This is my response to a recent video produced by the LDS Church on the nature of God. My reinterpretation moves away from the supernatural dualistic interpretation, towards a more immanent nondualistic interpretation of the Divine.
Tag: Christianity
A Mystical Commentary on “The Bells” in HBO’s Game of Thrones: The World is on Fire and Humanity is Dying!
Many people don't like the way that HBO's television drama Game of Thrones is turning out. Is there a deeper moral here?
Does Mysticism need Community? If so, what kind?
Do mystics withdraw from all community to a solitary and independent life, or do they find deep oneness in community? What kind of community?
Is Physical Death the Death of our Individual Personhood?
When the finite body dies, is that the end of our person, or do we continue on? Yes and no.
Meeting Richard Rohr
What a gift it was to meet Fr. Richard Rohr today at the 2019 The Universal Christ conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico with my friends Michael Potter and Jory Pryor. My towering over Richard Rohr is just an optical illusion. He really towers over me.
The many "Christs" and "Messiahs" that preceded Jesus
And, what many may not know, there were many "Christs" who came prior to Jesus, and who were not Jesus, nor do I think they were prefiguring or foreshadowing Jesus. They were the "Christs" in their own right, who came in their own time, who developed what it meant to be a "Christ" or "Messiah" in ancient Israel long before the word was ever applied to Jesus. I think it may be helpful to become acquainted with these "Christs/Messiahs" to better understand who Jesus was.
A Mystical Interpretation of the Messiah Rebuilding the Temple, or Christ Coming to the Temple
A prominent belief in Jewish tradition is that the coming Messiah will "rebuild the temple." Jesus too said he would "rebuild the temple." But what temple?
Reconstructing the narrative surrounding the origins of the Book of Mormon
It's taken more time to write about this reconstruction, because it is perhaps a more sensitive subject, and more complex, than any I have written before about Mormonism or Christianity, yes, even more so than Jesus or Joseph Smith (which might be an indication that something is off-kilter). The Salt Lake City based Latter-day Saints take the Book of Mormon very seriously as a holy text, as scripture revealed by God, similar to the Bible, and perhaps even more important than the Bible. The Book of Mormon is one thing that makes them unique, their own testament of the divinity of "Jesus Christ," which they believe is also evidence of the unique prophethood of Joseph Smith and the divinity of the church he organized as God's "true church." But I think the truth may be much more nuanced.
1 Corinthians 15 BHT, Paul’s Earliest Witness of the Resurrection into Christ Consciousness, the “Gospel”
An addition to the BHT, containing the earliest account of the post-resurrection appearances of Christ in the New Testament, where Paul describes his witness of the resurrection and what it means to be resurrected into Christ consciousness. This seems to be an excellent summary of the Christian Gospel, or "good news," but it is something which I think we've generally misunderstood in Christianity for centuries. I feel that this is one of the most important translations of the BHT that I have been given the Grace to work out yet—yet not I. I was in tears by the end.
Is God or Christ a Male?
It is true that traditionally God and Christ have been predominantly associated with the male gender and masculine principle (a "He"), at least in the West. What we need to decide today is if that traditional interpretation, these symbols of the Divine, are still valid, and accurate, and if they point to truth in the present, or if we need a better interpretation of these symbols as a society, a culture, in our interspirituality, in the world today.