Existential Christianity

A commentary on the epistle of James

2011-01-03T17:24:00.002+11:00

A commentary on the epistle of James

Now that my thesis is complete, I have the time and motivation to write more non-fiction for this website. I love the book of James, and being able to write about it at such length has given me even greater appreciation for the letter. It has been subject to a great deal of criticism, especially from the stalwarts of the Protestant movement, and this article can be seen as my attempt to defend the value and insight it has for any follower of Jesus. I hope you all enjoy it.

Some short stories

2010-10-06T12:23:00.005+11:00

This blog is not dead. Today I have attached a series of short stories written by me, and a short story from a friend of mine named James Jenkins. I call them both 'short stories', but they could not be more dissimilar. Mine are all less than three pages each, while James' story is a long read that he has been thoughtfully tweaking for months. I have read it myself, and enjoyed it so much I had to put it up here. All of this (and more in the future) will be uploaded to the website once I remember my login details for the FTP. Please enjoy, and let me know what you think on here or by email.

What I was, what I am, what I will be
story 1: Hesitation
story 2: A week that won't be remembered
story 3: Entropy in reverse

The Man by James Jenkins

Status of the blog

2010-05-06T18:37:00.002+10:00

It's been a long time, I know I know. This year I am in my honours year of university, and the course/thesis work has been at absurdly high levels. It isn't that I don't care enough; I have had a number of great and meaningful discussions with people who have emailed me after reading through the website.

I have a few short stories lying around, so if you were at all interested in my last post then future content is coming. I am also planning a longer piece of fiction around July. As for long essays on religious/social topics, I have yet to have the inspiration or time to write anything. I hate writing things out of obligation to the website that I am not passionate about, and believe me whenever I try the content is poor. After my fling with fiction is over, I predict I will start writing about economics and politics (which my formal qualifications are in), and how my conception of Christianity and the message of Jesus interacts with the main social issues of the day.

To those who are visiting my blog for the first time, please see my website for alot of articles/essays that may interest you. To those who have been here a number of times over the years, I appreciate the support, and please bear with me as I will be releasing certain things in the future.

Some short stories about heaven, Jesus, and violence.

2009-07-15T18:54:00.015+10:00

I decided to give another crack at fiction:

The Journal of Seth Lovejoy (Click here to read): A Christian dies, goes to heaven, and keeps a journal of the experience.

Q&A with Jesus about the problem of evil (Click here to read): Jesus debates a talk show host.

Coming of Age (Click here to read): A meditation on a specific form of violence.

Lately I have experienced some problems with the company that hosts my website. If it is ever down, here is a backup of the major articles on the website:
The Quiet Revolution: Part 1
The Quiet Revolution: Parts 2 & 3
Christianity is an Existential Communication
Christian Pacifism

New posts

2009-07-02T11:50:00.002+10:00

I am working on three blog posts concurrently. The first is about apathy towards poverty. More specifically, why does the level of care diminish when the poverty is further away. The second is a case study of three large institutionalist churches (the catholic church, the mormon church, and the protestant church), and how they are structured in ways that provokes dysfunctional behaviour. The third is the requirement for Christians to deny retributive justice, possibly integrated into a "five ways to be more Christ-like" type of devotional reading.

At least one should be finished this month. Feel free to comment with your own thoughts on these issues, or tell me which of these you'd most likely want to read.

The Quiet Revolution: Parts 2 & 3

2009-04-02T17:34:00.003+11:00

Click here to read: The Quiet Revolution: Parts 2 & 3

It's finally finished. The original intention was for parts 2 and 3 to be separate articles, but I felt that integrating them worked well. I have also done some cleaning up of the website, which should prevent new visitors from finding it cumbersome and unintuitive. The last thing I would like to do is quote a verse from James. I came across this little gem only a year ago. It's amazing the kind of verses you can miss out on even after a lifetime of sitting under sermons:

James 1:27 -- "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."

I will most definentely be revisiting this verse in some future article.

Stuck

2009-03-02T18:04:00.006+11:00

It's been a long time since I wrote that article on Christian pacifism. I have been very busy, but half of the reason is I just can't get going on finishing another article. I have a couple half finished, but i'm very unsatisfied with the writing and the way I am communicating the ideas. The future does not bode well for them if history repeats itself; the documents folder in my computer is littered with half-finished blog posts dating as far back as when this blog first started (3-4 years ago).

Do I cast them aside and begin on something entirely new? The problem is I just can't get a few issues out of my head. Indifference towards the third world, American Politics, and non-violent resistance. The recent attack on the Gaza strip really affected me. Obviously it isn't the first conflict in recent years to depress me, but I guess it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Reading a collection of Noam Chomsky's political thought, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, only amplifies the feelings of alienation.

I have not always had a passion for social justice. I remember early 2003, when I was 15 and appropiately naive, I watched the fighting in Iraq and was quite ambivalent and indifferent towards the whole thing. It was only a year later that I was arguing at school with a new student who recently came over from the US south; he loved Bush, guns, the confederate flag, and everything else that teenage boys from those parts of America are supposed to love. Looking back, I was still completely oblivious.

It took a number of years to change my perspective on life to be where I am right now. I would have to say it began with a close friend of mine in high school coming out of the closet, and revealing his homosexuality to the very conservative school and group of churches we both belonged to. The way that he was treated by fellow students, the faculty, the church pastors, and everyone else I knew at the time shocked me. It was really disgusting to me. By that time a number of intellectual disputes I had with the independent Baptist tradition (e.g. infallibility of the Bible, atonement theology, the Pauline priority, ignorance concerning the life of Jesus) were taking shape, and for me it was all over. Many things I had taken for granted all of my life had become meaningless to me, but I still held an ardent desire to know what Jesus really said, and what God really wants out of me.

For awhile it felt like limbo. I knew what I didn't believe in, but not what I did believe in. This continued for quite awhile as I gradually felt for an anchor to ground myself with, and then I started going to university. I came to the philosophy of Christian existentialism on my knees. It asked questions I was very familiar with, such as "What is the meaning of life?", "how do we make sense of the suffering in this world?", "how do we make sense of these feelings of angst, anxiety, and guilt?", "how do we have a proper relationship with God?", but the answers were so refreshing and relieving. At that point I was quite familiar with the basics of traditional philosophy, and the way that existentialism cut through the very presuppositions that founded my traditional philosophy was shocking and exciting. It was the author Soren Kierkegaard that really helped me re-find my Christianity; a Christianity that is true for me, a Christianity I could live or die for. I devoured Fear and Trembling, The Sickness unto death, Philosophical Fragments, and some others. However, it was not until I read through his journals that I came across it.

"Christianity is no doctrine, but an existential communication"

That was the sentence that inspired this blog. After that I read quite a few people who helped me understand Jesus more. Specific mentions deserve to be given to Paul Tillich, John Howard Yoder, Chris Forbes (lecturer in the two early Christianity units I did at university last year), and others. Nothing helped me more, though, than an earnest reading of the Gospels, over and over. I decided to call this blog Existential Christianity to further develop this idea from Kierkegaard's journals. Interestingly, Christian Existentialism has often been taken to be highly individualistic and inward. In fact, John Howard Yoder often criticised Kierkegaard and the Christian Existentialists for being obsessed with defining Christianity as an inward and individualistic phenomenon. I think this site is often the complete opposite. Why I still call it "Existential Christianity" is a topic for another post I guess.

The development of my political beliefs started shortly after Kierkegaard. There has been a very strong direct correlation over the years between my understanding of and love for the teachings of Jesus and radical political/social beliefs. I believe this is quite natural; as it is Jesus who taught that serving the poor was one of the most important thing his followers can do. He taught people to love unconditionally (even your enemies), to resist non-violently, and to forgive radically. My inclinations towards radical political theories increased when I learnt about the very early tenement Churches in Rome, how the early church in general treated each other economically, and also modern political/military history. The number of political authors who influenced me would be too large to list.

I started writing this post with the intention of it being a one paragraph excuse for why I have not completed a new blog post, and it has (hopefully) turned into the very solution for my writers block.

Book Review: Hero for Christ

2009-03-01T17:54:00.004+11:00

I have written a review of Chris Sunami's recent book Hero for Christ. You can read it by clicking here. Chris is the author of the website Christian Existential Humanism, a site i've enjoyed and linked to for a very long time. The website, and the book, are worth checking out.

More information about the book can be found at the homepage http://heroforchrist.com, and the author's email address is here writer@kitoba.com

A New Link

2009-02-24T19:19:00.002+11:00

I just added a new link. The site is called "Fundamentalists Repent!" The articles are well-argued, illuminating, and well worth the read. Frustratingly, I can't find the name of the author or a way to contact him. In other news, I have just started a new university semester, and am currently working on a new blog post and book review. The former will be up in less than a week!

The spiral of violence

2008-12-28T21:51:00.003+11:00

Terrible news has come from the Middle East, as Israel is shelling the Gaza strip into submission. At the time of writing at least 275 dead and 600 wounded, it isn't clear yet how many of those are civilians/government/military. CNN has reported that one of the known targets of the assault was a Gaza police station. Israel claims that this recent act of violence was a reaction to over one hundred rockets being fired from the Gaza strip into Israel, and hence this action is seen as self-defence.

It will sound reasonable to many until it's learnt (at least from what I read) that the rockets have led to only one casualty in Israel. The rockets themselves were a reaction to previous aggressive acts from the Israeli army, and also the complete embargo that Israel has placed onto this part of Palestine. Not even food, aid, or medicine has been allowed to enter the Gaza strip, adding to the plight of many impoverished people there. Some exemptions to this embargo were only made earlier this week. Those aggressive acts by the Israeli military and the embargo were a reaction to the kidnapping of some Israeli soldiers and more rockets that rarely ever hit anything. I could go on like this forever.

When will both sides learn that violence begets violence? Does Israel actually expect a long bombing raid to decrease the level of violence and anger in the Gaza strip? Whether Israel has a sacred right to the land or they immorally forced their way into the land with the blood of Palestinian civilians; it is clear that such merciless killing by both the Israeli army and the suicide bombers will only provoke further aggression. An endless spiral of violence now defines the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the poorest victims are the Palestinian/Israeli civilians who just want to get along with each other in peace.

Christian Pacifism

2008-12-18T21:42:00.001+11:00

Instead of the Quiet Revolution part 2 (which I still intend on writing!), I have written on a topic that has been on my mind lately.

Christian Pacifism

Some Interesting Quotes from the Didache

2008-11-23T08:01:00.005+11:00

Exams commence next week, and following that the writing on this blog should pick up. While studying for the Ancient History subject I read through a document called the Didache. It has been dated from as early as the middle of the first century, and as late as early second century. It's origin is undoubedtly from a community of Jewish Christians who exist in a rural village context. This is interesting for two reasons; most of the New Testament epistles are for Gentile urban churches, and the ministry of Jesus took place in the rural villages around Galilee. The author is entirely unknown, and it may have been written by a collaboration of the community's minds, and written down by a scribe. It has content that will be relevant for future posts in this blog, and the whole document can be read for free here. It some very peculiar verses that are worth mentioning:

4:8 Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but shalt share with thy brother in all things, and shalt not say that things are thine own; for if ye are partners in what is immortal, how much more in what is mortal?

A stunning verse. Chapters 1-5 of the Didache are what scholars call "two ways material". It talks about the way of life, and it talks about the way of death. What is surprising is that the way of life is focused on material found in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. We have no way of knowing what Paul thought of the Sermon on the Mount, nor the Christian churches that received his epistles. However, from this document it is now clear that at least one Jewish Christian community took it to be central to Christianity. Verse 4:8 not only indicates that they take seriously the radical commands of Jesus with giving/sharing, but seems to take it one step further and abolish the idea of private property among Christians. It closes with what I consider a beautiful sentiment; if ye are partners in what is immortal, how much more in what is mortal.

6:2 If thou art able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, thou wilt be perfect; but if thou art not able, what thou art able, that do.
6:3 But concerning meat, bear that which thou art able to do. But keep with care from things sacrificed to idols, for it is the worship of the infernal deities

Being a Jewish Christian community, it is understandable that they still take the law and food laws seriously. The important point to note is how they stress "do what you are able to" after stating the principle. I'm not sure if the yoke of the Lord is Jewish law or the Sermon on the Mount material they quote in Chapters 1-5, but it appears that they are trying to factor in the common failures of humanity. It has a completely different feel from the words of Jesus when he said "Be thou perfect, as your father is also perfect."

8:1 But as for your fasts, let them not be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week, but do ye fast on the fourth and sixth days.

This one is quite funny. Unlike Jesus, they consider the problem of the hypocrite's fasting to not be their public boasting and motivation for doing so, but rather the days of the week that they do it. Be careful on what day you fast!

8:2 Neither pray ye as the hypocrites, but as the Lord hath commanded in his gospel so pray ye: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil: for thine is the power, and the glory, for ever.
8:3 Thrice a day pray ye in this fashion.

The Didache has many references to the Gospel of Matthew (or the same source that Matthew used for his Gospel), and hence it is no surprise that they quote the Lord's prayer in this fashion. What is interesting is the command added in 8:3 to pray the Lord's prayer three times a day. I don't think I have ever heard anything similar in any other early Christian document.

I encourage everybody to read the Didache, it is a wonderful and short work that has information on the way of life, the procedure of baptism, how their village handelled travelling Christian prophets, and how their society functioned as a rural Christian village. Well worth the time.

Early Trends

2008-10-03T10:15:00.002+10:00

At the moment I am writing an essay for an elective at university which tracks the development of early Christianity in Rome from 50-150AD using Paul's letter to the Romans and an ancient document known as the Shepherd of Hermas. While researching for the essay it really struck me how a Christian community, which was unique in its egalitarian worship structure, could rapidly develop into the most authoritarian and hierarchical church in the ancient world. Eventually, the city hosted the strict line of holy authority found in Roman Catholicism. How did this change take place?

Not many hints can be found in the letter to the Romans. Paul’s attempts to unify the church on matters of ethnicity and the law did not require the entire community to adopt a single point of view, but merely to tolerate and mutually respect one another. Hermas’ attempts to unify the church, however, was another matter entirely. I sympathise greatly with his plight, as he considered an affinity to business and a lust for material prosperity as the main factors that were contaminating and destroying the church, but the manner in which he attempted to solve the problem set a dangerous precedent. Throughout his letter the issues of post baptismal sin and wealth was argued in a way that excluded all who disagreed, not only from the churches but from God. I understand that existential integrity was very important to the church, and may have been necessary for its survival, but in time this same line of reasoning was extended into matters of doctrine and intellectual belief. His answer to the churches problems was to give the church an authority that was beyond question, beyond reproach.

Dangerous trends such as this one can be seen throughout the epistles of the New Testament and later Christian documents. Another example is submission to the secular state. It was a common accusation of Christianity in those days that it was politically subversive and hostile to the authority of Caesar. Amazingly, two major stalwarts of early Christianity, Peter and Paul, were vociferous in their attempts to nullify the accusation. Paul’s command to submit to Governments in Romans 13 is situational and conditional, leading way to the churches later rejection of Caesar and his demands. Nevertheless, the foundation had been laid for a future peace to develop between Christians and the state, where social justice and political activism was sidelined. Even more disturbing is 1 Peter’s characterisation of Governors as the rewarders of righteous and punishers of evildoers. I do not mean to impose my own dispositions onto a letter written nearly two thousand years ago, but I think everyone can agree that there appears to be a major shift between Jesus rebellion against the religious institutions of the day and the early Christian’s call for submission to all authority.

Another example is the very structure of the house church, which seem to be the majority model that the early church adopted (the notable exception is Rome). The coming together of masters, slaves, the destitute, and prosperous businessmen was always going to lead to awkward social situations. I appreciate that Paul tried his best to encourage equality in the house churches over matters of spiritual gifts, the common meal, and almsgiving. However, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that there is an innate compromise in the model that led to an ignorance of certain sayings of Jesus and class antagonism. Robert Jewett, who is a wonderful scholar, called the house church “love-patriarchalism.”

On the other hand, you find figures in early Christianity that appears to be on the exact same wavelength with the message of Jesus. It was James who remarked that pure religion was taking care of orphans and widows in their distress (read: the people in society who could not look after themselves), and keeping yourself unstained by the world. In his epistle he also expounded on the teachings of Jesus that related to wealth, and took the existential essence of Christianity very seriously.

Too often in scholarship of Early Christianity the question of “Why did these things happen?” is prioritised and the question “Should these things have happened?” is ignored entirely. It is these themes that I will run with in the second part to the Quiet Revolution. Unlike in this post, I will actually argue for my position rather than just state it. Unfortunately, with university and part time work it should not be expected soon.

The Quiet Revolution: Part 1

2008-08-07T13:57:00.003+10:00

The Quiet Revolution: Part 1

Whether it is good or not is up to you, but by far it is the longest article I have written for the blog. I hope everyone can get at least something out of it. Feedback very welcome!

