Jesus says let the little ones come unto him and that if anyone hurts a child, it would be better if the person were hung with a millstone and dumped into the sea. Every child is precious to God. The Bible text needs to be interpreted by Christ's truths.

The key to understanding the Bible is to remember, the book (written over thousands of years) demonstrates increasing truth. What is condoned or ordered in the O.T. is often strongly condemned in the New. David kills 200 men and mutilates them--cuts off their foreskins as a present for his first wife! (1 Samuel 18:14-28) But in the NT, Peter doesn't mutilate or kill others.

Who among us today, even the most literalist would behave like David? In total contrast to David's actions, we are supposed to live in peace with everyone, even love our enemies. James says violence and war come from selfishness, not from the Spirit of God (James 4:1-7). How many of us pray for the Taliban every day? Are Friends making an effort to give the Good News to them?

Would any person of faith in modern time (well excluding Christian soldiers of the Spanish Civil War under Francisco Franco and some Muslim extremists) think it morally right and the will of God to kill others and mutilate them? Yet in 1 Samuel verse 14 says "David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and Yahweh was with him." Evidently, one has to judge such a declaration as not true when evaluated by the Spirit of Jesus.

A good interpretive method is to remember that what is ethically condemned in the Old Testament is even more stringently true in the New and now in the present. Jesus said the act of adultery had been condemned in the OT., but he emphasized even lusting in one's heart is sinful. The closer one comes to the Truth of God, the holier one must seek to live in the Light.

Since the closing of the NT canon, there have been further developments in ethical truth. Christians (well except for a few Reformed thinkers) now hold that slavery is inherently evil despite the fact that neither the O.T. nor the N.T. claim slavery is wrong, let alone evil. This new ethical truth finally shown forth with clarity among the Mennonites/Brethren of the 16th century, then eventually among the Friends of the 18th century after the witness of John Woolman, among some Methodists of the 19th, etc. Finally the total ban on slavery was accepted by most people of faith (though a few Christians and some Muslims still defend the system). Torture was practiced by Christians for centuries, justified by Augustine, the Reformers, etc. and is still held to be good by some Christians today such as Evangelicals in the United States, but many Christians now realize torture is contrary to the Light and Love of God.

Then there is the case of equality of the sexes and races...

To be continued

In the Light,

Daniel

Precious Moment, Present Meeting

2009-04-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

A serendipity came this morning as I drove down Bradley Road. Very unexpected, as I have been struggling through a severe spiritual crisis, another pilgrim's regress. (Sometimes I wonder, doesn't a person's spiritual journey ever reach a peaceful oasis?)

It's Saturday/sixth day (what I call Spirit day). I dropped off my son at his school to take his SAT class and headed home, ruminating on Life problems. But then I saw the older man, the one who stands by the corner hitchhiking most days. Normally, I don't stop as the traffic is heavy and there is no side lane, but today no cars were crowding me, so I listened to an inner feeling and stopped for the man. He was in old wrinkled clothes, almost looked homeless, and hunched as if someone had curled his spine; his one knarled hand held a small trash bag, evidently his lunch.

When he thanked me I could hardly understand him as he spoke with a Spanish accent and had a voice impediment. He sat there bent forward, his face weathered, like dark brown parchment. Some of the time I couldn't understand him, but found out he had 13 grandkids and his wife had died from cancer 18 months ago and that he worked at a carwash and was 82 years old!

I'm not even a Samaritan, more like a prodigal son, but our Father met us on the road there this morning, even though we spoke no religious language. The hitchhiker and I were in a precious moment, a present meeting.

In the Light,

Daniel

Of Fishhooks, prayers, and miracles

2009-04-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

I read through too many tomes in the last 50 years trying to figure out the truth of God and existence--being condemed to doctrinal hell and convoluted mental gymnastics. Then--I don't know why--I then tried to write an analytic essay on the nature of prayer and miracles and the disappointment with unfulfilled answers.

But when I finished writing it, I realized the long-winded reflection didn't really shine forth Light. It was mostly pessimistic and more along the line of those tomes that doorstop my mind.

So instead, I am going to share my "fishhook" poem on the same topic. Hopefully there is more Light of God in the poetic vision. I think there is. Jesus never mentioned abstract theological creedal tomes; he spoke in images and parables, and told us to become as children.

Of Fishhooks, Prayers, and Miracles

My youngest daughter, Hope, learned-disabled early,
Struggling with the squiggles and the numeric symbols
Of unseen realities, of knowing, that set the stars
In motion and our minds in transition.

