One With God

Jesus said many things in the Gnostic Gospels which show he had an understanding of the universe that only recently is being proven by Quantum Physics. Yet as we have seen, those sayings were discredited and systematically removed from the public record. Gnosis, based on our innate ability to access the spirit of God was strictly forbidden by early church fathers. The church didn’t get to be the oldest and most successful institution in the world by encouraging man to find God inside himself. I grew up believing that unless I confessed my sins to a priest God wouldn’t know about it. Yet in the gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the Father's kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you.” If the kingdom of God is within me that would explain my “innate ability” to connect with him. In light of what we’re learning about the interconnectedness of the universe we can begin to see why we have this ability, and why the bible says God created man in his own image. 

First Einstein discovered that everything was energy. As scientists move further and further down into the sub atomic levels they find a force which appears to be present even when energy vanishes. This force is best described as a field of information. It seems the ocean out of which energy arises is a sea of pure consciousness. Noted British astronomer and physicist Sir James Jeans said, "The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine." This thought is the essence of all things - the one universal consciousness that created the universe. It is omniscient and omnipresent, and my consciousness is part of that consciousness. As was said in the Upanishads 8,000 years ago, “You are that”. When we begin to understand the truth of this we will be able to drop any idea of our separation from God - and any thoughts of unworthiness that accompany it.

Those who must reject these things because they are non-biblical will continue to have a difficult time experiencing oneness with God. If the evidence contradicts the written Word it is the evidence that must be thrown out. Thus the church is full of sincere people beseeching God and praying for him to “come”. Last Sunday our pastor told us we are strangers in this world and quoted 1 Peter which says, “Live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. Set your hope on the grace which will be brought to you when Jesus comes again.” Foreigners? Fear? Future hope? There is something very debilitating about this kind of thinking and I can no longer accept it. We don’t need to cast our hope on some future time in some better place. This world is our home. It is part of us. We didn’t come into it. We came out of it. It’s time for a new understanding about who we are and what we're here for. Thankfully the spirit seems to be awakening us to it. From the fundamentalist Muslim to the fundamentalist Christian - we're all the same in our oneness with God. Think for a minute what a belief like that could do if the human race could ever accept it.

I started this blog with the intention of examining our church experience in the hope of finding what was missing. What I have found is that, even though many Christians want a deeper, more intimate relationship with God, they don't find such an experience because the church doesn't model it. No matter what it teaches about the holy spirit, our felt experience is still that God is "up there"  and we're "down here". It is separation theology and it's not true. I don't say it is willful or malicious. I don't say that church founders weren't hearing from God nor that our pastors are intentionally keeping us in the dark. I only say we haven't learned the whole truth about God and shouldn't insist that we have. We must be open to continuing revelation, no matter how different it may be from what we are familiar with. If allowed to, spirituality will evolve like everything else. It may take some time for this understanding of oneness, but it will happen - even if Max Planck (founding father of quantum physics) is correct. He once observed that, “A new idea doesn't always triumph by making its opponents see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is more familiar with it”. One way or another, in this generation or the next - or the next, it will happen. Man has been lost long enough in the illusion of his separation from God and the world has begun to suffer serious consequences. The good news is, like the pigs' food did for the Prodigal Son, it's bringing us to our senses. Life is correcting itself. Something better is coming.

Meet Irenaeus and Athanasius

Irenaeus (130 A.D. – 202 A.D.)

Bishop of Lyons, France and early church father during the persecutions of Marcus Aurelius in the second century, Irenaeus became the principle architect of the four gospel canon of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Just as the prophet Ezekiel had envisioned God’s throne borne up by four living creatures, he boldly declared, “It is not possible that there can be either more or fewer than four”. What made the four gospels trustworthy, he claimed, is that their authors actually witnessed the events they related. Few New Testament scholars would agree with that claim, but Irenaeus compelled his followers to accept it.

