Part 2: Be Calm, Be Called, Be Come

Before we were so rudely uninterrupted by everything happening in existence, two weeks ago we (meaning 'i' and everyone else involved in responding to the Spirit of God) were trying to articulate important theological/philosophical concepts and bring them down into practical daily living.

We were discussing the difference between classical theism which tends to emphasize God's immutability versus many of Scripture's stories and some of modern theology's alternate emphasis on God's continuing relational love with us and the rest of Creation (all that is in process).

In other words, how in the world ought we to change if we are followers of Jesus and Jesus' Father, God?

Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” John 20: 17, ESV

And in Exodus 3:14, God is called by the "Be" verb though the exact literal translation into English has varied in construction:
Ehyeh asher ehyeh literally translates as "I Will Be What I Will Be."

become (v.)
Old English becuman "happen, come about," also "meet with, arrive," from Proto-Germanic *bikweman "become" (cf. Dutch bekomen, Old High German biqueman "obtain," German bekommen, Gothic biquiman). A compound of be- and come; it drove out Old English weorðan. Meaning "to look well" is early 14c., from earlier sense of "to agree with, be fitting" (early 13c.).
Online Etymology Dictionary

So...

Thinking About "i/THOU" This Morning

PREFACE:
(If you are in a hurry,
skip this.)

Do you find your eyes rolling over into the back of your head when you read the doctrinaire pronouncements of religious people? I admit I do, yes, have done a lot of “eyes to the back” in my time.

Many humans, not only atheists, repeatedly ask, “But how do these spokespersons and writers possibly know all this dogma about GOD, about Ultimate Reality? Aren’t they putting a broken verbal cart before infinite horsepower?"

And why do so many of these ‘know-it-all theologians disagree and contradict one another? There are over 200 different Baptist denominations alone.

Besides, becoming inspired by and thinking through and figuring out, and then applying Christ-like ethics to everyday situations and controversies--THAT is what the essence of humanistic Life is primarily concerned with, not abstractions and philosophical speculation.

So it’s with trepidation, and a strong sense of ‘what use is this’ that I begin to theologize. How could ‘i’ possibly have any sense of GOD’s ultimate nature when ‘i’ can’t even fix my broken HP printer?:-)

CUTTING TO THE CHASE—Thinking about “i/THOU”:

Variation of Jewish philosopher’s Martin Buber’s
famous phrase for our relationship with God.

God is transcendental becoming as well as being.
God creates everlastingly behind all temporal causing.

“I will become what I will become” is one translation
of the one Hebrew word for God, YHWH.

Concerning this process philosophical view of existence:
"In traditional or classical theism, God was seen
as the supreme, unchanging being, but in Hartshorne’s
process-based or neoclassical conception, God is seen
as supreme becoming in which there is a factor
of supreme being."

"That is, we humans become for a while,
whereas God always becomes,"
Hartshorne maintains.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

God always becomes, is always “ought,” continually journeys everlastingly. We don’t know any facts of God’s becoming outside of our own finite existence.

We do trust that the inmost essence of God’s becoming is love. God is love according to 1 John, John 3:16, and I Corinthians 13, etc.

So God, billions of human years ago, via the “Big Bang,” began to create Existence as separate from God’s self.
Within God's creative becoming was the desire for I-Thou. Eventually, via the process of evolution, sentient creatures came into existence, and finally conscious, transcendent, rational primates.*

To quote Martin Luther King Jr.:"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."
Martin Luther King

Yes, God--ultimate or transcendent reality, the Good--becomes in everlasting ‘oughtness.’ God is much more than 'is.' Indeed, the Good is often against what is.

Creativity even in us humans on our very finite level isn’t an 'is,' but rather a continuing action, a becoming, a future potential.


TO BE CONTINUED


AFTERWARD:

(If you want the reasoning for the why of my blog post…)
*If God/Ultimate or Process Reality/the Good desired a creative i/thou relationship,
why did UR take about 14 billion years in this tiny section of the universe
to bring that about?

I have no idea. Remember, I don’t normally write speculative theology
or cosmology or metaphysics. So what am I doing here then typing on?

Also, we don't know whether or not there are other conscious, rational beings
in other solar systems. Carl Sagan and some other scientists think that
alien life must be abundant given the cosmic size of the universe, but
other scientists disagree. I don't know.

