God Is Not 3 Guys

I’m home and I’ll resume my recovery here. This is four weeks after I entered the hospital. Recovery is slow. I’ll be finding spiritual lessons from this for a long time to come. What touches me most deeply is the loving care and concern I’ve received from many people. I feel unworthy and helpless to adequately thank everyone. The profusion of flowers and cards in my room prompted a visitor to comment, “You are well loved.” Yes, and I didn’t earn it. I’m grateful that the expressions of love countered the pain of major surgery, but I have to make an effort to accept love I didn’t earn. This is one lesson—that love is not earned. I hope this experience increases my own loving care and concern for others. John Lennon’s statement spoke to me on my hospital bed: Life is what happens while we have other plans. In advance I’ll thank any reader who can give the exact quote and maybe circumstances accompanying it. I will resume nudging Christians out of our box of assumptions, encouraging them...

This is Patrick, Jeanette's son. I am posting this comment per her request. One of the interesting comments that came in during my illness was by M. Stromer. His interpretation of my Good Friday post was distorted but I won't bother to say what I meant and what I didn't mean in the matter of the Clinton and Obama debate. Instead, I'll take this opportunity to reinforce Stromer's theme, which also runs through everything I write about religion. It is that we Christians insult people of other faiths by placing the Christian frame on them. The great theologian Karl Rahner did this with his reference to "anonymous Christians." A Buddhist appropriately asked him how he'd like to be called an "anonymous Buddhist." I hope M. Stromer carefully reads my chapter in God is Not Three Guys in the Sky on the inner Christ to see my inclusive identification of Christ with the Self, with Atman, and with other non-Christian terms. I can't say more about i...

Jeanette's recovery continues. I have read to her some of the interesting comments people have sent on the posts and she is looking forward to commenting as well. She hopes to be back in business within a week and apologizes for this hiatus.

This is Mollie, Jeanette's daughter speaking on her behalf. She is in the hospital and hopes to be blogging again within a week.

From the Nazi Holocaust emerged one benefit—Christian acceptance of our Jewish roots and apologies for past persecution. More difficult is accepting our pagan roots. When will we hear apologies for corrupting the very meaning of the word "pagan"? Mediterranean cultures—Arabian, Egyptian, Sumerian and others—had gods and goddesses who died and rose in three days. Christian teaching used to represent these deities as foolish and phony, at best a preparation for Christ. This claim rarely comes from theologians any more, but many Christians still think our own God-image is unique and that the Resurrection proves Jesus’ divinity. Celts, Native Americans, Hindus, and people of other cultures around the world also had mythical heroes whose life, death, and rebirth or Second Coming were celebrated. We can do what Christian teaching used to do—deride all the other myths and insist ours is uniquely correct. Or we can ask, What explains the remarkable Hero with a Thousand Faces...

Readers, for information on Bahá’í, I direct you to the long comment after Religious training and the comment here. They are wonderfully wise, thoughtful, and instructive, a response to my invitation to inform us about the Baha'i faith. They also express valuable thoughts about religions and spirituality. Happy reading and happy Easter. More on Easter and Good Friday soon.

March 31, 2007 From a religious point of view, Easter is a more important Christian feast than Christmas, but it gets less attention because there’s less money to be made from Easter. So much for our supposedly Christian nation. Like Christmas, Easter derives from pagan myth and ritual. The ancient religions surrounding the first Christians celebrated various saviors coming down from heaven and going back up to heaven. A striking parallel to Easter is reported by church historian Henry Chadwick. He tells of the god Mithris, whose death was mourned on March 22 and resurrection celebrated on March 25. The likeness of Good Friday and Easter to religious festivals of the pagans prompted them to accuse Christians of plagiarism. Besides the idea of dying and rising again in three days, Christians apparently borrowed ritual ideas. My reporting this may give the impression that I have little respect for Holy Week and Easter. Wrong. I regard the Paschal mystery as a profound spiritual mystery, ...