The problem was, there were other sects of Christianity all over the Middle East and into Africa in those days, many who had different beliefs. Even members of his own flock were splintered into various groups, often quarreling, all of them claiming to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. How could he sort out all the conflicting claims and impose some kind of order? He began by ridiculing those who claimed to be investigating “the deeper things of God” and seeking revelation on their own. He undertook his massive, five-volume On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, vowing to track down all illegitimate writings which “have no truth, but are full of blasphemy” 

Yet Irenaeus recognized that even banishing heretical writings could not safeguard the Christian movement. What if someone read the right gospels the wrong way? What if well-meaning Christians could “cast truth aside” by spawning new heresies? This was happening even in his own congregation. So Irenaeus set out to construct even stricter guidelines for believers. It became heresy for anyone to assume they could discover truth about God by exploring their own experience. Christians had to accept his interpretation of the gospels as the only correct interpretation. Any who did would be called an “Orthodox” Christian – that is, one who thinks straight. He encountered resistance from those who said they had confessed the correct faith when they were baptized, but were following Jesus’ injunction to seek and find truth by which they could attain spiritual maturity. Irenaeus was appalled at such practice. Truth could only be attained by invoking the authority of the apostles from whom it was directly handed down. It therefore became a necessary requirement to obey the priests who followed in that line of succession. Irenaeus's instructions about which revelations to destroy and which ones to keep - and how to interpret them - became the basis for the formation of the New Testament. 


Athanasius (293 A.D. – 373 A.D.)

By the beginning of the 4^th century Christianity had been declared a lawful religion and was tolerated throughout the Roman Empire. But within the Church, doctrine continued to be so unsettled, with bishop fighting against bishop, and believer fighting against believer, that the death toll actually exceeded that suffered during the persecutions. Word of the continuing dispute made its way to the newly converted Emperor Constantine the Great. "Division in the church," he told the bishops, "is worse than war." To settle the matter he convened The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Bishops and church leaders were invited to fix an official party line, and to declare an edict that all "Christians" must believe. They argued, fought, and eventually fleshed out a document of “correct belief” known as the Nicene Creed. Henceforth it became "unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to compose a different faith as a rival to that established by the Holy Fathers of the Church who assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa." 


Among those assembled Holy Fathers was a short, dark-skinned Egyptian named Athanasius. Bishop of Alexandria for 46 years, he was a devout believer in a unified Christian orthodoxy, and a Church appointed “canonical” bible.The Church, by this time, had reached an informal consensus about which books would be included in the New Testament, but he was the first to officially declare them. That declaration appeared in his 39th Festal Letter written in the year 367 AD. “Since, however, we have spoken of the heretics as dead, but of ourselves as possessors of the divine writings unto salvation, I hearby set forth those writings that have been put in the canon and confirmed as divine, in order that everyone who has been led astray may condemn his seducers, and that everyone who has remained stainless may rejoice. In these 27 writings alone is the doctrine of piety proclaimed. Let no man add anything to them or take anything away from them”.
 

A champion of orthodoxy, Athanasius had helped lay the foundation of Church doctrine for millenniums to come. John Henry Newman described him as a "principal instrument, after the Apostles, by which the sacred truths of Christianity have been conveyed and secured to the world." Although he had many theological enemies, Athanasius had spent his life defending the Church against the onslaught of heretical teaching. In the end his enemies’ works were removed, condemned as heretical, and excluded from any ecclesiastical use.

In 381 Christianity was made the official state religion of the Roman Empire which insured its protection from further apostasy. 

I Wonder Who Wrote The Word Of God?

I’ve been doing a lot of studying about early church history lately, trying to find out who decided what books would be in the Bible - a worthy undertaking I thought - after all, it is the Word of God. It has the final answer to questions about life, death, salvation, heaven, and hell. But who knew? All my life I’ve been told it was the Holy Spirit working through men. That always seemed a little too simplistic for me - and a little too convenient for the Church. Not only did it confer unquestioning authorship on God it also helped shroud the identity of the men who interpreted him for us. I wouldn’t mind, I have nothing against the Bible except the Church's tendency to take it literally, but the Holy Spirit apparently told them what things shouldn’t be in the Bible too - and that included the Gnostic Gospels. As a result a lot of insightful books about Jesus were forbidden, burned and successfully kept from public knowledge until the 20th century! Until 1946 in fact! A mere 65 years ago! Why? What was so threatening that they had to keep it from us? But that’s another question. A very important one, but right now I want to talk about who “they” were. Led by the Holy Spirit or not, it was men like you and me who made those decisions. It seems reasonable to want to know - who were these men who wrote the Word of God?

