This is perhaps one of the most important issues we have to face. It's insidious and rules over every part of our lives. In fact it's the basis of the "human condition" irrespective of religion.
I became a passionate Christian at 15.
I was gay, struggling to understand what was wrong with me.
I grabbed the bible and read it nonstop, cover to cover. I absorbed it, and the prayer books, and started listening to the sermons. I loved talking about it and how amazing God was, and assumed everyone else in my church youth group had the same understanding as me!
I was gay, struggling to understand what was wrong with me.
I grabbed the bible and read it nonstop, cover to cover. I absorbed it, and the prayer books, and started listening to the sermons. I loved talking about it and how amazing God was, and assumed everyone else in my church youth group had the same understanding as me!
Inevitably
I discovered that it was wrong to be a christian and be homosexual. The bible
said so and that was that. So I prayed and prayed for it to “go away”. I
started to look for more radical “cures” and went to a “deliverance” ministry
to get the demons cast out. I persisted for a few weeks and went along with the
whole thing, but nothing actually changed, strangely enough!
I
then had some prayer counselling which supposedly got to the deeper spiritual
and psychological causes, but just made me feel like a failure. So I ended up
marrying this really lovely girl, who was a great friend, thinking that would
fix everything, and we’d have a family and live happily ever after. Not a
happening thing.
I
then drifted into Pentecostalism to find a deeper more powerful spirituality
that would enable me to overcome my evil desires. I became a worship leader,
home group leader and dived into the whole lifestyle boots and all, even street
witnessing in Kings Cross.
I decided to get married again! Really stupid, I know, but I was
convinced it would work this time and my dream of a happy family would come
true.
She’d had lesbian relationships so we knew basically what we were up against, but of course we had no idea of just how hard it would be. We had lots of counselling, all sorts of whacky Christian ministries, and finally got involved with Living Waters reparative therapy group in Australia and then over here in New Zealand. We were involved with them off and on for about 15 years, as worship leaders, participants and leaders.
She’d had lesbian relationships so we knew basically what we were up against, but of course we had no idea of just how hard it would be. We had lots of counselling, all sorts of whacky Christian ministries, and finally got involved with Living Waters reparative therapy group in Australia and then over here in New Zealand. We were involved with them off and on for about 15 years, as worship leaders, participants and leaders.
Never
once did we admit that it wasn't working. Sure there was some good insights
gleaned from the teachings and they were beautiful, sincere and loving people,
but I never became one tiny bit straight.
Eventually
my wife became sick with cancer in 2009. I nursed her for nearly 2 years before
she died after which I had something of a meltdown. Our son had to watch his
mum die as we kept hanging out for miraculous healing. We read all the books, heard
countless preachers on every aspect of healing imaginable. Went to conferences
with the best international healing ministries and lost count of the number of
people who prayed and prophesied over her. It was horrific on so many levels,
and it wasn't until after she died I could even attempt to process any of it.
I
had to come to terms with the fact that I’d lived my entire adult life with
depression and suicidality, struggling with the cognitive dissonance of being
gay in a belief system that said I couldn't be gay.
My
core spirituality was based on my experience as a 15 year old, and I’d spent
the rest of my life thinking that fundamentalist Pentecostalism (in one form or
another) was the only genuine expression of that experience.
So
I then spent 12 months unravelling my faith, and coming to terms with my
sexuality. I began to take small steps to embrace my real identity and slowly
become very active in the LGBT community as a spiritual voice for those
silently suffering in churches and religion.
So
now how does that all relate to my topic on the knowledge of good, evil, sin and love”? I'm glad you asked.
Part
of the unravelling process required me to take a radical look at the bible. I
started to look at the original languages, the cultures, social norms,
historical context etc, as best I could without my Christian paradigm. I saw of
course, that all the scriptures about sexuality were completely misinterpreted
(that’s a huge discussion in itself!). If only I’d known that from day one…
But
it didn’t stop there and wasn’t long before I began to see all the flaws in my
belief system. It became clear (to me at least) that humans have an insatiable
assumption that we need holy texts – irrefutable words of wisdom that define
our meaning in relation to God and the universe. Writings that set out moral and
ethical codes, rules and rituals, that are necessary for humanity to survive. But
the biggest problem is that we also assume humans are essentially flawed and
need saving from our inherent brokenness.
This
is quite understandable as we all wrestle with the horrors we inflict on each
other on a daily basis – even down to our own petty squabbles. It seems as if
we really are inherently evil.
(This
is a huge subject of course and countless books have been written about it
already)
Most
religions (especially christianity) are complex systems built on those
assumptions. However, what if we are actually perfect, exactly as we should be,
but all that is missing is our realisation of it? This is a concept that has
always been around in some form but rarely embraced because of the apparent
contradictions in what we experience. After all, despite our best efforts we
all take offence and argue and fight, blaming each other for all our problems.
It’s not a good look, so we have invented religious systems that build on this
paradigm to create a way of hope for a better life.
Now, every single person knows what love is. It’s inherent in our nature as humans.
We may not understand it fully or even experienced it in any meaningful way,
but the deep longing for unconditional love is absolutely universal. In fact,
it’s the only aspect of spirituality that truly is universal.
Deep
down, we all know that the only thing that brings real change towards life and wholeness,
is love.
So
here’s my point (finally!)
The bible myth about the "tree of the knowledge
of good and evil" that Adam and Eve ate from, expresses the basis of the
problem - we keep choosing to look at everything in terms of right and wrong
instead of love.