Her childish zest died while, as her father and provider,
I practiced disabling late, raised to belief's unreason —
In the rigid way of Huck's Miss Watson — stubborn
In righteous doctrine, ignoring the doctor's suggestion,
Not giving Hope medication, but believing in literal petition.

So I prayed time-round-the-three for my daughter's minded healing,
But just like gullible Finn and his never-gotten fishhooks,
Hope got none, and I— doubt, ill-gotten mishap, and bilge,
Eventually lessening into cynicism, the wounded death
Of an ash-filled, but empty-praying mouth.

Yet unlike Huck, to this day I keep reeling out petitions,
Focusing like the Widow (Huck's other guardian),
On heartened prayer, the learning of spiritual gifts;
But not even the gentle fish lures of patience
And boundless joy seem to ripple my faithless way;
I, too, become the orphan in the dying of trust.

No longer a fisher of persons in the doubtful churning,
Of the endless surging views of oceans seven
The world round, I struggle between faith
And reason, lost in cruel imbalance
Fearing the extremes — nihilistic negation
And fishy delusion — doubting all to hell's end.

Still rises the good news of caring medicine:
Briefly free of false hooks, we gave our dear Hope,
So dead to minded school, the late prescription
And she was upward raised, recovering early
A zest for learning — early for her, way late for me —

Except to say the real hook of it all is that
True knowing is not a gulping of the barbs of pious deceit,
Nor being gilled or gulled into the dying of truth,
But yearning and learning — like Descartes
Of old — finding in humble, reasoned
Faith the poetry and prose of a spiritual rebirth,
A Godly way of reasoned becoming.

In the Light,

Daniel

(Previously published in The Centrifugal Eye)

What's in a Day's Name?

2009-03-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

One way of Friends that seems lacking is our naming the days of the week by numbers. I do understand the historical reasoning behind not using the pagan names. Early Friends wanted to live in the present power of Jesus Christ. They thought destructive practices had crept into Christianity from paganism, so they cut off all such influences, including the polytheistic names of the gods from Scandinavian or Roman religions such as Saturday--Saturn's Day, the Roman god of agriculture.

On this blog today I won't try and present my own view of that cutting away, but only speak to the Friends' solution, what they chose instead. Keep in mind I am an artist, so as a Friend, I find naming days "first day," "second day," etc. bland, lacking in imagination, and downright boring. Of course, as an artist I may not have been allowed into the Children of Light back in the 1600's anyway.

Here is my somewhat light-hearted suggestions for change (I'm taking a break from slaying the demons of modern ethics and theology).

Why not change our traditional custom and promote the Quaker testimonies or faith statements/metaphors?

For example, Saturday becomes "Spirit Day."

Sunday needs little change. Call it "Son's Day" or for the more theological--"Son of Man Day."

Monday which is named after the Moon god could be changed to "Light Day."

Wednesday which is named after Woden, the lead god of Anglo-Saxon/Norse religion could be changed to "Word Day."

Etc.

In the Light:-)

Daniel Wilcox

Truth versus the Joseph Story

2009-03-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, one of my favorite stories was the narrative of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Not only was it an exciting tale--much better than the Begats, Leviticus, or the doctrinal epistles of Paul--the story filled me with deep hope and faith in God. I read with wonder how Joseph by faith overcame betrayal, terrible experiences, false accusations, insurmountable odds, and eventually became prince of Egypt.

Then as I grew up, and, myself, encountered terrible times (like most of us do), and came to face to face with insurmountable odds, I would remember or re-read the Joseph story. Keep the faith and you will win, no matter how bad things get. What I didn't realize until much later--into middle age when I continued to have worse and worse life experiences--is only one person can be prince of Egypt, and it wasn't me;-)

Somehow I had modeled my central hopes and expectations according to a very few winning stories--Joseph, Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego, the Apostle Peter, George Fox, John Woolman, Menno Simons, Levi Coffin, etc.--the great heroes of the faith who suffered greatly but overcame and eventually succeeded.

What I had somehow missed is that most faithful people down through history, and at present, not only never reach a high place, they seldom overcome their bad circumstances, don't get out of the "pit" others have thrown them in; they live lives more like Jeremiah than Joseph--life gets worse and worse. Many never get beyond debilitating illness, false accusations, war, torture, They die in prison like Francis Howgill, mistreated to death, get drowned like Felix Manz, executed like Tom Fox, or are tortured, sawn into, beheaded, or burnt at the stake like Michael Sattler. On an on the suffering goes. The injustice and bad news seem endless.