Before I start I need to clear something up. I’m a man who came to Jesus with a truly repentant heart and a desire to know God. I know without a doubt that he called me and that his Holy Spirit is in me - the Spirit that Jesus said would guide me into all truth. Lately I’ve been guided to a new understanding of scripture which the church says is not the right understanding. I’m supposed to believe someone else's understanding - someone who was guided by the Holy Spirit. Is the reason for my question becoming clear? I don't intend to blame anyone or find fault with what they believe - just to remind us that they were simply men doing what we can all do - listen to, and hear from God.  What they heard was what God needed them to know. What he revealed about himself was what they could understand. I have no doubt they were hearing from God. What isn’t clear is why they insist it was something for all people, for all time. If the Holy Spirit was sent to lead us, then he must still be leading us, and God must be revealing himself in ways we never could have known before. Maybe that’s why the Gospel of Thomas was hidden for so long. It's only now that science is able to show us what it means. There is great wisdom and truth in that Gospel for anyone who cares to look - things that align perfectly with what we’re learning about the reality of life and the nature of the universe we live in. The more I learn the more I realize I really am being "guided". And I believe it is toward the truth. The church may say the devil is doing it but that's impossible. The devil can't be where the spirit of God is. If the spirit of God is everywhere.......? But that too is a topic for another discussion.

What I'm going to do next time is name some names - not to discredit them - just to put faces on them so we recognize them as flawed men like all the rest of us trying to hear from God. It's time we knew these people from the early church who decided what The Word was - and what it wasn’t.

“There’s Only One Of Us.”

Neale Donald Walsch said that and he’s right. Science is showing us that what we think of as “you” and “me” are really just parts of a whole - momentary flashes in a unified energy field blinking in and out like fireflies on a summer evening. This newly discovered oneness with the universe may seem somewhat impersonal and not all that comforting for someone who is fully vested in the illusion of their personality, but our personalities are not reality. In fact they separate us from reality. Thankfully we can (and do) discard them whenever we’re ready. But how did we get so caught up in the illusion of separation in the first place?

Long ago in the history of life on earth there was no awareness of “I am”. The first kinds of life were not able to distinguish in a clear way the “out there” experience from the “in here” experience. Somewhere on some dim, distant morning in time the first creature looked up at the sky and it occurred to him that he wasn’t that. He looked at the ground and the grass and he wasn’t that either. He was the thing that was looking at those things. He was different from them. He was different from everything he could see. He was himself. This was a momentous occasion in the evolution of life on our planet. Freud called it the development of the Ego. The bible calls it the Fall of Man. Both are right about one thing. It is a false reality. It hides our true nature and separates us from one another - and from God. 

As a young boy I wondered what would happen if somehow the cells in my arm decided they wanted to be independent and do their own thing. I figured my body wouldn’t function properly and my arm would turn blue. I would probably get sick. I figured that’s what happens when cancer cells develop - when the body no longer operates the way it was intended to. Thankfully, although we can get sick, the cells of our bodies usually don’t develop a consciousness that aspires to individuality. And so our bodies function according to their intended purpose. But it’s easy to look around and see what our belief in separation has done to the world. It has inspired and encouraged deceitful competition in all walks of life that no longer knows any moral restraint. It has bred division along racial, religious, and geopolitical lines which has caused jealousy, hatred, and war, and brought us to the edge of extinction. Jesus knew it was in the heart of man. But he also knew the oneness of our true nature - like him, part of that which created us. That’s why he told us to love our brother as ourselves. But it's up to us as a people to come to that awareness. No one is going to come down from heaven and rescue us. Our desire to maintain and defend our separateness from each other must be understood for what it is and what it has done to us.

