CHRISTMAS 2023

Christmas is my favorite Christian celebration.  I basically celebrate it all year long in the sense the I am constantly playing Christmas music performed by my favorite choir, King's College Choir, in Cambridge UK, besides my other go-to musical selection of the entire works of Bach, which I cycle through during the year.  

Now some might find my attraction to Christmas a bit baffling.  Those who read my post are undoubtedly aware that I see the whole Christmas story as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as a myth - something that didn't actually happen the way it is portrayed in those Gospels.  I'm not going to go into all of why I believe that to be the case, only to say that I see myths as an attempt to get at something that is true about human nature and, in the case of the Christmas Myth, something true about all of humankind; that we are all the children of the that Being in which we live, move, and have our being - commonly referred to God.   

What I like about Christmas is that it reveals our common aspirations for world peace and goodwill among all people.   Such aspirations transcend religious boundaries because at their core they are the aspirations  that most humans throughout the world share, whether one considers oneself religious or not.   

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As a mythic story, the Christmas story transcends any sense or need to be understood as a historical event. There is something universal in its telling as I mentioned earlier.  That is not to say it doesn't involve history.  It does.  It's our history told from an ancient biblical perspective. Jesus exemplifies the mythic meaning of our life stories.   When I think of the original Christmas story of Jesus' birth, I wonder how we would tell it in today's context.   

For example. the Palestinian Christians in Jesus' biblical birthplace, Bethlehem, have done just that this year.  With a war ravaging the Palestinian Gaza Strip, they canceled their traditional celebrations and instead created a moving and thought-provoking manger scene in the drab gray tones of the bombed out streets of Gaza.  The holy family is not in manger, but in a amid the rubble of a street that many Palestinians in Gaza are living in today.  If memory serves me there is only one shepherd, not coming, but heading out, and one wise man who gift appears to be a pall, suggesting the others are missing in action.  Mary holds the infant Jesus, but you can't see him. Is he alive, or did he become a sacrifice before he could minister to the world?  

What she is holding reminds me of the mothers and fathers in Gaza who are holding their slaughtered infants wrapped in the traditional white funeral sheeting, ready for burial.   For Christmas 2023, this is the most poignant message of Christmas and it begs the question how we might write the story of Jesus' birth today?   It seems to me that there are worse places to bring a newborn baby into the world than a manger with cattle and sheep and the presence of a caring and joyful mother and father.  What of the mothers who give birth to their babies in a back alley, a bombed out apartment with no one to help or a hospital that has lost power and is a target for attacks.   This year, Jesus being born in a barn, with his loving mother and father present and caring for him is both heartwarming and heartbreaking when considering how some children are being brought into the world today.

This Christmas has a Herodian feel to it.  The slaughter of innocent women and children continues out of a sense of revenge and outrage at the events of innocent Israelis being killed and taken hostage by militant Hamas terrorist on October 7.  The only safe place for the children of Gaza this Christmas, however, is Egypt, if allowed.  The irony of that should not be lost on any Christian or Israeli.  

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Mary's question to Gabriel, "How can this be?" takes on a new meaning in light of the war in Gaza, the Ukraine, and elsewhere around the world.  In the sense of the mindless dehumanizing and murderous behaviors that wars result in, Mary's question can be reduced to a one-word question, "Why?"   

The Christmas story's proclamation of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all humankind is the template for diplomatic dialogue because if there is a universal meaning to be derived from the story of Jesus' birth it is that in his story we come to learn that we too, the whole of humankind are the children of God.  The angelic proclamation of  peace and goodwill on earth has always been and remains the trajectory of our evolution as a species.  We should take it to heart that peace and goodwill amongst all humankind is more than possible, it is a calling we should embrace, now more than ever.  

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

THE PASSING OF OUR TWO PARTY SYSTEM - A LAMENT

Before returning to the topic of religion and, in particular the religion of my upbringing, Christianity, I want to spend a brief moment to talk about the state of affairs in the country of my birth, The United States of America.   

I know I'm getting old; that is, old enough to sense something is missing, something that used to be a source of pride in the America I grew up in, something that is no longer spoken of and that something is what was referred to in days past as our two-party system.  As a child in grade school of the late 50's,  I remember hearing that what made our nation great was our two party system that not only summed up but also shored up our constitutional democracy.  There is nothing within our Constitution that requires a two party system, other than an unwritten assumption there will  be more than one party representing the will of the people; otherwise, why have a general election to elect presidents, senators, and representatives?  Why not leave it a party's leadership to choose?

Since the time I can recall being aware of a thing called politics, Democrats and Republicans were two sides of the same democratic coin.  Because both sides were, at a time within my memory, committed to the democratic processes that defined our constitutional republic.   As such, senators and representatives in the halls of Congress could vigorously debate and argue with each other while in session, but at the end of the day, they would take each other out for a drink or visit each others homes because they wanted to  know each other as people.  Overtime, some learned that they could trust each other to the extent that many of their families became life-long friends.  Lamentably, that appears to be no longer the case.   Few members of Congress have the time or take the time to get to know members of the other party. 

Ironically, what seems to have eroded the concept of our two-party system was that there wasn't enough political drama to keep the electorate interested in keeping the constitutional process working, since Democrats and Republicans were hard to differentiate when it came to issues like wars.  Where they differed grew old and uninteresting.  There were talks of the need for a third party to add some grist to the wheels of our constitutional processes.  Parties began to search for hot topic issues to keep their constituents interested.  "Washington" became the identified term co-opted by both parties to describe the lack luster problem associated with voters' waning interest in the political status quo.    

A problem the two-party system faced was that party members went from treating their perspective parties as a team engaged in a sporting event called an election in which both teams were playing by the same rules to treating elections as a time when the gloves needed to come off.  Anything and everything was on the table, rules be damned, and the mantra of monied cheerleaders of party politics became, "win at all costs."  

Attacks on an opponent's voting record and political views were always fair game, but increasingly such attacks became personal, citing character flaws and moral improprieties as a means to discredit the opponent as a worthy candidate for holding office.  Beyond that, and more recently, personal attack are no longer limited to candidates running for office, but the voters, calling some in the voting public "deplorable" or "vermin."  In the case of the "deplorable," it meant they weren't worth paying attention to.  In the case of  the vermin, it meant they weren't worth existing. 

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I am not one who takes comfort in our history.  Some are too quick to say that our politics has always been fraught with vitriol and name-calling as an excuse to downplay the anxiety caused by vitriol of today.  We should feel very anxious by the upcoming election because what is missing is the Republican Party I knew, the loyal opposition to the party I'm a registered member of.   

Being in a largely Republican state, I can say that I have rarely voted along a strict Democratic line.  There were times when that wasn't even a realistic option in this state.  There are Republicans I know and admire in this state.   As time goes on, however, it is clear that the Republican party that I knew as essential part in shoring up our constitutional democracy has gone missing, being replaced by so-called MAGA Republicans who are not true Republicans.   MAGA Republicans, like the Tea Party within the Republican Party, are movements that have co-opted the Republican Party as a means to end constitutional democracy and the Republic as we know it.    

Rachel Maddow, host of the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, made a poignant observation in one of her shows.  She said that the only institution that can stop the MAGA movement is the Republican Party, itself.  I think she is right.  According to recent polling, that seems unlikely since most MAGA Republicans appear entrenched in their commitment to the leader of their movement.  Nevertheless time will tell if Donald Trump will sweep the Republican Primary or someone else will emerge as the Republican Party's nominee.  For the moment, at least, the Grand Old Party of Lincoln has disappeared under the shadow of the MAGA movement.

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I don't want to end on that note.  I have hope that the Republican Party will emerge from the shadows to be a loyal and worthy opponent, a party sharing the same coin with the Democrats believing in and committed to the U.S. Constitution and the preservation of our Republic. 