It's Monergists and other determinists (Augustinians, Muslims, New Age,
Atheists, etc.) who are thoroughly poisoning the human well with their fated views.

Their worldview which denies all human choice and all creativity, which makes
the universe a hard block of cosmic amber with us stuck in one tiny corner like
microscopic termites is nihilistic.

I experienced a strong need/desire/leading to give a different perspective.
That's all.
Amen;-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Church of the Swimming Pool

Tragic circumstances...at one time or another they hit us all; so many individuals experience worse than others, excruciating events that wreak havoc in their lives. Of course, we all eventually face what the New Testament calls the Last Enemy.

Here, we've been dealing with some tragic times of late.

But sadly, unlike in the past, there is less Good News to find in our churches, because now so many are promoting the false view of Reformed despair...where there is no hope for most of us.

So what does one do?

This Sunday morning, in the midst of sorrow and need, I opted to go swimming.

After almost an hour of swimming laps and praying to God,
my inner spirit brightened with renewed hope.

Yes, I discovered the Church of the Swimming Pool, where no bad theology or bad events happen, only a gliding forward, swimming over, and through, all the problems that so beset us.

Thank God for such a buoyant way.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Who Owns the Land? Jew or Arab? Neither!

Who Owns the Land? Jew or Arab? Neither!

Again recently, Jews destroyed animals and olive trees, vandalized mosques and cars, attacked Arabs, stole much more land, and dropped many more lethal bombs, etc.

Again recently, Arabs attacked Jewish families, lobbed hundreds of missiles into Israel trying to kill as many unarmed civilians as possible, etc.

In the last 12 years at least 6,700 Palestinians have been killed and at least 2,000 Jews.

What in HELL for? That’s right, that’s where the New Testament says destroying actions come from, from Hell.

All because of their selfish land claims—both by Arab and by Jew.

How do Arabs feel when they have lived on land for many years, (some families for over a 1,000 years!), but their land is confiscated by the Israeli army and given to immigrants from New York or Russia?!

How would you feel if your Arab family owned the deed to your own land but now the Israeli government is trying to take it away because they want it and claim the land is theirs because their ancestors lived on it over 2,000 years ago?

True story! You can read about it at World Vision’s website: http://blog.worldvision.org/stories/we-refuse-to-be-enemies/

On the other side…

How would you feel if your Jewish family can trace its ancestry on the land back to Bible times, but terrorist groups like HAMAS want to exterminate them, and keep launching deadly rockets to slaughter all, and then take over their land?

Plus, you need to keep history in your sites…

In 1880 there were 24,000 Jews living in the area of the Ottoman Empire called Palestine; there were 450,000 Arabs.

Only 5.3% of Palestine was Jewish!

Where then did all the Jewish people come from? From elsewhere...

But, of course, many people think since Jews once dominated in Palestine before 70 A.D., they have a right to return, as many, many thousands have from all over the world, especially from Europe and America.

Let’s assume so, but does that give them the right to intimidate and persecute Arabs and take away their land?

Please read what Amos has to say about injustice in the Jewish Bible.

We live on the Central Coast of California on what used to be Indian land. Because Indians used to live on this land (but were driven off long ago by the Spanish and Americans, like the Romans drove off the Jews), does this give Indians the right, now, to come back onto our property, kill my family, and confiscate our land?

Even if the Indians have historic right to the land, it certainly doesn’t justify their confiscating it by force of arms, and by killing people who now live on the land and then giving the land to their cousins from Florida.

Both Jew and Arab are violating their own religious scriptures, and are basically being selfish, because they won’t share.

<< James 4 >>
American King James Version
"From where come wars and fights among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not."

TO BE CONTINUED

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Legalized Group Murder by Christians

Devout Christians slaughtering devout Christians, good people slaughtering good people, and, yes, bad people slaughtering good people and bad people...on and on and on...

This moral obscenity has gone on for 1,700 years, from the Jesus Wars of the early centuries beginning at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 C.E. when Constantine fought under the standard of Christ's name.

"...mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields of his soldiers ... by means of a slanted letter X with the top of its head bent round, he marked Christ on their shields."


Eusebius describes another version, where, while marching at midday, "he saw with his own eyes in the heavens a trophy of the cross arising from the light of the sun, carrying the message,
In Hoc Signo Vinces or
"with this sign, you will conquer."
Wikipedia

For historical details of the killing and persecution by Christians, read Jesus Wars by the historian Philip Jenkins.