The
story says that the only thing that would cause them to die was embracing the
desire to know good from evil! Even Paul in the New Testament, hinted at it
often with statements like "everything is permissible but not everything
is beneficial". We keep thinking that the most important thing we can do
is determine right from wrong – sin from righteousness. We think that justice
is only defined in terms of good and bad, so we spend most of our time making
judgements. We are obsessed with having the knowledge of good and evil. Our
entire civilisation is built on this! We want clear cut lines that say “this is
right but that is wrong”. Our legal system is nothing more than countless lines
drawn to define if something is good or bad.
But
if we look to the story of Jesus, we see something very subtle and easily
overlooked in his words to the disciples after the “last supper” dialogue. He
simply said, in possibly his most powerful words, “I'm giving you a NEW command
– love each other the same way I love you”.
Up
to that point he’d supported the principles of the law and 10 commandments, and
had reduced them down to two – love God and love each other. But what he did
here is ditch the “thou shalt” mentality entirely and institute something new.
Love
each other just like I love you. He turned it completely around. The onus was
no longer on us to “love God” first and foremost. He took that out of the whole
equation. The disciples had seen the depth of his love for humanity, and that’s
exactly what he put to them. Love humanity, just like I do.
Stunningly
simple, and bypasses all concepts of laws and rules. Up to that point he’d been
pointing out that living by the law was completely unattainable, and he constantly
upped the ante with things like “you know you shouldn't have it off with
another woman, but I'm telling you - if you even look sideways at a woman you
may as well have had sex with her”. He did this heaps and upset a lot of
people! But then he turned it all around with that one final “new” command. It
was a command for unconditional love.
So,
lets look at this a little closer. The people we all most admire and respect as
examples of life and faith, are those who live from that place of unconditional
love. They don't judge, they simply love. Like Mother Teresa, the Dali Lama –
those types we admire for their sacrificial and genuine love. They don’t preach
doctrines and rules, morals and ethics – they just love unconditionally and
completely.
Here’s
the crunch though. We don't need any holy writings for this. Its already who we
are. As little children we don’t judge, we simply “are” and enjoy life based on
the level of love we receive. Sure, there are heaps of ancient and modern
writings that are incredibly profound and have so much to offer. But I'm
talking about revering these writings, and their authors, to the point of “god’s
infallible words”, “anointed”, “holy” etc. It’s called bibliolatry (the worship
of the writings themselves instead if the deeper message), and most religions
are guilty of it.
When
Jesus said to be like children, he wasn't talking about obeying your parents or
being submissive - he was talking about a simplicity of life and faith – a
returning to that wonderful reliance on love and love alone and the joy and
peace it brings to ourselves and everyone around us.
Christianity
in particular calls us to "repent" - a word that is loaded with
guilt, shame, penance and punishment. But the original word in context with the
Greek language and culture literally means to just change your mind. That's
it!! Just change our minds about who we are. Look at a baby! It has no concept
of right or wrong, good or evil. It’s just a little love receptor, a love
sponge, which gives as much as it receives. So we “repent” of our craving for
the “knowledge of good and evil” and return to that state of innocence. A love
sponge!
This
has to be practical as well, and sure enough, we will still act in unloving
ways as we gradually learn our true identity, but all we have to do is be
responsible for any mess we make. That's all there is to it! That may be
difficult and may require extreme measures to amend for those actions. But the
point is, there is no sense of punishment for wrong doing, or reward for doing
good. It’s a simple matter of being responsible for all we are and do from a
place of love.
Its
living loved. Everything else is a distraction and a returning to that tree.
We
think we need endless books and sacred writings of wisdom that talk of how and
what to do to be good people - but we already are good people - we have just
been convinced that we aren't by choosing to judge what’s right and wrong instead
of living loved.
We
will keep hurting each other, misunderstanding and fighting, but as we begin to
see what love looks like and embrace it for ourselves, we’ll change. The whole
point of love is in embracing imperfection!
How
does this look in daily life? Every decision we make should begin with the
premise that “I am loved – I am inhabited by love – I am love incarnate”. Will
this decision, this action, thought or word come from love and bring love? What
will be its fruit? It may be a very hard decision, but if it’s done with
integrity and honesty, then we can ask no more. Because love covers “sin”, and
we all know that sin is simply “missing the mark”. Yes, it’s another one of
those loaded words that religion has escalated to the ultimate judgement. But
again, the original languages and context reveal it to be a simple “missing the
mark” like an arrow missing the target.
So
after all this – what is love? Most of the western world knows 1 Cor 13 and it
could be said to be the universal standard that depicts pure unconditional
love.
“This love of which I speak is slow
to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not
possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas
of its own importance. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish
advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the
wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when
truth prevails. Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no
fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that
still stands when all else has fallen.”
Of
all holy writings, this is probably the one that hits the depth of every soul.
Even if we have never experienced this kind of love, we all crave it. The lack
of it is the cause of all our woes, from war to mental illness.
To
“live loved” requires us to abandon the desire for the knowledge of good and
evil, and extend the same level of compassion and empathy we desire for
ourselves. Then we will begin to see God in us and everyone one else.
Its
a massive paradigm shift, but millions over the centuries (throughout all
history I guess) have discovered that this really is the narrow road – it’s the
real “gospel” (good news), and the only thing that brings real freedom and the
"fruit of the spirit". It’s taking responsibility for who we really
are.
THIS is what changed my life - from internal and external judgement to unconditional love.
Live
loved!!
Thank you so much!
ReplyDelete