This does not even deal with the millions of people who die in vast plagues, in hurricanes and tidal waves, who starve to death, get cancer or are abused. No wonder so many despair and feel the hopelessness of Hezekiah in the book of Isaiah: "For Sheol cannot thank you, Death cannot praise you, Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness."

Indeed, I now see that the Joseph story as I envisioned it is a delusion of the worst sort. Contrary to the claims of hundreds of thousands of success sermons and endless prosperity books, most people of faith don't win by the world's standards.

So where does that leave us, those who seek and hope in God despite the worst Life heaves our way? Those who think Dawkins and other non-theists are wrong in claiming existence is meaningless and religion a delusion?

It's all about perspective. Paul spoke of it in Corinthians when he spoke of the scandal of the cross: "We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness." No doubt many Jews were hoping for a Joseph-like figure, a messiah who would thrash the Romans and become an overcoming prince. They didn't want a Jew who told them to love their national enemies and sinners, one who was then arrested for treason, tortured, and nailed to a Roman cross. And the Gentiles were interested in power as well. Who would want to follow some Jewish peasant that didn't have an abstract philosophical system and who ridiculously told his followers to resist evil with love? Obviously he didn't understand the real world.

Not much has changed in over 2,000 years. Many of us still want--at least I so often do--a successful Christ, one who will help us live a healthy, happy life, with a successful career, etc.

But Truth doesn't come our way very often with Joseph-like health, power and wealth. George Fox and the early Quakers learned that early. They spent years in prison, lost all their material possessions; hundreds died as have many other people of truth. Martin Luther King spoke of how unearned suffering is redemptive in the midst of a life of sacrifice. For a while it even appeared that he might become a modern day Joseph, but in the end he became like Jesus and so many others who have died for the Good News.

May we in each moment of now abandon our Joseph delusions and instead live in the power of the crucified.

To be continued

Daniel Wilcox

From Hell to Heaven in one morning!

2009-03-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, I was getting ready to walk into a Christian church to worship. That's when I saw the sign promoting two authors of hard Reformed thinking--that God has pre-ordained most humans to Hell, that Jesus didn't die efficiently for the sins of everyone, that humans have no choice, that babies are born evil...

I emotionally crashed, mentally gnashing my teeth; my stomach churned and plummeted. Not because, I hadn't heard of T.U.L.I.P. before; I had studied American Intellectual History at Cal State University, read many tomes on the Reformation and theology, etc. What so shocked and depressed was to find such very bad news promoted at my wife's church.

My wife used to be a Quaker too, but she doesn't find unprogrammed worship fulfilling. She likes songs and a sermon so she goes to an evangelical church. I go with her often, as well as to the Friends meeting on the Central Coast.

To find that some of the leadership of her church actually hold to the view that many humans are predestined to Hell. It still grieves me right now as I write this. Where is the Good News? Then there is no hope for many humans. It's all been determined way before the beginning of time.

Later that morning when I attended worship at Central Coast Friends meeting, in the silence I cried out to God, anguish tearing me apart, thinking of dear loved ones lost in wrong, countless millions without hope.

But then out of the worshipfulness of the expectant waiting, a woman stood and began to sing acappella with a fervency of joy and empathy a wondrous song of worship. She knew nothing of my travail and 'morning' in theological Hell or my despair. But her hymn ministered deeply to me.

She sang the words of love and hope and good news and worship
and slowly the abyss of two hours before at the other church disappeared and Heaven came down into our midst (to quote from an old hymn).

Thank God for Friends worship and the Good News of Spirit-led individuals from George Fox to Thomas Kelly and beyond.

The Problem with Sin or the Sin of the Problem?

2009-03-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

In this new post, I planned to write on the wonder of worship--about a deeply moving time of spiritual encounter we had at Central Coast Friends yesterday. However, as a lead-up to writing, I stopped by Quaker Quaker and clicked on a link
http://onequakertake.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-do-some-quakers-hate-to-talk-about.html
to "Why do some Quakers hate to talk about sin?" by Timothy Travis, a convinced Beanite Friend. His blog reflection jumped out very violently;-) and grabbed me by the spiritual throat.

