Some Christians denominations are dragging society back to the dark ages with their ideas about masculine and feminine roles. Conservative Christians believe that there is a divine hierarchy for all time of God-men-women.It is difficult for them to abandon this philosophy because it originates in the scripture. The words of St. Paul, “For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church”(Eph 5:23 NLT)have been transformed into the eternal words of God. In order to support this hierarchy these Christians have figured that there must be some fundamental difference between men and women.Obviously there are physical difference between the two. There is, however, a more grey area of psychological disparities. Society uses the terminology masculinity and femininity to describe these. How these terms are defined, then, determines how we view men and women. Conservative Christians tend to accept the typical definition of masculinity being about strength, and so to keep the sexes separate, femininity must be oppositely associated with weakness. If masculinity is about being assertive, then women must be passive, and if he is independent, then she becomes dependent. When we examine these masculine traits they are all characteristics of a healthy person in society. The feminine traits of being weak, passive and dependent are at worst a mental disorder and at best lead to low self-esteem for women. Masculinity seems to describe the norm for humanity, and femininity is more associated with deviant behavior.
Due to this hierarchy masculinity has wrongfully become focused on being above femininity. It incorrectly seeks power and control over the feminine, and must struggle daily to maintain that position. If women in some way seem more qualified, more powerful, smarter, taller, you name it, then this messes up the divine hierarchy. Since this is an ordained status by God, to let it tumble and disintegrate becomes sacrilegious and must be fought against vehemently. This definition of masculinity keeps men constantly on guard against woman, because it is she, as the other, who has the power to cause men to fall from their heavenly spot, that is to a position of equality with women.
Christianity was born during a time when patriarchy was a natural way of life, yet it has refused to toss off these old, outdated assumptions. Today, a large percentage of Christian churches still bar women from entering the priesthood. The Christian hierarchy, however, is not just restricted to the priesthood--it also invades the home. According to conservative Christians the home must be organized by the gender roles, that is divinely ordained tasks that are different for men and woman. The idea is that our world functions more smoothly if we follow God’s plan, which includes gender roles. To go against these predetermined duties is to go against God. Therefore, it becomes imperative that men and women stay within the limits of their gender and comply with the tasks that God assigned them. The male role is to be head of the household and provider for the family. On the other hand, the female duty is to stay at home and take care of the children. She is also to submit to her husband as the leader of the family. The message here is clear enough, in the eyes of God women are inferior to men because God is a male. Men are closer to the image of God, rank higher in God’s hierarchy and therefore more fully represent God in the office of priesthood and household leader. Again, scripture supports this idea, St. Paul penned the words, “for man is made in God’s image and reflects God’s glory. And woman reflects man’s glory. For the first man didn’t come from woman, but the first woman came from man. And man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man.” (1 Corith 11:7 NLT). The result of this is that the Christian church, like the rest of society, is tipped in favor of masculinity. The power to drive the direction of the church comes from the leaders who are all men, this leaves women on the outside to be simply followers. Their ideas and opinions are never validated or encouraged, instead they are ignored as “other.”
Due to the backlash that this philosophy has caused there has been a growth in Christian organizations were gender roles are an important part of their platforms. The “Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,” “the Promise Keepers,” and “Focus on the Family” are some of the Christian groups sprouting up that fit this category. It is fear that has prompted the creation of these types of organizations. Many members of these groups foresee a horrible future that can only be derailed if woman are kept under control. The book the Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood" (available on the website for Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) is very explicit about exactly how our society is going to fall apart if we do not stay within our gender imposed roles.
"When we follow the theme that there are “No Differences” into the area of manhood and womanhood, the attempt to obliterate differences leads to the emasculation of men and the defeminization of woman. Men become more like woman and woman become more like men, because “All is one.” Within marriage, if there are no differences, then same-sex “marriages” would be approved. Women who reject feminine roles will support abortion. Since there are no distinct roles for a child’s father and mother within the family, there’s really no longer any need to have children raised by family; “society” can take care of raising children. Within the realm of sexuality, homosexuality and lesbianism will be approved. The chart goes on to detail how the idea that there should be “no differences” but that “all should be one” will also work out in feminized religion within churches, in hatred of authority (if someone has more authority, then all is not one), in no competition in sports (if we have “winners” and “losers,” the all is not one), in no respect for authority and in the civil realm (with an increase in rampant crime), in attempts to abolish private property and equalized possessions (no one can be different, but all should be one), and in attempt to prohibit all-male or all-female schools or to prohibit education boys and girls separately. These are the tendencies that follow once we adopt the conviction that “all is one” and there are no differences of person in the being of God, and thus there should be no difference between men and women either."1
Further down the author continues his thought.
"They deny that there are any gender-based role differences in marriage. Within marriage an egalitarian view tends toward abolishing differences and advocates “mutual submission,” which often results in the husband acting as a wimp and the wife as a usurper. Because there is a deep seated opposition to most authority, the drive toward sameness will often result in children being raised with too little discipline and too little respect for authority."1
If men and women come to be considered equals, then the world as we know it would be destroyed because homosexuality would become normal, abortion rates would rise, and all authority would be challenged. These are major concerns that must be addressed.
The first issue of homosexuality is a vast one. I do not intend to cover all aspects of homosexuality. It is only discussed here as it relates to the gender issue. The conservative Christians main problem with homosexuality is that it is a sin. St. Paul states that it is an abomination unto the Lord. If it is a sin it seems to be a victimless one. What two homosexuals do in the privacy of their own home has almost no bearing on the moral values of the rest of the community. Sins like child abuse, adultery, greed, racism, and sexism, have a much bigger impact on society then homosexuality. Yet within the Christian community the outcry against these horrendous sins seems to get lost in the uproar over homosexuality. Conservative Christians say it’s a choice, liberals tend to believe it is an inborn trait. The question is why is there so much time and money spent on placing homosexuality into some cubby hole. The reason is that it throws a wrench into the neatly defined divine hierarchy of God--male--female. Homosexuals do not fit into any of these categories, because a man is really defined as a masculine man, and homosexuals clearly fail at this. They are living proof that not all men are masculine,(void of all feminine traits) which causes the whole hierarchy to come tumbling down. Other than messing up the power of masculinity, one must wonder how exactly does homosexuality negatively affect our society?
