Reality, Illusion, and Death of Self

I was a big fan of the movie “The Matrix” when it first came out. The two sequels were horrible because they focused on the fighting scenes and ridiculous special effects, but I was drawn into the symbolism of reality vs. illusion in the original movie.

I have been reading “Mystics and Zen Masters”, by Thomas Merton on and off for about a month now. The book is much more than a description of contemplative prayer (Zen). It is a collection of writings that explain various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the “way” to the highest levels of religious/metaphysical awareness. The book discusses diverse religious concepts of early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism with a directness that is not usually found when reading about such topics.

It becomes clear in Merton's discoveries that you cannot separate religion and psychology. Religious experience is deeply entangled with our human definition of "self" and that includes our self-consciousness, self-awareness, and notion of individual identity. Most importantly, I’ve realized that our self-identity as well as our religious belief is an illusion. Most of what we mean when we say “religious belief” is our descriptive symbolic language that we use to interpret and discuss our experiences. This description (the collection of our symbols and myths) is useful and helps us maintain our sanity as we live in constant tension between reality and illusion, but we can get lost as we replace one illusion with another illusion. Zen (the practice of meditation) is one way to wake up from our illusions. Our religious beliefs can at times feel more like the psychological caulking used to help fill the cracks in our incomplete understanding of the world. Zen gets right to the core of this problem, which is our flawed identity as something separate from God (and/or everything and everyone). I see this as the overarching theme of the Bible. The Bible is a story of how humanity combats our fixation on the preservation of our self-identity and separateness (sin) and then restores oneness with God (at-one-ment) through Christ (our message bearer and symbolic example of death to self and rebirth into the collective identity of God). Often the stories and symbolic language becomes dominate and we lose the realistic meaning. We need to return to the simple doctrine-less message about changing from a self-centered nature to an other-centered nature.

I'm not positive, but I think the movie's image of the Matrix is meant to be a negative portrayal of the illusions of religious naivety or maybe it is the hypnotic indoctrination of pop-culture. As with all symbolism, you can read into it what you want. If the movie's intention is to promote extreme individualism and a stronger development of self-identity then I feel it represents a less ideal western slant on reality. Western thinking views the process of "waking up" or enlightenment as a liberation away from a collective identity toward a more individualistic self sufficient state of being (unplugging from the illusion/matrix). I question that logic and suggest that maybe our worship of individualism is actually a destructive illusion and our solution may be to plug into the reality that we are all interconnected. This is not a pro-conformity mentality that devalues creativity and individual choice. It is a realization that as we celebrate our differences, we should wake up to the fact that we are all made of the same "stuff" and have the same problems, hopes, and dreams. You might even say we are made in the same image.

Either way, (by plugging into reality or unplugging from illusion) the main point is that the boundaries and differences between people, communities, and nations are merely the illusions created by our perspectives and self-conscious paranoia. If you view the planet Earth from space there are no visible dotted lines, political boundaries, or red and blue states. On the other hand, I may just be a person who has opted for the serenity of the Matrix.

Postmodern?

Last Saturday night my home group discussed definitions of Postmodernism and its relationship to religion. I thought I would try to expand my views here even though I feel this topic has been beat to death. Most people define Postmodern thought as a rejection or reaction to modern scientific thinking. It is commonly viewed as a skeptical view of truth or a view that all truth is relative. I disagree with this popular definition.

First, we should note that modernism was the way people had come to think since the age of enlightenment/reason. It is a scientific view of the world. Modernity had a dramatic effect on religion since it was a time when science and religion fought for the truth about everything. Religion felt it was loosing its hold on truth (and therefore losing the battle for power) so it fought back with its own laws (doctrines) that looked and smelled just like science with all the trappings of rigid authoritative systems and theological claims. The modern mind thinks in terms of experiments, laws and repeatable patterns so the modern minds of religion in the last few centuries tried their best to build a case for religion on the same principles. The result was fundamentalist apologetics and that fatal flaw has led to wars, distrust, abuse, and may yet destroy religion completely.

