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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (17126)	6/6/1998 1:29:00 AM
From: Father Terrence	Respond to of 39621

Christine: The list of horrors throughout the centuries is a very long one. I agree, IMO he would've been angered and saddened. It is certainly not the philosophy he promoted. Although I do not agree with his philosophy, I do not believe he ever would've advocated -- let alone supported -- the likes of picketing Goldwater's funeral (or put up for 2 seconds with crazy Jane or Evil Emile). Father Terrence

To: Grainne who wrote (17126)	6/7/1998 2:45:00 PM
From: Sam Ferguson	Respond to of 39621

CONCEPTS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN -PAGE 2 Jesus' ideal concept largely failed, but upon the foundation of the Master's personal life and teachings, supplemented by the Greek and Persian concepts of eternal life and augmented by Philo's doctrine of the temporal contrasted with the spiritual, Paul went forth to build up one of the most progressive human societies which has ever existed on earth. The concept of Jesus is still alive in the advanced religions of the world. Paul's Christian church is the socialized and humanized shadow of what Jesus intended the kingdom of heaven to be--and what it most certainly will yet become. Paul and his successors partly transferred the issues of eternal life from the individual to the church. Christ thus became the head of the church rather than the elder brother of each individual believer in the Father's family of the kingdom. Paul and his contemporaries applied all of Jesus' spiritual implications regarding himself and the individual believer to the church as a group of believers; and in doing this, they struck a deathblow to Jesus' concept of the divine kingdom in the heart of the individual believer. And so, for centuries, the Christian church has labored under great embarrassment because it dared to lay claim to those mysterious powers and privileges of the kingdom, powers and privileges which can be exercised and experienced only between Jesus and his spiritual believer brothers. And thus it becomes apparent that membership in the church does not necessarily mean fellowship in the kingdom; one is spiritual, the other mainly social. Sooner or later another and greater John the Baptist is due to arise proclaiming "the kingdom of God is at hand"--meaning a return to the high spiritual concept of Jesus, who proclaimed that the kingdom is the will of his heavenly Father dominant and transcendent in the heart of the believer--and doing all this without in any way referring either to the visible church on earth or to the anticipated second coming of Christ. There must come a revival of the actual teachings of Jesus, such a restatement as will undo the work of his early followers who went about to create a sociophilosophical system of belief regarding the fact of Michael's sojourn on earth. In a short time the teaching of this story about Jesus nearly supplanted the preaching of Jesus' gospel of the kingdom. In this way a historical religion displaced that teaching in which Jesus had blended man's highest moral ideas and spiritual ideals with man's most sublime hope for the future--eternal life. And that was the gospel of the kingdom. It is just because the gospel of Jesus was so many-sided that within a few centuries students of the records of his teachings became divided up into so many cults and sects. This pitiful subdivision of Christian believers results from failure to discern in the Master's manifold teachings the divine oneness of his matchless life. But someday the true believers in Jesus will not be thus spiritually divided in their attitude before unbelievers. Always we may have diversity of intellectual comprehension and interpretation, even varying degrees of socialization, but lack of spiritual brotherhood is both inexcusable and reprehensible. Mistake not! there is in the teachings of Jesus an eternal nature which will not permit them forever to remain unfruitful in the hearts of thinking men. The kingdom as Jesus conceived it has to a large extent failed on earth; for the time being, an outward church has taken its place; but you should comprehend that this church is only the larval stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master's teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development. Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus' concept now slumbers. The kingdom of the divine brotherhood is still alive and will eventually and certainly come forth from this long submergence, just as surely as the butterfly eventually emerges as the beautiful unfolding of its less attractive creature of metamorphic development. I believe Jesus the man was an avatar to enlighten us. This is a belief carried forth by the Essene sect. Whether he was an actual living man I cannot confirm. Neither do I believe nor did he say in the bible he came to give his life for us. Regardless of the man Jesus (factual or fictional) he taught a truth that I have personally experienced and something I know to be true. Truth of religion is what I sought with diligence and it has grown and expanded for the last 25 years. I hope this will further explain my beliefs and why I say all paths lead to God. Do I have all the answers of truth? NO. Truth is ever changing though most will not understand the statement. As my knowledge increases I can understand higher truths than in the preceeding level of consciousness. I am sure this is true for all of us.