The Appeal Of Christian 'Mysticism'

For as skeptical as I am, my inclination is and always has been toward a more 'mystical' bent. There is something natural about this, paradoxical as it may seem. When we come up against the limits of our knowledge it is a mystery yet it is the mystery that continues us pushing to understand and expand. This isn't escapist in nature as much as it is experiential. It could be my temperament (and me projecting) but so much of the 'modern' Church seems to be more interested in being right than reflecting the experience of Who Christ is or, worse, it conflates material prosperity with being blessed.

I suppose that's why the emphasis on the Holy Spirit and the miraculous, from healings to the electric bill being paid on time, that a 'dead' church is one in which this type of activity does not go on so we tend to equate a 'living' Church with one that is, for lack of a better term, entertaining.

Perhaps it is my skeptical nature (skeptical more of our own perceptions than the propositions of truth being expressed in the faith) but this to me does not seem to be a faith that sustains and, if not careful, could be a faith that leaves us looking for the next big thing. For every healing there are many who are not healed; for every miraculous financial blessing there are multitudes who are not financially 'blessed' in such a fashion. Lack of faith? Not yet time? What of those who die waiting for such a miracle or have lost their faith because God didn't come through? 

NDEs? Why do they tend toward the same experience? Are they culturally framed? In many ways, they sound like a psychedelic experience, tapping into the limits of our brains. They cause me to question more than they excite me. We all want certainty, surety that there is a God and that death does not have the final say.

So the mysticism focus is a different kind of knowing. It is not, or is more than, intellectual knowledge or certainty. That is a part of it but that has more to do with bringing the mind into submission and allowing it to be a vehicle - or at least not in the way - to 'experience' the divine mysteries, when we are silent and our interior is able to expand to embrace said mystery.

I continue coming back to these words:

"I have hardly begun to think of the Unity before the Trinity bathes me in its splendour: I have hardly begun to think of the Trinity before the Unity seizes hold of me again. When one of the Three presents himself to me, I think it is the whole, so full to overflowing is my vision, so far beyond me does he reach. There is no room left in my mind, it is too limited to understand even one. When I combine the Three in one single thought, I see only one great flame without being able to subdivide or analyse the single light. Gregory Nazianzen, (On Baptism, 41, from The Roots Of Christian Mysticism, p. 66)"

Or another translation:

"When I first know the one I am also illumined from all sides by the three; when I first distinguish the three I am also carried back to the one. When I picture one of the three i consider this the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part has escaped me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to grant something greater than the rest. When i bring the three together in contemplation, I see one torch and am unable to divide or measure the united light." Gregory Nazianzen, On Baptism, 41, from Festal Orations, p. 137)

Or this one: 

"When I speak of God, be struck from all sides by the lightning flash of one light and also three; three in regard to the individualities, that is hypostases, if one prefers to call them this, or persons...but if one speaks of the essence, that is the divinity. For they are divided undividedly, if i may speak thus, and united in division. For the divinity is one in three, and the three are one, in whom divinity is, or, to speak more precisely, who are the divinity." Gregory Nazianzen, On The Baptism of Christ, 11, from Festal Orations, p. 87) 

Eyes glaze over, mind becomes annoyed or enraged. That makes no sense is the initial response to such intellectual gymnastics. But I find rest in this dance. It is active and alive, not a static intellectual category or mental construct in which we find comfort or control. It is living, like energy, and is never still. If it were still, it would be an idol, we'd own it and sell it and it would not change us.  

Chicken & Waffles

My wife has a habit of calling me out on what I've learned: 'how does that help you love me more?' is her usually question when I throw out titles such as "Florovksy's 'Mind Of The Fathers' and the Neo-Patristic Synthesis Of Dumitru Stăniloae."

Valid point. In my head it all makes sense but in the real world is often leads to an absence; the more I'm in my head, the more likely it is I'm not fully present in what's going on around me which, of course, is the opposite of what my faith is supposed to do.

But this battle, this struggle, is significant in that unless I am fully grounded in my faith - and this includes a mental ascent toward that ever elusive truth just beyond my grasp - I am not living an authentic life. Or, my authenticity is my searching, my questions, my doubt. But then there is this 'other' side of me that struggles with that, this 'other' thing inside of me challenge me with a notion of something I am supposed to be: expectations, real or imagined; of my parents, my spouse, my boss, society, me. I don't know where these expectations come from but they drive me either to compliance or rebellion. But I am being driven by something that is often rooted in imagination and not reality.

When the ground of my being changes, when I am rooted, I can move forward rather than trying to overcome.

The faith, that seed, is there, I'm trying to flesh it out (John Chapter 1 puts a whole new spin on that phrase).

We are an infinite mystery. This does not imply that when we get to the bottom of us we find we are Divine. We ourselves are fathomless and the danger of going inwards is that there is no bottom, only darkness. We often confuse this realization as if it is the truth. I now know, I have arrived. But it is only then that the questions, and the confusion, start. What does it mean?

I had that revelation on the top of Yosemite. And my life took a downward spiral. I was not suddenly liberated. I had an 'experience' which changed everything but I - the true 'I', the person - was not free. Even today as I write this, I am still working out what that means.

The datum of faith, of revelation, of the Word, is what stops us from sinking into nothingness. Daoism didn't do it; Islam didn't do it; Henry Corbin didn't do it. However, all of these paths - and there is an 'eastern' bent to all of them - have led me here, the scenic route, if you will, to where I now find myself: swimming in the Church Fathers and the Orthodox faith. It is only lately that the 'Christian' path in its fullness through time has given me proper orientation.

We can go deep into "God" with that leap of faith; we now have new ground (ontological hypostasis, to use Zizioulas' term) on which to stand. From the history of the Church this came through baptism; in today's Church it is a mental ascent ('accept Jesus into your heart'). Did the early Church view baptism as 'mandatory' (as Oneness Pentecostals emphasize) or was it an accept rite of passage, the commitment and the act one and the same, not a commitment and a 'mandatory' act but the act as the commitment?

Or is the baptism itself the re-orienting, even when babies are baptized?

Marriage advice:

1) You don't know how selfish you are until you get married.

2) If marriage is to reflect Christ and the Church and Christ gave his life we are to do the same. That means humility - not forced, faked or efforted (is that a word?) - but true humility, kenosis.

3) And without a third, like the perichoresis of the Trinity, marriage has a limit. 

Thus started a long conversation about the emptying of the Son.

Communication is important, yes, but it led to a discussion about the Word, the creative power of the universe, seeking to give birth through us which led us on the tangent of listening and what listening really means.

We don't usually listen because we are not open, we are not a vessel to receive and transform. We block the perichoresis. We should be Eucharist, to receive, transform and give back. 

There should be nothing anyone can say that fears us as we are an unlimited reservoir to the Divine. In other words, where we end therein lies the Spirit and in the Spirit through the Son to the Father we have been given access. 

While other religious traditions speak of the Divine I have not, in all my experience, found anything so clear as this. We touch the heart of the Father and the presence of the Son in the Spirit is in us and it is this Life that transforms.

Quotes

I cannot read self-help books (in general but this is a specific sub-topic from within that genre) that pull random quotes from wherever and use them not so much as reinforcement for but as a springboard toward their message. Eisegesis not exegesis. 

