Reign of Mary Beginning Soon

Anne, the grandmother of Jesus, with her daughter Mary
Anne, the grandmother of Jesus, with her daughter Mary
 “…the fight between the sons of light and the sons of darkness, established by God in Paradise, when He foretold that Our Lady would smash the serpent’s head: an eternal fight that was, is, and ever will be present in History until the end time.
<snip>

At Fatima, Our Lady prophesied her triumph, that in the end her Immaculate Heart would triumph. We are sure that many more and much greater marvels are still to happen in this world.

We ask her to imbue our souls not only with nostalgia for that past era of faith, but above all with a hope for this future. An ardent hope should inspire us to do everything that we can to accelerate this future so that the Reign of Mary will come as soon as possible. Making penance for our faults, maintaining our desire for a complete victory for Our Lady, and completely rejecting the present day abominations in the Church and society are the backdrop for this prayer. By our suffering, work, fight, and dedication, by the risks we are willing to face, we should help in the restoration of Christendom and the implantation of her glorious Reign.”


* * * * * *

I got to the above excerpt by searching for info about today’s only female saint, Saint Gibitrudis of France. Her spiritual teacher was Saint Fara and it was on St Fara’s page (be sure to click thru to see nice illustrations) I read the above stirring words. It is so obvious that Catholicism reveres Mother Mary as God-ess. She is called Our Lady, the coming of HER reign is looked forward to, not just His reign.  In the first line above, Mother Mary is Mother of All Life, the New Eve who will crush the evil one … just as Jesus is said to do at the end of time in the book of Revelation. Catholicism reveres the Feminine Divine whether they admit it or not.

Mary’s mother, Jesus’ grandmother, Saint Anne is also depicted as a God-ess with statues of her shown giving the priestly blessing, while Mother Mary — a child — sits at her feet wearing a beautiful crown of pink roses.

Our Christian Goddess is part of theology, but the powers-that-be will never admit it openly, only indirectly. Reminds me of the Mormon church who I am told will not admit or talk openly about the Heavenly Mother, yet they acknowledge She exists and is part of their theology.

Makes you hope reform from the inside might be possible.  Some day. Not any time soon considering the way Rome (and the LDS church for that matter, come to think of it) is so against women in the priesthood.

Here’s the link about Saint Fara and all the princesses who left their kingdoms in the 7th Century to go become her spiritual students. Today one of those princesses, Gibitrudis, has her feastday. I had to find a female saint for today because my 3 year old insisted on baking a cake for SOMEbody… baking cakes is her form of self-therapy. I am reminded of the “baking cakes for the Queen of Heaven” function priestesses-of-the-home have performed since Old Testament times.

+Katia

Forget Whether God Exists, Investigate Survival of Consciousness First

Forget God (for awhile), survival of Consciousness after death and outside the brain is the thing to investigate first, says the blogger below. If you prove consciousness has a mind of its own, a life of its own, then the other question of whether God/Goddess exists or not will simply answer itself. The atheists-and-scientists vs. mystics-and-believers method is not getting us the answers we need, we crave. We must look at whether consciousness survives after we die, examine the evidence that our brains do not create consciousness, they merely tap into it, like your car radio picks up on a broadcast of huge FM radio waves.

Very thought-provoking cogent ponderings… I also saw the PBS show portraying Freud debating CS Lewis, the blogger mentions. The program was also thought provoking and deep, yet fell short of answering the ultimate questions…  This article/blog below and the comment that follows seem to point right at such ultimate answers. — +Katia

Forget God

The November 13, 2006 issue of TIME Magazine featured a debate between scientists Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins on the existence of God, the origin of the universe, faith vs. science, etc. As might be expected, they went around in circles and got nowhere. That’s because they are assuming that one has to find God before he or she gets answers to anything else of a spiritual nature. At no point do these intelligent men get to the real issue — whether consciousness survives physical death. If God does exist, but consciousness does not survive physical death, so what? We are still marching toward “nothingness,” i.e., total extinction.

Not long ago before I read the TIME article, I watched a two-hour television program titled The Question of God on PBS. The program, moderated by Dr. Armand Nicholi, a Harvard professor and practicing psychiatrist, featured a theoretical debate between Sigmund Freud, the atheist, and C. S. Lewis, the believer, on the existence of God. After the views of Freud and Lewis were presented by actors portraying the two men, a panel made up of educated believers, agnostics, and atheists gave their thoughts. As you might expect, the discussions went also went around in circles and ended up at the starting point.

As with Dawkins and Collins, the panel members never got past the issue of whether God exists. They discussed such things as whether order can exist in the universe without a higher intelligence, whether God is a product of the need to believe in something greater, and how there can be a God when there is so much evil in the world. As I see it, the issue there also should have been whether consciousness survives physical death. Knowing that there is a Higher Intelligence, Creator, Divinity, Cosmic force, God, whatever name we choose to attach to Him, Her, or It, doesn’t in itself help us understand the purpose of our lives or give real meaning to them.

The “believers,” including a Buddhist journalist and a Jungian analyst, talked about a “sense of connection” to the Divine and an intuitive feeling that there is something greater, to which a skeptical lawyer expressed my thoughts, “Where does that get you?”

Perhaps the viewer was supposed to assume that a belief in God meant a belief in survival of consciousness and, concomitantly, a purpose to life, but the discussions never went that far. It was as if the mere mention of survival or an afterlife was a bit too religious and rudimentary for such educated people. When the afterlife was alluded to on a couple of occasions, even the “believers” weren’t prepared to discuss the subject. In fact, it appeared that none of the believers had any concept of the afterlife beyond what is espoused by orthodox religions.

It was mentioned that Dr. Nicholi has used the Freud vs. Lewis debate in all of his Harvard classes for more than 30 years. I am not qualified to argue with such an esteemed educator, but it does seem to me that Dr. Nicholi and others are missing the boat in approaching the question of God and immortality of the soul deductively, i.e., finding God before we accept the survival of consciousness. Since God apparently is beyond human comprehension, so many people stop there and are left with nothing more than orthodoxy’s humdrum heaven and horrific hell, a scenario that does not invite rational people to believe. Unable to get a handle on God, those taking the deductive approach require a large leap of faith, something more and more people are reluctant to do in this scientific and materialistic age.

The inductive approach, that of psychical research, makes much more sense. That is, explore and examine the evidence for survival of consciousness in such things as near-death experiences, out-of-body travel, deathbed visions, spirit communication through various types of mediums, past-life regressions, and other forms of psychical research. Then, assuming we are satisfied with the evidence, look for an Intelligence behind it all, even though we can’t comprehend that Intelligence. In the light of evidence for survival, the “question of God” really becomes academic. Perhaps that is the problem: Academia often has a hard time dealing with the practical.