Kierkegaard on "Christian nations"

2008-07-22T12:36:00.002+10:00

I have started work on three pdf articles concurrently; they should be completed by the end of next week. In the mean time, a thought from Kierkegaard in Judge for Yourself! For Self-Examination:

Imitation, the imitation of Christ, is really the point from which the human race shrinks. The main difficulty lies here; here is where it is really decided whether or not one is willing to accept Christianity. If there is emphasis on this point, the stronger the emphasis the fewer the Christians. If there is a scaling down at this point (so that Christianity becomes, intellectually, a doctrine) more people enter into Christianity. If it is abolished completely (so that Christianity becomes, existentially, as easy as mythology and poetry and imitation an exaggeration, a ludicrous exaggeration), then Christianity spreads to such a degree that Christendom and the world are almost indistinguishable, or all become Christians; Christianity has completely conquered- that is, it is abolished!

It is easy to balk at the exclusivity and self-importance that seems to be implied in this passage. However, I do not believe that Kierkegaard is talking about a necessary and objective truth, i.e. that Christianity will necessarily be diluted as it expands. Rather, if you consider it from an empirical historical perspective, it is profound in that it is entirely true.

The Problem of Evil & other stuff

2008-05-28T22:19:00.004+10:00

Two articles today:

My half-baked solution to the problem of evil - Not really a solution, but my attempt to contribute to the debate.

Liars - If this blog post was a music single, I would call this article the b-side. It is full of left-leaning social commentary, so be warned if you aren't into that kind of thing.

The Good News

2008-02-16T17:36:00.003+11:00

After a long absence, I return with a five page article entitled "The Good News." It is too long to post in this blog, so here is a link of it as a pdf file:

The Good News

Kierkegaard Quote

2007-10-17T22:40:00.000+10:00

A number of blogs have been quoting Kierkegaard lately, which gives me a great excuse to do so once more. This is taken from Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and it is part of a passage in the book that I consider the best of Kierkegaard. Indeed, perhaps the best of prose:

"If one who lives in the midst of Christendom goes up to the house of God, the house of the true God, with the true conception of God in his knowledge, and prays, but prays in a false spirit; and one who lives in an idolatrous community prays with the entire passion of the infinite, although his eyes rest upon the image of an idol: where is the most truth? The one prays in truth to God though he worships an idol; the other prays falsely to the true God, and hence in fact worships an idol."

What can you say about a writer that continues to amaze? This is related to one of his fundamental ideas that religious truth is subjectivity, and quite probably an idea i'll do my best to explore in the near future.

What is God to you?

2007-09-20T16:26:00.001+10:00

There was a man, gifted with the ability to see into people’s hearts, in search of truth. He travelled the world to speak with the most renowned and spiritual men humanity had to offer. He asked them all a single question, one which he himself could not answer – “What is God to you?”

He approached a famous preacher, who drew thousands of people to stadiums whenever he spoke. “What is God to you?” the man said. The preacher replied in a most harrowing voice “He is our glorious Father in Heaven, who knows all and sees all!” The man became confused, as what preacher who actually believed that God could see all things would privately act in a manner that he deemed inappropriate for public consumption.

Later in the day, he stumbled inside a small archaic church building, and approached an old priest who was sitting in his office. The priest’s warm smile and welcoming attitude endeared all who visited him. “What is God to you?” the man said, greatly anticipating what answer this kindly old priest had to give. The priest, with a smile as wide as the horizon, said “My dear child, God is the benevolent ruler of the world; he is the healer of mankind.” Disappointed, the man became confused, as the gratuitous amounts of evil and suffering in the world belies such a definition.

After receiving his answer and walking out of the priest’s office, the man stops to see a layman kneeling in prayer in front of the altar. The man decided to ask him the question, as the determination in the layman’s face dazzled any onlooker. Interrupting his prayer, the man asks “What is God to you?” Turning his head sidewise with a firm gaze, the layman said – “He is my rock, He gives me strength to do all things!” The man became confused, as this layman was like any other; he relied on himself to accomplish ordinary things.

Before the man could walk out the door, he spies a gentle lady quietly practicing a song for next week’s service. Now willing to ask it of anyone, the man approaches the lady and asks “What is God to you?” Pausing between notes, the lady uttered her answer with a swoon, “God is the love of my heart.” While appreciating the sincerity in her answer, the man became confused, as this lady was a lover of many things, who sought pleasure and was heavily attached to her material possessions.

More confused as he was when he began his journey; the man exits the building feeling no closer to the answer he yearned for. While walking away from the church on a sidewalk, the man spots a beggar ahead, giving shoe shines for spare change. Before drifting past the beggar’s position, the man asks “what is God to you?” The beggar pauses, staring at the man quizzically, and moans “Coins first, answers later!”

The man grasps the loose change in his pockets and hurls it onto the beggar’s rag, eager to get his answer and keep moving. Without flinch or hesitation, the beggar says “God is nothing to me; I would not be able to live with myself if such a being existed.”

Initially shocked, the man was not confused; as it was the first honest answer he had heard all day.

The absurd Jesus: faith healer?

2007-09-03T21:56:00.000+10:00

Jesus.. An existential hero? A moral teacher? A healer? A sacrifice to cleanse the world of its iniquity? Forerunner to the movement of non-violent resistance? The first socialist? A prophesied Messiah? A myth?

He is a lot of things to a lot of people. To me, he is all that is left of my Christianity. I can no longer identify with Paul, Christian dogma has left a bitter aftertaste, and it is hard to find the traditional ‘Christian activities’ appealing. To me, his life philosophy is something to strive towards; his commandments and warnings pierce the many layers of human psychology and reveal to each person with an ear to hear what is moral, what is right, and above all what is fulfilling. To me, he is Lord.

I have always understood my Jesus to be concerned with a person’s soul. He is not interested in a person’s wealth, social status, or accomplishments. Indeed, he taught his followers to reject all earthly attachments that are temporary and prone to corruption. He spoke of how hypocrisy, especially the religious kind, makes fools of us all. Any perception of superiority among your fellow man is nothing but a sign of inferiority and hypocrisy. Be humble, and be meek, for it is the meek that shall inherit the earth. Most importantly, be forgiving, for it is our willingness to forgive that determines whether God forgives our many sins.

There has never been a more pure message, and there has been only one who could claim that they lived this life of altruism and love to the end. It makes me angry that the Church today portrays Christianity as a feast for the senses, as financial karma (“give to the Church, and God shall give to you”), and a way to cure physical ills. Faith healing is important to many people, but it provokes a barrage of questions that can’t be left unanswered. Why does God heal some people and not others? Why did God only give the gift of healing to a few chosen people? How come these healers have become rich off their supposedly God-given gift? If God can heal people so easily, and does so, why do so many people still die of disease?

And yet, healing was a large part of Jesus ministry. People came from far and wide to be able to touch his garment, to plead for healing, to heal where the Doctor’s cannot. I have always gleaned over this part of his ministry, and skipped ahead to actions and teachings that is relevant to my life in the 21st century. I couldn’t help but think, why? Why were accounts of his healing power treated as so important to early church that a large portion of the gospels were devoted to it?

The bible mentions how his healing made people realise he is of God (John 9:32-33), and also how the sight of these miracles provoked people to glorify God (Matthew 15:30-31). Both great reasons and I am sure there are many others, but what has struck me is how well his healing work fits in with what could only be described as an absurd life. Indeed, everything about Jesus can be seen as an absurdity: The promised Messiah, ‘king of the jews’, lived as a poor homeless person. He’d feed himself and his followers with corn plucked from stalks located in somebody’s fields, he frequently dined with sinners and prostitutes, and he was sentenced to the most humiliating style of death by religious leaders that lived their lives according to Old Testament law.

Jesus demonstrated how the kingdom of God was completely unlike what the Jews had in mind. They all expected their Messiah to come with an army of angels, to free Israel from the Roman conquerors, and establish a kingdom that no enemy could vanquish. Instead, he had no place to lay his head, he spent his time healing the needy, and reached out to the outcasts of society in love and gentle rebuke (e.g. tax collectors, adulterers, lepers). Instead of discoursing with the high priests, or resisting Roman authority on God’s chosen people, the people saw him teaching to very common nobody’s. What’s more, wherever he went the blind men saw, the lame girls walked, and the demon possessed were speaking very coherent Hebrew. How absurd and confusing it must have been!

2000 years ago, disease was a much greater worry than it is today. Medicine was primitive, life expectancy very low, and everyone was afraid of contracting the diseases of others (Lepers were expelled, often outside city walls, even though leprosy is not very contagious). Moreover, unlike today people often turned to God for healing as they could either not afford doctors or did not trust them. Where Jesus went, people wanted to be healed of something, and being moved by compassion he helped as many as possible. Now that the west has become diseased with a crisis of meaning, can this absurd Jesus offer similar recourse? I hope so.

Abraham and Isaac

2007-07-29T17:52:00.001+10:00

When people today read the Old Testament, the focus is on the ethical implications of every story. This provokes difficulties in appreciating the Old Testament, as the acts of God and God’s chosen people so often conflicts with contemporary understanding of morality. The Israelites stoned homosexuals, disobedient children, adulterers, and so forth. Indeed, were one to reflect on the story of Abraham and Isaac, it would seem absurd: Abraham heard the voice of God, telling him to kill his own son, and he was going to do it. Although Abraham had heard God’s call before in his life, if someone were to kill today because Gold told him to, he’d be assumed insane. As Nick recently commented on this blog, just because Abraham was following God’s orders does not excuse the evil he was intending to commit. Abraham was called by Kierkegaard a ‘knight of faith’, but what moral or spiritual lesson could people today learn from Abraham, since God does not talk to people and killing an innocent son would be deemed wrong under any circumstances?

To better understand the story we must examine the context. God had repeatedly promised Abraham that his seed would father whole nations in the land of Canaan, and nothing meant more to Abraham than this promise. Sarah, his wife, was getting extremely old and had not yet produced a son. She was becoming barren, he was becoming impatient, and after God forgave Abraham for fathering a child with one of his concubine’s, Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac. For such an old lady to give birth to Isaac, the child promised by God, it was the miracle of Abraham’s life. Now that God’s promise was fulfilled, Abraham finally felt complete.

God desired to test Abraham’s commitment to God, however, and instructed him to slay Isaac as a sacrifice. The story told in Genesis 22 explicitly mentions how Abraham loves Isaac. All fathers love their children, but Isaac was not only Abraham’s child, he was the miracle child that fulfilled God’s promise. This test wasn’t so much about whether Abraham was willing to kill his son for God (Killing people out of instruction from God was quite common in those times). Rather, it was about whether Abraham would be willing to annul the fulfilled promise that he had waited many years for. Due to numerous reasons Isaac was the most important thing in Abraham’s life, and Abraham had waited most of his life for the promised child. When God asked Isaac back, it was not designed to test Abraham’s willingness to commit an evil to satisfy God, but rather whether he was willing to sacrifice the one thing that meant most to him, the child that God only just gave to him.

For Abraham it would have been quite absurd, God gave the child after many years, and shortly after he wants him back. Since God never used to overturn his own commands, I am sure Abraham was certain that Isaac was going to die, and God’s promise was going to remain unfulfilled to Abraham’s death. Nevertheless, he had an absurd hope, faith, that God would not do this. As Abraham climbed the mountain each step produced a greater conviction that God was not joking. The fact that Abraham had raised the knife, was about to cut the boy’s throat, before the angel stopped him is testament to how resigned Abraham was to the fact that he had to sacrifice everything for God, and yet held faith that the absurd and impossible would occur and Isaac will be saved.

The story of Abraham and Isaac is set in a primitive conception of right and wrong, and yet demonstrates in a most pure fashion a quality of the spirit that is timeless. The story intended to show not Abraham’s moral compromise for God; but rather existential sacrifice and self-inflicted loss. If it was about moral compromise, it would not be much of a test as God often instructed his subjects to commit what we would consider immoral acts. As with most Old Testament stories, to properly appreciate the lessons learned one must overlook the archaic conceptions of morality intertwined through it.

Soren Kierkegaard, in his classic work ‘fear and trembling’, takes this argument one step further and argues that Abraham did nothing immoral in agreeing to kill Isaac. At around 150 pages of beautifully written prose, it goes without saying that if anyone is interested in the story of Abraham and Isaac, it is well worth the read.

The Problem of Evil: An Introduction

2007-07-23T22:51:00.000+10:00

I have always been unsatisfied with Christian responses to the problem of evil. One of the absurdities of our religion is that we have an all-powerful God that loves and cares for each person, but will not stop or restrict acts of evil within the world. In a world filled with temptation, suffering, and evil, having a God that is both all powerful and benevolent seems contradictory.

The most common response to the problem of evil, the free will defence, is the most objectionable. A post that is on the website (see: http://www.existentialchristianity.net/problemofevil.html), covers most of the reasons why I believe it is inadequate.

Another common response, the soul making thesis, is marginally better. Essentially, pain and suffering is necessary in a world where every person can develop character, grow in strength and endurance, and perhaps become as loving and self-sacrificing as Jesus was. To a certain extent this is true, as pain and suffering does bring growth in character, and teaches us many life lessons. Also, moral strength can only really be proved and nurtured through the resistance of temptation. Nevertheless, I think most people can come up with a number of examples where instances of evil that has occurred resulted in no soul-making, just needless suffering (i.e. a large tidal wave destroying an island). Both this and the free will defence cannot adequately explain all varieties of unhindered evil.

No one really has a solution, and yet millions of Christians have demonstrated an ability to not let it interfere in their belief in God. The last common response to the problem of evil, that flows from giving up in trying to find a solution, is that since God’s logic, judgement, and knowledge far exceeds anything humanity is capable of, it is ok that we will never understand why the world has copious amounts of evil present. Therefore, we should have faith that God knows what he is doing, and that due to our limitation as humans, we will never be able to understand the reason why he cannot intervene in the world to at least ease some suffering.

While I sympathise with the sentiment behind a faith that goes beyond reason, and a belief in the limitation of human reason, it is not acceptable here. Using as an example the question of whether God exists, the limitations of reason are far more profound, and subjective experience tends to trump philosophical arguments either way anyhow. With the problem of evil, however, all subjective experience leads to the conclusion that evil is indeed a problem for a benevolent God. Life has a tendency to give everyone subjective feelings about how hopelessly absurd the world is, how needlessly violent, and how incapable of moral change societies are. Without subjective conviction or philosophical arguments to fully satisfy the problem of evil, ignoring the question out of God’s higher reason is akin to throwing your head in the sand.

As like everyone else, I do not have a new solution, but it is always a good thing to put this issue into the centre of Christian debate. Our existence within the world is often marked with loss, pain, suffering, and temptation. Reconciling pain’s existence with religious belief is one of the most important existential concerns.

The New Commandment

2007-07-16T12:01:00.000+10:00

Mark 3:
1 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.
2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.
3 And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.
4 And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.
5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.

Should Jesus have healed the man with the withered hand? In a law that was handed from God, to Moses, and then to the Jewish people, this was a prohibited activity for the Sabbath day. I’m sure Jesus disciples were confused; the man who proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, the son of God, was going against God’s law in a very public manner. Jesus not only healed the man on the Sabbath, he got angry at the Pharisees for even thinking of rebuking him for it.

Indeed, Jesus did similar things on a number of occasions (e.g. Matthew 12:1-13). His message was that individual action guided by compassion can supersede any holy law. Love and goodwill is far more important than heeding to religious tradition, and the laws of the land. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees was that they were doing what they saw as right, upholding the sacred Torah that Jehovah himself had given to his chosen people, but in the process committed a greater injustice. In this case it was not allowing the man with the withered hand to be healed, but more explicit examples can be found in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), where a priest passed the beaten man on the road because it would have been considered unclean to touch a dead man. And also, with the accused adulteress (John 8:1-11), the men were about to kill the woman for adultery (as the law required), before Jesus stopped them with his famous saying: “Let those who are without sin cast the first stone.” The woman was considered immoral by the law, and yet the act of stoning a person is a far more inhumane act.

All of this will probably sound like common sense to you, but while morality has arguably progressed through the centuries, hypocrisy has not. In the same vein of the Pharisees placing religious law above compassion; when are modern Christians hindered from pure love and compassion due to their religious beliefs? The Church has a terrible record of placing doctrinal purity over moral purity. The Medieval Catholic Church burnt heretics at the stake, led a crusade against the Muslims, and excommunicated anyone who did not yield to their authority. While that does not happen now, division between people of different religions or branches of religions (i.e. Protestant and Catholic) through an air of religious superiority is common. The more conservative churches have a questionable record of tolerance, with racism, sexism, and homophobia prevalent in a lot of church environments. The point is when you consider yourself more moral or religious than someone else (maybe because they are “living in sexual immorality”, or “have ignorant beliefs”), you cannot love your neighbour as yourself; at the most you can attempt to ‘save them from their unrighteousness’ out of pity.

I am reminded of Matthew 7:1-5, where Jesus rebuked the hypocrisy of moral superiority. Whatever religion someone is, whatever beliefs they hold, whatever sexual persuasion they may be, whatever personality flaws a person may have, and whatever section of society they belong to, you and I are no better. As with the case of Jesus and the adulteress, the only action worthy of real moral rebuke is that of hurting another person through anger, hate, or intolerance. We are all human, and should strive to better show our love and compassion to others (Jesus dubbed this the 'New Commandment'), and not busy ourselves with separating certain social leanings as good and evil, moral and immoral.

The Real Golden Rule

2007-04-20T21:24:00.000+10:00

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matt 7:12, Luke 6:31)

These words of Jesus have come to be known as “The Golden Rule”. What many people fail to realise, however, is that Jesus stated this maxim not as the culmination of his own teachings, but as the centre of the Law. Indeed, Leviticus 19:8 tells us to love your neighbour as yourself, and there are those that use this misconceived belief that this is a core teaching of Christ to argue that Christ’s core teachings are indistinguishable to past Rabbi’s. To ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ was recognised widely in the New Testament as the heart of the law (Matt 19:19, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, and James 2:8). Christ’s fulfilment of the heart of Old Testament law came in his ‘new commandment’:

“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you are to love one another.” (John 13:34, also John 15:12)

The difference is subtle yet significant, and is thus the real Golden Rule to any Christian. Instead of treating others based on our own perception of ideal behaviour, which is so often distorted through negative emotions, we are to treat others as how Christ treated us. Jesus is the example (Kierkegaard called Jesus ‘the prototype’ a few times), and throughout his life called upon people who were willing to follow his example and be imitators.

Because of this, it should not be surprising that throughout all of the Gospels and select epistles (1 John and James especially) Jesus commands his followers to act based on the example he and his father has given them. Jesus has commanded his followers to forgive as unconditionally as God forgives our own sins (Matt 6:14-15, Matt 18:32-33, Col 3:13, Eph 4:32, Matt 18:23-35), to love those who wrong us like how God loves sinners who have wronged him (Luke 6:32-36, Marr 5:43-48), to lay our lives down for others as Christ did for us (1 John 3:16), to serve others as Christ served his disciples (most beautifully described in John 13:1-17 as Christ washed the feet of his disciples with his own hair), and to suffer as Christ did for us (1 Thessalonians 1:6, 1 Peter 2:20-21, Luke 14:27-33). There are many more examples of either Jesus or an apostle imploring us to follow Christ’s example, but the most important point in these verses is how necessary it is for a follower of Christ to follow his example. John wrote in 1 John 2:6 –

“Here is the test by which we can make sure that we are in him: whoever claims to be dwelling in him, binds himself to live as Christ himself lived.”

It could not be any more explicit how the essence of Christianity is the imitation of Jesus Christ, what he taught (ethics, not theology), and how he treated others. As in, Christianity is tied to our existence within the world, making the following of Jesus Christ a primarily existential endeavour. So as we reflect on the real Golden Rule and other teachings of Christ, let us not hide behind 'theological comforts' that we'll all be going to heaven anyway whatever we do (an idea that was equally as dangerous nineteen hundred years ago; see Romans 6), but rather look to the life of Jesus and find in his example an inspiration to continually push ourselves to be kinder, more forgiving, indiscriminately loving, and a true imitator of Christ.

Confessions

2007-03-28T15:34:00.000+10:00

It has been quite awhile since i've uttered a long traditional prayer in the privacy of my room, or delved into the Bible eager to learn more about my God, or even been spiritually enriched from a church service. When I grew up I was taught that to be closer to God, I needed to pray regularly, read the Bible often, and attend church, otherwise there would be no growth. I soon realised that my prayers were twisted from my immature understanding of God, the more I read my bible the more I realised how wrong about it I had been, and that Church was doing less and less for my spiritual life as the weeks rolled by. I was right, but I have yet to find a viable alternative.

In my blog I have defined Christianity as existential, as in: imitating Jesus and his social ideals is where Christianity starts and where it stops. The scriptual evidence is overwhelming, but I have yet to fully recover the spirituality that I once had. That is the one thing that separates Existential Christianity from a standard 'do-gooder' philosophy, into following the Lord Jesus Christ.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I lack the strength. For example, I know very well the spiritually destructive capabilities of capitalism and the consumer society, and yet I still spend more time thinking about the latest consumer item than God or Jesus. The more choice and freedom there is in society, the more chance there is of corruption, and the weaker sides of a human being get dragged to the fore. This is what I have experienced, living in a society full of advertising, the internet, and the supremacy of the market.

When I write about the negative effects of our capitalistic worldview, it is not from a "looking down onto my readers because I know all" perspective I can assure you. If anything, I am begging myself to stop being sucked in, through the literature. It appalls me that the Church condemns homosexual rights, especially when you consider how they often endorse political parties that insist on cramming affluenza down our throats. What is more danger to a Christian? The existence of a homosexual man being treated just like everyone else, or the ever-enduring temptation to buy, consume, spend, and to revolve our life around those three principles. Perhaps it is a teenage phenomenon, or a 'me-only' phenomenon, but nevertheless my spirituality can not co-exist with such flagrant consumerism.

Matthew 6:
19 - Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 - But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 - For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Update #1

2007-03-08T09:09:00.000+11:00

Over the next couple of days I will be updating the website with some new content. First off is a 9 page article on 'Christianity is an Existential Communication', intended to expand and improve my old blog article bearing the same name. Originally it was going to be the first chapter of a book, but instead I decided to try and clean it up a bit and post it here. Perhaps a new blog post very soonas well.. So check it out:

http://www.existentialchristianity.net

Website and Uni

2007-03-01T19:26:00.000+11:00

It is the first week of a new university semester, and the units all look very time consuming so unfortunately I will not have much time for this blog. In slightly better news, the website has gone live:

www.existentialchristianity.net

As of yet not much "new" content for those who have already read everything in this blog, but eventually I will be posting a 20-something page writing on one of Christ's fundamental teachings that Christianity is an existential communication.

The Kingdom of God

2007-01-18T12:49:00.000+11:00

What does the “Kingdom of God” mean? I suspect all Christians would give a differing answer, for theories are plentiful. Some say that the kingdom of God was an entirely spiritual phenomenon. Verses such as Luke 17:21, with Jesus proclaiming that the kingdom of God is within you, indicates some kind of spiritual aspect to the kingdom. The spiritual phenomenon is almost always identified as salvation, and being born again. Another idea is that the kingdom of God is everything that belongs to God and will be answerable to him (such as people), and thus the kingdom is God (as the creator) looking over his created kingdom. Others take a more literal and concrete conception of the kingdom, and define it as the coming reign that God will over the earth (known as the “millennium”), following the tribulation that culminates in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

There is one last theory, which focuses more on the political and social circumstance of Christ’s sayings, and one that I believe is far more accurate and realistic. The Kingdom of God, for John the Baptist and Jesus Christ was imminent, social, but at the same time was concerned with a person’s inner being. Since John the Baptist’s message was that the son of God was coming, it makes most sense that when he spoke “the kingdom of God is at hand” he is telling his listeners that the son of God will usher in the kingdom of God with him. Speaking of the kingdom of God as something far in the future, or a portion of God’s creation is missing the point of the phrase. Jesus preached the kingdom of God, and it was revealed to Israel through the life of Jesus and later on the lives of his disciples.

This is by no means a thorough study of what the phrase exactly means, but one specific passage stood out to me as revealing Christ’s conception of the kingdom. It is Luke 22:24-29:

24 And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.
25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.
26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.
27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.
28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.
29 And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;

Here, the disciples are beginning to bickerover which will receive the highest honour in the new social order that Jesus was preaching. Jesus’ response was interesting, as he did not deny that he was seeking to bring about a new social order. Rather, the disciples were rebuked for misunderstanding the nature of the kingdom of God that Jesus was initiating. The kingdom of God is social, and it is visible, but it is not based on temporal power and authority (Jesus gave the example of the Gentiles and the rulers of this world lording over their subjects in their kingdoms.). Instead, it was based on servitude and altruism. Trying to overcome the disciples apparent lust for honour, prestige, and power, Jesus said that in his kingdom the greatest among them shall serve the others.

Jesus himself proved to be the ultimate example of this. The most striking example is when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples with his hair. Found in John 13:1-20, Jesus, the lord of his disciples, showed complete humility and humbleness by serving his followers in this way. Peter’s reaction again demonstrated how the disciples did not understand that Christ’s kingdom was not a typical one based on traditional authority, but on self-sacrifice. As followers of Christ, we are supposed to emanate the kingdom of God as a social entity, one based on love, forgiveness, and humility. Since over the centuries the ideals of Jesus have been separated from the ideals of “Christianity”, the challenge of achieving this is greater now than it ever has been.

Short hiatus

2006-12-11T15:40:00.000+11:00

I'm taking a short hiatus for a number of reasons. I'll return on the 16th of January with a new post or two, and also the new website. At the moment the website is technically finished, I just have to rewrite some of the old blog posts to make them more readable.

Have a good Christmas, and remember to visit again mid-January ;)

Jesus under Capitalism

2006-11-22T20:32:00.000+11:00

“For the love of money is the root of all evil” – Paul (1 Timothy 6:10)

A sobering warning, and one that is more relevant today than the day it was uttered. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus had quite a bit to say on the economic situation of the society surrounding him. Jesus implored the ‘middle class’ of Jews to see money as a means to an end, a way to earn your own subsistence and to provide food and shelter to their family. All excess of wealth or resources were encouraged to be given to the poor, and to help those who had few. Indeed, how an individual treated the least of their brethren was the only measure of judgment in Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46). The wealthy in society, the ones who horded their gold and an over abundance of luxurious and lavish goods, were condemned by Jesus. Very famously, Jesus had proclaimed that it would be easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24). Whenever he was approached by men of wealth, he told them to sell all of their possessions and follow him (Luke 18:22-23). The issue of wealth was very clear cut for Jesus, and anyone who had an attachment or trusted in their riches would have to sever that tie before he could follow Jesus.

The temptation of wealth has been prominent in all the ages of mankind, but the creation of free market capitalism has brought about increased money lust in every economic rung of society. At the very least, money has become the means of a new end, that of consumer materialism or prestige. At worst, money has become an end to itself, where people strive merely to expand their now online coffers. The goal of having more money for yourself is one that I dare say most all people have (I am not excluded), and even though real incomes in Australia has tripled since the 1950s, 62% of us believe that we are not able to afford everything that we really need (the logic of that escapes me, since Australia is not a third world country). This radical economic structure that has been instilled in the western subconscious is not a choice, but forces its values on all. Due to the increasing disparity of wealth in all the world today (from America to Uganda), those who are not born into extremely fortunate conditions will have to work strenuously hard in order to cope with mortgage repayments and consumerism and exponentially rising living costs.

Nietzsche is right; God is dead, and we have killed him. The God of Abraham and Isaac has been replaced with a new God, known as the market god: “Although it is a human creation, it acts on us daily- rising or falling, plunging or recovering. It has emotions- jittery, nervous, capricious, buoyant, or confident. It requires sacrifices and promises rewards but, demanding propitiation, is nevertheless beyond complete human control or prediction. This jealous God demands single-minded loyalty and resents rival deities… The Market God becomes the measure of everything.” (Taken from Marion Maddox)

All is not lost, however, for some very bright people have attempted to transplant Jesus to work under this market god, so that the name of Christianity can be preserved. Jesus in today’s 'market Christianity' can serve as a furtherance of our capitalistic goals, or a safety net from the insecurity of the market God. Truly, with the prosperity gospel, which in its number of different degrees of severity is extremely popular, sees people praising the Lord with the belief that doing these ‘Christian’ things will help them become prosperous. The servant of God will become prosperous and achieve more wealth, because those who love God are blessed by God. The reasoning is simple and deceitfully reasonable, but could not be further from the truth. Jesus promised his followers discomfort, no place to rest their head, and especially not wealth. The prosperity that was spoken of by God was not an economic one, that expanded our material goods and external pleasures. Rather, it was an inward prosperity, that gives a happiness and joy that only life eternal could provide to a soul.

Alternatively, Jesus can be used as a counterweight to the extremes of the market. Because the market god can be seen as too insecure and dynamic; and it tears away safety nets so the market god can curse you by sabotaging family and community life. Also taken from Maddox, the market god “has to make Olympian room for another deity, one who brings ‘Us’ a renewed sense of the security the Market God took away. The repressive God of racism, authoritarian ‘family values’ and exclusion tries to make ‘Us’ feel more secure by turning our anxieties upon ‘them.’” The combination of the market god with Jesus in our existence, characterised by an incredibly materialistic lifestyle together with a firm belief in the doctrines of the church, is the philosophy underpinning a lot of the conservative churches that exist today. There is a reason that the religious right is in bed with the republicans, and it is not because of abortion and homosexuality. The freedom of the market releases the market god from the restraints of government regulation (and even more frightening international regulation), and makes a perfect mate with the market Jesus that calms the anxieties of the market god’s playthings.

Severing ourselves from this wealth fixated society is not possible, and even if it were it’d be foolish. The message that Jesus has for Christians is just this, “lay not up for yourselves treasures on this earth.. for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21) A necessary requirement to following Christ is to rid ourselves from affluenza, and to appropriately identify when our actions and attitudes are serving the market god, and not Jesus.

Philosophy of despair.. and hope

2006-10-27T19:13:00.000+10:00

Uni is getting busy, here is an article from 'Spirtual life' on existentialism and Christian existentialism. I find it a very insightful and readable article:

Philosophy of Despair.. and hope.

Future website..

2006-10-08T19:35:00.000+10:00

I acquired a web server today, and so sometime in the near future I am planning to transform Existential Christianity into a flash web site. The site will feature all the articles i've written here, except rewritten to eliminate the rushed writing style I have used for the majority of this blog. There will be other things also, but most excitingly, over my uni break I will be putting a mini e-book (roughly 30 pages or so) onto the site, and perhaps the short story if i ever get around to finishing it.

I am also thinking about adding a "debates" section, where I will invite anyone and everyone who disagrees with something I say to a debate, which will be conducted via email. And posted on the site once it is finished for everyone's enjoyment. Any other ideas for stuff I could put in will be appreciated..

www.existentialchristianity.com appears to be taken, so I have a choice of going with www.existentialchristianity.net or do a .com that is different. Suggestions for what the URL could be will also be appreciated.

The Second Coming

2006-09-30T17:46:00.000+10:00

Most Christians in one way or another believe that Jesus will return in a fashion that is dependent on what eschatological beliefs the Christian holds. I don’t really have any beliefs about when and how Jesus will come again, but I do have some sympathy for the position of ‘partial preterism’. Nevertheless, the most popular and contemporary view holds that all Christians will be raptured away by Jesus, the earth will experience seven years of great tribulation which will kill millions or billions of people (I forget the exact number), and then Jesus will return with all of the saintly Christians riding in white robes as he slaughters the people who attack Israel.

I have a lot of trouble dealing with the idea that Christians are looking forward to when Jesus will take them up to heaven, and then start killing masses of people with meteors, oceans of blood, and locusts with human heads that originally inhabited the deepest depths of hell. The problem of evil is one thing, but believing in a benevolent and loving God who purposefully slaughters millions of people is incomprehensible. And the fact that Christians are looking forward to the rapture, the time when they enjoy streets of gold while the rest of the world suffers, is quite terrifying. Are we not the followers of Christ, who are supposed to be self-sacrificing in our love and service to others? Jesus instructed that the righteous course of action was always the one that lowered ourselves and raised others, and today’s grand theories of eschatology showcase the complete opposite of this philosophy of altruism.

It was Paul who said that he would wish himself to be accursed if it meant his brethren could know God, and it was Jesus who said that there is no greater love found than in a man who gives his life for a friend. Both of these attitudes are irreconcilable with what is often brandied about today in “Christian” circles. On an existential level, the talk of a rapture, tribulation, and second coming do nothing but give Christians a feeling of vast superiority, isolationism and separation from fellow human beings, selfishness, egoistic roots to their Christianity, apathy, and an ignorant sense of security.

Furthermore, the belief in this fundamentalist interpretation of the book of revelations has significant political repercussions. Many of the Religious Right in America has given Israel unflinching support solely because the Jews have to resettle their home land for prophecy to be fulfilled. More significantly, the integration of the state of Israel into prophecy has demonized the Arabs in the region into evil and bloodthirsty soldiers who are seeking to kill God’s people. Moral depravity lies on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, with the slaughter of civilians being perpetuated by both Israeli missiles, and Palestinian suicide bombers. There is also the fact that Israel resettled by taking land from Palestine, and is now conducting illegal land grabs with those extremist settlers continually pushing the border of Israel into the West Bank. Siding with Israel because they are on “God’s side” is simply absurd. This “Second Coming” has done much to negatively shape US policy towards the Middle East, and also the opinion of masses of Christians regarding the conflict.

Fundamentalist eschatology has become one of my pet peeves; apologies if this post was too ranty in style and substance.

Guest Post: Is God for Everyone?

2006-08-25T21:19:00.000+10:00

by Andreas

Since Tim is being studious, covered in economics; a guest post seemed like a good idea.
And since I (and other readers) know what Tim will write about next, I think it would be a good idea for me to modestly act like a focused fuel towards an issue not mentioned much in previous posts, but I’m sure will be important for future ones.
My question is simple and unoriginal: Is God for everyone?

Not being a professional psychologist, my ability to answer the question relies on recreational reading and personal experience. Psychology seems to show that some people are more likely to form a relation to something like the Judeo-Christian God, depending on their life experience, upbringing, culture etc. This is repeatedly verified by our everyday experience, perhaps most clearly when we notice the approach to religion by our peers who are without a religious upbringing.

This tendency shouldn’t come as a surprise to us. We have no problem imagining that people who are seeking a meaningful worldview will be likely to search for the traditional mono-theistic God, depending on the geographical location of their native town. Of course a lot could be said about whether Christianity could hold as an existential lifestyle for, let’s say, the whole population of India. Some Hindu converts show that it is possible, but will it for the majority of people be a better way to conquer anxiety and achieve meaning than their native religion, which so deeply rooted in their culture and therefore the unconscious parts of their minds? This should also bring up the question of whether Christianity could have the status of being the best religion for everyone and deserving it based solely on pragmatism (its ability to conquer anxiety and achieve meaning). But perhaps an even more important for those in the west, is if Christianity is to be preferred above non Christian systems of living during a time when people lack the ability to take religion with the seriousness it deserves (this possible cry for new religious symbols in Christianity is notoriously used in the works of theologian John Shelby Spong).

Just how theists might feel threatened by the existence of non-believers, I find it quite obvious that the opposite also holds. Therefore the very existence of Christianity could actually produce more anxiety and a deeper feeling of meaninglessness in people. This might be positive in the light of Gods plan trying to draw people closer to him by making people dependent on him, but what if Christianity is false?

My entry has a lot of loose ends and they are not very detailed. Now let’s just hope that Tim could help us sort some of them out.

Meaninglessness: Understanding the problem

2006-07-08T16:03:00.000+10:00

All people at some stage during their life confront meaninglessness, and despair that their life thus far has been a meaningless one. This is far from a general rule, however, as the confrontation with meaninglessness differs in substance depending on the person. Some confront it young, and spend the rest of their lives grappling with the tremendous courage needed to live with meaning and the tremendous anxiety that is provoked by the ease of which meaning can be lost. Some confront it in middle age and (using no spiritual terminology) experience a “mid-life crises.” Some have revelations on their death bed that their entire life has been an exercise of flagrant trivialities and gains that were not fulfilling and will not carry over in the afterlife to come. And some, being both the most cursed and the most blessed at the same time, go through life with such spiritlessness that they never confront meaninglessness and thus never attain meaning.

Paul Tillich in his magnificent work “The courage to be” explains how this confrontation with meaninglessness is rooted from an anxiety the human soul has with non-being (a kind of universal despair akin to what Kierkegaard formulated). This anxiety towards non-being is expounded in several ways — the anxiety towards fate and death, guilt and condemnation, and a meaningless existence — and is found evident in every person that is aware of themselves as a spiritual being.

Tillich argues that at different stages of human history one of these three anxieties is featured prominently. In the classical age philosophers, poets, actors, and common folk were preoccupied with the anxiety towards fate and death, the two best examples being Greek society and the Old Testament Jews. Philosophies such as Epicureanism, stoicism, and indeed Judaism all possessed an answer and cure towards this anxiety. In the Middle Ages, the anxiety of guilt and condemnation came to the fore as sin and repentance was in the minds of both peasants and kings alike. Religious institutions were assembled to combat this anxiety, offer repentance on a mass level, and guide the countless people who wanted redemption from their sins. In the modern age, the death of God has brought about the anxiety of meaninglessness. With a new earthly mind-set the anxiety of fate and death became less of a problem, and the anxiety of guilt and condemnation was nullified since no person considered themselves subject to a higher spiritual authority. Once religion and a higher purpose to life were abolished, the question was finally asked “from whence does my life find meaning?” At every stage of human history man was confronted with something that threatened to destroy his soul. Following a confrontation a person can do one of four things: he can ignore it, try and solve it himself, look towards secular philosophy, look towards religion, or look towards Jesus.

I wish to address the various proposed solutions to anxiety in the following posts, for I don’t see a more significant topic than something that can shake any thoughtful person to the core. Religious people cannot share their faith by formulating grand universal theologies, and then trying to solve a person’s existential problems and anxieties with these supposed rational proofs. Religion, properly understood, is also the understanding and explication of mankind’s deepest fears, anxieties, needs, sins, and desires. Any religion solution to all these existential states must be arrived at with this in mind, and only then will the words of Jesus be illuminated for what they really are, something that we really need. Not just metaphysically need, but existentially need.

Meaninglessness: Modern society and the Confrontation with Meaninglessness

2006-07-05T23:16:00.000+10:00

Readers beware: This post is at best a semi-educated spiel on the problems with today’s society, and at worst the incessant ranting of a writer already past his prime. This post is purely to prepare for my next two posts.

The last two centuries have caused Western society to radically change under the guise of technology, capitalism, modernism, and globalization. The human lifestyle also changed just as vociferously as the composition of the political state. The flag bearer for this social development, capitalism, has greatly affected the way a person prioritizes and directs his interests. I wish to examine the various changes that have been made and argue that the modernization of society has provoked the crises of ‘meaning’ that is predominant in every aspect of modern existence.

Work and its potential alienating affect is the most significant shift. Workers are being demanded an exponential amount of productivity as the cost of living continues to rise and rise. In Australia industrial relation’s reform will usher in unpaid overtime, virtually zero workers rights, pressure to cave into all employer demands, and possibly wage reduction. Capitalism encourages people to work long and hard for currency, but at the same time promotes a very unbalanced money distribution that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. All economic successes of capitalism aside, the subject’s relation to his life and his God will most definitely be altered.

The business world is always characterised as ruthless and unforgiving, as every individual seeks to maximize his own interests and resources while subjugating the interests and resources of his peers. Thinking selfishly is essential for advancement, and the nice guys always finish last. This is important because money makes this world go round, it is often the single measurement for success in this world, and most people subconsciously believe that the more they have of it the happier and more care-free they will become. This has provoked the personality type of the “workaholic”, those that are so determined to be successful in this area of life that they are willing to give all that it takes, including most of their time.

Other factors that contribute to the lifestyle shift are the overpopulation and centralization of cities. I know this varies greatly on the location of where you live, but peak-hour traffic in Sydney is abysmal. Hours of the day are wasted away in running through the bottleneck of residential and industrial transport connectivity. The condition of the public transport is shoddy and expensive at best, and very high petrol prices make traveling an unattractive option. The need to go places has risen as the conditions of transportation have worsened.

Another agent that has altered the nature of existence is technology. The advancements have been amazing, and have indeed in many ways made life more comfortable and easy to endure. The downside of an easy and comfortable life through technology, however, is an increasingly careless and thoughtless life through technology. The television is essentially gaining entertainment from watching other people live out their lives as actors, and although that is entertaining a life fixated on television has an obvious problem. The viewer is pretty much void of all mental content during a show, and the amount an average life is involved with digital medium can be quite startling.

More and more life in the “rat race” is spent in routine and chores. The average day of a working man goes something like this: Waking up at an early hour, going through the morning routine of getting ready for work, take the car to work in terrible traffic, work for most of the day, come home in even worse traffic, somehow make dinner, desperately try to unwind after an exhausting day at the office with TV or whatever else, and then sleep again. After that the cycle repeats, until the weekend is reached. In theory the weekend is spent for recreation, but a lot of it is consumed with running errands, fixing the house or some device, and also church for religious people.

When the vast majority of a life is spent in inane chores and virtual entertainment, and the sole advantage to performing these chores is to gain the resources to allow you to keep living and keep performing chores, this is when a human soul encounters a confrontation with meaninglessness. All earthly gains are fleeting and do not last, and most of all do not make life something that is meaningful. As Jesus remarked, what good is it to gain the whole world, if you lose your own soul? As most of our lives are spent securing our continued existence, the remaining free time and free thought determines whether our lives are one with meaning and purpose or restricted to social function. There is little wonder that the modern world has experienced a crisis of meaning, since all things that are highly prized in society are ephemeral and are not fulfilling. It was not just the ‘death of God’ that plunged mankind into potential nothingness; it was also the rapid modernization of a developing world that threatened to strip man of what makes life meaningful.

Next post is on the inadequate secular responses to meaninglessness, and the post after that on Jesus Christ’s response to the problems of this age.

Book Update #2

2006-06-21T22:05:00.000+10:00

Mid-year break is underway and accordingly I have started a draft of the book. I have around 15 pages (most of Chapter 3) completed at time of writing. The book will be around 130-140 pages all up, but most likely longer unless I make extra effort to be succint. The basic content outline of the book looks something like this, it is likely to change many many times before the books completion:

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Existentialism, Kierkegaard, and Jesus

Chapter 2 - The inadequacy of reason and the nature of religious truth
- The predominance of indifferent truth in religion and society
- The limits of reason
- Subjectivity and inwardness
- Religious truth is subjectivity

Chapter 3 - The Existential Essence of Christianity
- Christianity as an existential communication
- The existential character of Jesus Christ
- Christianity is expressed to others existentially
- Christianity is expressed to God existentially

Chapter 4 - The Spiritual sickness of sin
- The purpose of Christianity is to heal a sickness
- The self and its despair
- Sin is created and heightened when before God
- Sin's relation to morality

Chapter 5 - The Cure of the Sickness
- Secular responses to despair: Hedonism, Materialism, and philosophy
- An existentialist reponse to the modern church's idea of "salvation"
- Forgiveness of sin and the need to affirm the self existentially
- Jesus' response to despair: "Venture a decisive act, and then we can begin"

Chapter 6 - Existential Discipleship
- Following Christ and venturing the desicive act
- Recourse from despair in Jesus
- The existential foundations of Christianity: Love, forgiveness, and tolerance

Chapter 7 - Church History: fleeing from the existential?
- The Existential in Paul and the Disciples
- Neo-Platonism's effect on Christianity
- The Existential in the Roman Catholic Church
- The Existential in Martin Luther and the Protestant Movement
- The Existential in the modern Church

Chapter 8 - The Afterlife in an Existential Christianity
- How the Afterlife has bred egoism in the church
- Physical ressurection over dualism
- The absent hell
- Personal responsibility and life eternal

Chapter 9 - Epilogue and Misc topics
- Against Christian Scholarship, Standard, and objectivity
- Does Christianity transcend our beliefs?
- Why the church is stagnant and how to evangelize an Existential Christianity
- Emotional Suffering in Christianity

If anyone has any suggestions on topics to add, or wondering where I am going with a certain "sub-chapter", feel free to comment.

Faith Vs. Works: A pseudo-historical perspective

2006-06-17T22:12:00.000+10:00

The Roman Catholic Church at the time of Martin Luther had two merits. Firstly, it attributed Christianity to existence, the life and actions of a person. Christianity was conceived of in an existential way, and was essentially tied to the everyday life of a person. Its second merit was the importance laid on solitude, as the monk was daily involved in techniques that relied on inwardness and peacefulness to commune with God. These two merits are very significant in attaining and maintaining an authentic religion of Christianity.

There were also, however, two significant errors that provoked Martin Luther and the protestant movement in rejecting the Catholic Church of that time. First of all, although it related Christianity to existence, it attributed the wrong kinds of action to piety. Holiness was defined by actions such as fasting, entering the monastery, performing traditions and rites, and not the existential directives of Jesus. It was in this way that Christianity had in a sense reverted back to the religion of the Pharisees.

The second error was the Roman Catholics concept of “meritousness”, meaning if you perform good works you can gain favour from God. Meritousness gradually expanded as good works not only affected the individuals relationship to God but others who were associated with him, as it was a common practice in those times for Catholics to give money to the Church in order to help their dead family members or relatives who would supposedly benefit from this monetary donation. This error climaxed when the Church virtually operated as a business, peasants would come and pay them and perform other frivolous activities, and in return the Church would bless them and give away salvation to the highest bidder.

It was at this point that Martin Luther appeared, and he concluded that the age was in dreaded spiritlessness. Luther argued that salvation that was earned by works resulted in either despair or presumptousness. If a person could not live up to the high and strict standards that the church had set for him, the individual would consider himself unrighteous and his heart would be filled with despair and depression. On the other hand, if a person thought he upheld these strict standards he would become proud and judgmental (just like the Pharisees). Accordingly, Luther proposed that man be saved by “faith alone”, which taken alone is a very dangerous concept.

Because of the severity of the situation he saw around him, Luther saw it fit to completely ignore the words of St. James (who said that faith without works is dead). In Luther’s own life good works was abundant, but he had failed to articulate this aspect of his own Christianity in his writings. In this sense it was an overreaction to what he perceived as a dire situation, and it led his followers to misinterpret and exaggerate this statement throughout the following generations. Given enough time, Luther’s words of “faith alone” became a doctrine, and strict Protestantism is the present day result. People who said Salvation is entirely works wanted merit for their actions, and people who said it was entirely faith wanted to be freed from works. As I argued in my last Faith vs. Works post, neither is correct, and both distort Christianity into something it is not.

(I give credit where credit is due, and a good deal of the ideas in this post was based from a passage in Kierkegaard’s work “Judge for Yourself!”… Also, I mean no offence to Catholics or Lutherans. People are not defined by their religion; since it is the people that define the religion, and I understand what is true of Catholicism in those days is not necessarily true of today.)

The problem of Evil and Plantinga's free will defense

2006-06-05T18:55:00.000+10:00

University exams begin tomorrow and will continue until June 14. In the mean time, here is something that you may find interesting. It is a research essay that I wrote for the philosophy of religion class that I undertook last semester. It is related to Alvin Plantinga's free will defense of the problem of evil. I believe it is important because the problem of evil is perhaps the biggest hole in a logically coherent Christian philosophy, and Plantinga's free will defense is the most popular response to it. I argue that it is not adequate, and does not successfully solve the problem.

Enjoy.. Please do not reproduce its content anywhere.

http://users.tpg.com.au/ajnadsl/PHIL246_Research_Essay.doc

Faith vs. Works: A Meaningless Argument

2006-05-21T15:15:00.000+10:00

Undoubtedly the most influential debate in the course of Christian history is “faith vs. works”. It’s most popular effect was the cause for the reformation, as Luther’s opinion on the matter differed from the Roman Catholic Church. The argument has been around for almost two thousand years, however, since both Paul and James thought it important to write explicitly on it.

The argument, very basically, is about how a human being becomes justified and saved from his sins in order to go to heaven when he dies. One answer is that we work for our salvation through good deeds, observing sacred rites and traditions, and being obedient to the commandments of the church. The opposing answer (that was started by Luther) is that we attain salvation through faith in God, so long as we believe in what Jesus did and are repentant of our sins, we will be saved. I am going to argue that both positions are fundamentally wrong, and that the debate as a whole is a meaningless one.

The first reason the argument is meaningless is that the question itself is inappropriate. The debate is focused around how we can get to heaven, and as I argued in my post Afterlife and Egoism it is immoral for the afterlife to dominate our theology. Since our afterlife is supposed to reflect our life in this world, a Christian should focus on this life and let that determine our destined afterlife, instead of focusing on the afterlife and letting that determine how we act in the present. A follower of Christ that seeks the truth does not ask “How do I get to heaven?”, but asks questions like “How do I become more Christ-like?”, “What does Jesus want in my life?”, and “How can I live righteously?”

The second reason the “faith vs. works” argument is meaningless is because it is impossible to have one without the other. It is essentially impossible to have faith without works. James 2:17 states that “faith, if it hath not works, is dead.” It is not just that having faith without works won’t get you to heaven, but that a faith without works is dead, the faith becomes meaningless. The man who asserts he has faith but does not follow all of Christ’s commandments is a liar because there is no such thing as a true faith that has not works (1 John 2:4).

Also, it is impossible to have works without faith. This is a more radical claim than the last, but I believe it is just as psychologically valid. All good works can be traced back to faith in some overarching truth. Whether it be faith in Jesus (Christianity), faith in Allah (Islam), faith in eastern religious concepts such as karma and Ki (Buddhist etc.), faith in the value of morality (all religions and secular philosophy), and faith that the good work will help a loved one (all religions and secular philosophy). Furthermore, all Christians who advocate a works-based salvation have some sort of conception and belief in God. There is no such thing as works without faith, just as there is no such thing as a faith that is without works.

The third reason the argument is meaningless is that it implies a misconstrued meaning of the words “faith” and “belief”. Reason two reveals the necessary marriage between faith and works, and subsequently our conception of faith and belief should reflect that. My point here is that the word “faith” as it is understood today is different to how Jesus used the word. The faith vs. works argument arose from a misinterpreted understanding of what faith and belief means.

When Jesus said “believe on me to be saved”, he was not simply saying if you intellectually agree with my divinity you are heaven-bound. Look at the disciples, believing in the divinity of Jesus necessarily meant a life lived in existential discipleship with Christ. Belief back then was not intellectual but existential, if you truly believe in something your life will reflect that truth in every instant. Accordingly, if someone truly believes that Jesus Christ was the son of God it is shown through his existence. It is the same with faith. Paul Tillich said this concerning faith: "Faith is not a theoretical affirmation of something uncertain, it is the existential acceptance of something transcending experience. Faith is not an opinion but a state."

The faith vs. works debate is meaningless because the two words mean the same thing: a Christ-like existence. It is not that we get to heaven by having both of these things, but that the whole debate overlooks a more fundamental relationship with God that is shown through the interaction Jesus had with his disciples. When Jesus called men to believe and have faith in him, the men knew the faith in Jesus was expressed and developed existentially; it had naught to do with intellectual belief. James appropriately said “shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” (James 2:18).

The existential nullification of the faith vs. works argument leads me to the increasingly clear truth that Christianity is an existential communication.

Not for the kids?.. Looking for a simple Christianity

2006-04-30T09:45:00.000+10:00

Luke 18:
15And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.
16But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
17Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

Defining the word “Christianity” can be quite complicated, and exploring everything that constitutes “Christianity” can be a harrowing ordeal for those not appropriately educated. Indeed, Christianity has over the centuries evolved from a community of people who followed Jesus into a major religion that has tens of thousands of denominations and sub-denominations. All these denominations were formed from an individual’s subjective experience of God and interpretation of the Bible, and the differences among them are often very obscure theological/philosophical questions that don’t affect my life much whichever way.

Whatever happened to Christ’s idea of approaching the kingdom of God “as a little child”? The conclusion that I drew from the above verses is that Christianity is fundamentally simple. The biggest question an inquiry into the meaning of Christianity can answer is whether Christianity is simple by nature or complicated by design. I doubt there would be many who’d argue that Christianity is supposed to be complicated, but why doesn’t modern Christianity realize this simplicity?

When I say simple, I do not mean what is going on in Sunday schools. Most commonly what Sunday school involves is teaching the children the important (and not so important) doctrines that the church’s denomination subscribes to. That is not a simple Christianity, but rather Christianity simplified. Intellectual doctrines that were created with adult minds being simplified to the point that a little child could somewhat grasp it. Being able to lower Christianity to a child’s level does not make Christianity simple at all, and the question of what “simple Christianity” means remains a mystery.

The nature of a simple Christianity can be discovered with the next conclusion (one that is more rash and controversial than the last) I will draw:

Since Christianity is simple, it is existential.

This statement claims that Christianity is simple due to it being existential by nature. Christianity is not found in reason, the intellectual, the doctrinal, or the systematic. Christianity is essentially existential (for previous sketches of what an existential Christianity means, see my article archive), and one virtue of an existential Christianity is that it is simple (simple in the sense that its essence is entirely independent of intellectual complication).

This does not mean a Christianity that is anti-intellectual or definitively irrational, however, since it does not necessarily follow that being independent of reason means being in conflict with reason. What I am trying to get at here is that the essence of a simple Christianity lies in our existence within the world, not our intellectual contemplation within the mind.

Existential Christianity is not just about privileging the practical over the theoretical though. Existentialism is not about ignoring the ultimate intellectual questions (such as “what is truth?”, “what is real?”, “what is the meaning of life?”), but rather finding the answers to these questions within our lived experience and not reason. Philosophers (such as the existentialists) come to this conclusion through their philosophy, poets through their artistic musings, workers through their work, and lovers through their love.

In conclusion, Christianity is simple and Existential. Those two terms are interconnected, but not entirely synonymous. Modern Christianity is not essentially existential, and thereby it is not a simple Christianity. It is caught up in the rigours of the doctrinal, to the point where it is now claimed that Christianity is these doctrines, and are constituted by them. Jesus wants followers to come to the kingdom of God as a little child, and by that he is pointing out the virtue of existential innocence that little children possess.

Incredibly random and disjointed thoughts on moral awareness and responsibility

2006-04-02T14:43:00.000+10:00

One thing I really dislike is when a preacher walks up to the pulpit, assembles his notes and Bible in a forlorn fashion, and says something like: “I’m here to deliver a warning.” From my experience attending Independent Baptist churches my whole life, more often than not the preacher really means to say: “I’m here to condemn all of you, exalt myself, and use any excuse to raise my voice as I speak.” Because people (like me) do not like to hear that they are lacking in certain areas and need to better themselves. Whatever proceeds from that preachers mouth will be met with a disconcerting sigh (whether justified or not), since the thing that disturbs a comfortable and careless existence most is a feeling that we are in some way inadequate to qualify as a good person.

The maxim that everybody would rather be indifferent to self-improvement and cold to the thought of moral inadequacy in themselves is shown in many aspects of personal life and the overarching cultural society. I will attempt to outline a few now:

In every country there is a set of black and white moral structures, indicating to the citizens of the country what is right and what is wrong (not just in the law, but commonly accepted cultural practices etc.). When enough individual’s morality conflicts with the states, a reactionary social movement will be formed. This social movement is made up of people who are doing what is considered immoral/wrong/strange by the state and society, and in an effort to change both public perceptions and institutional law they will lobby the government. There are plenty of contemporary examples of such movements, such as the Gay Rights movement, radical feminism, gun rights, pro-abortion, and religious extremism. Now, in all of these movements, you have people who would prefer to make what they believe in as accepted (such as that homosexuals deserve equal rights), as opposed to conforming their own belief and practice to external authorities.

It should be noted that I am not affirming either moral relativism or objectivity, or saying that any of these movements are right or wrong. The point is that inherent in the human condition is an averseness towards moral responsibility, accountability, and compromise.

In terms of practical living, this is seen in the practice of blame-shifting. Everybody does this a lot, whether people are conscious of it or not. Politicians in Australia blame the public service when they are accused of making an incompetent decision, businessman blame other factors for poor performance, when we wrong somebody making excuses will be our natural reaction, and in law criminal acts are exponentially being explained in terms of antecedent psychological factors as opposed to the depravity of their moral decisions. People aren’t willing to take responsibility in affirming their actions and following them through, rather we attempt to smother unrighteousness and show a stark disinclination towards finding fault in our self.

Perhaps an even greater example for Protestant Christians is the contemporary concept of “salvation” and “eternal security”, supposedly the centerpieces of our Christian faith. In them we find almost zero moral accountability once an individual becomes “born again” and is initiated into the fold. Since forgiveness is abundant in this saved realm of living, and the church does little to stop our apathy from exploiting forgiveness, Christians often have little motivation towards ever listening to the warnings that Jesus gave and the directives he expected his followers to keep. A Christian living under this theology could legitimately say: "Well I don’t live up to Christ’s standard, but I am most likely better than the unbeliever down the street that is going to hell. And since I am saved; when I continually fall short I can ask God for forgiveness and it'll be fine."

Christ’s words are turned from being a mirror and showing our humane weaknesses (and thereby improving on them), to becoming an excuse, and thereby the Christian successfully avoids all moral responsibility, accountability, and self-improvement.

Now that I have (hopefully) convincingly demonstrated the ways in which indifference and fear trumps a desire for moral righteousness, I will try and remind the church on something quite important. Christianity cures a sickness (the sickness of sin, which I attempted to describe in a few of my past posts), and if we did not have this sickness Christianity (and religion as a whole) would become irrelevant. If my self had no spiritual sickness, I would not need Jesus, and I would not need God. As erroneous as the doctrine of “depravity” is, it has a small merit in that it gives people an awareness of their unrighteousness.

The danger in Liberal Christianity is that it can so easily become one where the sickness is disregarded as okay (in the guise of toleration and non-discrimination), and thereby the cure becomes played down. Liberal Christianity still needs to keep a solid understanding of sin and how we need to strive for Christ-like character. All Christians in general need to take moral responsibility and accountability, and needs to be aware of themself as a moral agent. Without this, there will be no growth as a person, and Christ’s impact in our lives will be minimal.

Quick Update

2006-03-14T09:13:00.000+11:00

It has been quite awhile since I last updated so I thought i'd let you all know what has been going on. My second year at university has begun so my motivation to read and write outside of what I am studying has been sapped almost completely, but I will work to get new posts up on occasion and also make some progress in my other writing projects.

A few topics I plan to write about in the near future:
- The role of the church in a seeker's life.
- Christ's death and ressurection, was it really the main event?
- How the modern church neglects Jesus and gets away with it.
- The disciples and what we can learn from them as modern followers of Christ.
- The absurd notion that Christians surrendur their autonomy and freedom to God; why this never actually happens and why it is outrageous to a Christian Existentialist.

Also, the book will take quite a bit longer than originally anticipated but I was working on it during the holidays. Expect an outline of the book's content soon. I am 1700 words into the short story I am writing, I will finish the draft then work on a final copy then post it here (or if it's really good consider publication). Finally, just a reminder that if any reader of this blog would like to contribute an article to this site I will put it down as a "guest post" and give you full credit for it.

Cheers...

Christianity is not important, but Christ is.

2006-01-30T14:00:00.000+11:00

The Christian movement today has evolved from centuries of traditions, rites, creeds, and the occasional reformation or revival. Throughout each small or large change the Christian name takes on throughout history, only one aspect of it remains constant: “Exercising Christianity, in the formal institutional sense, is not important.” Well it is not important according to Jesus anyway.

Consider what constitutes the Christian religion. We have church, which is the foundation of any Christian life. Church includes singing and other kinds of worship, public prayer, the last supper, preaching, the offering of money to the church, and fellowship. Outside of that two hour Sunday ritual the Christian is let loose on the world, the Church requires nothing from him but only to encourage nice pious behaviour and to remain safe (so that he can attend church the following Sunday and give to the holy coffers).

All of this is nice, and if approached the right way can be useful for a spiritual person (especially prayer). However, if you look at what Christ taught throughout his life you see that his conception of the “fundamentals of Christianity” is the polar opposite. He told people that if they wanted to pray they should do it in private and not let anybody know about it, he never commanded anybody to attend church each week or to give money to some religious institutional body, and he certainly never asked for worship. In fact, in Luke 11:27-28 you see Jesus directing worship away from himself to people who have heard his word and have kept it.

I am not saying that any of this worship is wrong, just that according to Jesus it is all frivolous trivialities. It is nice to do but does not make you a good Christian (or even a good person) by performing it. What does make you a good Christian is what Christ essentially preached to the multitudes: love, tolerance, forgiveness, and non-violence. That is what marks a follower of Christ, not attending church or anything else. Jesus told his disciples that people shall know that they follow him by their love for one another; this is what is actually important. Love is what actually matters for the Christian, not any kind of religious hierarchy imposed upon them by supposedly “holier” men.

Book update #1

2006-01-13T18:31:00.000+11:00

It is heartening to hear that some people are enthusiastic about this book idea, thanks for all the comments and emails. Progress on the book has so far gone swimmingly, I am working on the outline and what I will essentially write about in point form. Here is the timeline I have given myself, I have given a few friends the task of keeping me accountable to this:

2005-2006 End of year break:

- Book outline done
- Rough draft started

2006 Mid year break:

- Rough drafting

2006-2007 End of year break:

- Rough draft finished
- Begin final draft

2007 Mid year break:

- Final draft finished

2007 between mid year and end of year break:

- Submission to both professional and amateur proofreaders

2007-2008 End of year break:

- Produce a final copy, submit to publishers
- If publishers don't bite consider independent publishing and sale through the internet.

Stay tuned for my posting of the book outline, and other non-book related posts. I will continue to post stuff, although I am kidding myself if I say that I can update reguarly, the book is second priority at the moment (blog is 4th).

A book?... Perhaps

2006-01-04T15:22:00.000+11:00

I have been meaning to do this a long time, but very recently I have decided to go through with it and start work on a book of my own. I know what I want to say, I just now need the time and determination to see it through. The working title is: "An Existentialist approach to Jesus".

Very basically, it is a compilation of what I have been trying to do here. I want to simplify Kierkegaard's religious ideas to the point where someone who isn't well-versed in philosophy or dosen't have the time and interest to study him (like I did) can understand and benefit from it. Kindof like "Kierkegaard for the masses", not that I think I will do a very good job. I will take alot of topics that has already been discussed here but rethought, fleshed out, and in some cases changed. I do not have any formal qualifications for such a book, but considering Jesus was a peasent and Kierkegaard feared academics I don't think it would be doing them an injustice.

I don't know what i'll do with this blog in the meantime, if I am realistic i'd say the book will take one to two years to write, since I'd have to do it in between university study. There is a good chance i'll abandon the idea and just post everything that I had written here, I am not sure. It will be a thin and small book of around 100 pages I think. It will be fun...

The inadequacy of reason, and why are we trying to prove that God exists?

2005-12-29T14:29:00.000+11:00

All throughout the history of academia Christian thinkers have attempted to rationalize their religion with rational arguments. Christian philosophers and theologians try to prove the existence of God with the cosmological argument, teleological argument, and so forth; and also try and defend their beliefs by answering the problem of evil and whatever other logical difficulties atheists can conjure up. Even on a non-academic level ordinary Christians believe that the existence of God, divinity of Jesus, the trinity, and all the other dogma can be (and has been) proved by reason. This is shown by how non-believers are often seen as "irrational" or "blind to the truth" or "in denial". Despite everybody on this planet thinking their way is right and everybody else is wrong, I am going to claim that the fundamental principle that drives philosophy, theology, religion, and secular belief systems is this: belief precedes reason.

Or more specifically, our beliefs are formulated before any intellectual activity takes place. In that reason is mostly used to justify in our own minds something that is already there. This occurs regularly in secular philosophy, where if one man states his own position and another man completely trashes this position using fancy logical arguments and reason, the man will most likely not abandon his belief (if it is not a trivial one) but try and make his own arguments for why his position is rational stronger. In religion this principle is even more apparent. A person raised in Christianity will start doubting his beliefs once he reaches an intellectually independent age, and so often he will flee to the embrace of philosophy and theology in an attempt to put his doubting mind at ease. Adults get threatened when someone asserts that their beliefs are false, and only after that will they investigate the epistemic status of some major belief of theirs (like the existence of God). They aren’t searching for the truth, just justifying something that has already been formed.

For no man has been converted to Christianity by way of reason. For example it is impossible that a man would believe in the existence of God, the divinity of Christ, and the “roman’s road” solely because of the rational arguments for it. It is simply not done; belief precedes reason and is formed from other qualities. This does not mean that Christians have to make an “intellectual leap of faith” to believe in God. Belief never comes to us from a choice (whether a rational or irrational choice), we can not choose to have faith in what we consider an irrational proposition, and we can’t choose not to believe in what we consider a rational proposition. Faith was never meant to mean bending our beliefs against our intellectual or emotional will.

Beliefs are generally formed through subjective lived experience, and religious beliefs are formed through religious experience. It is our existential experience in this world that gives us “passional tendencies” (to borrow a phrase from William James) towards certain truths, and these passions and convictions will determine what intellectual beliefs we will hold to. I don’t consider it a bad thing that humans form beliefs by passions and convictions derived from experience. As the existentialists so thoroughly communicated, a life guided by pure reason is the one that is inauthentically human.

This fact of belief formation contains one specific danger, that of other people controlling our passional tendencies. Since a very tiny minority of humanity is intelligent enough to know the rational status of all beliefs held by mankind, it is very easy to believe something not only irrational but not given to us from direct experience but other peoples experience. The phenomena of cults, pyramid schemes, and cloud insurance tell us how the persuasive power of a fellow human being can have devastating results on our belief system. If a preacher gives a fiery sermon that moves us emotionally to the point where we believe that he is right on everything, or an author writes so beautifully about his experiences that we follow his own convictions on certain propositions, we give our belief formation in the hands of other people. I guess what I am trying to say is that although passion should and is a major contributor for our beliefs, our head is needed to determine whether these passions were attained legitimately (from our own self) or from someone else’s powerful rhetoric. In the sense of Christianity we must be sure that the ideals we believe in are actually our own, otherwise they will be impossible to strive for. If someone does not understand why altruism affirms the self, but believes it nevertheless because it is preached to him, he will not put his belief into practice (which is seen everywhere today with our stagnated Christendom). It is vitally important that we all find “the idea we can live or die for”, and a “truth that is true for me” (both phrases stolen from Kierkegaard).

Anyhow, to get back to the main topic at hand, so much effort is made to rationalize things like the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus, but it is all beside the point. These logical arguments convince the people that want to be convinced, and don’t convince people who don’t want to be convinced; it has no practical impact. It also does not, in the end, help stave off Christian doubt. To doubt some proposition means the proposition is not true for yourself, there is no conviction or experience linked behind the belief (either in the first place or we lost that conviction). Rational proofs do not make these truths intimate to us like they should be, since such questions can never be solved entirely by reason. Doubtless beliefs can only come through life and spiritual experience, and people who leave Christianity do not do so because they have discovered the irrationality of religious belief, but because they have lost that experience and conviction that led them to religion in the first place.