Age has a way of making one more reflective and thoughtful.  For example, I was never a fan of Antonin Scalia, a Republican appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan.  When his name was brought up regarding a Supreme Court case or a decision I'd get a sinking feeling in gut.  Of course, I never bothered to read the opinions he authored regarding a Supreme Court decision until Obergefell V. Hodges in 2015 in which he wrote the dissenting opinion on same sex marriage and the majority opinion in the The District of Columbian V. Heller regarding a Second Amendment case and the right to own a handgun in the District.

To be honest, I didn't agree with either of his positions regarding these two cases, but after reading his positions, I came away an admirer of his writing skill, his being a wordsmith, and his wit.  In the case of Justice Scalia, wit is more than cleverness (although he was clever in humorous way that spoke of his underlying wisdom) it displayed his conviction about, and his commitment to the Constitution.  

I can well understand the friendship between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.  I always was a fan of RBG and I became an admirer of Antonin Scalia due to his wit and wisdom.  In fact, I recently purchased a quasi-autobiographical book complied by his son Christopher Scalia and a former law clerk, Edward Whelan, called "Scalia Speaks" which is a collection of his speeches and other writings.  While I know I won't agree with everything he wrote (I'm about half-way through the book), I will continue to enjoy reading him, and I would advise anyone to pick up a copy and get to know this wise man better.  

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What has always made the United States of America great is its ability to live with diversity and differing opinions to which I must add, as long as the Constitution remains the guiding star of our Republic.  That the  Constitution is being challenged is due to it being treated as irrelevant by those who are already in power and those who wish to rule with impunity.  I believe it is essential that we return to a two-party system that is dedicated to the Constitution's preservation as opposed to its manipulation.  

Antonin Scalia may yet convince me of the value in being a Constitutional originalist.  

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

  

THE OBSOLESCENCE OF WAR - An Existential Mandate

As a few of you will have noticed, I already had posted something on this topic about at the beginning of this month. After having read it over a few times, I came to the conclusion that it did not adequately convey what I was trying to say.  In fact, I want to start over without reference to the current conflicts that are taking place all over the world.   I don't want to spend time talking about why we have wars or offer some vague sense of how we can avoid them, apart from understanding them in terms of being an existential crisis and the epitome of  humanity's moral failure on a global scale.  How something that is so irrational, so inhumane, and so evil became considered a right and a moral mandate owed to the people of a nation or tribe that justifies wreaking havoc and death on a perceived perpetrator because they perceived a right and a moral mandate that justified them to wreak havoc and death on their enemy is beyond rational comprehension.  

There is no point in tracing the lineage of war.  Every war in every place is connected even if they took place thousands of years and thousand of miles apart from each other are memetic.  The trauma, the anger, the hatred, the fear of another perceived to be different from one's tribe or nation are transferable.  As people spread across the planet they carried with them their memetic trauma of war wherever they went.  It has become so embedded in our collective memory and cultural history that war has been and remains a way of life.  Wars beget wars.   Just as humans are capable of creating climate change that can destroy life on this planet, we are more so the creators of war, which have the capacity to destroy life on the planet in the matter of a few hours or even minute.  If we can stop contributing to climate change, we can stop going to war. 

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As mentioned above, I do not pretend to know how to make war obsolete.  As in my two previous posts I didn't pretend to know how to develop a moneyless economic system or establish world peace through world governance,  I believe these three topics are interrelated; in that, a world economic system and world governance are key to bringing about the obsolescence of war.  Am I talking about establishing some sort of utopian world, in which everyone and everything is on equal footing and everyone will naturally get along?  Not at all.  Utopianism had never accomplished anything except to get us to focus on how dystopian we can become.  To save the world from human greed and envy by providing for a just world in which war is never considered an answer to our differences is going to take a lot of time, a lot of commitment, a lot of hard work, and a great deal of patience amidst the inevitable setbacks in order to engrain forgiveness as the ultimate goal of diplomacy and justice which when established will better defang the terrorism of the one or of the many than to perpetuate retaliation.  

I do not expect to see such an accomplishment in our life-time or the lifetimes of our children or even our children's children.  Rather my purpose in bringing it to the attention of whoever reads these posts of its possibility and potential.  If something is not said, nothing will happen.   The first order of creating a new world is to speak it into existence.  The end of war is possible. Lasting peace is possible.   Saving the planet is possible.  Healing the sickness is possible.  Eliminating poverty is possible.   All is possible should we collectively and sincerely desire it.   It is both as simple as that and as difficult as that.   To accomplish such an Herculean feat is to accept with equanimity the paradoxes of life.  

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We humans tend to underestimate ourselves; especially, in our capacity to do good without doing harm amidst the chaos of life.   In our diversity lies the untapped source of our vitality.  If we have learned anything over the centuries it is that diversity is an outcome of our creativity; that at the core of our being we are the same.  The differences we experience are largely perceptual than actual.   Take away sight and sound and one cannot perceive difference. The cultural differences we see and hear should be celebrated and embraced.  We should learn from each other to see the immense richness in the human resource that every human possesses. 

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Making war obsolete, should be an existential mandate adopted by the people of every nation on this planet. We can never be truly free until we are free of the self-made horrors of war.  By war I do not only mean the global conflicts between nations or internecine war within nations but also the wars waged by individuals against other individuals.  Violence and cruelty by humans against humans can never be adequately quelled by condemning a perpetrator to the same.  

I realize that saying this appears irrational.  Having worked my entire adult life within state run mental health institutions, I have personally witnessed extreme violent and cruel behavior.  In fact having worked in such state run facilities, it dawned on me that I was working in a microcosm of all the dysfunction found outside of such institution's walls.  

The world as we experience it is easily recognizable as one large mad house where human unpredictability reigns supreme.  To make wars obsolete is not about making humans more predictable, but honing the ability to see the person in the problem.  I know what it is to be alone in a room with someone so unpredictable, whose impulsive behavior could lead to be personally attacked and viciously harmed; especially, in role as a human rights specialist, an advocate for individuals who felt in some way or other mistreated or misunderstood.  

The most important aspect of my job was to find the person in the patient and understand, to the best of my ability, what it was the patient was saying regardless of the inappropriate and often violent behaviors the patient was engaging in.  Once the person in the patient understood that I was trying to understand the person, the dynamics of the situation changed from dealing with a highly unpredictable patient to having a personal conversation with another human being.  This was nothing more than the art of diplomacy on a personal level.  

Having worked in such a microcosm of human behaviors, both the surprisingly good and the horrifically bad, I found hope in the human potential.   Wars of any sort can be and should be understood as both a global and civil illness.  We humans have a heightened sense of self-preservation that can act preemptively before understanding a situation.  That we have become comfortable with viewing war as inevitable as death itself should prompt us to change our perspective of it.  While medical science is constantly searching for better means to cure and treat disease, politicians are constantly seeking ways to make better weapons of war as a means to deter war.  To prepare for war is to ensure its inevitable occurrence. 

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Religion has done little to discourage the idea that war is an inevitability.  Even Jesus talked about wars and rumors of wars as if war was an inevitable facet of human existence.  In fact, every religion use the language of war; as in, fighting the forces of evil in the world, even when it comes to being good as in Paul's exhorting early Christians to "fight the good fight."  The language of war is so embedded in Christian hymnody, for example, that everything good is a matter of having had to fight for it.     

The simple fact of the matter is that we humans have created war.  And if we have created war, it is within our capacity to put an end to it without having to destroy our world in the process. 

In a world where we see the terrible effects of war over the internet and news media, we should not allow ourselves to be mere observers of someone else's suffering as if we are immune from what we see and hear.  And see it we must for war will inevitably come to us, wherever we are.  We must consider the pain, the taste of destruction, the smell of death, the toll of fear, and to lose sleep over those who have lost the warmth of their beds and feel the pain of hunger with those who scrounge for food to eat and feed their loved ones.