I struggle with the same when it comes to general Christian-y books that quote Scripture, comment, quote Scripture, comment as these too tend toward self-help books with a Jesus stamp and end up in the dustbins of your local Goodwill.

They arguably serve a purpose if they edify believers but they also lead to cultish followings and book after book after book being written about as many subjects as possible - heal the mind, lose weight, save your family, you name it by authors elevated to 'celebrity' status (when everyone knows good as good, this is not good...).

Recently, I came across one that was "Christian" based that pulled a quote from H.P. Lovecraft. That in and of itself is fine but I was curious if the author even knew who he was and/or had a specific reason for a quote from that particular author as the quote itself was nothing profound specific to that author. As I suspected, the quote fit, there was no context and he was not aware of Lovecraft's views. It reinforced my irritation with this method.

However, I have softened on this stance as lately I am realizing that in my pursuit there are statements, those 'aha' moments, that put into words clearly what it is I am trying to grasp mentally. When a statement is written that succinctly summarizes the gobbledygook in my head, I too have fallen prey to the same. So I have chilled on the stance. Won't be reading those books but I am working on being less judgmental (and arrogant) of the same.

Examples specific to my pursuit as of late:

As Florovsky wrote to Bulgakov in the mid-20's: “I believe in your case, too, Solov'ev long hindered you in your search for the main thing. For the road to discovering it lies through Christology, not through trinitology [sic], since only with Jesus Christ did the worship of the trinity become reality." («Theology Reasons» – in History: Neo-Patristic Synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality, Matthew Baker, as quoted in Klimoff, 75).

Context: trying to get 'beyond' (or is it 'through') Jesus to the Trinity.  'Jesus' is so very much humanized that far too often he often feel more like a superhero or when we say 'God' we just think of Jesus (i.e. that empty statement 'Jesus is God'). This then leaves the question of what the Father and Holy Spirit are exactly and we head into the morass of non-Trinitarian variants: Oneness/Sabellian/Modalist, Binatarian or Arian/Unitarian. 

To quote another Matthew Baker article:

'Christians apprehend first the Person of Christ the Lord, the Son of God Incarnate, and behind the veil of His flesh they behold the Triune God." (The Eternal 'Spirit of the Son': Barth, Florovsky and Torrance on the Filioque, p. 403, quoting Florovsky)

It is this that I've been missing. My church stops at Jesus. It's truncated, the CliffsNotes version of the story. God sent His Son to die for you. What does that even mean? In essence, cynically perhaps, it is a guilt relieving mechanism (often referred to as the Holy Spirit) that gets someone through the door. But is that salvation? Is that really "the Gospel"?

I suppose a couple of Bible quotes would do the trick (John 3:16, for example). But God 'sending His Son' is intermixed with 'to die for you' (1 Corinthians 15:3). Unfortunately, the fuller part of the Corinthians passage, verse 4, is often left out of this pitch which makes 'God' (or the Father) sound so vindictive. So we run around conflating two separate passages into one 'pitch' and walk around thinking it is plain as can be.

For those of us who, for whatever reason, have made the leap and have staid the course, are we called to go 'further' with this or is our clarion call to recruit believers, er, share our story and introduce them to the goodness of God, or Jesus, or the Father or the baptism in/into/of/for/through the Holy Spirit? Forget about knowledge, save people?

I can't be the only 'believer' (or am I not really a believer?) who is totally confused (or just frustrated) with this. I suppose Sunday morning isn't really the time for high theology but I, perhaps naively, assume that throughout the year the more faithful in the EO or Catholic traditions have theology imparted into them in the liturgical cycle whereas in modern Protestantism it is up to us to pursue this in relative isolation.

So I am just as 'guilty' as those whom I accuse. We are all on the journey, all of us trying our best, let's be a part of the flow and not a dam.

Nesotrius Was Not Nestorian, Was Arius And Arian?

The deeper I dig in to this stuff, it seems as if many of these 'heretics' were but props, 'types' against which doctrine was defined and in the politics of the times I'd imagine persecutions over the years off and on put this in context in which we have little understanding as to the machinations used to ensure 'true' doctrine was entrenched.

I think we're seeing this played out on a different scale today when one person's text, tweet, whatever, is taken out of context (there is no time for context in our instant world) and blown to extremes whether or not the meaning is what it is said to have meant.

The logical extension of the 'worst' of Antiochene thought led to the accusations Cyril railed against Nestorius; it didn't necessarily matter whether or not he actually believed what was said. Ditto what was said about Cyril.

It is probably the same way with Arius. What is left of Arius' beliefs is found primarily in Athanasius. Not exactly an unbiased source of information. 

They became props against which doctrine was delineated and defined.

We do the same thing today with the various denominations when in reality we seem to have lost what the 'Trinity' actually means. Truthfully, when I read the Oneness arguments I think they are trying to say the same thing about the mystery. There are differences, obviously, such as the fact that the pre-existent 'Jesus' was in the mind of God and not a pre-existing Word that became man. Significant difference, certainly, from 'orthodox' thinking but in truth, when we drill down, we are trying to take the Biblical witness and put words to the mystery.

I will revisit this but I believe as Christians we are more united than we are divided and we spent more time infighting than we do trying to show people the beauty of the Christian faith.

I became a Christian spontaneously and it took me almost 20 years to want to be one.

Datums

There is absolutely no way we will ever come to complete agreement on this Christian thing. Never.

Never have, at least not all the way (whatever that means), never will. Can we all agree to disagree? 

Is there any common core?

It's not the Bible. KJV? NASB? Douay? EOB? Apocrypha included or not?

Who decides? Who translates? Who interprets? 

Can we really say 'Jesus' is what we have in common? Divine? Man? God Man? Virgin Birth? Son of God? Pre-existent? After all, every split within the body of believers called church has been around him and who he is.

Even the term God is fraught with difficulty. Trinity? Father alone? Jesus is God. Jesus is 'divine' but not God?

The bigger question is this: can we live with this not knowing? 

So many questions, so few answers. Each answer has more questions. 

The more I think and the more I talk and the more I study, the more I want stillness. Silence. Having traversed high and low, the realization is that we come to a place where there is nothing but mystery. It is ok to not know. This is not denial or absence of understanding but the realization that words, concepts and intellectual frameworks ultimately will fail in the light of this mystery.

"Is it not evident that the Father accepts the sacrifice, not because he demands it or feels some need for it, but in order to carry out his own plan? Humanity had to be brought to life by the humanity of God ... we had to be called back to him by his Son ...Let the rest be adored in silence." (Clement, p.45, quoting Gregory of Nazianzus)

"To progress in thinking about creatures is painful and wearisome. The · contemplation of the Holy Trinity is ineffable peace and silence." (Clement, p. 232, quoting Evagrius) "How has he been begotten? I re-utter the question with loathing. God's begetting ought to have the tribute of our reverent silence." (Gregory of Nazianzu, Oration 29)

The power, I am being to learn, is that we can experience it. We can bathe in it, swim in it. We just can't contain it or define it or box it in. This 'unknowing' is something we come to through a tradition, not in denial of the same or picking and choosing whatever it is we want to accept which makes us then the absolute standard of Truth; it confirms what we believe, it does not transform us.

