Jesus who????

Now for the big one!

Over the years, I've heard various alternative ideas about the historical Jesus. The only people who think that the Jesus of the bible is an historically accurate record these days are either fundamentalists or those who have never really thought about it.

Having said that, most people just assume it's close enough not to worry about, and any discrepancies don't undermine the message anyway.

There's a lot of scholarly work now from people like Reza Aslan, that thoroughly researches the culture, sociology, religions and just about every other factor you can think of, to build a picture of the "real" Jesus.

But for some time, there's also been research that says he never even existed! What I'd read of this wasn't particularly credible and had that conspiracy theory edge to it.

This guy however, is rather challenging and, I must confess, pretty thorough and very scholarly. I'm going to read his book and dig deeper.




So if this is true, where does it leave us?

It clearly puts Christianity into the realm of a mythical cult, which, none the less, has a lot of value in terms of spirituality, morality etc.

It would certainly change the entire landscape of christendom, and probably bring the complete demise of traditional church. But then again, there is too much vested interest in a religion with 2000 years worth of traditions for many people.

We may never know "the" truth about Jesus, but I'm glad some objective research is finally coming out.

Do I hate christianity: Part 2

I struggle with a lot of stuff about christianity, as you probably know by now!

I think most of the fundamental doctrines are inherently flawed - but I'll leave that for another day.

Here's something that most of us can relate to in one way or another. We either love Hillsong, and all the other churches like this, or we hate them. I don't know many in between strangely. I guess they are out there somewhere.

This video is self explanatory of course, and I was involved with this type of christianity most of my life.

It's a cult.

All you have to do is read the gospels, then look at this to realise that.

I'll say it again - it's a cult. There is nothing about this Jesus would approve of (assuming you even believe what is written about him anyway)

I've seen countless lives absolutely ruined - spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and financially by these cults. I would go so far as to say they are "evil" in that they do not bring any benefit to the rest of humanity, and in fact actively cause hate and division.

"But Jim, these are good honest people and most would be sincere and loving!"
Yes, absolutely. They are good honest people, sucked into a massive delusion that only benefits the elite by bleeding the sheep of all self worth, independence, empathy, money... shutting down the ability to love unconditionally, inspiring judgement and exclusivity. I used to be able to think of good points, but I can't any more. Not one.

The methods of control and manipulation are totally abusive, causing very deep damage. There's even a name for it now - Religious Trauma Syndrome

I guess this is another negative post, damn it! But in all this I'm saying that this is NOT love, this is a counterfeit. Real love, real life doesn't look anything like this - never has. Look for the real deal - it's out there, well actually, its IN us just waiting to be found!

So anyway - enjoy the video - or not.

Do I hate christianity?

This isn't going to be an easy or short blog, just sayin...

Someone innocently said I hate christianity today. It was an interesting comment and I had to stop and think. I went for a walk (my default processing mechanism) and pondered this, pulling together all my random thoughts, sifting through my reactions, looking at how I've grown and changed over the last few years.

I decided that it was a serious comment I couldn't take lightly, even if it wasn't intended that way.

If you've read my book you would understand my journey and why I have left it behind.  I can still respect where people are at with it, and understand the comparative freedom and peace it brings to so many. Its just that I regard it as one of many stepping stones in our understanding of spirituality. It can be used or abused like any other belief system.

But...

Do I hate it? I have to weigh up everything I know about it over the 40+ years of being deeply devoted to Jesus. I was a Jesus purist in many ways, and always strived to see the reality of Christ through the "religion", although miserably failing most of the time to see all my glaring inconsistencies and hypocrisies!

I think "hate" is the wrong word, or at least just one in a long list. I have to sift through the emotions I've experienced and would say that they cover disappointment, frustration, confusion, embarrassment and a sense of "what a fool I was". I'm repulsed by the control and manipulation of religious leaders - big and small. I loath the self righteousness of fundamentalism and biblical literalism. There is a lot of deep emotion there, and hate may well be among it all.