We must learn to see our face in the face of the homeless, the hungry, and the fearful.  Unless we see the person in the victim of war and human violence we will not address and treat the cause.   If human life and life on this planet is to be preserved, then the obsolescence of war must be an existential mandate embraced by all humans.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

  

 

        

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

In sci-fi movies and television shows, the earth and other planets with intelligent life-forms are either part of  a federation of planets or galactic empires.   If Earth is included in such fantasies, there is the question of how we humans became unified enough to form a global governing entity that eons from now could belong to a federation of planets.  The hinted or suggested answer is that it took some natural or man-made disaster to get the remnant of humans who survived to realize that we needed each other (what I have referred to in earlier posts as the Impulse of Religion) to create a form of governance that permitted us to speak as one planet within a federation of planets.  The other suggestion is that as a planet we were faced with a hostile extraterrestrial threat from another planet in a different solar system or galaxy.

What I find interesting in such sci-fi fantasies is the accepted insight that global governance is hypothetically possible but largely made so because the nations of the world finally woke up to the fact that failure to get along with each other as independent nations would lead to the annihilation of human life on this planet.  This awareness, however, is not something that writers of science fiction came up with.  The idea of nations coming together to establish some form of global governance has been around since the early20th century as response to the devastation to civilian life caused by wars.   The League of Nations, the Geneva Conventions, and the establishment of the United Nations were all a response to the increasing threat of global annihilation caused by war.  Today we face an immanent threat to our mutual wellbeing, climate change.  

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While climate change is not new to our planet, its cause being linked to human activity is and that cause is not merely linked to spewing carbon from fossil fuels and the mass production of methane gas and other chemical being released into the atmosphere which are all factors, but what gives rise to these factors is the drive to accumulate wealth; in short, money.  In my last post, I suggested a new form of economy, Survivalism; named so because the survival of life as we know it on our planet should be and must be given the highest priority of every nation. Unfortunately it is not and that it is not largely due to the conflict it runs into with monetary economics which, as I have mentioned in my last post, has weakened the will of nations and corporations to effectively do something about climate change.  The pursuit of monetary wealth is a will-killer.

Survivalism as an economic system requires governance.  As the world needs to switch its focus from economic wealth to planetary health as the goal of a global economy, there is also a need for global governance.  This begs an important question, "If we can't get along now, how can one ever expect to get along enough to switch both economic and political gears to act as a unified people who sole purpose is the preservation of life on this planet?"  

The movie and television industries have done their share of producing movies and documentaries presenting us with a doomsday scenarios of what will happened if we don't immediately start addressing the host of problems that exist because of climate change; such as, mass migrations, food shortages, and the specter of world war.  It is only after such situations decimate most of the earth and its human, other animal, and plant populations will a remnant of those who survive start to rebuild a new and hopefully much different world.  

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The Book of Genesis and other ancient religious writings talk about natural cataclysms that reduced the population of the world to a mere handful of people.  The book of Genesis also tells us how an attempt to global governance fell apart as people tried to build an empire that would reach heaven and the very throne of God.  Of course, such stories are myths, but they reflect an intuition about the result of human hubris that ultimately leads to global chaos. I would venture to say that such mythic stories are based on long forgotten historical facts that only survive in their mythic retelling.   

Anthropologists are consistently finding remains of civilizations that predate what was thought to be the earliest remnant of the beginning of civilizations as we know it.  We also know from anthropology that there may have been a period of time when our species faced extinction in the distant past, some 120,000 years ago, when it was estimated that there were approximately only 1,300 humans who lived after a world wide population of hundreds of thousands suddenly disappeared.  Anthropologists do not know what might have caused such a drastic decrease; climate change, food depletion, or a pandemic.  We don't know how such an experience might have led to the mass migration of survivors and their offspring to venture into new areas in search of a more life sustaining environment.

The fact that we do not know anything about them, how they created monolithic structures such as Gobeklitepe in Turkey and elsewhere throughout the world long before we thought humans were capable of making such structures, should give us pause to consider what conditions led to their being lost to human memory.  Why did their stories fade away, only to emerge in the ruins they left behind?   As much as we feel too advanced to succumb to a like fate, the reality is it could happen to the world as we know it today by any number of natural or manmade disasters.   

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Mutual self-destruction is a topic I addressed in a series of posts entitled, "Mutual Self-Destruction and the Pursuit of Peace" back in 2017.  In those posts, I addressed the obsolescence of war and the embarrassing lack of motivation to address the human causes of climate change; especially, amongst industrialized nations like the United States, China, and India.  There are some nations trying to make a concerted effort to mitigate the human causes of global warming and climate change, the nations who are making such efforts are for the most part small nations; such as, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, etc.  

One factor that these nations share is that they are not as obsessed with preparing for international conflict as they are for preserving the planet.  On the other hand, the economic/industrial nations like the United States,  China, and India continue to show blatant disregard to the survival of the planet we all live on as their attention is focused on economic and military security.  Economic and military security are real concerns as the war in the Ukraine and elsewhere in the world demonstrate.  I am not trying to downplay the importance of economic and military security, but they are largely treated as national concerns that distract attention from the one overriding global concern that every nation large or small should be focused on at the moment and that is planetary survival.  

To be humbly honest, the one species our planet could live without, is probably our own, as we have largely contributed global warming which has accelerated climate change and is threatening life on this planet.  The good news in all of this is that we can do something about it if we collectively put our minds together to do so and to do so quickly.  The bad news is that amongst the largest nations, which are also the largest contributors to global warming, there is not much of an effort to do something about it due to being caught up in their endeavors for world prominence, if not dominance.  All of which makes the case for the need for some form of global governance that overrides the interests of any nation who steps out of line in preserving our shared planet home.  

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That economic sanctions are the most often used international response to a country that is stepping out of line by being an aggressor of some type, points to monetary economics as a contributing factor to such a nation's aggressive behavior.  That is why I began this series of posts on planetary survival talking about the need for a moneyless global economy, but how is that accomplished?  I made some vague suggestions in my last post because offering vague, broad ideas is about all I am personally capable of suggesting.  It will take well-versed and competent economists to tackle the enormous task of converting the global economy to a moneyless one and convincing the nations of the world of its necessity.  

The world, as we know it, is largely a world of our making.  Nations need to come together to decide what are the basic necessities and the unnecessary blockades to preserving life on this planet.  The world needs the equivalent of Global Constitution that defines global governance in the preservation of life on Earth.  To that end, the first order of business would be to abolish the necessity of war and the means to wage war, which I can honestly see leading to world war due to the immense distrust that exists among nations.  Such a massive goal at disarmament would require the utmost diplomatic effort and offerings of goodwill to those most reluctant. Political diplomacy will be vital to establishment of a new type of leadership that is both powerful enough to ensure action and humble enough to avoid demagoguery and capitulation to populist democracy that could easily engage in global denialism.  This is not to say that democracy is to be abandoned, but rather that democracy as a governing tool, in this case, must be designed to refine and fine tune governmental processes in attaining the well-being of our planet home and its recovery from the human effects that contributed to global warming and climate change. 

The second order of business is world-wide conversion from the use of fossil and carbon based fuels to clean energy sources.  As such, it will likely require that all life-giving endeavors will fall directly under global governance.  Free-enterprise, which is so valued in the industrial nations today, must give way to government control for the sake of planetary preservation.  With survivalism as an established economic reality and the foundation of global governance, credit (income) leveraging, if carefully monitored and policed  should ensure no one should become credit-rich nor credit-poor since credit is given for the life and livelihood of all life on our planet home.

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Today's world seems lightyears away from even considering the notion of global governance.  The world, as a whole, is too polarized as nationalism is on the rise and nations are polarized within themselves to think beyond their borders, much less open them and their collective minds to need of breaking down the barriers of borders and evolving from the tribalism inherent in nationalism to seeing the value of embracing a one world government.  The notion of a one-world government is too heretical a notion to be given any possible consideration, given the immediate concerns of the most powerful nations to be the most militarily and economically powerful nations in the world.  