We may have distanced ourselves from reality and gone astray as in a far country, but I see signs everywhere of people coming to their senses. Just like the prodigal son we are becoming dissatisfied with what the world offers and are looking for the way home. The good news is the father is waiting. He doesn’t care how long it’s been, where we were, why we left or what we’ve done. Because no matter who we think we are, the real reality is we’ve never been apart from him. We can’t be. There is only one of us.

The Cart Before The Horse

I’ve always taken a lot of heat for having questions about church doctrine that other people find easy to believe. I tried to explain why in an earlier blog. Now I’m hearing it for suggesting, although I’ve seen it for more than thirty years, that healing by the laying on of hands doesn’t occur often enough in the church. I guess I need to look at this a little more carefully. I really do believe what Jesus said about us being able to do what he did, and I look forward to the day when it becomes normal practice in the life of all Christians. Healing the sick is what we should be doing and I respect anyone who is seeking the gift. But for some reason the gift isn’t coming to us easily. I’m willing to admit that fact in hopes that we may find out what’s wrong and fix it.

Anyone who has attended a mega-healing-conference (I’ve been to several) knows what a small percentage of people - compared to the number in attendance - get healed of anything. Those who do are talked about and written about as proof of success as if it happens all the time. We want so much to feel the touch of God. We think if we heal the sick and raise the dead we’ll become more like Jesus, but in fact it’s the other way around. When we become more like Jesus we'll be able to heal the sick and raise the dead. It’s a classic case of the cart before the horse. Healing is not a gift - no matter what the church says - that you develop by trying it on people over and over until it works. There’s no evidence in the bible that Jesus had to practice, nor was he was ever unsuccessful when he prayed for someone. (Well maybe one time he had to pray twice). But praying in Jesus’ name just doesn’t seem to get the same results for us as it did for him. Something is missing. Let's see if we can find out what it is.

Hmmm. Jesus of Nazareth was a man just like us. The church says he was the only begotten Son of God. Is that why he was able to do miracles? I don’t think so. He knew who we were yet he still said we would do greater things. So that’s not it. Was he just wrong about that? I don’t think so. How could Jesus be wrong about something? Did he spend all those missing years studying before he prayed for the first leper? Maybe. I really do think (and there’s a lot of evidence to support it) that he spent some time in the East learning about things the Church doesn't tell us. But it’s not just that. Did he know something we don’t know? YES. There’s the elusive answer. He knew something we don’t know. He knew the truth about the relationship between God and man. There it is. That’s it. Jesus understood who he was in God - and we don’t. 

And so we need the Church to intercede for us. We have to ask for help from above and pray in Jesus' name because we don’t realize the authority we have in our own. Why? Because we’ve been told we’re sinners, separate and apart from a God who has the power and who may or may not give us some depending on how good we are. We have this relationship with God thing all wrong. He lives in us - and through us - just like he did with Jesus. He loves us the same way he loved Jesus. His power is available for us the same way it was for Jesus. The reason we can be like Jesus is simply because we are like Jesus. That’s the real good news. Jesus knew the way the universe worked and tried to tell us about it in the Gnostic gospels. We're just now starting to learn about the one-ness of life and how matter responds to consciousness. When these kinds of things becomes real to us we'll be able to change the course of disease and illness the same way he did. We have access to the same power. We're part of the same "one-ness".

Fortunately, as if by divine coincidence, just as the spirit of truth is beginning to awaken these things in us, science is beginning to prove them. We really are all one with the source. We are not separate from God. He doesn't exist in a heavenly realm somewhere apart from us. He is in us. He is in us because he is us. That’s the real untold truth of the Holy Spirit. And that's why Jesus said it would be better for us if he left. He knew as long as we depended on him we would never learn the amazing truth about ourselves. When that truth becomes our reality we will have a new understanding of everything. What the bible says about a God of love will make perfect sense in a whole new way. In fact everything we’ve been taught will make sense in a new way - even healing. Someday we’ll see it happening for us the same way it did for Jesus. He said it would. That’s all I want to see.

Then I promise not to question it anymore.

Can We Talk?

That’s what Joan Rivers says when she wants someone to get serious and be honest with her. I heard some things in church this morning that I need to get off my chest. Sorry if it departs from the intended continuity of this blog.