Christians went on to slaughter Jews, Pagans, and other Christians in the 300's to 600's CE.

Then jump hundreds of years, past the millions slaughtered in the Christian Crusades, wars of the Reformation, the French Religious Wars, the 30 Years War, and so forth.

And 'God's warriors' attacked, again, Christians-fighting-Christians in the American War Between the States (often incorrectly called a 'civil' war).

Over half a million soldiers died in 4 years, and as many were wounded; hundreds of thousands of civilians suffered and died.

A whole generation was destroyed, the land ravaged...

Some places in the American South didn’t recover until the 20th century!

And even before Americans did start to recover--within 5 to 10 years after the war, 1870-75--all of the Southern states were taken over by racist leaders who instituted severe Negro codes/segregation. Often, Negroes were worse off after the war, than when they had been enslaved.

These racist methods were called “Redemption" by the Southern Christians.

What a perversion of Jesus' life and teaching.

Treatment of Negroes amounted to de facto slavery, though, of course, at least the institution of slavery was no longer technically legal. But Negroes were restricted, often confined to plantations. Churches were segregated.

Negroes who protested, tried to vote, or sought to become involved in the government were intimidated, abused, and often murdered by former Confederate soldiers and other Southern leaders.

Even stranger, however, is that in in the Northern States, many Americans, also, instituted Negro codes. They had attacked the Confederacy, and many had opposed slavery, but they didn't want Negros to live among them in the North.

Think of this: When Union soldiers earlier invaded South Carolina, some of the Northern soldiers actually stole shoes and clothes from Negro slaves!!

Many Union soldiers despised Negroes.

After the war, racism reigned thourgh out the U.S., as if no war had been fought.

Side Note: We've just returned from an in-depth tour of Virginian, Maryland, and Pennsylvanian Civil War battlefields on this the Sesquicentennial memorial of that horrific slaughter. We missed the 150th anniversary of the Sharpsburg/Antietam killing field by one week, not that it matters at all.

There are so many horrific facts about the occasion of these American Christian battles, that when reading and viewing each memorial site, one wants to weep. Maybe not shed outward tears, but drown in sorrow within.



It’s a strange fact of human nature and academic life, how endless books have been written on these tragic war battles, yet each generation participates in more wars.

Right now, Christians are supporting 4 American wars--Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

However this time around in the slaughter-roulette, Muslims are slaughtering Muslims, as well as Christians and Atheists.

And Christians are fighting, shooting and bombing back.

Why didn't Christians learn their moral lesson, that war is wrong, is inherently evil, in the American 'Civil' War?








Even though I’ve read many thousands of pages on the War Between the States, and taught literature of that war for years, each time I read another historical tome (and now visit the actual battle sites and museums), and read in detail of the endless slaughter, it all seems so incredibly insane.

Where is there any evidence in the life and teachings of Jesus for any of this?!

Yet many commanders, generals, and political leaders on both sides were devout Christians. Soldiers prayed and got "saved" on both sides, but then immediately, still shot, bayoneted, and killed each other in the name of God and Christ, their Savior.

Read history books which describe this in detail such as God's Almost Chosen Peoples by George C. Rable.

And then there's the brazen thefts—many soldiers stealing things off the dead--real living individuals only moments before. They stripped their bodies for clothes, took their letters, mementos, and pictures.














Doing this to their enemies even though most of them had the same religion and similar values--those of honor, duty, and God and country.

In some places, such as at Cold Harbor battlefield, the bodies of the slain soldiers weren’t buried for several years.

All the civilians had run away and all the soldiers of both sides had rushed onto other killing fields; so the only companions of the abandoned dead were wild hogs who ate at the corpses.

Remember, too, military dogtags hadn't been invented yet, so about half of the 600,000 dead soldiers were never identified. And don’t forget that at least 400,000 civilians, probably many more, also died because of the war.

And, as mentioned above, there was so much thievery--the brazen stealing of things from the dead, from homes and farmhouses. A Union soldier even stole a Bible from a Southern church and took it home to New England!

And the landscape was trashed, over 2 million trees destroyed, fences torn up, bridges, factories, railways destroyed. Northerners destroyed art, sculpture, and used fire to heat train rails and twist them around trees--calling them "Sherman's neckties."

Notice how whenever there is a war, invariably, all of the Ten Commandments, and every other moral code are violated daily by soldiers and, indirectly, by supporting civilians!

