RECALIBRATING MY BELIEFS

In this post, I examine the personal evolution regarding my beliefs about Christianity.  

When I began this blog ten years ago, I was already questioning my Christian faith.  I call my blog, "The Faithful Agnostic," not so much because I considered myself an ardent agnostic who is ambivalent about whether there is a god and religions relevance, but rather by identifying as an agnostic, I am admitting that I know so little and there is so much to know.  In particular,  I believe no one knows why we are here and if the God Christians claim to know is in any factual sense knowable or real.  

I added the adjective "faithful" to agnostic because, while questioning what I believe and what most Christians believe, I see value in taking another look at this Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth and his teachings as found in the Synoptic Gospels.  I feel that Christianity would benefit by becoming less of what it has been for the past two millennia and more of what it could be if it were recalibrated  in the light what we know of universe we live in today and in  understanding Jesus as purely one of us, child of humankind, a son of man(kind).  

Like many agnostics and atheists, my journey started out trying to serve God and the Church as an ordained  minister.  I made several attempts at becoming a pastor, but none of them took root in the way I hoped for.  On the contrary, I felt called  away from the ordained ministry much like a minister might say he or she was "called" into ordained ministry.  What may differentiate me from ardent agnostics and atheists is that the pursuit to be an ordained minister led me to pursue the study religion, in particular, the religion I have long identify with, Christianity as one who is a layman.  

SO WHERE AM I AT IN THIS RECALIBRATING JOURNEY ?

I find the traditional, dogmatic Christianity of Roman Catholicisim, Orthodoxy, and mainline Protestantism, has lost most of its appeal to me.  They have failed to embrace the radical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth by obscuring them in the mystery of a divinity they have consigned him to.  Ironically, being both a confirmed Lutheran and Episcopalian has confirmed nothing for me with regard to Christianity.  

On the contrary it has led me to question everything about Christianity and religions in general.  What drew me to the Episcopal Church besides its liturgical services and music is that reason is considered an honored path to understanding the spiritual, but reason in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion is constrained within the parameters of Scripture and Tradition, which seems to unreasonable to me.  Start questioning the validity of Scripture as the Word of God or (perhaps worse in the Episcopal Church) the validity of Tradition, one can find oneself on the fringe of membership.

I think it fair to say I have read myself not only out of the church, but also out of  traditional dogmatic Christianity.  This is not to say I don't believe in a creative force that brought all things into being, what many religions identify with the term "God," but  I have come to the conclusion that the term "God" carries a lot of baggage.

What I find alluring in Christianity are the teachings of a first century Jewish man,  Jesus of Nazareth.   I see in his teachings a way forward in today's world in the manner he was trying to find a way forward in world of his time.   What I have a problem with in regard to Jesus are the teachings about him. 

First and foremost, I have a problem seeing him as God.  I don't believe he is and I doubt Jesus ever thought of himself as God.  Secondly, so much of the teachings about Jesus push his relevance in our  lives to a point when our mortal coils have long be shuffled off. As such, there is no immediate relevance in being Christian that helps us live in this life beyond encouraging us to keep ourselves from the wrongdoing and taint of this world so as not to prevent us from the eternal bliss of a new heaven and earth.

GOD

"God" is a catchall term that we humans tend imbue with whatever we want "God" to be or do.  We imbue God with compassion, love, and life-giving, but God is also imbued with angry, revenge, jealousy, and destructiveness.  We treat God as a pincushion on which to pin our needs and desires.  God, as a metaphor for the creative force that brought the universe and ourselves into being, however, is not something we can pin down.  

According to the Holy Bible, God will be what God will be.   God is whatever God is at any given moment or place.  Closer to the mark, is to say that God is a ubiquitous and indecipherable type of intelligence at work in every aspect of the universe   Even the Scriptures admit, "God's ways are not our ways." We  humans are merely minuscule entities that reflect the intelligent ambiguity and ubiquity of  God.

God  is a simile for the Theory of Everything.  God has no need of a plan since God is the plan being carried out since the beginning of time.  God is multi-dimensional.  God is not and cannot be separated or "individuated" from that which God creates.  The constant creativity of God is not only all around us but also is in us and works through us.

I use the term God only as a reference point that most understand, but it is far from being a description of something that is beyond definition.  Whatever God is we and everything that has existed and will exist are intrinsically related to it and to each other and the universe as a whole.

