God Beyond Religion: Christian Dogma Misrepresented Grace... My Rant!

 The first mention of grace is in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. It is correct in all of the new translations. It simply reads, Gen 6:8  “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” There is NOTHING in the definition of grace/favor that even hints of UNMERITED!!!!! Christian doctrine added the meaning of unmerited to uphold and support worm theology and the subsequent fall of humanity into depravity. There is no qualification in Genesis 6:8. It simply states that Noah found favor. I know, I know, you are thinking that in the narrative God went on to drown the rest of humanity. Can’t argue against that, but it is simply a narrative of a story and not the point of this rant!

I use this verse because of the revered doctrine of first mention. The same evangelicals that insist on grace being unmerited favor demand that first mention be applied to a word as it continues on through the biblical narrative. That being the case, the story of Noah suggests that God’s favor toward Noah was merited by Noah himself.

Let’s continue with the concept of first mention. What is the first mention of humanity? Gen 1:27-31  “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  (28)  God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."  (29)  Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.  (30)  And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.  (31)  God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” Yes indeed, the first mention of humanity is found in the above passage and guess what? God said it was VERY GOOD! Does very good support worm theology? No, very good supports imputed righteousness from the beginning!

I know, now you are asking about Genesis chapters two and three. What about the story of Adam and Eve? Weren’t they our first parents? The Adam and Eve narrative is an allegory. It is meant to explain the pathology of humanity, which is the ability to judge good and evil coupled with death. Death initiated the survival instinct out of necessity, and the knowledge of good and evil allowed one to judge themselves right and the other wrong in their pursuit of survival. It is a pathology that can be overcome by means of understanding grace, favor.

All humanity was created in the image of God, the Imago Dei. That is, conscious creative agents. By virtue of that we are eternal. To be created in one’s image is to be a child of the creator. The characteristics of the child is the same as the characteristics of the parent. If the parent is eternal, then the child is eternal. So then, the gospel of grace is the good news that favor is upon humans as a result of their familial connection to the creative source. This explains the message and mission of Jesus of Nazareth. He taught that he was God consciousness incarnate and went on to teach that we too are God consciousness incarnate. He proved that he was indeed eternal in nature by his death, burial, and resurrection. He demonstrated once and for all time that all humanity had as a birthright God’s favor, or in other words grace.

Christian dogma has misrepresented so much, it angers me and therefore the need for this rant!

God Beyond Religion: Partakers of the divine nature

 2Pe 1:4a  "by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature.”

As we enter the age of Aquarius we await and will see a dramatic shift in humanity. We are now beginning to see the first fruits of the new age, but the old age is still wielding influence. The characteristics of the new age will be advancement in technology, especially electricity and humanity will become more humane. It is an age of freedom and will help us accept our divinity and our humanity and amalgamate the two. We are both human and divine. If we have the Imago-Dei, and I believe we do then we are human and divine. First of all, let us look at the definition of divine. Divine is of, from, or like God. But what about God? What is the definition of God? According to the dictionary, God is the creator and supreme ruler of the universe. My definition is that God is simply, the first cause, the creative source of all that exists.

So, what do I see as the first cause and creative source of all that exists? I see it as universal consciousness or thought. So then, when I think of the Imago-Dei, I think of being conscious agents. When one refers to God’s image bearers, they are referring to conscious agents. The way in which we partake of the divine nature is by virtue of our consciousness. Our consciousness is but a point of consciousness in the collective consciousness, or in other words, the divine field of consciousness.

The above quoted verse from the second epistle of Peter states that we have been given exceedingly great and precious promises, through which we participate in the divine nature. What are those promises? Simply that we are the incarnation of the divine Logos, or the divine expression of consciousness. Jesus claimed to be the Logos incarnate but went on to teach at we too are the incarnate Logos also. The apostle John was inspired to write that as Jesus, was in the world so are we. That means that if Jesus was the incarnate Logos, if Jesus was the offspring of God so are we.