C. S. Lewis seems to have based his belief in God simply on emotion, including a “longing to believe.” Although it wasn’t mentioned in the PBS program, Lewis, as I understand his writing, rejected spirit communication and other psychical research as so much humbug. He would certainly not be my choice as an advocate or defender for a belief in the spiritual. I would have selected Sir Oliver Lodge, the esteemed British physicist and educator of yesteryear, or Dr. Gary Schwartz, currently of the University of Arizona, as my advocate or defender. Of course, Sir Oliver would have to be brought up to date on research taking place since his death in 1940, although I suspect he is very much aware of it and may even be inspiring much of it.

But neither Lodge nor Schwartz would be able to sway the fundamentalists of religion and science – those whose minds are made up and closed to further enlightenment. The absolute proof they require seems neither possible nor desirable. However, the results of credible psychical research can significantly influence those who are open minded and truly searching for real meaning and purpose in life.

As I see it, the Freud approach involves a fatal leap into a darkened chasm, while the Lewis approach requires a giant leap of faith over that chasm. The Lodge and Schwartz approach, on the other hand, do not involve much more than a short hop over a babbling brook. 

Forget whether God exists or not and look at the evidence for survival. There is a preponderance of such evidence out there. Examine it, discern it, dissect it, and let God emerge from what you discover.

Tagged with: God, afterlife, spirituality, Richard Dawkins, science, religion

8 days later, Water Carrier wrote:

Hi Mike, 

You wrote,

 Forget whether God exists or not and look at the evidence for survival. There is a preponderance of such evidence out there. Examine it, discern it, dissect it, and let God emerge from what you discover. 

I agree. Ultimately, those who argue against the existence of God are arguing against the existence of consciousness. They believe consciousness is secreted by the brain the way the adrenal glands secrete adrenaline. Consciousness is an epiphenomenon, or emergent phenomenon, but it in itself doesn’t exist. It’s just a quality of something that does exist, just as “sharp” is a quality of a knife but “sharp” doesn’t itself exist. 

And so, to talk with them about God is pointless. That’s not where their ignorance lies. They don’t know that consciousness exists outside of and aside from the brain, or rather, that the brain is an epiphenomenon of consciousness. That ignorance is a remarkable state of affairs in the twenty-first century when so much research shows that neurons firing don’t account for the moment of a conscious experience. Neurons certainly don’t account for the fact that I can sit in my office, close my eyes, and “see” images of objects on people’s tables thousands of miles away . I’m not using a retina; I’m not using my optic nerve; and I’m not using the optical cortex because no electrical signals are coming into it to create neurotransmitters. In other words, it seems pretty clear that I “see” without the brain. Then I remember what I see, so my memories aren’t in the brain either.

My seeing objects in this way happens with none of the electrical signals the optical cortex needs to produce the neurotransmitters. Electromagnetism doesn’t travel over the earth’s curvature, and besides, experiments done in Faraday cages show that this psychic activity doesn’t involve electromagnetism. But the images are there, in my consciousness. In other words, my consciousness is seeing things my brain can’t possibly “see,” without photons, a retina, an optic nerve, or an optical cortex. My brain is just protein and fat tightly enclosed in the darkness of my skull. My consciousness is what’s out there seeing something thousands of miles away.

So obviously, consciousness isn’t in the brain. And that means when the brain dies, consciousness doesn’t die. It’s still wherever it was when the brain was producing brainwaves and firing neurons. That’s what the direct-voice medium recordings tell us http://adcguides.com/ . People who die find themselves just as they were the moment before death. Some don’t even know they’re dead and wander around the Earth for weeks, months, or years. 

The skeptics won’t look at the real issue of the nature of consciousness. It’s too scary for them. They would have to rethink everything they know if they learned that consciousness isn’t in the brain. It’s easier to avoid looking at the vast amount of evidence that consciousness exists aside from the brain and consciousness survives death. It’s easier for them to focus on an easy target: the unprovable, inaccessible nature of God. That’s avidya, ignorance. 

But if they did just accept the obvious fact that consciousness is outside of the brain (or the brain is inside consciousness), then they could understand that consciousness is fundamental. From everything we know, consciousness is the ground of all being. Knowing that consciousness is eternal, is located outside of the body, and is the ground of all being, there must be an architect with a greater consciousness. Materialism and evolution break down in the face of consciousness. It couldn’t have evolved naturally; it could only evolve purposefully, and that requires a conscious architect.

As you suggest, if the skeptics will look at consciousness and the survival of consciousness, they will find God.

 — Craig

Sophia: the Gnostic Heritage

Just read John Nash’s article, “Sophia: the Gnostic Heritage“, published in the Fall 2009 edition of The Esoteric Quarterly. Nice thorough-but-brief coverage of the topic, if you know what I mean.  Here’s an excerpt…

SophiaSummary

This article presents a brief history of

Sophia, best known of the divine feminine

individualities of the West. Under her Hebrew

name, Chokmah, Sophia emerged in late biblical

times. But it was the Gnostics of the early

Christian era who created the Sophia we recognize

today. Sophia played a small but significant

role in western mainstream Christianity

and a much larger role in Eastern Orthodoxy.

Russian Orthodox theologians not only

had personal experiences of Sophia but also

shared important insights into how she related

to the Trinity and to the “invisible Church”

that transcends historical Christianity. The

article concludes with some remarks about the

relevance of Sophia in modern spirituality.

Background

masculine God dominates Judaism,

Christianity and Islam. But female deities

were popular in many ancient cultures, and

they survive in the religions of Asia and the

Pacific, and in the indigenous religions of the

Americas. A popular theory is that the Great

Mother once ruled supreme in much of the

world but was overthrown when Indo-

European tribes invaded the Middle East in the

third millennium BCE. Allegedly the invaders

brought with them a masculine warrior god, or

several warrior gods, who eventually evolved

into the Deity of the Abrahamic religions.1

Whether or not there was once a supreme

feminine deity—and the issue continues to be

debated—there is no doubt that feminine deities

were more common in the West in antiquity

than they became during the 2,000 years

of the Common Era. In recent decades resistance

has increased not only among feminist

theologians but also more generally to the convention

that God is necessarily masculine and

must be referred to in terms such as “He,” “Father,”

“Lord,” and so forth. Resistance has

also increased to the custom of envisioning

God in any kind of anthropomorphic terms.2

Yet anthropomorphism is comforting to many

people, and the concept of a powerful Goddess,

complementing or even replacing the

traditional masculine God, resonates with large

numbers of thinking people.

Of all the anthropomorphized, feminine deities

discussed today, Sophia is the most popular in

the West, to judge by the literature of feminist

theology, women’s studies, and New Age culture.