As unlikely that all the nations of the world would consider coming together under a binding global constitution, there has been recent examples of a willingness to do so in the creation of the European Union which can be understood as a preliminary if not a tentative step  towards global governance.  The greatest fear associated global governance on a national scale is the loss of power and the money that fuels power and influence.  This is why there must be a fundamental shift away from the value of monetary wealth in the long run.  

In the short run, however, it is important that the monetary wealth of nation is focused on eliminating the human causes of climate change.  The Paris Accords was a vital first step, but there needs to be much more done.  The world is literally on fire in many places, which is only fueling climate change even faster.  The chances of reversing a world-wide cataclysmic event that will cause food and water shortages, mass migrations, and open warfare is passing us by.  Should such disaster continue to occur on a global scale, the chances of any national government surviving will be unlikely, as human populations will be drastically reduced and the likelihood of human extinction becomes a probability.

The leaders of the world must face the gloom and doom of such a real-life scenario in order to put aside their national self-interests and embrace the goal of human and planetary survival.

Until next time,  stay faithful.

Norm

SURVIVALISM - THE NEED FOR A NEW ECONOMIC MODEL

In this post, I am venturing into a topic that is rooted in religion; the effects of monetary economics on the wellbeing of our planet and the preservation of all life forms that depend on it   Let me begin with a disclaimer.  I am not economist by any stretch of the imagination.  At best, I am idealist when it comes to discussing economy and at worst someone who absolutely has no clue about the working intricacies of modern economics.  That being said, I have nothing to lose by expressing my thoughts on the need for exploring a new economical model for a world in crisis due to climate change, migration, and the disparity in wealth that is creating a global concern regarding the survival of life on our planet home.

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"Money - Can't live with it, can't live without it" or so the saying goes.  

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What is money?  Money has no intrinsic value in itself other than the symbolic value assigned to it.  In biblical terms it was referred to as mammon, which basically means the same thing.  Money is simply a means to measure the value assigned to something which today is usually the a result of supply and demand.  The idea that money isn't worth the paper it is printed on is literally true of all of the world's currency because paper money or coinage is nothing more than a symbolic representation of the value placed on goods and services.  In fact, money as a physical artifact of value is becoming increasingly rare, as the transfer of one's monetary wealth throughout most of the industrial world no longer requires the actual physical transfer of currency.

Money is an interesting human invention.  It serves a purpose that most take for granted and without giving much consideration to what it actually is.  On some level it is treated as being similar to the air we breath.  Just as we can't live without the corrosive effects of oxygen which eventually takes a toll on our physical well-being,  we seemingly can't live without the corrosive effects of money has on our sense of security and wellbeing.   Whereas oxygen is a necessity of our survival, one has to question if there is something other than money by which to base one's sense of security and wellbeing on.

As I have been writing about the need for Christianity to have a Copernican type of revolution; that is, a non-violent reorientation to what is central to a christian's understanding of Jesus and God, so too is a non-violent reorientation to the economic value of life on our planet is needed as the world's monetary-based  economics seems to be the largest obstacle in solving a host of problems facing our world today.  The unspoken anxiety associated  with solving so many of the dangers facing human existence is expressed by the question, "How much will it cost?"  Denial is a potent placebo to mitigating the anxiety this question causes. 

 * * *

The summer of 2023 has been the warmest on record in the United States.  This should not surprise us as scientist have been warning us for some time that there is a need to do something about the human causes contributing to the rise in global temperature due to carbon emissions.  The most alarming fact about the rise in temperatures this summer is that scientists were surprised by the rapid increase in temperature.   

Highly industrialized economies appear reluctant to switch gears swiftly.  I can only presume that reluctance to be based on the fear of losing investors and the cost of investments related to transitioning to alternative sources of energy in order to preserve earth's hospitable environment for a host of life forms on this planet, including our own.  Capitalism has been an effective means to creating general wealth since the 18th century.  It did much to create a burgeoning middle class in the 19th and 20 centuries.   

Industrialized nations have all come around to realizing its effectiveness, including communist nations, like China.  Nevertheless, by the late 20th century, the middle class was declining and in countries;  such as,  the United States are seeing increasing  disparity in wealth and income, with the vast majority of personal wealth in the possession of the top one percent of the population.  Unfettered capitalism is not self correcting, unless by correction one is referring to revolution which is likely to occur if governments do not step in to alleviate the disparity in personal wealth that now exists in industrialized democracies.  

Industrial democracies are struggling to find the will to move quickly in order to avert a global disaster that has the potential of being as devastating as a nuclear war and which may, in the short run, lead to such a war as large swaths of the human population are running short of necessities caused by nonsensical internecine warfare between countries which divert time and energy from addressing the urgent need for all nations to come together in order to put the necessary resources toward averting a cataclysmic global climate crisis that is literally on the verge of spinning out of control.

In the short term, industrialized democracies must work with the economic systems they have, which broadly speaking is capitalism.  Lawmakers throughout the world must take the lead and enact measures to mandate immediate conversion to carbon free technologies and the production of products that eliminate or greatly reduce the human imprint on global warming with a sense of desperation and with the determination of avoiding a global cataclysm that a worldwide nuclear war would cause.   In the meantime, thought must be given on avoiding the likelihood of backtracking on such endeavors once the short range goal of averting a climate catastrophe is accomplished.  

* * *

The enticement of unfettered access to money and a return to unfettered capitalism is likely unless there is a shift away from capitalism and monetary wealth as we know it.  This would be an unprecedented undertaking that perhaps would realistically occur only should a global catastrophe occur, the magnitude of which would result in placing the human species at risk of extinction.  Only then might Homo Sapiens be in a position of rebuilding a stable social environment as the human population begins to grow.  It would take generations to get to such a point.  

NOW is the time, if not past the time, to make drastic changes that would decreases our dependence not only on fossil fuels but also on unfettered on consumerism; that is inherent in the selfishness of libertarianism and the tribalism of nationalism. 

It is past time that internecine and global warfare is taken off the table as a solution to anything.  The human and technical resources pumped into increasing sophisticated weaponry should be dedicated to mitigating the human causes of climate change and the development of technologies that eliminates the need for carbon based energy.  We know that such technologies are available, but the timeline for their proliferation throughout the world is stymied by capitalistic concerns related to free enterprise and the creation of a new sources of monetary wealth.  

I am the first to admit all of this strikes me as an impossibility, given the the political climate of democratic governments being subject to ill-informed populism, the world's economic dependence on capitalism and its dependence on consumerism, and the isolationism of nationalism all of which permits people to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the darkening realities our world is facing as they double down on denialism and work towards entrenching systemic failure in almost every civil institution.

* * *

The preservation of our planet must be the ultimate measure of economic success; that is,  the preservation of every form of animal and plant life must be monitored to gauge the effects of human consumption in all the domains pertinent to life on this planet.  All nations must come to the table to battle climate change.  They must unite their resources in reducing the effects of pollution and carbon emissions in order to preserve the poorest of the poor who for all practical purposes are the canaries in the atmospheric mine we find ourselves living in.  If great value is given to the most vulnerable lives by which to measure economic security, there may be a chance to avoid a natural catastrophe that will destroy the world as we know it.  If there is an economic value to saving human life on this planet, it must measure how well the needs and care of the most vulnerable amongst are met, in order to preserve and enhance their sense of security and wellbeing.  

As long as the illusion of money and the acquisition of the wealth it represents holds sway on the endeavor to preserve our planet, precious time needed to make productive changes will pass us by.  Politics is the biggest block to addressing climate change due to the undue influence of wealth on the political will of politicians to make effective laws and provide the adequate funding needed to change things quickly.  