Ah, the problem of sin or the sin of the problem or of the sin problem-- "Missing the mark," "Original Sin," "national sin." Trying to reduce this horrendous topic to thought and then to print is no doubt like trying to tame Hurricane Katrina to take a shower:-) But here I go--

First a couple paragraphs of autobiography:
Growing up in a devout home and religious community in Nebraska in the 1950's, I very early came to awareness that all was not right within me and in my own moral choices. I was about six or seven. I loved my sister dearly but would sometimes be vindictive and tease her. And I knew stealing was wrong, but oh how I did want (and take) that item at the corner drug store..etc.

And I had a very deep sadness with how adults so often hurt others by their immoral choices both in my small town and in the world. I also received many, (probably more than my share of) spiritual talks on sin and its results and on justice.

What delivered me from my own guilt, helped me make wiser choices, and gave me a deep passion for seeing spiritual change and harmony come to all humans was an encounter with Jesus Christ (in my own childish way)one night on a gravel road coming home from prayer meeting. I was only eight years of age, but I still get spiritual goose bumps remembering that night and, now, when I feel the wonder and joy of God's love for everyone.

So I am not big on focusing on the negative, on the problem of sin, but rather dwelling on the Good News of God's love--sharing of the deliverance from sin and all the messed-upness that we experience in this broken world, from petty gossip to war in Iraq and Sri Lanka.

We all do have a problem with wrong-doing. Some think it is a problem that others have, not us, at least not Friends. Others think they are worthless and there is no cure. Others that there is a problem but no right or wrong--we're just one form of primate living out survival in a meaningless cosmos. And, of course, many religionists such as the Calvinists think we are born evil, have no choice but to sin, and there is only help for s few selected ones, while God leaves the rest of us to wallow down to despair and eternal judgment.

So what's the truth?

Original sin, total depravity--What about those abstract ideas? This last week, I again encountered individuals who hold very strongly to such a theological worldview:
We're all born evil and sin constantly and can't do right or seek God.

When I started this blog this morning, I thought maybe I would have something to say of such a philosophical outlook, but now that I am to this point, I realize that such a view of life is totally contrary to everything I have experienced and everything I hold dear.

As a literature teacher for many years, every five months I taught the famous Puritan poem "The Day of Doom" to high school students (and Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," too). I sought to help them intellectually understand the Puritan mindset, though within my own spiritual self, I couldn't (and still can't) understand Michael Wigglesworth or Jonathan Edwards at all. Their view that infants who die shortly after childbirth go straight to Hell to be tortured for ever because of Adam's sin is abhorrent theology which makes no rational or spiritual sense to me whatsoever.

While I as a child did have a sense that I had deeply "missed the mark" and needed forgiveness, I also distinctly remember how I, too, had very deep spiritual yearnings. So while there was an ocean of darkness in myself and in others, I also saw Truth and Love, and Goodness--and trusted that the latter was far more powerful than the former. And that we all have a choice for God loves each one of us with limitless mercy and compassion.

Then, of course, there is the other extreme--the so-called "liberal" view of human nature where only murderers, tyrants, and "fundamentalists" commit evil. Most of us are decent human beings. We may err, but certainly aren't sinners, nor by any stretch of the imagination, are we evil.

This, too, doesn't resonate with either life experience or reasonable thought (in my opinion). While I consider myself a "liberal" Friend, I can remember very vividly times in my life when I have been tempted to commit horrendous sin. I can remember times, I chose wrong and how it hurt others.

And it strikes me as highly hypocritical that at the present time Americans of most persuasions oppose terrorism by others such as the Palestinians, yet the United States in the twentieth century carried out some of the most horrendous terrorist attacks in history! And this was done by "liberals." Maybe we nice "liberal" people are not nearly as nice and good as we think we are.

And when was the last time among Friends, that wiser ones, privately, sought to guide members who were making immoral choices?

As a "liberal" I would not want to go back to the days of the 1800's when members were excluded for wrongdoing. But should we not in love speak the truth to erring ones?

I guess all this leads to my next point which is the experience of Friends such as George Fox and John Woolman. In their journals both speak of the darkness of evil and sin, of humankind's need of deliverance. But their focus is not there; it is on God who loves us, on the Ocean of Light, on the spiritual symbol of the atonement.

Well, that's a start.

Any comments?

To be continued--

The Nature of Reality: Step #3

2009-01-31T15:16:00.000-08:00

How does one explain the nature of reality according to the Society of Friends? After all, early Friends didn't think much of theological abstractions or obtuse dogma. Unlike the Puritan/Reformed or the Catholics who wrote volumes and long tomes on theoretical topics such as God's sovereignty, election, and hidden decrees, the Trinity, the Atonement, original sin, the nature of Christ, etc., Quakers most often wrote practical exhortations, ethical warnings, prophecies, and spiritual journals. They did so partially, because at heart, the Society of Friends was and is a deep movement of spiritual experience of God, not abstract analysis or theoretical explanation.

Ultimate Reality is seen relationally and intimately, not primarily intellectually. After all who can know the mind of God? How can we the finite know the Infinite except by the Spirit, by personal transcendental experience?

Secondly, Friends saw from day to day that professing creedal Christians who focused on theology and dogma didn't often practice basic human virtues, let alone the ethical truths of the Spirit--peace, compassion, patience, purity, and joy. On the contrary, the professors of Christianity were hypocritical and intolerant; their leaders used their clerical office for greedy gain, to oppress others, even to slaughter their own neighbors in the name of Jesus Christ.

For the Friends there was no good news in the religions they saw around them. George Fox when searching for God despaired of finding any succor. "But as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition"; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give Him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. Thus when God doth work, who shall let it? And this I knew experimentally.

When it comes to intellectual knowing, there is some truth in a poem I wrote "Less Is More":

When young
I knew so much
So I thought
But the less time
The less I know
By the time of my death
I will know nothing
But will be known
By God who knows all

from Western Friend
December 2008

Our Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice says, "The Quaker way emphasizes experience over religious belief or doctrine. It is difficult to capture the essence of that experience in words. Yet every Faith and Practice attempts to do that very thing...The religious practices of Friends are founded in direct communion with God and the conviction that the Divine Light is accessible to each person; Yet it is one Light, one Truth. We wait with hearts and minds open to the Divine so that Truth will be made known among us.

Key Truths Friends Have Experienced:

#1 God is love and desires all humans to come to the Truth.
John 15: 12-15 The son of man says, "Love each other as I have loved you.. I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father."

#2 Truth is primarily relational.
from PYM's F.&P. "Truth is tested, not by the degree to which it conforms to dogma, but by its power to transform our lives and the lives of others."

#3 Truth starts within us and moves outward.
"All life is sacred." PYM
"True religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart does love and reverence God the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and goodness...I found no narrowness respecting sects and opinions, but believed that sincere, upright-hearted people, in every society, who truly love God, were accepted of him."
John Woolman

#4 True faith creates within us Life contrary to the "world."

#5 Worship is expectant openness to the Divine--beyond forms and rituals, is sometimes hindered by forms and rituals, especially if the latter are done by rote rather than a Divine encounter.

#6 True values are not relative customs according to time and place and culture, but are eternally true and come from the inner essence of God. From God's Spirit come Equality, Honesty, Purity, Community, Peace, Love, Justice, Mercy, Humbleness, Simplicity, Kindness, Expectant Silence, Temperance, Goodness, and Joy.

#7 Individual leadings should be brought before the Body for corporate discernment.

#8 Worship leads to service.
There is an old Quaker joke about a stranger who came into a Quaker meeting. Nothing was happening, so the man leaned over and asked one of the Friends, "When is the service going to start?"
The Friend whispered back, "The service will start outside after the end of worship."

#8 There is no professional clergy. All Friends are active ministers of various kinds.

#9 Scripture is interpreted by the Spirit within the gathered body of the faithful.
"...tell them in the name of God that there is to be no wrangling about words: all that this ever achieves is the destruction of those who are listening." 2 Timothy 2:14 NJB

#10 Receiving love from the Light within the community of the faithful leads to the living out of testimonies among all humans and in nature.

All Friends may not hold to every one of these key truths, but most have in the 360 years of the society's existence.

To be continued

The Nature of Reality: Step #2

2009-01-31T10:31:00.001-08:00

Our first step looked at the "ocean of darkness" of non-theism. Our second step will give an overview of the main religion that Friends rejected as evil and totally contrary to their own worshipful experience of God. (Then, hopefully, I will get to the detailed experience and faith of Friends themselves, since this series of blogs is an effort to share the nature of Reality according to Friends.)

The Society of Friends came out of the chaos of religious and social upheaval in the 17th century. In some ways human societies of the 1600's were like today: religious extremism was everywhere, and people thought it was God's will for them to kill other religious people over doctrine. However, the killing then was much worse than now. In the Thirty Years War, Catholic versus Calvinist/Lutheran armies slaughtered each other and often killed innocent civilians as well. Probably about 600,000 died in the military, but 7 1/2 million died because of the war! In the English Civil War and after (including Ireland) about 868,000 died!