The purpose of this article, then, is to

present a brief review of the history and contemporary

relevance of Sophia in western

spirituality. Many questions remain concerning

how Sophia can be reconciled with traditional

Christian doctrine. However, opportunities

also exist to integrate Sophia more firmly

into the Trans-Himalayan teachings.

Sophia in Biblical Times

he Greek word for “Wisdom” is Sophia.

But the story of Sophia extends back into

biblical Judaism, where she was known by the

Hebrew name Chokmah. Chokmah had a long

history in the Old Testament, starting out simply

as the quality or virtue of wisdom and

gradually approaching the status of a divine

individuality. She had a close relationship

with the masculine Yahweh, even participating

About the Author

John F. Nash, Ph.D., is a long-time esoteric student,

author and teacher. Two of his books, Quest for the

Soul and The Soul and Its Destiny, were reviewed

in the Winter 2005 issue of the Esoteric Quarterly,

and his latest book, Christianity: the One, the

Many, in the Fall 2008 issue. See the advertisements

on page 14 of this issue and also the website:

www.uriel.com.

Read the rest of “Sophia: the Gnostic Heritage” by John Nash.

Saved not by truth, not by gnosis, only by faith?

Someone viewed our Seminary website and emailed me the following thoughts. Not sure what I think, if I agree with her. See my thoughts below her letter.

Dear Council ~

I came across your site, and was interested to see how you blend what you describe as esoteric or mystical concepts with variations on Christian faith.

I became a Christian last year, and have found that yes, Christian faith is a mystery. from the outside, it makes little sense. that God would or could limit Himself to One Man, and that One Man’s death could do anything for us. the concept that we are saved not by striving after truth, or by our insights, but by faith in Jesus strikes us as counter-intuitive.

We have this idea that spiritual truth and freedom is something we have to work for, find out, discover, or look within ourselves to find. but the One who said plainly “if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed” did not mean for us to try to reach God, peace, enlightenment, or wisdom through our own efforts. if we could do that, God would not have sent His Son, who proclaimed Himself to by the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, and the giver of living water.

We all long for union with God, and some kind of understanding. but we are meant to seek and find that not within oursleves, or through concepts, but in and as a unique Person, who lived, died, and lives now. it’s that humbling one’s self before Jesus the Person which is most difficult. we long to treat Him as a symbol, nice man, teacher, or idea, or perhaps as a blue print to what we can become, if we too “wake up” to the fact that we and God are one. yet the truth is that we need Jesus. the gap between us and God, which we may try to bridge through innumerable means can not be bridged by us, but has been bridged already by God, as and through His incarnate Son. because He died for us, and lives now, we too can live.

Realizing that somehow, Jesus could give me something i could not get myself, and coming to the point where one humbly asks for Him to help you, is hard. it takes a toll on self, ego, pride, and the intellect. but coming to that point is so worth it. Ravi Zacharias describes it as “you humble your self before Him, and He accepts you”. and in that acceptance is a real new life, new self, and walk with God.

In and because of the historical, pre-existant, and now living Jesus.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Katia writes:

Definitely seems counterintuitive as she says to think one man’s death could “save” us, no gnosis, no awakening required.  So I think I don’t agree with her.    I think Jesus died because of man’s actions, and maybe some of Satan’s, and because he didn’t want his followers to be killed in a hunt for him. I don’t think he died to satisfy a justice-obsessed god who needed to see a broken bleeding god. And if he died to defeat death, to “save” us from death, why haven’t we been saved from it yet? No evidence things in that department are any different than before the crucifixion. However we do have evidence that Yeshua’s MESSAGE has made things different, “saved” people, by waking them up with the achievement of gnosis, leading thousands of bright souls to commit acts of charity and kindness, to unselfishly guide and aid the humans around them.  Most people go thru their lives not really guiding and aiding humanity. Jesus inspires people to wake up and spread the gnosis. This humbling yourself before him as the lady above describes could be the quieting of the selfish-me, the “humbling” or taming of that me-me-always-me persona in our heads (eg0).

+Katia

Five Things Religion-Haters Should Know

In the article below, I liked the “Buddhism is the highest form of Christianity” joke.  Hee hee. And I am glad the author says “sick religion is dehumanizing”, not healthy religion.  Not all religion should be thrown out with the bath water. I inserted little comments as I read along, mostly because the author kept messing up his own article (in my opinion!) with his personal bias by allowing politics to constantly intrude into his arguments and conclusions.

See the end of the article for more comments from yours truly and also for +Christian-Thomas’ sapient comment…

————

DEAR GOD… FIVE THINGS RELIGION-HATERS SHOULD KNOW

By Stuart Davis
stuartdavis.com
August 9, 2009

http://www.stuartdavis.com/blog/dear-god-five-things-religion-haters-should-know

I just finished reading God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens. He’s given us another powerful work in the vein of Sam Harris (The End of Faith), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), and Bill Maher (Religulous). Team Rationality is ushering in a long-overdue examination of religion in the modern world. They make a strong case that religion is sick and dehumanizing. I would say more specifically, sick religion is dehumanizing.

And we do have a global pandemic of sick religion: billions of believers stuck in low levels of consciousness, riddled with pathologies — called Samsara where I’m from.

However, reading these best-sellers has inspired me to make a wish-list.

Here are five things rational religion-haters should know:

1. There are levels of religion.

I keep noticing that what many rational types detest is not religion per se, but its least-evolved expressions. Over and over I hear atheists say “religion” when they are actually describing low levels of religion. That confusion is not helping. Eliminating religion will not eliminate low levels of development. And that’s the real threat to humanity: Low levels of development in high positions of power. Saying “Religion” is the problem doesn’t mean anything. What level of Religion is being referred to? For example, here are five distinct levels of religious expression, from lowest to highest:

Magical-Animistic: Recently in Tanzania, religious figures have murdered over fifty innocent human beings because they happened to be albino. The victims are killed so that their organs can be used in religious rituals that are supposed to create wealth. That’s one of the things we get from a Magical mode of religion. Blood sacrifice.

Mythic: After the massacre of 3,000 Americans on 9/11, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell claimed it was god taking revenge on our society for homosexuality and abortion. Mythic religion is that old-school religion of supra-natural allegory. Virgin births, raising the dead, walking on water, and the rapture. Except mythic believers don’t consider their stories to be metaphoric symbols, they regard them as literal and real. Mythic religion guided George Bush through eight years as President of the United States, [Katia inserts: so you say, but you have no evidence for this rather snobbish claim. Perhaps POLITICS guided him. Or power-lust? Or whatever…but religion? If so, seems to me he would have been obsessed with sending missionaries and trying to convert people to Christianity. We can’t read minds. It is arrogant in the extreme to announce one knows another person’s inner spiritual life, to claim exact knowledge of what level of religion intimately guided that human being for eight years. Pat Robertson’s and Falwell’s remarks are clear evidence they were at this level — at least at the moment in time when they made their god-is-punishing-us remarks. But to judge eight years of someone’s spiritual life without any evidence of mythical Christian mindset (sick or healthy) seems unduly biased.]