JESUS

I can understand the Christian belief that Jesus is the human face of God, because Christians see in Jesus the God they want, the God of love and compassion; a God who is faithful to us, is forgiving, and carries hope for us.  Jesus exhibited these attributes in his humanity.  To observe and listen to Jesus as one of us  is to see that we, like him, are part of something far greater than we can conceive., 

I have written a great deal about Jesus and his being a Jew living in a troubled time in what is now Israel.   Jesus had a remarkable, insightful mind and an intuitive ability to see purpose in and beyond the mundane and often troubled existence we humans experience.   I believe he was devoted to his Jewish faith, who wanted to recalibrate and share his understanding of that faith through the lens of his unique understanding of God as a father figure.  Jesus brought what it  means for Jews being God's Chosen People down to a personal level in which each Jew is God's chosen child; someone loved by God and in whom God is well-pleased.  Over time, Jesus would be amazed to find that gentiles grasped this understanding of being God's offspring worthy of consideration than his fellow Jews.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus channeled Ezekiel by adopting God's moniker for Ezekiel, Son of man, to himself.   As such he saw himself as an exemplar to his Jewish brethren an inclusiveness that was largely foreign to the world and the times in which he lived.  Jesus loved life and loved people.  

Jesus understood the burden that the concept of sin had on people.  In some cases, being an identified sinner made people physically and mentally sick.  Jesus understood sin because he experienced being sinful in his life.  If he didn't have such experiences he could not have related to the human need for forgiveness as healing.  

Jesus demonstrated a repudiation of the hypocrisy of self-righteousness by befriending the hated tax collector, prostitutes, and those on the fringe of Jewish society.  Jesus touched the leper, welcomed little children, and accepted the gratitude of the thankful.  His main tool for healing those who came to him was to forgive what they couldn't in themselves. 

Jesus demonstrated that if God can forgive, then so must we.  If Jesus taught us anything about saving ourselves from ourselves, it is that we must forgive others as we desire to be forgiven.  We must do unto others as we would like others to do to us.  We must love our fellow human beings as ourselves because we cannot claim to love God when we are not loving what God loves.  

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I do not believe Jesus was sent from heaven to die for our sins.  He did not give us a free pass to do nothing on this earth and in our lives except believe that he did it all for us so that we do not have to do anything to gain salvation.  On the contrary,  I believe Jesus showed us the way to forge a path to salvation in our lifetimes, by doing the difficult and often thankless job of lifting people from beneath the hardships they piled on themselves and the hardships that others and society placed on them.  This Jesus did, one person at a time.  I believe this is the task Jesus left us to do, the ministry we humans are meant to step into but, as yet, have failed to fully do.  I believe there is still time to fully engage in this undertaking.

This undertaking extends beyond forgiving humans and treating them with love and respect as our siblings.  It extends to attending the bounty of creation with care and gratitude, recognizing our commonality in the mutual needs we share with all living thing; the air we breathe, the water we drink, and so much more.  We must consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field because they too are God's offspring; they too are products of the same creative force that made us.  All life on this planet is dependent on some level with all other forms of life.  We humans are neither the masters nor the epitome of creation on the planet we share with other creations.   We are undoubtedly more  dependent on them than they on us. 

Like Jesus, we are incarnations of God, the evidentiary products of the creative force that brought us into being.  Like Jesus we can resurrect to new and vibrant experiences in this life by "letting go and letting God," by commending our life force to, the creative life-giving force from which all that exists proceeds and in which nothing is lost.    

This relatively unknown Jewish man from Galilee made a lasting impact on what it means to be a human.   His teachings and  his treatment of others keeps him alive in our hearts and minds.  He is an exemplar for all of humanity.  I believe that to follow in his footsteps is to bring about a better world or, as Jesus would have put it, brings about the Kingdom of God. 

THE HOLY BIBLE

The Holy Bible is a fascinating work of religious literature.  Both Christianity and Judaism have a navel-gazing relationship with it; in that, they both treat it as a self-defining resource that needs no other outside sources to verify its validity.  While neither claim to worship it, their treatment of it is seems to belie that claim.  The familiar, "The Word of the Lord"  said at the end of reading a portion of scripture in many liturgical Christian churches seems to be an attempt to close the doors of one's mind to what it says, to leave it unquestioned and thus undigested.  

The Old Testament (Judaic Scriptures) are fascinating to me as they show the evolution of the Jewish religion from a tribal, mountaintop understanding of God as one of many gods, to the one God of monotheism.  I consider the book of Genesis to be the most singular important book of the Bible.  It is the bedrock on which both the Old and New Testaments rests. 

The Old Testament is collection of diverse forms of literature.  Myth, legend, history, poetry, prophecy and wisdom abound throughout its pages.  There is nothing particularly consistent in its presentation but rather a menagerie of literary types that reveal an evolutionary process regarding a particular people's experiences and understanding of God.  

The New Testament, on the other hand, is an attempt to present a consistent narrative about Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ of God.  The consistent narrative consists of the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke that present a linear narrative about Jesus life, ministry, death, and resurrection that contain his teachings in forms of conversations, sermons, and parables..   Then there is a theological presentation of who Jesus that begins with the Gospel of John, the legendary account sof the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of and ascribed to Paul,  Peter, James, John, Jude and the Revelation of John.  Most of the New Testament is aimed of promoting the teachings about Jesus; otherwise known as, the apostolic teaching.  