In my mind, postmodernism is not the rejection of absolute truth. Instead, it is the full embrace of everything we learned during the modern era about truth. We have absorbed all of modernity's lessons about how to do science and how not to do religion. Both insights have been valuable and we learned from our mistakes. Rather than reacting to science with a fight for truth, postmodern people of faith no longer see science as something new, dangerous, or destructive to faith. A scientific understanding of the universe is now a normal part of how we think and operate. We’ve accepted modern science and its love of skepticism and questioning, and now we have moved on with the idea of finding a new place for religion. We realize now that every great discovery in life begins with the question "Is the current way really the best way?" The battle between religion and science for absolute unchanging truth is over and science has won! Science won precisely because it never claims to have the final answer. Science always questions itself and continues to learn while religions are built on the celebration of the way things were. Religion will never again be the holder of truth about how the universe works and God will never again be the unexplainable and shrinking gap in our current understanding of the universe. We may not have all the answers but science is the best tool for that job. Religion was destined to fail when placed in that role and during the modern era, religion lost its ancient job of holding truth. Now in a postmodern world, religion will no longer have any claim to knowledge of the creation of the world, the origin or man, or the ability to predict the future.

Does that mean that religions are finished and God is dead in post modernity? I don't think so. It does mean that we finally have a chance to put religion into a role where it can succeed and God is no longer held in a human box of understanding. In the postmodern world, religion is no longer where we look for truth about the universe but where we look for inspiration, critique, transformation, and motivation. That is where it has always served mankind well. In this place, religion is a big winner. In this place, God is not a shrinking set of truths but instead God is a growing source of transformation.

A relationship with God - Is this idea healthy?

It has become trendy in Christianity to talk about our relationship with God. However, I’m not sure that it makes sense to use the term “relationship” to define how we experience God. The problem with this term is that it is pre-loaded with our human understanding of what it means to have relationship with another human being and carries all the baggage of our faulty human relationships. Think about some of the aspects of healthy and unhealthy human relationships:

• Healthy relationships need a certain amount of honest revealing of our character, past experiences, goals, and motives to each other. The depth of the relationship depends on the amount of disclosure by both parties. Any clouding or misinterpretation of facts about our self, either intentionally or unintentionally, will create unhealthy relationships and lead to mistrust. This is probably why we attempt to describe God (theology) in order to establish a relationship. We have no precedent for relating to something that we we don't know so we manufacture knowledge for the sake of relationship.


• Clear, open, and frequent two-way communication is necessary. How long would a relationship last if phone calls were not returned for days, weeks, or ever. Could a relationship last with sketchy standards for open free-flowing communications.


• Physical proximity is vital. Without “face to face” interaction, healthy relationships cannot form or mature beyond a certain point. In a state of separation our imagination often runs wild and creates a false sense of reality. Long distance or Internet based relationships are modern examples of how relationships are unhealthy without physical proximity. This is probably why we create houses of worship so we can simulate physical proximity to God.


• The mutual need for relationship is crucial. If one person’s need for the other is not appropriately reciprocated, then an unhealthy dependency is inevitable. Dependent Personality Disorder or Codependency can manifest as the result of an imbalance in relationship needs. This is obviously a problem with traditional images of God.

Isn't any relationship with God going to face challenges in all four of these areas? If we attempt to explain our interaction with God based on our understanding of human relationships like a father or a king, then it feels like we are setting ourselves up for failure because God isn't literally our father or our king. Should we assume that the Bible's use of human relationships as metaphors for connection with God imply that those metaphors completely exhaust the meaning of our connection with God? The image of a father has all sorts of issues and the idea of having a king is down right distasteful to most modern western people. The goal of the bible is not to tell us which metaphor we have to use for all time but rather to suggest how certain people connected to God at certain points in history. For them, the idea of a good king who protects them and institutes justice and peace was a beautiful concept. That won't fly today.

Applying one of these metaphors to our connection with God becomes unhealthy if taken too literally and this mistake accounts for many of the problems with religion. We have traditionaly built an image of God that is destined to manifest unhealthy malformed relationships.

I am leaning toward other language to explain God and lessening my grip on any particular set of metaphors. We might try to imagine a fish that is sustained and suspending in life-giving water just as we are sustained in God. It might also make sense to think about the types of relationships we find in modern Chemistry. When Hydrogen “relates” to Oxygen it forms a wonderful transformation on a molecular level in order to form water. Another example is to imagine how DNA “relates” to life. Francis Collins, a Christian and physician-geneticist who was a leader in the Human Genome Project, calls DNA the “language of God”. This may be close to what Paul Tillich means when he talks about God as the ground of all being. In that sense, I would agree with the author of Genesis who tells us in creative poetic metaphor that God speaks life into being.