Perhaps frustration is the primary emotion. Frustration at the unwillingness of christians in general, to be willing to see beyond their mindset. It's that whole sense of "we've got the ultimate truth", christianity is the only way any human can be "saved", and the absolute devotion to bibliolatry - the worship of the bible as the complete and only source of truth and the revelation of God in its entirety.

There is an inherent sense of arrogance in christianity (although most religions are the same to various degrees) that is repulsive. But it hooks people in. It's that sense of belonging to an elite club - the "saved", the "righteous ones", those who have "made it" into the kingdom. It builds complex doctrines enforced by centuries of tradition and dogma, twisted by cultural, political and social paradigms that constantly aim to reinforce the exclusive nature of christendom and its superiority to all other religion (again, many other religions also have the same mentality!)

I've written other blogs about why I think christianity works as a belief system, but does that mean I endorse it? Would I tell people who are looking for spiritual meaning to look at christianity as a viable option? Probably not!

If you are currently embracing the christian paradigm, then I would say that's fine, just don't "park" there, in the sense that you need to keep asking questions, explore, dig deeper and recognise dogma for what it is. Yes, the psychology behind christianity can provide a lot of comfort and peace, and that has it's place. It's an easy religion to use as a psychological booster, especially with it's concepts of scapegoating, sacrifice, forgiveness etc.

But it also encourages us to stop there, without questioning. It demands that we refuse anything outside of it's own paradigms and constructs. It builds complex and punitive doctrines to keep people at at that level of spirituality.

I could go on but you're probably bored by now!

So yeah, umm, do I hate christianity? Mostly, I guess I do. Despite the benefits it may have hidden in its doctrines, I hate it's passion for dogma, it's exclusiveness, its bigotry and patronising expression of love. So in those terms I hate ALL religions! I just don't have the working knowledge of all the other ones to speak with any authority.


For those few christians who manage to weave deeper spiritual truths and real love into their beliefs, I say congratulations and "go for it", and be prepared to keep growing, no matter where it takes you! But you are a minority and will suffer (something about the narrow road, lol).

Our real nature, the reality of who we are, of what the universe is and how it all works is so much bigger and better than the little christian religion that its almost laughable. Not that I have much to offer, apart from a passion to search, question, explore and live with as much integrity as we can!

Jims Awesome Cult Watch

On a whim and rush of adrenalin (or the last vestiges of gin coursing through our veins from the night before), myself and a friend decided to check out the grand opening celebrations of Destiny Church's new "City of God" in Auckland.

For my overseas friends - Destiny is a large pentecostal church in New Zealand that has had its fair share of flack for many years. Over the last year or so their numbers have been dropping and then last December, the leader's right hand man did a runner and opened his own church just down the road.

So anyway, the pastor, Brian Tamaki, made himself a bishop a couple of years back (for real) and of course refers to himself as an apostle. Most of the elders are family and he runs a VERY tight ship.

I've only ever read the odd article about them and seen the news reports, and must confess I haven't even read the book that was written about him last year by Peter Lineham, who I know, very slack of me, sorry Peter!

To be fair, they actually do a lot of good work in the community and have great programs for helping the poor and needy, and their motivation certainly seems pure.

So we found comfy seats, which, by the way, were "movie theater" seats - plush thick purple padded things with armrest, just no drink/popcorn holder - and settled in for the show for around 1000 people. And what a show it was!!

Every cliche in the book, the loud pumped up rock/R&B worship music, the pep talks and emotional dynamics (which I know soooo well cos I used to lead worship myself). The stage is a wonder to behold with the country's largest LED screen in place extending 24meters across the back of the stage, floor to ceiling, and very impressive light shows to complete the polished performance.

Then there were the offerings - yep, 3 all up. Tithes AND gifts (which they passed around the seats for, and a special seed faith offering which everyone had to take to the front of the church and put in a couple of big baskets, which were then lifted up in the air and prayed over.

There was a performance (a Maori Kapa Haka) put on by the Destiny school kids (yes, they have their own school) that told us how amazing the school is and how it was only so good because of Brian.

We had Stan Walker singing beautifully, and finally the Bishop (no one calls him pastor, let alone Brian), gave us the sermon. Apparently God specifically told him to not preach what he had planned but instead to give a very blunt message on "Wolves in the fold" which he informed he was "winging it" at the last minute - despite the fact that the big LED screen operator seemed to amazingly anticipate his subject headings and scripture references while he was preaching.

So anyway, the whole point of the sermon seemed to be damage control after the recent split, with very strong and unambiguous references to wolves coming among the sheep to destroy them. There was plenty of out of context and misquoted scripture, lots of mocking and patronising, large servings of emotional manipulation and fear mongering, and most importantly, unquestioning and unswerving allegiance to himself and the elders.

This was preached in no uncertain terms and he said that only he had the most powerful anointing to discern these wolves, and the elders had the next most powerful. Everyone else were just silly happy sheep who couldn't be trusted to discern these things for themselves and had to completely trust the leaders, who would decide who are wolves and who are sheep. No one could be trusted and he even encouraged wives to not trust their husbands and to be prepared to ignore him if he started getting slack about going to church and his allegiance to the Bishop.

This was all the most wonderful display of a narcissist in full flight. Incredible control and manipulation through fear and mistrust, using the indigenous cultural values of the Maori and pacific islanders to threaten the breakdown of their families if they didn't follow his advice.

It was the kind of thing you don't really believe unless you actually hear it. My only hope is that it will not survive the recent split and the people will come to their senses and see the depth of this guys deception. I think that at the heart of even his best social work initiatives is the need to feed his narcissism, to be held and worshiped in his position of complete power, to have the adulation of those he can coerce to give him the love that will never satisfy.

We can only hope that the fallout, when it eventually comes, will be small and those who end up hurt won't fall for the same thing again.

Update:
There is also a special ring that men can buy for $600 when they become one of Brian's spiritual sons. They sign a covenant pledging loyalty to him. 

Angry Jim

I'm angry.

But I know I shouldn't be. Its something I know will get better, and it is, but it keeps flaring up.

I'm angry at religion and christianity in particular.

I know, here I go again like so many others who have been ripped off, abused and disillusioned by traditional christianity. But I've done that one. No this is a bit more specific and its really about me in a way (isn't it always, lol!)

I've come a long way in my journey and can honestly say I no longer feel much of the sting of the lies of religion myself. But I see the horrendous trap that fundamentalists et al, get stuck in; a trap that shuts down their minds and hearts.

I've had so many discussions about varying topics with conservative fundamentalists and the most consistent problem I've found is their stoic unwillingness to even consider they may be wrong in any way, or there could be problems in their belief systems. They have developed mental processes that allow them to shelve and ignore glaring inconsistencies and hypocrisies and successfully divert all responsibility for their personal integrity on to a book. A book who's only claim to spiritual authority comes from itself, creating a circular argument that can never be resolved unless you have "faith".

Now the interesting thing is, I've been in that place myself, so I can really understand the processes involved that get you stuck in that trap, but because of the depth of my personal struggles in life that this belief system could never resolve, I had to live with incredible cognitive dissonance that caused a life of suicidal depression. So I get it, I really do.

But I'm angry that those who are stuck in that trap won't even give you the time of day, deferring their brain, heart and spirit to a book. I don't have a problem with the book as such (well, yeah, there are issues on a few levels). I have a problem when we hand over our intellect, reasoning, heart, compassion, and all that we are, to a belief system that judges, belittles, patronises, condemns and generally puts an unachievable burden of principles and regulations onto the most vulnerable and needy, let alone those who are apparently doing ok.

So yeah, I really hate it. Fundamentalist evangelical whatever you call it crappy biblical literalist bigoted dogmatists who think they have cornered the market on truth because of their faith in a book that has taken 1700 years of creating wild doctrines to try and hold together a mish mash of disparate opinions about God.

I'm angry about the damage that this filthy religion has spread throughout history - about the damage its done to so many innocent people struggling to find love and acceptance. I'm angry about the exclusivist club that claims to be the sole purveyor of truth and condemns the rest of the world to death. I loath that which drives people to ignore the fact that most of the world will never hear their message of exclusive conditional love but are happy to so blithely blame the lost for their own damnation.

Yeah, it gets my blood boiling!!

I refuse to associate myself with that farce of a religion called christianity, and yet Jesus (as far as we can tell from the 2nd hand documents we have about him) showed us what love (God) looks like. But I can't even trust the words in the gospels as we know them. After all, hundreds of documents were destroyed when the arrogant church leaders of the time determined what the "real" truth about Jesus was. I guess we will never know.

And then there's millions of people who think their precious opinions are the solution to all the worlds problems and yet refuse to even acknowledge that we ALL have subjective opinions and paradigms.

So what's my point??

Christianity as we know it is a dead, sick, pathetic excuse for spiritual reality. We may never know what Jesus was really on about.

BUT!

I DO know that God is in me. That He/She is love - nothing but love. That I am one with love and that love is the basis for all we know and don't know. I am happy to dig through the bible to find this truth - its there if you look for it. Its there in so many other writings as well. And the same despicable crap is there in other religions as well. They are all just as bad.

I'm not angry with God, or people. In fact I've never experienced such love towards everyone, or closeness to God in ways I never knew possible. I've never felt more loved or loving. Its religion and all its filth that gets me fired up.

So there you have it. I love but I hate. I'm patient but I'm impatient. I want everyone to experience who God really is but I have no time for bigoted pharisees. Maybe I'm just human, on my own journey, happy to do and be the best I can, as I experience the best that's available to me, learning to live loved, and listening to every person's unique story in the hope of learning something and giving something.

The Gay Thing

I've had a rough couple of days.

The World Vision US stand has caused a huge ripple through christendom and has created something of a division. Its almost as if the lines are being drawn and all out war is about to ensue.

I've experienced first hand, the wrath of conservatives over anything pro gay. I've tried to engage in reasonable discussions and look at things a little more objectively. I've been passionate, patient, forceful and downright abusive at times.

Its taken its toll, especially after the last one today who glibly informed me (after I had shared my heart with as much integrity as I know) that my entire life was a farce, a fraud, and I was deluded and full of bull shit.

So here I am sharing some of that pain, and realising that fundamentalist christianity is possibly one of the most evil cults this world has seen.

I have been stunned by the level of blind arrogance and pig headed dogma these people display. Sure I've had run ins with religion most of my life, more so lately. But the "gay issue" is bringing the redneck spirit out of the woodwork for all to see.

The thing is, I'm not sure that christianity as such, has much to do with it, except that it provides an effective cover for personal agendas. These people have found a religious system that supports their personal biases and bigotries, and a book that can be manipulated to support whatever they see fit.

I'm feeling reactionary after all this, but its been stirring for a long time. I hate religion! Yeah, most of us do, but I mean christian religion in all its forms. I mean the traditional evangelical type of christianity. I mean 90% of all churches and the doctrines they preach. I mean those christian books you find in christian shops and christian music they sell in christian concerts and christian conferences full of christians trying to be more christian.

It makes me sick.

At least Islam doesn't beat around the bush, you know where you stand! But evangelical christianity is a snake of subtle deception waiting to suck the life out of you, under the guise of making you a better person. I know there are millions of sincere people in that system who care and love as best they can, so I'm not dissing them.

I'm talking about every doctrine and ideal, theological assumption, traditions, structures, methodologies, all of it. I hate it. Really I do.

I go to a little gay friendly Anglican church every so often. Wonderful loving people. But the service sends me spare! The doctrines they spew out make me cringe. I have to drag myself there and suffer through it all just to spend some time with these beautiful people! What a rip off!

Yeah, maybe I've lost it. Maybe I'm throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I don't really care any more. The small amount of real life left in those places isn't enough for me to endorse in any form.

Here's the strange thing though. I can understand and relate to people stuck in that system. I can communicate on that level, and I love the people, I really do! It doesn't worry me where they are or what they believe, I just want to show people the love God has shown me.

But I HATE the traditional church, fundamentalist christianity, religion in all its forms, biblical literalism, bibliolatry, hypocrisy. I loath all the Israel rubbish, prophetic end times gibberish, glory gold dust and gems, healing crusades, worship gatherings... it all makes me want to vomit.

I'm done with it all. Its time to move on and be the real human/spirit that I am.
One with God.

I am.

A Classic Question.

Why would God limit something so important (the revelation of himself) to the pages of a book that depicts the history of one little tribe and their mythology about the origins of man and God?

And then further limit that single most important message for all mankind, to one guy from that tribe? 

Then, to add insult to injury, allow all the original documents recording these events to be lost, allow a bedraggled set of letters and disparate writings to be pulled together 300 years later, a collection that no one at the time agreed on anyway, and then the language that most of it was written in dies so no one really knows what half of it means anyway? 

1700 years later, no one is any the wiser and keeps fighting over what the collection of writings mean, and keeps continually fragmenting into more and more groups, cults, movements etc.

Meanwhile the rest of the world, the majority of the world, from way back when, has no idea all this is going on, or any idea that they have been left out of the most important revelation to all mankind. And the majority of the world still have no idea, because the keepers of this book are still busy arguing over it all, and billions of people, meanwhile, have missed out (and will continue to miss out) because God is stuck with this mess and isn't powerful enough or has his hands tied, or whatever, so he has no choice but to let most of mankind slope off to hell.

To make matters even more difficult, the keepers of the book have developed an extremely complex system of justifications as to why its the only source of everything God has spoken to mankind, using systems of very intricate circular reasoning, and then wrapping that reasoning in varying degrees of authoritarian control by presenting themselves as the ones who understand and can interpret it on our behalf.

Of course, because of all the endless divisions and arguments amongst the keepers, there are thousands and thousands of wise sages all dispensing conflicting understandings of the book with just as much authority and control, leaving the rest of us trying to decide who we should believe.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Mind you, we do have a choice - we could take a step back and see if maybe there is a bigger picture?!

Spirituality vs Religion

I've been contemplating more and more on the nature of spirituality and how it relates to religion.

Often the terms are used interchangeably. Sometimes we use the word religion to refer to any denomination or cultural belief system. We hear people saying I'm a very religious person or others declaring they are spiritual but not religious.

I subscribe to the latter expression, but the impact of that statement has slowly been sinking in to the point where the differences are not only clear but extraordinary!

Here's what I have come to...

Spirituality is the concept of something outside of ourselves, greater than ourselves. Its the acknowledging of a greater mystery to the universe than what confronts our senses. Its often a realisation that we are part of a much larger "something", and are intimately united in some way, by forces we don't understand. More often than not, spirituality is regarded as an extension or expression of love, love being the only universal "thing" that enhances life, brings peace, joy and health.

The desire for peace with the spiritual is a universal "ache", however that may be pursued.

Religion is a whole different thing. Many scholars will give different meanings etc, and I'm aware that this is basically my opinions, but what the heck!

For me, religion is a system or codes, rules and rituals used to define spirituality. It takes a particular way of understanding, based on sociological and cultural paradigms, supported by subjective experience, and even factors like geography and genetics.

Religion is extremely subjective and can be anything from an individual's personal belief system to an authoritarian system that uses various methods of control to unite a large demographic of people.

That all sounds a bit clinical, but its not hard to understand. We all want to have a tidy set of rules and beliefs that are considered right, healthy and normal, that will ensure our health and safety and secure our eternal destiny. Mostly we want other people to sort it out for us so we don't have to think about the hard questions and we'll shift responsibility on to the "priests" (scholars, elders, leaders, philosophers, intelligentsia etc)

In the end, religion controls. It wraps up and defines a certain way of seeing spirituality. It puts it in a tidy box, has a set of written codes that govern thought and performance, and a prescribed "way" of achieving the "universal 'thing' that enhances life and brings peace, joy and health".
The problem with religion is its rampant and horrific ability to turn into dogma, usually expressed through exclusivity and the driving force of acceptance into a superior or higher level of spirituality than all others.

So what to do? We all have a system of "religion" that we use to internalise and express our spirituality (even atheists have a religious process to define their non-belief in spirituality, but that's another story).
Our systems are based on our own deeply complex paradigms, and more often than not, forced into an accepted religious structure (by choice, by birth or by threat).

