I thought I'd start off a sharing of my most appreciated books from the literature of 'spirituality', but also sources on the web for out of copyright material. So here goes, not in a particular order, but trending from those most influential to those I still value.
I would love it if readers would add to my list with their suggestions. I will keep this up to date on Facebook and my Blog - this is just a starter.
First - contemporary writers and novel format material :
Kahil Gabril - The Prophet and other works: http://leb.net/~mira/
Paulo Coelho - particularly The Alchemist and the Zahir
Good Compilation of English "Spiritual poets" from Bede to the 1920s - The English Spirit (The Little Gidding Anthology of English Spirituality) DLT
Film - to be added
e.g The Matrix, Avatar
Books I have in my Library:
Radical Amazement - Judy Cannato ["Awareness of the Divine begins with wonder" - a Herschel quote]
Integral Life Practice - Ken Wilbur and others: http://www.integralinstitute.org/?q=node/1
Ken Wilbur - A brief History of Everything
David Tacy - The Spirituality Revolution
Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations with God - and many more
Christian Writers:
Marcus Borg - Reading the Bible Again for the First Time & Meeting Jesus Again for the first time (and almost everything else he has written)
John Shelby Spong: Liberating the Gospels, A new Christianity for a New World (and most of his books since - including Jesus for the NOn Religious and Eternal Life - A new Vision.
Adrian B Smith - Tomorrow's Christian (O Books) and lots more
Deepak Chopra - Quantum Healing and lots more
John Hetherington - Booklet "Reshaping Christianity - Mysticsm. Spirituality and Global faith" - avilable from Free to Believe: http://www.freetobelieve.org.uk/booklets2.html
Christian Scriptures - Psalms, Wisdom, Proverbs, Gospel of John and early Pauline genuine epistles. Gospels of Mary (see: http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm)
and Thomas (see: http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html)
and the Pistis Sophia (http://www.gnosis.org/library/pistis-sophia/index.htm).
Also see: http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/index.htm
Other Christian writings: St Augustine - The City of God - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.toc.html
Also The Confessions of St Augustine - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.html
Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love (14th Century): http://www.ccel.org/ccel/julian/revelations/
William Law - (17/18 C) - A serious Call to a devoit and holy life: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/law/serious_call.html
Thomas A Kempis - The Imitation of Christ: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/kempis/imitation.html
For the whole corpus visit and search in http://www.ccel.org/ and http://www.sacred-texts.com/
World Religions:
Taoism - The Book of the Way: http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm
Zoroastrian: http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/index.htm
The Vedanta (Indian Religious Scriptures): http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/
Covers: Vedas (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/index.htm),
Upanishads (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/upan/index.htm)
Bhagavad Gita (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/gita/agsgita.htm)
Buddhism: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/index.htm
Islam: http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/index.htm [Includes a full range of Sufi material - Rumi poetry can be found here: http://allspirit.co.uk/rumi.html
Bahai: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bhi/index.htm [Also see: http://www.bahai.org/]
Sites cover not just English translations - but references more general text.
[TO BE UPDATED - so keep popping back, please and add your own lists.]
Copyright © 2009: Rev John Hetherington. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for this content to be reproduced upon condition that full acknowledgements of author and copyright details are made. John Hetherington - January 2010
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Monday, 5 April 2010
Christianity and Easter Symbolism
I picked up the following ideas from a post on Facebook - linking to a Website http://www.truthbeknown.com/easter.htm - almost all of it ties back to the information in "The Pagan Christ" which I read recently [a very good read] and is the foundation of many esoteric belief systems. It sure makes you think!!
You will need to visit the link above - for the full explanation of the dates that make Easter move - and were known many thousands of years ago. It is a fascinating and scary article. Page down to find the text after the book adverts.
There is a really good argument that Christianity started as just one of several mystery cults which were common across the Roman Empire and, via the fertile crescent, go back to the Egyptian and north African civilisations and through Persia and Afghanistan on to India and even China, with the festivals also linked (by communication or because the dates are global) to other cultures in the Americas and South East Asia and even to Australia and other ab-original cultures and belief systems. The astronomy and skills needed to work it all out go back to thosands of years BC and were progressively refined.
It is fascinating that the early Pauline Epistles have no literal historical Jesus - just a conversion or awakening experience - that led Paul to to proclaim that the God 'in whom we live and move and have our being' is to be known in the incarnation of the Crossified One.The Gospels link this to an historical Jesus figure - but by the time they were written the myth was being adapted to the Judeo-Roman world, and the historicity is suspect. The package of early Christian practice and belief is best gleaned from Paul's letters.