Eternal life

Last night, I had the pleasure of hearing about a friend’s trip to Uganda. Jessie’s stories about her trip were amazing. She is about to begin her first year at the University of Georgia (my Alma mater) and I couldn’t help but think about how immature I was at that point in my life in comparison to her. She is an incredible person. You can find out more about these displaced children in Uganda at InvisibleChildren.com.

One of her most interesting observations was the joy and peace that she saw in these people who lived daily without security and without any of the comforts that we have in America. It was so strange for us to be looking at pictures of people in dire circumstances and realizing they have something that we are so often missing. I was not prepared to have such a humbling experience. Our little group had some discussions later about our feelings, but I felt like we couldn’t really get to the root of the issue. One topic that came up was the concept of eternal life and its meaning in relation to our relative circumstances. Here are a few things that I’m thinking about now in the aftermath of that conversation which was not the conversation I was expecting to unfold.

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25

Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. Luke 17:33

Impermanence expresses the Buddhist notion that everything, without exception, is constantly in flux, even planets, stars and gods. Human life embodies this flux in the aging process, the cycle of birth and rebirth (Samara), and in any experience of loss. Because things are impermanent, attachment to them is futile, and leads to suffering. The only true end of impermanence is nirvana, the one reality (a state of being or understanding) that knows no change, decay or death.

Here are a few of my thoughts today about what the concept of “eternity” and "eternal life" might mean beyond the traditional view of life after death.

• Eternity is not a time or a “long time” or a “future time”


• Eternity is now without the burden of impermanence


• Eternal life is no longer living in fear of our own mortality


• Eternal life is the realization that life does not end when changes occur


• Eternal life means living without the fear of loss


• Eternal life is not the extension of our identity after the end of our physical life, but it is a state of being without the obsession with (attachment to) our individual identity.


• Eternal life is the freedom that can be experienced if we no longer live under the burden of maintaining our sense of self-worth through our possessions, security, longevity, physical existence, and individual identity.

Independence

Good things can happen when a bunch of rebellious men gather in the back room of a bar. I have to remind my wife of this when I call to say I'll be home a bit late because I'm stopping by the pub with the guys after work.

I’m not sure why we try and turn the people we admire into infallible mythical heroes. I seriously doubt the founding fathers of our nation were anything like the characters that we learned about in history classes. Thomas Jefferson is a perfect example. A lawyer and land owner who was largely responsible for creating the declaration of independence was also a slave owner and ended his life deep in debt despite being given more than his share of wealth, education, and opportunity. I still admire Thomas Jefferson. In the same way that I admire the architects of the Ten commandments even though those same people tried to blame God for their ancestor’s desire to wipe out entire enemy villages including innocent women and children.

I love the concepts that our nation was founded on and I think every American should take a few minutes to read the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July. I also appreciate Jefferson’s ability to reconcile his post-enlightenment education and his faith in the message of Jesus. His deist understanding of God may have left him with a faith that didn’t fully integrate into his personal life, but it also helped him approach the Bible in a way that motivated him and led him to become a powerful activist. I can't completely accept Jefferson's deism, but I do agree with his rejection of a strictly theistic image of a God that actively runs the world from some location beyond the universe. I appreciate the positive effect that his image of God had on motivating his sense of personal responsibility for political action.

“[The Jefferson Bible] is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw.” – Thomas Jefferson

The Two Levels of Truth

Buddhism observes reality from two perspectives: the absolute and the relative. From the absolute, or ultimate perspective, the "self" is seen as illusory, as a construction that is empty of inherent, independent existence. But from the relative perspective (the ordinary, everyday, conventional perspective) we see a conventional "self" independent of other people and things. The absolute and the relative are called the two truths, or the two levels of truth.

Kim Boykin in "Zen for Christians" offers this analogy...

If we examine a strip of film, we see lots of small, separate, still pictures in a row. This is the "absolute" view of a movie. When we run that film through a projector at the right speed and aim the projector at a screen, we see one large moving picture. This is the "relative" view of the movie. From the relative perspective, calling it a "movie" or a "motion picture" makes sense, even though the motion is ultimately illusory. The movie is both many small still pictures and also one large moving picture...

When we get a glimpse of the world from the absolute perspective, we begin to realize the illusory quality of "self," and we begin to carry our "selfhood" more lightly. The more fully we realize no-self, the more we are freed from our subjugation to ego-centered attachments and aversions. The "self" may keep on making its possessive and aggressive little demands, but instead of groveling in submission, we can smile in amusement and decide how to act. We are freed to live more joyfully and compassionately."

