John 8:58 and Exodus 3:14 Part Two

And we continue:

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Originally Posted by CaliberCadillac

Whether or not the early Church Fathers “made the connection” is somewhat superfluous.

I am simply pointing out that they were either reading the texts in the original Greek, their native language, or heard them spoken in such fashion. I don’t know for certain that the koine Greek in which the texts were written was the same dialect as that of the Fathers but Greek was the native tongue of the early Fathers.

For us today, it is a dead language so we are learning it less intuitively and much more theologically.

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We have since had some 2000 years of brilliant (and at times, not so brilliant), scholars examining the Scriptures and discovering things that they may have never even imagined.

Certainly and in many cases for the better. But we have also had 2,000 years of theology by which we read into the texts. More recent doesn’t always equate to better.

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Secondly it’s an argument from silence. While we have Church Fathers commenting on the passage of John 8:58 itself, (as you provided), we don’t seem to have any that actually comment directly comparing John with Exodus.

I would think that if it was so blatantly obvious, they would have said something. I remain convinced that textually the connection was not there.

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I will, however, zero in on this particular passage from Irenaeus:

First of all, the brackets are completely yours. Irenaeus does not say “i.e. the Father not Jesus.”

Of course he doesn't. That's why I put the brackets in there. Didn’t mean to imply they were in the original text.

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Secondly, notice the first sentence that states, “Wherefore, as I have already stated, no other is named as God…”

What Irenaeus had ‘already stated’ is found in the preceding paragraph where you will find him declaring,

“Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, and His Son who has received dominion from His Father over all creation, as this passage has it:..” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, VI,1)

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Irenaeus is clearly stating that the name “Lord” and the word “God” (as used in the OT), refers to both the Father and the Son.

That's my point. It is the Father and the Son. The key is that the "He who is" (i.e. the ho on as found in Exodus 3:14 of the LXX) refers to the Father.

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As I stated before, since they don’t comment directly about a comparison, no conclusions should be made. We don’t know if they ever made the connection or not. If they did, there is nothing extant that has survived.

That too is an argument from silence. What we do have is a pretty strong indication that they did not make the connection.

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I don’t really buy that they misunderstood him in this context. They certainly rejected him, they certainly felt he posed a threat to their authority, I doubt they ever believed him, but misunderstand him? I think not! While Jesus was at times very misunderstood by everyone, (including his own disciples), John doesn’t tell us this was the case here.

He doesn't say they misunderstood him in other places either but it's pretty evident they do.

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It does when you understand that the EGO EIMI name literally means the “eternally existing one.”

The ego is for emphasis of eimi. Eimi is the Greek verb "to be." It does not mean 'eternally existing one.' Ho on, not ego eimi, in the LXX, means "he/the one who is".

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When Moses asked God what his name was, the name given was “the eternally existing one.” (EGO EIMI).

Ho on, not ego eimi. It would read in English something like this: "I, even I, am he who is." The ego eimi is the "I, even I, am" and the ho on is the "he/the one who is" part.

John 8:58 and Exodus 3:14

This was part of a debate. My responses are in blue.

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Originally Posted by CaliberCadillac

Your argument is based on the Watchtower Bible and Tract Societies objections to the deity of Christ. Are you a Jehovah’s Witness?

My argument is based on the original Greek of both the New Testament and the Septuagint.

I'm not denying that Christians believe in the deity of Jesus. I'm saying that John 8:58 is a tenuous connection to Exodus 3:14 and that this verse was not understood by the early Church Fathers (who were Greek) as Jesus calling himself YHWH.

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The problem with their argument and yours is two fold. One is that you will never get any biblical language scholar to agree with what you just said...

Why not?

Besides, it would also mean that the Church Fathers didn't understand the original Greek. They do not make the connection:

John 8:58:

"And as He was the son of David, so was He also the Lord of David. And as He was from Abraham, so did He also exist before Abraham." - Irenaeus, Lost Fragments, LII

But the Word of God did not accept of the friendship of Abraham, as though He stood in need of it, for He was perfect from the beginning ("Before Abraham was," He says, "I am") - Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, XIII, 4

If, then, those who were conversant with the ancient Scriptures came to newness of hope, expecting the coming of Christ, as the Lord teaches us when He says, “If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me;” and again, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad; for before Abraham was, I am. - Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians, IX

Exodus 3:14-15:

Wherefore, as I have already stated, no other is named as God, or is called Lord, except Him who is God and Lord of all [i.e. the Father, not Jesus], who also said to Moses, “I am that I am [i.e. the Father, not Jesus]. And thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is, hath sent me unto you;” and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe in His name the sons of God. And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, He says, “I am come down to deliver this people.”

For it is He who descended and ascended for the salvation of men. Therefore God has been declared through the Son, who is in the Father, and has the Father in Himself — He who is, the Father bearing witness to the Son, and the Son announcing the Father. As also Esaias says, “I too am witness,” he declares, “saith the Lord God, and the Son whom I have chosen, that ye may know, and believe, and understand that I am [Isaiah 43:10].” - Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, VI, 2

I don't have the original Greek available of Irenaeus or Ignatius but I'm guessing you'll find that the "I am" of Isaiah 43:10 above is ego eimi that parallels John 8:58. The "He who is" in the above passage, used of the Father, will be ho on.

Perhaps talk of Trinitarian language (though the Holy Spirit is absent from mention of Father/Son in the above passage) would come in to play here but the Fathers do not draw a direct connection between Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58. From what I can tell the connection isn't made between Isaiah 43:10 and John 8:58 either.

Justin Martyr speaks in great detail of the burning bush incident in chapter LXIII of his First Apology of Justin but no connection to John 8:58 (which, perhaps, he didn't know).

I'm open to hearing thoughts on the above mentioned passages.

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...and secondly it doesn’t explain why the Jews being in the Temple courtyard “took up stones to stone him.” This reaction by Jewish leaders could only have been justified because they viewed Christ’s statement as blasphemy.(See Leviticus 24).

Maybe they misunderstood him. After all, they misunderstood him everywhere else in John's Gospel.

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Claiming to be YWVH (which is a Hebrew construction of the Hebrew form of EGO EIMI) would certainly constitute blasphemy. If Jesus was merely stating that he lived before Abraham (as JW’s contend), Jesus would have only been making a ridiculous claim. There is no Levitical Law that justifies the stoning of lunatics.

Again, maybe they misunderstood him. Or perhaps they understood that since only God pre-exists for Jesus to say he pre-existed meant he was making himself equal to God as John says elsewhere. Contextually, that makes a lot more sense then Jesus saying, "Before Abraham was, I am God" which makes no sense.

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My point to the Al Fatihah was, what Jesus claimed in John 8:58 would be analogous with a Muslim prophet walking into Mecca, and then standing in front of the Kaaba and yelling, “I am Allah!”

Are you saying Jesus said to the Jews, "I am God"?

Within the walls of a megachurch...

Well, we aren't a megachurch yet. We're one of the area's biggest churches having just added a several million dollar sanctuary with daycare, crying rooms, book store, etc. When I first immersed myself into the Christian path we were attending a rather exclusive, "Jesus only" church that longed to be a megachurch, hyping up its doctrine and its head pastor, envisioning a megachurch with resort-like facilities. That was ten years ago. It still hasn't come to pass. We haven't been there for almost ten years.

So we drifted, floated, in and out of a few churches of a smaller, more intimate nature we really grew to love. The "church" was the body of believers, not the body. We are currently at a church that believes the same. Yet we've seen it grow over the past five years and the spirit hasn't changed.

I now see why a church grows. It isn't intentional, it's not in the plan of the governing body, it's not some slick marketing or preaching. People come because they want to be there.

So I've had to eat my cynicism about the "megachurch" movement to an extent. I still can't help but feel that this trend has parallels in the early days of the Church/Empire when the Church became the largest landholder, somewhat of an oxymoron if you read the early book of Acts.

The church sends people out on a regular basis, missionaries go almost weekly and there are many small groups, all facilitated by members, not driven from the top down. There are five campuses under its umbrella. And giving and giving is a regular activity. Members have freedom. And it keeps growing. It is a natural progression, like any organization, that it had run out of space.

So now I sit in what may become a "megachurch".

I remain watchful, however, as sometimes organizations tend to take on a life of their own as they get larger. I've been in a company that grew from about 40 employees to hundreds and watched the distance between the head to the toe grow.

But I remain hopeful that if the church maintains its spirit, then not all megachurches are like those we hear about on teleivion, with the private jets, the multiple mansions and exotic vacations of the heads of the organization, where "blessing" is the equivalent of "material wealth." We are not at such a place.

And I pray that what we see in the media are the anomalies and thus the reason they generate interest. I'd rather be in a church that is all but invisible to "the world" but is quietly and intently doing the Lord's work. We are at such a place.

Am I just a user?

All this downloading...am I just a user, a taker, a hoarder?

I am feeding myself until full.

What am I giving back?

Is this gluttony?

Paul, Jesus and the Wisdom of Solomon

Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 2:12-20:

"Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education.
He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.
He was made to reprove our thoughts.
He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion.
We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.
Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.
For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.
Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.
Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.

According to my Catholic NAB version these verses are "often applied to the Passion of our Lord; many have understood these verses as a direct prophecy."

There is one passage (highlighted in bold above) in particular that is of interest.

"Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." (John 5:18)

The parallel is striking. Obviously, calling God the Father was not something new with Jesus. To what extent it was used I don't know. But it wasn't new. The writer of Wisdom wrote these words roughly 100 years prior to the advent of Jesus. Prophecy? Perhaps. Did the early Christians (e.g. Paul) know these verses, even if only orally? Did they influence or straight out make their way into their understanding of Jesus?

Seems to me there was a current of thought that existed, even if only orally, into which Jesus' life fit. A skeptic would say they conformed Jesus to fit this mold. A believer would simply say that Jesus lived the life that met the expectation many held.

Freedom from depression?

Still working on it...

Having been living with it for as long as I can remember, in hindsight much of it has to do with not getting my way. Perhaps my depression was simply that I was a spoiled brat. Self-centered, yes. I suppose we could argue I was a spoiled brat. Depends on what 'spoiled' means.

To truly be free it is vital to step outside of it.

There is no simple solution as to how to do this. It is a journey. It takes effort. Not medication. Damn pharmaceutical companies, teaching us to be a nation of legal addicts, numb to everything, enslaved to our medication, identified by our ailment. It's a lie.

The freedom is found, in facing it. Not medicating it. Not avoiding it, burying it, drowning it, running from it, distracting ourselves from it; not wallowing in it, not swimming in it, not allowing it to become our identity.

Sourcing the cause. Mine happened to be a traumatic incident that was a defining moment that set the trajectory of my life at an early age. Retracing the steps and realizing, like the proverbial "butterfly effect" just how this set life in motion and, as best possible, healing, forgiving those who hurt you and seeking forgiveness from those you have hurt. Most importantly, forgive yourself.

So what have I learned (even I don't always accomplish what I set out to do...)?

Doing for others, not out of lack, but out of abundance. Volunteer. Do social work. Pick up litter. Anything for someone or something else without expectation of some self gratification.

Exercising, not to place value on body image but to feel the thrill of disicpline and the bonus endorphin rush.

Learning to see the beauty in the little things, like a rainbow or children playing football in the front yard. Get out of self.

Seeking God. Not like some glorified genie in a bottle to do our bidding but to truly transform us inside out, to help us to see ourselves as He sees us. Cast your cares upon Him and have Him reflect back to you reality.

It may be painful as He may not cast the darkness out of you but may just shine light into the darkness. After all, He walks with us through the shadow of death. We have to walk through it. But He is there with us to help us to face it for once we come out of this darkness, we walk out of the fear.

Dealing with depression requires honesty, reality, tough decisions. Recognize it for what it is: self-absorption. This is not to judge it. This is to point out that there is a source of this self-absorption. It may be one event or a series of events or just an accumulation of life experiences.

But it does not have to define who you are.

Depression...

Complete self-absorption.

It's really that simple. Depression basically says "It's all about me." Even though that "me" may be filled with fear, shame, self-hatred, self-loating or self-pity (all of which are self-centered) and may draw sympathy, it's still an act of self-absorption. It's a protective sheath.

Anger turned inwards? Perhaps. But tagging it as 'anger' in some ways provides a justification for it, as if a good reason legitimizes it and provides an excuse for it to continue.

What is the source of this anger? Lack of control? Lack of getting one's way? Helplessness? Futility? Perhaps any or all of these. It's the assertion of power misdirected, i.e. turned inwards.

If someone suffered abuse at an early age and this leads, in later life, to depression, is it not quite simply because power has been taken away?

This isn't necessarily the power to rule the world but to say that this "power" (or, if preferred, energy) would be channeled into having some say in controlling one's destiny. When this power is taken away, the vortex is the source of pain taking this power and absorbing it into a "self" which is a protected, isolated black hole.

This power may leak out in many ways - through artistic endeavor, through anger, through addiction - but it is generally not disciplined. The one in such a state is at the "mercy" of the mystery that lies in this black hole and thus the genius that often arises from it. It is a "mystery" larger then self even though it is self-contained or restricted by one's self. It is the uncontrolled and undisciplined nature of this energy that leads to the highs and lows of genius. The 'self' is at the whim of the extremes.

Afraid to let go...

I feel this bursting in my soul but I can't seem to fully let go, to fully surrender. I still wish to cling to an understanding of it, to intellectualize it, rationalize it, hold on to it, control it.

Perhaps it's supposed to be that way, a "roping in" of our faculties rather than abandoning them completely.

"We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ..." (2 Corinthians 10:5, NASB)

It's something I have to reconcile as rather than giving us comfort, intellectualizing everything actually separates us.

The view that we can "objectively" view the universe actually gives us a position of power that we are somehow above it, better than it.

Hasn't quantum physics taught us something similar? Understanding that quantum physics and religion are not the same (though in man's search for meaning they run parallel paths toward the same goal), it's interesting that in the theoretical world of quantum physics (which has real-world consequences) similar conclusions are drawn man's presence in the search for truth can actually affect what results are seen.

The healing power of song...

I love it when musicians speak of real experience that the rest of us experience, even after becoming Christians. There is a tendency to put on a show, to believe that we are alone, that no one else struggles with the horrible thoughts and feelings that plague our souls. "Secular" music often lacks that certain something "Christian" music sings of -- hope.

I've had these two Kirk Franklin songs looping for the past two hours, trying to root out this clawing at my soul, causing me to surrender my peace and give in to the urges of the flesh. It really is a battle for my soul. It is my responsibility and my choice. This has been the theme of the past three services at church. I need to stop running and settling.

"Imagine me
Loving what I see when the mirror looks at me cause I
I imagine me
In a place of no insecurities
And I'm finally happy cause
I imagine me

Letting go of all of the ones who hurt me
Cause they never did deserve me
Can you imagine me?
Saying no to thoughts that try to control me
Remembering all you told me
Lord, can you imagine me?
Over what my mama said
And healed from what my daddy did
And I wanna live and not read that page again

[Chorus:]

Imagine me, being free, trusting you totally finally I can...
Imagine me
I admit it was hard to see
You being in love with someone like me
But finally I can...
Imagine me

Being strong
And not letting people break me down
You won't get that joy this time around
Can you imagine me?
In a world (in a world) where nobody has to live afraid
Because of your love fear’s gone away
Can you imagine me?

[Bridge:]

Letting go of my past
And glad I have another chance
And my heart will dance
'Cause I don't have to read that page again

[Chorus x2]

[Vamp:]

Gone, gone, it's gone, all gone

Spoken:

This song is dedicated to people like me
Those that struggle with insecurities, acceptance and even self esteem.
You never felt good enough
You never felt pretty enough.
But imagine God whispering in your ear
Letting you know that everything that has happened is now...

...gone.

Every sin (gone)
Every mistake (gone)
Every failure (gone)
Depression (gone)
By faith (gone)
Low self esteem (gone)

All my scars (gone)
All my pain (gone)

It's in the past (gone)
It's yesterday (gone)

What your mother did (gone)
What your faither did (gone)

Hallelujia. All gone..."

Kirk Franklin, "Imagine Me"

The power of song...

One of the most open and powerful songs I've ever heard, probably because it speaks directly to much of my life's experience. His clever use of Tears for Fears' "Shout" hooks the listener.

"My mama gave me up when I was four years old
She didn't destroy my body but she killed my soul
Now it's cold 'cause I'm sleeping in my back seat
Understand the spirit's willing but my flesh is weak
(let him speak) let me speak, I never had a chance to dream

Ten years old finding love in dirty magazines
Ms. December you remember I bought you twice
Now I'm thirty plus and still paying the price
Had a sister that I barely knew
Kind of got separated by the age of two
Same mama different daddy so we couldn't fake it
I saw my sister's daddy beat her in the tub naked

Take it serious the demons in the man's mind
The same daddy with rape charges now he's doing time
Crack followed and like daddy prison thirteen years
Haven't her but she's traded tears for fears

[Chorus]

Shout. Shout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
So come on
I'm talking to you
So come on

Sex was how I made it through
Without someone to teach you love what else is there to do?
So where I'm from they call you gay and say you ain't a man
Show them you ain't no punk
Get all the girls you can
A simple plan that still haunts me even now today

Back to seventeen and got a baby on the way
NO G.E.D. all I see is failure in my eyes
If you listening then remember I apologize

I was raised falling in the church
Made mistakes heard the Lord's calling in the church
After service on the parking lot getting high
Wanted to be accepted so bad I was willing to die
Even tried to tell the pastor but he couldn't see
Years of low self esteem and insecurities
Church taught me how to shout and how to speak in tongues
But preacher teach me how to live now when the tongue is done, help me

[Chorus]

See I'm. See I'm
Soul survivor. Soul survivor
World survivor
I just wanna let it go
World survivor, soul survivor
Just wanna let it go

Jesus please on my knees can't you hear my crying
You said to put it in your hands and lord I'm really trying
You wasn't lying when you said you'd reap what you sow

Like that night mama died
Hard to let it go
You adopted me
Cared for me
And changed my name

But I cursed at you
Lied to you
Left your pain

It's not strange I can still see it in my head
To know for hours you were laying in that bed

If you listening to this record,
If it's day our night
If your mama still living treat your mama right

Don't be like me and let that moment slip away
And be careful cause you can't take back what you say

To my real mama if you listening I'm letting it go
To my father I forgive you 'cause you didn't know

The pain was preparation for my destiny
And one more thing lord let my son be a better man than me."

Kirk Franklin, "Let It Go"

Worship music or the coffee?

So I'm sitting at work, feeling quite soulical and burdened by the cares of this life. Got bills out the wazoo, lots of things needing fixing, things we can't do that need done, struggling with angst and the thoughts in my head, and I'm realizing that quite often listening to music that feeds this doesn't help me out of it. I feel the sympathy inherent in the music and it comforts to a degree.

So I decided to listen to my "Christ mix", all the songs that have great meaning for me for a variety of reasons, and as the hour rolls on I find my spirit lifted. Or is it the coffee? Could be both but the music has dusted off the cobwebs and has provided me a level of peace in the midst of the mess.

I Can Only Imagine - Mercy Me (how can you not like this song?)
Rescue - Jared Anderson (played frequently during missions video at church)
Let It Rise - Big Daddy Weave (phenomenal worship song at church)
Lord Have Your Way In Me - Hillsong (mellowing)
How Great Is Our God - Chris Tomlin (makes me cry, aware of the depths of my sin and the grace, mercy and love of God)
To Worship You I Live - Israel Houghton (pure worship)
Worship Medley:Holy Ground/Holy Holy Holy/Alleluia - Israel Houghton
Alpha and Omega - Israel Houghton
Victory - Yolanda Adams (uplifting)
Imagine Me - Kirk Franklin (speaks right to the heart)
Let It Go - Kirk Franklin (my song)
You Never Let Go - Matt Redman (a reminder)

Quite a diverse mix, very much like my musical muttness. Muttness simply means that I embrace difference while at the same time recognizing its unique character, fuondation and purpose.

Music musings...

I was watching Portishead's DVD of their performance in 1997 at the Roseland in New York City. Incredible performance. I really like their sound. It's dark, moody, trippy (of course), noirish, all those words that have been used to describe their music. But it was a different kind of enjoyment, almost an intellectualization of it, a recognition of brilliance. I realized, about halfway through, that it is soulical, for lack of a better word, confined to this world.

Not a bad thing, mind you. I say that in comparison to my experiences during worship. It isn't that the worship music is necessarily different but there is something in the lyrics, the corporate worship and the aim of the music that sets it apart. It "lifts" my soul, quite literally, from this world. I'm still here but it elevates the experience here. It digs deep, stirs up all that is within, and carries it upward. It is cleansing, humbling, moving, stirring on a spiritual plane. Somehow it transcends in a way that "secular" music does not.

Secular music speaks from experience, telling a story from the soul. Somehow "spiritual" music circumvents this and sweeps underneath it all and blows it away, even if only for a moment, transforming our perception of our experience and purpose here. It is an ascent toward love.

There is thus a contrast between music such as that of Portishead and that of the music heard during worship. I'm not saying one is better than the other but there is a contrast.

As time has gone on, certain music that used to speak to me just doesn't speak to me anymore. I don't judge it. I'm just not there anymore. I gravitated from the Pink Floyd kind of darkness to the darker rage that would find a voice in groups such as Guns n Roses, Rage Against the Machine and Nirvana (all of whom seem 'pop' by today's standards).

I hear these groups today and it is a distant memory. Even some of the other groups I've enjoyed in the not too distant past are falling away. Mazzy Star, Morphine, Concrete Blonde and some others that used to drive me have lost their hold. Slowly, it seems, the same is happening with many of the techno artists that have buoyed me along.

I "want" to be into them, on the inside of the "cool", but am simply not there. So I experience it from an intellectual distance. I can't embrace them completely because I have heard a voice that speak over and above anything these artists ultimately say.

They may place into words temporary, "soulical" experiences, but they are not able to help me transcend the very things of which they speak. Poetry, certainly, even brilliant, genius, in many cases, but not transcendent.

I have a selection of lyrics from "secular" songs that have struck me which I will compile should the mood ever strike.

The car situation - update...

Two new(er) cars. Purchased a 2003 Toyota Camry with 60,000 miles on it. Probably paid way too much money for it but we're hoping to drive it forever, basically. Pay it off, own it.

Still have the Tercel. Had to replace the muffler over the summer. Hit some pretty big roadkill, ripped the exhaust off from the manifold. Had to fork over $350 to fix the whole system. Good thing as it got louder as it continues to lose compression. Have to put it in idle at traffic lights or it stalls. Can't go above 55 mph without fear of the thing blowing up. No radio at all.

I can get $100 to scrap it out. A few months back it would have netted $200.

The good news is that, through familial vehicular attrition, I am in receipt of a 1997 Dodge Dakota pickup truck. It's a beast, with big ass tires and an NRA bumper sticker to boot. 101,000 miles. 12-15 mpg. There's irony in this somewhere. But I am truly grateful as breathing exhaust fumes every day in the Tercel probably wasn't so good for my health.

Obama...

I, for one, am a happy camper. The "mutt" majority has spoken. Obama is a mutt. The majority of this country is "mutt" as opposed to the other half which, by and large, looks, thinks and acts the same (think "red state"), a large percentage of these which would be the evangelical Christians so duped in the last election. Awfully quiet this year, this group. Good.

"Vote the Bible" in their language means only one issue matters. Doesn't matter that thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis and other innocents have been massacred. For some reason, their lives have less value than those of unborn babies. It isn't that one is greater than the other. That's the point. All lives have the same value. This amalgamation of Christianity and Americanism - that Americanity that is the true religion of the U.S. - is a dangerous thing.

Maybe, just maybe, Obama's election will inspire others to think differently about our place in the world. Maybe we will realize that we are in fact only a part of the world, a highly symbolic one, certainly, but still a part - not the whole - of the world.

When talking about what kind of dog they would get (amazing the things that concern us, isn't it?), he mentioned the possibility of getting a mutt, like him. You go Obama! Speak for the rest of us.

An interesting commentary today about the potential of the re-emergence of thought in government, rather than the dumbass tone of the Bush administration, sparked my curiosity. It's encouraging that people may welcome intellectual rigor in making decisions.

A Government That Actually Thinks?

I voted for Obama. Gladly. Watched the elections from 7:00 p.m. until 1:30 a.m. Glady. Never once wavered, never once questioned, never once doubted. Do I think he can be the saviour of the world?

No. I'm not so naive. It's just that this election has shown that America is tired of the arrogance, the greed, the insanity, the bland whiteness of the way things have been for the past eight years.

Obama represents what America is.

Bush & Co. represent what America was.

Obama simply gives a face to the previously silent majority. The mutts have spoken. I remain something I have not felt about our representative government in eight years - hopeful.

Still here...

Just going through a "cobwebs in the basement" stage where the mundane in life clings like a waterlogged sweatshirt.

I'd rather be in the desert than the suburbs.

Alan Watts and alcoholism...

Of all my posts, the only ones that have generated any real interest pertain to Alan Watts. He has truly left a legacy in his writings, still reaching people today. What an awesome thing. I didn't mean to tarnish his work by what I've written about his alcoholism. I write that more for the cult of personality that surrounds him than the man himself who I did not know.

That being said, I have been an alcoholic. I am not untouched by his struggles. I've been addicted to many, many things through the years. At some point even religion, or the intellectualization of it, became an addiction. It is only within the past few years that I've sourced my addictions at the root.

It is a disease, yes, but by and large I don't believe to can be attributed solely to chemical means. I don't believe it to be expressly genetic though perhaps genes do play a role, though not as large a role as the environment of one whose parents are alcoholics. I learned the behaviour. I found a release, a socially acceptable on at that, for my issues.

It became my release, my voice, my crutch, my personality, my identity. So too other addictions, though less so as I became aware of my addictions and attached guilt and shame to them which became a convoluted mess of a personality.

So I feel for Alan Watts and those caught in the throes of addictions, whatever kind they may be.

Though the Dao provided me with some relief from these addictions, it never reached the source. Perhaps I did not dive in deep enough or let go enough or spend as much time as I should have in working it. Ditto Zen. Though my background is in these paths and even much of my worldview today is influenced by this mode of being, it was in Christ that I finally reached the source of my addictions.

And it was in Christ that I was able to get under it and cut if off at the source. This doesn't mean it doesn't flair up from time to time. It means that I am able to recognize it and can find solace and comfort in God through Christ. This didn't come easy. In fact, for almost ten years I fought it in as many ways as I could before I learned to begin to surrender.

I didn't want something someone else had told me to believe, what some organizational body had told me I need to believe. I wanted no interference from scholars, teachers, theologians, preachers or any other intermediaries. I wanted experiential knowledge of truth, and not just the hyperemotionalism that passes for truth in far too many churches.

I wanted to know it in the depths of my being.

And this caused a roadblock as it was a selfish act. I wanted to know it all, to possess it, to be right so no one could tell me I was wrong. I wanted a response to everyone and everything. I wanted absolute certainty backed with reasons I could provide, reasons other than the seemingly irrational "faith" and "belief".

But in the end I have learned that it is only after belief, only after faith, that the proof actually comes. And when it comes it is not always an intellectual certainty, though it is not anti-intellectual, but it is a gut level certainty that changes one's understanding of things and ultimately changes my very being.

I am truly working on being re-created, on becoming a purveyor of resurrection here on earth, working at resurrecting the dead bodies of situations, circumstances and relationships.

Spirituality and compulsion...

There seems to be a fine line between a truly spiritual experience and the compulsion to exert that power through other means. It can be such a surge of energy, something new, something overwhelming, that the soul cries out for familiarity and is drawn to a compulsion that may have formerly been our undoing.

For example, sexual addiction, in whatever form, may be the outlet. When this surge comes, the temptation is great to take that power and wield it to obtain release, bypassing all restraint, every normal means to fight it, so great is the energy.

This is why prayer is so important, and so difficult. It makes no sense. There is "nothing" there, no tangible, tactile anything to provide us comfort. We direct our comfort to something, some One, we cannot see. Faith and prayer. So very difficult, so very different yet the two principle things by which a deeper life is lived.

I feel power surging through my veins. Is this a calling of God? Or is the power my resistance?

Time to pray...

Getting soft...

"When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I'm here a week now... waiting for a mission... getting softer; every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker..."

- Apocalypse Now

Wrapped up in the concerns of life, struggling to pay bills, keep up a house, maintaining an automobile in order to get around to get to work to be able to pay the bills, keep up a house, maintain an automobile in order to get to work. A perpetual motion machine self-perpetuated.



"Jane, stop this crazy thing..."

- George Jetson



Too much information, too much distractions, too much tevelision, too many movies, too much music, too much information, too much, too much, too much. Numb. Losing feeling. Can't even distract myself or numb myself; numb to being numb.

How do I get off?

Time to pray...

Reassessing...

Could it be that Christianity, as a whole, has collectively created Jesus as a projection of all that is within us or, another way, have projected on to Jesus all that is within us collectively? In other words, are we making this up as we go? It is quite possible. Perhaps, the person of Jesus is the perfect object onto which we project all that is within us. Perhaps he is that 'perfection' that we all seem to have some grasp of, loosely defined, yet that drives us or attracts us.

Yet there is something very real about the experience, a corporate body in unison on the same projection, if we say that's what it is, that is difficult to explain. Is it simply a collective madness, as many claim, group think on an unprecedented scale?

But from within (which, of course, cries out 'cult'), it just does not appear how this could so.

By what criteria do we judge whether or not it is all a delusion, wishful thinking, a cult? And who judges the objectivity of such criteria? Men? The Bible? Doctrine? How do we know?

Spirituality through secular music...

Can God use secular music to heal our wounds?

Sometimes Christian music is, well, annoying. And often not very good. I don't feel compelled to listen to it exclusively. Actually, I am often surprised when I do find some Christian music that I enjoy, that moves me, that elevates and transports me.

I suppose I am often more "comfortable" in secular music. While it rarely elevates my soul, it often stills the turmoil inside. It deals more on the emotional level, rarely, if ever, on the level of the spiritual. It can get the soul to a place where it longs for the spiritual but I don't view such music as a "spiritual" event though it comes close. Only after having had "spiritual" experiences can I render such judgment as prior to such experiences what I felt while listening to music was as spiritual as I had known to that point so I can't take that away from the experience. It was spiritual in that sense but it was not transcendent (escapist or elevating perhaps, but not transcendent).

I'm at work, again, listening to Deep Dish's Yoshiesque set, a set I've known about forever but only recently obtained. It is an incredible mix and it took me right back to the time when I discovered techno music. It's got a sweet sound, a few familiar tunes, and a dreamy soundscape that instantly transported me back to that time of deep searching when techno music was, to me, spiritual, salvific even, the trance sound taking me away, losing me in the beats, my head lost in the sounds of the mix.

I went right back to that time, a time of relative freedom, of experimentation, of the thrill of wonder and the freshness of the unknown. Those long nights of pondering, trying to figure out what everything means. Hard to imagine that this album (and most of my experience with techno) came after quitting drugs.

So it ends and bleeds into Moby's Little Idiot disc offered as an extra to his Animal Rights album. It's the sad, dreamy, melancholy music Moby excels at, turning electronica into emotional catharsis.

I am transported back to the time of self-exploration, when I truly began to face my demons, to really understand that I needed healing.

For whatever the reason, it internalized me in a good way, not as afraid to look inside as I was then, seeking escape, distraction, numbness, those things that all drove me to various addictions since a very young age.

Rather than run to the distraction, I paused, felt the presence of God, and was stilled. Stillness. So very, very difficult. No intention, no abstractions, no longings, just stillness. So very necessary to healing.

I must face whatever it is that seeks to destroy me.

Who to pray to?

Do we pray to Jesus? Where is this in Scripture? I haven't found it. The only way we can do this is through a mathematical formula based on doctrine:

If Jesus = God and we are to pray to God then we can pray to Jesus.

Somehow that just doesn't seem right. After all what of the Father? After all, this is what Jesus taught us to do.

The Holy Spirit? How can the Spirit pray through us if we are praying to it?

The Trinity? And how, pray tell, do you do that?

No matter what I do or think or see or study or ask, it always comes back to One. I pray to God (which, from my understanding, is the Father).

He is, after all, the Source, no? So if we pray "to" Jesus shouldn't we in some sense pray "through" him, kind of like a filter, to the Father?

By the Spirit we pray through Jesus to the Father?

I don't know but it's always been a baffler when in congregational prayer I hear something like:

"Father God, Lord, Jesus, in the name of Jesus, we (blah blah blah). Lord God, in the name of Jesus, we (blah blah blah). And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen."

Huh? Perhaps I'm reading too much into it but that sounds like babble. Granted, I'd imagine God would rather hear honest heartfelt prayer than some ritual prayer that is but a mantra and if this heartfelt prayer is spoken in a way that makes no sense, it wouldn't matter to Him.

But it just sounds weird, especially this whole "in Jesus' name" movement. God forbid you leave that off your prayer. It might make it null and void.

No Jesus, no Trinity?

If Jesus had never appeared on the scene would we have the Trinity doctrine? Just wondering...

Vision or illusion?

These visions which are 'trinitarian' in nature have me thinking. The Trinity has been something I've wrestled with for years, more intensely at times than at others, but nevertheless consistently for all these years. The visions have come in smaller and smaller intervals which parallels the intensity with which I've been studying.

Reading the books by Clement and Lossky have truly intensified my grasp of the Trinity and in reflecting on the 'bad' theology of many modern worship songs, I am wondering if I have merely created fertile soil with preconceived images and philosohpical underpinnings in which to receive the Trinity openly.

In a sense, I wonder if I 'created' the experience. Yet it obviously aligns with the understanding and experience of others but is the collectiveness a sign of the truth of it? Or is it a form of suggestion, wishful thinking, so to speak?

Or am I having visions of the true 'nature' of God? Are all such visions received only when we have opened up our minds to receive such things, the soil that of the mental framework we have created?

In other words, if I had never heard of the Trinity, had never read a single work on the subject, would I have the ability to haev such a 'vision'?

But by the grace of God there go I...

The statement often has a subtext that sounds more like this:

By God I'm glad that's not me.

Is it me or has it become just a cliche?

Theology fatigue...

Wow does theology get heady, intellectual, tiresome. I still can't help, however, but feel that the Trinity is laced with Hellenist influence and philosophical conceptualism. Had it never left Jerusalem, I can't help but feel the idea would never have developed (but, then again, had it never left Jerusalem it would never have become a worldwide faith).

In studying the development of the Trinity and its course through the centuries and the various variants of it from Antioch to Alexandria with their variant 'heretical' views against which doctrine was formulated it feels as if it is defending an idea. I am still not convinced of it.

I can say, however, that much of modern day neo-Protestantism does not emphasis the Trinity. It may be given lip service but the focus is almost completely on Jesus. The Spirit is seen as the thing that makes you speak in tongues and the Father is in there somewhere but it is all about Jesus, as a modern day worship song says.

Somehow this just doesn't seem right, at least not in terms of how the ancient church worshipped. The ancient church stands on the Trinity.

"I'm coming back to the heart of worship

And it's all about You

It's all about You, Jesus..."

- Michael W. Smith, The Heart of Worship

All about Jesus.

It is?

What about the Father? The Spirit? The Trinity?

Sounds to me like Oneness theology. Seems to me that Modalism has run amuck in today's Church. In defending the deity of Christ, i.e. the Jesus is God camp, the emphasis of this proposition has led many today to comprehend it in Oneness fashion. Many lyrics in today's worship songs reflect these things.

Seems others hold a like view. A quick search of "bad theology" and "lyrics" popped up the following:

Oneness Pentecostalism's influence in modern worship songs seems to be a fact. I spent four years in a church holding this doctrine. I can sense it a mile away. Many churches, perhaps not overtly Oneness in nature, are, by default, actually espousing this view. By not emphasizing the Trinity, Oneness views become a default, what Lossky calls "the natural tendencies of the human mind" (The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 48).

And another example...

Is this just paranoia? Is a conspiracy?

Or is it the same problem the Councils had back in the day, the same tendency against which the Church has had to bulwark itself against, the natural tendency of the mind? Is today's religion, in its attempt to be more 'spiritual' and less 'religious' merely kowtowing to the spirit of man, becoming self-centered rather than God-centered? Is the growth of Christianity today one Grand Illusion?

Or is this just paranoia?

Ok, I admit that this can get out of hand, analyzed and overanalyzed to the nth degree. Here is an example of the heinous nature of music in the church, period:

Music is not worship according to this site. While I do agree to an extent that music has a hypnotic effect (I know about the trance inducing effect of music as a raver) and the feelings can be misunderstood as a spiritual encounter, the site goes a bit far toward the dead letter of things. It's a good piece, however, to read to be aware of tendencies of musical enjoyment. It's also a good piece to recognize the conspirational in overanalysis of just about anything.

And, finally, an interesting piece on the content of modern worship songs:

Let's turn our attention to Praise and Worship songs. They are in collections such as Songs for Praise and Worship published by Word and in the Maranatha! Music Praise Chorus Book. Except when specifically noted, these observations refer to the first of these collections, though most of what I say applies in either case.

Theologically, very many of these songs center on the attributes of God, and on the person of Christ, especially on Christ as King and as Lamb. These songs do not center on the person of the Holy Spirit, but they do include a few prayers to the Holy Spirit to come to us, and a few that offer hospitality to the Spirit in case the Spirit should come. Only three songs even mention all three persons of the Holy Trinity, and no songs focus upon the Holy Trinity itself. No songs even mention the Trinity, or the tri-unity, or the three-in-oneness of God. No songs do that; not even one song. Very few Praise & Worship songs praise God for the church, either, or for covenant, or for holy communion, and none do this for baptism, the sacrament that publicly recognizes our union with Christ and with the body of Christ.

What's absolutely characteristic of Praise and Worship songs is that they focus independently upon the person of God the Father, or of Jesus, or of an indeterminate person addressed simply as "You" without antecedent. They then praise the majesty, awesomeness, glory, holiness, faithfulness, love, or might of this divine person. The songs either praise this person or else they say they will praise this person. Often the hymns take the name of God or of Christ as synecdoche for the attributes I have mentioned, and in good biblical fashion praise God's name as God's alter ego.

What is striking about Praise and Worship songs is that they often detach God's attributes from God's acts. More than half the time it's not at all clear from inside a song why God is so praiseworthy or so worshipable. The Scriptures, as you know, typically give us reasons for praising and worshipping God. They tell us of God's mighty acts in creation and in the liberating exodus and in the resurrection of Christ, which is the new exodus. They tell us of the way God overturns corrupt social structures and elevates people we would never have guessed. They tell us of election, redemption, forgiveness, and culmination in Christ. They tell us why we sing.

But many–perhaps more than half–of Praise and Worship songs leave our praise detached from the mighty acts of God. It's apparently not necessary to remember them. Instead, "Let's just praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let's just lift our hearts to heaven and praise the Lord!" But detaching the mighty acts of God removes our context, as in the old Saturday Night Live sportcast: "And now for today's baseball scores: 2-1; 5-2; 6-2; 4-0."

- Plantinga, Cornelius, Jr. "Theological Particularities of Recent Hymnody," The Hymn, 52 (October 2001), p. 14

Lots of information out there, tough to get a handle on, difficult to process. Seems to me that there is no grand conspiracy but a battle against complaceny, against allowing our selves to be the measure of all things. We must always be on guard.

P.S. Is it any wonder theology is fatiguing...?

Theology proper...

In discovering the Church Fathers some years ago I came to understand how much of what passes for 'theology' today is nothing but proof-texting. By and large, it is something of a pop theology, pseudo-theologians stating a claim, tossing in a proof-text, philosophizing about it for a few pages and moving on. The shelves at bookstores are flooded with these books and many of these authors pump out books at incredible rates to feed an audience never satiated.

Perhaps this is too harsh and judgmental; most folks don't really care to dive that deeply into theology, a word that conjures up a feeling of headiness, intellectualism, irrelevance. And this is a legitimate critique as much theological talks can leave one bound in a state of elevated intellectualism that passes for 'spirituality' but is often the trapping of concepts and illusions. Been there, done that.

This is ironic, I suppose, in that I'm defending something against which I am arguing. However, the Church would not have survived 2,000 years had it not developed a dogma on which it could stand. But would this dogma have been different if every layperson had access to the Scriptures as do people today? In other words, if the Bible as we have it were available for all people in a variety of tongues would the doctrine of the Trinity been something different? Or are we just repeating history again with all of the doctrinal debates occurring today?

And yet the more deeply I dive into theology proper, digging back through the layers of those who were there in formulating the doctrine, the more I begin to see just how it is that it developed. And it makes sense (though I'm still not entirely on board).

I'm currently reading two of Vladimir Lossky's books, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church and Orthodox Theology. The first thing that comes to mind is that this is theology proper.

Here is a smattering of quotes from Orthodox Theology:

Theology...is a matter of opening our thought to a reality which goes beyond it. It is a matter of a new mode of thought where thought does not include, does not seize, but finds itself included and seized, mortified and vivified... (13-14)

Yet theological thought can also become a hindrance, and one must avoid indulging in it, abandoning oneself to the feverish illusion of concepts...One must avoid it becoming a flight before the necessary of "contraction" of prayer, to replace the mystery lived in silence with mental schemata easily handled, certainly, and whose use can intoxicate, but which are ultimately empty. (14-15)

Theology, then, is located in a relationship of revelation where the initiative belongs to God, while implying a human reponse, the free response of faith and love... (16)

Certainly, faith is present in all walks, in all sciences of the human spirit, but as supposition, as working hypothesis: here, the moment of faith remains burdened with an uncertainty which proof alone could clear Christian faith, on the contrary, is adherence to a presence which confers certitude, in such a way that certitude, here, is first. (16)

To think theologically is not to think of this revelation, but by means of it...Theology starts from a fact: revelation...The philosophy which speculates on God starts, on the contrary, from an idea. (18)

There are two things to consider in the above: one is the notion of prayer. Prayer, according to Lassky, is ultimately silence. It is the reciprocity of a relationship whereby the faithful seeks to leave all concepts behind and enter into relationship with a personal God transcendent to all we may think. It is this silence that is true 'gnosis', a gnosis, which, according to Lassky, is "illumination by grace which transforms our intelligence" (13).

The other idea of which Lassky speaks is to know God by apophasis, the negative way. We know God by what He is not. He is the Lover just out of our reach and it is vital for Him to remain such as if we were to know His nature we would be God. In this is the idea of deification of humanity found in the Eastern Church. it isn't that men become God by nature but that we continually participate in elevating our humanity toward the divine in our pursuit of our Beloved.

In The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Lassky notes:

[In the apophatic way] God [does not] presents Himself as object, for it is no more a question of knowledge but of union. Negative theology is...a way towards mystical union with God, whose nature remains incomprehensible to us...This awareness of the incomprehensibility of the divine nature thus corresponds to an experience: to a meeting with the personal God of revelation. (28,34)

What a far cry this seems to much of the 'noise' of the Church today. I will say, however, that 'relationship' is greatly focused in modern churches. But I have found the theology wanting, often suspect, if not altogether absent. Theology is the backbone of any church, the substance that grounds the Church. Without this, we know not what we worship and risk worshipping a creation of our own making.

Quoting Evagrius:

The one who has purity in prayer is true theologian, and the one who is true theologian has purity in prayer.

But, Lassky notes:

...purity in prayer implies the state of silence. The hesychasts are the "silents": encounter and gift, gnosis is placed beyond the nous; it demands the surmounting and arrest of thought. (Orthodox Theology, 13)

Hesychast comes from the Greek hezychazo, translated as 'rest, peace or quiet' in the New Testament.

"And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands..." (1 Thessalonians 4:11)

According to Thayer's it means to cease being a busy body, to lead a quiet life, to cease from labor. So 'silence' is a fitting appropriation of the term. Jesus does instruct us in regards to prayer:

"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees {what is done} in secret will reward you." (Matthew 6:6)

While public prayer may edify the hearers, the 'silent' prayer is the important prayer. It is silent in that we must listen for the Father as He already knows what we need before we even ask. This is the silence we must seek as it is in this silence that we lay aside all that may hinder the Spirit from moving in us to accomplish God's work through us.

Mountaintop dream...

It's been a long, long time since I've had a flying dream. I don't know that I've ever had a mountaintop dream but tonight I did, though I didn't quite reach the peak. I don't even know where I was. I started out where I live but I am nowhere near mountains. Yet as I ducked and dodged through some trees in a patch of woods, I came to an opening with a steep incline that required holding on to various trees to make my way up. As I moved up I had a spectacular glimpse of a mountain range, though I was still holding on to trees to view this and wasn't quite able to get to a flat spot to stand still.

And somewhere in the weirdness of my dreams I remember having the thought that two of the BeeGees died by falling from a mountaintop and, holding on to those trees, I looked down to see the jagged cliffs of the California Coast and understood how it happened so I tightened my grip.

But the view of that mountain range cause a flood of awe to flow through me, the residue of which lingered upon waking.

Jesus a Myth?

I was browsing the Web and stumbled across an argument I had never considered before, at least in not such a concise manner. Mark created Jesus from Scripture. In other words, there was no historical Jesus upon which Mark (assuming his to be first and the one upon which Matthew and Luke based their later renditions upon) based his work. In other words, he made him up.

At first glance, that's a pretty striking argument, one with a lot of merit as reading the Gospel accounts it becomes clear quickly that the Hebrew Scriptures are the backbone of everything Jesus says. But the argument is that Mark created Jesus based on a reinterpretation of the Hebrew Bible (a recent book I stumbled across claims that the Acts of the Apostles is a rewrite of Homer's Iliad).

Gotta admit, that one floored me for a moment. As one who studies the Scriptures and thier history (from a critical perspective lest I be accused of being a Biblical inerrantist), it sounds like a valid argument, especially considering that in the New Testament the sayings, events, miracles and such of Jesus are all reinterpretations or recontextualizations of Hebrew stories.

This would make Mark a brilliant writer, one of the most brilliant writers to have ever existed, to have been able to create such a character and have him followed by billions two thousand years later.

But as I meditated upon it, I realized that it raises one question in me: how is it that billions of people can be so snowballed by such a fiction? This would make it the greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon mankind, especially when considering that many (most?) Jews accept Jesus' existence as do Muslims consider it a basic tenet of their faith that a real Jesus existed. That would make roughly two-thirds of the world, no matter how Jesus is understood theologically, victims of a deception on a scale unprecedented.

Granted, many of these believers have perhaps never given much, if any, though to Jesus ever, if at all. Perhaps many, even most, are followers in name though they've never given it any thought beyond Christmas and Easter and perhaps a periodic visit to a place of worship.

This isn't to say that such a hoax isn't possible.

But is the argument about his historicity one of a real person or one of church dogma/doctrine? Is this a denial of Jesus completely or just the theology derived from his character in the Bible? Or does this stem from a denial of God?

The difficulty in refuting such arguments is that in the walk of faith there comes a point where reasoning and the intellect is transcended. This does not mean it is laid aside, abandoned or otherwise discarded. No, in the walk of faith there is something that is far greater than the intellect - love.

The love revealed through faith in Christ, even if not displayed by those who claim to follow him, is, in my experience, the deepest love available to be unveiled. The life of Jesus presents the quintessential self-sacrifice (and not, as some may argue, suicide).

If it is a delusion, it's a pretty amazing delusion. If it's a delusion, it has been overlaid with the intellectual arguments and reasonings of a bunch of deluded geniuses (though, of course, history attests to many deluded geniuses).

I guess what I see lacking is a specific criteria to judge the truth of the matter. Is reason the final criteria? If it is, by what definition? To me, defense of Christianity is possible by use of reason.

Faith is a funny thing as faith and reason often appear opposed if only because faith is something that goes deeper than or beyond the reasoning intellect. The intellect may, after the fact, shed light on what is revealed by faith but the intellect cannot reveal the mysteries of faith, any faith, on its own.

It is this, the unwillingness to embrace anything that cannot be penetrated by the intellect before believing, that sets "believers" from those who refuse to believe.

If Jesus is in fact a fiction, he is hands down the greatest fiction ever created in the history of mankind. I suppose, however, that these mythicists would extend this argument to every Hebrew figure and could most likely extend that to Muhammad (as some do) and the characters found in the early history of the Muslim community.

Where does it end? As I've not spent much time in the debate, I just wonder about such things as hope, purpose and a source of selfless love. From whence do these things come? Or are these fictions as well?

I'd be hard pressed to sacrifice my wants and desires for a fictional character, no matter how inspiring or what 'truths' (and by what criteria do we judge what is 'true' in such a work?) it reveals.

So if Jesus is not Real the whole thing is a sham. I find this more difficult to believe than what Christianity posits as Truth.

Bart Ehrman and theodicy...

I recently read his latest book on suffering and noticed the personal element in the book. There was almost a sadness, a lostness in it, as if all the knowledge he has obtained has become a burden for him and thus the 'confessional' tone of the book. I wasn't upset or offended, as he raises legitimate questions and penetrates Scripture as few are able. His challenge is valid.

Yet as I was reading Clement's The Roots of Mysticism I came across this paragraph and thought immediately of Ehrman and those who feel as he does:

"The sanctified person is someone no longer separated. And he is only sanctified to the extent that he understands in practice that he is no longer separated from anyone or anything. He bears humanity in himself, all human beings in their passion and their resurrection. He is identified, in Christ, with the 'whole Adam'.

His own 'self' no longer interests him. He includes in his prayer and in his love all humanity, without judging or condemning anyone, except himself, the last of all. He is infinitely vulnerable to the horror of the world, to the tragedies of history being constantly renewed.

But he is crushed with Christ and rises again with him, with everyone. He knows that resurrection has the last word. Deeper than horror is the Joy." (p. 274-75)

In short:

"For the person without compassion the suffering of humanity is an obstacle to knowing God."

Perhaps those who are troubled by theodicy lack compassion. Or, perhaps more likely, they have compassion but are troubled by what it stirs up inside and it is easier to blame God than it is to wrestle with and act on what compassion stirs up. After all, there is no end to suffering and by our compassion we suffer for and with the world so, in effect, our suffering, be it mental, emotional or physical, does not end either.

Yet they crucified Christ and he endured the suffering. And was raised from the dead thus effectively breaking the bonds of death. This is the hope of the Christian message, that death does not have the final say.

Modern day theology and Orthodoxy...

By Orthodoxy, I am referring to Eastern Orthodoxy and not 'orthodoxy' as describing theological correctness.

I have dabbled in the writings of the Eastern Fathers before, even obtaining a volume of the Philokalia. I enjoyed what I read but don't think it was time to truly appreciate their writings. Coming from the emotionalism of Pentecostalism their writings, though intellectually stimulating, seemed dry. Yet in the course of this wandering I have stumbled back into Orthodoxy and, more specifically, the 'mystical' theology of Orthodoxy.

I have just picked up Olivier Clement's The Roots of Christian Mysticism and feel like I am at home. It feels as if I have bypassed the 'pop' theology of so much of modern neo-Protestantism and have found roots.

I seem to have narrowed down the problem to several things.

1) One is the dependence on the intellect, a safeguard I have always leaned upon at the expense of emotion/feeling. But too much intellect is a dry, arid wasteland.

2) Lack of or undisciplined (or misaligned) prayer.

These two are tied together in one of the first pages I opened to:

"Prayer and theology are inseparable. True theology is adoration offered by the intellect. The intellect clarifies the movement of prayer, but only prayer can give it the fervour of the Spirit. Theology is light, prayer is fire...But it is the intellect that must 'repose' in the heart, and theology must transcend it in love." (p. 183)

Transcending the intellect. Bringing it to a place where it can let go. This does not mean ignoring the intellect, dumbing it down or laying aside its abilities. No. For where the intellect is not satisfied, trouble arises. However, the intellect does not have the final say. It is when love enters that the place of the intellect is put into perspective. Pure intellect is cold; the intellect in the service of love is, as noted above, light, warmth, sustaining.

"When the intellect is filled with love towards God, it tears this world of death apart, it breaks away from images, passions, reasoning, in order to be no longer anything but gratitude and joy." (p. 184)

My problem, as always, comes down to philautia, self-centeredness. This results in a lack of gratitude and, by extension, joy.

And the fruit of this gratitude is prayer:

"When your intellect, an an ardent love for God, sets itself gradually to transcend, so to speak, created things and rejects all thinking...at the same time filling itself with gratitude and joy, then you may consider yourself approaching the borders of prayer." (p. 184, quoting Evagrius of Pontus)

If the intellect is laid aside, it is only to make room for gratitude and joy caused by the love for God. The more we love, the more we come to be grateful and joyful; the intellect sheds light on this (as I am doing now). But it comes after the fact.

"Prayer is the fruit of joy and gratitude..."(p. 182, quoting Evagrius of Pontus)

There is so much more in this little book that it has become a must-own in my library, the kind of book that is underlined, highlighted, creased and weathered over time due to use.

God died...

If Jesus is God, then God died on the cross. Depending on one's translation of Acts 20:28, God also had blood. So if Jesus is God then God died; if we say God did not die then it would seem Jesus is not God. The sophistry of theology to reckon this dilemma is something I have yet to accommodate.

I have no problem saying Jesus is Lord. According to Acts, this was bestowed upon him by God. Lord of lords. No problem. King of kings. No problem. Lord of my life. No problem. But just because, in English, the Book says that Jesus is Lord and, elsewhere, that God (or God the Father) is Lord, does that mean Jesus is God?

I'd venture that in the original languages, this would not be the case. A prime example is in Exodus 3:14. Exodus 3:14 says "I am" and John 8:58 says "I am" so Jesus must be calling himself "I am" (i.e. YHWH). But this is only in the English. In the original languages, even in the Latin Vulgate, this connection was not made so directly. The Church Fathers, reading/writing in Greek, did not make this connection, at least not so directly. For them the ego eimi in John 8:58 means pre-existence. Justin Martyr, one of the earliest writers to use specific proof-texts from the New Testament, and Irenaeus, do say that it was Jesus speaking to Moses from the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. But there is no connection between Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58.

It only works in the English. Was it intentional on the part of the King James crew? Divine intervention? In the original Greek, the 'am' is a verb and it is best translated and understood (as it was by Justin and Irenaeus) as "exist(ed)."

At most, Jesus is speaking of pre-existence. But he is not, in this sentence, referring to himself as YHWH. It's possible to argue that pre-existence makes him at least divine, if not God Himself, but the "I am" statement alone isn't it. Any use of this as 'proof' must be based on other reasoning.

There is no way, within a Trinitarian framework, to say that Jesus is God without qualifying that statement. When Muslims say that Allah is God they mean what they say, no qualifications. When Jews say that YHWH (or Ha-Shem or Adonai) is God, they mean what they say. But Christians...

If God died on the cross, taken literally, then that is not really God. God cannot change. God cannot die. Any God that dies is not God.

So either that little statement made by many Christians is wrong or quite a bit of verbal gymnastics is required when defining 'God' or defining what it means to die.

Not sure what made me think of that today...

My car...

My car makes me laugh. It's been about a year since I last posted about my car. Quite a bit has changed since then.

My last decent car was a 1988 Honda Accord LXi. I had the money and a cheap mechanic to fix every little thing that went wrong. The car literally took me to both coasts, logging over 220,000 miles before I turned it over to my brother-in-law (who totaled it a few months later). The thing was immaculate. However, at the time I turned it over to him I had left a job that paid crazy money for a job cleaning carpets (it's a long story...).

Ever since then I've been driving beaters, dumping stupid amounts of money (with increased debt) into cars that end up in junkyards. Bad choices. A 1990 Honda Accord lasted several years, 200,000 miles and several thousand dollars only to net me $90 for scrap. A 1994 Dodge Spirit did the same but with just a bit more money to scrap. My "new" car is a 1991 Toyota Tercel with over 218,000 miles on it.

Here is a list of its woes:

- no muffler (haven't had one since November of last year)

- exhaust system (what's left of it) dragging

- thermostat broken

- wiper fluid pump broken (hasn't worked since I got it)

- brakes shot (need pads, rotors and, eventually, calipers and the rest)

- both CV boots ripped, CV joints most likely going or gone

- radio stuck on one channel

- radio will not turn off without turning on the rear defrost

- can only turn on the radio by turning off the rear defrost

- two cylinders operating at about 60%

- put about a quart of oil in monthly

- nearly bald front passenger tire (with 13" rims tires are expensive, and difficult, to replace)

But it's still going. And it's paid off. Considering I paid $900 for it and put maybe $150 into over the last two years, I'd say I've gotten my money's worth. But I don't have the money to put into repairing it nor do I have the money for a newer car, I'm stuck.

Is it too far gone? It's a gamble every time I drive it.

Why am I posting this? Originally it was meant to be funny. But looking at it in print, it's not that funny.

So where do I stand?

I'm content knowing a lot but realizing I don't know much of anything. So I remain open to learning. I will stand on what I know and will remain difficult to convince otherwise but I hold in my heart the willingness to change.

As always, there stands Jesus the filter through whom what I know passes.

In that sense, it all does come back to Jesus.

In Jesus' name...

Ok,is it me or has the phrase "In Jesus' name" been tacked on to prayer as if it is some form of formula, some mantra we feel guilt-ridden to not say? Why does it seem like it is used like a magic formula, like abracadabra or hocus-pocus?

In reading the early Church Fathers I find no precedence for this. It seems to me that this is a recent innovation. Ok, so we find "in the name of Jesus" and the like in the New Testament. I agree that the focus was on Jesus. But "in the name of Jesus" is today used much in the sense of the Oneness Pentecostals that it is Jesus as God that is our focus. How Jesus relates to the Trinity is blurred, at best. The focus of the ancient Church was the Trinity. It seems today that Jesus has replaced the Trinity, though obviously the Trinity underscores all major denominations.

I was reminded of this while listening to some worship songs. Many, many Christian songs seem to have bad, or at least ambivalent, theology. Here's an example:

"[We’re] coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about you. It’s all about you, Jesus."

Is it really all about Jesus? Isn't it all about God? Isn't God, according to Christian belief, a Trinity? Are we saying that Jesus is God? If so, what of the Trinity? Somehow the Trinity gets lost in this and we seem to be falling into a form of Modalism, where Jesus is God, the Trinity merely three "aspects" of God's Being, Jesus being that Being.

I can't say these lyrics are unbiblical or even un-Christian. I just wonder what our focus is. Is it supposed to be Christ, and through him, God (or the Godhead)? Or is he the end of our focus, the final repose of our worship?

I know this sounds suspect, that I am somehow minimizing Christ in all of this. But that isn't my point. In comparison to the writings of the early Church and the battles fought in the first several hundred years, culminating in the Council of Nicaea and, ultimately, the Council of Chalcedon, today's theolgy seems frequently to border on those very things that the Church fought against.

Perhaps that is why there is such a backlash against the Catholic Church and its Traditions. There seems to be a view that the Traditions of the Church equal "invented" and thus go against Scripture, not realizing the gist of Luther's argument and claims of "sola scriptura." Sola scriptura does not mean the same thing as the view commonly held today that the Bible is innerant.

However, when we stop for a moment and consider that the New Testament writings, as a whole, did not reach wide circulation until sometime in the middle of the second century, it is a certainty that, by and large, for almost 100 years, give or take, the Church functioned without a New Testament. The had the Hebrew scriptures as their "bible" and the Traditions passed on by the Apostles and early Church leaders as their foundation.

Some churches may have had copies of the letters of Paul or a copy of Mark or Matthew or Luke but there was no one composite New Testament, especially considering that the Gospel of John is believed to have been written sometime between 80-95 CE. So there was not debate about the Scriptures being "innerant." The early church theology was not contingent upon Scripture.

In fact, it wasn't until Scripture reached wide distribution and until Marcion, circa 130 CE, began to devise his only version of Scripture, that the debate began to rage. This was the impetus that would ultimately lead to establishment of doctrine based on Scriptural proof-texting.

Yet we are still 100 years out from the death of Jesus. So toss out the Traditions wholesale and what do we have? To not pay attention to what the earliest writings outside of the New Testament have to say is a grave loss.

It seems that theology has become uprooted from its historical anchors and is rooted no deeper than modern "prophets" who use the Bible, generally in English translation, to claim what is truly the faith of the early Church. By doing so, ironically, perhaps, we actually cut ourselves off from the Source.

Take a look at some Oneness pamphlets as to the true Apostolic doctrine (I have some as I attended one of their churches for about four years). It is filled with quotes from the Bible. Yet all of the modern theologies and denominations are (or claim to be) rooted in the Bible so any denominations' theology is presented with quotes from the Bible. If it was so clear, why so many denominations? Obviously, there must be something deeper.

Not sure exactly where I'm going with this but you would be hard pressed to find any of them drawing on the writings of the Church Fathers for support.

File sharing...Part Two

There are no easy answers. For each answer, more questions arise; more questions, more answers.

I have been exposed to more music than I could ever have imagined from around the world. I've stumbled across artists whose music I love that are not found on amazon or itunes or any other commercial vehicle. There is no other way I would have ever experienced them. For those artists, file sharing is a boon in terms of exposure (though how that translates into income is another story). And through blogs and other methods of exposure, like minded individualists present music they have discovered into realms of exposure only possible via the worldwide web. It's an amazing thing.

I remember watching a documentary about this debate and in some South American city where a counterpoint was being presented, artists (in this case DJs) gave their music away because what they wanted was for people to come see them perform live. And when other artists remixed and reinterpreted their music, it only promoted their name even more so 'bootlegging' wasn't frowned upon. It was about the exposure. Yet the end result - the income - wasn't the recorded music; the end result was the live performance.

The other issue is that a lot of the music that I've come to enjoy is not stuff consumed by the masses so it is expensive to obtain. A prime example is the Headz compilations on the Mo' Wax label. I've tried but to obtain either the CD or the LP versions gets well over $50 for each of the three compilations. Now, to obtain a ripped version for free or to pay well over $50 for used (since they are out of print), the decision is pretty easy.

Is it ethical to have to pay such an exorbitant price for music? Are there ethics in the means of distribution of product?

These Headz compilations contain some of my favorite music by artists I've grown to enjoy. Most of the Mo' Wax stuff is rare and out of print and thus expensive to obtain. In a nutshell, I can't afford it. Are we back to the desire thing, learning to live without?

On one level, it comes down to basic economics. If it is not consumed by the masses, it probably won't remain in print very long. The more rare or obscure the music, the less time it spends in the marketplace and thus the more expensive it becomes to obtain. There is then a market not for the music but for the product. 'OOP' is a big tag on ebay. It isn't about the music; it is about being rare. Rare = profit.

Perhaps here is justification for 99 cent downloads as it can be rare, even impossible, to find a downloadable (i.e. bootlegged) version of much of this music online.

But with everything going digital, there will continue to be value not in the music but in the product. The vinyl market is fairly hot right now, at least to the connoisseur. But vinyl carries a pretty hefty price tag. You pay for the medium, not the message. If I paid $20 or more for some of this vinyl, I'd hate to listen to it.

So the battle rages on as the universe adapts to the information age, everything reduced to its basic component which is the bit, which is basically 'nothing' and is pure information. What price information?

What ethics are there in information?

The ethical quandry of file sharing...

I admit it. I'm a bootlegger. I have a lot of music on hard drive that has been downloaded from various sites over the years. I've also deleted a lot of music from the same hard drive as I either didn't like it or was disinterested in it. Quite a bit of it was music from my youth and I thought it would be fun to reminisce. I found I'd rather take out the vinyl version and spin it on my old turntable. That is reminiscing.

Anyhow, as for the modern day incarnation of file sharing, by and large I don't see the issue as anything other than profit. As a kid, I'd borrow friends' records and record them onto cassette to play in the car. I had about two dozen mix tapes labeled by overall mood. When CDs came out I still recorded them onto cassette as CD players in the car still didn't exist or were out of my price range. While I do have some Windham Hill records that speak out against the practice of recording onto tape, I can't recall that I ever gave it much thought. Eventually, recordable CDs came along and it was just a continuation of the same.

But it was all dependent upon knowing someone who had music to borrow. It was a very physical act.

Then came the explosion of the Internet and the digital file. Napster, of course, is the poster child for the debate. Morpheus, Limewire, Kazaa, I've tried them all. Too slow. Too many crappy files. Too much of a headache. Too inconsistent. There are other methods of downloading entire files much faster and much cleaner.

But it all depends on individuals who opt to share the music. They must put the music out there. If it is out there, people will download it. It's that simple. Punishing the end user won't stop it, just like punishing the drug user won't stop drug abuse. In other words, it is here to stay.

I've been on a 40 day fast from downloading music. I'm amazed at how much time it took up, not only downloading but organizing the files and moving them back and forth onto my mp3 player to listen to at work. A lot of distraction in the process. And with so much music, I'm not sure I actually enjoy it. It's basically a commodity.

So the fast has been good. I'm not sure I'll go back.

However, after a few weeks I've begun to contemplate the ethical component of downloading music for free. Is it really unethical? I don't sell my music to anyone and it's rare when I actually copy it for anyone, other than for my wife or daughter to play on their mp3.

And, yes, I've actually purchased some of the music I've downloaded because I wanted the quality of a CD recording rather than a ripped version. I was also interested in the artwork. I wanted the tangible package. By and large, I can't see purchasing an mp3 and ay accompanying artwork. I want to feel it. As a child of vinyl, I want the package deal if I'm going to pay for it.

I've seen the charts breaking down how much an artist makes on the sale of one CD. It ain't much. The reason for the fuss is more about the management end of the artist as the majority of the money is eaten up in the management food chain before the artist sees a penny. I suppose that's why ethically I don't give it a whole lot of thought.

If I buy a CD I buy it used off of ebay. The artist never sees a penny of that. Yet someone is profiting off of ebay so there is no fuss there. Why not fuss over the sale of used CDs? Granted, someone had to buy it in the first place. But I don't buy new CDs. Ever.

So in terms of downloading music, I suppose ethically I'm not convinced. As a writer, however, I have begun to contemplate the question as to how one is supposed to make money from their art. Is this the motive? Is it about the money? Or is the money a necessity to continue the art? How would I feel if everyone downloaded something I wrote and no one bought it? How would I continue to write if it was my means of existence? Or is that the point? Should it in fact be a means of existence or a side venture, a derivative, of something else?

As for musicians, does it come from tours? After all, the Grateful Dead, for example, allowed tapers at their shows. Their tapes were traded en masse. Yet the GD were shrewd businessmen. They had an entire organization behind them and they made lots of money on things other than their recorded music.

So I'm ambivalent. I see the artist side of view. They work hard for their craft and it is reasonable to expect to pay for this. But (and there is always a but) to pay $15 for a CD, especially knowing how much it costs, is crazy. So too to support an artist by having to pay $100 for a ticket. I used to pay $12-20 for concert tickets not too many years ago. There is no artist I would pay $100 to see. Not one.

I understand that in this day and age in order to be a super artist requires a large corporation with lots of resources to promote such an artist and everything is biggie sized. Large arenas with as many people as possible charging the maximum amount to maximize profit with the least amount of cost. I get that. It's just a business.

But from an ethical point of view, is it wrong? I am as of yet unconvinced. However, I am realizing the insidious nature of having the freedom to download anything and everything freely. It just brings awareness to the unlimited nature of our desire. I can't afford to buy everything I WANT so I download it for free.

Perhaps the real issue isn't one of ethics but one of desire.