Religion, Politics, and Reclaiming the Soul of Christianity: A Spiritual Imperative for Our Time and Our Nation

By Jon Canas

God’s unconditional love is the quintessential element, the heart and soul of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The rise of modern American Christian fundamentalism, with its narrowly defined moralism and zeal to impose its restrictive views on all Americans, attacks our country’s democracy. Today’s Christian fundamentalists energize exclusionary right-wing politics, embolden xenophobia, and in the process abandon the very roots of their own religious tradition.

The author takes a comprehensive look at the origins, characters, and spiritual essence that shaped Christianity. In three sweeping sections, he traces the evolution of Christian dogma and its use for political purpose, the rise in consciousness from Law to Grace, the derailment of the authentic “Good News” message of Jesus Christ, and finally the necessity for our actions as modern Christians to be coherent with our beliefs. His book is an urgent invitation to reclaim and return the soul of Christianity to its loving heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669849834

Jon Canas

Jon’s awareness of life as a spiritual journey began at an early age when he was in Catholic boarding school while growing up in France. He once considered the priesthood but then decided on business school. In his early thirties, he was introduced to the progressive Christian writings of Joel Goldsmith. Jon began to avidly study the messages from the masters of the world’s major religions. His ecumenical unfolding had begun. Jon was a fiscal and political conservative throughout most of his successful business career, but his political philosophy shifted dramatically as he became increasingly sensitized, saddened, and appalled at how far America’s predominant religion and his religion—Christianity—had strayed in its political expression from its quintessential essence of divine, unconditional Love. This book was written in response to this crisis of spiritual conscience at what is now a pivotal point in our nation’s history.

Book preview

Religion, Politics, and Reclaiming the Soul of Christianity:

A Spiritual Imperative for Our Time and Our Nation

Jon Canas

Copyright © 2022 by Jon Canas.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Cover Art By Purusha Radha.

Rev. date: 11/26/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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For the law was given through Moses;

but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

—John 1:17

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction: Enough Is Enough!

Part 1 Background to better assess our religious conditioning in order to achieve a freer view of our own spirituality—Overview of Bible nature, history, use, and abuses

Section 1 Reflections on the meanings of selected episodes, words, and symbols

The Wrath of God?

Abraham and His Son, Isaac

Misogyny in the Biblical Portrayal of Women

The Plagues of Egypt

The Anger of God or of Moses?

Moses, the Mystic

Words, Numbers, and Symbols

The Bible and Its Historical Context

Section 2 Reflections on the evolution of the Christian dogma throughout history

In the Beginning

Ieschoua of Nazareth

A New Religion?

The Early Christians

Theology: From Moses to Jesus

Peter, Paul, James, and Mary

Paul’s Teachings and Controversies

John and the I Message

Constantine, the Roman Emperor

Sacrifice, Suffering, Salvation

Augustine, the Theologian

Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam

Section 3 Reflections on use of Scriptures for political purpose in modern times

The Two Gregorys and Papal Sins

Luther and Calvin, the Protesters

Reformation

The Truth about Christopher Columbus

The Founding Fathers and American Values

American Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism Beyond the United States of America

God Bless America!

Conclusion, Part 1

Part 2 In search of spiritual Truth freed from religious dogmatism leading to the message of good news from Jesus Christ, as well as messages from other spiritual teachers

Introduction to Part 2: Spiritual Discernment

Section 1 Metaphysics: The Nature of God

The One and Only God

Too Pure to Behold Iniquity

Jesus and My Father

God, Love, and Mathematics

Job, the Patriarch

Section 2 Metaphysics: The Nature of Man

Man Whose Breath Is in His Nostrils

Carnal Mind

Computers, Internet, and Emotions

Original Sin and The Mysteries of Genesis

Consciousness, Soul, Spiritual Center

Section 3 Metaphysics: The Nature of Error and of Evil

The Eternal Perspective

My Kingdom Is Not of This World

Creation: The Great Question

The Tree of Knowledge

Maya

Of Heaven and Hell

Section 4 The Nature of Prayer and the Nature of Supply

As Ye Pray

Two Cases of False Identity

As Ye Sow

The Father Knows Our Needs

Section 5 From Law to Grace: the Good News

The Good News

Christ and Jesus

The Books Jesus Never Wrote

The Vine and the Branches

From Law to Grace: What Remains?

Section 6 Toward Spiritual Freedom

The Great Judeo-Christian Derailment

God, the Substance of All Form

How to Love God

Imagine!