Slvia Boorstein (who is also a practicing Jew) puts it like this: "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional." Suffering is the complication that our egoism constructs around simple pain.

This example is a profound explanation of how our view of the world becomes relative to our "self". We have baggage that exists in the frames of our past memories and anxiety we imagine into the frames in our future. When played full speed in our minds all these frames create an illusion of reality that shapes our present experience. A great deal of Zen practice is slowing down or stopping the projector and dealing with life one frame at a time without the emotional baggage of past memories and future expectations.

This is not to be confused with a self indulgent focus on immediate pleasure. That was my initial impression of the term "present moment" and it is wrong. Instead, it is about generating an attitude of compassion and service that comes from redefining our view of ourselves in relation to other people, our past memories, and our future expectations. The introspective nature of Zen is about removing our attachment to the things that clutter our frames and cloud our view of the world.

Faith, Doubt, and Determination

"We need all three. Great faith, great doubt, and great determination are the legs of the tripod on which our Zen practice stands. Our practice will topple if we're missing one of those legs. The dynamic tension between faith and doubt - between the "already" and the 'not yet' - gives us a reason to practice. Then we just need the determination to practice." Kim Boykin - "Zen for Christians"

I guess most of our problems with religion come from this embalance. Fundamentalists have great faith and great determination but they lack a healthy sense of doubt to foster humility and openness to other possibilities. If you have faith and doubt but lack determination then your faith can become empty intellectualism. If you have doubt and determination but lack faith then you easily fall into Nihilism. I've probably fallen into all three categories at one time or another as I swing from one extreme to another. Balance is something that I'm looking to develop from my journey of faith.

Got Soul?

This week, at the suggestion of fellow blogger and peace enthusiast Michael L. Westmoreland-White, I just finished reading "Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies" by Nancey Murphy. Murphey is professor of Christian Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Overall I enjoyed the book. It gives a comprehensive but yet readable summary of the history of human philosophy as it relates to our struggle to understand our "souls" and how that understanding has molded our interpretation of the Gospel.

Murphy makes a very compelling argument for a more modern physicalist approach as opposed to a more traditional dualist philosophy. I echo her understanding and felt comfortable with her reasoning of this approach.

Now, at great risk of oversimplification, I am suggesting that the adoption of a dualist anthropology in the early centuries of the church was largely responsible for changing Christians' conception of what Christianity is basically all about. I am suggesting that original Christianity is better understood in socio-political terms than in terms of what is currently thought of as religious or metaphysical. The adoption of a dualistic anthropology provided something differnt - different from socio-political and ethical concerns - with which Christians became primarily concerned.

Murphy convincingly shows that there is no such thing as "the" anthropology of the Bible or of the Christian tradition and argues the fact that though the Bible seems to teach dualism it is largely a result of poor translations. Once the translations are repaired, "it is hard to find any clear teaching on the metaphysical make-up of the person" in the Bible at all. The Bible has been intepreted in Christian tradition through the lens of dualism, but the Bible is not intended as a defense of dualism but rather an expression how each of the authors and thier communities were searching for God through their own particular paradigm. We should read the Bible in a way that allows us to understand the message without having to adopt their particular ancient world-views.

The only part of the book that I found issue with is that in her conclusion she seemed to take a huge leap about after-life without any explanation for how she arrived there. My guess is that it is something she brings as a "given" based on her religious background or maybe it is just what you have to do to keep a job at a seminary. She allows herself to argue for a modern physicalist view of body/mind but she doesn't allow for the possibility that there is no literal after-life even though her own words hint that the concept may distract our theological and social development. It is interesting to me that she would take so much time and research to deconstruct ancient understanding of our souls but not also look to deconstruct the ideas of after-life that would seem to go hand in hand. It would seem that a critical look at our traditional view of our concept of humanity would also bring a critial look at our traditional view of God.

I think every Christian is always afraid that if they go one more step or ask one more difficult theological question the whole paradigm might crash to the ground and we will be left with no reason for faith. Are we afraid that if we question our understanding of Metaphysical things that God might disappear? I guess at some level is does feel like maybe God is being pushed out of our paradigm, but I tend to view it as a welcome revelation of a much larger picture of God. In my journey (you might call it deconstruction or a critical search) I don't feel that God is being pushed out but that God is being ushered in to replace the narrow idols and misgivings which I have always used to represent the wonder of the universe. I personally don't fear asking that next question. Actually I find it good to let those ideas crash, not for the purpose of destroying faith, but for the purpose of rebuilding a more robust faith on a more solid footing.