Where homosexuality is the dagger that destroys the gender argument, abortion on the other hand has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with sex. We tend to lump this issue into the feminist one, making it a woman’s issue, rather than facing the truth that it takes two people to make a baby. Statistics show that the top reason why women chose abortion is because either a boyfriend or husband persuaded her to have the abortion. Next on the list comes confusion, parents pressuring her to abort, lack of alternative, not mature enough, and problems with relationship or wanting to avoid being a single parent. 2 It obviously takes two people have sex, and in a likewise manner it takes two to raise a child. Women know this. They feel trapped, confused and afraid when left alone to face rearing a child by themselves. Abortion is not an easy thing to do, it kills a baby, and emotionally speaking it kills the woman too. This issue is tossed into the gender issue because it is the radical feminist who promote pro-choice. In reality, it is not the strident feminist having the abortions, it is young, teenage girls who don’t have the confidence to say “no” to their boyfriend’s advances. Teaching them a typically masculine value of asserting themselves would give them the self confidence to say “no” when pressured. On the other hand, we must also take a hard look at how some men define their masculinity by how many girls they have sex with. Teaching our young men not to pressure the girls in the first place would also help alleviate the problem. Abortion has very little to do with women foregoing the feminine role of motherhood, termed the defeminization of women. This is proven by the fact that once women are married the abortion rate drops dramatically. It seems motherhood is an accepted part of being married.
Now we come to the heart of the issue of feminine power, that is egalitarianism. The authors of book Biblical Foundations of Manhood and Womanhood are correct in stating that femininity leans toward egalitarianism, and away from hierarchies, but he has a skewed view of this philosophy. His radical understanding of egalitarianism asserts that following this philosophy would strip people of their uniqueness. In essence, this extreme view would mean that no one would be allowed to be rich, beautiful, intelligent, or have special skills because then all would not be equal. This is the real issue that threatens the overly masculine world, the fear of having to step down to the level of others in order to equalize everyone in society. For macho men strive to prove that they have gained an upper hand in the hierarchy of life. This plays out in making sure that others are lower than them, hence women must be submissive. Most feminist egalitarians, however, have a more moderate view of what this philosophy means, and within this context it does not demolish the uniqueness of individuals. They understand that there will always be people with different skills, income levels, nationalities, and other various things that make us unique. A more sensible egalitarian approach simply proclaims that these differences should not rank us. So, regardless of our individual differences, egalitarians believe we are still inherently the same in God’s eyes. Due to this fact, they profess that we all deserve the same respect. Anything that unfairly demeans a human’s dignity must be vehemently fought against. With this view, egalitarianism is not about forcing everyone to be the same, rather it is about working toward helping all humans to have an equal opportunity towards happiness. To suggest that implementing this philosophy would result in no more police authority and higher crime rates makes no sense. The author has confused egalitarianism with anarchism. Furthermore, women, who have typically been the ones raising children, understand that kids need love, guidance and yes, discipline. Children, though, eventually grow up into adults, so this is not a hierarchy that is set for life, it is a necessary condition to help our young mature. The idea of a divine hierarchy of men over women, however, is static. This means women are at the bottom with no hope of ever moving up in the world.
The slippery slope argument was used to proclaim that the world is headed toward a disaster with more homosexuals, more abortions, and loss of all authority, all because the authors of this book have a deep rooted fear of women and all things feminine. They believe that eventually the feminine will take over and control the world. Men will be feminized, the church will be feminized, and the outcome of all this female power will result in chaos. In other words femininity, found only in women, is a very dangerous thing and must be controlled in order to keep our world safe. His statement about men becoming wimps confirms his definition of masculinity as more powerful, and it gets at the core of this issue. Macho men who define themselves by their authoritative masculinity, cannot relinquish their power because then they would become sissies. Furthermore, he portrays the typical masculine fear of losing control and power onto women as if they too were concerned with those things. Notice, he will become a wimp and she will usurp his rightful power. In effect this is a complete reversal of the current powerful masculinity and weak femininity. Femininity is not about power and authority. In reality, masculinity isn’t either. It only becomes that way when it is wrongly defined as the top of God’s hierarchy, because then it becomes about controlling the feminine.
According to those who prescribe to these gender roles, men should be all masculine and women must be only feminine, to cross over the lines is dangerous, as we saw the authors of Biblical Foundations of Manhood and Womanhood fear women acting like men and men acting in a feminine way. Real people, however, are not limited by these invisible boundaries. There are assertive women, and passive men. Jesus as the head of the church never taught about gender roles. His main focus was always on the kingdom of God, and this was for everyone, nor were their different requirements or expectations within that kingdom for men and women.
Bibliography
1. Grudem, Wayne, ed. Biblical Foundations of Manhood and Womanhood. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, A division of Good News Publishers, 2002. p. 60-61
2. Mathewes-Green, Frederica. Real Choices. Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press, 1997. p. 208
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
A Road to Peace -- Chapter 1 continued
The Israelites were on the verge of understanding their covenant as being bonded to God in spirit. One main blockage, however, was that many still believed their covenant was bound up with their nation. Conquering their enemies and restoring the nation of Israel became a major tenant of the Jewish faith, and the idea of the new covenant got tangled up with the restoration of Israel. The new covenant was no longer about being one with God’s spirit, but they believed the fulfillment of the covenant would be the new age when they would once again be a great nation. It was also believed that their restored nation would herald in a time of peace for everyone, because all would come to recognized their God as the most high and come to Jerusalem to worship alongside the Jews.
In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all—the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. People from many nations will come and say, “come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2: 2-3 NLT)
This hope was what helped the people stay focused even though they had been trampled on. When it did not come to fruition, many factions arose to try and handle the ongoing domination of the Jews by their enemies. The Essenes decided to leave the social community, believing it was due to the sinfulness of the Jews that the restoration had not happened. They chose to abandon traditional society and hide in caves. They did this with faith that when God chose to act they would be the ones rewarded for their true faithfulness to God. Where the Essenes solution was to cower and hide, the Zealots were just the opposite they wanted to gather an army and take on the Romans by force. For them God was not acting quickly enough and needed some help. In between these two extreme groups were the Pharisees, they believed that God would act, only when his Law was followed perfectly. Therefore, they were stringent followers of the religious Law.
It is into this melting pot of ideas about the restoration that Jesus began to preach. He was clearly lined up with the Prophets of the Old Testament, and did not agree with any of the groups that had formed. The Jews of Jesus day misinterpreted Jesus message about the Kingdom of God, they had turned it into the Kingdom of Israel. According to Jesus, though, the restoration was not a national redemption, but a spiritual one to happen in people’s hearts. Jesus’ main message was a Jewish one, he preached that the Kingdom of God was at hand, it is exactly what all the Jews wanted to hear. Yet they believed it meant that the Romans would be conquered and Israel would be glorified. Jesus, however, proclaimed that the Kingdom of God could be entered into in the here and the know, even though they were still living under Roman occupation. What he did was separate out the new age of peace, from the national interests of the Jews.
Everything Jesus did from his teachings and prayers to his miracles all revolved around the message of the kingdom of God. The philosophy of Kingdom of God being the fulfillment of the covenant has gotten lost under a pile of theological ideas. And so, therefore, the new covenant has never come to fruition in the hearts of Christians. Jesus’ main purpose was to lead humanity to the new covenant, to a time when everyone shall know God in spirit. In the Gospel of John Jesus said, “the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23 NLT)
Jesus’ kingdom was intimately linked to the new covenant that Jeremiah spoke of. According to Jesus and Jeremiah religion was no longer to be about dutifully following the Law, because the spirit will naturally take people were the moral part of the law was originally pointing us. This is also what St. Paul explained as well. He converted the old symbols of the covenant to give them new meaning when he said, “true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by God’s spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not people” (Rom. 2:29) This clearly explains Jesus’ message. Once we are bumped up from the ego-centric, mind level to the higher spiritual level of the spirit we gain a better understanding of God. This includes seeing God as Jesus did, as intimately connected to people. The spirit closes the gap between humans and God. She reaches into our very heart and spiritually binds us to God. This link can never be broken. Once a person has reached this level they never return to a more primitive understanding of the divine. God is trying to explain this to us, even in the Old Testament Isaiah proclaimed for God “Look! I am creating new heavens and new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.” Yet this is exactly what people are doing today. They are trying to fit an old way of looking at things into a new earth. It doesn’t work! It can’t because God has created a new earth. In others words, God is trying to bring everyone up to the spiritual level. This is the message of the bible. A message of the fulfillment of the covenant, with the Kingdom of God on earth. A message of hope, peace and a loving God always working to bring people closer to him until they understand that there is no real separation between themselves and God.
Unfortunately, some Christian denominations actually have ideas and philosophies that run counter to God’s peace, his kingdom, his fulfillment of the covenant. They pick and chose a few select verses and build a religion of fear and ignorance around them. The religious leaders of these sects have realized that it is not peace, and entry into God’s Kingdom, but fear that motivates people. By placing fear of God into people’s hearts, these Christian leaders can control people and keep them on the right path, theirs. The main reason people try to stay on this path is to stay clear of hell. In other words these leaders feed on our fearfulness of God’s wrath. This is a sad tragedy because the main enemy of the kingdom of God is not Satan as many believe, but fear. Our human fears are killing us and the kingdom of God. Fear has the power to weaken both our body and soul, and causes us to make irrational decisions based on selfishness. It is exactly this that is causing most of the problems in the world today. Destroy fear, and God’s kingdom will grow.
God’s vengeful side is clearly a part of the bible. Many Christians falsely believe that the God of the Old Testament is a wrathful God, and that Jesus came from heaven to show a loving Father. It is, however, in the new Testament, that Jesus himself solidifies the concept of hell. There seems to be two conflicting messages in the gospels. The first one is to “love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you… Then your reward from heaven will be very great and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.”(Luke 6:27-36 NLT)) Here we are given the ultimate loving picture of God, and are called to imitate this loving God. In the Gospel of Matthew, however, Jesus, appears as a hypocrite, for he yelled at the Pharisees, “Snakes! Sons of Vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell.” (Matt. 24:33 NLT) This is clearly not a loving attitude, calling people names and putting the fear of hell in them. What are we to think of Jesus, preaching one thing and doing another. It’s like the old adage one might have heard growing up “do what I say, not what I do,” which we all know in reality does not work. This paradoxical message shows its face again and again throughout all four gospels. As children we are taught that Jesus preached about a compassionate Father in heaven. We are told that we are to follow Jesus example. Yet, Jesus own actions are not always loving, nor are all of his teachings. Time and time again, he teaches that if you do not accept the kingdom, then the only other option is hell. This philosophy actually ruins the kingdom message. Ones inner heart can only hate what it fears. So our spiritual natures cannot move closer to a scary God of fire and flames. A person’s true spiritual self is not truly aligned with the kingdom if that person is only in it to stay out of hell. True membership in God’s kingdom only comes about by being connected with God’s spirit and this can only happen through love, not fear.
If Jesus preached a message of hell, then he killed his own kingdom. This seems highly unlikely. More likely the message of judgment and the words of hate on Jesus lips are from the gospel writers who wrote 70 to 100 years after Jesus death. They had good intentions of trying to convince people that it was imperative to choose the kingdom of God. But, this message does not line up with Jesus’ original message of a loving God, who calls for people to be loving as well. One last thing to consider in this discussion, if God includes wrathfulness then does that not give us permission to be vengeful as God is. If God can punish to the extreme and throw people to the eternal agony of hell, then the torture that people do to each other seems almost insignificant in comparison. How we view God, also determines how we perceive humanity. If we can imagine a hateful God, then hatefulness will always be part of us as well. Joining in God’s kingdom is making a conscious effort to try alleviate hate from our lives.
God is all-powerful, that fact can make God very frightening to fragile humans. God understands this and in some cases in the Bible one gets the impression that God is trying to alleviate our fears. When God sent angels to Mary, John’s father Zechariah, the shepherds, and to the woman at the tomb each time the angel greeted them with “fear not.” When Simon first met Jesus, he fell on his knees professing his sinfulness. Jesus replied “Fear not! From henceforth thou shalt catch men.”(Luke 5:10 KJV) And Jesus also preached in general, “Fear not, little flock: for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 KJV) In these cases Jesus does not teach us about a fearful, wrathful God, but rather to love and trust God. We are expected to put our entire lives in the hands of God. Jesus himself led a life that was above fear. Even in the face of death he did not detour from God’s plan. His philosophy can be summed up by St. Paul’s question, “If God be for us, who can ever be against us?” (Rom 8:31 NLT) This denies the existence of some “other” to be afraid of. Jesus didn’t even see the Roman soldiers as his enemy, but rather people who were in need of mercy. He showed love even for these soldiers when he said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34 NLT)
Fear is based on the unknown. We don’t truly know God, so we fear God. In the society around us the same is also true. People who seem different or odd are feared as well. This is the cause of much prejudice and hatred. It comes from the old group mentality that everyone in my group is friend, anyone else who I don’t know is foe. There is a dangerous current paradigm about God within Christianity that is linked to that old, archaic idea. This is the idea of polar opposites, setting up one thing in opposition to another. According to these Christians, one is either good or bad, in heaven or hell. A person must value soul over body, the masculine over the feminine, heaven over earth and their religion over all others. This is as far away from the kingdom of God and peace as one can get. In setting up one thing as better than another the lines are drawn for battle. Now the soul must fight the body, a Christian must fight against an ungodly world, men against woman, and Christians against all other religions. Peace is only going to be found by erasing these boundary lines and incorporating all things into God’s plan.
The ultimate fulfillment of the covenant, the peace that God is driving us towards is found in spirit. We are bound to God’s spirit, and his spirit is everywhere. From the book of Psalm we learn that:
I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from you presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
If I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of morning,
If I dwell by the farthest oceans,
Even there you hand will guide me,
And your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
And the light around me to become night—
But even in darkness I cannot hid from you
To you the night shines as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are the same to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)
Within God there is no “other,” which means there is nothing to fear. In fact, God can be found in the integration of seemingly opposites things. The body and soul are one, masculine and feminine qualities can appear in both sexes, heaven can come down to earth, people can contain both good and evil qualities, and all religions hold some truths and some falsities. Peace means finding harmony in opposite things. For if people could see a part of themselves in the “other” then their anger will subside and be replaced with compassion. In that case, compromise and agreements could be made, rather than war and threats.
I believe this teaching of polar opposites is incorrect and needs to be abandoned if there is to be growth toward God’s kingdom and ultimate peace for the world. I foresee a wonderful future for the world, as I believe Jesus did with his vision of the Kingdom of God, one where all nations live in harmony, and people make it top priority to make sure that everyone has their basic needs met. I see a future where there is respect for males and females alike. It will be a world where different races and religions are treated with equal respect. This may just be a fantasy, but I believe it is the world God is moving us toward slowly each day. For as St. Paul said “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. (gal 3:28 NLT) This is exactly what the kingdom of God will look like. Today we need a spiritual boost to propel us forward and closer to God’s kingdom. I believe that first step is to eliminate the philosophy of opposites. There are six important opposite pairs within the Christian understanding of God that must be harmonized if our world is to become a more peaceful one. These include:
1. masculine vs. feminine
2. God vs. devil
3. Christianity vs. other religions
4. soul vs. body
5. Nature vs. transcendence
The following chapters will consider each one of these dichotomies in detail and how they can be corrected.
In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all—the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. People from many nations will come and say, “come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2: 2-3 NLT)
This hope was what helped the people stay focused even though they had been trampled on. When it did not come to fruition, many factions arose to try and handle the ongoing domination of the Jews by their enemies. The Essenes decided to leave the social community, believing it was due to the sinfulness of the Jews that the restoration had not happened. They chose to abandon traditional society and hide in caves. They did this with faith that when God chose to act they would be the ones rewarded for their true faithfulness to God. Where the Essenes solution was to cower and hide, the Zealots were just the opposite they wanted to gather an army and take on the Romans by force. For them God was not acting quickly enough and needed some help. In between these two extreme groups were the Pharisees, they believed that God would act, only when his Law was followed perfectly. Therefore, they were stringent followers of the religious Law.
It is into this melting pot of ideas about the restoration that Jesus began to preach. He was clearly lined up with the Prophets of the Old Testament, and did not agree with any of the groups that had formed. The Jews of Jesus day misinterpreted Jesus message about the Kingdom of God, they had turned it into the Kingdom of Israel. According to Jesus, though, the restoration was not a national redemption, but a spiritual one to happen in people’s hearts. Jesus’ main message was a Jewish one, he preached that the Kingdom of God was at hand, it is exactly what all the Jews wanted to hear. Yet they believed it meant that the Romans would be conquered and Israel would be glorified. Jesus, however, proclaimed that the Kingdom of God could be entered into in the here and the know, even though they were still living under Roman occupation. What he did was separate out the new age of peace, from the national interests of the Jews.
Everything Jesus did from his teachings and prayers to his miracles all revolved around the message of the kingdom of God. The philosophy of Kingdom of God being the fulfillment of the covenant has gotten lost under a pile of theological ideas. And so, therefore, the new covenant has never come to fruition in the hearts of Christians. Jesus’ main purpose was to lead humanity to the new covenant, to a time when everyone shall know God in spirit. In the Gospel of John Jesus said, “the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23 NLT)
Jesus’ kingdom was intimately linked to the new covenant that Jeremiah spoke of. According to Jesus and Jeremiah religion was no longer to be about dutifully following the Law, because the spirit will naturally take people were the moral part of the law was originally pointing us. This is also what St. Paul explained as well. He converted the old symbols of the covenant to give them new meaning when he said, “true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by God’s spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not people” (Rom. 2:29) This clearly explains Jesus’ message. Once we are bumped up from the ego-centric, mind level to the higher spiritual level of the spirit we gain a better understanding of God. This includes seeing God as Jesus did, as intimately connected to people. The spirit closes the gap between humans and God. She reaches into our very heart and spiritually binds us to God. This link can never be broken. Once a person has reached this level they never return to a more primitive understanding of the divine. God is trying to explain this to us, even in the Old Testament Isaiah proclaimed for God “Look! I am creating new heavens and new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.” Yet this is exactly what people are doing today. They are trying to fit an old way of looking at things into a new earth. It doesn’t work! It can’t because God has created a new earth. In others words, God is trying to bring everyone up to the spiritual level. This is the message of the bible. A message of the fulfillment of the covenant, with the Kingdom of God on earth. A message of hope, peace and a loving God always working to bring people closer to him until they understand that there is no real separation between themselves and God.
Unfortunately, some Christian denominations actually have ideas and philosophies that run counter to God’s peace, his kingdom, his fulfillment of the covenant. They pick and chose a few select verses and build a religion of fear and ignorance around them. The religious leaders of these sects have realized that it is not peace, and entry into God’s Kingdom, but fear that motivates people. By placing fear of God into people’s hearts, these Christian leaders can control people and keep them on the right path, theirs. The main reason people try to stay on this path is to stay clear of hell. In other words these leaders feed on our fearfulness of God’s wrath. This is a sad tragedy because the main enemy of the kingdom of God is not Satan as many believe, but fear. Our human fears are killing us and the kingdom of God. Fear has the power to weaken both our body and soul, and causes us to make irrational decisions based on selfishness. It is exactly this that is causing most of the problems in the world today. Destroy fear, and God’s kingdom will grow.
God’s vengeful side is clearly a part of the bible. Many Christians falsely believe that the God of the Old Testament is a wrathful God, and that Jesus came from heaven to show a loving Father. It is, however, in the new Testament, that Jesus himself solidifies the concept of hell. There seems to be two conflicting messages in the gospels. The first one is to “love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you… Then your reward from heaven will be very great and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.”(Luke 6:27-36 NLT)) Here we are given the ultimate loving picture of God, and are called to imitate this loving God. In the Gospel of Matthew, however, Jesus, appears as a hypocrite, for he yelled at the Pharisees, “Snakes! Sons of Vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell.” (Matt. 24:33 NLT) This is clearly not a loving attitude, calling people names and putting the fear of hell in them. What are we to think of Jesus, preaching one thing and doing another. It’s like the old adage one might have heard growing up “do what I say, not what I do,” which we all know in reality does not work. This paradoxical message shows its face again and again throughout all four gospels. As children we are taught that Jesus preached about a compassionate Father in heaven. We are told that we are to follow Jesus example. Yet, Jesus own actions are not always loving, nor are all of his teachings. Time and time again, he teaches that if you do not accept the kingdom, then the only other option is hell. This philosophy actually ruins the kingdom message. Ones inner heart can only hate what it fears. So our spiritual natures cannot move closer to a scary God of fire and flames. A person’s true spiritual self is not truly aligned with the kingdom if that person is only in it to stay out of hell. True membership in God’s kingdom only comes about by being connected with God’s spirit and this can only happen through love, not fear.
If Jesus preached a message of hell, then he killed his own kingdom. This seems highly unlikely. More likely the message of judgment and the words of hate on Jesus lips are from the gospel writers who wrote 70 to 100 years after Jesus death. They had good intentions of trying to convince people that it was imperative to choose the kingdom of God. But, this message does not line up with Jesus’ original message of a loving God, who calls for people to be loving as well. One last thing to consider in this discussion, if God includes wrathfulness then does that not give us permission to be vengeful as God is. If God can punish to the extreme and throw people to the eternal agony of hell, then the torture that people do to each other seems almost insignificant in comparison. How we view God, also determines how we perceive humanity. If we can imagine a hateful God, then hatefulness will always be part of us as well. Joining in God’s kingdom is making a conscious effort to try alleviate hate from our lives.
God is all-powerful, that fact can make God very frightening to fragile humans. God understands this and in some cases in the Bible one gets the impression that God is trying to alleviate our fears. When God sent angels to Mary, John’s father Zechariah, the shepherds, and to the woman at the tomb each time the angel greeted them with “fear not.” When Simon first met Jesus, he fell on his knees professing his sinfulness. Jesus replied “Fear not! From henceforth thou shalt catch men.”(Luke 5:10 KJV) And Jesus also preached in general, “Fear not, little flock: for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 KJV) In these cases Jesus does not teach us about a fearful, wrathful God, but rather to love and trust God. We are expected to put our entire lives in the hands of God. Jesus himself led a life that was above fear. Even in the face of death he did not detour from God’s plan. His philosophy can be summed up by St. Paul’s question, “If God be for us, who can ever be against us?” (Rom 8:31 NLT) This denies the existence of some “other” to be afraid of. Jesus didn’t even see the Roman soldiers as his enemy, but rather people who were in need of mercy. He showed love even for these soldiers when he said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34 NLT)
Fear is based on the unknown. We don’t truly know God, so we fear God. In the society around us the same is also true. People who seem different or odd are feared as well. This is the cause of much prejudice and hatred. It comes from the old group mentality that everyone in my group is friend, anyone else who I don’t know is foe. There is a dangerous current paradigm about God within Christianity that is linked to that old, archaic idea. This is the idea of polar opposites, setting up one thing in opposition to another. According to these Christians, one is either good or bad, in heaven or hell. A person must value soul over body, the masculine over the feminine, heaven over earth and their religion over all others. This is as far away from the kingdom of God and peace as one can get. In setting up one thing as better than another the lines are drawn for battle. Now the soul must fight the body, a Christian must fight against an ungodly world, men against woman, and Christians against all other religions. Peace is only going to be found by erasing these boundary lines and incorporating all things into God’s plan.
The ultimate fulfillment of the covenant, the peace that God is driving us towards is found in spirit. We are bound to God’s spirit, and his spirit is everywhere. From the book of Psalm we learn that:
I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from you presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
If I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of morning,
If I dwell by the farthest oceans,
Even there you hand will guide me,
And your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
And the light around me to become night—
But even in darkness I cannot hid from you
To you the night shines as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are the same to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)
Within God there is no “other,” which means there is nothing to fear. In fact, God can be found in the integration of seemingly opposites things. The body and soul are one, masculine and feminine qualities can appear in both sexes, heaven can come down to earth, people can contain both good and evil qualities, and all religions hold some truths and some falsities. Peace means finding harmony in opposite things. For if people could see a part of themselves in the “other” then their anger will subside and be replaced with compassion. In that case, compromise and agreements could be made, rather than war and threats.
I believe this teaching of polar opposites is incorrect and needs to be abandoned if there is to be growth toward God’s kingdom and ultimate peace for the world. I foresee a wonderful future for the world, as I believe Jesus did with his vision of the Kingdom of God, one where all nations live in harmony, and people make it top priority to make sure that everyone has their basic needs met. I see a future where there is respect for males and females alike. It will be a world where different races and religions are treated with equal respect. This may just be a fantasy, but I believe it is the world God is moving us toward slowly each day. For as St. Paul said “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. (gal 3:28 NLT) This is exactly what the kingdom of God will look like. Today we need a spiritual boost to propel us forward and closer to God’s kingdom. I believe that first step is to eliminate the philosophy of opposites. There are six important opposite pairs within the Christian understanding of God that must be harmonized if our world is to become a more peaceful one. These include:
1. masculine vs. feminine
2. God vs. devil
3. Christianity vs. other religions
4. soul vs. body
5. Nature vs. transcendence
The following chapters will consider each one of these dichotomies in detail and how they can be corrected.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
A Road to Peace - Chapter 1
It is with great diffidence that I place my work in this blog, for I am not a learned scholar of religion, but a humble seeker for truth. I place my hope for the future on truth. I am not arrogant enough to think that I have found the truth, but perhaps finding the truth is not necessarily the prize, but the transformation that happens during the seeking. Much of what I have to offer here is controversial to what some currently believe, and I do not expect everyone to jump on a new bandwagon. My only hope is that my writing may help move the world in the direction of peace. That is the reason I wrote my first non-fiction book, A Pluralistic Portrait of God, (available on Amazon.com) and it is the same thing that drove me to begin writing a second book. I have decided not to try and publish this one, but instead to parcel it out chapter by chapter in this blog. The book is titled A Road to Peace – a Christian perspective, and it deals with the issue of how I think Christianity can become a beacon of hope for a better, less violent future. What follows is the first half of chapter 1.
CHAPTER 1 – KINGDOM OF GOD
The road to peace is going to be paved by taking a fresh look at God especially within our Christian faith. It is all too easy to point the finger at other religions, institutions, and societies proclaiming that if they stop their bad behavior then everything in the world would be fixed. It is much more difficult to look inward and discover our own obstacles to peace. The first barrier is simply the great chasm of time between the human Jesus and our modern day which has caused Christians to drift from the original message of Jesus. Where to do we turn as Christians to rectify this problem? The bible of course.
Unfortunately, some Christians venerate the book instead of God. We have put God into a nice little box and tied him up with a bow, and called it the bible. This has ironically led to many Christians becoming similar to the self-righteous Pharisees that Jesus preached against. They have turned the bible into the Law, the standard by which to judge and condemn sinners. The bible has been used throughout history as a weapon to persecute Jews, those considered to be witches, heretics, and scientists. It has been used to justify black slavery, and sexist treatment of women. Historically the bible has been on the wrong side of almost all the major, moral dilemmas that the world has progressed through. In order to advance morally and scientifically people have had to fight against the sacred scripture. Today this continues and it is not bringing peace to the world only frustration, anger, and hatred from both sides.
The bible, then, has become a stumbling block for many Christians today. To be a Christian one has to either put on intellectual blinders or perform mental gymnastics to try to fit “The Word of God” into a round hole when clearly it has a square peg. That said, though, it is certainly not a book that Christians can ignore and place on a shelf to collect dust as if it is only an archeological remnant of the historical past. For the bible is the root of Christianity. If the root dies, then the tree dies too, and so it is with Christianity. The root of a tree is the most fundamental part of the whole plant, it is the starting point for the whole rest of the tree, and it is the supplier of water that continues to give life to the plant. The bible similarly feeds Christians spiritually, and is the starting point for their journey toward God. A tree, however, must grow forth from its root in order to produce fruit, and so to with Christianity. Right now it seems like the message of Jesus is stuck in the root, it has not developed into its maximum potential. If Christianity grows to its full maturity we have the power to cure the world of many of its worst problems. With just a root, though, we are powerless. We must use our root properly so that that we can grow into the tree of life for the world.
How exactly is the bible our root? First of all, what the bible isn’t is the exact words of God. This understanding of the bible has led Christians on extended detours away from God. I believe a better view of the bible is to see it as describing the development of Israel’s relationship with God. That relationship may never have been be perfect and in some cases might have been totally wrong. But none of the struggles to come to understand God were edited out, the moments of great connection with God, as well as the tragedies that led the Israelites away from God were all recorded in the bible. It is our job to look critically at the book, and see which trajectories were the correct ones. The important point, though, is that the Israelites never gave up, and constantly worked on their relationship with God. The Old Testament denotes that relationship as the Covenant.
As we read the Old Testament we begin with the creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve. Starting with them and journeying forward through time we learn all about the history of Israelites. This history is not recorded as unbiased facts, rather it is written only because it is relevant to God’s covenant. The actual historical events that happened were important because God played a hand in them. Notice, when God is giving Israel the ten commandments he prefaces them with, “I am the LORD thy god, which brought the out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”(Ex 20:2 KJV) The deliverance from slavery was a unique event in history that proved to the Israelites that God loved them. In short, God is creating history, therefore, history is a pointer God. When we combine these two elements together, that God is the mover of history with the idea of a covenant, then we see that history is the movement toward the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant.
Notice that in the Old Testament there is a gradual shift of morality and closeness to God as time goes on. The time after the flood was better than the terrible times before, the time after the Law was received was seen as a better time than before the Law. The age of the Israel nation was considered better than the period of the judges, when “all people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”(Judges 21:25) Once the nation fell apart, the Israelites always looked forward to a better time in the future when the Messiah would come and restore them to their former beauty. The notion that with time the world becomes better is certainly a biblical one.
From the beginning of the Old Testament to the end we can trace a slow growth of the covenant. Initially, the covenant was just a promise that God would not flood the earth again. “I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the Bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth” (Gen 9:14-15 KJV) This is the humble beginnings of the covenant, that God would give humanity the earth and not destroy it again with a flood. In this way, the covenant was about the survival of the human race. With Abraham, though, we see a hint of something bigger. God told Abraham that “All families on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen 12:3 NLT) Here, still at the early stages of the covenant, we have stepped up from just existing, to the hope of having a life blessed by God. This is an amazing transition at such a primitive stage of humanity. Not only does the covenant now include God’s blessings, but it is for all families on the earth. Here, it is certainly obvious that God is speaking through the author of Genesis. The average mode of thinking in biblical times was group mentality. That is you are either part of my group or not, and that determined who was friend and foe. God, though, was already trying to widen the picture to include everyone. Now, Israel sometimes forgot that the covenant was intended for all people. Israel proclaimed war on their enemies thinking that God was also against those people and would help Israel win. This is certainly NOT a God that spiritual people today can believe in. To consider these culturally induced passages as “God’s Words” for all time, is to refuse to let God speak to humanity today. The bible gives us a portrait of the Israelites that includes their incorrect attitudes, but in other verses we see that when the Israelites were ready to move to the next spiritual phase, then God was there beside them pointing them in the right direction.
Human beings are composed of several hierarchical elements which include matter, body, mind and spirit. Each child must start at the bottom and climb up the ladder incorporating each element into the next to get to the highest point of spiritual fulfillment. This same process that every human being undertakes, has also being going on throughout history. At the dawn of humanity, humans were very much like infants, unconsciously embedded in the natural world around them, matter.1 It is right here, then, in the physical world that God meets them with his covenant. The initial sign of the covenant was the rainbow, a natural part of the world that was easily seen. It would appear after it rained to remind people that they were safe from another flood. But God wanted men and women to journey forth from these beginnings to move closer to him. This meant leaving the comfort of infancy and beginning the maturing process. This is what every child does as they begin to venture forth learning to walk, run and play, no longer cradled in the arms of mom or dad. A child begins to understand that they have a body that can be maneuvered within the world. The same transition happened with early humans as they developed language and used their hands to weave baskets and produce spears for hunting. When the Israelites moved to the next level, God in a sense redefined the covenant in a way that they could make more sense of it-- through the body. The covenant moved from the physical world, the rainbow, to a person’s body, circumcision. “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.”(Gen 17:10 KJV)
Each new level is still dependent on the previous elements. A person must still live within the world of matter, even though they have found their unique body within it. And a person still contains their body even as they move to the next phase of realizing that they have a mind. With the emergence of the mind humans could make laws and build societies. That is exactly what Israel did. God knew that the Israelites were ready for the next stage in the covenant, and so he delivered his divine laws to them through Moses. We must understand that these laws were given to them in a specific time period and that God gave them laws that made sense to them. We have since matured and moved further up the ladder in our journey to God, and so now some of those laws are certainly old and outdated. In a society were sacrifice was common, God gave the Israelites rules on how to perform sacrifices. In a society that took slavery as a natural part of life, God gave them laws to keep slavery under control. God understood that their consciousness was not yet raised to the point where slavery could be outlawed, they would have never understood or accepted such laws. To take the old, divine law meant for that period and try to incorporate it into today’s society does not make any sense. In any case, the giving of the law was a major step toward the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant. So the sign of the covenant changed from body, circumcision, to the mind, and laws. The Lord gave these instruction to Moses “Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.” (Ex 31:13 KJV) Following the Sabbath was now the new sign of God’s covenant with Israel.
As the Israelites matured in their understanding of God, the covenant continued to change. The relationship between God and his people was never a static thing, as we have seen it began at the level of matter, and then was transformed into a bodily covenant based on circumcision. Next it was raised up to the level of the mind and laws. The Israelites lived at this level of the covenant for many years, during that time the foundation rested on the Law that they believed was a revelation from God given to them through Moses. They tried to keep God’s Laws at the center of the nation. The bulk of these rules consisted of regulations for sacrifices and festivals. The Laws concerning morality have survived to our current time, known today as the 10 commandments. Israel eventually got to a point where the covenant, guided by Laws, needed to be expanded to the next level. Sometimes it takes a great catastrophe to change from one’s natural ways of doing things. At this point in the history of Israel, aggressive nations to the north were standing poised and ready to conquer them. It was during this great era of stress and tribulation that the prophets raged against the current system. They ranted and raved against the normal way of doing things, that is offering sacrifice. The priests, on the other hand, were stringently on the side of the Law and sacrifices. The message of the prophets, however, was that sacrificing was not going to save the people from impending doom, only a conversion of the heart would cause God to save them. The prophets knew that sacrificing was an integral part of Israel’s original covenant, they were well versed in the scriptures that came before them. Yet, they still proclaimed that God was speaking something new now. Isaiah and Jeremiah are two of the more popular prophets that people recognize today. There were, though, more prophets such as Hosea, Joel, and Micah. Another named Amos proclaimed that God said:
I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
I will not accept you burn offerings and grain offerings.
I will not even notice all your choice peace offerings.
Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, and endless river of
righteous living.
(Amos 5:21-24)
The prophets were people who had a new vision for what the covenant with God was suppose to be about. They realized it was not about rituals, feast days, and sacrifices. They had the audacity to proclaim that the scripture that went before was actually wrong, and had now been overwritten by something new. Jeremiah told Israel, (in the original words of the Jewish Tanakh)
For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burn offerings or sacrifice. But this is what I commanded them. Do my bidding, that I may be your God and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoy upon you, that it may go well with you. Yet they did not listen or give ear; they followed their own counsels, the willfulness of their evil hearts. They have gone backward, not forward.(Jer 7:22-24)
This idea of rewriting scripture has been toned down in our bibles today. According to The New Living Translation Bible this passage reads slightly differently.
When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not burnt offerings and sacrifices that I wanted from them. This is what I told them... Jer 7:22-24)
Jeremiah’s original message boldly proclaimed that God never commanded sacrifice, even though the book of Leviticus clearly stated that God did demand those things. The prophets wanted to eliminate this old, outdated way of dealing with God, so they tried to erase what came before, to overwrite it with a new idea. They ached for a new and better Israel. They had great hopes that Israel would survive the threat from the surrounding nations and come to live according to a new covenant of the heart. This new way of understanding God was to make the old non-existent. This great vision was best explained by Jeremiah.
This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neigbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:33-34 NLT)
This realization of God is at the top of the spiritual ladder, it is at the very heart of what it means to be human. According to the prophets the covenant was to be confirmed by spirit. Yet, spirit is invisible, and that makes it hard for people to make the leap from mind to spirit. So the Israelites had a hard time accepting the words of the prophets. Many of the great prophets died defending their understanding of the covenant.
Israel was defeated by her enemies. In 586 B.C Babylon conquered Israel, most of the Israelites were deported. It is at this point, crushed and defeated that the Israelites looked back at what the prophets had said and realized that something may have been wrong with their current system. For one thing, they had lost their temple, it had been destroyed by the Babylonians, so sacrificing was no longer an option. They had to enter into a new understanding of God or their religion would die.
Bibliography
1. Ken Wilber. Up From Eden. Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books Theosophical Publishing House, 1996. p. 54
CHAPTER 1 – KINGDOM OF GOD
The road to peace is going to be paved by taking a fresh look at God especially within our Christian faith. It is all too easy to point the finger at other religions, institutions, and societies proclaiming that if they stop their bad behavior then everything in the world would be fixed. It is much more difficult to look inward and discover our own obstacles to peace. The first barrier is simply the great chasm of time between the human Jesus and our modern day which has caused Christians to drift from the original message of Jesus. Where to do we turn as Christians to rectify this problem? The bible of course.
Unfortunately, some Christians venerate the book instead of God. We have put God into a nice little box and tied him up with a bow, and called it the bible. This has ironically led to many Christians becoming similar to the self-righteous Pharisees that Jesus preached against. They have turned the bible into the Law, the standard by which to judge and condemn sinners. The bible has been used throughout history as a weapon to persecute Jews, those considered to be witches, heretics, and scientists. It has been used to justify black slavery, and sexist treatment of women. Historically the bible has been on the wrong side of almost all the major, moral dilemmas that the world has progressed through. In order to advance morally and scientifically people have had to fight against the sacred scripture. Today this continues and it is not bringing peace to the world only frustration, anger, and hatred from both sides.
The bible, then, has become a stumbling block for many Christians today. To be a Christian one has to either put on intellectual blinders or perform mental gymnastics to try to fit “The Word of God” into a round hole when clearly it has a square peg. That said, though, it is certainly not a book that Christians can ignore and place on a shelf to collect dust as if it is only an archeological remnant of the historical past. For the bible is the root of Christianity. If the root dies, then the tree dies too, and so it is with Christianity. The root of a tree is the most fundamental part of the whole plant, it is the starting point for the whole rest of the tree, and it is the supplier of water that continues to give life to the plant. The bible similarly feeds Christians spiritually, and is the starting point for their journey toward God. A tree, however, must grow forth from its root in order to produce fruit, and so to with Christianity. Right now it seems like the message of Jesus is stuck in the root, it has not developed into its maximum potential. If Christianity grows to its full maturity we have the power to cure the world of many of its worst problems. With just a root, though, we are powerless. We must use our root properly so that that we can grow into the tree of life for the world.
How exactly is the bible our root? First of all, what the bible isn’t is the exact words of God. This understanding of the bible has led Christians on extended detours away from God. I believe a better view of the bible is to see it as describing the development of Israel’s relationship with God. That relationship may never have been be perfect and in some cases might have been totally wrong. But none of the struggles to come to understand God were edited out, the moments of great connection with God, as well as the tragedies that led the Israelites away from God were all recorded in the bible. It is our job to look critically at the book, and see which trajectories were the correct ones. The important point, though, is that the Israelites never gave up, and constantly worked on their relationship with God. The Old Testament denotes that relationship as the Covenant.
As we read the Old Testament we begin with the creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve. Starting with them and journeying forward through time we learn all about the history of Israelites. This history is not recorded as unbiased facts, rather it is written only because it is relevant to God’s covenant. The actual historical events that happened were important because God played a hand in them. Notice, when God is giving Israel the ten commandments he prefaces them with, “I am the LORD thy god, which brought the out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”(Ex 20:2 KJV) The deliverance from slavery was a unique event in history that proved to the Israelites that God loved them. In short, God is creating history, therefore, history is a pointer God. When we combine these two elements together, that God is the mover of history with the idea of a covenant, then we see that history is the movement toward the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant.
Notice that in the Old Testament there is a gradual shift of morality and closeness to God as time goes on. The time after the flood was better than the terrible times before, the time after the Law was received was seen as a better time than before the Law. The age of the Israel nation was considered better than the period of the judges, when “all people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”(Judges 21:25) Once the nation fell apart, the Israelites always looked forward to a better time in the future when the Messiah would come and restore them to their former beauty. The notion that with time the world becomes better is certainly a biblical one.
From the beginning of the Old Testament to the end we can trace a slow growth of the covenant. Initially, the covenant was just a promise that God would not flood the earth again. “I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the Bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth” (Gen 9:14-15 KJV) This is the humble beginnings of the covenant, that God would give humanity the earth and not destroy it again with a flood. In this way, the covenant was about the survival of the human race. With Abraham, though, we see a hint of something bigger. God told Abraham that “All families on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen 12:3 NLT) Here, still at the early stages of the covenant, we have stepped up from just existing, to the hope of having a life blessed by God. This is an amazing transition at such a primitive stage of humanity. Not only does the covenant now include God’s blessings, but it is for all families on the earth. Here, it is certainly obvious that God is speaking through the author of Genesis. The average mode of thinking in biblical times was group mentality. That is you are either part of my group or not, and that determined who was friend and foe. God, though, was already trying to widen the picture to include everyone. Now, Israel sometimes forgot that the covenant was intended for all people. Israel proclaimed war on their enemies thinking that God was also against those people and would help Israel win. This is certainly NOT a God that spiritual people today can believe in. To consider these culturally induced passages as “God’s Words” for all time, is to refuse to let God speak to humanity today. The bible gives us a portrait of the Israelites that includes their incorrect attitudes, but in other verses we see that when the Israelites were ready to move to the next spiritual phase, then God was there beside them pointing them in the right direction.
Human beings are composed of several hierarchical elements which include matter, body, mind and spirit. Each child must start at the bottom and climb up the ladder incorporating each element into the next to get to the highest point of spiritual fulfillment. This same process that every human being undertakes, has also being going on throughout history. At the dawn of humanity, humans were very much like infants, unconsciously embedded in the natural world around them, matter.1 It is right here, then, in the physical world that God meets them with his covenant. The initial sign of the covenant was the rainbow, a natural part of the world that was easily seen. It would appear after it rained to remind people that they were safe from another flood. But God wanted men and women to journey forth from these beginnings to move closer to him. This meant leaving the comfort of infancy and beginning the maturing process. This is what every child does as they begin to venture forth learning to walk, run and play, no longer cradled in the arms of mom or dad. A child begins to understand that they have a body that can be maneuvered within the world. The same transition happened with early humans as they developed language and used their hands to weave baskets and produce spears for hunting. When the Israelites moved to the next level, God in a sense redefined the covenant in a way that they could make more sense of it-- through the body. The covenant moved from the physical world, the rainbow, to a person’s body, circumcision. “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.”(Gen 17:10 KJV)
Each new level is still dependent on the previous elements. A person must still live within the world of matter, even though they have found their unique body within it. And a person still contains their body even as they move to the next phase of realizing that they have a mind. With the emergence of the mind humans could make laws and build societies. That is exactly what Israel did. God knew that the Israelites were ready for the next stage in the covenant, and so he delivered his divine laws to them through Moses. We must understand that these laws were given to them in a specific time period and that God gave them laws that made sense to them. We have since matured and moved further up the ladder in our journey to God, and so now some of those laws are certainly old and outdated. In a society were sacrifice was common, God gave the Israelites rules on how to perform sacrifices. In a society that took slavery as a natural part of life, God gave them laws to keep slavery under control. God understood that their consciousness was not yet raised to the point where slavery could be outlawed, they would have never understood or accepted such laws. To take the old, divine law meant for that period and try to incorporate it into today’s society does not make any sense. In any case, the giving of the law was a major step toward the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant. So the sign of the covenant changed from body, circumcision, to the mind, and laws. The Lord gave these instruction to Moses “Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.” (Ex 31:13 KJV) Following the Sabbath was now the new sign of God’s covenant with Israel.
As the Israelites matured in their understanding of God, the covenant continued to change. The relationship between God and his people was never a static thing, as we have seen it began at the level of matter, and then was transformed into a bodily covenant based on circumcision. Next it was raised up to the level of the mind and laws. The Israelites lived at this level of the covenant for many years, during that time the foundation rested on the Law that they believed was a revelation from God given to them through Moses. They tried to keep God’s Laws at the center of the nation. The bulk of these rules consisted of regulations for sacrifices and festivals. The Laws concerning morality have survived to our current time, known today as the 10 commandments. Israel eventually got to a point where the covenant, guided by Laws, needed to be expanded to the next level. Sometimes it takes a great catastrophe to change from one’s natural ways of doing things. At this point in the history of Israel, aggressive nations to the north were standing poised and ready to conquer them. It was during this great era of stress and tribulation that the prophets raged against the current system. They ranted and raved against the normal way of doing things, that is offering sacrifice. The priests, on the other hand, were stringently on the side of the Law and sacrifices. The message of the prophets, however, was that sacrificing was not going to save the people from impending doom, only a conversion of the heart would cause God to save them. The prophets knew that sacrificing was an integral part of Israel’s original covenant, they were well versed in the scriptures that came before them. Yet, they still proclaimed that God was speaking something new now. Isaiah and Jeremiah are two of the more popular prophets that people recognize today. There were, though, more prophets such as Hosea, Joel, and Micah. Another named Amos proclaimed that God said:
I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
I will not accept you burn offerings and grain offerings.
I will not even notice all your choice peace offerings.
Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, and endless river of
righteous living.
(Amos 5:21-24)
The prophets were people who had a new vision for what the covenant with God was suppose to be about. They realized it was not about rituals, feast days, and sacrifices. They had the audacity to proclaim that the scripture that went before was actually wrong, and had now been overwritten by something new. Jeremiah told Israel, (in the original words of the Jewish Tanakh)
For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burn offerings or sacrifice. But this is what I commanded them. Do my bidding, that I may be your God and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoy upon you, that it may go well with you. Yet they did not listen or give ear; they followed their own counsels, the willfulness of their evil hearts. They have gone backward, not forward.(Jer 7:22-24)
This idea of rewriting scripture has been toned down in our bibles today. According to The New Living Translation Bible this passage reads slightly differently.
When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not burnt offerings and sacrifices that I wanted from them. This is what I told them... Jer 7:22-24)
Jeremiah’s original message boldly proclaimed that God never commanded sacrifice, even though the book of Leviticus clearly stated that God did demand those things. The prophets wanted to eliminate this old, outdated way of dealing with God, so they tried to erase what came before, to overwrite it with a new idea. They ached for a new and better Israel. They had great hopes that Israel would survive the threat from the surrounding nations and come to live according to a new covenant of the heart. This new way of understanding God was to make the old non-existent. This great vision was best explained by Jeremiah.
This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neigbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:33-34 NLT)
This realization of God is at the top of the spiritual ladder, it is at the very heart of what it means to be human. According to the prophets the covenant was to be confirmed by spirit. Yet, spirit is invisible, and that makes it hard for people to make the leap from mind to spirit. So the Israelites had a hard time accepting the words of the prophets. Many of the great prophets died defending their understanding of the covenant.
Israel was defeated by her enemies. In 586 B.C Babylon conquered Israel, most of the Israelites were deported. It is at this point, crushed and defeated that the Israelites looked back at what the prophets had said and realized that something may have been wrong with their current system. For one thing, they had lost their temple, it had been destroyed by the Babylonians, so sacrificing was no longer an option. They had to enter into a new understanding of God or their religion would die.
Bibliography
1. Ken Wilber. Up From Eden. Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books Theosophical Publishing House, 1996. p. 54
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