Even the tale of Laozi being a scholar and keeper of the archives before he walked away indicates that he went through it and came out on the other side; the Buddha did something similar. Jesus, theologically debatable of course, went through his tradition. To get "there" you must journey through. It is the journey that provides the framework which leads you ultimately to silence.

I suppose in some sense then the 'silence' at the end of the journey will be different at the end because of the ocean in which you swam. 

A soft spot for Islam?

You may notice if you've read through these posts that Islam takes up a lot of space.  I spend a lot of time defending it in the light of the stereotypes and lack of understanding or willingness to accept any old thing said about it and the unwillingness to investigate any deeper than finding those things that reinforce what we already believe.

But I am not soft on Islam, in general.  In fact, one of my greatest peeves about its missionary work is the ignorance Muslims (intentionally and knowingly or not) spreads about Christianity as viewed through a missionary Muslim's perspective.  The information they often spread is just as bad as the information Christians often spread about Islam. 

Here are some books of this variety.  One is a "Saudi" version of the Qur'an that is given away in mass.  I picked up my copy while contemplating conversion and spending a weekend at a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia.  These are what are given out to those interested because they are readily available and they are free.  This is one particular translation into English from a very particular point of view.

Two of them are reviews about such information as put out in books by Christians who have converted to Islam.  These are books that spread a particular kind of information.  It is "rooted" in other things published but it often borders on the fringe, at best, and conspirational at worst.  Granted, I too am coming from a particular point of view so take these reviews as well formed opinion but opinions nonetheless.

However, I would certainly not base one's eternal salvation upon what these authors say.   But I do recommend reading them, though, if only to understand. 

The Qur'an - translation by by Abdur-Rahmaan Abdul-Khaliq, translated with commentary by Mahmoud Murad.

The Cross & The Crescent - Jerald Dirks

A Muslim Study of the Origins of the Christian Church - Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

They are authors, all entitled to their views.

I am simply defending education.

If you want opinions on some good, balanced works, drop me a line. 

The Zen Trinity...

Lately I've been on a Zen kick.  The Zen/Dao thing has been a constant in my life.  In many ways I am a Daoist Christian.  My Bible is marked at certain passages (especially in Ecclesiastes) with a 'DDJ' indicating parallels with the Dao De Jing.  It was in the context of the Dao that my spiritual awakening first began. 

Anyhow, there are a series of 'comic' books of Chinese philosophy by illustrator Tsai Chih Chung and translated by Brian Bruya that are brilliant in their simplicity.  They are, ironically enough, very Zen.  One of them, Zen Speaks, was, aside from the Dao De Jing, my first book on Zen/Daoism.  It's a first edition and, though a bit beat up, I still leaf through it on a regular basis. 

I find that Zen provides some penetrating insight into Christian theology without having to compromise.  In fact, in meditating upon this in church today I realized that it is possible to parallel the Trinity in Zen thought.  Granted, there is the "personal" or "relationship" element in Christian theology that is lacking in Zen.  In Zen there is no "person" with Whom to have a relationship as in Christian theology.

However, there is a parallel that can be made.  Instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in Zen there is the One, the Sage (or, perhaps, Mind) and the idea of 'emptiness' that is the essence of Zen practice.  In this emptiness is everything, the "insight" that comes in a flash causing us to act according to our original nature.  One who has reached this level of understanding is a Sage, persons who, over time, have become mythologized.  In the One is the origin of everything, from which everything flows.

This parallel is obviously sorely lacking in the person of Jesus but as Christians are to be Christ-like and Christ is a 'Sage' in the sense of acting according to his true nature, so too is the person who practices Zen attempting to be Sage-like in his actions, operating not according to self but acccording to 'emptiness' and thus his original nature.  The parallel is that a Christian in surrendering his everything allows the Holy Spirit to act through him, much like emptiness in Zen allows the person to operate in the manner of ziran (tzu jan), self-so or operating according to the way it is.

Again, this is not an exact parallel.  In Zen there is no purpose, no goal to achieve, no concern with accomplishing God's will or such "personal" notions.  These things, if operating in this emptiness, will occur naturally and thus according to the way they are supposed to be.  No higher purpose just the way it is.

I would, however, make the case that when we operate according to God's will we are acting in the way it is supposed to be.  This is the way it is.  All that means is that it is not forced, it is not polluted by the imposition of our will or selfish motive on our part.  It may not have the glory of attributing something to a personal God who we believe cares rather than the more impersonal approach in Zen.

Having walked these two paths in some parallel over the past fifteen years has enabled me in many ways to be open to Christian doctrine, especially when it comes to things (e.g. the Trinity) that don't at first make sense.  But by being open, empty if you will, I have come to a deeper understanding of the Trinity that is theologically correct. 

Zen is a mindset and one that might benefit many a Christian who tries to "force" his or herself to accept propositions that simply do not fit thus leading to a spiritual walk that is less than peaceful.  I wouldn't tag myself a Zen or Daoist Christian as a badge, no matter how much this may (or may not) be true, but I find nothing wrong with investigating other truth claims.

"But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good..." (1 Thessalonians 5:21, NASB) 

In context this probably applies to truth claims of Christian doctrine but expanding this beyond this particular context it easily extends toward any truth claim.

Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) - Jesus of Nazareth

If you tire of the self-help literature that is found under "Christian Inspiration" at your local chain bookstore, I recommend this book.

It's not an easy read. But it's an essential read.

The deeper I dig into Catholic tradition, the more treasures appear. If you are looking to deepen your faith and tire of the cheerleader Christianity so prevalent among churches today, the direction you need to go is to dig into the past.

Contrary to much popular opinion, the Bible is not a history book. To go back and try and figure out what the early church did simply by reading the New Testament is simply not enough.

The early church's history needs to be balanced out by the writings of the Church Fathers, the Second Temple literature and other pseudepigraphal works of the age along with some historical views of the culture in which Christianity emerged. Only then do we begin to get some semblance of what the early church was like.

The "Acts church" out of context has a tendency to look like an American church.

I consider myself to be fairly well studied when it comes to Christian history/theology (though obviously there is always much, much more to be learned). But within the first 50 pages of the book I've already been enlightened. It flows into a paradigm I already hold but the knowledge enhances this paradigm.

Consider:

"Both Evangelists designate Jesus' preaching with the Greek term evangelion - but what does that actuallymean?

The term has recently been translated as "good news." That sounds attractive, but it falls short of the order of magnitude of what is actually meant by the word evangelion. This term figures in the vocabulary of the Roman emperors, who understood themselves as lords, saviors, and redeemers of the world. The messages issued by the emperor were called in Latin evangelium, regardless of whether or not their content was particularly cheerful and pleasant. The idea was that what comes from the emperor is a saving message, that it is not just a piece of news, but a change of the world for the better.

When the Evangelists adopt this word, and it thereby becomes the generic name for their writings, what they mean to tell us is this: What the emperors, who pretend to be gods, illegitimately claim, really occurs here - a message endowed with plenary authority, a message that is not just talk, but reality. In the vocabulary of contemporary linguistic theory, we would say that the evangelium, the Gospel, is not just informative speech, but performative speech - not just the imparting of information, but action, efficacious power that enters into the world to save and transform." (pp. 46-47)

Adds a bit of power to the term.

Get this book. It is not a papal view nor is it a Catholic doctrinal work. It is the man Joseph Ratzinger's search for the face of the Lord.

What kind of a Christian?

That's a really tough question. I guess I am "supposed" to be a Christian of the Trintarian variety. To a degree I am though sometimes I feel as if I hold to this as an objective categorization to keep it separate from the "other" variations of the Christian, defined more by what it is not than by what it is, the apophaticism of the mystics.

I do see how it developed and the need for it. Something was necessary to give a cohesive structure to the Church in order for it to survive as it has for 2,000 years. Given what we have in the Bible - Father, Son, Spirit - and their workings throughout the New Testament writings, it is sensible that the Trinitarian doctrine developed. It is not, as many claim, illogical, as it was logic that built the Trinitarian edifice. There is a limit to this logic, however, and there does come a point where logic is baffled because we recognize the limits of words and language to convey the deeper things of religious experience. This also is not illogical. All religious traditions agree that while words are necessary to take us "there" a point comes where words fail.

But there are times when I view Jesus as universal soul, the "celestial self" of whom Henry Corbin writes, the fravarti, the Daena we will meet on the road to the Cinvat Bridge. This vision is found in Manichaeism, Sufism and Pure Land Buddhism. But it is not foreign to Christianity. In Corbin's view, Jesus was viewed by some (e.g. in the Shepherd of Hermas) as an Angel along the same lines. And the more I understand the idea of the Imam in Shi'ite Islam the more it makes sense. There can be no doubt that there are parallel lines of "seeing" between this vision of Islam and the Christ who is "angelic" in this sense.

So which Jesus?

Then there is the cultural Jesus, the "substitute Jesus" of the cult of celebrity, whether musicians, movie stars, pro athletes, talk show hosts or any other "famous" person in whom we place our trust and allegiance, only to cruficy them when they fail. Why else are the tabloids so popular? It's because we want to know the dirt they do. We prop them up, support their lifestyles so that we can, in a sense, fund them the lives we wish to live, watch them as voyeurs, safely from a distance, and then thrive when they fall.

There is the Islamic Jesus, the Buddhist Jesus, the Jewish Jesus, the Jesus Seminar Jesus, the macho Jesus, the feminist Jesus, even the atheist Jesus. Lots of Jesuses out there. Which Jesus?

Isn't it quite possible that all these views of Jesus actually embrace him? Perhaps Jesus has become nothing more than a collective projection of an innate goodness onto a "figure" named Jesus, whose roots are found in the New Testament but who has become the repository of the collective human consciousness. Perhaps the "New Age" Jesus is in full effect.

I think any vision of Jesus will always develop and change over time. After all, this is theology plain and simple. There is really no theology proper in Islam. Theology implies an independent interpretation and, as such, has been controversial in Islamic history. Judaism also does not place great emphasis on theology. Theology, in these two faiths, are basically the equivalent of what is believed. But there are, in general, no disputations about the "nature" of God.

Theology really developed in answer to the question Jesus poses: "Who do you say that I am?" It is this, when analyzed through independent reason and the adoption of Greek philosophical methods and terms to a Christian paradigm, that drove Christian theology. So while every avenue of who Jesus was/is has been, throughout the great debates in Church history, analyzed and discussed and argued about, there is still a challenge on the individual level to wrestle with this question.

It is this wrestling, and a more independent streak in the post-Enlightenment world, that has led to all the divisions within Christendom and has given rise to the post-denominational world of the Church today. Add to this the Jesus of culture or of other religions and the mystery of who he really was/is increases.

As a Christian to not wrestle with this question requires blind allegiance to a teacher or pastor or blind allegiance to ignorance (i.e. fear). As a thinking Christian, wrestling with this question, while potentially dangerous, can be liberating. This does not mean leaving Christianity or abandoning Jesus or somehow failing God.

No, this means that you, as an individual, take responsibility for finding the answer on your own. Any visionary, anyone who has had an experience with the "risen Christ" has done so when he ventured beyond the confines of familiarity and contentment and journeyed out beyond into the realms of darkness where the soul is on its own, where the soul can find a true and genuine faith.

This is the realm where the "mystic" or the "visionary" who comes back with a tale to tell and a desire to help others. But this is also the realm in which, if not careful, the self-declared mystic and visionary comes back and leads eager and gullible souls to hell (think Jim Jones).

Self-definition is tough. I hate labels and categories. Labels and categories serve as a reference point, a leaping off point, but in the end they too need abandoned. Even the name of Jesus can become a hindrance as we creat an idol out of the imagery we attach to the name.

I am reminded, as is often the case, of the Dao De Jing:

"The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao.

The name that can be named, is not the eternal name." DDJ, 1, Feng translation

Yet the question remains: "Who do you say that I am?"

Henry Corbin and Docetism

Trying to further elaborate on the post on Henry Corbin's discussion on Angelology, he delves further into the gnostic idea and its trajectory. As should be pretty clear, Corbin's writings have had a tremendous impact on me. In terms of comparative religion, he puts to shame the superficiality of many so-called comparative religious studies and gets to a genuine "core", the real crux of where relgions meet, not in doctrine and dogma, which are areas where divisions have been drawn, but in those fringe areas where religions truly intersect and interweave.

The Christ of the Acts of Peter and John has been called Docetic. Corbin notes, however, that Docetism is not a set doctrine but a "tendency" (63). He points out that the Christology of the Qur'an is Docetic as is the Imamology particular to Shi'ite Gnosis and that the "Buddhology" of Mahayana Buddhism is Docetic as well. In terms of a Christian Docetism this is in contrast to the hypostatic union which was "a material fact that entered into history" and became an "external and objective datum" 62). In other words, this is not your "orthodox" variety of Christianity.

This Docetic Christology does not view Christ as a "phantasm" or a spook or a ghost but as a "real apparition" which is "proportionate to the theophanic dimension of the soul, that is, its aptitude for being shown a divine Figure". The soul, therefore, is thus not a witness to an external event but "the medium in which the event takes place" (62).

Peculiar to Ebionite Christianity is the idea of the True Prophet or Prophet of Truth, not the God incarnate or God-man of what would become "orthodox" Christianity.

"Running through the ages since the beginning of the world, he hastens toward the place of his repose".

All that matters to the Ebionites is whether or not Jesus is this Prophet. The first Adam was the first epiphanic Form of the True Prophet, what Corbin calls the Christus aeternus, i.e. Adam-Christos. The True Prophet, having in him the breath of the divine nature, cannot sin. In Ebionism, the True Prophet appeared to Moses and Abraham and in Adam and Jesus the True Prophet was present.

In Jesus, then, the True Prophet finds his "final repose." He is not messianic Lord because his death effects redemption; according to Corbin it is because a community was "waiting for the Epiphany of the...Angelos Christos, the return of him who dispenses Knowledge that delivers and who will thereby establish a supraterrestrial kingdom...of Angels." (71) He is an Illuminator, not a Redeemer.

Now if Adam, the initial Prophet, could not sin, what of the "fall" of man? Providing a unique spin of Satan/Iblis, Adam's "fall" was not sin but of divulging the secret of the end of the Cycle of history, the knowledge of the Last Imam of the Cycle, the Resurrector (Qa'im) and the Resurrection. But this may only be divulged in symbols proportionate to the spiritual adept's "degree of dignity and capacity." (84)

This is where Corbin gets into the meat of his essay. He discusses the hadd, the limit, of each spiritual adept. It is the degree of consciousness, the mode of knowledge proportionate to the mode of being realized by the adept. The next higher hadd is, then, the Lord - that is to say, the Self - of its own mahdud ("limited"), the Self of what which it limits, that whose horizon it is." (85)

Our spiritual journey, in this scheme, is a journey through levels, or horizons or, as Corbin calls them, Angels. Each adept must rely upon his imam who is responsible for leading him up to the next level which thus becomes his hadd and the adept too is responsible for leading the one below him up to his former hadd. Each ascent of degrees, or horizon, is called a qiyamat, a "resurrection." So Adam, as True Prophet, is the repository of all souls, each individual soul on its journey toward the Qiyamat al-Qiyamat, or Grand Resurrection. In Shi'ite Islam this is the advent of the Qa'im, the last Imam. This, according to this schema, is the consummation of all religion.

So where does this leave us besides bewildered? Though this is a weak summation of what is truly a dense distilation of comparative religion in Corbin's work, it is leading somewhere.

Several concepts as generally understood in Christianity are tweaked:

1) Docetism is presented in a different form that is stereotypically understood as mere "appearance" or "phantasm"

2) Jesus is not an incarnate God; he is the repository of the True Prophet and is thus, at least according to Ebionite Christianity, messianic in the sense of bringer of Knowledge

3) Each spiritual adept (i.e. all of us) is where he/she us based on the adept's "horizon" or ability to see

4) The Qiyamat al-Qiyamat (Grand Resurrection) is when the Qa'im (the Final Imam), akin to the parousia of traditional Christianity, will appear to "recapitulte" all souls and religion, the Epiphanic Cycle of this Gnostic vision will be complete.

This connects to another of my favorite writers, Vladimir Lossky and his writings on Eastern Orthodox Theology. The connection between Christianity's "eastern" coloring and its influence on Islam is unmistakable. What is surprising is that in a work as "orthodox" as Lossky's there seems to be a connection, no matter how slight, with Corbin's vision of the Christianity almost lost to the paradise of archetypes.

Henry Corbin and Angelology

In Henry Corbin's densely packed book on the trajectory of "gnosticism" from Zoroastrianism through Christianity to its final "resting" place of Shi'ism he discusses the theophanic vision, as I've posted elsewhere quoting the Acts of Peter and Acts of John.

This stuff is heady and my summation is not as clean as I'd like but it's a start. Corbin's stuff is the densest thing I've ever read. But the work is worth it for those nuggets, when they come, make it all worth while.

Here's what he has to say about the theophanic vision:

"There is actual perception of an object, of a concrete person: the figure and the features are sharply defined; this person presents all the "appearances" of a sensuous object, and yet it is not given to the perception of the sense organs. This perception is essentially an event of the soul, taking place in the soul and for the soul. As such its reality is essentially individuated for and with each soul; what the soul really sees, it is in each case alone in seeing." (Henry Corbin, Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis, 60).

And here is the key to this entire essay in the book:

"The field of its vision, its horizon, is in every case defined by the capacity, the dimension of its own being: Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui" (60-61)

Quoting Origen's discussion of the Transfiguration he notes that Jesus appeared in the form in which he was normally seen but also in his transfigured form "he appeared to each one according as each man was worthy."

The core of Corbin's book is in essence the transformation of such a "gnosis" in Islamic, specifically Ismaili, soil. Having traced its origins in Zoroastrianism, Corbin goes on to discuss the connection between Zoroastrianism, Christianity (specifically Ebionite Christianity) and Islam (specifically Shi'ite and, more speficially, Ismaili Shi'ite) in a mindbending trip. Corbin has "no wish to debate the question of historical filiation...nor to determine the 'influences'" which, he says, "reads causality into things" (31). The connection between them is not doctrinal: it is a common angelology.

By angel he is not talking about the winged variety or the Touched By An Angel variety or any of those other media caricatures. For Corbin the "angel" is the "celestial Idea" of all human beings. Writing on Ibn Arabi, he says:

"...that which a human being regains in the mystical experience, is the "celestial pole" of his being, which is to say his "person" whereby and as which, the Divine Being from the very beginning in the origin of origins in the world of Mystery, manifested himself to himself, and made himself known to it in this Form [its own form, the form it was given to assume] which is equally the Form in which he knew himself in it. It is the Idea, or rather the "Angel" of his person whose present self is no more than the terrestrial pole."

And again:

"I am your own Daênâ", -which means: I am, in person, the faith that you professed and that which inspired it in you, she for whom you have answered and she who guided you, she who comforted you and she who now judges you, for I am, in person, the Image proposed to you from the birth of your being and the Image which finally you have yourself wished for ("I was beautiful, you have made me still more beautiful").

These paragraphs draw out the distinctions behind Corbin's aversion to traditional Christianity and its teaching of the singular event of the Incarnation of Christ. Rather than a universal, singular Christ, this Angel of which Corbin speaks is personal, unique to each soul, and is the Image to which the soul longs to unite.

He further breaks down this angelology. Rather than being a "metaphorical luxury" the Angel's significance is twofold, theophanic and soteriological ("salvific"). It can be thought about in several ways. There are angels who have remained in the celestial world, the intermediary between heaven and earth, and other angels who have fallen to Earth. The angels in the celestial world (the pleroma) are "angels in actu" and the angels who are on earth are the "angels in potentia".

Another way of looking at it is that this division may refer to a single being, an unus ambo. The Spirit is the person or Angel who has remained in heaven, the "celestial twin", while the soul is his companion who has fallen to Earth, to whose help he comes and with whom he will be reunited if he issues victorious from the cosmic battle between good and evil. (103)

The human lot is thus, quoting Nasir Khusraw, a transitory status, the "horizon" of which Corbin speaks. Man is a "not-yet": an angel (or demon) in potentia awaiting reunion with his celestial twin, the angel in actu.

Heady? Yeah. And I can't do it justice. But there is a certain logic to it that is quite appealing. Rather than a heavenly Jesus to whom we turn, we all have inherent in us this "Idea" of perfection, this idea of the "Divine" and it is this "Idea" that Corbin terms the Angel with whom we seek union or re-union. It has been placed in us from the very beginning; it is this that guides us and it is to this we seek to return.

Corbin's main thrust is this:

"Man is called, by right of his origin and if he consents, to an angelomorphosis, his acceptance of which precisely regulates his aptitude for theophanic visions." (64)

It is this angelomorphosis (Corbin invents mroe than a few terms in this work) that is the key. Ismailian Gnosis, according to Corbin, in a sense saves a Christianity, specifically of the Ebionite variety, that had long ago been lost to the "paradise of archetypes" (65).

It comes down to choice...

It is a choice, certainly and I think that is the key. You might say it's a choice to choose. But then commitment to that choice is just as important. In my case, after the initial choice, my sincere desire to know the answers led me down many a winding path. But it always came back to Jesus. Always.

And the Jesus of Islam wasn't the answer (as I've noted in various places in my blog), nor was it the Jesus of the scholars, the Jesus of the Jesus Seminar, the Jesus of the New Age or the Jesus of historians. I gorged myself on these works, studying them in great depth and detail, trying to justify and prove that the whole thing was a myth, a charade, a lie. In the end I found, by and large, that the Jesus of these methods turned out to look a lot like the scholars the scholars themselves. In the end, ironically enough, it enhanced my faith.

I had some "visions" that were a turning point for me. I've written about them in the blog. We got away from the circus style church and found a place where true and genuine preaching was heard weekly. Practical, earthly, relevant stuff that, when applied, revealed the Truth greater than any studying could ever do.

And, lately, the healing of my soul. I sourced mine to events when I was around ten years old.

Strangely enough, this healing led to and coincided with intellectual rest and freedom. My intellect was a defense, protection of a wounded soul. Rather than be open and honest, I filtered it through analysis and intellect first. It was just another method of numbing the pain I was hiding. Once my soul began to heal, my intellect, though still on hyperdrive, was no longer my idol. It balanced my soul.

In hindsight, by hiding the pain, I learned that it was more painful to hide it than to feel the actual pain of the pain I was hiding...if that makes sense.

Make a choice and watch that party in your head come along and even support you in your choice. Rather than a cacophony make it a symphony. Start exploring the reasons for not being able to make a choice, to what degree addiction and depression are a front for selfishness and what part of the soul is in need of healing.

I'm not all the way there yet. Sometimes my writing is the conceptual grasp that I have yet to achieve but it's a goal. And I do slip back into depression and self-pity and addictive tendencies are always lurking. But I have a consistent hope these days.

But it's taken me over ten long and adventurous years after "accepting Christ" to begin to find it. I do believe, however, that the wisdom I found in diving into other traditions provided fertile soil and I cherish the wisdom and experiences. I remain open to listening to the whisper of the Spirit from wherever it may come.

Jesus' sacrifice is Jewish, not pagan, in origin...part two

Round two of Conclusions:

1) The Palestinian Targum proves quite conclusively that already in the first century AD there existed a firm belief that the principal merit of the Akedah sprang from the virture of Isaac's self-offering...

2) ...the Akedah, although ritually incomplete, was indeed a true sacrifice and Israel's chief title to forgiveness and redemption. The purpose of other sacrifices, including the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, was to remind God of Isaac's perfect self-oblation and to invoke his merits.

3) ...in the ancient liturgy of Israel a powerful bond linked the Binding of Isaac with Passover and eschatological salvation.

Vermes then goes on, with scholarly support, to further the view that Paul's symbolic use of the Akedah is the bridge between "the genuinely Jewish teaching of atoning suffering" and "the non-Jewish concept of a Saviour who was both man and God." (p. 218)

Vermes notes that Paul follows a traditional Jewish pattern enabling him to "coordinate with the framework of a coherent synthesis the most profound and anomalous religious concept ever known to the human mind....For although he is undoubtedly the greatest theologian of the Redemption, he worked with inherited materials..." (p. 221)

Using the premise that the early chapters of Acts are from a Palestinian stratum more ancient than Paul's writings, he notes that Jesus is called "Servant of God" and ties this not to Psalm 2 but to Genesis 22. On this premise he poses the possibility that it was Jesus, not Paul, who introduces the Akedah motif into Christianity.

Finally, noting that the Passover lamb of John's Gospel is problematic in many respects because the Passover lamb is not an expiatory sacrifice, he notes that, for the Palestinian Jew, all lamb sacrifice hearkens back to the Akedah and its effects of "deliverance, forgiveness of sin and messianic salvation." (p. 225) Jesus is the new Isaac.

Vermes does qualify this by noting that the Christian doctrine of Redemption is not just a Christian version of the Akedah. He simply emphasizes that the essential role of the targumic representation of the Binding of Isaac in its development.

"Indeed," he notes, "without the help of Jewish exegesis it is impossible to perceive any Christian teaching in its true perspective." (p .227)

Jesus' sacrifice is Jewish, not pagan, in origin...

I'm going to ease into this one as I haven't read all posts so am not certain what has been covered. However, this is primarily in response to the debate about dating Mithraism and whether its predating Christianity would equate to Christianity borrowing from it.

Geza Vermes, a Christian who reverted back to Judaism, discusses, in a stellar article, the conncetion between the Akedah and Jesus' crucifixion and its redemptive power. The article itself is over 30 pages long and is thick with exegesis, drawing from the Midrash, the Targums and Second Temple literature to draw out the connection. It can be found in Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies.

While not his primary focus, this article does reveal that the crufixion of Jesus is drawn from within Judaism and accusations of "pagan" borrowings are quite simplistic (making the early Christians look like a bunch of comparative religious scholars which, ironically enough, looks a lot like the scholars who make such accusations). In fact, these accusations are not necessary at all. In fact, by drawing the "pagan" connection, it actually casts misunderstanding on the significance of the crufixion from the understanding of the early Christian movement as many of these scholars may point out the similarities but they often fail to spend any time on the differences.

Anyhow, part one brings forth the following conclusions:

1) The two main targumic themes of the Akedah story, namely, Isaac's willingness to be offered in sacrifice and the atoning virtue of his action, were already traditional in the first century AD.

2) Genesis 22 was interpreted in association with Isaiah 53. That is to say, the link between these two texts was established by Jews independently from, and almost certainly prior to, the New Testament.

3) The theological problem which apparently led to the creation of this exegetical tradition was that of martyrdom.

4) The tradition must consequently have established itself some time between the middle of the second century BC and the beginning of the Christian era.

I'll try and draw this out more but questions are welcomed to help focus my responses.

The other work that is significant in this regard is Shalom Spiegel's The Last Trial. He shows, in much greater detail (Vermes references this work), the tradition where Isaac was actually killed and resurrected by God.

Though not a common belief, it is not unknown in Jewish circles. This idea is mentioned briefly in the movie The Believer.

Again, this stuff is dense but it convincingly shows that there is no need to go outside of Judaism to explain the core of Christian beliefs. If there is any "pagan" influence it either came to Christianity through Judaism (what Spiegel calls the residual "dust" of paganism) or by those who interpreted Christianity once it left the environs of Jerusalem.

Daoist critique of Christianity

"When everyone knows good as good, this is not good." Dao De Jing, Chapter 2, Thomas Cleary translation.

That's not a very literal translation but Cleary's was my first Dao De Jing, the one I was reading when I entered the stream.

A fairly literal translation would be:

"When all know the good (shan) good,
There is then the not good (pu shan)."(Chen translation)

This doesn't take into account any philosophical insight into how "good" or "not good" is understood but the meaning is pretty clear in the overall context. Opposites give rise to one another. You don't recognize good without an understanding of bad. These are distinctions in the mind. To transcend this leads to the realization that everything just "is" and any distinctions or labels are constructs of the human mind.

But Cleary's translation provides some penetrating insight. In terms of the culture at large, think of those things that become popular. Popular is somewhat akin to vulgur, common, base. In order for something to be popular it must be watered down, filtered, reduced to its lowest common denominator in order that it reach a mass audience.

The easiest example would be pop music. Heavy on hooks, light on substance. It reaches a mass audience. Think about "alternative" music or music that just isn't mainstream. It isn't "popular" in this sense. There may be many who like the music but in the end it has a limited audience. The more "popular" something becomes the lighter it becomes in order to do so. There may be exceptions to this rule but Top 40 captures this for a reason. Commercial radio today longs for this. In order to reach the largest audience it cannot have music that targets only the few. The advertisers on such a station want the same: maximum reach. In order to do this, it must seek to maintain a middle of the road presence, safe enough for everybody.

So "popular" is not necessarily a good word. It's akin to selling out which is a frequent criticism of bands who make it big. They compromise their essence and seek to "sell" a certain sound. In other words it is the selling, not the music, as such, that drives them. Bands that have been around for years with a steady following often have that one big album. Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA"; The Police's "Synchronicity"; J. Geils Band's "Freeze Frame". And then they never quite hit that level of popularity again. Thus the problem with seeking to be popular as there is no way to please everyone.

So it is with Christianity. The Jesus of today is popular. He is everywhere and everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a Jesus in mind, whether the fundamentalist variety, the buddy Jesus, the Muslim Jesus, the Gnostic Jesus or the Course in Miracles Jesus, the historical Jesus, the list goes on and on and on. In this sense, Jesus is certainly popular. But this isn't necessarily a good thing for it doesn't really answer the question: who was Jesus?

It turns Jesus into a pop star, someone we can mold into whatever image we see fit. We can elevate him only as far as is comfortable. And then we can leave him behind when he doesn't match our beliefs. This Jesus doesn't transform; this Jesus aligns with what we already believe.

I would make the argument that, as understood in this context, when everyone knows Jesus, this is not good. This isn't to say it is bad as, from a Daoist point of view, the bad contains the seed of the good. After all, Paul says that even if Christ is preached in contention, at least he is still being preached.

It simply means that the question still lingers, always pushing us further, always drawing us in, never leaving us at complete rest, just out of reach, until we truly answer: "Who do you say I am?"

Ann Holmes Redding...

How fitting:

Episcopal minister is a Muslim

I remember when this story first broke. I was just emerging from calling myself Chrislamic. I was truly a Christian in the sense of having Jesus as my measure at truth but was enamored with Islam as in many ways I found it balanced what I felt (and still do feel are) the extremes of Christianity.

So I attended church and, for quite some time, I attended my local mosque (as a matter of fact it was pre and post 9/11 when I attended). Islam provided my soul a true sense of grounding especially, as Ms. Holmes has stressed, the power and beauty of the recitation of the Qur'an. I can truly understand Islam's appeal to her.

However, I am not convinced she took long enough to study it. To make such a life altering decision within a ten day period seems quite impulsive. I would compare it to the beginning days of a dating relationship. How many of us would get married after ten days?

I can also understand her claim to being a Christian as well. Her arguments are valid as to the ability to remain both. However, she has, in essence, forged her own version of each, stripping away some of those things that demarcate any similarities between the two faiths.

Christian belief has no compromise on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Islam refutes this entirely. Most Muslims believe he was saved from being crucified and was raised alive to God. There are some who postulate he did live a full life on earth and some believe he is buried in India but these are minority beliefs. Muslims do believe in the resurrection and most believe that Jesus will, on that day, renounce the beliefs held by Christians and proclaim Islam to be the true faith.

The vast majority of the Christian world teaches that Jesus is divine/deity/God. How that is understood is often debated but the fact itself is not. Exceptions would be Unitarians, Christadelphians and Jehovah's Witnesses (I don't believe Episcopals compromise on this point).

Islam refutes this entirely. Jesus, though a Prophet, is only human.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit are seen, by the majority of 

Christendom, as the Trinity, in doctrinal terms. Even if there is no belief in the Trinity, there is still a "trinitarian" economy to God's operation in these three.

Islam does not refer to God as "Father" and the Holy Spirit is considered to be the angel Gabriel. There are no "sons" of God.

For Christianity, God reveals His nature. His nature is revealed in His Son, through the Holy Spirit. While the depths of this nature are infinite, God's nature is revealed.

In Islam, God's nature is impenetrable. While He reveals Himself through His Word in the form of attributes, His revelation is not relational. There is little talk of God's nature and no talk of "person" when it comes to God which is why Islam, in general, has little to do with theology, as such.

Jesus, according to Christianity, is the Word of God (contrary to popular belief, the Bible is not the Word of God).

Jesus, while called a word from God by the Qur'an, is not the Word of God according to Islam. If a parallel is to be drawn, though lacking in many respects, the Qur'an would be considered the Word of God.

So while Ms. Holmes can hold these two faiths in her person in a delicate balance, the tension between the two helping deepen her faith in many respects, it also shortchanges her as there are many compromises she must make.

In the end, what, or who, is the Truth against which she measures her faith? Is it truly God? Or is she the measure of all Truth?

I think, in terms of faith, a choice must be made. While we can, and should, respect other faiths and can even participate in other faiths to a degree, there comes a point where we must choose.

I had been a fence straddler for a long time. It took me almost ten years to "leave" Islam. I took it as far as I could on the inside without making the leap. The leap was the last thing I needed to do. But, after the initial buzz has worn off and I entrenched myself in the deep things of the tradition, I was able to gather perspective.

It was only after making a clear decision that I began to see the "light" of the Christian path. While I often wonder what this "light" may have appeared as had I chosen to take the shahadah, I realize that I am where I am supposed to be.

East vs. West (especially the postmodern, neo-Protestant West)

"If one speaks of God it is always, for the Eastern Church, in the concrete...It is always the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost." (Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 64)

Once again, I gravitate back to Lossky's works. In the church I attend I occasionally hear mention of the Trinity but it is almost a generic address. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are mentioned but there is no context. All focus is on Jesus. Father, Son, God, Lord and such terms are thrown into the mix of preaching, singing and praise and there is no clarity as to the significance of the terms. Maybe such a setting isn't really the place for this, I don't know. But it is one thing that has always troubled me and I struggled for years to make sense of it all, to find a way to filter these terms thrown about so loosely into a framework through which I could place my mind at ease and move beyond intellect into true worship.

I have finally been able to do so but in doing so I find myself at odds with the aversion to theology in neo-Protestant churches with theology and discussion on the Trinity primarily proof-texting, as if the Trinity is nothing short of obvious.

So I am re-reading Lossky's work and find some quotes that fit, though I'm not sure he was addressing this specifically.

"Likewise, the idea of beatitude has acquired in the West a silghtly intellectual emphasis, presenting itself in the guise of a vision of the essence of God. The personal relationship of man to the living God is no longer a relationship to the Trinity, but rather has as its object the person of Christ, who reveals to use the divine nature." (p. 64)

Now on the surface this seems like no big deal. In fact, I agree with this view of Christ. It is through him we come to know God but in so doing I have found the God we know is the Trinity. But Lossky brings up a good point and it is apparent in the recent arguments about Christ found throughout not just the church but the culture at large:

"Christian life and thought become christocentric, relying primarily on the humanity of the incarnate Word; one might almost that it is this which becomes their anchor of salvation." (pp. 64-5, bold mine)

This is exactly the state of the church today, especially the "evanglecical" variety (keeping in mind all churches are really evangelical in nature, it's just that "evangelical" has become something of a franchise or trademark). It is all about Jesus, the Trinity being spoken of "as a memory" (quoting Th. de Regnon in the footnote on p. 64).

"Indeed, in the doctrinal conditions peculiar to the West all properly theocentric speculation runs the risk of considering the nature before the persons and becoming a mysticism of 'the divine abyss'...; of becoming an impersonal apophaticism of the divine nothingness prior to the Trinity."

According to Lossky, there is no place in Eastern Orthodoxy for "a theology, much less a mysticism, of the divine essence" (p. 65).

"The goal of Orthodox spirituality [is] a participation in the divine life of the Holy Trinity..., possessing by grace all that the Holy Trinity possesses by nature." (p. 65)

As he says elsewhere, theology is not thinking about the Trinity but thinking in the Trinity.

So I'm torn. I appreciate the christocentric view as through coming to know Jesus more and more I've seen a change in my life, Jesus as example, imitation of Jesus. In this sense it is a personal relationship with Christ.

But I have also come to agree with the Trinitarian viewpoint over and above the other theologies (e.g. the Oneness Pentecostal background through which I spent my early years as a "new" Christian). In studying these other views it becomes much more clear as to how and why the Trinity developed as it did.

But as I repeat frequently, it is a hedge, a boundary, something we come to through experience; it is not where we begin. Where we begin is coming to know the cross of Christ and, more significantly, the risen Christ for without the risen Christ the cross becomes a theology of divine abuse.

In Christ, new is creation...

"Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Cor 5:17, KJV)

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, {he is} a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Cor 5:17, NASB)

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." (Galatians 6:15, KJV)

"For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." (Galatians 6:15, NASB)

In both cases, the Greek is kainos ktisis. Yet in the NASB one is translated "new creature" and the other as "new creation."

The term ktisis can be used as a general term for creation (cf. Romans 1:20).

I'm no expert in Greek but, if I remember correctly, 2 Corinthians 5:17 can read "new (is) creation." Notice the italics in 2 Corinthians 5:17 meaning that the words are not there but are added/implied in the translation.

This makes sense to me, at least in 2 Corinthians 5:17 even in the larger context of New Testament thought. It isn't that we obtain a new nature (after all, what nature would we receive?) but that our existing nature is infused with the Holy Spirit. This is the "born again" experience. It is the power of resurrection working in us. Our old nature is not tossed out, something disposable. In baptism it dies with Christ; in him the resurrection begins and continues through each of us who accept him.

We are given another set of eyes. We see creation anew. New is creation.

Even in Galatians 6:15 this also makes sense. In Christ, not only is man restored but, through man, in Christ, the entire creation is to be restored. This is consistent with Pauline thought:

"For we know that the whole creation (ktisis) groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now." (Romans 8:22)

This simply reveals the challenge of translation. There is always bias (not necessarily a bad or negative word) and a theological position behind any translation and it is thus also interpretation.

Yet there is also freedom in this. "New is creation" or "is a new creation" or "is a new creature" are all possibilities, creating a broad expanse of spiritual implications in each variation. Rather than Biblical literalism, why can we not accept that the Word is so much larger than the box we seek to put it in merely for our own comfort?

Zen Christian connection...

Just musing on this at work today. I have plenty of time. Imagine putting a part on a machine press, pushing a button, taking the part off and putting it in a box and doing it over and over again for eight hours. The mind tends to drift. Fortunately, it drifts toward positive things.

My epiphany at the top of Yosemite Falls was in the context of immersion in the Dao De Jing. Not exactly Zen but I was well on my way.

I have healed in the context of the Christian path and was thinking about the similarity/difference. From my Christian point of view, I think of it as the light shining in darkness and exposing it, a bright light yielding insight and clarity that comes in a flash. Though I can't process the entirety of it, I "see" it.

In the context of the Dao or Zen, it isn't a light, as such, but a moment of insight and clarity that comes "in a flash." No light. It just is.

In Zen we find there is no "thing" there. It is a stripping away of the layers and layers and years and years of accumulation, of attachment and desires.

In Christianity there is some "thing" there and that "thing" is a Person. We might say we find some "one" there.

But is this 'person' merely a projection of our deepest needs and desires collectively? Is it personalizing the impersonal? Or is there a real person there to whom we conform?

Is this what makes people uncomfortable (or comfortable)?

In Christ, our nature is replaced, admittedly broken.

In Zen, there is no new nature, merely dusting off the original one. There is no admittance of broken. There is nothing to be separated from. There is no relationship.

So there is a point in which experience, at the depths of two traditions, seem to bare similarities. And yet there are differences. The two opposing poles of similarity and difference swirling around the strange attractor beyond which can only be experienced.

How do you define success?

I was talking with a friend of mine today who is head of Catholic Charities Services, the agency I worked for while working with the homeless as an outreach coordinator. It was perhaps the pivotal period of time in my faith. I was a "new" Christian then, studying religion and Biblical criticism at the university level, my intellect outweighing my heart at the time until I began working with the homeless.

Anyhow, he has been involved with a group of local evangelical Christians who are business leaders/owners and the question in the title came up. All the men, though they struggled with the question, tended to answer it in terms of financial terms, i.e. their business is doing well, their needs and wants are filled, they have financial security, etc.

My friend point out Philippians 2:5-8:

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (NASB)

Now in many neo-Protestant circles, these passages are for one thing only: to prove that Jesus is God (never mind the Trinity, never mind theological subtles, just that Jesus is God). The finer point of the passage is glossed over.

"...but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (NASB)

In other words, how does blessed (i.e. success) translated in material terms line up with Jesus? It would seem to me to contradict his message. His message was radical.

"Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go {and} sell your possessions and give to {the} poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Matthew 19:21, cf. Mark 10:21, Luke 18:22)

No getting around it. This is the ideal.

This doesn't mean we have to be poor. Just as being wealthy is not indicative of one's faith, neither is being poor. It's the other side of the coin. This is looking at the outside of the cup. It says nothing of what is in one's heart.

But any wealth is to be used for others. Give to the poor. We are vessels, stewards of what is God's.

"The earth [is] the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

It is God's. We are thus stewards. If it is given to us, it is for a purpose and just as Christ emptied himself, so too are we to empty ourselves and become a vessel through which God can reach others. We are to be the light of the world.

Sadly, our notions of "salvation" and "saved" and "blessing" have become self-centered, personal, me-oriented with material/financial overtones. In other words, we define success by the standards of the culture at large and not the other way. No wonder people can't distinguish a Christian from anyone else, other than the oddball culture that many Christianities have birthed.

The oddest preachers, the celebrities on television or viral videos (think of the Farting Preacher) and that is the closest Christianity comes to a "culture" of its own.

Yet too often Christians go the other route and try to be cool, hip and down with the culture at large.

C'mon. Bumper stickers, crosses on chains, the ubiquitous Jesus fish, pamphlets, leaflets, flyers, business cards, hats, Jesus on a motorcycle, Jesus playing hoops and on and on and on they go cluttering up the landscape.



They are trinkets. You can be cool and be a Christian. The culture drives the faith rather than other way around.