"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
Showing posts with label Following Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Following Jesus. Show all posts
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Leaving Death Boat Ethics
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 infamous system of Integral Theory, which is a modern re-envisioning of "death boat ethics."
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?"
Finally Wilber states, "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)
But first, 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 ocean of 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? Why help the poor? They are all paying for bad karma!
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 the Light. 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 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 and mass slaughters 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 [benevolence, altruism] to ruthless enemy soldiers.
But as mentioned above, Wilber emphasizes that it our duty to kill. Like in the Hindu religious classic, the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna doesn’t want to kill his relatives in war,but the God Krishna tells him it is his duty to go into battle and kill his relatives.
So the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria are justified and so are 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 followers of Jesus guilty for what Emperor Nero did? The Jewish people of Europe responsible for what the Nazis 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)
Whew!
Think about it: Somehow in Wilber’s philosophy humans need to be executed and bombed, but
behind all those horrendous evil actions 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, gag and vomit.
Instead, I will pray that Ken Wilber, Deepak Chopra, and all such other millions of deluded "death boat" thinkers will come to their moral sense and find the Light of the Real Truth.
Daniel Wilcox
Consider the modern views of the popular religious thinker Ken Wilber and his infamous system of Integral Theory, which is a modern re-envisioning of "death boat ethics."
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?"
Finally Wilber states, "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)
But first, 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 ocean of 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? Why help the poor? They are all paying for bad karma!
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 the Light. 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 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 and mass slaughters 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 [benevolence, altruism] to ruthless enemy soldiers.
But as mentioned above, Wilber emphasizes that it our duty to kill. Like in the Hindu religious classic, the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna doesn’t want to kill his relatives in war,but the God Krishna tells him it is his duty to go into battle and kill his relatives.
So the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria are justified and so are 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 followers of Jesus guilty for what Emperor Nero did? The Jewish people of Europe responsible for what the Nazis 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)
Whew!
Think about it: Somehow in Wilber’s philosophy humans need to be executed and bombed, but
behind all those horrendous evil actions 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, gag and vomit.
Instead, I will pray that Ken Wilber, Deepak Chopra, and all such other millions of deluded "death boat" thinkers will come to their moral sense and find the Light of the Real Truth.
Daniel Wilcox
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Part #3: Son of Man, Son of God
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
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
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
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
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
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Encountering Jesus Part 2
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
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
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Encountering Jesus Part #1
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--to have deep hope for all people we meet now, and hope for all the millions lost in wrong harmful ways in this life. And hope especially for all past humans who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia and Turkey, the pestilences of the Black Plague, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death from other forms of havoc and evil in the past, and the multi-millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood...
NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING if somehow all will be made good.
There is not the despair as in a nontheistic cosmos where ruthless determinism or chance rules.
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
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--to have deep hope for all people we meet now, and hope for all the millions lost in wrong harmful ways in this life. And hope especially for all past humans who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia and Turkey, the pestilences of the Black Plague, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death from other forms of havoc and evil in the past, and the multi-millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood...
NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING if somehow all will be made good.
There is not the despair as in a nontheistic cosmos where ruthless determinism or chance rules.
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
Monday, August 10, 2009
What is Love?
Christians for many centuries, over and over, have stated, "God is love." Most famously, St. Augustine said, "Love God and do as you like."
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 same St. Augustine of the famous "love" quote supported the persecution of other Christians, torture, killing, etc.
Augustine abandoned his common-law wife of 10 years, with plans to marry an aristocratic Roman lady instead.
From his era down through hundreds of years of cruelty, injustice, and slaughter to the present, Christian Churches in the name of "love" have commited all the horrific acts.
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."
A more recent case is that of Christian soldier Stonewall Jackson and tehologian R. L. Dabney who ordered the death of many thousands during the American Civil War.
They gave all thanks to Jesus Christ and God for their killing success, and yet at the same time, emphasized the importance of love to God and others. Read the excellent and powerful biography, Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier 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 the Christian 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 Qur'an 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, yet 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, "Don't to be deceived."
Later we learned how deceptive talk of "love" can be. 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 unarmed civilians, even hundreds of thousands including children is an action of love and justice!
And more and more, acts of euthanasia, abortion, etc. are said to be 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 very 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 gives 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 military bags for a mile, then you are to offer to carry these enemy killers' things 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 (like 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;
love 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 or the Islamic State!?
The murderers of Boko Haram in Nigeria?
The Saudi Muslim planners of 9-11?
The criminal who stabbed us?
A parent or leader who abused us?
A co-worker who lied about us so that we lost our job?
One way is to remember as Martin Luther King cautioned, we aren't called to "like" such evil doers, but are rather called to show them benevolence in order that they might turn from their evil ways.
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
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.
Augustine abandoned his common-law wife of 10 years, with plans to marry an aristocratic Roman lady instead.
From his era down through hundreds of years of cruelty, injustice, and slaughter to the present, Christian Churches in the name of "love" have commited all the horrific acts.
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."
A more recent case is that of Christian soldier Stonewall Jackson and tehologian R. L. Dabney who ordered the death of many thousands during the American Civil War.
They gave all thanks to Jesus Christ and God for their killing success, and yet at the same time, emphasized the importance of love to God and others. Read the excellent and powerful biography, Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier 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 the Christian 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 Qur'an 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, yet 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, "Don't to be deceived."
Later we learned how deceptive talk of "love" can be. 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 unarmed civilians, even hundreds of thousands including children is an action of love and justice!
And more and more, acts of euthanasia, abortion, etc. are said to be 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 very 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 gives 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 military bags for a mile, then you are to offer to carry these enemy killers' things 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 (like 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;
love 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 or the Islamic State!?
The murderers of Boko Haram in Nigeria?
The Saudi Muslim planners of 9-11?
The criminal who stabbed us?
A parent or leader who abused us?
A co-worker who lied about us so that we lost our job?
One way is to remember as Martin Luther King cautioned, we aren't called to "like" such evil doers, but are rather called to show them benevolence in order that they might turn from their evil ways.
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
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