Zen and Orthopraxy

Orthopraxy is becoming more of a buzz word in emergent Christianity. We can learn much about shifting our focus away from right beliefs (Orthodoxy) to right practice (Orthopraxy) by looking at Zen philosophy. It is interesting to realize that Buddhists figured this out long ago and cut right through supernatural beliefs to a practical way to practice their faith. I feel like 99% of my time in Christianity has been focused on establishing the correct beliefs about unbelievable things and absorbing misguided interpretations of scripture.

"Zen is not a way to liberation but a way of liberation that manifests our inherent liberation...

...The essence of the Zen way of liberation is not learning or understanding or believing but practice and experience." Kim Boykin - Zen for Christians

The more I incorporate Zen practice into my Christian life, the more I feel liberated to experience the true nature of Christ outside the walls of a church and the confines of systematic doctrines.

(Picture courtesy of my Wife's recent trip to Japan. Thanks Veronica!)

How (not) to speak of God

I can’t say enough good things about this book by Peter Rollins. I would argue it should get the “emerging church book of the year” award (if there was such an award). It really documents the hearts and minds of the emergent theological conversation. At least it captured mine. At times I wonder if the Emergent movement/conversation will end up becoming just a trend offering a new cosmetic face for conservative Evangelicalism, but this book is a stride in the right (errr... left) direction. It will keep the conversation grounded in critical thinking and followed by controversy. If you have any interest at all in philosophy/theology (I’m not sure you can really separate those two things) then you will want to read this book.

Most philosophy books are daunting and most philosophers are bad writers, but I can’t believe how readable this book really is. It packs an incredible amount of information into a small package without feeling like I was getting short changed. The ideas are well developed and wonderfully presented. Absolutely ZERO fluff here. I must have highlighted 40% of the text while reading it. The tie to emerging post-modern thought is clear in the title of the first chapter “'Rethinking Orthodoxy: From Right Belief to Believing in the Right Way”.

The first half of the book is philosophy/theology and the second half is a description of several alternative ritual/worship services that his small community (IKON) in Ireland has developed to play out their unique sense of orthopraxy. The communities tag line is “iconic apocalyptic heretical emerging failing”. That is interesting to say the least.

Rollins suggests a view of God "a/theism" which is both theistic and atheistic at the same time. It is a way of speaking and at the same time not being able to speak about God. This view understands God is real unlike the view of atheism and is also not concealed or “unknowable” as in agnosticism. For him, God is not absent or unknowable but is “hyper-present” which means we are bombarded with so much information about God (everything we experience and feel) that we can’t decipher it all or explain it other than through crude metaphors describing our experiences of God. The result of this overflow of data creates the appearance of absence or concealed presence but it is not really absent or concealed. I'm not sure yet if this is differnet than the PanENteistic view of God I've come to grips with lately, but it feels better for some reason.

My weak attempt at summarizing his thoughts here just makes me realize how great this book really is. (not) Speaking about God is a very difficult thing to try and do. He is impressive to have done it in a book that is getting such rave reviews by some important people (and not so important people like me). Read it! My review doesn’t do it justice. Also, if the word "philosophy" scares you then read it anyway. There is more to the book than philosophy. My guess is that this book will create philosphers and theologians out of some people that had not put much thought into the subjects.

The Meaning of Prayer

In Buddhism, practicing the teaching of the Buddha is the highest form of prayer. The Buddha said, “If someone is standing on one shore and wants to go to the other shore, he has to either use a boat or swim across. He cannot jus pray, ‘Oh, other shore, please come over here for me to step across!’” To a Buddhist, praying without practicing is not a real prayer. - Thich Nhat Hanh

I think the thing that has captured my attention about Buddhist philosophy is that unlike Christianity it is a faith of action and sacrifice rather than a faith of belief and self-preservation. The theology of traditional Christianity is plagued by its lack of action. As a Christian I spent most of my life thinking that the best thing I could do is try and persuade God to solve the problems of the world by praying the right way or the right amount of times. The combination of this view of God as sovereign and all-powerful along with its eschatological views about the inevitable literal destruction of the world and miraculous salvation of a select few has created a mass of people unmotivated to take action. That was not always the case. Paul’s writings in the New Testament are filled with ideas of cultivating the type of character traits that Jesus encouraged and building the community that Jesus called the kingdom of God.

When it comes to fixing our own problems and meeting our own needs we seem to have no trouble taking action. We work hard to feed our own families and even mock people that can’t. We take to the polls to vote for candidates that will help us prosper and protect our own interests and lifestyle. But when it comes to caring for the starving children of the world or protecting the lives of people outside of our own borders, we feel the best thing we can do is offer up a few prayers. We use our theology as an excuse to avoid responsibility. When we convince ourselves that God is in complete control and is responsible for everything then we no longer need to be responsible. Like Pilate, we wash our hands of thier blood and leave it up to God, but we forget that God has clearly placed the responsibility in our hands. The message of Jesus is that we are not subject to the violent judgement of an angry God, but that he has given us the means to build a new community of justice and peace here on earth and we must make it a reality for men and women of all social standing.

Can we really call our prayers for peace sincere if we turn around and vote for candidates that make war and the preparation for war a priority? How can we sincerely pray for people in poverty when the majority of our charitable contributions are going to churches that then spend it on our own entertainment and our own spiritual health? How can we sincerely pray for the orphans of the world and not open our homes to them? How can we pray for the families of the world and not support legislation and govenrment budgets that help families survive.

I now see prayer as a starting point of self-motivation rather than and ending point of responsibility. Prayer should be a statement of our intent not a plea for God’s intervention. Our prayers will not suddenly wake God up from a slumber, convince him to change his course of action, or bring something to his attention that he had until now overlooked. However, our prayers can be a time of correction of our own priorities. Prayer cannot motivate God but it can be powerful motivation and redirection for us. I hear that message in Jesus instruction for how to pray. The Lord’s prayer is an example of how to use prayer to be a statement of commitment to sacrifice and motivation through a submission to God’s will.

Lately I have a deep conviction and regret that I’ve not actually let my faith lead my public actions. I have to confess that I’ve not been living a sincere life in the spirit of Christ. It is interesting that it took a couple of Buddhist monks to teach me the importance of becoming the body of Christ and not just admiring and worshipping the person of Christ.

When I pray "God let your will be done" I am not suggesting that God take my advice and begin doing things his way. I'm making a statement that I will begin doing God's will.

Bizarro World…

One of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld was the Bizzaro world episode. The premise of the story is a spin on the Bizzaro world found in Superman comics. In the Bizzaro world everything is opposite. Bizzaro superman was the opposite of superman and lived on a planet where good was bad and bad was good. In the Bizarro Seinfeld episode Elaine was confronted with 3 friends that were exact opposites of their real world counterparts Jerry, George, and Kramer.

The more I understand the teachings of Jesus the more I realize that Jesus was trying to show us a “bizarro” world. He talked about this thing called the kingdom of God but the whole idea of a kingdom with a king and armies fighting evil is a horrible image for us today. Lately I have come to realize that it isn’t what I always thought it was. When I was a kid I was taught that this kingdom was some place called heaven that I would go to when I died. As I grew up and stopped believing in a literal afterlife and a supernatural spirit realm I never really found a good replacement for that theory. Some people tried to tell me that this kingdom might not be a place but be more like a “time” in the future. But that didn’t really add up either because Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within us. That doesn’t fit the model of a place or a time.

In his lectures last weekend, Walter Brueggeman said, “In order to be subversive, one must have a sub version of reality”. All great revolutionary figures seem to see the world different. In Jesus’ version of reality the last is first and the first is last, the meek inherit the earth, people love their enemies, disputes are settled with compassion instead of violence, and peace is preferred to war. Maybe that is the key.

What if the kingdom of God isn’t a place or a time but instead it is an alternate subversive image of reality? What if this version of reality is all in our heads (i.e. “within us”) and we can learn to experience it just by changing the way we view our surroundings? What if becoming a Christian was no longer taught as adopting an ancient belief system and renouncing the existence of dinosaurs, but instead it was taught to be more like putting on a new set of mental lenses to view the world. What if the version of God that was taught to us in Sunday school is a horrible mistake given to us by ancient people that used God as an excuse for natural disasters and as an explanation for their victory or defeat in war? What if Jesus’ purpose was to give us an alternate view of God and an alternate way to live? What if the personal transformation that Jesus talked about is a natural byproduct of living life wearing a new set of lenses? What if God’s solution to save the world is the natural byproduct of more people wearing these new lenses? What if our objective is not to sit back passively and wait for God to bring a magical kingdom in the future, but our objective is to put on these new lenses and start seeing and living a subversive anti-imperialistic life right now?