Religion can be OK, absolutely fine - IF - we understand it for what it is. If we realise its an artificial system introduced to attempt to describe something that is inherently beyond our senses. Christianity is just a religion, like Islam, Hindu, all the others, all with their highly complex systems of beliefs.

The key factor is the "FRUIT" - what is the result of belief in that system? Does it bring life, peace, joy?
Is it love?
LOVE is the one factor that every human being that has ever existed craves. Its the one thing that unites us, the one thing at the core of our identity, of all we are.

If your religion gets in the way of that - if it attempts to control your core yearning for love - begin the unraveling. Start to ask hard questions. Be brave and admit to yourself there may be a problem. Strip away all that is not love. Don't be afraid of turning from a system that uses subtle (or blatant) ways of control through threats of curses and eternal damnation.

Live with spiritual integrity. Learn to see the real fruit of all religious systems.

Cults and HIM

Cults are a touchy subject at the best of times.

Many would say a lot of mainstream churches are cults, others think in terms of strange New Age stuff, or dancing around fires with chickens and candles. But we have all seen the documentaries of communities with brain washed devotees gathered around their smiling leader.

But really, what is the core thing about a cult? Its not the doctrines or beliefs, as strange as they can be. They only serve to build a reference point for the real problem - the leader.

Most cults are built around a person who has the most damaging trait humans can suffer from - narcissism.

They use religious beliefs as the main tool to draw the right type of person into their sphere of influence, to feed the constant need of admiration, reliance and worship etc. They can then control people by the right balance of feeding their deep needs of insecurity with a sense of uniqueness. You become special, with the unique privilege of sharing in a new revelation, an outpouring of incredible significance that only you and the group have. You become the chosen and bear the burden of sharing this revelation knowing it will bring persecution, but persecution is confirmation that you are speaking the truth, so you will rejoice that people are speaking against you, and you are suffering for righteousness sake.

This was what brought my attention to HIM (His Image Ministries), run by George Maitland.

He has a small influence fortunately, but I've seen a few friends now hooked into it and feel its time to expose him. Among them are Dawn and Breck Rubin who are now intrinsic in the inner circle.

Like I said, I don't really care about doctrines - we are all entitled to believe what we want. But this cult uses control through shaming, belittling, and exclusivism. I have seen people noticeably change over the last year as they have become more involved (like the Rubins). They start to lose the ability to discuss rationally, and begin to quote isolated scripture out of context as if we should know what it means and then talk down to you because you don't "correctly divide the word" (this is their favourite expression).

But what has disturbed me is behind the scenes, emotional and verbal abuse, telling women that they should let their husbands be sexually violent to them to display Gods patient love, belittling his family (and in front of others), regularly/repetitively reading out letters of those who leave the group to enforce the dangers of leaving. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Condescending, patronising, threatening - you name it. It is extremely unhealthy. I have spoken to people with first hand experience, and I have no reason to doubt their story.

So I know many of you will think I should mind my own business. But I'm willing to take the rap for being so open about this. There are thousands more like this - groups of people under the spell of a narcissistic leader, often in large churches and organisations, carefully controlling and manipulating people, people looking for strong leadership and direction, for a new revelation. They present a carefully constructed image of love, passion, wisdom, grace, truth, but are lost in the grips of narcissism and cannot even see what's going on.

Most people who end up hurt and disgusted with anything christian have been under the control of people like this, and I say that's enough. I'm taking a risk, I know, but ever since hearing about George Maitland, watching his FB/blog and website, and then talking in depth to people who know what goes on, it has only confirmed what I feared. I have been involved in similar things. I have seen the devastation. I recognise the signs. It makes me sick to see this happening, and I hope enough of us will have the courage to look deeply into things like this, to be brave enough to speak up, and even be brave enough to be wrong.

I will gladly apologise just as publicly if proved wrong - for anything I may say. But I will stand up for the abused and for the removal of abusers as I feel Jesus did. Its a complex enough journey as it is without becoming derailed by your local narcissist!

I will now run for cover!!