…coincidentally also guided the terrorists to commit mass murder.

[I agree with you there. That is a single provable event. They left letters saying their mythic level of religion did indeed guide them to commit that repulsive crime against innocent humans.]

Rational: Francis Collins, one of the World’s most accomplished Scientists, calls his faith BioLogos, or theistic evolution. He sees Science, and the empirical method, as a form of worship. He rejects intelligent design.

Believe it or not, there are plenty of rational people who believe in a Divinity of some kind.

Pluralistic: For a taste of pluralistic Christianity, check out The Christian Pluralist by William C. Buffie, M.D. and John R. Charles. They even incorporate psychology in their faith, exploring shadow / projection in the realm of religion. They embrace the Bible “as a story, not a weapon.” Jimmy Carter has also demonstrated a strong pluralistic Christianity. He even taught Sunday School in a Southern Baptist church while President. [Southern Baptists are actually more fundamentalist by far than Methodists–George Bush’s church. Not that we know how fundamentalist or evolved either ex-president is/was because again, we cannot read minds nor souls.  To actually be teaching Southern Baptist Sunday school while president…Now that might indeed imply being guided by fundamentalist Christianity during a presidency. Yet you place Carter at a more spiritually evolved level than Bush and don’t claim he was “guided” during his presidency. It appears you are allowing political bias and/or spiritual arrogance to creep in to your otherwise good piece.]

Integrative: In my opinion one of the most spiritually evolved Christians on the planet, Father Thomas Keating teaches a form of contemplative practice called Centering Prayer, which he describes as

“. . . a journey into the unknown. It is a call to follow Jesus out of all the structures, security blankets, and even spiritual practices that serve as props. They are all left behind insofar as they are part of the false self system . . . The false self is an illusion. Humility is the forgetfulness of self.”

These are five very distinct levels of the same religion, in this case Christianity, but it applies to any religion. (I forgot to list the highest level of Christianity, which is Buddhism. Kidding!). The point is, religion should not be regarded as horizontal and homogenous. All belief systems include a vertical chain of development.

The ‘answer’ to fundamentalism is not to get rid of Religion, but to get religion to evolve. How can we help Pat Robertson discover his hidden Father Thomas Keating? Will Francis Collins agree to mentor Sarah Palin? [Maybe you should ask will he mentor YOU. And read Matthew 7:5 http://bible.cc/matthew/7-5.htm ]

I’m kidding. But I’m not. The answer to low levels of religion is higher levels of religion. The real work ahead of us is religious development, not just embarrassing people into forfeiting their belief system (they will just trade it for an equivalent one anyway). If tomorrow, all the religions in the World magically vanished, we’d face the same dangers of low levels of consciousness in high positions of power.

2. There are healthy and pathological versions of every level.

A religious person can be healthy or sick at any stage of development. The answer to sick religion is healthy religion. While Pat Robertson told us 9/11 was God’s revenge for homosexuality [sick], millions of other Christians — at the same mythic developmental level [but healthy] — were organizing their communities to offer help and healing. Because that is what healthy mythic Christians do (and they do it better than just about anybody). For every sick fundamentalist there are many healthy believers contributing to society in a positive way.

3. The more people evolve, the less religious (fundamentalist) they are.

One definition of ‘religion’ is a partition between the saved and the damned, a boundary that separates ‘us’ and ‘them’. When people grow, they include more and exclude less. As we live into higher development levels, our circle gets bigger. Evolving means a bigger experience of ‘We’. Also known as Love 😉 As the self evolves, it recognizes more people (and plants, and animals, and things) as part of its own identity. That’s why development creates security for everyone, it transforms ‘them’ into ‘us’.

4. At its higher levels, Religion resonates with science and rationality.

That’s because at its higher levels, religion becomes spiritual. I define religion as a belief system used to interpret Reality. I define spirituality as the direct experience of Reality. No beliefs are required for spiritual practice. (In Zen there is a saying: All beliefs are false.) Spiritual experience can often undo religious belief. Religion provides filters, and depends upon intermediaries and externally located salvation. Spirituality removes (or improves) filters through direct access to our intrinsic nature.

Spiritual practices are empirical in this sense: You want to know something (like, what is Reality) so you conduct an experiment. For instance, you may spend a few decades making your Subject an Object of awareness. You share your data (gathered through direct experience) to a group of qualified peers who have repeated that same experiment for centuries. They verify or falsify your findings, and you proceed with further experimentation. You don’t have to ‘believe’ anything about it, before, during, or after. In this way, the contemplative traditions have evolved over millennia. They are in harmony with rationality and science, and generally welcome any methodology that might increase our knowledge of the visible and invisible Kosmos.

5. Everybody starts at the bottom.

Even if everyone in the World became Mensa-level enlightened today, every baby born tomorrow would have to begin at square one, and develop the old fashioned way. So far, we haven’t figured out a way to skip developmental levels. However, we move through them faster than we used to. For instance,

John Ashcroft may be a poster child for the low-level of Mythic religion, but a mere 100,000 years ago there WAS NO Mythic level of religion. It hadn’t even emerged yet. Even 3,000 years ago, George Bush Jr. would have been one of the most evolved people on the planet. Not so much now.

[There you go again messing up an otherwise good article and causing us to question YOUR level of development because you can’t resist getting in petty jibes, and are bringing politics and sarcasm into the topic at hand].

Now Mythic Religion is like, totally a crappy low level of consciousness, and most nine year olds or U.S. Presidents have access to it, thanks to recapitulation. Recapitulation? When we’re born, we basically get a free pass to evolve up to the prevailing center of consciousness in the population. The level of consciousness we are immersed in (in the family we are born into, in the culture we live in, etc) exerts a developmental gravity. And that gravity pulls us up to it. But, when you try to evolve beyond it, to higher altitudes of consciousness, then that same center of gravity drags you back down to it. If you are below it, it lifts you up.

Rise above, it will try to pull you back down.

That’s why Mythic religious peeps are freaking out. Their World (view) is vanishing like millions of species God gave them Reign over [And in the Islamic worldview it’s even worse: they believe strongly that God gave them “reign” over all females of the human species].

Eventually (if they don’t destroy humanity first, with their lust for an apocalypse), mythic religion will become about as important to future generations as magic is to us. Magic should be used in Harry Potter movies, not for the religious murder of Tanzanian Albinos. Mythic religion should be a history lesson, not the guiding belief of a U.S. President. [He isn’t in office anymore, can you get over it?]

That’s why Bill Maher’s movie Religulous is funny: It’s pointing out the fact that there are a LOT of people living with a World View that went out of style in 1637 (thanks, Descartes!). Bill Maher is hilariously pointing out the fact that religion is literally retarded, because it is developmentally arrested. I mean, it would be hilarious, if it weren’t so appallingly true. Evidence indicates 70% of the world is at a Mythic (or lower) level of development. And they are religious!

If we get these five simple points into the debate about religion, I think it would help eliminate some confusion.

* * * * * * * *

Katia wishes to add:  And if you read Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose it would eliminate even more of that confusion.

Seriously, A New Earth is one of the most life-changing books I have ever read. I am currently working on memorizing its table of contents, just like people memorize the Bible’s “layout”, so that I can find passages more easily. If you still haven’t read it, email me and I will send you a copy. I have extras laying around and I believe it should be in every motel room’s bedside drawer…  A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose original non-Oprah hardback version at Amazon.

The author of this article, Stuart Davis, is a primary disciple of Ken Wilber. I have read Wilber extensively and like his teachings very much.  Wilber is very much in harmony with Eckhart Tolle. But his student Stuart Davis has a tendency toward dragging politics into spirituality (yikes!) and making smug assessments as to what level specific humans (i.e. Bush, Palin, etc.) are in their spiritual development.

He also tends to assume the lower levels are “bad” and the higher levels are “good” as evidenced in this particular article when he calls the mythic level “crappy”. What he fails to realize even while admitting that everybody goes thru all these levels is that there is no good or bad and we shouldn’t say to a kid or a teen during their mythic phase that they are at a “crappy lower” level. Again, smug. No more than we say a child who can’t yet do times tables but is learning to add and subtract, is at a crappy level. I mean, really. It is vital and healthy to work up thru the levels, that’s why they call it spiritual evolution. The lower levels are required, so let us not judge each other for spending time in them just as we are or did. The only thing that becomes “crappy” is the behavior of the person if they are expressing an UNHEALTHY version of any particular level, be it magical, mythical, rational, pluralistic etc.  Ken Wilber himself says that it’s better to be a healthy lower level than an unhealthy higher level. So the behavior of an unhealthy pluralist is less crappy than a healthy mythical levelist (fundamentalist). Davis even points out how the healthy mythical levelists are the best charity organizers, donators in the world. Yet he doesn’t make clear their behavior is only “sick” or their level “crappy” when they deliberately harm others. Leave ’em alone, they’re evolving up the spiral (of Spiral Dynamics) at their own pace. Sheesh to calling their level crappy, since we know what word crappy is a euphemism for. Not to mention you run the risk of falling into the good-or-bad labeling habit: evaluating everything that comes across your desk as either “good” or “bad”, seeing everything as either black or white, sweet-to-me or crappy-to-me.  This polarized mindset is characteristic of the very mythical level you are criticizing! Tolle teaches three ways to react to everything that comes across our desk: with acceptance (never resistance nor judgement as “bad”), enjoyment or enthusiasm. He calls these the 3 Modalities of Awakened Doing and they are described in the final chapter of A New Earth.

I sometimes sense almost a holier-than-thou mindset when reading Stuart Davis. Still, his re-cap of the Spiral Dynamics levels of religion teaching and Wilber’s interpretation thereof, is nicely described in this article — and his hypothesis is spot-on. Yes, please let those religion-haters take note! So overall I enjoyed this article, Dear God…Five Things Religion-Haters Should Know, and wanted to pass it on.  Hope I didn’t ruin it with all my interrupting comments. <grin>

* * * * * * * *

Gnostic Bishop Christian-Thomas writes:

Dear +Katia:

Perhaps I’m biased, but I believe that Judaeo-Christian Gnosticism is the highest developed and evolved expression of both orthodox Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity.  Too bad that most commentators, such as this one, did not cite Gnosticism, in his fascinating hypotheses.

Peace,

+Christian-Thomas

***

Roman Catholic Fashion Show Parody, a must see

What a riot this YouTube video is!  When they get to the clerical vestments part, oh man is that funny. Some of the vestments blink and light up like Vegas, plus the body language of the “fashion models” is so priceless.

What the heck is that moribund looking bride all about? I wonder if they mean the internally exiled Bride (Sacred Feminine) in the patriarchal Church? She’s internally and externally exiled, if you think about it.  In traditional fashion shows the finale is always at least one bridal gown.  This Bride comes near the end, but not the very end (these guys end with the Pope, and it is hilarious).  So the bride comes out and shows her gown, but there is heavily laden symbolism there! She is grief stricken — and unwelcome, seemingly exiled.  She beseeches the unmoved crowd. Very intense, very interesting…

I have no idea what all the skeletons near the end are supposed to mean. The dead? The many murdered heretics? Wow. The skeletons herald the finale, which is the Pope.  You gotta see this.
The Clerical Whispers blog this video appears on also looks intriguing, especially with the sub-title, “Irish RC Priests…Giving The Uncomfortable Truth And News From The Inside…”
Sincerely,
+Katia

New Age Spirituality is No More Pure than Old-Time Religion

We must make this article required reading for Mystery School members.
DO SHAMANS HAVE MORE SEX?
NEW AGE SPIRITUALITY IS NO MORE PURE THAN OLD-TIME RELIGION
By Robert Wright
Slate
July 29, 2009

Wouldn't it be great to be back in hunter-gatherer days? Back before the
human spiritual quest had been corrupted by the "relentless onslaught of
Western scientific materialism" and "dogmatic male-dominated religion"? Back
when there were shamans -- spiritual leaders -- who could plug us into "the
realm of the magical," show us "the reality behind apparent reality," and
thus lead us to understand "how the universe really works"?

The quotes come from Leo Rutherford, a leading advocate of neo-shamanism,
which is a subset of neo-paganism, which is a subset of New Age
spirituality. But the basic idea -- that there was a golden age of spiritual
purity which we fallen moderns need to recover -- goes beyond New Age
circles. You see traces of it even in such serious scholars as Karen
Armstrong, who wrote in A History of God that early Abrahamic religion had
created a gulf "between humanity and the divine, rupturing the holistic
vision of paganism."

As the author of the just-published book The Evolution of God, about the
history of religion, I'm primed to do some debunking. But before I start, I
want to stress two points:

1) I think it's great for people to find spiritual peace and sound moral
orientation wherever they can, including neo-paganism;

2) I don't doubt that back before Western monotheism took shape there were
earnest seekers of a "holistic vision" who selflessly sought to share that
vision.

What I do doubt is that these earnest, selfless spiritual leaders were any
more common in the heyday of shamanism than today, or that the spiritual
quest was any less corrupted by manipulation and outright charlatanism than
today, or that there was a coherent philosophy of shamanism that makes more
sense than the average religion of today.

Of course, there's no way to resurrect long-dead cultures to find out, and
there is by definition no such thing as a written record of prehistoric
societies. But we have the next best thing: accounts from anthropologists
who visited hunter-gatherer societies before they had been corrupted by much
contact with modernity. These anthropologists observed shamans doing what
shamans do: prophesying, curing people, improving the weather, casting
spells, casting out evil spirits, etc. And the anthropological record
suggests the following about the age of shamanism.

1) There was a lot of fakery. Eskimo shamans have been seen spewing blood
upon contact with a ceremonial harpoon, wowing audiences unaware of the
animal bladder full of blood beneath their clothing. The sleight of hand by
which shamans "suck" a malignant object out of a sick patient and then
dramatically display it works so well that anthropologists have observed
this trick in Tasmania, North America, and lands in between. Other examples
abound: http://evolutionofgod.net/tricks

2) Shamans -- lots of them -- were in it partly for the money. In exchange
for treating a patient, a shaman might receive yams (in Micronesia), sleds
and harnesses (among the Eastern Eskimo), beads and coconuts (the Mentawai
of Sumatra), tobacco (the Ojibwa of northeastern North America), or slaves
(the Haida of western Canada). In California, if a Nomlaki shaman said,
"These beads are pretty rough," it meant that he would need more beads if he
was to cure anything that day.

3) Shamans -- some of them, at least -- were in it for the sex. In his
classic study The Law of Primitive Man, E. Adamson Hoebel observed that,
among some Eskimos, "A forceful shaman of established reputation may
denounce a member of his group as guilty of an act repulsive to animals or
spirits, and on his own authority he may command penance. An apparently
common atonement is for the shaman to direct an allegedly erring woman to
have intercourse with him (his supernatural power counteracts the effects of
her sinning)." Nice work if you can get it. Sometimes the magic-for-sex swap
was subtler. Ojibwa shamans, one anthropologist reports, received "minimal
remuneration," working for "prestige, not pay. One of the symbols of
religious leadership prestige was polygyny. Male leaders took more than
one wife."

4) Shamans -- some of them, at least -- ran protection rackets. Here is
anthropologist Edward Horace Man on shamans in the Andamanese Islands: "It
is thought that they can bring trouble, sickness, and death upon those who
fail to evince their belief in them in some substantial form; they thus
generally manage to obtain the best of everything, for it is considered
foolhardy to deny them, and they do not scruple to ask for any article to
which they may take a fancy." Among the Ona of Tierra del Fuego, payment for
service was rare, but, as one anthropologist observed, "One abstains from
anything and everything" that might put the shaman "out of sorts or irritate
him."

As for the "philosophy" of shamanism -- the vision that, in Rutherford's
words, shows us "how the universe really works": Well, for the most part,
the worldview of shamans was a lot like that of followers of early Abrahamic
religion, except with more gods, more evil spirits, and more raw
superstition (though there's more raw superstition in the Bible than most
people realize).

Of course, some shamans did have the advantage, compared with biblical
figures, of psychedelic drugs. An Amazonian drug, as described by one
anthropologist, led the shaman to lie in his hammock, "growl and pant,
strike the air with claw-like fingers," signifying that "his wandering
soul has turned into a bloodthirsty feline."

So if shamanism is so crude, how did it get glamorized? In 1951, the
esteemed scholar Mircia Eliade published a book called Shamanism. While he
didn't whitewash shamanism, he did his best to see its more refined side. He
wrote that Eskimo shamanism and Buddhist mysticism share as their goal
"deliverance from the illusions of the flesh." And shamanism, he said,
features "the will to transcend the profane, individual condition" in order
to recover "the very source of spiritual existence, which is at once 'truth'
and 'life.' "

It's certainly true that ordinary consciousness could use some transcending.
Thanks to our designer, natural selection, we tend to be self-absorbed, with
a wary sense of separation from most of humanity. And it's true that various
shamanic techniques -- fasting, for example -- can improve things in this
regard (though fasting can also, as in the Native American "vision quest,"
convince you that you've been adopted by some spirit that will, say, help
you kill more people in battle). Anthropologist Melvin Konner once partook
of the Kung San curing dance, which can last 10 hours and send the dancer
into a trance state that converts his or her healing energy into useful
vaporous form and fosters discourse with gods. Konner didn't speak to any
gods, but he did report getting "that 'oceanic' feeling of oneness with the
world."

I'm for that! In fact, I once did a one-week Buddhist meditation retreat
that gave me just that feeling. And there are traditions within Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam that are big on oneness. I recommend trying one of
them -- or trying neo-shamanism. But if you try neo-shamanism, don't be
under the illusion that you're helping to recover a lost age of authentic
spirituality. Religion has always been a product of human beings, for better
and worse.
*
Robert Wright's new book The Evolution of God is here: 
 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316734918/esoterictheologi

Happy Magdalene Day!

MMicon2smToday, July 22, is Mary Magdalene’s Feastday as observed by the official Church for centuries.  Now it is a holiday for alternative Christians and I like to call it Magdalene Day, taking out that “Catholic” word “feast”.  I guess it’s my fussiness. Hah.

I have my red egg on its little stand on my home altar and red, white and green candles burning as they are Her colors. I have heard that some people try to wear those three colors today. What are you doing to mark Her day?

+Katia

Here is a Magdalene Litany Margaret Starbird posted around today:

Margaret writes:

I love this Magdalene litany –hope you will, too!

Enjoy her blessed feast day!

***************

Litany of Mary Magdalene from Catholic Liturgies

According to the tradition of the Western Church Mary Magdalene is identical with “the woman who was a sinner” (Luke 7) and with the sister of Lazarus (John 11:2 and 12:3), though this identification is challenged by the Fathers of the East. Liturgical devotion Mary Magdalenehas been immemorial. This litany is mellow with age; from an old German version this was translated many years ago. ….

…..

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Response following each phrase:  “Show us the way of the heart”

Sister of Martha and Lazarus,

Who didst enter the Pharisee’s house to anoint the feet of Jesus,

Who didst wash His feet with thy tears,

Who didst dry them with thy hair,

Who didst cover them with kisses,

Wounded with the love of Christ,

Most dear to the Heart of Jesus.

Constant woman,

Last at the Cross of Jesus, first at His tomb,

Thou who wast the first to see Jesus risen,

Apostle of apostles,

Who didst choose the “better part,”

Sweet advocate of sinners,

Spouse of the King of Glory,

May the prayers of blessed Mary Magdalene help us, O Lord, for it was in answer to them that Thou didst call her brother Lazarus, four days after death, back from the grave to life.

Amen.

*************

© Copyright Trinity Communications 2005. All rights reserved.

Abridged from http://www.catholicculture.org/lit/prayers/view.cfm?id=1095

In Memory of Her–

Margaret

“Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile”

www.margaretstarbird.net

Interfaith Leaders Desperately Needed, Including Gnostic, Alternative Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and whatever you are…

Here’s an intriguing and mind-changing article I just read in ChristianityToday where a muslim professor is telling ministers in training to be MORE Christian and that will make muslims and those of other faiths feel more safe (not threatened) to be who they are. He teaches there is a great need for mature Interfaith leaders that get the idea we are not supposed to disrespect other faiths, but neither are we to disrespect our own by watering it down in order to not “offend” people and clergy of other faiths.

For esoteric Christian ministers, Independent Catholic priests or alternative clergy of any kind, you can take this muslim professor’s words of advice and insert, “be more WHATEVER YOU ARE.” So be more gnostic, be more alternative Christian, be more Jewish, etc. That is the way to get the respect YOU deserve, AND to get your message across, to accomplish YOUR mission.

Please read the article below…it represents the way of the future in ministry, in my opinion. — +Katia

 

The following article was retrieved from:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/buildingleaders/ministrystaff/ministrylessonsfromamuslim.html

Ministry Lessons from a Muslim

His unexpected message to church leaders: fully embrace your Christian identity. Skye Jethani and Brandon O’Brien Monday, July 6, 2009

Eboo Patel is not the most likely seminary professor. His credentials are not the issue. Patel earned his doctorate from Oxford University, and he is a respected commentator on religion for The Washington Post and National Public Radio. He has spoken in venues across the world, including conferences for evangelical church leaders.What makes Eboo Patel an unlikely seminary professor is that he is Muslim.

The editors of Leadership first encountered Patel at the 2008 Q Conference, where he challenged 500 Christian leaders to change the rules of interfaith dialogue. “Muslims and Christians might not fully agree on worldview,” he said, “but we share a world.” Patel spoke of his enduring friendships with a number of evangelicals and his desire to move beyond the “clash of civilizations” rhetoric that dominates Christian/Muslim interaction. While holding firmly to his belief in Islam, he also affirmed church leaders. “Even though it is not my tradition and my community,” Patel wrote after the conference, “I believe deeply that this type of evangelical Christianity is one of the most positive forces on Earth.”

We were intrigued, so we contacted Patel to talk more about the ramifications of increasing religious diversity in America, as well as his outsider’s perspective of the church’s response. Patel gave us more than we bargained for. He invited us to attend a class he was teaching on interfaith leadership at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

Patel is not on the seminary faculty. He serves as the executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC)—a Chicago-based international non-profit that brings together religiously diverse young leaders to serve their communities. The seminary invited Patel to co-teach the course on interfaith leadership with Cassie Meyer, a Christian who serves as the training director at IFYC.

Be more Christian

When we arrived in the class, which included twenty seminarians—men and women from diverse racial and denominational backgrounds—the students were discussing a newspaper article. Patel and Meyer were using the report about tensions between Somali Muslim immigrants and Latino workers at a meatpacking plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, as a case study. The Muslims wanted the factory’s managers to adjust production schedules to accommodate their prayer times and holidays like Ramadan. Others in the rural community admitted being uncomfortable with the influx of so many Muslim neighbors—particularly after September 11, 2001.

“Imagine you are the pastor of a church in Grand Island, Nebraska,” Patel says to the class. “A reporter from The New York Times calls you because he is working on a story about the conflict between Muslims and Christians at the meatpacking plant. The reporter asks you, ‘What should Christians do?’ How would you respond?” After a few moments of reflection, a student answers.

“I would talk about the fact that this country was founded on religious freedom,” he says. “We have to respect other people’s beliefs.”

“Yes,” interjects another student. “But if they allow the Muslims to take breaks for prayer, it will disrupt the factory’s productivity. There is an economic reality to consider. If the plant shuts down, the whole community will suffer.”

For fifteen minutes the students debate the matter, fluctuating between constitutional rights and economic realities. Finally, Patel interrupts.

“I’m hearing you articulate two grand narratives. First, the narrative of American freedom. And second, the narrative of capitalism and productivity. But remember, the reporter is not calling you because you are an expert in economics or constitutional law. He’s calling you because you are a minister. Don’t be afraid to answer the question as a Christian. Answer out of the Christian narrative.”

The irony of a Muslim challenging a group of pastors to be more Christian was not lost on the students. Heads dropped as they contemplated a different response to the case study. Cassie Meyer assisted the students by adapting the scenario.

“Imagine you’re the pastoral intern at the church in Grand Island,” Meyer says, “and you’ve been given the responsibility to preach a sermon this Sunday addressing the conflict between the Christians and Muslims. What would you say from the pulpit? What would you use from Scripture?”

“The greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbors,” says one student. “Whether we like it or not, these Somali Muslims are our neighbors and we are called to love them.”

“But many in the town don’t view the Muslims as their neighbors,” says another student. “They view them as intruders, unwanted outsiders, or even their enemies.”

“Do you think referring to the Muslims as ‘enemies’ in your sermon might inflame the problem?” Patel asks.

“I don’t think so,” the student responds. “Jesus calls us to love our enemies and to show kindness to aliens. But that would have to be made clear in the sermon. The story of the Good Samaritan comes to mind.” Patel is out of his chair, energized by what he is hearing.

“I want you to see what just happened,” he says. “I want to affirm this. You are using the grand Christian narrative to respond to an interfaith conflict. First, I heard the Christian story of loving God and loving your neighbor. Second, I heard the Christian story of the Good Samaritan and the call to love the stranger. By using these stories, you are defining reality through the Christian narrative.

“Remember, the three most powerful narratives on the planet are narratives of religion, narratives of nation, and narratives of ethnicity/race. You cannot afford to forfeit that territory by talking about economics or the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Don’t be afraid to be Christian ministers. If you don’t use the Christian narrative to define reality for your people, then someone else will define reality for them with a different narrative.”

Patel’s call to stand firmly on the Christian narrative isn’t what most students expect to hear from a Muslim professor.

“The more theologically conservative students are usually uncomfortable at the beginning of the course,” says Patel. “But they leave feeling affirmed. It’s the liberal Christians that are more challenged. They’re not used to being told to ‘be more Christian.'”

A false dichotomy

The exhortation to “be more Christian” is reiterated repeatedly in the class we are attending, and it represents a different approach to interfaith dialogue. Cassie Meyer says that most Christians have been told there are two ways to engage people from other faiths.

“The more liberal side says that Christians need to let go of their unique identity and affirm that all religions are valid; all roads lead to God. The more conservative side holds firmly to Christian identity and belief, but they sometimes see people of other religions as the enemy, so there is little desire for cooperation,” she says.

Meyer believes this dichotomy is one reason some people raised in the church abandon the faith as adults.

“The girl who led me to Christ in high school actually walked away from her faith in college,” Meyer recounts. “She was the strongest Christian I knew, but once she left home and started becoming friends with Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, she had a crisis. She’d been told these people were going to hell, that they were the enemy. The only way she could reconcile her friendship and admiration for these people was by abandoning her faith and affirming that all religions are true.”

Meyer and Patel believe there is another way. Somewhere between religious relativism and religious fundamentalism is a third option—what they call religious pluralism. This is the foundational principle of the seminary course.

“Religious pluralism is different than relativism,” one student tells us. “Relativism says you cannot make exclusive truth claims, that everyone is right. Pluralism simply recognizes that we live in a very diverse culture; there are a lot of different religions. Pluralism means talking about how we can live together and still maintain our own religious identity. Truth claims are okay.”

Meyer believes church leaders need to model and teach Christians how to cooperate with and befriend people of other faiths without abandoning their own convictions.

“If we don’t,” she says, “it will either mean more people will leave the church, or there will be more conflict between Christians and other groups.” An African student in the class agrees.

“Where I come from, there is so much conflict,” he says. “People are killing each other because of their beliefs. As a Christian, I am called to have compassion on the crowds, like Jesus did, and love my neighbor—even the neighbor I disagree with.” Created in God’s image In our increasingly secular society, many people have come to view religion as a problem and the source of conflict between groups. This sentiment was popularized in John Lennon’s 1971 song “Imagine,” in which religion is presented as an obstacle to world peace and harmony. But Eboo Patel is helping these seminary students turn conventional wisdom upside down. He sees the potential for greater cooperation and coexistence by embracing our different religious identities, not abandoning them.

“If you enter a ministerial gathering as a Christian minister and downplay your Christian identity in an attempt to make everyone comfortable,” says Patel, “as a Muslim leader, I’m immediately suspicious. I don’t trust you. Embracing your identity as a Christian creates safety for me to be a Muslim.” A student from a liberal denomination jumps in to affirm Patel’s statement.

“In my experience, the hardest thing about interfaith dialogue is Christians who are afraid to talk about Jesus, and that’s a tragedy” she says. “That’s what I appreciate about evangelicals. They enter the room and they want to talk about Jesus. They’re not afraid to own their identity and their narrative, and that gives freedom for everyone else to do the same.”

“We have often viewed particularity and pluralism as mutually exclusive,” says Patel. “We think that if you are one thing, you must be disrespectful of other things.”

The message of embracing identity and acknowledging theological distinctions brought great comfort to some students in the class. Maria, a self-identified Pentecostal, was initially hesitant about taking Eboo Patel’s class.

“I thought the class was a call to believe that all faiths lead to the same place,” says Maria, “and I don’t believe that.” She went on to explain that her denomination is very intentional about not engaging in interfaith dialogue. But now she realizes how important, and how possible, interfaith cooperation is. “Can my church respect another person’s identity? Yes. Can we have mutually encouraging relationships? I believe we can. Can we work together toward a common cause? I believe we can.

“This class has reminded me of a basic Christian belief—that we are all created in God’s image,” she says. “When I’m in conversation with my friend who is a Muslim, can I honor her as someone created in God’s image? I believe that’s what God calls me to do.”

Michael also confessed to being apprehensive about taking the class on interfaith leadership.

“As an army chaplain, I have to deal with religious pluralism all the time,” he says. “But God placed me in this class for a reason, because I’ve had a very negative view of Muslims.” Speaking to Patel, he says, “I’m an African-American man from one of the poorest sections of Chicago. I was raised Pentecostal and now I’m a very conservative Presbyterian. But God has shown me that I need to reach out and view you as a man created in the image of God, respect you, and when possible, work alongside of you. God humbled me, Dr. Patel, in ways you can’t even imagine.”

Maria and Michael, both from conservative Christian backgrounds, were not the only students challenged by Patel’s class. Amy comes from a mainline church with a more liberal theology.

“I grew up believing in Jesus,” says Amy, “but I was also told to accept what everyone else believed, too. I was supposed to love and accept everyone, and that meant taking different identities, including my Christian identity, and merging them together. But I’ve never really understood what that meant. It never made sense to me. How can I believe in Jesus and in everything else?

“This class has helped me see another way. Now I understand that I can love others, I can have compassion for others, I can even work alongside others, and still retain my identity as a Christian. I don’t have to give up my belief in Jesus.”

Eboo Patel and Cassie Meyer hope their class will create more momentum for interfaith dialogue and leadership.

“With religious conflict on the front page every day,” says Patel, “you would think there would be a huge, robust field called interfaith leadership. But there isn’t because it is really hard.”

“It’s not easy to engage meaningfully with others and hold on to your own identity,” says Meyer.

“The ability to bring mutually exclusive people together is the gift of the great leaders of our time,” says Patel. “If religious leaders will not model for their people how to live beside other faiths, then who will?”

Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.

www.ChristianityToday.com
Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today International

Mary Magdalene a Goddess?

We were discussing last week on the GoddessChristians forum whether Magdalene is a goddess or not. Many ask whether Jesus was a god, was he divine, was he “just” a spiritual teacher with a divine message. So when it comes to the Sacred Feminine we come up with the same questions.  Were Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene “goddesses”?Divine beings? Or enlightened teachers? Margaret Starbird wrote in to say:

I guess it’s time to ask the question, “What is a Goddess?”

Many theologians identify “God” as pure energy, personified in a
masculine image (like the Almighty Father in Michelangelo’s “Creation”
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But everyone knows that “He” is
not really “the One”–who is ineffable and defies description. Judaism
and Islam allow no images of God because God is beyond all human
ability to create such an image.

Yet we know of many “gods” in the ancient world… Could we say that
they are “incarnations” of the masculine attributes of “God”? and,
given this, might we then say that Mary Magdalene is an “incarnation”
of the “Goddess” attributes of wisdom/compassion/love?

I believe that just as Jesus embodied the Jewish tradition of Yahweh
as the “Bridegroom of Israel,” Mary Magdalene embodied their tradition
of the “Daughter of Sion” as Bride (as in the rabbi’s interpretation
of the Song of Songs that has so many verses in common with an ancient
liturgy honoring Isis and Osiris). The Jesus/Mary Magdalene story was
a “personification” of the ancient and archetypal marriage covenant
between “God” and his Beloved–His chosen people.

peace and well-being,
Margaret
“Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile”
www.margaretstarbird.net