The New Testament is thus a reworking of the myths of the Sun God, and his Divine-Human Son [Horus in Egyptian religion or with other names in other places] which couches the ancient myth in hidden language under the cover of a literal story about a Divine- Human Jesus figure who lived in Galilee, was cruxified [crossifiied] and raised (ascended) to the heavens. Christians need to take seriously the propect that their core beliefs are really a lieralising of a long standing myth - though of course "myth" does not mean an 'untruth', rather the telling of a powerful truth in coded ways.
The common core of almost all religions worldwide is that in our humanity there is also divinity. The Horus / Jesus figure is thus 'everyman' / everyone. The role of the religions is to awaken us to the divinity within so as to enable 'return' / reurrection. The package of belief in which you wrap the myth is neither here nor there - what matters is the truthfulness that lies hidden at the core of the myth - the divine presence in all that is.
The Gospels are as good and well written a literalisation as any to capture the truth of the human - divine leader (avatar) who dies and is raised - just as the sun dies in the autumn and rises in the spring to bring new life. I can still go to churches and enter in to the mythic story under its literalising crafting - and use the framework to remind me how to live - in recognition of the divinity in humanity, the power of of that presence to enlighten and change us, and the joy of the company of those on the way - even though I more and more think that the story that infuses Christianity is not a history at all, but a powerful mythic truth about the way this universe is, and the way we should live in it.
Your views most welcome.
You will need to visit the link above - for the full explanation of the dates that make Easter move - and were known many thousands of years ago. It is a fascinating and scary article. Page down to find the text after the book adverts.
There is a really good argument that Christianity started as just one of several mystery cults which were common across the Roman Empire and, via the fertile crescent, go back to the Egyptian and north African civilisations and through Persia and Afghanistan on to India and even China, with the festivals also linked (by communication or because the dates are global) to other cultures in the Americas and South East Asia and even to Australia and other ab-original cultures and belief systems. The astronomy and skills needed to work it all out go back to thosands of years BC and were progressively refined.
It is fascinating that the early Pauline Epistles have no literal historical Jesus - just a conversion or awakening experience - that led Paul to to proclaim that the God 'in whom we live and move and have our being' is to be known in the incarnation of the Crossified One.The Gospels link this to an historical Jesus figure - but by the time they were written the myth was being adapted to the Judeo-Roman world, and the historicity is suspect. The package of early Christian practice and belief is best gleaned from Paul's letters.
The New Testament is thus a reworking of the myths of the Sun God, and his Divine-Human Son [Horus in Egyptian religion or with other names in other places] which couches the ancient myth in hidden language under the cover of a literal story about a Divine- Human Jesus figure who lived in Galilee, was cruxified [crossifiied] and raised (ascended) to the heavens. Christians need to take seriously the propect that their core beliefs are really a lieralising of a long standing myth - though of course "myth" does not mean an 'untruth', rather the telling of a powerful truth in coded ways.
The common core of almost all religions worldwide is that in our humanity there is also divinity. The Horus / Jesus figure is thus 'everyman' / everyone. The role of the religions is to awaken us to the divinity within so as to enable 'return' / reurrection. The package of belief in which you wrap the myth is neither here nor there - what matters is the truthfulness that lies hidden at the core of the myth - the divine presence in all that is.
The Gospels are as good and well written a literalisation as any to capture the truth of the human - divine leader (avatar) who dies and is raised - just as the sun dies in the autumn and rises in the spring to bring new life. I can still go to churches and enter in to the mythic story under its literalising crafting - and use the framework to remind me how to live - in recognition of the divinity in humanity, the power of of that presence to enlighten and change us, and the joy of the company of those on the way - even though I more and more think that the story that infuses Christianity is not a history at all, but a powerful mythic truth about the way this universe is, and the way we should live in it.
Your views most welcome.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
An alternate Easter Day Gospel
On the first day of the week Mary of Magdala went to the garden tomb with spices to anoint Jesus body.
Finding the stone rolled away, she went in but found the tomb empty, Fearful she cried bitterly because of her deep love for The Teacher whom she loved with all her being: body, soul and spirit.
As she turned to leave, wiping her tears away with her long hair, she glanced across to where a man stood in gardner's clothes, She rushed across to ask why Jesus body had been moved. Her heart began to pound as she got nearer, for a glimmer of recognition struck her - was this her lover? Her teacher and friend? Was it possible? The man turned to her and opened wide his arms just as he had been hung on the Friday cross.
She ran to him and clung to him, wrapped by those strong arms. He held her tight as they kissed passionately. After many minutes of heart rending joy and sorrow Jesus said to her, do not cling to me any longer Mary, there is God's work still to do.
My life is returning to God, your life continues here. You are my friend and companion always. You are to continue in my name as Teacher of the ways of Knowledge, with my commission to lead and teach my followers. I will come soon to you all as you gather the scattered ones back to the meeting room where we shared supper. So be strong - I live as all shall live - remade to know more and more of my wonders. Do not let the hateful and the prejudiced scatter my Friends.
Remember all the words and ideas we have shared, the stories from lands afar and from our own people. Remind them of the joy of life and the wonder of love. Remind them of the simple life and the compassion that must flow from all who will know of me in the future.
Above all tell them of my infinite love - gifting the world and cosmos, of the myriad forms of spirit infused life on world after world. Remind them that the Creator knows this humanity and has shared the wonder of human being too, and found the joy of infinite giving in our passion together. I am who I am and you are also who You are.
Tell my disciples that each and everyone of you has life in me and I in you. Make this day a Holy Day for laughter and feasting, for passion and compassion, for the ache of loss to be filled by loving friends and friendly lovers.
Do not let the angry men and fearful women twist the truth, or make the simple complex, or turn our story into anything that diminishes the literal truth that the spark of divinity is in you just as divine life and light is in me too in this humanity - the glorious work of eons of letting life be life.
Kiss me Mary, cling to me, for we are one.
I have other life forms to awaken across the infinities of space and time.
You have known me most fully and my love remains true. Love others as I have loved you, that is the measure. But never stop loving yourself if you fall short or struggle with the burden of living and loving to the full. There are no ranks, no prizes, no second bests in my creation, no heirarchy to my love.
What is is what is. This is my simple good news. Tell this to my followers and teach them simply and in depth the knowledge I have given and will keep on giving to humanity.
I am going on to other mansions, other worlds of similar beauty, to draw them to me in the highest form familier to each world. Then shall all be one, and all that is shall sing and dance and live and love beyond all imagining.
Listen Mary, in that place of fullness you will live as I live, full of joy and in infinite friendship, knowing as I know, that everything shall be well and life shall stand always.
Go now to my friends and tell them of what you have seen dawning this day, and the words I have given you to share. See even now I am fading from you. Do not cling to me - remember this life is for passion not fear. Love me always as I have loved you. My Mary, my love my friend.
With that the Jesus Mary knew faded from sight as the sun rose. And full of joy Mary ran to awaken her friends with the good news. Jesus is not dead. He is living in the All that is his God and our God.
------------------
Let us today 2000 years on, also listen to the words given to Mary and the words he gives to all who have ears to hear.
Finding the stone rolled away, she went in but found the tomb empty, Fearful she cried bitterly because of her deep love for The Teacher whom she loved with all her being: body, soul and spirit.
As she turned to leave, wiping her tears away with her long hair, she glanced across to where a man stood in gardner's clothes, She rushed across to ask why Jesus body had been moved. Her heart began to pound as she got nearer, for a glimmer of recognition struck her - was this her lover? Her teacher and friend? Was it possible? The man turned to her and opened wide his arms just as he had been hung on the Friday cross.
She ran to him and clung to him, wrapped by those strong arms. He held her tight as they kissed passionately. After many minutes of heart rending joy and sorrow Jesus said to her, do not cling to me any longer Mary, there is God's work still to do.
My life is returning to God, your life continues here. You are my friend and companion always. You are to continue in my name as Teacher of the ways of Knowledge, with my commission to lead and teach my followers. I will come soon to you all as you gather the scattered ones back to the meeting room where we shared supper. So be strong - I live as all shall live - remade to know more and more of my wonders. Do not let the hateful and the prejudiced scatter my Friends.
Remember all the words and ideas we have shared, the stories from lands afar and from our own people. Remind them of the joy of life and the wonder of love. Remind them of the simple life and the compassion that must flow from all who will know of me in the future.
Above all tell them of my infinite love - gifting the world and cosmos, of the myriad forms of spirit infused life on world after world. Remind them that the Creator knows this humanity and has shared the wonder of human being too, and found the joy of infinite giving in our passion together. I am who I am and you are also who You are.
Tell my disciples that each and everyone of you has life in me and I in you. Make this day a Holy Day for laughter and feasting, for passion and compassion, for the ache of loss to be filled by loving friends and friendly lovers.
Do not let the angry men and fearful women twist the truth, or make the simple complex, or turn our story into anything that diminishes the literal truth that the spark of divinity is in you just as divine life and light is in me too in this humanity - the glorious work of eons of letting life be life.
Kiss me Mary, cling to me, for we are one.
I have other life forms to awaken across the infinities of space and time.
You have known me most fully and my love remains true. Love others as I have loved you, that is the measure. But never stop loving yourself if you fall short or struggle with the burden of living and loving to the full. There are no ranks, no prizes, no second bests in my creation, no heirarchy to my love.
What is is what is. This is my simple good news. Tell this to my followers and teach them simply and in depth the knowledge I have given and will keep on giving to humanity.
I am going on to other mansions, other worlds of similar beauty, to draw them to me in the highest form familier to each world. Then shall all be one, and all that is shall sing and dance and live and love beyond all imagining.
Listen Mary, in that place of fullness you will live as I live, full of joy and in infinite friendship, knowing as I know, that everything shall be well and life shall stand always.
Go now to my friends and tell them of what you have seen dawning this day, and the words I have given you to share. See even now I am fading from you. Do not cling to me - remember this life is for passion not fear. Love me always as I have loved you. My Mary, my love my friend.
With that the Jesus Mary knew faded from sight as the sun rose. And full of joy Mary ran to awaken her friends with the good news. Jesus is not dead. He is living in the All that is his God and our God.
------------------
Let us today 2000 years on, also listen to the words given to Mary and the words he gives to all who have ears to hear.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Religion and Spirituality - understanding the common gound.
I have just published a Note on Facebook on my recent pondering about why we squabble so much about religion, spirit and scientific materialism. Views welcome.
My views are, should it come up:
That this universe is deeply connected - and that the connection will be scientifically demonstrated at some point.
That what we call 'God' or 'Life' or 'Love' is a 'Reality' in the sense that we are part of "All" that IS (the I AM of the old testament and John's Gospel).
That human beings can have (inner) awareness of the "Presence" (in life and love and being) of a divine light - a Reality perhaps coexistent with (pantheism) the Universe or perhaps both in and beyond (more than) our known Universe (panentheism).
That there have been many human beings who have been so open to the "presence" or the "Spirit" of the divine - known as much in our inner depth as in the world of form (life and beauty in nature and other human beings) - that they have made a deep mark in history. as religion founders, shamans, wise men and women etc (Abraham, the prophets, the Buddha, Lao Tse, Jesus, Muhammud, and other religion founders (actually it was their followers) and philosophers like Aristotle - even Isaac Newton)!
But that they are not of a different "substance" from us - just more deeply infused with the light of the divine thatn most if us - who are not truly "awake" to see.
That awakening is a goal for all intelligent beings, but a hard path - because in some ways it makes those who seek the Way different, and thus called to risk and challenge - and thus open themselves to ridicule or presecution or hate.
I am also aware that this is not the way Christianity is increasingly interpreted. It seems to me that what has happened is that after the Western enlightenment science and experience of the divine were divided - with experience of the divine being split as "life as religion" (orthodoxy of ancient words and practices) or "life as experience" (exploring paths to personal awakening to the inner light and presence). All 3 are warring somewhat and are scornful of the other paths. But all are ways to "gnosis" - God, the divine, is neutral surely about what little beliefs / doctrines we humans invent. God, the divine, is neutral surely about the practices we adopt to help us touch "presence" - neutral about hymns and words and chants and meditations. God, the divine, is not interested in what our science is beginning to tell us because s/he knows. BUt s/he honours all three ways that we search.
What we need to do is grasp the big picture that embraces the hsitory of all human culture and will see us one day among the stars within the physical reality of the universe and deep within as our religions and sporitualities take us there too, so that more and more we are both aware of the God within and the God without.
If we all on this small planet took this view then there would be an end to injstice and war, and the planet would be sustained and managed well. Anyway - that is my dream.
My views are, should it come up:
That this universe is deeply connected - and that the connection will be scientifically demonstrated at some point.
That what we call 'God' or 'Life' or 'Love' is a 'Reality' in the sense that we are part of "All" that IS (the I AM of the old testament and John's Gospel).
That human beings can have (inner) awareness of the "Presence" (in life and love and being) of a divine light - a Reality perhaps coexistent with (pantheism) the Universe or perhaps both in and beyond (more than) our known Universe (panentheism).
That there have been many human beings who have been so open to the "presence" or the "Spirit" of the divine - known as much in our inner depth as in the world of form (life and beauty in nature and other human beings) - that they have made a deep mark in history. as religion founders, shamans, wise men and women etc (Abraham, the prophets, the Buddha, Lao Tse, Jesus, Muhammud, and other religion founders (actually it was their followers) and philosophers like Aristotle - even Isaac Newton)!
But that they are not of a different "substance" from us - just more deeply infused with the light of the divine thatn most if us - who are not truly "awake" to see.
That awakening is a goal for all intelligent beings, but a hard path - because in some ways it makes those who seek the Way different, and thus called to risk and challenge - and thus open themselves to ridicule or presecution or hate.
I am also aware that this is not the way Christianity is increasingly interpreted. It seems to me that what has happened is that after the Western enlightenment science and experience of the divine were divided - with experience of the divine being split as "life as religion" (orthodoxy of ancient words and practices) or "life as experience" (exploring paths to personal awakening to the inner light and presence). All 3 are warring somewhat and are scornful of the other paths. But all are ways to "gnosis" - God, the divine, is neutral surely about what little beliefs / doctrines we humans invent. God, the divine, is neutral surely about the practices we adopt to help us touch "presence" - neutral about hymns and words and chants and meditations. God, the divine, is not interested in what our science is beginning to tell us because s/he knows. BUt s/he honours all three ways that we search.
What we need to do is grasp the big picture that embraces the hsitory of all human culture and will see us one day among the stars within the physical reality of the universe and deep within as our religions and sporitualities take us there too, so that more and more we are both aware of the God within and the God without.
If we all on this small planet took this view then there would be an end to injstice and war, and the planet would be sustained and managed well. Anyway - that is my dream.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Christian Antecedents - The Pagan Christ
This Blog is excited tonight. I have nearly finished reading Tom Harpur's "The Pagan Christ - Is blind faith Killing Christianity". Its subtitle is "Recovering the Lost Light". Its that I want to review tonight.
However, at our Progressive Christianity Network Britain session tonight we were looking at the Jesus Seminar's work in 'de-mythologising' the Gospels - basically how they concluded that very little of the New Testament is presenting the actual words of an historical 'Jesus'. To learn more about the Seminar's approach check out, "The Five Gospels" - link here: http://www.westarinstitute.org/Polebridge/5gospels.html.
I was a bit of a pain to my colleagues, because I had been excitedly reading "The Pagan Christ" and was trying to point out the differences and points of converegence of the two approaches.
As I see it, the Jesus Seminar was primarily composed of scholars who bought in to the view that the gospels carry much that, to the modern mind, would be regarded as 'myth'. So, to make sense of them we need a thoroughgoing process of de-mythologising. Hence the search to draw out from the "myth" a core of sayings that reflect the words of a 'Jesus of history'. Unsurprisingly the scholars found very few sayings to be authentic and ranked as definite "red letter" words of Jesus.
By contrast Tom Harpur is one of a growing number of scholars who would, rather, want Christians to be into a process of re-mythologising the Gospels. Tom Harpur argues that, "to take the Gospels literally as history or biography is to utterly miss their inner spiritual meaning." He calls for a return to an "inclusive religion" capable of helping us, "regain a true understanding of who we are, and are intended to be." The Jesus Seminar, in seeking to de-mythologise, and thus downplay the hope of finding clear evidence in the gospels of the words of Jesus as a historical figure, are potentially missing the point. The Gospels are not a history, but a carrier of "story" and "myth" - which needs to be set free to work on our souls.
I love Tom's quote from Dominic Crossan (one of the Jesus Seminar Scholars) in the introduction to Chapter 1, "My point .. is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally." The book's thesis is that, "The Christian Church made a fateful error ... in a competitive bid to win over the greatest number of the unlettered masses", when it took a literalist, popularised, historical approach to sublime truth." "The transcendent meaning of glorious myths and symbols was reduced to a farrago of miraculous or irrelevant, or quite 'unbelievable' events."
Tom Harpur relies heavily for his thesis on earlier books by Gerald Massey and Alvin Khun, which have unearthed amazing parallels between the New Testament and the foreshadowing of almost all the gospel stories in "pagan" sources, often pre-dating the gospel versions by millenia. He sets out how an allegorical, spiritual and mythical approach to the Bible and Christian faith solves the enigmas of scripture and the Christ story, which makes the, "Bible stories come alive".
The heart of his argument is that the ancient world had deep insight, recognising, "our own potential for Christhood, and for experiencing the indwelling spirit of God here and now." The mythos has the power to frame a "cosmic" faith that resonates with the natural world and our humanity. What Harpur has uncovered is that deep similarities exist between Christian beliefs and the earlier Pagan religions. He argues that, "the Bible in general, and the New Testament in particular, actually copy or repeat motifs laid down centuries or millenia before.
He points out that a "true myth" is, "more eternal than its meaning in history". Moses was an Egyptian name and Jesus figures in Egyptian lore as Iusu / Iusa, meaning the "divine Son who heals and saves". There was an Egyptian Christ named "Horus", who had a mother called Isis - forerunners of the Madonna and Child. Other names and place names from Egyptian religion are used in the Bible. Beyond the names and their links is a common theology from across the "pagan" world - based on the Osyris myth - that, "the incarnation of spirit in human flesh" is, "in fact the oldest, most universal mythos known to religion."
We are encouraged to recognise that "myths aren't fairy tales" and that, "myth was the favorite and universal method of teaching in archaic times." Myth, like a Shakespear tragedy or comedy, is capable of carrying universal truth - acted out in ritual, made flesh in story - with no-one in the ancient world blind to the power of myth and story to change people. "The myth itself is fictional (or only loosly tied to history), but the timeless truth it expresses is not."
In this Blog I will conclude by retelling the central "Christ Myth" - the ancient story behind the New Testament themes - all of which are borrowings of the ancient myths previously played out by the "Sun Gods" Osiris and Horus in Egypt or Hercules in Greece. These myths were there to symbolise the point that, "the prime datum is man (humanity) himself, a spark of the divine fire ... and buried in the flesh of body to support its existence with an unquenchable radiant energy." The ideal person - Adonis, Mithras, Khrishna, Christ, symbolised the divine spark in every human being. Similar myths were universal across other cultures.
The conclusion is that the "myth" of God incarnate is an (almost) human universal - but for the west after Constantine, Christianity forgot its origins and imposed credal belief on the masses, who then burned all the ancient books of wisdom, and set back civiliation by hundreds of years. What Paul and the early Christians knew was a very different faith - in which:
John Hetherington - 11th March 2010
[This summary and reflection fully acknowledges the copyright subsisting in, "The Pagan Christ" by Tom Harpur- Walker and Company New York, 2004.]
However, at our Progressive Christianity Network Britain session tonight we were looking at the Jesus Seminar's work in 'de-mythologising' the Gospels - basically how they concluded that very little of the New Testament is presenting the actual words of an historical 'Jesus'. To learn more about the Seminar's approach check out, "The Five Gospels" - link here: http://www.westarinstitute.org/Polebridge/5gospels.html.
I was a bit of a pain to my colleagues, because I had been excitedly reading "The Pagan Christ" and was trying to point out the differences and points of converegence of the two approaches.
As I see it, the Jesus Seminar was primarily composed of scholars who bought in to the view that the gospels carry much that, to the modern mind, would be regarded as 'myth'. So, to make sense of them we need a thoroughgoing process of de-mythologising. Hence the search to draw out from the "myth" a core of sayings that reflect the words of a 'Jesus of history'. Unsurprisingly the scholars found very few sayings to be authentic and ranked as definite "red letter" words of Jesus.
By contrast Tom Harpur is one of a growing number of scholars who would, rather, want Christians to be into a process of re-mythologising the Gospels. Tom Harpur argues that, "to take the Gospels literally as history or biography is to utterly miss their inner spiritual meaning." He calls for a return to an "inclusive religion" capable of helping us, "regain a true understanding of who we are, and are intended to be." The Jesus Seminar, in seeking to de-mythologise, and thus downplay the hope of finding clear evidence in the gospels of the words of Jesus as a historical figure, are potentially missing the point. The Gospels are not a history, but a carrier of "story" and "myth" - which needs to be set free to work on our souls.
I love Tom's quote from Dominic Crossan (one of the Jesus Seminar Scholars) in the introduction to Chapter 1, "My point .. is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally." The book's thesis is that, "The Christian Church made a fateful error ... in a competitive bid to win over the greatest number of the unlettered masses", when it took a literalist, popularised, historical approach to sublime truth." "The transcendent meaning of glorious myths and symbols was reduced to a farrago of miraculous or irrelevant, or quite 'unbelievable' events."
Tom Harpur relies heavily for his thesis on earlier books by Gerald Massey and Alvin Khun, which have unearthed amazing parallels between the New Testament and the foreshadowing of almost all the gospel stories in "pagan" sources, often pre-dating the gospel versions by millenia. He sets out how an allegorical, spiritual and mythical approach to the Bible and Christian faith solves the enigmas of scripture and the Christ story, which makes the, "Bible stories come alive".
The heart of his argument is that the ancient world had deep insight, recognising, "our own potential for Christhood, and for experiencing the indwelling spirit of God here and now." The mythos has the power to frame a "cosmic" faith that resonates with the natural world and our humanity. What Harpur has uncovered is that deep similarities exist between Christian beliefs and the earlier Pagan religions. He argues that, "the Bible in general, and the New Testament in particular, actually copy or repeat motifs laid down centuries or millenia before.
He points out that a "true myth" is, "more eternal than its meaning in history". Moses was an Egyptian name and Jesus figures in Egyptian lore as Iusu / Iusa, meaning the "divine Son who heals and saves". There was an Egyptian Christ named "Horus", who had a mother called Isis - forerunners of the Madonna and Child. Other names and place names from Egyptian religion are used in the Bible. Beyond the names and their links is a common theology from across the "pagan" world - based on the Osyris myth - that, "the incarnation of spirit in human flesh" is, "in fact the oldest, most universal mythos known to religion."
We are encouraged to recognise that "myths aren't fairy tales" and that, "myth was the favorite and universal method of teaching in archaic times." Myth, like a Shakespear tragedy or comedy, is capable of carrying universal truth - acted out in ritual, made flesh in story - with no-one in the ancient world blind to the power of myth and story to change people. "The myth itself is fictional (or only loosly tied to history), but the timeless truth it expresses is not."
In this Blog I will conclude by retelling the central "Christ Myth" - the ancient story behind the New Testament themes - all of which are borrowings of the ancient myths previously played out by the "Sun Gods" Osiris and Horus in Egypt or Hercules in Greece. These myths were there to symbolise the point that, "the prime datum is man (humanity) himself, a spark of the divine fire ... and buried in the flesh of body to support its existence with an unquenchable radiant energy." The ideal person - Adonis, Mithras, Khrishna, Christ, symbolised the divine spark in every human being. Similar myths were universal across other cultures.
The conclusion is that the "myth" of God incarnate is an (almost) human universal - but for the west after Constantine, Christianity forgot its origins and imposed credal belief on the masses, who then burned all the ancient books of wisdom, and set back civiliation by hundreds of years. What Paul and the early Christians knew was a very different faith - in which:
- Christ is the name given to the presence of God within - "Christ in you, the hope of glory"
- The Christos is known by many names, present in all humanity
- Everyone will come to realise his or her spiritual power (as did Jesus at his baptism and Paul on the Damascus road)
- Doctrines, creeds, dogma and institutional religion has masked the inner light
- The gospels are a drama about the Christos - with Jesus a symbolic personification
- Jesus' birth, death and resurrection are events happening within us
- We must release the divine within to spiritualise our nature - as fragments of God with divine potential
- Religions and spiritual paths free us to commit to the eternal Christ experience.
John Hetherington - 11th March 2010
[This summary and reflection fully acknowledges the copyright subsisting in, "The Pagan Christ" by Tom Harpur- Walker and Company New York, 2004.]
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
This was posted on Mark Townsend's Facebook.
I wonder what readers of this Blog think,
I love your expression "inter-spiritual" Mark - I think I mean the same thing in my Blog Title "Progressive Spirituality". The key is that "religion" or even "faith" do not do justice to the breadth of the movement that is growing - as evidenced just by my Facebook feed [though yours will differ depending on who you have friended]. I am convinced that a radically seperate view is convergent across open minded Christians and those follwing many other faiths and practices.
The breadth is huge - and coveres indigenous religions, the "Pagan" foundations from the interchange of ideas across north Africa, the Middle East and into India - in the millenia before Jesus, and indeed in the Druidic / Celtic forms of Christianity in these Islands that followed. [I read a fascinating piece yesterday that pushes writng - with symbols common to the Americas, Eurasia, and Australia - being thousands of millenia sooner than previously evidenced.]
A "theology" that goes back to the pre-Christian period and I think represents what the core understanding of the ancients was, and again works for us is this - set out by Gordon Lynch - Prof at Birkbeck University, London. He says the ideology of Progressive Spirituality is (with some bracketed additions of mine):
• The unity of the ineffable and immanent divine – the guiding intelligence behind evolutionary process and the energy of the universe itself
• Pantheism / Panentheism – replacing a transcendent, patriarchal view of God
• Mysticism and the divine feminine – using symbol and liturgy, encounter with nature and celebration of the feminine in God
• The sacralisation of nature – affirmation of the material and nature / life as participation in divinity
• The sacralisation of the self – as a manifestation of the divine ( with human consciousness derived from the supra-consciousness of the “All”).
• Understandings of Religion – as culturally and historically bound and thus metaphorical – enabling a growing spirit of ‘ecumenism’ [interfaith / interspirituality]
Gordon notes that "The deeper cultural roots of progressive spirituality show underlying coherence, reflecting adaptation to modernism, liberalism and welcome insights in quantum physics and cosmic ‘unfolding’."
I think a new re-alignment along these lines would be very powerful indeed - and needs to be built from outside present structures (of particularly Christianity) but supported ny those who stay in the strictures to call for change within. So both are needed - pioneers to work to build community outside - while those within for now keep pushing and explaining. I also see a "real world" wisdom that would seek to form new collectives of "inter-spirituality" being formed - perhaps taking on religious buildings, or meeting in homes rented places, in self-supporting foundations - with a national charitable base - to build the inevitable growth than will be needed in these transitional times from the old pardigm to the new paradigm expressed in Gordon's "ideology of progressive spirituality". There will be no barriers and an open table.
Enough for now. John
I wonder what readers of this Blog think,
I love your expression "inter-spiritual" Mark - I think I mean the same thing in my Blog Title "Progressive Spirituality". The key is that "religion" or even "faith" do not do justice to the breadth of the movement that is growing - as evidenced just by my Facebook feed [though yours will differ depending on who you have friended]. I am convinced that a radically seperate view is convergent across open minded Christians and those follwing many other faiths and practices.
The breadth is huge - and coveres indigenous religions, the "Pagan" foundations from the interchange of ideas across north Africa, the Middle East and into India - in the millenia before Jesus, and indeed in the Druidic / Celtic forms of Christianity in these Islands that followed. [I read a fascinating piece yesterday that pushes writng - with symbols common to the Americas, Eurasia, and Australia - being thousands of millenia sooner than previously evidenced.]
A "theology" that goes back to the pre-Christian period and I think represents what the core understanding of the ancients was, and again works for us is this - set out by Gordon Lynch - Prof at Birkbeck University, London. He says the ideology of Progressive Spirituality is (with some bracketed additions of mine):
• The unity of the ineffable and immanent divine – the guiding intelligence behind evolutionary process and the energy of the universe itself
• Pantheism / Panentheism – replacing a transcendent, patriarchal view of God
• Mysticism and the divine feminine – using symbol and liturgy, encounter with nature and celebration of the feminine in God
• The sacralisation of nature – affirmation of the material and nature / life as participation in divinity
• The sacralisation of the self – as a manifestation of the divine ( with human consciousness derived from the supra-consciousness of the “All”).
• Understandings of Religion – as culturally and historically bound and thus metaphorical – enabling a growing spirit of ‘ecumenism’ [interfaith / interspirituality]
Gordon notes that "The deeper cultural roots of progressive spirituality show underlying coherence, reflecting adaptation to modernism, liberalism and welcome insights in quantum physics and cosmic ‘unfolding’."
I think a new re-alignment along these lines would be very powerful indeed - and needs to be built from outside present structures (of particularly Christianity) but supported ny those who stay in the strictures to call for change within. So both are needed - pioneers to work to build community outside - while those within for now keep pushing and explaining. I also see a "real world" wisdom that would seek to form new collectives of "inter-spirituality" being formed - perhaps taking on religious buildings, or meeting in homes rented places, in self-supporting foundations - with a national charitable base - to build the inevitable growth than will be needed in these transitional times from the old pardigm to the new paradigm expressed in Gordon's "ideology of progressive spirituality". There will be no barriers and an open table.
Enough for now. John
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