Spirit, consciousness is what God is and corporeal material reality is what God does. Stated another way, God is spirit and flesh. Spirit is indicative of consciousness, and flesh is indicative of the corporeal and material. While it is a mystery to me, it also resonates that what God does is sacred geometry. If you are not familiar with sacred geometry here is a great introductory source Sacred Geometry. Sacred geometry explains how the source created a three-dimensional reality and I am quite certain that it can explain all of the various dimensions.

The fact is that we are in the Source, and the Source is in us, and by virtue of that we are partakers of the divine nature. We are each conscious agents within the field of divine consciousness. This field of consciousness is also the unified field of quantum physics. It is the field of morphic resonance in biology. It is the field that produces the stream of collective consciousness and is the source of all creativity and revelation. This field is the source of all mystical understandings and has been such from the beginning of time.

It is important to recognize that it is available to all. It is not exclusively for one group and does not accompany only one dogmatic principle or belief system. When it was announced that the spirit would be poured out on all flesh, it signified that over time all flesh would become enlightened to their divine nature and their connection to the divine field of consciousness.

God Beyond Religion: How the Internet and Social-Media Aided People to Deconstruct and Reconstruct their Faith

I personally have participated in social media groups since 1998. My first venture into it was being a member of Yahoo Groups. The name of my ministry was New Wineskin Fellowship and one day back in 98 searching it online, I found a New Wineskin Yahoo Group that was made up of house church folk. After that, I joined others and even started a group with the purpose of rediscovering the Apostles Doctrine, called Acts 2:42. The New Wineskin group did not question doctrine as much as it questioned structure and practice. I had felt for a long time that the dogma, doctrine was not correct. That was my reason for starting the Acts 2:42 group.

The idea first came to me from a passage in 2 Thessalonians. 2Th 2:15  “So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.” That verse resonated with my spirit, and I said to myself, of course, they were taught in greater detail by word of mouth, and the epistles were supplemental. The word-of-mouth teaching would have been clearer as they were there in person to ask the apostles questions about anything that seemed confusing.

In reality, the entire Christian scripture was confusing to me because it seemed so contradictory. During the height of my evangelical days, like every other “good” believer I did not question the contradictory aspects and basically ignored them but that was truly dishonest. I was not being honest with myself. The confusion came from reading the synoptic gospels as opposed to the letters of Paul. The glaring problem I encountered was the obvious conflict of law and grace. But, to further exacerbate the problem, Paul himself was inconsistent with his teaching of law and grace. Anyone who will not admit that there is an obviously glaring contradiction with law and grace is simply not being honest and I will not take that back as it is simply truth. Many have unsuccessfully tried but always failed to properly synchronize law and grace on the basis of what is written. The bottom line is that this contradiction results from the doctrine of inerrancy and infallibility of scripture. It comes from giving equal weight to everything written as if it were a perfect edict from God.

Even when I was teaching seminary, the kinds of questions I allude to here were never asked. This is where the internet and social media come into play. Sitting behind a computer screen or phone screen, speaking with someone you don’t see on a regular basis makes a safer environment to ask the difficult questions. In the beginning, like the New Wineskins Yahoo Group, one still got a lot of pushback and accusations from varying from the evangelical party line, and I must admit with a wry smile on my face it led to some very heated debates. I, however, did not shy away from them and rather enjoyed them I would say. But over time, more and more people grew bolder and bolder about the questions and minds were changed, and dogma was changed. Likely not with the person one was debating but over time, things that made sense would be assimilated later on.

Slowly, more and more people adopted ideas that were heretical to the evangelical crowd, and with the addition of Facebook and twitter, more groups formed to offer a safe place to question, ask questions, and declare new conclusions. As the result of this several new movements of thought arose and people were discarding old dogma for something that made more sense to them based on what they read, heard, and experienced. I benefited from this because over time I became bolder and bolder expressing my questions and new conclusions. I have resolved the law grace situation one hundred percent for me, but that is a topic for a different time. The main thing is that I want to acknowledge and even celebrate what the internet and social media has helped accomplish and I am confident that it will only continue to grow.

I am quite sure that I arrived at syncretistic and eclectic spirituality as the result of the freedom offered by the internet.