For me the Bible is not the Word of God.  It is religious literature and nothing more.  Like the Greek myths, the Jewish and Christian myths and legends contained in it tells us more about who we are than who or what God is.

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I find myself questioning how a collection of books at least two to three thousand years old maintains its hold on people or why the moral codes of an ancient civilization is considered the basis for all moral and ethical decisions being made today; especially,  what is recognized as Western civilization.  By now, we know that stealing, murder, adultery, for example, are wrong.  I sometimes think the fear of losing the Bible is that we humans will go off the rails and lose all sense moral and ethical conduct. Personally, I doubt that.  The problem I have is that it so many Christians use the Bible to bully and justify harming people in the name of a God.  

Jesus was no literalist when it came to the scriptures he knew.  While Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew claims he did not come to change one "jot or tittle" of the law, he certainly broadened the law's meaning. For instance, whenever Jesus says something like, "You have heard... but I say ....."  A good example of this is when he says in Matthew 5, "Love your neighbors and hate your enemies, but I say love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may claim yourselves to be the children of your Father in heaven" 

If Christians would follow Jesus' example in treating scripture as a living document, open to interpretation and reinterpretation as the times demand.  Jesus places our enemies and persecutors in the same category as our neighbors, the people we are to love and in claiming oneself to be child of God moves us to recognize that one's enemies and persecutors is also a sibling in the eyes of God.  How are we to treat such siblings?  Do we give them multiple chances to recognize us as their siblings or do we disown them?

While Matthew's gospel tends to make Jesus look consistent with the ancient texts of his Jewish faith, but Jesus does in fact change the laws found in those texts.  One could argue that Jesus was looking and expounding on the core value of those laws, which is love; as in, enemies are to be treated like neighbors and our neighbors are to be treated  like ourselves.   

The Gospel of John and the scriptures that follow after it present a different story.  They depict Jesus to be revealed as different than the rest of us due to the resurrection event that reveals him to be more than the Messiah, but the only-begotten Son of God sent to earth to take away the sins of the world.  This is a remarkably different understanding than the Synoptic Gospels present  Jesus as being.  It is my belief that the Synoptic Gospels were edited to lean into the notion of Jesus being the Messiah as the only-begotten Son of God via Jesus' birth stories in Matthew and Luke and to further the notion that his life purpose in was meant to be a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world.  I think this is an erroneous interpretation of Jesus' life and ministry.  His death was an unnecessary tragedy that cut short a life that was transforming the world one person at a time.  

The resurrection story is mnemonic device to keep Jesus' teachings alive and relevant following his death.   People, at the time, undoubtedly believed it to be a factually true story and it certainly is  presented in the Gospels as being so.  Nevertheless, like so much of miraculous accounts recorded in the Bible, there is little or no proof or way of proving them to be factual events.  The resurrection stories of Jesus fall into the category of things unprovable and non-replicable.  Believing or disbelieving such stories does neither enhance nor deprive them of meaning, which is why I believe they remain relevant to the human experience.   

Undoubtedly, the Holy Bible will remain the foundational mainstay of Christianity, but I feel it needs to be recalibrated from the position of being the only source of understanding Jesus. God, and used as the sole lens through which Christians view the world.  There is so much information coming to light via historical discoveries, anthropology, the sciences, etc. that continue to shed new light on our world, our planet home, our place in the universe, and the importance of all living things and all human beings.  As such, I see a need to reevaluate the meaning and role  of these ancient scriptures in the light of such information.

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God indeed moves in mysterious and wondrous ways.  The being-ness that is the vastness of the universe, the macrocosm and microcosm, presents multidimensional possibilities as exhibited by the creative forces that have brought about our lives and all the forms of plant and animal existence we know on this planet and beyond.

Obviously, the beliefs I grew up with and that have shaped and have become part of my psyche has experienced changes over the years.  At times these changes have made me feel discomfort as what I had thought I believed with all my heart began to melt away. As such, one questions why one stays and continues to nominally belong to a Christian church whose doctrines one largely disagrees with.  While I have left and am letting go of many of my indoctrinated beliefs about God and Jesus, I am finding  new ways to understand the concept of God and the person of Jesus that I find  more meaningful than what I have previously believed throughout most of my life.  

Since I will be spending some time on the topic of recalibration, future posts will talk about things I haven't touched on in any detail; such as,  the purpose of worship and prayer and the role of ritual, sacraments, and music.  If Jesus is not God and did not descend to earth to become a sacrifice for our sins,  does Jesus have a place in worship, prayers, and sacrament?   Stay tuned.

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Norm