Why would so many Christians kill each other? There are many factors, but the central one was disagreement over religious doctrine and theology!

No wonder that George Fox said, "I lived in the virtue and power that took away the occasion of all wars," and "We do utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons..." Instead, Quakers spoke of the Lamb's War--meaning what Jesus had said, that we are to love our enemies, are to be peacemakers.

In England, the Church of England was involved with an internal division between formalists and those who wanted to 'purify' the church. Also, various extremist sects came into being. And there was both avid hatred and secret support for Catholicism. In the English Civil War and after, Christians killed each other for Jesus. Hundreds of Quakers were imprisoned, some died. The Friend James Naylor was flogged, branded with a B on his forehead, and had his tongue pierced with a hot iron. In the New World, Puritans banished Quakers. They had a law that Quakers should have their ears cut off, and if they came back witnessing again they were to be executed. Massachusetts Bay Colony hanged Mary Dyer for the crime of being a Quaker.

Why was there such hostility by Puritans against the Friends especially? Quakers didn't even practice violence or war. So why such hatred against them? There are a number of reasons, and not all the blame is on the Puritans' side. Check out Larry Ingle's insightful biography of George Fox, First Among Friends, for a good understanding.

However, the key difference was how the two opposing religions saw and experienced God, the nature of ultimate reality. Puritans and their 'cousins' the Reformed on the European continent believed religious doctrine and theology were paramount and supreme. In contrast, Friends thought much abstract doctrine so many "notions" that had no real spiritual life in them. Puritans believed revelation came through Scripture and that revelation had ended 1500 hundred years before, but Quakers trusted God spoke to them now; that there is continuous revelation.

Yet those differences aren't the central crux. For the Puritans/Reformed, God is primarily sovereign power. There is an acronym T.U.L.I.P. which shows where their utter hatred of the Friendly persuasion comes from. Nearly all Puritan/Reformed held to this doctrinal outlook and still do today. According to statistics, Puritan/Reformed churches are some of the fastest growing and largest in the United States in the 21st century.

Total Depravity--Puritans/Reformed think all humans are born evil from birth and are so evil they cannot even seek the Good at all. Humans don't have any choice or any free will. We are like clay, dead to anything right or true or spiritual.

One of the most famous Puritan poems, "The Day of Doom" by Michael Wigglesworth, had a section dealing with why God predestines millions of babies to Hell to be tormented forever.

Such theology was reprehensible to the Friends. While the Quakers agreed we humans are bound up in the "ocean of darkness," that we often live in selfish and unloving ways, Quakers were more convinced God lightens every human who is born so every person does have a choice to turn to the light and leave the "ocean of darkness." Furthermore, no infants are predestined/condemned to Hell, nor are any babies born evil.

Unconditional Election--Puritans/Reformed think that before the creation of the Cosmos, in eternity past, God in his sovereign pleasure chose to love only some humans and save them for heaven. The rest of us--millions--were passed over, pre-damned to Hell. While God outwardly calls humans to be good, secretly in hidden decrees he wills most humans to do evil and go to hell, even secretly willed that Adam and Eve sin! It is God's will that these humans are born totally depraved, live lives of sin, and then are damned to hell for eternal torment, all for God's sovereign glory and pleasure.

As you can imagine, such thinking was totally abhorrent to Friends. D. Elton Trueblood the famous Quaker writer said in his book The People Called Quakers the central meaning of Friends was their rejection of such a terrible view of God.

In utter contrast, Friends experience God as unending eternal love.

Limited Atonement--Since God pre-selected some humans to be saved but most to be predestined to Hell, then Jesus didn't die for the sins of everyone but only for the pre-selected ones.

Besides totally rejecting such horrible theology, Friends emphasize that Christ is within us and loves all humankind. He is not a strange theological legal transaction that pays a sin debt for some humans, while ignoring others.

Irresistible Grace--Since, according to Puritans/Reformed humans are born evil and have no choice--are literally dead spiritually, then they conclude that God changes the will of some evil persons, the ones he pre-selected before time began. These individuals have no choice but are changed because of God's plan.

Again, Friends reject such awful "notions."

Perseverance of the Saints--Since God preselects some humans to become good, and changes these individuals against their evil will to become good, God is going to keep such humans from ever living for evil.

Well--very unwell--there is the second view of the nature of Reality. Definitely not the good news, not the "Ocean of Light and Love" of which George Fox experienced and trusted in.

To be continued