Saturday, June 25, 2011

Thoughts on "Rising above the controversy: Meet Bishop Carlton Pearson"

Rising above the controversy: Meet Bishop Carlton Pearson

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I believe it is worth stand up for what we believe, concerning our true and unique identity, the love of God and freedom from religion and legalism. Carlton Pearson's resolve to proclaim the gospel of inclusion and debunk misconceptions about a judgmental god is admirable, and he has his share of admirers as well as detractors and critics who dismiss him as a heretic. Like what someone wrote, the impact of a person's life can be measured with accuracy by the gap between one's enemies' hatred toward him and how deeply one's friends love him. Indeed, the greatest men and women who champion love, peace and  liberty also have their share of those who hate them.

It reminds me of Jesus' words to His disciples in John 15 "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."

Yes, we do not belong to the world system that is based on duality, ignorance, and performance mindset. The world loves those who are equally blinded and subscribe to the concept of a petty god who sends millions to a literal hell, and the world hates those who proclaim God is unconditional love and has reconciled everyone to  Himself. Jesus said the world did not know the One who sent Him, who is love, therefore they hated Jesus without reason. We are in good company, if we are hated by the religious world together with Jesus, Carlton Pearson and the like.

Friday, June 17, 2011

How Do We Reconcile the Old Testament God with the New Testament God?

 We learn from the New Testament that God is love, and love keeps no records of wrongs. Why then did God in the Old Testament command the children of Israel to commit pillage, stoning and genocide, among other atrocities? Could it be that the people living during that time did not know God as He really is, and were projecting their own fallen imagination on what they thought as God, and as a result, God was portrayed as petty, vindictive and schizophrenic? After all, human beings felt alienated from God ever since Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I believe that is the reason Jesus came on earth - to reveal the truth that God is always with us, and He has always loved us unconditionally.

According to this website: http://www.streamsoflight.com/ego.html
" The shadow self is what sabotages our relationships, jobs, it denies our spirit, keeps us from realizing our destiny and dreams. It is what we sweep under the rug. It gets buried and repressed into our deep unconscious self. ..... Other people mirror back our hidden emotions and feelings."

http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/jung/shadow.htm
"It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism."

So in view of understanding the human psyche, here are my thoughts on 2 Kings 10:18-27 about the killings of worshippers of another faith:

The old testament prophets and kings didn't really hear God correctly - more likely they heard the voice of the conscience/Satan/dark side of their humanity.

They see God in their own darkened image. The old testament God - the one that was judgmental and vindictive - was simply a mirror of their shadow self.

We know that Jesus is God and He came to show people what God is truly like. So if God = Jesus, therefore God doesn't destroy lives, but saves and heals.

Therefore, any command the prophets or kings thought they heard regarding killing the enemies or outsiders or unbelievers or worshippers of another faith, is not from God.

The Bible may have recorded those events, but it doesn't mean God was behind those killings or God supports them.

Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." All the old testament folks had never seen the Father. They saw mostly a mirror image of their duality manifesting in terms of good and evil, light and dark, but not a unified image of God who doesn't dwell in duality but in unity - in tune with Himself.

Hence Jesus came to renew people's minds, so that our thoughts flow in tune with God's thoughts once more. This is the rhythm I believe Rob Bell was referring to in his video "Rhythm".

When people begin to see themselves as whole and complete, made in God's image, they recover their true identity, and they become integrated in every way. "By Him (Jesus), all things are held together (or are integrated)."

The old testament folks dwell in duality, and out of their disintegrated and distorted image of God and of themselves, they ended up doing cruel things, like genocide, etc, all in the name of "God".

Jesus rebuked James and John for wanting to call the fire of heaven to consume the Samaritans, saying that "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. The Son of Man did not come to destroy but to save man's lives.". I believe it's because Elijah did not have the same spirit of grace as Jesus has. Elijah was heeding the voice of his seared conscience (sin-consciousness and self-righteousness), not the voice of God the Father.

The children of Israel thought they had to fight and kill in order to possess a physical promised land. Jesus came to show them the true rest - cease striving and know I am God (we are gods).

What happened in AD70 is not the vengeance or punishment in the physical sense from God - it was the suffering and torment in the conscience of those who were under the old covenant of law mindset, thinking that God is Someone who judges and condemns. It was the voice of their fallen mindset accusing them, and thinking that the attack of the Roman army on Jerusalem was caused by God, when actually it was their mirror image of the schizophrenic God that they had mistakenly believed in, because they refused to believe the good news that Jesus is their true identity.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Matthew 23:33 What is the "Condemnation of Hell" that Jesus was Warning the Pharisees about?

Around AD30, several days before His crucifixion, Jesus warned the Pharisees about the impending destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in Israel.

Among other things, Jesus said, "Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?" He continued to tell them, "Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." (Matthew 23:33-36)

What was Jesus referring to when He warned the Pharisees about the "condemnation of hell"? I think it is important for us to understand Jesus' words in the proper context because mainstream or evangelical christianity has been using the term 'hell' loosely to refer to a physical place in the afterlife, reserved for unbelievers and sinners, to be burnt and tortured for eternity. This misunderstanding only serves to misrepresent God, painting Him as a petty and tyrannical judge who is far worse than an errant parent on earth.

The Greek word for "hell" in the above passage is "gehenna", which refers to the "garbage dump in Jerusalem that burns for a period of time". It is an allusion to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that would take place in AD70. My understanding is that Jesus had warned the Pharisees about the condemnation of gehenna in the last days. (Matthew 23:33)

While the law ended at the cross, the Pharisees didn't believe that, and had a 40-year grace period to repent (change their mind and believe the good news of grace). The old covenant officially ended in AD70, with the destruction of the temple, and there would be no more sacrificial system. 

The Pharisees probably experienced condemnation in their minds or in their conscience, thinking that it was the end of the world for them, and mistakenly thought God was punishing them. I think that was the gehenna Jesus was warning them about. The judgment was in their mind, but God wasn't the one judging them - their own conscience judged them. (Matt 12:36) They experienced the second death by coming to the end of themselves. Without the physical temple, there were no more opportunities for them (if any survived the seige) to depend on sacrifices or rituals to make themselves righteous. That's my understanding for now.

How do we know the old covenant had passed away?

We read in Hebrews 8:13 "In that He says, 'A new covenant', He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." The author was telling the Hebrews that the old covenant was ready to vanish away. The book of Hebrews was said to be written around AD63-64. It would only be a few more years before the old covenant age would finally end in AD70, ushering the new covenant age, in which we all are living today.

It was a revelation to me when I realised that Jesus' reference to gehenna was addressed to the unbelieving Pharisees, which they would experience in their conscience when they mistakenly thought that there was no more opportunity to get close to God or to be right with God, when the temple crumbled before their eyes. It must have been a huge shock and disappointment for them - they would certainly have felt lost and completely alienated from God because they and their previous generations had been so dependent on their religious performance and rituals and the animal sacrificial system in the temple for the past hundreds of years in order to be righteous or to connect with God (or so they thought). Hence, Jesus had been telling them to repent (change their mind and believe the good news that the kingdom of God was already within them, not outside of them), in order to escape the condemnation of gehenna (in their conscience).

(This post is based on a discussion thread about preterism in Facebook.)