The negative effects of accumulating monetary wealth on the will of people and nations to make a concerted effort to address climate change requires a new economic model geared to solving the overriding lethal problems the whole world is currently facing.   The supply and demand aspect of classic capitalism is a proven model for measuring economic health in terms of wealth, but where classic capitalism fails is ironically in using supply and demand to create economic wealth rather than facilitate economic health, which as I have attempted to demonstrate is not synonymous.  Instead of creating wealth, economies should be geared to creating health; the health of our planet home and wellbeing and security of all living things, as humanly possible.  Such a new economic model must transcend all monetary systems; that of capitalism, socialism, and communism.  

Take the United States, for example.  Universal health care for every citizen is considered prohibitive because of monetary cost and the loss of profit to those invested in the health care industry.  Conversion from fossil fuels to clean energy is inhibited by the time and cost of investment it would take to transition to new technologies that would create a comparable profit margin currently enjoyed by the fossil fuel industry.    In short, money is a will-killer because, like coal, money is needed to fire the engines of political campaigns that law-makers, especially here in the United States rely on.  The need for monetary support to run campaigns has polluted the atmosphere of effective politics at this most critical time.  This is not just a problem in the United States but is a political problem throughout the world.

* * *

The question becomes, how do we replace the concept of money?  

How do we balance supply and demand based on both human needs and desires, provide incentives to foster creativity, and discourage waste without the use of a monetary system? 

Do we wait until the time comes when money has no pragmatic value because demand outstrips supply to the point where there isn't enough money or money isn't worth the paper it is printed  to purchase the basic necessities of life; the point where everyone is on their own to forage and fend for themselves?  

We have witnessed this is places that have been decimated by war and natural disasters; where the cost of basics like food and water, clothing and shelter are sold and  bought at exorbitant prices; to the point of causing people to go without and succumb to the effects of extreme heat, cold, and starvation.   In such isolated cases,  economically secure nations of the world and their monetary systems have worked together quite well in meeting short-term economic and social concerns of people and countries in need.   

If the pandemic taught us anything, it is how fragile a natural disaster such as it has on economic security and the health of millions of people.   We should consider it a mere foretaste of what lies ahead as the effects of climate change will be experienced in ways too numerous to list here.   More importantly, however, the pandemic also illustrated what happens when there is a concerted effort on the part of nations to find a solution. The one weakness in that endeavor was an unwillingness on the part of some pharmaceuticals to share information globally, which was likely due to both mistrust between nations and the control of any financial benefit such pharmaceuticals were likely to have.

What the world needs is a global economic system that is based on the survival of all; a system that ensures that no living thing on this planet goes without; in particular, that no human being is denied the basic necessities of life, food, clothing, and shelter; that no human being or corporation has unlimited wealth potential whereby to influence the fragile economic equilibrium that is required; that there is a leveraging system that ensures that the essentials of food, clothes, comfortable housing and person security and wellbeing is provided for all; that no nation is capable of enacting wars or enacting policies that endanger the environment because what happens in one part of the world has a direct effect on the whole world.  

World-wide health care for all, education for all, personal security for all;

If the use of monetary currency is retained, it should be time stamped with an expirations date.  "Use it or lose it" should be stamped across the top of currency along with an expiration date.  In such a monetary system, Universal Basic Income must be given to every human being.  Monetary wealth must be closely monitored to ensure that no one person, corporation or nation can monopolize the accumulation of wealth.  Such an undertaking would requires an extraordinary commitment on the part of every nation, every corporation, and every individual, especially the most wealthy in each category who would be subjected to a titrate approach in order to level the amount of monetary wealth they possess to others in said categories.

The landscape and infrastructure of every nation would be drastically changed.  For example,  public transportation might be the only transportation allowable, but would be free to all.  That auto industry would be carbon free and limited to commercial use only.   The hoped for result of such a complex system would be that as the overall environment of the earth improves, the overall quality of everyone's life improves. 

* * *

But is continuing a monetary economic system the only choice we have?  

If money is a will-killer, what will awaken people to the fact that the value of life should not, at any level, be subjected to a monetary value?

If  monetary wealth is a man-made illusion and poverty is a man-made reality,  how do we reconcile such a conundrum?   

Free credit as an acknowledgment of someone participating in the production of something; in this case, the preservation of the planet is a consideration.  Universal Basic Income (UBI); as in, Universal Basic Credit (UBC), which UBI ultimately is can slowly lead us towards monetary independence and a transition to a world-wide monetary-free economy based on preserving our planet home.  The value of monetary currency can be transitioned to a one-time set credit rate of exchange which will be purposely low in order create credit leveraging - balancing the disparity between monetary wealth and monetary poverty while preserving and creating incentives for creativity and productivity.   

The significance of UBC as a credit system is that it does not require monetary payback.  It bestows value as credit or paying forward without requiring paying anything back monetarily. The payback is in the mutual creation of healthy planetary environment and a healthy economic outlook for all.  Each individual has value in their being which entitles them to UBC on whatever basis (let's say) the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund determines as equitable world-wide.  [Yes - the UN and the IMF are the systems currently in place that should play a role in this transition.]

SURVIVALISM concerns all of us.  

The notion of finding a less polluted, less exploited planet such as Mars or the Moon will only retain the current economic imbalance.  It will result in an Orwellian or a Huxleyan mindset described in their literary works  in which the value of human life and life on the planet will be subject the type of Social Darwinism of the 1920's and 30's in which only a select few will be deemed worthy to start a new world on another planet.  Realistically speaking, while the science is there, the evident reality is that the time needed is not there to see it come to fruition.  There is no realistic way of transporting the near 8 billion or more people living on this planet to another planet within the next 100 years.  It is unlikely that such an endeavor is even being given any thought at all.   

While I believe space exploration is necessary to find a deeper understanding of who we are and find new discoveries that may help us preserve life on our planet by learning how to survive on less hospitable terrains; such, as the Moon and Mars, we need a system that can quickly and effectively preserve life on this planet by taking seriously the science of climate change and recognizing its relationship to unfettered consumerism fostered by the world-wide monetary system based on capitalism.    

At present, the world is unlikely to transition to a UBC system any time soon.  It is too utopian for consideration at the present time, and I am not idealistic enough to believe that it would be given any consideration the economic climate of today.  The world needs a much quicker fix to the climate change catastrophe that every nation in the world is dealing with.  

It is imperative that the nations of the world and their monetary systems must pool their monetary resources to engage on an endeavor for survival by dealing with of climate change, migration, poverty and the wellbeing of our planet home.  Should they do so and should they succeed, only then could and should consideration be given to creating an economic system that avoids the exploitation of life and the planet with the establishment of world-wide economy based on continued planetary survival.

* * *

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

MYTH, TRUTH, AND THE CHRISTIAN MINDSET

 

This last post in this series on "The Mythic Jesus" brings us back to what I started to write about a year ago this past August; the need for a Copernican Revolution within Christianity.  At the center of this revolution is the question that haunted Jesus throughout his ministry, "Who am I?" or to put it in the question Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?  Who do you say that I am?"  

An attempt to answer those questions was given some 300 years after Jesus' time on this earth, in 325 CE in the second article of the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.  Through him all things were made.  For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven:  by the power of the Holy Spirit  he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,  and was made man.  For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.  On the third day he rose again  in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end."

This particular article of the Nicene Creed has defined what it means to be a Christian for the past seventeen hundred years.  It is the creed of the Imperial Church of the Roman Empire and it has remained the litmus test for identifying a true Christian believer ever since Christianity was proclaimed the one and only religion of the Roman Empire in 381 CE.  

A lot has happened since that time.  

The world is not the same place it was in the fourth century, but Christianity, for the most part, has not changed.   The Church has had its schisms and reformations throughout its history, but there has been no fundamental change to its doctrinal position about Jesus.  The Imperial Church which continues through the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the original Protestant denominations, and the increasing number of smaller independent denomination and individual churches that have branched off of them have not made any significant changes to the doctrinal position of the Nicene Creed, even though many of the later Protestant denominations and independent churches rarely use the Creed in their services.  Jesus remains the only-begotten Son God, the Christ or Messiah who will come again to judge both the living and the dead.  As such while many Christians claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus, Jesus remains remotely distant in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father.