The Infinite Invisible Conscious Universe

Conclusion Part 2

Part 3 Living in harmony with our beliefs

Introduction: God’s Work Is Already Done!

Section 1 Reflections on the life of the individual awakening to his or her spiritual identity

The Tyranny of the Ego

Conscience

The Trap of Personalizing

Conscious Being

Body, Mind, and Spirit

The Beholder, the Witness

Joy, Love, Trust

I Am and I Have

The Path of Meditation

Section 2 Reflections on social issues from the standpoint of the spiritually awakened individual.

L’Enfer C’est les Autres

Born Again

Poverty

Truth and Life

Sex

The Right to Live, to Marry, and to Die

Abortion

Education and Democracy

Justice for All?

Section 3 Reflections on discordant and counterproductive national actions and policies contrary to spiritual teachings from the masters.

Christianity and Xenophobia

Hierarchy of Values and Principles

Abu Ghraib and Its Effects on National Consciousness

National Lies and Consequences

Of Rights Taken for Granted

Capitalism and Democracy

The Pursuit of Happiness

Section 4 Reflections on urgent and mega issues threatening mankind.

Global Issues

Who Leads?

Christians, Jews, and Muslims

Spirituality in Modern Times

Is Spirituality Practical?

Spiritual Healing

Conclusion Part 3

The Bottom Line

To Jean-Pierre Canas, my father.

To Gina, Stefan, and Christina with heartfelt appreciation for their loving support, and particularly to Ann for her contribution.

Do not conform any longer

to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed

by the renewing of your mind.

—Paul to the Romans in Romans 12:2 New International Version (NIV)

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I say that the testimony of many has little more value than that of a few, since the number of people who reason well in complicated matters is much smaller than that of those who reason badly.

—Galileo Galilei in Galileo’s Daughter

Foreword

I wrote The Great Spiritual Robbery: Abuses of Religious Ideology from Jerusalem to Washington and Baghdad in 2005 and part of 2006. It was published in early 2007. Three converging factors motivated me to write The Great Spiritual Robbery of which this book is an updated and revised version:

1. The reelection of George W. Bush in 2004 with strong support from Christian Fundamentalists pointed to a growing number of Americans unconcerned with the essential principle of separation of church and state dear to the Founding Fathers. That trend appeared to me to become an existential danger to the ideals of our American democracy that I have always revered, and which were instrumental in my migration from France to the United States when I was twenty years old.

2. The unabashed support the Bush administration received for its preemptive war in Iraq sadly occurred with hardly any opposition from Christian leaders. Many of them, in so-called red states, urged their congregation to approve the Republican agenda as if it were from Jesus himself. Unfortunately, most members of their congregations obliged.

3. The increasingly more numerous, larger, and deadlier natural catastrophes in the United States and around the world, erroneously and repugnantly referred to as acts of God.

All three factors have God and Christianity in common, and two of them are intertwined with politics. Since I live in the heart of a so-called red state, I was forced to reflect on my neighbors’ perception of the nature of God and of their role as citizens:

1. How could my religious neighbors accept, and even support, the policies and actions of the conservative politicians they continue to elect?

2. How could so many Christian Fundamentalists, who champion pro-life slogans, have supported a preemptive war in Iraq that inflicted numerous casualties among innocent civilians?

3. How could so many Christians hold views and condone actions totally inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth but for the possibility that they do not actually understand his teachings? Or that they are willing to ignore them for the sake of electing an administration that will move forward the narrow and restrictive Fundamentalist agenda opposed by a majority of Americans?

Jesus was a way shower with a good news message. He told us, Know the truth and the truth shall set you free (John 8:32). It must be clear that the Truth does nothing on its own, but that it is our conscious knowledge of Truth that does. But our knowledge is not true and active in our consciousness if we do not live our lives accordingly, not only as individuals but also as members of our community, of our nation, and of the world.

Introduction

Enough Is Enough!

At the time I was writing The Great Spiritual Robbery, there were a number of massive natural catastrophes—such as the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in North and Central America, including Katrina, the 2005 destructive category 5 storm that devastated New Orleans, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in Pakistan¹—and a pattern of natural catastrophes that continues to the time of this writing in late summer 2021.

Today, in addition to more frequent global disasters, we are in the midst of a raging pandemic. Many regions around the globe suffer deadly droughts while others suffer deadly floods. Hurricanes, tornadoes, rising sea levels, and wildfires are all made worse by global warming whose effects threaten to get worse.

In addition to natural disasters there are also the many men-made horrors, such as: the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the genocides of Darfur, the atrocities of the wars in Afghanistan² and Iraq.³ And closer to home, in the United States, we continue to suffer the follies of so many politicians at the federal and state levels who govern from a narrow ideological agenda—be it religious or secular—with no vision, no courage, and no morality. The American social fabric is torn apart by political ideologies grounded in alternative realities while blatant lies and conspiracy theories are amplified by a social media out of control. American democratic values and ideals are under vicious attack from both citizens and politicians challenging the most fundamental of democratic principles. In the meantime, the growing equity gap between the haves and have-nots is amplifying social injustice and reminiscent of the gilded age of robber barons during the nineteenth century in the United States.

How many more personal and collective disasters must we experience and witness to reach the point where we say, Enough is enough. There must be a better way?

Jesus presented a good news message precisely for those who had enough. The psalmists of the Old Testament referred to God as their fortress and high tower, and the Holy Bible states that ten righteous man will save a city. Truth about lifting humanity has always been around for those with ears to hear as it is said in the Bible, but do we have those ears to hear? Gautama Buddha’s entire premise was to find a way out of the miserable human condition that he witnessed and could not accept as natural and normal.

Is there such a thing as divine protection? This troublesome question is made worse when hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis are referred to as acts of God. How could there be such a god? How could anyone pretend to love such a god?

One of the great Christian premises expressed by Jesus is that if we know the spiritual Truth, the truth shall set us free (John 8:31–32). But do we know the Truth when, evidently, so many clergy members seemingly can’t agree on what was meant by those words?

All of us face a certain amount and variety of personal crises, and in addition, we must also assume the consequences of the follies of those who govern us. After decades of collective neglect, we face an increase in serious ecological and climatic disasters, air and water pollution, global warming, poorly nutritious food, an out-of-control healthcare system (and nonexistent healthcare for the have-nots), new and more potent diseases, a looming global energy crisis, more international rogue states with weapons of mass destruction, the exclusionary excesses of religious fundamentalism in the United States and abroad, and so on. Does it ever end?

I believe it is time to postulate that all the miseries we experience are really telltale signs of the fact that, as individuals and communities, we are on the wrong path and continue to reap the fruits of our ignorance of spiritual Truth. Indeed, how could we possibly behold spiritual Truth and be victimized either by nature or by other men? How could the people of a country that prints in God we trust on its currency speak of acts of God when natural catastrophes are concerned? How can a country pretending to be steeped in Christian values be full of worshippers whose god is still a primitive anthropomorphic version of the early stories of the Old Testament—a god willing to hurt and kill its creation—instead of embracing the God of unconditional love of Jesus of Nazareth?

Clearly the primitive and false anthropomorphic vision of a god of reward and punishment was corrected by the later prophets from Isaiah to Habakkuk. In spite of this, we still have Christians who entertain the utterly false notion that God was willing to sacrifice His son Jesus to the torture of the cross in an alleged trade whereby the suffering of Jesus would supposedly erase the original sin of humanity. With so much darkness no wonder we can’t see the light.

It is time we identify Jesus’s true purpose and his core message. If we do not know the Truth today, we cannot expect less enslavement tomorrow. More of the same does not produce different results. That realization would be a good, new starting point on our spiritual journey.

Spiritual beliefs have got to be practical to be believable. In the New Testament, we have the miracles of Jesus that were highly practical; and in the Old Testament we have examples such as Moses’s faith that could free the Jews from slavery in Egypt, and King Hezekiah’s faith that could protect his people from the superior forces of the Assyrian army by his realization: They only have the arms of flesh, with us is Spirit (2 Chron. 32:8). In the face of such demonstrations—that supply and protection are a by-product of abiding in Truth—should we not try to understand how this protection is achieved?

When Jesus said, My Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), he put us on notice that the spiritual Reality he belongs to has nothing to do with the human world we live in. That seems to imply the existence of two realms. But God’s creation is one and all, it is what Jesus called, My kingdom. In contrast, this world is not an objective reality but only the appearances resulting from human perception that is both flawed and influenced by a false sense of separation. These two aspects are outlined in the two drastically different accounts of the Creation found in Genesis chapters 1 through 3—as we shall see in part 2 of this book. If God created all that was created and if God’s creation is complete and perfect, as stated in Genesis chapter 1, it means that God cannot be the creator of any catastrophe, any disease, or any human suffering. In the same vein, there cannot exist another power creating any of these ungodlike conditions either. It follows that all that is ungodly cannot be a creation of God. Therefore, the ungodly can only be a creation of the collective human mind, the process alluded to in Genesis chapters 2 and 3, as we will see in the essay, The Mysteries of Genesis.

Many of the mystics of various religious backgrounds have agreed that the substance of this world is an activity of the human mind and not an objective reality. Spiritual Reality is strictly of the spiritual nature of the divine. Under the principle that like begets like, if the one and only God exists, man’s true essence must be spiritual, the very essence of God itself.

If the true essence of man is spiritual, it means that the core of our individual being—the conscious Soul that we are in God’s Reality—is necessarily eternal. Therefore, our life on earth can be seen as an experience our Soul has chosen for a spiritual reason, such as the enfoldment of our consciousness. As we are born in our human body, we have implicitly, by our Soul decision, accepted the experience of duality. Bodily birth and bodily death are expressions of that duality that can be seen as an experience, such as a simulation—an experiment in what happens if we assume that our life takes place outside of the eternal spiritual oneness in which God has created us. In the Bible, duality was introduced with the esoteric message of the allegory of the apple that gave birth to the concept of original sin.

According to the original sin allegory, mankind erroneously perceived itself as separate from its divine source and from the divine flow of supply and protection. In this allegory, the result is the human struggle in a physical and material world of our own making. It must be clear that this experience is not created by God. It is our own mental creation like the dreams we live vicariously in, in our sleep. It is all part of our own individual experience from which our consciousness evolves and, in so doing, contributes to the collective consciousness.

At times, human life feels like a dream, but too often, it is more like a nightmare. In both cases, the experience of human life as compared to God’s Reality is no more real than a dream is to life. Just as waking up is the solution to a nightmare, it is also the solution to the unsatisfactory human experience. God is not disturbed by our human dreams. But our God-given consciousness of Truth can wake us from our dreamlike human experience.

It is said that Jesus had dominion over all things because he knew and lived the Truth. If so, the symbol of his wisdom and of his teachings should not be the cross but rather the Resurrection unless one doubts his ultimate miracle. The Resurrection is a demonstration of the unreality of appearances from the Christ-spirit viewpoint. That is in line with the message of Gautama Buddha as we shall see. Yet the lesson of the nonreality of appearances has been so diluted through the evolution of Christianity that we have not benefited from the importance of the true teachings of Jesus regarding the nature of the human world—My kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).

Christianity, in its many forms, is a religion about Jesus, but it is not of Jesus. That is why Christianity can support lies, murders, and wars. As a result, spiritual Truth, known for thousands of years and demonstrated by the great Jewish prophets and Jesus among them, has generally been absent from human consciousness. Do we need more explanation for the current human quagmire on a global basis?

From A to Z, any and all threats to humans and the environment could not be of God. That is the good news. If they were, we would have no chances to avoid them, and it would imply a god willing to hurt its creation, which is not godlike, and therefore impossible. Such belief would show an ignorance of the nature of the one and only God.

Philosophy, theology, and the sciences have not been able to either prove or disprove God’s existence. And they never will. We have no possibility to objectively know one way or the other. Each one of us faces the same issue: to believe or not to believe. Our explicit or implied answer becomes the foundation of absolutely everything in our life whether we know it or not.

Spirituality is essential to man and should not depend on any god concept. If there is an absolute God necessarily omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, spirituality is the process of reuniting with our ultimate source. But if there is no such absolute, then men and women in their relentless evolution are spiritually evolving just as they evolved intellectually, morally, and artistically. In the end, the practical way of conducting one’s life might well be the same whether God is or is not. In this regard, there is much to learn from the Buddhists whose spiritual practice goes on without the need for a god concept. While our spirituality is affected by our personal views about God, in the end, our spirituality should be what matters most because it directly affects all aspects of our life whether God is or is not.

The ancient Hindu scriptures Chandogya Upanishad⁴ teach, A man is, above all, his will. There is no will without underlying values and beliefs. The depth of the conditioning that we have received in the footsteps of the generations of our ancestors and all the beliefs we have individually and collectively accepted define our current individual and collective experiences. Our life experience must be seen as the outcome of the sum total of all our beliefs and values.

Knowledge dispels error just as light dispels darkness. Ignorance of spiritual Truth is the result of individual negligence or, most likely, of collectively accepted non-truths that, for a variety of reasons, were imposed on people and nations throughout history. We have been victims of Judeo-Christian non-truths issued at a time when material power was more important to religion than Truth. Unfortunately, by now, religious organizations have generally lost the Truth. When it is found, it is due to the individual work and openness of the heart, mind, and soul of the isolated, earnest seekers within or outside religious organizations.

With spiritual matters, the work is the result of a conscious individual effort. Spirituality cannot be purchased from or given by another. Just as we might be guided to become a more honest person, we cannot acquire that attribute without a conscious awareness of honesty and a conscious effort to practice it. In the end, it’s up to each one of us. Either we sense our spiritual need or we do not. If the need is felt, it behooves us to do serious soul-searching and active digging outside the mainstream of religious dogma.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, on American soil provided justification for the ideologically driven agenda of the Bush administration. Because the perpetrators were fanatical Muslim fundamentalists, it forced on the administration a new perception of the world and, in particular, of the Muslim world, aggravating the already difficult and seemingly endless Middle East crisis from which stems most of global terrorism. From the vantage point of Christians of evangelical persuasion, most of whom were critically responsible for the election and reelection of George Bush to the White House, the conflict included a dimension that was not simply political or economic but also cultural and religious. Their eschatological⁵ doctrine centered around Jerusalem rests on the erroneous interpretations of biblical passages, in particular the book of Revelations that includes the Second Coming and the Last Judgment, subjects that we will examine later in this book.

In the last forty years, Evangelicals have become a growing political force. Thanks to the Bush administration, they succeeded in playing a significant role in the setting of the Republican political agenda in spite of the fact that their vision of world events is simplistically cast as confrontations of the so-called good and evil.

When national and international policies are based on religious beliefs—and when most of those beliefs have no authentic spiritual foundation—both the policies and their actions are doomed to failure. Spiritual principles are not arbitrary but consistent from one authentic spiritual master to another, from one continent to another, from one epoch to another. They are universal because they stem from the spiritual wisdom of the sages, and they have eminently practical roots. When we fail these principles, we fail ourselves and must live the consequences of our ignorance. For two thousand years, Christianity, by and large, has failed the message of Jesus of Nazareth. Not long after his death, the followers of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, had also distorted his teachings. It was a repetition of history: consider how difficult it was for the Hebrews to understand and follow the law delivered by Moses.

The message of Jesus needs to be placed in its historical context. He rebelled against the religious authorities of his time and accused them of preventing their flock from rising in spiritual awareness by erroneously focusing on dogma, rites, and rituals at the expense of the realization of their true spiritual nature.

I am a student of sacred scriptures and of history. I am also an observer of the world. I was born and lived part of my youth in one continent, studied and spent my formative years in another, and lived my adulthood in a third continent. For over fifty years, my US-based business activities caused me to travel extensively throughout the United States and all over the world. I also worked in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. I come across a lot of people from many different countries and cultures. I listen to foreign news and read foreign print. As a result, I have become extremely concerned with the state of affairs not only in the United States but also worldwide. Much of today’s bad outcome in the United States, as well as many other parts of the world, can be traced to the Republican administrations of George Bush (2001–2009) and of Donald Trump (2017–2021). In both instances, with the significant support of, and input from, Christian fundamentalists. This assessment does not imply that the democratic administrations before, between, and after were and are free of blunders.

A massive amount of misinformation from one political party or another and from one religion or another is steadily and constantly invading our lives. Thanks to the Internet and the electronic media, information and misinformation spin around and quickly spread. We are caught in a web of lies not only from our contemporaries but also from time immemorial. If a lie is repeated often enough, it has the propensity to become a truth in the collective mind. The current lies are added to a multitude of other lies accumulated for centuries that have made their way to us mostly unchallenged. All of them are part and parcel of what we are asked to accept as the reality of human nature, life, history, religion, and politics.

Having realized that our world must necessarily be the outcome of our values and beliefs whether conscious or unconscious, be they personal or collective, it follows that when our experience is not satisfactory, as individuals or as humanity, we must examine prevailing values and beliefs and conduct a major examination to debunk the falsehood we have accumulated unaware.

I urge a return to the teachings of the great spiritual masters to identify the lies hidden in religious talks and in order to find a proper spiritual direction for our life. It is the concurrence of the masters’ views that makes their experience so powerful and relevant to us. None of them need to be seen as the alpha and the omega of Truth as the full truth only belongs to the Absolute. None of them excludes the others, and all contribute to our spiritual education. In the end, our ultimate teacher is always our own divinely endowed Soul.

In one of the Upanishads—part of the great Hindu scriptures—we read, From the Spirit of man come all the powers of life . . . To know the Atman [the Spirit of man] is to know . . . the truth of Truth (Brihad-Aranyaka 2.1). But for that to happen, man needs to be awakened to his, or her, spiritual center. It requires an inner spiritual urge and to be pointed in the right direction. If religions fail us, the teachings of the great masters are always available to show the way. Yet their messages often require an understanding of their original context and an awareness that modifications and adaptations of their original message occurred. These modifications and adaptations resulted from the many interpretations contributed by their followers, as well as issues related to multiple translations.

For those who might think I am chronically antireligious, I quote from the same Upanishad (2.4):

"It is not for the love of religion that religion is dear;

but for the love of the soul in religion that religion is dear."

I am one who used to hold religion dear. Now I pray for the soul in religion to be found again.

As a Christian following the doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth, I want to be grounded in the spiritual Truth of Jesus Christ when he stated,

➢ Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your father, which is in heaven (Matt. 23:9)

➢ I and my father are One (John 10:30)

These two statements of Jesus focus our awareness on our True and Real identity as an individual expression of God’s divine Spirit which is the true spiritual identity of ALL of us, and not only of Jesus, as he knew and made clear. Divine, unconditional love is the elemental spiritual essence—the Soul—of Christianity.

The awareness of who we are, an individual expression of divine Spirit in Truth and in Reality—and of what we are spiritually made of—God’s unconditional love—can change our lives and lift the world.

Part 1

In Part 1, we reflect on the nature of the Holy Bible, its history, uses, and abuses.

To reclaim the soul of Christianity, we need first to understand our Christian heritage in the form of our main Scriptures, the Holy Bible.

The Bible is the most published book of all time starting from the moment the printing press was invented (1440). It has shaped the beliefs, morality, and actions of men from its inception. It affects believers and nonbelievers alike because its content has so fundamentally permeated the fabric of Western civilization. Yet it has been a source of much evil and a basis to rationalize man’s inhumanity to man. How could it be if Scriptures are, as claimed by many Christian denominations, the word of God?

The serious reader of the Bible who takes what he or she reads at face value will be confused by conflicting statements and sometimes offended by outrageous suggestions and actions. The literal reader of the Old Testament encounters a God expressing anger, arbitrary violence, retribution, poor and unwise decisions, disappointments, extreme punishments for relatively minor offenses, and punishment of innocents. How could those humanlike imperfections be really of God? For the reader in search of spiritual guidance, it is very disheartening because it portrays a God that does not meet our highest sense of the godly and the sacred. This is a non sequitur: how could a mortal entertain a higher awareness of good than God? It cannot be and simply points to the necessity for more clarity and a better explanation.

The words of Scriptures require some degree of spiritual discernment. There is more to them than their literal interpretation.

Part 1 includes:

➢ Section 1. We draw a few lessons regarding the impossibility that the Bible is, as we are told, the literal words of God.

➢ Section 2. We ponder the impossibility of this document to be historically correct. We also introduce the issue of distortion in church interpretations of both the words and the intentions of Jesus Christ. These distortions were initiated by his early followers after the Ascension and magnified throughout the evolution of Christianity, in particular when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

➢ Section 3. We witness the perverse use of twisted Christian messages for material and political purposes in total contradiction to the spirit of the respective teachings they stem from.

➢ Conclusion, Part 1.

SECTION 1

Reflections on the meanings of selected episodes, words, and symbols

Scriptures make use of words and symbols that have connotations and provide context. A greater awareness of such words and symbols will clarify some episodes and might even change their meaning.

The Wrath of God?

The Old Testament is full of stories and statements about God getting mad at one individual or another, or at entire nations, and inflicting upon them all sorts of miseries, plagues, and death. In the book of the Bible, Numbers 16:46, Moses says to Aaron, Wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has started. As if this were not enough, we are told that the curse can carry on to the third and fourth generations. That aspect of Scriptures alone makes this god a very difficult one to love as we are commanded to do in Deuteronomy 10:12.⁶ Intuitively, we know those things are not godlike and can’t be reconciled with the legitimate notion we have that a loving God should be more patient and kinder than any human parent ever could be. This must make us suspicious of a literal interpretation and motivate us to seek a more coherent explanation.

The Old Testament’s portrayal of God comes from accepting what we read at face value. Imagine that we suspend our literal interpretation long enough and simply say, Impossible. This is not what could be intended. There must be another explanation. We would open the door to the possibility that what is described is rather how the subjects of the stories felt about the situations and about God. In other words, they projected their human feelings onto their personal image and concept of God. Either they tried to give an explanation of events they lived, or they tried to anticipate what might happen in their future. They had an anthropomorphic⁷ concept of what they imagine God to be—a god in the image of man, even if endowed with supranatural features. We can understand how such a vision evolved.

In Genesis, chapter 1, we are told that man is made in God’s image, but not knowing what that meant, believers assumed that the nature of man would give an idea of God’s nature. This erroneous assumption is the root of our troubles. It creates a deep misunderstanding of the nature of God still prevailing to this day.

The implication of NOT reading Scriptures literally is huge. Scriptures, in general, the Old Testament in particular, would be seen very differently. No longer would we expect to read the literal words of God, but instead, words about God from men of different backgrounds, sensibilities, and cultures. Their experiences lived over thousands of years, would relate their own intimate perception of God’s role in human affairs.

The Old Testament should never again be seen as a recitation of God-created events but as the consequences of commonly held beliefs. No longer would we read the Bible word for word and see these words as necessarily applicable to all of humanity forever. Rather, we would recognize biblical paragraphs and verses as helpful lessons in depicting the evolution of man’s concept of God. It would help us and encourage us to formulate our own views and try to better understand our relationship with God in our path toward a higher consciousness.

A better understanding of the Bible would place the image of a rewarding and (arbitrarily) punishing God within a historical and evolutionary human perspective. Moses’s views of God, for example, would be seen as his and not necessarily ours. The Bible would no longer appear coercive and threatening.

From being an arcane and sometimes repulsive document, the Old Testament would become a practical treasure that would no longer offend and impose but instruct and inspire. And what a relief to no longer have to take it all or not at all!

To make the point concerning the evolution of human understanding of the nature of God, consider what Moses was conveying in Numbers 16:46 at the beginning of this essay, Wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has started. Now, let see some changes that took place within the span of over one thousand years after Exodus as other prophets expressed views that refuted Moses:

➢ Ezekiel in 18:18 refutes the notion of punishment of the sons for the misdeeds of the father as he says, He will not die for his father’s sin.

➢ Obadiah in verse 15 tells us that our punishments are due to our sins and are not from God.

➢ Hosea in 6:6 tells us that God desires mercy, not sacrifices.

➢ Habakkuk in verse 1:13 states that God is too pure to behold iniquity.

This evolution in the consciousness of Jewish prophets over some fifteen centuries covered in the Old Testament from the times of Moses to before Jesus of Nazareth was progressively preparing the terrain for the arrival of Jesus to reveal the highest-known spiritual consciousness that we call Christ consciousness—the awareness of the true, unconditional nature of God’s love.

Abraham and His Son, Isaac

The story of Abram, before he assumed his spiritual name of Abraham, starts in Genesis, chapter 12, when God orders him to leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. And so, at age seventy-five, Abraham dutifully leaves his birthplace. After doing very well for himself in the land of Canaan, Abraham is visited by God, who declares to a laughing-in-disbelief ninety-year-old man that Sarah, his aged and barren wife, will at last give him a son to be named Isaac. Ten years later, Abraham’s beloved wife gives birth to a baby boy who grew to be his father’s pride and joy. Then suddenly, God orders Abraham to offer his son Isaac in sacrifice.

Let’s remember that at that time sacrifices to gods of live animals and sometimes of humans occurred. Obediently, early the next morning and despite what must have been a horribly tormenting time, Abraham sets off to the place where God had told him to build an altar. There he binds his son Isaac, and lays him down on the altar, on top of the wood, and he reached out his hand and takes a knife to slay his son (Gen. 22:9–10). In a high moment of suspense, at the very last instant, God orders, Do not lay a hand on the boy . . . Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son. After a moment of relief, it is likely that the reader or listener is torn between disgust and disbelief. How would God, who made a point of rewarding Abraham for his exemplary obedience and righteousness by giving him the son he so wanted, cruelly take away the most cherished of his possessions? It really sounds like a bad movie if we take this entire episode at face value.

We are challenged again to go beyond the literal words and try to seek their hidden meaning. Stories in the Old Testament (from two thousand to over four thousand years ago) were essentially oral narratives recounted by the elders to younger generations to teach generally ignorant and uneducated listeners certain truths about life and their spiritual heritage. The written text came much later on when writing and scribes became available.

At the beginning of the story, we saw that God orders Abraham to leave his people and father’s household; we can see this as an invitation to Abraham to change his ways and to no longer do what his ancestors did. Maybe it is an earlier version of what Paul tells us in Romans 12:2: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In today’s parlance, it would be an invitation to change our state of consciousness. It is a message of change—a call to all of us. The change of ways might also express itself as a change in location and circumstances as the story suggests. Historians surmise that almost two thousand years before Christ, Abraham left what is now southern Iraq on his journey eastward to modern Syria and then south all the way to Egypt, but that trip is not where the lesson is. The lesson is that Abraham hears God’s invitation and accepts it. He is faithfully obedient and handsomely rewarded with powers and material possessions.

We know that Jesus spoke in parables—stories with a hidden meaning—to those who were said to have ears to hear; in other words, these parables were for people who might be able to understand the esoteric teaching imparted by the Master. The stories of the Old Testament are in this same spirit—with hidden meaning inviting reflection.

Scriptures are to be pondered. There is usually more to them than it appears. Often, the real meaning is quite different from the simplistic story.

The story about the alleged request for the sacrifice of Isaac is a rude but absolute way to convey the ultimate height of Abraham’s faith in God. For Abraham, God always came first and foremost in his heart, mind, and soul. For him, nothing on the face of this earth could rank higher than God. In that respect, he and the other patriarchs of that time were already practicing what would become the first of Moses’s Ten Commandments. It is also the first of the two greatest commandments given by Jesus: Love God with all your heart, soul and mind (Matt. 22:37).

When God is said to have stopped Abraham from slaughtering his cherished son, God declares, Now I know that you fear God. This points to the notion that we encounter in the Old Testament, this fear of God as a highly desirable quality that allegedly pleases God. It’s a far cry from Jesus’s vision of God as a forgiving and unconditionally loving God that we can love in return, certainly more easily and more truly than a God we fear.

This lesson from Abraham is about absolute and unconditional obedience to God associated with complete trust. The storytellers chose an unfortunate way to illustrate their point, so much so that we might challenge the veracity of this entire episode. Consider that there were no eyewitnesses to this story. In spite of the fact that the Bible reveals more about Isaac as an adult, it is surprising that there are no further references to what would have been a most dramatic event in his life, at an age when he would have remembered. In contrast, the unhappy childhood event of Joseph, son of Jacob and grandson of Abraham, sold to merchants by his brothers, is referred to later in his life.

I believe that this story of Abraham and Isaac is not an event that took place in time and space. In trying to make their point about Abraham, the storytellers conveyed a very limited anthropomorphic idea of God.

Do you really think God would require anyone to sacrifice his or her child? If you did, it would mean that you also share an anthropomorphic concept of God. You see God in the image of man. You ascribe to God human feelings and reactions to events and to people, but an infinite God is not like a human being or even like a superhuman. God is the Spirit of infinite love beyond our capacity to define. Yet it is not beyond our capacity to conceptualize what constitutes godlike attributes and what is ungodlike. Consequently, we can formulate criteria of what our God concept would necessarily include. We can reject any ideas and actions attributed to God when we deem them to be ungodlike. With this improved spiritual discernment, we would see that many presentations of God in the Old Testament cannot be the right way to think about God.

In a different episode, when we are told that Abraham turns down the offer of gifts from the king of Sodom—which symbolizes the land of evil practices—Abraham declares, I have raised my hand to the Lord . . . I will accept nothing from you (Gen. 14:22–23). This lesson is not about a rich Abraham magnanimously refusing what is offered to him by the king. Abraham’s refusal is about conveying his position. It is an affirmation that he wants to have no connection with anything that does not honor God and his beliefs. Nothing associated with the king of Sodom would be acceptable to Abraham. Translate this in a modern context and personalize it, and you have the following: You turned down a million dollars from a drug dealer who invites your involvement or complicity. You say no at the risk of offending dangerous and unpredictable people because you know beyond a doubt that accepting would simply be wrong. Abraham is a man of principles. He lives by them regardless of the price.

It is Abraham’s utter allegiance to his Lord that makes him the spiritual father of the three major monotheist religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Subsequently, in the Bible, the god of the Hebrews is sometimes referred to as the god of Abraham. In the Old Testament, Abraham is frequently referred to as the father of all Israelites.

The land given to Abraham by God is the land the Jews returned to after the Exodus and the forty years they spent in the desert. It is the land that, to this day, they see as theirs through divine heritage.

Misogyny in the Biblical Portrayal of Women

The following is a stupefying story, and you need to read it to believe it. For women, it is totally terrifying, and this story alone might justify their turning away from the Old Testament if not the entire Bible.

In Genesis, chapter 19, we learn that God, disgusted with the practices of the inhabitants