I got “saved” in June of 1982, so next year will be my 30th anniversary in the church. Add to that 12 years of Catholic school and it means I’ve been hearing about the Good News for two thirds of my life. I say this like Paul in order to qualify what I’m about to say. I’m a water-baptized, spirit-filled, bible-reading, tithing, homegroup-hosting, worship-leading, mission field-experienced Christian looking for evidence that we’re becoming like Jesus. In 42 years there should be some sign of that, shouldn’t there? It's true I don’t lose my peace as quickly when someone cuts me off on the parkway, but is that the best I can say? What I'm looking for is some victorious living in the body of Christ - people operating in the power and authority that Jesus promised and not just talking about it. Are we doing what it takes to see that happen? I have friends who struggle with chronic depression, debilitating physical conditions, and lifelong addictions. They've been in church all their lives and nothing they do seems to help them. People keep praying for them because a famous church leader once told us, "If healing doesn't come in 99 tries, try 100". I’m happy to hear about successes in Africa and Bolivia, but if healings are proof that we're moving into Christ-likeness then I'd like to see it happen for someone I know - at least someone who knows someone I know. Even if I don't see any healing miracles it would be nice to see a church full of genuinely joyful people - not acting like it while inside they're just trying to get by.


Today in my church our pastor told us not to lose our faith if we're struggling. He said we need to keep obeying God's word and circumstances will change because this world isn’t our home. Is that really what the Good News has come to? The moral structure of our society has collapsed along with the economy and there’s little hope for a recovery of either. We have enemies all over the world at a time when turning the other cheek is nothing more than an ideology that Christians don't even believe. The world is going to hell in a hand basket while we wait for Jesus to come and do something. Can we talk about all this without someone denying it and telling me if I exercise my faith I’ll see all the good things that are happening in peoples’ lives?   

Dr. Charles Stanley (whom I like very much) says the purpose of life is to come to the fullness of Christ-likeness - not signs of Christ-likeness - FULL Christ-likeness. Paul told us that we are NEW CREATIONS who have the MIND of CHRIST. These are lofty things that I’ve heard all my life. But what do they mean? And does it really happen to anyone? Just this morning in church we declared the following things in our “worship” songs. “I’m so unworthy”, “Lord you’re all I need”, and “I will wait for you to come and rescue me”. Is that the mind of Christ talking? God himself is alive in us yet we continue to speak separation into existence and wonder why we have no joy and no power. When are we going to come to our senses?

The good news is science is beginning to show us there is no separation between us and the source of the joy and power we seek - only a one-ness that Jesus talked about in the Gnostic Gospels. The bad news is we aren’t allowed to believe what Jesus said in the Gnostic Gospels because they weren’t inspired by God. How and why this awesomely narrow-minded position has been supported without question throughout church history is beyond me. The recognition of our identity in God is the key to our transformation and the answer to all our questions. Thankfully there will come a time when it becomes an accepted truth. Until then, no matter what lip service the church gives to the Holy Spirit, the present truth is this: We can’t move in power because we think it comes from somewhere outside of us. We pray for things in Jesus’ name because we don’t understand the authority of our own. I’m so thankful for his amazing, God-realized life, but Jesus didn’t intend to be idolized to the extent that we are helpless without him.  

There’s a Zen parable that illustrates what I mean.

The teacher’s dog loved his evening romps with his master. The dog would bound ahead, fetch a stick, then run back to wait for the next throw. One evening the teacher invited his brightest student to join them, a boy troubled by the seeming contradictions of Buddhist doctrine.

“You must understand”, said the teacher, “that words are only guideposts. Never let words or symbols keep you from experiencing the truth. Here, I’ll show you”.

With that the teacher called his happy dog. “Fetch me the moon”, the teacher said to the dog and pointed to the full moon. 

“Where is my dog looking”? asked the teacher of the bright pupil.  

“He’s looking at your finger”, the boy said.

“Exactly. Don’t be like my dog. Don’t confuse the pointer with the thing being pointed to.”