What has been lost or, better yet, who has been lost these past seventeen hundred years is Jesus, a first century Jew living in Galilee.  The mythic Jesus of the Gospel of John, for example, stands in stark contrast to the historic Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospel, who is depicted as a devout Jew who possessed a unique understanding of Judaism; a compassionate human who, as a Jew, was amazed at the faith demonstrated in people who were not Jews.   Jesus' understanding  and vision of justice and righteousness was eons ahead of his time and, to be honest,  remains ahead our time.  Yet, it is belief in the mythic Jesus that has become the basis for Christian faith rather than the teachings of the historic Jesus, which literally receive lip service in all Christian denominations, but play second fiddle to the teaching about Jesus.

The difficulty with the myths about Jesus is that the truth they promote in the minds of most Christians is Jesus being the only begotten Son of God; that Jesus is God.  And the problem with that premise is that it diminishes the idea that Jesus is one of us, a pure human prone to both brilliance and error. To follow Jesus is to follow his radical teachings and seek the direct relationship he had with God.  

 Myths are contrived stories to convey spiritual or transcendental meanings or truths that cannot be proven in any demonstrable fashion.  As such, myths are not bound to a particular truth.  Myths can generate other ideas and other truths.  The doctrines which have defined these myths, have set particular meanings in stone, as it were.  

For example, Christians belief in the concept of Absolute Truth is rooted in the doctrinal insistence that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God; that what it says is to be believed literally as fact which of course has been proven by scientific, historical, and anthropological data not to be the case.  Metaphor and myth abound throughout the Holy Bible.  Christianity 's most sacred doctrines and rites are based on these myths.

* * *

There is a growing amount of evidence that Christianity is a hybrid religion that is not only emerged from Judaism, but also emerged from the mythic mindset of of the polytheistic religions of ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia, and Rome.  Christianity survived and thrived in the early Roman Empire due to the likelihood of its ability to co-opt and adapt the beliefs and practices of other religions and reframing them within a Christian context, thus making Christianity appealing to a broad spectrum of individuals living in the cosmopolitan world of the Roman Empire.

Whereas the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels depict an inclusive message of Jesus' teachings, the Gospel of John and the Epistles speak of Christianity in exclusive terms regarding who is saved and who isn't  While Christ died for all stands as the first credal premise of early Christianity, it is only those who believe that or, more to the point in some New Testament scriptures, only those chosen by God to be followers of Christ who will be saved:  "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" - John 1:12.   'He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God "- John 3:18. 

The club mentality of Christianity can be readily traced in letters of Paul: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Roman 8:-29-30.     "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."  1Corinthians 12:27.  

For orthodox Christians, those who affirm the Nicene Creed, these verses are not bothersome and most gloss over the the fact of how exclusive they sound to someone outside of their religious circle.  There is something comforting about seeing oneself as part of Christ's inner circle, as well as, recognizing that those outside of this circle, well... might be lost causes because they were not predestined to be saved or were not called to be justified.  One might think, "What is the point of trying to waste one's time on those who are condemned already?"   

What one needs to understand is that such thinking is not evident in the teachings of Jesus.  This is why the Synoptic Gospels, regardless of the attempts to edit them to conform to the teachings about Jesus found in the Gospel of John and the Epistles of Paul and to make them useful to the power structure of the Imperial Church of the Roman Empire, fortunately, contain what is likely the original teaching of Jesus.

* * *

The dynamics of any religion is the ability to bind people together through ideological beliefs.  It would appear that Jesus, himself, did not set out to form a new religion with him as its leaders. Jesus appears within the Synoptic Gospels (if one sets asides their mythic stories about him) to be in line with the prophets of the Old Testament.  What is unique about Jesus in these Gospels is his reinterpretation or highlighting teachings found in the Old Testament.  His messianic message was not about conquest but rather about realization and revelation of the Kingdom of God that already exists if only people would recognize it in their midst.  

The mythic stories about Jesus are not irrelevant nor should they be set aside.  While we have been indoctrinated to see their intent as proving Jesus is the Son of God; that is, God in the flesh,  they also allow us to examine our own experiences in their light.  As I have mentioned in many posts and in the homilies I have posted in this blog, "What is true for Jesus is true for us and what is true about us is true about Jesus."  Jesus as a human being like us is more important to understanding his teachings and purpose than making him the only begotten Son of God.  

For example, the stories of the birth and resurrection of Jesus are myths simply because they cannot be proven to be factual, but both the birth myth and the resurrection myth have meanings and applications that go beyond the attempt to establish Jesus as the second person of the Trinity.  Every person is an incarnation of God.  Resurrections occur when one is willing to gracefully let go of something that is dear to one's heart especially when letting go is the right thing for oneself and others.  Resurrections occur throughout out lives.  Walking on water is a metaphor for the ability to rise above the chaos of life to bring calm and reassurance to those who are on the verge of being swamped and falling overboard amidst the storms of life.  People are spiritually fed with the little we possess, sharing kindness, like sharing food can give sustenance to others in ways we do not often comprehend. 

* * *

It is vitally important to the survival of the Christian Church that the various denominations take a deeper look at their doctrines regarding the Holy Bible and who Jesus is.  They must re-examine its salvation theology that insists that Jesus specifically came down to earth to become a sacrifice for the sins of the world.  Such a theology and doctrinal stance is contrary to every humanitarian impulse we humans possess. God's biblical mode of operation in human affairs is not to send his Son down as some sort of Greek god, but rather to raise one of us up to be our exemplar, like Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.  Jesus' teachings need to be studied more deeply.  Our scriptures must be critically re-examined.  The notions of inerrancy and infallibility must be discarded as guard rails against heresy and inquiry into the relevance of scripture in the times that we live. 

Truth in religion cannot be concretized against the constant evolving knowledge about the world and universe we live in.  The teachings of Jesus are vital to creating a safe, more caring world.  They are desperately needed to change the course of human affairs which are increasingly detrimental to the earth's environment and the welfare of the vast and various life forms on this planet, which all eight billion people living on this planet are dependent on.  

The Christian mindset is perhaps best suggested in one of Paul's letters which I am paraphrasing to reflect t 21st century understanding:   "Let each of you look to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus who being made in the image of God, did not regard God as something that can be exploited and used to harm others, but emptied himself  to make room for others that all might be abundantly filled and drawn to follow his example.

* * *

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

   

 

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN - MYTHOS AND MEANING

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

I have considered many ways to describe the Gospel of John.  Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John is not a linear telling of Jesus' life and ministry, though its authors borrow some stories from those Gospels upon which to build a narrative where Jesus is understood as the only-begotten Son of God through whom all things came into being.  

Without a doubt the Gospel of John is the most influential New Testament Gospel, if not the most influential book in shaping Christianity's understanding of who Jesus is.  Ingeniously, on the part of its authors, it is is largely written in Jesus' voice in which most of what Jesus says in this Gospel is not found in the Synoptic Gospels and is not something Jesus would have likely said nor, for that matter, would any reasonable person say about himself.  Had Jesus talked the way he talks in this Gospel, he would have likely been stoned to death long before he was crucified.  In psychoanalytical terms, Jesus comes across as a narcissist in this Gospel.   

In short, Jesus in the Gospel of John is not the Jesus portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels.  As such, it can be considered a work of theology (Christology to be exact) about Jesus.  Beyond that, the Gospel of John casts Christianity as a mystery religion, in which a catechumen or an initiate, for instance, is taken on spiritual journey into communion with God through Jesus Christ.  As such, there are some who consider the Gospel of John to be a Gnostic gospel that has been refurbished to suit an orthodox perspective of Jesus in the Church sanctioned by the Roman Empire of the late 4th century, CE.  