There is a gaping inadequacy in reason. I have studied philosophy of religion, and I see it is as a stalemate: Atheists cannot prove that God does not exist, and Christians cannot prove that he does exist. And yet everyone who is worth listening to has an opinion on God’s existence one way or the other, the only completely unbias and rational judges of philosophical issues are coincidentally the ones who have no opinion. Belief precedes reason, and our beliefs are formed through existential experience, not intellectual reasoning.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-20T14:36:00.000+11:00

I am taking a break over Christmas, check back a day or two after boxing day. I hesitate to call it a "break" though, since this blog has been a ghost town for the last couple of weeks. I have three posts all done in draft form, I promise!

Anyway, a couple of verses to think about over the christmas holidays:

Matthew 5:

43Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

45That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

46For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

47And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

48Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Around Christmas we so very easily (and rightly) embrace and share love with our friends and family. What Christ wants to point out is the Christian will extend that love to those we may dislike or treat us poorly, especially during this holiday season. God bless and have a nice christmas...

Apologies

2005-12-14T13:40:00.000+11:00

Apologies for the lack of posts lately, around christmas I am either busy or extremely lazy (not a good combination for a blog writer).

I am actually working diligently on a short story at the moment, and ashamedly writing fiction is far more difficult than I envisaged it. The plot dosent make sense, the dialogues are trifle and forlorn, the characters are one-dimensional and stilted, and that is how I like it. I should imagine it will be ready in a few days, I probably will post it here.

Sin is heightened when before God

2005-12-07T16:00:00.000+11:00

A common fallacy within the conception of sin is the thought that all sins are considered the same before God, that it does not make a difference who performs the sin or what it is they are doing, it is just as evil and inexcusable as any other. This thought is strongly tied to the idea that sin is related to our moral action and not the spiritual relationship within ourselves that is before God. Also, it presupposes that immoral acts, what would be called a “particular sin”, are instances of new sin arising within the self; instead of the expression of the continual despair that a self is in. If sin is a spiritual sickness within the self it implies that despair (and sin) intensifies with heightened consciousness. In that, the more consciousness, the more despair.

A man who thinks of himself as spiritless and does not grasp the eternal aspect within him would accordingly not be conscious of his despair. His imbalance in the self’s synthesis is a natural one since an aspect (the eternal aspect) of the self has been denied of existing. His despair is not constituted by defiance or weakness, which appear in the more severe forms of despair, but constituted by ignorance. The despair is less intense since he is ignorant of it, and yet the despair is further from salvation compared to despair that is aware of its eternal/temporal synthesis and conscious of its responsibility towards God. As an example, consider the Pharisees in this passage:

Matthew 9
10And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
11And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
12But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
13But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Jesus spent a lot of time rebuking the Pharisees, but in this passage it seems to imply that he thought of them as "whole". This is not the case; however, as I am sure Jesus was speaking with a sense of irony. The Pharisees, who did not realize they were in despair, was less needy for salvation than the publicans but also infinitely further away from getting their despair healed. They could not admit to having a problem. Indeed, they thought of themselves as righteous, so Jesus could go no further with them. Of course, the Pharisees were not righteous, they were still in despair despite being completely oblivious to it, but by being ignorant of the sickness they necessarily had to be ignorant of the cure (which was one of the reasons Jesus got crucified in the end).

Just as despair intensifies when a self is conscious of its own imbalance, sin is heightened when it is before God. The despairing self that is not aware of being before God is in much less sin since his ignorance restricts him from directly sinning against God in defiance. The non-religious sin is that of ignorance, but when the self becomes aware of a God its despair becomes inherently sinful. Consider Kierkegaard's definition of sin which I elaborated on two posts ago:

"Before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself"

Once the self is aware of it being before God, it has to make a choice between faith or sinful despair. If it is unable to strive existentially towards faith it is thrusted into an even more intense form of despair than from whence it came. This despair is founded on either the sin of defiance (actively opposing faith) or the sin of weakness (not being able to choose faith through the will’s weakness). In this sense, despair that is before God becomes sin and multiplies in severity compared with the despair that is not conscious of itself before God.

This is why Jesus incessantly rebuked the Pharisees. By being the “godly” men in Jewish society, their despair was before God in the most direct way possible, and they not only sinned in despair but taught others to do also. They turned what was known as “religious piety” into despair, thus destroying the religion, and this was the greatest blasphemy to Jesus. Hypocrisy is deplorable, but religious hypocrisy is blasphemy before God.

Furthermore, those who are unconscious of being before God have a cloak for their sin (John 15:22-25), but those who are conscious are without excuse. As people who are conscious of being before God as Christians, this is both an encouraging and frightening fact. Our despair is before God and is sin, a sin that would be considered blasphemy if it was basked in while labeling oneself as a “little Christ”. Considering Christians imagine themselves redeemed of this spiritual sickness they shouldn't have to worry about all this talk of blasphemous sin, religious hypocrisy, and intense despair... right? That is not necessarily the case, since the Pharisees were righteous and considered themselves justified. Christianity must accurately grasp the recourse to this spiritual sickness of sin before it escapes out of despair. When you consider the existential status of the majority of Christians today this “accurate grasp” of Christ’s cure is doubtful, more on this next post.

Sin is not dependent on morality.

2005-12-06T13:36:00.000+11:00

Since sin is a spiritual sickness, it is essentially related to the self and its dialectical status. Sin in the most basic sense arises out of the despair in the self, and consciousness of this sin comes only though awareness of the eternal and spiritual aspect of the self. Scriptually speaking, the Old Testament Jews were only vaguely aware of sin and was not formally introduced until the life of Jesus. The knights of the Jewish faith, the Pharisees, were exalted through the Old Testament conception of sin but was scorned under Christ.

For sin was just this: the breaking of the law. A complex system of social and legal rules were established to punish those who sinned, and those who kept the law were in the sight of God considered upright and perfect. For adam and eve, the sin was not found in listening to the Devil or even having the intention of eating the fruit, but when they physically ate of the fruit (thereby transgressing God's law). Now, as a set of moral constructs that form a lawful society this external conception of sin is both adequate and effective, but it did not correclty describe this spiritual sickness called sin.

Jesus did not come to overthrow this morality, but to internalize the notion of sin based on how it affects and controls our self (spirit). Through a series of ethical fine-tunings in the jewish law (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 43-44) Christ had shown that sin is not related to the external act of breaking God's law but the spiritual condiiton that acts in defiance to the reality of God (whether conscious or ignorant of the existence of God). Sin becomes not dependent on morality (morality defined in the narrow sense of external action). This, however, does not exclude morality from sin but gives morality a significant part in constituting sin. As Jesus quipped, "by their fruits ye shall know them" (matthew 7:20). Thus the definition of sin found in the last post:

"before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself"

is entirely consistent with the idea that Christianity is an existential communication, since the self expresses itself existentially. For example, sexual lust will often lead to sexual immorality, blood lust will often lead to violence, greed will often lead to theft or exploitation, and even if it dosen't such things are a vice to the self. A self that is in despair will most likely produce these vices, and a self that is affirmed will imitate Christ through existential selflessness. The expression of the self is existential by nature, and in this sense morality is closely married to sin but neither are dependent on the other.

Sin not being dependent on morality gives us the ability to "have our cake and eat it too", meaning we can explain both internal and external despair, and also morality can be given unlimited signifiance within the notion of sin. However, if sin is then taken to be dependent on morality the self is ignored in despair. The self is ignored out of the lack of their being sinfulness within the despair of the self before God, and thus salvation from real sin never occurs since the self is always in despair (even when 'saved' from moral sin).

I believe it important for sin and morality to have separation in the technical sense, but as has been elaborated on earlier the existential shows what we actually are spiritually. Nevertheless, the diagnosis of humanity's spiritual sickness is not moral in essence. It is related to the self and the self's relationship with God, which, quite paradoxically, is expressed existentially (but not existential in nature).

The Sickness

2005-12-03T14:51:00.000+11:00

I intend to wade into the "faith vs. Works" debates quite soon, but before that a proper understanding of this sickness we are being redeemed from is necessary. For all religions offer not only a cure to man's ills but a presupposed conception of why people need salvation. A popular theory in today's post-postmodern world is that all men have a differing sickness (or perhaps no sickness at all), and accordingly formulate or pick their own philosophy or religion that best fits their needs. Religions are thus not objective in a universal sense, but only objective for those who need it. As sympathetic as I am with some parts of this idea, Christianity strays from it in one important sense: this sickness is a universal phenomenon.

Now, Christians will often ascribe this sickness as either moral ("We have all broken God's commandments") or innately spiritual ("We are all spiritually dead from Adams original sin"). I'm going to try and take a different path that borrows from both ideas:

Firstly, this sickness must be in our self. A self means what we are, quite literally what makes us "us". The word soul or spirit could also be used here to describe this substance which gives us personal identity (whether or not it is independent or dependent on the brain). Being a human being makes it inherent that we possess a self, but that does not mean that this self is necessarily affirmed or actualized in the person. Indeed, most thinkers observe most of humanity as living awry of the ideal, and describe what a human must do to be "self-affirmed".

Kierkegaard has a fundamental contribution to make here. He thinks of the self as a synthesis between temporality/eternality, possibility/necessity, and finitude/infinitude. When an imbalance occurs within this synthesis, the self is in despair. Space constraints restrict me from even briefly elaborating on that, but the point is that this sickness occurs from focusing on one aspect of the synthesis in neglect of the other (the concept of God is intertwined in the balance of the two). This despair is also universal according to Kierkegaard.

A couple of ways that people neglect one side of the synthesis is in the life philosophies of hedonism and materialism. A focus on pleasure, happiness, wealth, honour, luxury and all of that is self-defeating. A pursuit of physical pleasure only restricts the well-being of the soul, which Kierkegaard fancifully expressed when he said: "Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it." Jesus exposed the inadequacy of focusing on temporal possessions by saying "For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself" (Luke 9:25, also check out Luke 8:14 and Luke 12:15). Nevertheless, we are often infixiated with the attainment of temporary pleasure and amassing of material possessions.

Another sign of despair is the obsession with the opposite value, that of possibility, eternity, and infinity. A life lived in possibility is one without actuality, and a life without actuality is one where the life is lived in prudence and without risk. Without the "courage to be", if you will. Kierkegaard had this to say about venturing:

The world thinks it is dangerous to venture in this way, and why? Because one might lose; the prudent thing is not to venture. And yet by not venturing and which, whatever you lost, you will in any case never lose in this way, so easily, so completely, as though it were nothing - oneself. For if I have ventured wrongly, very well, life then helps me with its penalty. But if I haven't ventured at all, who helps me then? And when, into the bargain, by not venturing at all in the highest sense (and to venture in the highest sense is precisely to become aware of oneself) I cravenly gain all earthly advantages, and lose myself!

So we have a world in which everybody is living in despair, with a spiritual sickness that has resulted from the anxiety of freedom and an imbalance within the self's synthesis. The question must be asked: How can God punish us for this, and why are we morally responsible for not living as authentically as possible? The jump from despair to sin for Kierkegaard is made with the self's knowledge of a God. Sin becomes "before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself". Sin is knowing that recourse to this sickness can be found in the words of Jesus, but not accepting it. This is why Jesus said that those who have not heard his words have a cloak for their sin (John 15:22-25). I believe Kierkegaard has a solid definition of sin, and will be useful in interpreting Jesus' solution to the sickness later on.

This has in no way meant to be thorough or conclusive, but only a first step in completing the diagnosis of the modern ages spiritual sickness. For further reading see "The Sickness unto death" by Kierkegaard, The Gospels (especially matthew and luke), and "The Courage to Be" by Paul Tillich.

I'm Back

2005-12-01T14:50:00.000+11:00

I have just completed my university examinations for the year and thus now basking in the holiday period. Posts will begin again very very soon, in the meantime I have made a couple of small cosmetic changes to Existential Christianity.

- I made an "article archive" button on the sidebar. This is my method of keeping all of my past blog posts easily accessible and cleanly organized. Feel free to look around it, it will be perpetually added to when I post new stuff. Consequently, I have removed the archive part of the sidebar because I deem it unnecesarry, since all browsing should be done through the article archive.

- I slightly altered the Blog Description, I like it better this way.

Also, I will also be considering "guest posts". If any of you wish to write some of your thoughts down that other people will read without starting a blog of your own, feel free to email me the article and i'll read through it and probably post it (with full credit of course).

Thanks for all of your patience...

Welcome

2005-09-03T15:25:00.000+10:00

Hello and welcome to my blog, Existential Christianity. If you are new here, I reccomended reading all the "important posts" (located to the right on the sidebar) before randomly browsing through my modest archives. At the moment Existential Christianity is on "hiatus", and won't be back to regular posts till early december.

*Update*: Exams will be on soon and I will be finished around november the 22nd. Posts are scheduled to begin again around December the 1st.

Cheers...

Painful Discipleship - Part 2

2005-08-12T14:53:00.000+10:00

For those interested, this is how my religion feels right now:

In the strict sense I have never seen a Christian. Among so-called Christians I have seen some pretty examples of Jewish piety. Jewish piety dwells in the thought: Stick to God and everything will go well with you; the more you stick to God the better, and in any case you always have God to stick to!
Christianity expresses something quite different: the more you stick to and get involved with God, the worse it gets for you. It is almost as if God said to someone: You had better go to Tivoli and amuse yourself with the others - but whatever you do, don't involve yourself with me, humanly speaking it will be misery.
And no only that, in the end God also forsakes the Christian; as the prototype (Jesus) shows.
For in the strict sense being a Christian is: to die (die from the world), then to be sacrificed - a sword first pierces his heart (dying from the world), and then to be hated, cursed by men, to be forsaken by God (that is, be sacrificed).
The Christian way is thus superhuman. And yet the New Testament demands that the Christian 'imitate'.
I am not capable of that. I can only come so far as to use the 'prototype' as a humiliation, not for imitation, and as humiliation once again for not being able to use the prototype in any other way.

-- Soren Kierkegaard (from his journals)

Kierkegaard's most depressive journal entry. When I had first read it about four months ago I thought Soren had a very unncecesarrily negative attitude, and never understood why he could ever feel this way. Lately, however, I can not help but understand exactly what he is saying. What makes this all so perplexing for me is that my life at the moment is extremely satisfying, but I can not shake this idea whenever reflecting on God and Jesus.

Awhile ago I was entertaining the idea that this was all just a phase I was going through, but I have yet to read anything in the New Testament that tells me that I am wrong. It feels like all Christians know that this is the logical conclusion of what Christ was saying, but are afraid to think about it. Perhaps the strangest thing about this whole situation is that I have never felt so spiritually close to God in my entire life, how about that for irony!

The seeker vs. The Christian

2005-08-11T10:04:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I mentioned the "seeker", which for consistency sake I will now define as "someone who is actively striving to find truth and fulfillment in their lives. Either hedonistically, intellectually, or existentially." The seeker, by definition, is in a state of "ignorance" (as Socrates would say) or "untruth". He never claims to be right or authoritative on any issue, and this disturbs him to the point that the whole of his mental energy is spent trying to correct it.

Jesus came for the seekers, in Mark 2:16-17 Jesus made his intentions clear. The Pharisees could learn nothing from him, since they already thought of themselves as holy and righteous. The followers of Christ were what Jesus called "sick", which could easily be interpreted to mean the seeker (since the seeker considers his current state with pessimism). Jesus also promised rest to those who were 'heavy laden', promising that if we earnestly seek God we will find him ( Matthew 7:7 and Matthew 5:6 ). Accordingly, no one came at the receiving end of Jesus rebuke more than the Pharisees. One of the reasons for this, I believe, was the arrogance they possessed for believing that they were right and everyone else was wrong.

The parallels to today's age is a strong one. Although all Christians are ready to admit that they were once 'a lost sinner', they honestly believe that now that they have gotten saved (which apparently happens instantaneously) they have arrived at the full truth. All that is left to do for them is memorize the dogma and doctrine of the church, and then they are free to revel in their 'enlightened' state. Christianity today is fundamentally against the 'seekers'. The church throughout history invented the "infallibility of the bible" and "infallibility of the church/pope" as a means to skirt their responsibilities as human beings. They associated the words "questioning", "doubting", and "struggling" with ones like "backsliding", "falling", and "heresy". Seekers were either persecuted heavily or killed by both the Catholics and protestants, using the word "heretic" as some kind of accuse for their bloodlust.

Underneath it all there is also a misunderstanding that comfortable Christians have as to why people need to seek at all. The prevalent belief is that the truth is very easily attainable, you just have to find the appropiate verse and your all set. Any challenge to that is taken to mean a challenge to their "truth" itself, which is why they often get hostile and start labeling people heretics. They really do not want to be shaken out of their intellectual and spiritual ignorance.

However, there is also no glory in being a seeker. Although doubt is a necessary precusor to Christianity, there is no virtue in staying in that stage for more than is needed. I am prepared to admit I am yet to move beyond being a seeker, and will most likely never move beyond it. But grace, I think, is as abundant for the lowly "seeker" than for the knight of faith.

Painful Discipleship

2005-08-10T17:32:00.000+10:00

A few days ago I said this:

"I often find it painfully hard to call myself a Christian considering how far from the ideal of Jesus I am."

And Steve from Freethinking Faith responded to it here.

Perhaps I am alone with this feeling, but my relationship with Christ at the moment is filled with pain and anxiety. The more my understanding of Existential Christianity grows, the more I realize how nonChristian I really am. Reading through Bonhoeffer's 'cost of discipleship' was enough to send chills down my spine and make me realize my standing before God.

Steve characterized Christ's existential teachings as "normal", as opposed to "extraordinary". Maybe it is my inexperience talking but I am going to have to disagree. Out of all of Israel only eleven Jews followed Christ, and once the numbers of the church grew the more diluted and corrupted it became. Jesus himself characterized the path to a fulfilled existence as very narrow, implying that most people will go the other way (this is not to be confused with theories of salvation/redemption).

Kierkegaard, towards the end of his authorship, attacked through writing the state Church (because he believed it was the opposite of Christ's Christianity). Now he did this all the while saying that he does not himself claim to be a Christian. This is a man that spent his entire life contemplating a life with Christ, exhausted all of his mental and physical energy striving for the ideal, and yet never assumed that he deserved the title of a "Christian". My personal experience makes me sympathize with his position greatly, although I could never be as brave as him and admit to my own failings.

I hope that all of this is just a necessary precursor to experiencing God's "amazing grace" that I hear so much about. I would say that I am currently in the "seek first the kingdom of God" stage of relating to God, but will most likely remain there for the rest of my life. The psychological burden of the "seeker" can be enormous, and to be brutally honest I am still waiting for Jesus to fulfill his promise and give me rest.

The Essence of Christianity

2005-08-08T14:04:00.000+10:00

I am going to make a rash statement and say that approximately 98% of western Christians either do not resemble Christ or are not striving in their own lives to be as Christ-like as possible. Looking around in my own life it is blindingly obvious that most religious people are fixated with mundane and materialistic matters, and that they do not understand the concept of “giving the other cheek”. However, if this is true, it does not mean that we are all terrible Christians.

It does reveal, however, a very important point about the nature of Christianity today. If we see a Christian acting selfishly we say to ourselves “he is not a very good Christian”, all the while making the assumption that he is actually a Christian. Let us say that we still regard him as a Christian (as he himself says he is), what separates him from “heathen unbelievers” is his beliefs, his theology, and his worldview. So, therefore, this means that becoming a Christian means taking on a set of beliefs or religious maxims, and then after that a change of character is an unnecessary recommendation. So the essence of Christianity becomes the maxims that he holds so dear, it is what separates him from everybody else.

This way of thinking contrasts sharply with Christ and his Jewish followers. I have mentioned this before, but Jesus did not teach any addition to the Judaic religion. He did not come to “over throw the law”. His addition was both an ethical and spiritual one, and accordingly to become a follower of Christ meant one had to live this addition. He did not create disciples of a new religion, a new theology, or a new philosophy; he created disciples of a new existence. He gave them radical discipleship, by making them give up their temporality for life eternal. They were still entirely Jews.

The only verbal ‘addition’ that Christianity makes is this, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now, this statement was never meant to be rational, intellectual, or something that is comprehended by our head. It is entirely outside the realm of reason. After the disciples changed their existence into this ‘new man’, after they had literally given all in order to follow Christ, only then were they able to exclaim “Jesus Christ is Lord!” This statement is meant to come from the heart, not from the head. It comes from experience, conviction, and existential evidence (being changed from a sinner to a saint, for example). It was never meant to be made into a dogmatic statement or something that was proclaimed as intellectually true. It was especially reserved for those who had died to their self, it was essentially gained existentially.

Therefore, the difference between the rest of the world from Christians is entirely existential. It is not theological or philosophical, as Christianity itself today explains. It is not a change of belief but a change of lifestyle and a spiritual rebirth. The Christians are those who live like Christ, not those who believe on Christ. With that said, it has been pointed out that Jesus says numerous times in the gospel of John that “if you believe on me you will be saved”. But it must be understood that to believe in Christ meant back then to accept all of his teachings and commandments, which were existentially very radical. “Believing on Christ” was never understood to mean an intellectual confession of Jesus Christ as Savior until recently.

The existential Christian can learn from this principle many extremely important truths, and I will point out a brief two right now. Firstly, we must have tolerance for those with different doctrinal, theological, and philosophical beliefs. The Bible not only teaches this, but it is implied by it (since Christianity was existential, beliefs entered nowhere into the Christian/nonChristian equation). We MUST be objective to ourselves but subjective to others.

Secondly, Christianity transcends our beliefs. Jesus expressed this with his parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). The Godly individual in this story is not the Jewish Priest, but the heathen Samaritan. Nowhere did the Samaritan convert to Judaism after helping the man, and this was Jesus point. The Samaritan existentially expressed Christianity, even if he did not have correct beliefs. Being a Christian is in no way dependent on what theology or philosophy we hold. Please also be aware, I am not advocating religious pluralism here, Jesus Christ is the only true way. But I believe Christ’s way to God is not attained through dogma or theology, but existence itself.

Gods Forgiveness

2005-08-05T17:47:00.000+10:00

Lately Steve over @ Freethinking Faith has been discussing the nature and basis of God's forgiveness towards sin. From what I can gather (and correct me if I am wrong here Steve) but he is advocating something like this - Humanity sins constantly, and is thus in need of forgiveness from God. God is loving, forgiving, and merciful, and in this love he will readily forgive our trespasses. Steve also says that the idea that Jesus Christ died on the cross as a kind of metaphysical transaction for our just punishment for being human (an eternity in hell) negates the whole idea of God's mercy. Since God's wrath was taken out on Jesus, Christ took the punishment away from us, which does not make God very 'forgiving' or 'merciful' in any sense of the word.

Finding all of this very convincing, I decided to search the gospels myself in an attempt to find what Jesus really taught in this regard. The number of texts I could use here is enormous, so I'll pick out my most favourite and use that. First of all, I think it is very important to understand that Jesus gave and taught forgiveness of sins BEFORE his death. He offered remission of sins to many people well before his crucifixion, and his disciples found life eternal in Jesus Christ before Pentecost. This is important because when examining Gods relation to sin, it does not start with Jesus death but Jesus life. His death was not an event that opened the floodgates of heavenly forgiveness for sins. But also, in another way, if Christ resisted the criminals death that he suffered through, His claims on divinity would be dubious because he failed to live up to his own ideals.

Keeping this principle in mind, I want to now examine a few of the many meaningful encounters Jesus had with people concerning forgiveness of sins:

Luke 7:36-50

Matthew 6:14-15

Matthew 18:21-35

All amazing passages; and all offer an illumination of God's attitude towards sin. Forgiveness of sins is characterized here as being extremely lenient. Jesus forgave very openly prostitutes and other terrible sinners. They did not have to pay back their debt in any way, they didn’t have to beg or commit their life to him. These sinners were forgiven because they 'loved much', because they forgave other men also, and because they had great faith. (NOTE: Faith here does not mean an "intellectual belief in some maxim" (for example Christ's divinity), faith was always characterized by a great act of commitment the man had for Jesus. And after that 'leap of faith into Jesus' a man lived by faith by essentially living a Christ-like life. Faith was and is existential, and should never be associated with intellectual belief.)

With these amazing and encouraging examples of God's extreme love and mercy, Christ also gave a very grave warning concerning forgiveness of sins that must not be overlooked. In
Luke 7:47 Jesus said that the man who is forgiven little, loves little. In
Matthew 6:15 Christ said that if we forgive not other men also, God will accordingly not forgive us. In the amazing parable Christ gave of the kingdom of heaven in
Matthew 18:21-35 , the way God relates to sin is told with extreme directness. In the story the servant here asks the master, just like the sinner asks God, to forgive his big debt (in our case sin). The master forgives freely, showing a great amount of mercy, love, and forgiveness. But later on, when another servant talked to the forgiven servant and asked to relieve a much smaller debt, he was incredibly harsh on the other servant, forcing him to repay the debt. Now, when the master heard about this, he sent for the servant and told him how wicked he was, and sent him to jail, forcing him to repay his debt.

This makes it seem like there is a sin that can not be forgiven by God, maybe being what Jesus talked about when he spoke of the "sin against the holy spirit". The hypocrisy in the servant is blindingly obvious, the master forgave the servant for a very large debt, and the servant did not show even an iota of that forgiveness when talking with the other servant. This shows not only that he was hypocritical, but that he was never grateful to the master for what he did, and therefore did not love the master.

The biggest lesson we can learn from these passages is that if our Christianity is not expressed existentially, then it is not really Christianity at all. As James mentioned in his epistle, faith without works is dead. A non-existential Christianity is essentially dead, or as I like to say it is not Christianity at all. When Luther corrected the errors of the Catholic Church, it seems church history since then has not only learned from these errors, but has over-exaggerated everything Luther seemed to teach, and the result of this process is "modern Protestantism".

Sorry

2005-08-04T18:40:00.000+10:00

Im sorry for the lack of updates lately, I just started uni again so I am orientating myself with the new schedule. I have about seven big posts all in rough draft form, I just need a bit of time to smooth it all over, which I'll do tomorrow and the next week. Because uni requires a lot of my time, I am going to be realistic and say my post-making will be restricted to three or four a week. There will definentely be one tomorrow though.

So anyhow, this semester at university I took up an elective unit called "philosophy of religion". I was very excited to learn that my two faviourite theologians, soren kierkegaard and blaise pascal, both get treatment in the unit. It should be a whole lot of fun.

Also, before I go, I noticed a blog named "It seems to Me..." was linking to me, and after reading through it and realising who writes it, I decided to add it to a highly-coverted position among my 'Great blogs' list.

It's hard being Tolerant.

2005-08-02T16:47:00.000+10:00

Two qualities that really attracted me to the liberal side of Christianity were "tolerance" and "open-mindedness". Kierkegaard's notion that we should be objective to ourselves but subjective to others is a great principle to live by, and looking around I saw that Christendom was in grave need of a principle like this. Christianity is too often associated with a loathing of different beliefs and condemnation to those with different lifestyles.

Tolerant, however, is a very hard thing to be. I found this out very early in my change of theology. At bookstores when I was searching for a new book I would excitedly read through the authors who were known for their 'different' and 'heretical' doctrines, and pass the more conservative titles with an exhausted grunt. If I looked at the blurb at the back of the book and read anything that even remotely resembled something dogmatic and 'close-minded' I would put it back down, making a smirk concerning how silly some people can be. I was not being tolerant or open-minded, I merely tolerated the people I didn’t use to tolerate, and then not tolerate the people I used to tolerate.

Soon I begun to realize what was going on, and that a lot of liberal Christians (especially the ones coming out of fundamentalism) are in the exact same boat. They spend all of their energy criticizing and mocking the opponent, instead of working out what they believe themselves and arguing for that. Of course this is a very natural reaction, if somebody gets hurt or spiritually abused from fundamentalism; it is natural for them to start despising it. But it is not Christian to start hating it.

With Christ's maxim to loves ones enemy, it is implied that everybody's enemies will be someone different. For the fundamentalist the intolerance will be towards gays and liberals, for the liberals and gays it will be fundamentalists. There is no virtue in changing camps, even if you start to tolerate a lot more people than you used to, if there is still a kind of person that you abhor. I am sick of liberal Christians disrespecting and mocking fundamentalist Christians, only because fundamentalists do it just as much. We need to keep in mind the Christ-like principles of "turning the other cheek" or "overcoming evil with love" or "to love those that hate you". Fundamentalists aren't even evil or hateful, so this intolerant situation a lot of liberals are in is even more absurd! I am willing to admit that this is one of my many weaknesses; I just wish that the more high-profile progressives and liberals would be willing to admit the same.

Becoming a Christian

2005-08-01T17:00:00.000+10:00

The Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not come to the world in order to bring a doctrine; he never lectured. Since he did not bring a doctrine, he did not try by way of reasons to prevail upon anyone to accept the doctrine, nor did he try to authenticate it by proofs. His teaching was really his life, his existence. If someone wanted to be his follower, his approach, as seen in the Gospel, was different from lecturing. To such a person he said something like this: "Venture a decisive act; then we can begin."

What does that mean? It means that one does not become a Christian by hearing something about Christianity, by reading something about it, by thinking about it, or while Christ was living, by seeing him once in a while or by doing and staring at him all day long. No, a setting, is required- "Venture a decisive act;" the proof does not precede but follows, is in and with the imitation that follows Christ. That is, "when you have ventured the decisive act, you become heterogeneous with the life of this world, cannot have your life in it, and come into collision with it. Then you will gradually be brought into such tension that you will be able to become aware of what I am talking about. The tension will be also having the effect upon you that you understand that you cannot endure it without recourse to me -- and then we can begin." Could one expect anything else from the truth?

-- S. Kierkegaard, excerpt from the book 'For Self-Examination'

The distinction Kierkegaard makes between false and true Christianity is sharp. Terms like lecturing, reasons, proofs, and doctrine are on the one side, life and existence on the other. Also, Kierkegaard’s' characterization of how Christ brought people into Christianity is a good one. "Venture a decisive act; then we can begin". Jesus required a death to immediacy, and that death was to start by 'venturing a decisive act'. This decisive act causes the tension between our selves and immediacy, making Jesus needed for recourse, for salvation.

For many people, this decisive act requires a sacrifice of worldly things. Jesus told the young rich man to sell all of his possessions (which he loved having). He told the disciples to give up their way of life and follow him, a fellow Jewish peasant. He told a man who wanted to bury his father to let the dead bury the dead, give up all that you have, and follow me. Most importantly, He told every human being to abase themselves and live the life of a lowly man. In today’s age a lot of these sacrifices are still relevant. Riches and money are still prized very highly, honour and respect is something everybody craves. Nobody wants to live a life of servitude and abasement, even if it is for Jesus. Point is a sacrifice is required, and it always ends up being something very precious to us. Personally, my 'decisive act' has been very different and non-materialistic in nature.

I was born a 'Christian'. Religion was ingrained into me from the earliest possible age. There was no choice in the matter to where I stand on certain issues; faith was never needed to be a Christian, because it came very naturally to me. Not only did I go through the motions, but I honestly believed that I was a good Christians and things were going well. Needless to say, my 'old man' (to borrow a term from Paul) expressed itself fully in how I related to God and fellow Christians. The flesh, immediacy, and temporality had a hold on me more than it normally would have had. I am not talking here of 'sins of the flesh' or living a superficial Christian life, I am saying that my entire religion, philosophy, and worldview was unChristian in nature (but of course I thought it was Christian).

(NOTE: If anyone is confused as to why I think the Christianity of my youth was not the Christianity of Jesus, alot of what I write in this blog is a reaction against the Christianity of my youth.)

Once I gained an intellectual independence, and gained the ability to start thinking for myself, I started to doubt and question everything that I previously held so dear. As Kierkegaard once said (my paraphrase), "to doubt Christianity means to not know what Christianity actually is" (Which is indeed very true for this stage in my life). After a prolonged period of gradually slipping into a more independent and less dogmatic frame of mind, things started to get difficult. Giving up my set-in-stone theology and black-and-white worldview was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my entire life. God was the most important thing to me, and to give up not only the comfort in the fact that I am "100% right and the rest of the world is wrong" but also the idea that getting on God's good side is achieved by simply 'getting saved' was terrifying for me.

After my entire spiritual existence was cast into doubt, the anxiety started to rush in. Whenever I read a 'heretical' author and found myself agreeing with him, I would get an anxiety attack that made me honestly think that I will be doomed to hell for eternity because of what I am currently doing. It was soul-destroying to go through (perhaps when hearing about it, it may not seem like a big thing, but trust me it felt like a spiritual suicide). My childhood had made me feel spiritually and intellectually sheltered, and even when I broke free of that shelter and realized there was a world outside, the shelter would still torment me constantly.

Now, I view that ghastly period as my 'baptism of fire' so to speak. Although the anxiety attacks and 'emotional imprints' still come back from time to time, I feel spiritually reborn (I would even say 'born again'!). What was actually keeping me from discipleship with Christ was my Christianity. Christ has become more to me than simply a metaphysical atonement for my sins (which I used to think weren't that bad, I was a good kid), or an object of worship. Christ has become my Lord and Saviour, and it pains me to have Christians think that I am a heretic or backslider.

Disclaimer: I mean no disrespect to those on the more conservative side of Christianity; I do not intend to make judgments. All that I know for sure is what it did to me.

Centering Prayer... Continued

2005-07-29T17:31:00.000+10:00

I apologise for the short posts lately, the longer posts will pick up again next week. In the meantime, I tried 'centering prayer' again today, and I feel it went alot better this time.

"Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down, along with all our busy thoughts about earth, sea, and air; if the very world should stop and the mind cease thinking about itself, go beyond itself, and be quite still; if all the fantasies that appear in dreams and imagination should cease, and there be no speech, no sign: Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still -- for if we listen they are saying, "We did not make ourselves; he made us who abides forever" -- imagine, then that they should say this and fall silent, listening to the very voice of him who made them and not to that of his creation; so that we should hear not His word through the tongues of men, nor the voice of angels, nor the clouds' thunder; nor any symbol, but the very Self which in these things we love, and go beyond ourselves to attain a flash of that eternal wisdom that abides above all things:

And imagine if that moment were to go on and on, leaving behind all other sights and sounds, but this one vision that ravishes and absorbs and fixes the beholder in joy; so that the rest of eternal life were like that moment of illumination, that leaves us breathless:

Would this not be what is bidden in scripture, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

St. Augustine

The Mystical Me?

2005-07-28T13:35:00.000+10:00

Throughout my childhood I was taught to abhor anything to do with the word 'meditation'. I was instructed that to "empty your mind" meant that demons and other nasty beings would start talking to you. Inward silence accordingly became an evil concept for me, an open mind was essentially a mind open to demonic attack. This idea is consistent with a lot of legalistic religion, the only spiritual experience me and my friends (the friends who were raised simiarly) received was when a preacher would pry on the congregations psychological weaknesses to invoke guilt and anxiety, which we called "conviction" (Ironic name for it)

It was when I started doing martial arts eight months ago (which has a five minute excerise at the end for relaxation, which is done in a meditative position and involves heavy breathing and no thinking) that I realized that inward silence used in a meditative way was a very relaxing and peaceful thing. I came to understand why Buddhist and Christian mystics meditated (although obviously the Christian mystics don't call it that).

So, sparked by a growing enthusiasm, today I tried my hand at 'Centering prayer'. And although the 30 minutes was devoid of any amazing mystical experience (I did feel lightheaded at one stage though!), I enjoyed it immensely. My biggest obstacle is being able to turn off all thoughts and sensory perceptions in the mind, for whenever I attempt to empty the thoughts my mind always makes commentary on how I'm going in this endeavour for silence. Perhaps it will come to me easier through pratice, and I am eager to try it again.

I feel naive to ever have feared the mystical side of Christianity, does anybody else do 'centering prayer' or something similar?

My Search for a Church

2005-07-26T14:41:00.000+10:00

A few days ago I decided to be honest with myself. The two churches I am currently attending (and have been attending for a long time) do absolutely nothing for me spiritually. Sure it is grand to see friends, family, and a pastor I respect at the one place, but if church is to become anything more than a social event I need to find something more.

This change of attitude towards my church has been gradually developing inside of me for quite awhile. Every week it gets reinforced as the singing/prayer/fellowship/preaching does nothing to fill my desire to truly worship God. Lately at home I have been dedicating time each day for both normal and contemplative prayer, which has been fantastic. All I need to do is find a church that gives me that same sense of God-presence that I crave during a church service.

So accordingly I have been looking around at the different churches/denominations that are relatively close to me (although I have not attended any yet), and I hope to find something that itches right where I am scratching. I am thinking of something more classical/liturgical in style, so both the Anglican and even Catholic churches have sparked my interest. Theological difference means almost nothing to me now, considering I will most likely encounter it wherever I go. The main things I am looking for is a respect for other peoples beliefs and a worship style that I like.

I really pray that I will be able to find something, because If I don't I can really see myself becoming a "Churchless Christian" sometime in the next year.

Preach Christianity by Living It

2005-07-25T15:48:00.000+10:00

Another excerpt from Kierkegaard's journals, in this one he imagines an event that takes place one Sunday on the finest church in Denmark. (Towards the end of his life Kierkegaard spent alot of time writing against the national Lutheran church, for he believed what it taught was not the Christianity presented in the New Testament):

A SITUATION

A theologian, but not yet appointed. He has worked very hard for a number of years and attained some measure of fame, which will definitely ensure that everyone will rush to hear him preach in church, particularly all the high-ups.

He lets it be known that he is going to preach and selects the finest, most splendid church in the capital.

Everyone is in church, including the king and queen.

He mounts the pulpit, offers a prayer, and then reads his text, which is about Christ chasing the money-lenders from the temple. Immediately afterwards he begins like this:

'Let the word be spoken, the word I have to say in this world, and for which I have prepared myself all my life. Let that word now be spoken: To preach Christianity in surroundings like these is not Christianity, be they ever so Christian, it is not Christianity; Christianity can be preached only by its being realized in the lives we live. And I hereby transform this house into actual life. I am now in your power, I, just one man, but now I will speak—and then it is real life. I will speak of it being possible to preach Christianity only by living it.'

Attack on the whole smart church and smart congregation. Christ was not a smartly turned-out man who, in a smartly decorated church, preached to a smartly turned-out gathering that truth suffers—it was an actual fact that he was spat upon.

Uproar throughout the church. The cry goes out: Down with him, throw him out! But the preacher rises and speaks out in a voice of thunder which drowns out all the clamour: You see, now it is right, now I am preaching Christianity; had my intention been suspected I would have been prevented from mounting the pulpit here, or else you would all have stayed at home. But now I stand here, I am now speaking and I make you responsible before God; you must hear me out, I am speaking the truth.

Now, there you have an awakening!

I think the idea that you 'preach Christianity by living it' is a logical implication for what I was arguing for last Friday (that our Christianity is expressed to others existentially). With evangelism, it is not just better to express Christ’s power existentially rather than verbally (i.e. with preaching), but the only way to correctly share Christianity to others.

A common objection to ‘evangelizing in silence’ is that "people can not come to Christ through our works, if we never preach to them about Jesus Christ they won't know what they're accepting". This was very true for the early church; after Jesus was crucified they spread the gospel throughout the Gentiles primarily through proclamations and exclamations of Christ and what he did (as told in the book of Acts). The reason they did this was because the word ‘Jesus’ was alien to the non-Jewish community, the apostles needed to tell the gentiles who Christ was.

Today, however, the name of 'Jesus Christ' is known to everyone but the most isolated. The idea that "Jesus Christ is Lord" has been heard by all through the incessant preaching of Christians. I believe the reason that Christianity/Christ has become so stagnated is because the concept of Christ has been turned into a dogmatic statement.

Intellectually, the maxim that Jesus Christ is Lord is not justified. Historical inquiry can only go so far as to admit that Christ lived, died, and claimed that he was the Christ. Philosophically there is no evidence to suggest that the jump from "Jesus Christ claimed he was God" to "Jesus Christ is God" is a rational one. So naturally when Christendom turned this proclamation concerning Christ into a doctrine that new believers have to accept for admittance into the church, atheistic rationalism spread and the church begun its decline.

For the disciples and other early followers of Christ, however, to be a Christian meant a radical existential discipleship to Jesus. Christ made such a spiritual impact on them that they became 'born again'. Their existence completely changed into something fulfilling and transcendent, which Paul dubbed as 'the new man'. It is from this change that they exclaimed to each other, "Jesus Christ truly is the Lord!” They did not come to this conclusion from intellectual evidence or dogmatic preaching, which is what modern preachers try to get people to do; they came to it from the amazing change Christ made in them.

Thus, Christ is never effectively shown in creeds or doctrines or preaching, He is shown as the true Lord by honest Christians. Peter wrote in his first epistle that we should "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." Christians are supposed to evangelize by showing the radical work that Christ has done in our spirits, not by telling friends truth statements (such as Christ's divinity) that means nothing to their rationalistic way of thinking. Christ's divinity is only shown to others through men like St. Francis of Assisi, not through the work of apologists or preachers.

We preach Christianity by living it...

Christianity as an Existential Communication

2005-07-22T16:10:00.000+10:00

Since I begun my journey outside of fundamentalism, nothing has influenced me more than the idea that “Christianity is not a doctrine, but an existential communication." (For those who are confused, an 'existential communication' is something that is expressed by how you act and how you live, so essentially it is expressed by your existence.) In contrast, the prevailing view today is that someone is a Christian if they believe a few certain key doctrines/truths (and say them to God with the sinners’ prayer), and that the essence of Christianity is these doctrines/truths. I would argue that Christianity is much less a "system of beliefs that form a worldview" and more a "lifestyle that is expressed existentially"

The New Testament, which is what Christians base their religion on, is mostly ethical in nature. Throughout the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus presents his followers not with theological statements but ethical commands. In Jerusalem someone became a follower of Christ by an 'ethical initiation' of sorts, he had to give up his position and possessions in society in order to follow. So the Christians were separated from the Jews primarily by how they lived, not what they believed. Christ said in John 13:35 that "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." The disciple was known through love, not philosophy, theology, doctrine, or social standing. Our Christianity is expressed to others existentially.

Furthermore, Christ did not come with new knowledge or theological understanding. As he said in Matthew 5:17 he came not to other throw the law, his addition (and salvation) was ethical. In this sense, the Christians grew spiritually through their discipleship with Christ (which was purely existential), not through theological understanding. There is also a lot of evidence in the gospels to support an existential understanding of redemption/judgment. As we shall see, our Christianity is expressed to God existentially as well:

Forgiveness of sins because of love:

Luke 7:47

Matthew 6:14

Matthew 25:31-46
Judgment from no love:

Matthew 18:23-35

Matthew 6:15
With these verses, you get the impression that God relates to you based on how you relate to others. "Love covers a multitude of sins" is rarely heard in a typical church sermon, and yet Jesus seemed to teach that quite clearly. This does not mean salvation or redemption through works though. Just like in the parable of the servant and the master (Matthew 18:23-35), God’s grace can pierce through the most depraved sinner. All God is asking from us is to show our gratitude, and we do that by extending the same grace we received from God to others.

The point here is that there must be an existential basis for your Christianity above all else, and that the measure of a Christian is not piety or theological understanding but their imitation of Christ. As Kierkegaard once remarked "The existential always shows what you truly believe", and if today's generation is anything to go by, we are all heathen unbelievers.

"If you are not with us then you are against us!"

2005-07-21T17:38:00.000+10:00

Just a quick post today...

There is an interesting comparison between the fundamentalists "If you are not with us, then you are against us!" (which is used by them to justify intolerance, religious exclusivism, isolation from society, and condemnation to everyone that does not follow their strict doctrinal outlines).

And Jesus' sayings from Luke:

49 And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us.
50 And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.

Whoever performs an act of Christ-like love, who furthers God's kindom of love in our society, is not worthy of neither our judgement or criticism (which contrasts sharply with fundamentalist mantality). In fact, I would go so far as to say that noone is worthy of any judgement or criticism or condemnation, but that will be the post for another day.

Ascending forms of religiousness

2005-07-20T15:53:00.000+10:00

An excerpt from an entry in Søren Kierkegaard's journals:

Ascending forms of religiousness:

A - The individual relates to God so that things will go well with him here on earth - in other words, straightforwardly to have the benefit, in a worldly sense, of the relation with God.

B - The individual relates to God to be saved from sin, to conquer his inclinations, to find in God a merciful judge... the individual deriving nothing but benefit from the relation.

C - The individual is called upon to confess his faith in word and deed (self-denial, renouncing finite aims), that faith in which lies his salvation; but the result of the confession will be that the individual suffers, incurs unhappiness, humanly speaking... harm and misfortune are what come of the relation.

Kierkegaard with his remarkable insight has revealed three kinds of religion that has prevailed throughout history. It is important to realize that these ascending forms of religiousness depend not so much on the religion (i.e. Baptist is B and Catholicism is C), but on the person individually. It corresponds to what an individual looks for in religion, not in creedal statements or theology.

A is characterized elsewhere by Kierkegaard as 'pagan religion', and is most explicitly seen in ancient forms of God-worship when they would perform rites and rituals to their God for a better earthly life (i.e. good crops, good rain, protection). Accordingly, they see good events that happen in their life as a blessing from the almighty, and bad things as a curse. This philosophy of a temporal way of understanding God is just as common in the modern world. People believe in God and religion to make their life better, and when suffering and depression comes they fall away. Jesus characterized these kinds of religious people in Matthew 13:21. For when things go temporally well the person is happy with God, but when suffering is introduced into the God-Man relationship, they consider God as 'out to get them' and grow angry and bitter with God.

Not only this, but A reveals a severely egoistic way of religious belief. The reason a person worships, prays, and 'serves God' in A is because they think it will better their own lives (Which is entirely a selfish way of relating to God, they ask "What can God do for me?"). This kind of religion is extremely common today, not only among non-Christian religions but in Christianity itself. The Charismatic church with its "prosperity Bible" and pleasurable style of worship is the first to come to mind.

The most important point about B is that it is exactly the same as A, but merely a more sophisticated version. The relation to God is still conducted for selfish reasons, examples being salvation from sins, a better afterlife, security in all of the weightier matters, and fellowship with likeminded people (being part of a group/family). In this sense religion becomes not a 'denial of oneself' (as Jesus taught), but a maximization of everything that makes us human. There is no 'putting off the old man and putting on the new man', but an attempt to make the old man as comfortable and secure as possible. The way they are able to deceive themselves like this is by thinking that what they are doing is what God wants, so the facade of a Christ-like existence is upheld.

The expression of B in Christian circles is most ferociously expressed with what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called 'Cheap Grace'. Christianity becomes very easy to be a part of because grace merely has to be acknowledged for it to work. In this way it is possible for a person in B to be redeemed in a 'holy life', all the while living exactly the same as they did before. No sacrifice is needed for this kind of Christianity, the old man reins more powerfully than ever. B is found in practically every religion and denomination imaginable (with varying degrees of severity and saturation, most potently in Protestantism), because people like it, to put it simply. People are drawn to these religions because they do not want to suffer, and they want security and comfort in their God and religion.

C is Christ's religion. To be involved in C requires a radical discipleship to Christ. The relation to God contains no certain benefit for yourself, but it is performed because the call is very strong. "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die" (as Bonhoeffer said), suffering becomes the 'badge of the disciple' (another Bonhoeffer term). I could go on and on about the aspects of a C religion, but the Dietrich Bonhoeffer book "The cost of discipleship" expresses it a lot clearer than I ever could. Pick up a copy of that book if you have not already done so.

Afterlife and Egoism

2005-07-19T15:32:00.000+10:00

Recently a friend posed a very challenging question to me: "If you were to die, and find out that there is no afterlife (that there is no existence after death), would you feel that the time and energy you devoted to your religion was a waste?"

Heaven can be a number of things for Christians. Most commonly it is viewed as a Christians home, this world being only a "pitstop" to where we truly belong. Others emphasise the rewarding nature of a christian afterlife, characterising heaven as a "divine thankyou for all the time and energy I spent serving God". Or maybe as a "place where I can finally attain rest from the perils and plights that fill this earthly existence". Whatever we see it as, Christians tend to view this lifetime as something that has to be endured, something repulsive, and the afterlife as perfection that we are waiting for.

Evangelicals use a whole lot of rhetoric on heaven when trying to convince potential converts to join the fold. "Be a christian and you will get to be in heaven!" they exclaim, "Christianity's blessed hope is that we have an eternal future dwelling in perfection, all we have to do is get through this life following Jesus... and heaven is ours!". Heaven is a big reason why people become christian. Hell also takes center stage during the preaching of salvation messages, and is consistently used as a tool to get people scared so they will convert (that's why I got saved when I was young).

For many, Christianity and Jesus is merely a way for them to get into the perfect afterlife. The underlying philosophy is "Although this life sucks pretty hard, it'll all be over soon and I will finally be in heaven". What we have to understand is this perception of an afterlife is based on self-interest and an acute sense of egoism. We only act morally because we know it will benefit us sometime later (in heaven), and although few christians would accept that they think like this, modern Christianity's theology and worldview is reek with this egoistic thinking. We serve God because of what he can do for us, we evangelise to others because we will be rewarded in heaven for it, we believe Jesus because he promised us salvation, and we pray to God because we think we can get something out of it.

Jesus, however, was starkly opposed to this. When the rich man came up to Jesus and asked "How may I inherit eternal life", Jesus could sense the egoistical nature of this man, and told him to sell all of his possessions to get into heaven (which he couldn't do). We can be alot like this rich man, refusing to give up physical wants and comforts for Christ. Humanity in general have always been interested primarily in temporal things, and accordingly jesus 'separated the wheat from the chaff' by demanding that his disciples give up all physical comforts and securities to follow him. Jesus advocated a life lived in servitude and selflessness, and told people that they had to die to the world before they were able to follow him.

Admittely, throughout his ministry Jesus did offer eternal rewards for the extraordinary dedication his followers exhibited, but the foundational principle of Jesus was sefless love as the means for a fulfilled existence. Jesus said that "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17:3). Jesus crucified the worldly preoccupations these men had, and revealed to them a life that can truly be meaningful and pleasing to God. Paul had in him this Christ-like attitude, and expressed it amazingly when saying "That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:" (Romans 9:2-3)

Here is real Christian love, Paul says if he could he would give up his own salvation and eternal life for the benefit of his brethren. Modern eschatology is ripping apart the christian attitude of self-sacrificing love, heaven is the one responsible for our greed. Someone show me an evangelical pastor that would give up his 'salvation' so a homosexual could know Christ, show me a fundamentalist that says to God "I refuse to be raptured, I want to be down here as long as possible so I can help others through the tribulation". (I dont believe in the rapture or any of that, im just using this as a good example as how a fundamentalist could show Christ-like attributes within his theology)

So what am I saying? Is there no afterlife at all?... I certainly think there is, but the nature of it is a mystery to me, and I think it would be alot healthier for Christianity as a whole if everyone saw it as a mystery and started focusing on this life.