I’m not sure about this but as a child of God, and under the trusted guidance of the Holy Spirit for 30 years, I can’t help thinking that we’ve missed the point of Jesus’ life. In adoring him as the only begotten Son who atoned for man’s sin to appease a wrathful God, we’ve completely missed the fact that he beckons us and empowers us to be more than human life has yet been. He is calling us back to a place of unity and wholeness that existed in the beginning when there was nothing separate from God - back to an awareness of our true identity. It is in this place that we fully experience God. It is only from this place that we will realize our fullness in Christ and begin to see evidence of the joyful and victorious lives we seek.

What The Gnostics Believed

Gnosis is a Greek word that means “know” or “knowing,” but it’s not knowledge that comes from believing doctrine, having faith, or practicing a certain religious discipline. It means understanding received from God through a direct, personal experience of him. Let’s be really clear about this. Knowing God this way means knowing he is part of us, seeing ourselves in him, and merging into that kind of experience as our felt reality. The Gnostics believed Jesus not only modeled this kind of relationship with God but taught that we have exactly the same. We say we want a more experiential kind of relationship with God. If so, it will require letting go of some very deeply preconceived beliefs which may be difficult for us because we've learned to call them "the truth".

These are some of those traditional beliefs with Gnostic understanding by comparison.

Traditional: God exists in a heavenly realm apart from his creation. (Although the church teaches that he is omnipresent and that his spirit lives in us, it doesn't examine the fullness of that position. Instead, our prayers, songs, and day-to-day dialogue speak a separation into existence that creates our true experience).                                                                     
Gnostic: Rather than see God as an entity that exists outside the universe, Gnostic writers believed in a oneness of everything in existence. Not only is God the creator, he is the stuff out of which all things are created. His kingdom is not a distant place or future thing, but “an immediate and continuing spiritual reality” that we can experience at any time.

Traditional: Jesus was the only child of God.                                                            Gnostic: We are all children of God, created from his own spirit (in his image and likeness). Rather than claim any special position, the Gospel of Thomas quotes Jesus as saying, “I am not your master. He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am; I myself will become he. When you come to know yourselves you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father.” In the Gospel of John Jesus says, “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one - as you are in me, father, and I am in you. May they know you love them as much as you love me.” These statements not only recognize oneness, they clearly demonstrate that each of us has the ability to wake up from the illusion that we are separate from God.

Traditional: Man is born in original sin.                                                                            Gnostic: Man is born in goodness that can never been lost. His “sin” was the result of the development of the ego which seduced him into believing he was independent and separate from God. 

Traditional: God demands retribution for man’s sin.                                                  Gnostic: If there is no sin there is no need for retribution. Man does not and cannot exist outside of God. Waking from the ignorance of his false identity (separate) is all that’s necessary for man to restore oneness with him. 

Traditional: Jesus died to pay for man’s sin.                                                             Gnostic: Jesus allowed himself to be crucified to demonstrate that we are not the body and that our real life is eternal. He proved it by appearing several times in different ways after his resurrection. 

Traditional: We only have one life. When our bodies die our souls go to an everlasting reward in heaven or an everlasting punishment in hell.                                              Gnostic: We are eternal spiritual beings having a momentary physical experience, very likely one of many - perhaps countless. This particular experience will end, but our real life in God never does. As such there is no need nor possibility of reward or punishment. 

Traditional: Jesus will come again, descending from heaven on a cloud the same way he left.                                                                                                                             Gnostic: The “second coming” of Christ will be a spiritual manifestation - a critical mass of believers finally seeing the illusion and coming to their senses, and to true Christ-likeness.   

It's important to remember that our brains filter information like this through beliefs we already hold. Because the Gnostic understanding of God is so different from what the church has taught us it's no surprise that we could have some difficulty with it. But we must always remain open to what the spirit would show us. God's revelation did not end with, and is not limited to, the four books of the canonized bible. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. And after they have reigned they will rest."

What excites me personally is how science is beginning to prove what many of Jesus’ early followers believed. When examined from the standpoint of Quantum Physics, many of the Gnostic Gospels reflect the intimacy with God that we’re looking for.