In some of the interviews I have done recently to talk about Earth is a School I said that I was a Christian but not an orthodox one. This could seem as though I am trying to hedge my bets so I would like to be clearer on that score. Here's what I believe.
I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth. I believe that there was something approximating to the Fall when early humanity went against divine decree and that sin and death entered the world in the form we now know them. Clearly, sin must have potentially existed before as part of free will because what Adam and Eve did was sin but presumably this was the first actual sin. Similarly, death would have existed because I can't see Adam and Eve as existing in the Garden of Eden unchangingly forever but it would have been painless change without the suffering it acquired after the Fall.
I believe that God sent Jesus to the world to redeem it from sin. This means that previously souls may have died and been reborn endlessly as many pagan religions believed with the only escape that discovered by the Buddha. There would have been time spent on the inner planes of being but there was no Heaven in the sense of union with God that is known in the beatific vision. Jesus, through his birth, death and resurrection, sanctified matter, removing the corruption of the Fall. He took on a material body and being free from any possibility of sin actually changed the structure of matter, literally so for him, potentially so for anyone who followed him and allowed his life into theirs. This also meant that the individual soul, which is the point at which spirit and matter meet, could be sanctified and made whole, cured rather than killed.
I believe that Christ was the Son of God by which I mean he was not just an advanced spirit or higher being who had preceded us on the path. The attempt to cast him in this light may even be part of the ongoing demonic attempt to belittle Christianity. I don't know exactly what Son of God means but I accept it on faith because it has the quality of the profoundest of truths. Attempts to reduce Christ to a special kind of prophet or enlightened soul are just wrong. He was and is something much more. I believe in all his miracles exactly as recounted in the Gospels and I absolutely believe in the Resurrection. With the Resurrection everything makes sense. It is the ground from which truth, goodness and beauty spring in the world. Without it there is only darkness and death.
I believe that Jesus was born through the Virgin Mary who was chosen for this mission because of her innate purity and goodness. I think that attempts to create a feminine spirituality in Gaia worship or something like that are atavistic and wrong. No one will get past the psychic and material worlds by following that path. The embodiment and pattern of feminine spirituality is the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. A proper feminism, a truly spiritual feminism, would recognise that.
I believe in the saints and the Company of Heaven. I don't think that when such souls were in this world they were all Christian because I am sure that Christ works through other religions and "the wind bloweth where it listeth." But they now all serve under Christ. These saints seek to bring us up to their level but that requires us to open our hearts to truth, and truth exists on its own terms. We can never bend it to suit us.
I believe that Christ taught us that the major lesson on this Earth is self-sacrifice through love. All the attempts to attain higher consciousness that do not have this at their heart are doomed to failure because it is the key to Heaven. Christ taught this and demonstrated it in his life. He laid down the path and all we have to do is follow him.
There are many other things I believe about the spiritual world but these are the foundation stones of my approach to it.
6 comments:
Nice summation William. I think you'd be seen as quite traditional on some of the podcasts you've been on, and quite gnostic by many other Christians. Much like me, you don't quite fit within any movements, but have found a niche that expresses your idiom and Truth quite well.
I'm too Christian for the New Age people and too New Age for Christians. It must be the Libra influence in my horoscope!
Dear William: "I'm too Christian for the New Age people and too New Age for Christians." That's perfect. I'm the same but couldn't quite put it that succinctly. Don't have lots of Libra in my chart though - must be something else!
It might just be a more universal approach and understanding that sees the basic truth as Christian but other things can give some perspective and additional depth, filling in holes and fleshing out gaps.
It will shock many people, and perhaps even you, but I would describe you as a Christian fundamentalist. You are sound on the fundamental doctrines and individualistic on the peripheral doctrines. Many modern churchmen are the reverse: squishy and equivocating on fundamentals and rigid on peripherals. Here in the states the word fundamentalist has been twisted into a term of ridicule and contempt, but the first "fundamentalists" (at Princeton University) simply said that there were some fundamental doctrines (your "foundation stones") that cannot be rejected without destroying Christianity. That's where your analogy of the "foundation stones" is so useful. A church can stand if its steeple falls, but it cannot stand removal of its "foundation stones." Much the same can be said of personal faith. It cannot survive if its foundations, or fundamentals, are removed.
Perhaps you should describe yourself as an "open-minded and unchurched fundamentalist." This will strike most people as an outrageous oxymoron, but I'd say it contains an important truth. If your "foundation stones" are correct and unshakable, you have nothing to fear from open-mindedness or being unchurched.
I like the idea of being the sort of fundamentalist you describe, i.e someone who actually believes in the words and teachings of Christ. Your description of me as "sound on the fundamental doctrines and individualistic on the peripheral doctrines" is one I am honoured to accept. Now I just have to live up to it!
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