And don’t forget all the lying and spying, incessant cursing and obscenities, and, for many, the whoring, the drunkenness, etc..

Why aren't we more shocked and devastated that any humans, certainly any Christians, could avidly participate in such hellish actions?

Because, even yet, most Christians strongly support the slaughter of their enemies.

How utterly senseless and evil it all was.
But Americans on both sides committed the evils for righteousness...in the name of the same God.

Both sides even declared that the War was God’s war, his plan, not theirs!

Yet so many of the leaders, but for minor situations or reasons could have ended up on the other side, killing for the opposing government. Christians killing Christians, brothers fighting brothers, friends against friends…

As no doubt most of you readers know, Christian Robert E. Lee was offered command of all Federal forces but turned the offer down, because President Lincoln was beginning to marshal 75,000 Northern troops to invade Virginia.

Lee said he would never attack his own state and home.

Instead, Lee joined the Confederacy to defend his family and home. Little good it did him, because the Federals stole his home, and he never got it back. By the end of the war Lee was directly responsible for over one hundred thousand killings.

Not that Lee did the slaughter alone; there were many thousands of other devoted Christians on both sides who actively and avidly participated in the slaughter and thanked God for their victories.

Others, the less religious leaders in the U.S. sometimes didn't even care about the theological and political conflagration. Yet they, too, got involved. General Edward Porter Alexander, according to his own memoir, was too busy enjoying fishing and hunting in Seattle, where he was posted by the U.S. Army, to really pay any attention to all the political wrangling and ideological conflict. He didn't seem to care about all that.

But when he heard of the Abraham Lincoln's invasion plans, though he, Porter, had been assigned by his commander to build Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, Porter resigned his commission and went home to fight for his home state of Georgia. Who wouldn't?



Not that it did any good. Later General Sherman of the Union would devastate a 40-mile wide swath of Georgia in his infamous terroristic March to the Sea, seeking to destroy all of the civilian backing for the Confederacy.

Devout Christian Stonewall Jackson, who ordered the slaughter of many thousands of others, carried a special table just for his prayer time.

One can see the small varnished stand at his command post in Winchester, Virginia, a town which allegedly changed opposing armies 70 times!



“He [Stonewall] would never mail a letter that would be in transit on Sunday. He was a strict observer of the Sabbath.
And yet so many of his battles were fought on Sundays that the soldiers began to believe that he would fight on Sunday because the Lord would be even more with him..."



While he supported slavery, he at the same time taught the Bible to Negro children. A strange contradiction, like so many other Christian leaders.

"Jackson is an eerie character; an Old Testament warrior who believed in smiting them hip and thigh.”

[“And Samson said to them, ‘If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you, and after that I will quit.' And he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow, and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam... 'As they did to me, so have I done to them.’ Judges 15: 7-8, 11b]



“After the bloody fighting at Sharpsburg..Jackson was sitting on his horse eating a peach...and he looked out over this field where were dead of both sides littered all over the place."

"And as he was eating the peach he [Stonewall] said, ‘God has been very kind to us this day.’”
---Shelby Foote, an American historian

So very tragic, so contrary to the way of the son of man.

Jesus weeps...

Other strange facts in American history repeatedly show the insanity of the war—many Northerners were as racist, or sometimes more racist, than Southerners.

Not that any of this was new...

12 American presidents in their lives had been slave owners! When the British invaded the colonies in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, they actually freed slaves, while Americans, including the American president kept Negroes enslaved!

So very hypocritical, so contrary to the Light.

But the actions of God followers never seem to change—not then, not even now.





Consider this, think on it: American snipers have been using rifles in the war in Afghanistan

made by a Christian company which puts Bible verses on the rifle sights!!






When Muslims fight Americans, they do so in the name of God (Allah in Arabic). It never ends...





Hopefully, followers of Jesus, in the future will change and resist the evil of war.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Going to Prison for Others?

Going to Prison for Others...

“I was struck most of all by the purity, sincerity and strength of their faith. They, like myself, were not involved in searches for theological doctrines, but in striving to live in keeping with the spirit of Christ-to live in truth and kindness, in continual oneness with Him, to live in light and love..."

"One hundred sixty-seven Quakers petitioned Parliament to be sent to prison in the place of 167 other Friends who had been suffering in prisons for a long time already, and who were tired and sick, and missed their families."