But what is it, literarily speaking?  Is the Gospel of John one big parable about Jesus?  Is it some sort of early catechism in which Jesus through various "I am" statements explains various aspects of his divine nature as God's only-begotten?   For the purpose of this post, I am presenting the entire Gospel of John as myth into what Christian liturgy calls the Mystery of Faith.  To get a good sense of this Gospel being a myth, I suggest the reader take time to read the entire Gospel of John in one sitting. 

MYTHOS

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 

John 14:6

Perhaps John 14:6 best describes what the Gospel of John is ultimately about; getting to know God by getting to know Jesus as portrayed by this Gospel.  Getting to know Jesus, however, requires a spiritual journey that begins with Jesus being described as the Word: 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...   And the Word was made flesh (human) and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

In short, Jesus is the Word; therefore, Jesus is God in human form.  It is a reversal or a remake of Genesis 1 which says:

 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth... And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: ...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  

In John 1, it is God, the creative Word who incarnates (makes God's self in the image of a physical human) into Jesus. 

* * *

I am not going to pursue every mythic aspect of the Gospel of John in this post.   I have already written as series of eighteen posts beginning April 4, 2016 that is basically my commentary on the Gospel of John which the reader can access by going to the archive of my posts on the right side of this page and clicking into the 2016 file. I have also written other posts regarding John that served as homilies which I delivered at the Episcopal church I am a member of.  These are peppered throughout my blog.  What I will offer here is my thoughts on why I consider the Gospel of John to be a myth.  

In my opinion, what makes the Gospel of John a myth is not only what it says about Jesus, but also what it doesn't say when compared to the Synoptic Gospels.   For instance, while John the Baptizer is prominently mentioned in the first chapter of this Gospel, John does not baptize Jesus but proclaims Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  As there is no baptism of Jesus, there is no story of Jesus being sent into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  Jesus knows who he is.  He is God in the flesh as God's only-begotten Son.  If there is any doubt about that, Jesus will tell the reader in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  Yes, that is Jesus talking about himself.  

The journey into knowing God through the incarnate Son of God begins with being called as one of Jesus' disciples as depicted in the story of Jesus calling Andrew, Peter, Phillip, and Nathaniel.  The next part of the journey involves turning water into wine, as told in the story of Wedding at Cana.  This is a metaphorical story which outlines the journey to God in Christ from the rite of baptism into the death of Jesus, as represented by the jars of water used in the purification of a recently deceased person to its being turned into the wine of Holy Communion.   To experience the new life in Christ Jesus, one must first experience his death.  

This journey begins with Jesus cleansing the Temple of the money changers.  Jesus is brutal. He not only overturn the money-changers tables, but is also beating them out of the Temple' precincts with whips he made out of corded rope.  This is the event where Jesus, when asked for a sign whereby the people knew what authority he is authorized to beat the moneychangers, Jesus famously says, "Destroy this Temple and I will raise it in three days."  

A much overlooked section in chapter 2 where this is recorded is the following odd statement:

"Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person." John 2:23-25 (NIV)   

Here, Jesus demonstrates the omniscience of God which is presented in a somewhat negative manner.  One can only wonder why Jesus would not entrust himself to those who saw the signs he performed and believed on his name.  He claims he did not need any testimony about mankind because he knew what was in each person.  Again, this is not the Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels who could be surprised by people's faith.

This odd statement about Jesus not trusting people who believed in his name is a way of saying people could not choose him. Jesus did the choosing because Jesus knew what was in each person.  If this Gospel was intended as some form of initiation manual into the Mystery of Faith, the initiate was chosen to be an initiate by Christ.  One does not choose to follow Jesus.  One is called to do so.   As such, I consider the Gospel of John as an "in-house" Gospel; that is, it is not intended as the type of "Good News" one would spread around to the uninitiated or those outside the Church.  It is a Gospel written for those "who know" or the initiate who wants to know, which lends credibility to its being a Gnostic Gospel.  

* * *

For the purposes of this post, I want to underscore some obvious mythic elements employed in this Gospel.  To understand this Gospel, one must have an appreciation for numerology, astrology, and Greek mythology which are cryptically woven into its narrative.  

Numerology

As always, numbers mean more than a numeric value.  They are codes that give meaning to what is being talked about.  For example, the numbers 5 and 2 and their multiples are notable in this Gospel.  As mentioned in previous posts, 5 and any multiple of 5 is code for grace.  The story of the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda or at the gate is notable for this gospel's mention of five covered colonnades. John's version of the miracle of Feeding the Five Thousand involves five loaves of bread and two fish.  The combination of the 5 loaves and 2 fish result adds up to the holy number of 7 feeding the remanent of Israel as represented by the 12 baskets of left over bread.  

Astrology

One cannot help but notice that many of the stories found in the Gospel of John are not found anywhere else in New Testament.  John does not contain any of Jesus' parables found in the Synoptic Gospels, but there appear to be parabolic stories about Jesus in John involving other individuals, which I will get to.  The first is Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well.  There is an astrological overtone to this story.  The image of a woman bearing a water jug to the well of Jacob to get water and Jesus offering her living water brings to mind the symbol for Aquarius, frequently symbolized by water being poured out by a woman or a man.   For Jesus living water is the truth of God manifested in himself. The woman is truthful also.  She tells Jesus the truth about her life and Jesus offers her the truth of who he is.  What is interesting about this story is that it involves a Samaritan women, someone who would be below the dignity of Jewish man to converse with.  It is Jesus who asks her for a drink (an invitation to converse) and ends up quenching her thirst for life.  Astrology is also present in the Feeding of the Five Thousand as Jesus is presented with two fish by a young boy.  The two fish is a Piscean symbol that in Christian astrology represents the age of faith and, as noted in my post on the  Feeding of the Four and Five Thousand the Greek word for fish is ICTHYS which serves as an anagram for Jesus Christ God's Son (our) Savior.

Greek/Roman Mythology

Speaking of the young boy, the Feeding of the Five Thousand in the Gospel of John is the only Gospel that mentions this boy.  There is something Eleusinian about the presence of this boy.  In Ovid's Metamorphosis reference is made to a minor Greek diety, Iacchus, who Ovid refers to as the puer aeternus, the eternal boy, who interestingly represents the god of resurrection.  While the young boy is not identified by name, his presence would not have gone unnoticed by people living in an era and culture where his story would have been know.  There is so much packed into this miracle story, that it is the most  obvious mythic story told about Jesus.   

I Am

Jesus makes many "I am" statements throughout John.  One cannot help but see as a direct reference to God, as in God's declaration to Moses near the base of Mount Sinai where God is in the burning bush and where God identifies as, "I am who I am."  In other words, God will be whatever God will be at any given moment.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus identifies as the following:

                                                                I am the Bread of Life.

                                                                I am the Light of the World.

                                                                I am the Gate of the Sheep.

                                                                I am the Good Shepherd.

                                                                I am the Resurrection and the Life.

                                                                I am in my Father.

                                                                I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

                                                                I am the True Vine.

Roughly speaking, Jesus makes nearly one hundred "I am" statements throughout the Gospel of John.  These specific "I am" statement serve as markers along a catechumen's or an initiate's journey into the mystery of faith.   The elemental nature of Holy Communion is outlined in the I Am the Bread of Life and I am the true vine which implies a grape vine or wine.  Along the way Jesus is portrayed as the Light of the World,  the Gatekeeper into Kingdom of God's fold, the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep.   Jesus is the puer aeternus, the "god of resurrection", the eternal child of God.  As such Jesus is the true way to the Father.  

Them/Us

There is a dark side to this particular Gospel.  There are believers and there are unbelievers.  There are Christians (the new chosen people of God) and there are Jews (the once chosen people of God).  John's Gospel is written in response to the growing chasm between traditional Judaism and the Christian movement after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE which became the point where Judaism and Christianity parted ways.  For Jewish Christians, in particular, this was an extremely difficult period of time and there are two stories within John that make the painfulness of this division clear.  

The first is the story alluded to earlier in John 5, the healing of the paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda.  One of the interesting features of the healing stories found in the Gospel of John is person who is healed does not ask to be healed.  In this particular story, Jesus asks the paralytic if he wants to be healed.   The person tells Jesus that he has no one to help him get to the pool when the water is stirred.  Jesus tells the man to pick up his mat and walk, which the man does.  This healing occurs on the Sabbath.  Telling the man to pick up his mat and walk is a violation of the Sabbath rule of not doing work on the Sabbath.  The "Jewish leaders" informed the man that he was breaking the law and asked who healed him, but the man didn't know.  Latter Jesus finds the man by the Temple and tells him who he is and instructs the man not to sin anymore "in case something worse should happen to him."  Summarily, the healed man tells the leaders that it was Jesus who healed him.

While the story does not specifically say that this healed man telling the Jewish leaders who healed him was a sin, the implication is that it was.  One can fill in the reasons based on the practice at the time that when someone was healed the person often went to the Temple to show him/herself to the priests so that they would acknowledge that a person was healed and thus free from whatever sin (their own or a relatives) caused their condition.   That the man went back to tell these leaders that it was Jesus after Jesus warned him not to sin, implies that this is something Jesus didn't want him to do; in part, because the Temple ( as a symbol of Judaism) is not the living Temple that Jesus is; the place where God dwells.  

The second story is found in John 9, the healing of the blind man from birth.   Here we are confronted with the ancient idea that such conditions are the result of sin.  Jesus' disciples ask a rather naive question, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?"  They may not have known he was blind from birth, but we do because the Gospel says so.  Jesus says he was blind from birth for the purpose of Jesus restoring this man's sight.  

On this occasion the blind man knows that it is Jesus who healed him.  Apparently, he doesn't go to the Temple or to the religious leaders of the local synagogue.  People are confused because he looks like the blind man they had known for most of their lives.  The Pharisees set out to investigate and the former blind man tells them Jesus healed him.  They accuse Jesus of not being from God because he doesn't keep the Sabbath, but the now seeing man claims that Jesus is a prophet who indeed healed him.  

The Pharisees then ask his parents if the man is their son.  They admit that he is and that he was blind from birth, but they claim they do not know how it came to be that he can see because they were fearful of the "Jews" because anyone who mentioned Jesus in the synagogue would be thrown out and this is the sad fate of the healed blind man.  He is thrown out.  It is obvious that this story was told to assure that being thrown out of the synagogue, which likely was happening to Jews who were Christian, was a badge of honor because in rejecting a Christian, the leaders of the Synagogue (the Pharisees after the destruction of the Temple) were rejecting Christ and no long considered God's Chosen people. At the end of this story Jesus points out it is the Pharisees who remain in their sin.

Resurrection 

The prequel to the resurrection of Jesus is the story of Jesus raising Lazarus in John 11. It is in this story that Jesus tells Lazarus' sister, Martha, that he is resurrection and the life.   As if to underscore that Lazarus is truly dead, Martha makes the point that Lazarus has been dead in his tomb for four day and is likely in a putrefying state of decay before Jesus demands that the stone of his tomb be moved.    

Jesus calls Lazarus to come out of the tomb and Lazarus does.  After word is spread that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the Chief Priest and other leaders plot not only to kill Jesus but were hatching a plot to kill the recently raised Lazarus.  While we know that Jesus ends up being crucified, we don't hear about the fate of Lazarus beyond that point in the story.  

As I have mentioned in another post, plotting to kill Lazarus poses a theological quandary.  According to scripture it is appointed for human beings to die once.  If Lazarus has truly been dead for four days, could he be killed again?  If he wasn't dead after being in the tomb for four days, was he really dead?  There is no point in answering either of these question because, quite simply, the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead is a myth that points out Jesus has the power to raise the dead to life.

What is interesting in the resurrection story of Jesus is that the Greek text says that Jesus had risen from the dead.  The implication is that Jesus himself had done this as opposed to the more common understanding that God raised Jesus from the dead.  Jesus being the divine Son of God since the beginning through whom all things came into being undoubtedly would have the power  to literally rise from the dead by himself.  

Entry into Communion with God through Christ

The story of Thomas having doubts about Jesus' resurrection is a deliberate construct by the authors of John by which to end this Gospel.  Of course, we know there is another chapter to this Gospel that focuses on Peter which I discussed in my previous post.  In my opinion, the Gospel of John originally ended with the story of Thomas.  The reason I believe this to be true is because this is the story when Thomas, the doubter, is literally invited into the wounded side of the resurrected being of Jesus and thus into the being of God.  Thomas represents the catechumen or initiate who has moved from initial doubt to belief.  

As I have pointed out in other posts, when Thomas is confronted with the risen Christ and asked to place his hand into Jesus wounded side the Gospel of John doesn't say Thomas actually did so but rather immediately believed once his was asked to do so.  It is at this point the catechumen or initiate is also invited into the body and blood of Christ and thus into communion with God and all that God encompasses.   

MEANING

The meaning of the Gospel of John is defined by its purpose, and the purpose of the Gospel of John is basically threefold.  First, it establishes that Jesus is God incarnate, the very Word of God through whom all things came into being.  Secondly, its purpose is to be an in-house Gospel designed to differentiate Christianity from Judaism.  Thirdly, it is designed to carry the reader from rebirth, born of water and the spirit to union with God through the body and blood of the risen Christ in the rite of Holy Communion.

Having said that, I have to confess that the Gospel of John is not my favorite Gospel.  In fact, I think the New Testament would have been better understood without it.  Jesus is too aloof in the Gospel of John to be relatable as a fellow human being. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is God disguised as a human, who knows all things and although he weeps and suffers crucifixion, there is something pre-ordained and scripted as it were rather than a truly human person having spontaneous responses to human experiences with the unexpected which is evident in the Synoptic Gospel but which is often neglected due to the dogmatic rigidity of the Gospel of John which has largely influenced Christian understanding of Jesus.  

One of the unfortunate results of this Gospel is its anti-Judaic stance which was used to comfort and strengthen those Jewish Christians being expelled from their synagogues. Although I do not believe the authors of this Gospel intended it to be, this stance forms a Gospel-based premise for anti-Semitism not found in the Synoptic Gospels. The idea of God disguised in human flesh, which orthodox Christianity denies as a heresy, is obviously suggested to be the case in this Gospel which lends itself to believing that Jesus was not really a Jew. 

Mythically speaking, the Gospel appears to have borrowed its mystical understanding of Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God from Greek and Roman mythology and mimics the exclusive mystery religions of ancient Greece and Rome.  In particular, the Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries come to mind which would have made Christianity particularly attractive to the inhabitants of the Roman Empire and beyond.  It is an example of the Pagan Continuation Hypothesis discussed in Brian Muraresku's book, "The Immortality Key." 

Above all, the Gospel of John presents Christianity as an exclusive religion in which there are the called disciples of Jesus and those who are "condemned already" as noted in Jesus' description of those who do not believe that he is the only-begotten Son of God which Jesus declares himself to be in John 3.  The Gospel of John is the flagship of what I have referred to as the Johannine school of theology, known today as Christology.  The Johanine school of thought is found the Letters of John and the Revelation of John.  This Christological perspective of Jesus promotes the being of Jesus as more than the Jewish idea of the Messiah.  The Greek term for messiah or the anointed one is Christos, Christ in English.  Today, Christ has come to mean more than the anointed one.  Today the Christ has been mythologized into a cosmic term; as in, Jesus is the cosmic Christ through whom all things were made and who, at the end of time, will come to be the judge of the world.   

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm