A Reply To Criticism of the Premises of “CLEANSE”
The Jesus of the Christian creed is hardly inconsistent with the Jesus of Abba’s Way. He is in fact exactly the same as the one the Bible claims was promised to principal characters in the Old Testament. He is way. Truth. And life.
Why?
Because he represents and embodies Abba his father and commends to all Abba’s Way. Explicitly, he makes it clear that repentance is the prerequisite for salvation. And he insists on a way of life consistent with his own commitment to embody peace and love and forgiveness.
Abba is understood to be Father and Word.
There is no Biblical basis for assuming that the “I Am” Moses encounters at the Burning Bush is otherwise named or is identical with the any of the several names given to the deity in the Bible. I see Abba as the link between that reality and our reality.
So: Jesus is one with the Word and the closest deity name we have to that is Abba.
Abba does not change. Abba is unified with what we can regard as the teleological goal (of Triadic Philosophy)–-the unification of Truth and Beauty in the Goodness that is the aim of all existence.
This does not mean that, as Word, Abba cannot communicate with us.
Human beings are a spectrum and their lives result from their decisions which are based on values that span a spectrum from best to worst. If we change, it is within this spectrum and as a result of the cumulative choices made over time which do indeed amount to a form of moral or ethical evolution.
We must repent.
To believe in the cross is to understand that the way forward involves suffering and the risk of death. This was the nonviolent fate of Jesus. We are to be nonviolent in all our ways. When the churches embrace violence they forsake belief in the cross.
This has no bearing on the matter of grace which is the creed’s means of turning a way into a religion.
We are all saved by grace a thousand times a day. But we are not thereby to assume that by reciting a creedal formula we have fulfilled what we call the law and the prophets.
Luther may have called James an epistle of straw but he also practiced ways that were harmful and even evil. No human being is without evil. Not one. And none can stand in judgment over any with ultimate confidence.
“Jesus died for our sins” is of course true, but much of the legend around Jesus is not merely speculative but improbable.
If Jesus is divine it is because he was one with Abba as a result of forces which are both reasonable and mysterious. The creeds stretch inference beyond the limitations of reason.
The strongest argument for a reimagining of creedal religion is the fact that we are still here.
The makers of Christian legend were certain that the end was near. Instead the world moved as it has and Christianity has had the difficult task or reconciling the pearl which is the heart of the Christian gospel with its own history which has featured division, exclusion, violence and nativism.
There is still much to commend in the lives of Christians but the saddest reality of all is that what lies at the heart of Christianity has been put under the bushel of 2000 years of creedal exclusion and backsliding.
Bonhoeffer was right. We need change. Cheap grace is not grace at all.
That all should change and repent is obvious. And it should be a daily effort.
If we wish to believe that Jesus shed his own blood so we would be convicted, repent and thereby be brought to a daily life of repentance and prayer, fine. I believe that. And millions of others do too.
But I was ordained to be a global evangelist so it is my task to reconcile what has come down to us with what we can proclaim now. I value the Christian understanding but we are at a time of reformation as epochal as that undergone by Calvin and Luther and Wesley. When it is complete we will be much closer to being a Christian world than we are today.
We have more than a hope of eternal life, I believe. We have inklings of it available to us. We can have at least the beginnings of confidence in continuity.
Jesus taught primarily the kingdom or way or realm of Abba. Though we cannot save ourselves we can freely commit to seeking, knocking and asking. And we can experience the joy of freedom and forgiveness when we engage in the discipline that centers on use of the Abba Prayer.
We do not boast. To suggest that anyone should be satisfied as a result of entering on Abba’s way is simply absurd.
The freedom of grace is undeniable. Being saved through faith is undeniable. Not being saved by works is clear and obvious.
If anything Abba’s Way prepares us for a long haul and cautions against reading seemingly negative signs in a fixed way. We are to be humble, tolerant and non-idolatrous.
The notion that we can say anyone is condemned on our authority, or using some religious authority, is sad. It is casting stones.
Anyone who has paid attention to what I have said forever will perceive that I am not wed to new age thinking. This is not the place to say why, but it is merely the case. If one wishes to tar me, call me a Jesus Freak. That isn’t true either but it is closer than the new age characterization.
It seems to me that the wages of sin are indeed death and that this is borne out constantly. It also seems to me that Abba gives us a clear access now to eternal life if we seek, ask and knock.
I do not think of Jesus as a gateway everyone must pass through now to gain eternal life. I believe this exclusivity is contrary to Jesus’ own reservations about messianic pretention. I absolutely believe that all will give an account of themselves before God and that only repentance and openness to Abba will suffice to save one from the torment of being lost in the vagaries of our own hurt and harm of others and self.
We are already all of us accepted by Jesus Christ. Giving ourselves over to sin is inevitable and we can only be saved by daily repentance which includes the forgiving of wrongdoing by others. We belong to Abba at birth. The experiences we associate with salvation may be multiple and mystical. The bedrock reality is universal regardless of the experience.