"That level of sacrifice simply amazed me. The history of our country is full of imprisonment and mass repression, but I had never heard of people voluntarily asking to be sent to prison in order to free their friends.”*
--Tatiana Pavlova





When reading this, a question burst out of my deepest inner self:
How many followers of Jesus, now, would offer to trade places with innocent persons
who are currently imprisoned around the world?


Asia Bibi, a 42-year-old Pakistani woman from the village of Ittanwali, is the wife of Ashiq Masih, and their family is one of only three Christian families in a village of 1,500 families. She has been in prison for three years, separated from her husband and two young daughters.

Her crime? Witnessing of her faith in Jesus, in contrast to Muhammad and Islam. She was convicted of violating subsection C of Pakistan’s 295 blasphemy law and was sentenced to death.

Asia’s conviction and death sentence have brought international attention to the country’s blasphemy laws.*

Will anyone step forward and take her place—literally, or even figuratively, by being a witness to Jesus as early Friends did, as did followers of Jesus in the Book of Acts?

Behnam Irani, a 42-year-old pastor from Karaj, Iran. Officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security (MOIS) raided Irani’s house church on April 14, 2010, and assaulted him before taking him into custody.

When Irani voluntarily began serving his sentence in May 2011, he was prepared to spend one year in prison. But he received a letter in October stating that he must now serve five years from his previous sentence.

For the first few months of his sentence, Behnam Irani was held in solitary confinement in a very small cell. Afterward, he was moved to another small cell with other prisoners.

The hot room was so full, the prisoners were not able to lie down to sleep, so they had to sit all day and night. Pastor Behnam is now in a normal cell, but authorities have asked for him to be beaten regularly. All his hair has turned white...

Behnam Transferred to Prison Hospital - July 2012
Within the last week, Behnam Irani became so sick that he lost consciousness. As a result, he was finally allowed to be transferred to the prison hospital.

Please pray for his wife and two children as they wait for him to return home.*

Will anyone step forward and take his place—literally, or even figuratively, by being a witness to Jesus as early Friends did, as did followers of Jesus in the Book of Acts?

"Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple...3 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:26,33


For many years my wife and I have written letters to oppressive governments requesting the release of innocent individuals who have been wrongly imprisoned.

Millions of others work for human rights. Thank God for that.

But, I admit, I am not yet that committed to the Light that I would go in to prison to replace a prisoner of conscience, that I would petition the government of Pakistan or Iran to volunteer to replace Asia Bibi, Behnam Irani, or one of thousands of others who suffer in prison.

When will we modern followers of Jesus truly seek to be like him, to “empty” ourselves for the cause of Truth, Goodness, and Lovingkindness?

As did the early followers of the Way in the Book of Acts, as did the early Friends of Truth in 17th century Britain.

In the Light and Love of God,

Daniel Wilcox


*Tatiana Pavlova, a Russian academic on the Friends of Truth, a movement of Christ-followers in 17th century Britain
Interviewed by Johan Maurer about how she became a Friend.

Tatiana was born in Moscow. She studied in the history and literature department of the Moscow City Pedagogical University. In 1969, she defended her dissertation on the theme, The Second English Republic (1658-1660), Social-economic and Political Struggle.

Tatiana worked as a volunteer with alcoholics and drug addicts, and poor retirees, conducting Bible study classes. Before her death, Tatiana worked at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

--From Friends United Meeting, Quaker Life May 1999

* http://www.prisoneralert.com/pprofiles/vp_prisoner_218_profile.ht

Friendly Good News

God Is One.


God is creative, invisible, transcendent, eternal, and ultimate.

God’s expression, his “Word,” his visible presence (the Incarnation) is in Jesus the Messiah, “The Word became flesh and set up his tent among us.” Jesus is the Image of God who is invisible. Jesus is our friend, ruler, leader, and deliverer.

The “Chosen One” came so we might experience and understand that God is ultimately and everlastingly love. “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Scripture also says, “Mercy triumphs over judgment."

God’s immanent, creative presence and influence, his “Holy Spirit,” convicts all of us to change direction and seek God. God’s Spirit lives within our spirit, and guides, communes, and comforts us as believers.

God loves the whole world, every human who has been born and every human who will be born. God is not willing for any to perish.

God is leading all of creation toward and to final perfection.

The ultimate glory of God is love—creating, giving, sharing, communing…


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox