Coda - Leftovers

So where does all this leave Jesus? I believe there was a Jesus, and that he attracted enemies who killed him very nastily. I believe that Jesus showed us what God is like. The Jesus we meet in the New Testament was open to all who came with humble hearts, was compassionate toward those who suffered, healed those who asked for it, and taught about a God Who loves us and Whose “Kingdom” or presence is with us now. Jesus was a human mystic, and when he said he was in God and God was in him he was making a mystical statement.

Jesus was presenting the unconditional love of God, encouraging and showing us how to be intimate with God, and saying that God is present with us now. It’s a matter of recognizing that this has always been true; it isn’t new. Christians often say that we should become more like Jesus, and at that point I want to leap to my feet and shout “Halleujah!” because that is exactly right. Jesus was telling and showing us how to live intimately with God as he did, and we should work to become like him and live intimately with God ourselves. What could be more natural? I think it is about relationship, with God and with the environment and with each other. How else can we express the kind of love that Jesus showed us?

Jesus has become for me a sort of older brother figure, who still is prominent in my inner life, but while I love him I no longer believe that he died for my sins, I do not pray to him, and I do not worship him. He confirms what I learned about God in my encounter with unconditional love. I no longer see him as my “personal Savior” but he still remains the revelation of the nature of God.

And the Trinity? One God in three Persons? I never understood that one anyway. There is God, whatever God may actually be. There is the clear presence and working of God, which is what we refer to as the Holy Spirit. There is Jesus, who reveals to us God’s basic nature. Where the “spiritual gifts” come from is now an unanswerable question. I still believe that if f I pray in tongues it somehow adds pizzazz to my praying, and I can trust that and let it go.

Is there sin? Oh, yes. We are full of it. I think it is another way of describing the human condition. There are various definitions of sin. My understanding of it is the deliberate choice to do something that you know is destructive. Honest mistakes are not sins. Knowing something is harmful, and choosing to do it anyway, is the sin. Even if what it destroys…is you yourself.

The devil? Well, my beliefs there have gone back and forth. I do believe that our darkness is energy and can take actual form. There have been times when I felt that I was under a direct attack from it. I also think we are perfectly capable of screwing up on our own and don’t need anyone else’s help in that respect. It would probably be better if we stopped blaming our flaws on the devil, took responsibility for our screwups, and made stronger efforts to clean up our act.

What about the authority of the Bible? A fundamental tenet of the Christian Reformation has always been that the final authority in matters of faith of practice can be found in the Bible (as opposed to the authority of the church). To my understanding, the Bible was written by human beings. Inspired, yes, but still human, and their humanness can be found throughout the Bible. The stories may or may not report accurately on historical events, but whether they do or not, they contain timeless truth. I still read and learn from the Bible, parts of it anyway.

What then is my final authority? It has to be that experience I had, that encounter with unconditional love. It took my faith from a learned thing to an experienced, internalized, and personally appropriated thing, and made it much stronger. Nothing yet has rocked it, not illnesses, not 9/11, not the scandals of televangelists and other ministers. None of that touches my belief that I responded to unconditional love that night.

So in the final analysis, it isn’t that I “reject” God or Jesus, but I am having a great deal of trouble getting my head around the interpretation of God and Jesus that I have been taught by the Christian church. I feel obliged to follow the concepts I learned through my encounter with unconditional love. I don’t feel obliged to live by concepts that I don’t think are God’s. That would include any idea that goes against the love that I believe God has for each of us. That would include any idea that I don’t see Jesus expressing in the Gospels. And he hasn’t disagreed with my experience.

I have been told many times by fundamentalist friends that only the Bible can be trusted, not our feelings, not our experiences, not anything else. I cannot agree with that. We need to learn from our experiences, not ignore them. And I am working to learn from mine.