An update on the Jesus Prayer

I first wrote about the Jesus Prayer some ten years ago; on the one hand, I have continued to say it; on the other hand my usage is very different.

The (usual) Jesus prayer is repetition of a prayer consisting of, at the briefest, the word Jesus - up to various lengths of the phrase: Lord Jesus Christ/ Son of God/ Have mercy on me/ A sinner.

For a while, my practice was to say this prayer as much as I could, whenever I remembered. I did not find this valuable, and stopped.

Nowadays, I use it when I am mentally blocked, my head is 'full', I cannot concentrate, I am in a depression, utterly uncreative, unmotivated, dissipated...

In sum, I say the Jesus Prayer when I am driven to it, and cannot do anything else.


What happens is that I repeat and repeat the prayers, and then suddenly I get a spiritual impression (but not in words) distinctly along the lines of:

Okay, okay! I hear you. No need to shout! Please Stop.

(I stop.)

Now... (kindly and - as it were - quietly) What is it?  How can I help?

And at that point I can engage in a proper, properly respectful, usually brief, personal 'dialogue' with Jesus/ the Holy Ghost (but not in words).


So, the Jesus Prayer has become a last resort; but remains valuable, as such.

The Jesus Prayer lifeline - a personal perspective

The Jesus Prayer: 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, A sinner. 

For about the last decade the Jesus Prayer has been a spiritual lifeline. 

That is a pretty exact analogy - when I am stunned, confused, feel myself slipping, it is what I repeat to myself in a kind of desperation. 

And like a lifeline - once I have been saved from the immediate threat of drowning, I would move on to other things; other prayers or meditations. 

So I don't go along with the Eastern Orthodox ideal of aiming to say the Jesus Prayer 24/7. I think that would be like living one's life doing not much but gripping onto a lifeline; and I am sure that God wants more than that from most of us. 

But a lifeline is a precious thing to have access to; and the Jesus Prayer can helpfully become almost an automatic response to the sense of being 'swept away' by the tide of evil*.

*That's why the "a sinner" at the end is valuable. It is at those moments of incipient and beginning (as well as done) sin when the prayer has most value for me; including for such mainstream modern sins as fear, resentment and despair. 

H/T Adam Piggott for triggering this comment through his post.

Why Zooey (by JD Salinger) made such an impact

Zooey, depicted by David Richardson - catches the character nicely, although Zooey is meant to be a handsome actor and juvenile leading man on TV. 

I have written before about JD Salinger's novella Zooey; and how it has fascinated me, off and on, ever since I encountered it in the summer of 1981. Well, I have again been dipping into it, and as usual it has triggered some associations and notions. 

Zooey struck me as a deep book, when I first read it - as if it might contain the "secret of life" somewhere embedded. It probably had this effect because this was the first time in my life that I had met with "spiritual stuff" that really interested and excited me. 

I was very taken by the way that some of the characters talked about spiritual and religious matters; in a personal and engaged way; this was obviously the most important thing for them (and implicitly the author). 

Maybe this was the first sense I got of the possibility of a personal and inwardly-driven spiritual/ religious quest for people of my broad type, people with whom I could identify. 

The Glass family did plenty of quoting and name-dropping, true; but clearly they were not just repeating what "other people" had said. 

And also, they were trying to use these insights in living their lives: giving it their Best Shot. 

My reaction was, I now perceive, a kind of recapitulation of the way in which, from the late-1800s and with the emergence of Theosophy; many Western people were attracted to the esoteric spirituality and religions of the East - mainly philosophical Hinduism and Zen Buddhism. 

(Mainstream Christianity was largely irrelevant to this quest - it simply did not address the driving motivations of such people.) 

And the way, also, that this Eastern perspective was then brought-back and applied to "Christianity" -  because Zooey (and the short story Franny that precedes it) is focused on the Jesus Prayer, and the Russian Orthodox book "The way of a pilgrim" - which is about the use of this prayer as the centre of a religious life. 

Zooey is permeated-by, and culminates-in, what I found at the time to be an appealing positive presentation of Jesus Christ - and that was something I had seldom encountered before.

(As a child and adolescent I had always found the character Jesus to be uninteresting, alien and irrelevant to my problems and concerns.)  

I can nowadays see that the version of Jesus Christ, the Jesus Prayer and "Christianity" that are featured in Zooey are primarily Hindu/ Buddhist/ Eastern. For instance; the Jesus Prayer is presented as a mantra, pure and simple; and Salinger's Jesus is a very different and almost opposite phenomenon from that of what I now regard as real Christianity. 

Salinger's Jesus is indeed much more like Buddha than the Jesus of the IV Gospel; and Salinger's Jesus's concerns and aims are in-line with Oneness spirituality; rather than being focused upon life after death, salvation, resurrection - and Heaven. 

But this understanding of mine is all retrospective. At the time of reading, my concerns and demands were much like those of the Glass family children. 

What, then, were these demands and concerns?

The big problem for the Glass children is that this mortal life on earth cannot live up to the aspirations and perceived possibilities of youth. 

This afflicts all the children we encounter in the main Glass stories: Franny, Zooey, Seymour, and Buddy (the author's persona) - and, implicitly the others too. They all seem to have a yearned-for ideal of what life could and should be - but later discover that whatever they do (and, between them, the children try a range of strategies)...

Whatever they try: life just doesn't match up with these intense hopes. 

Therefore, there is an underlying pessimism about the Glass family saga; even when the specific stories end in an upbeat fashion - upon what seems like an epiphany, an insight, an answer (as do both Zooey and Raise high the roof beam, carpenters) - the reader senses that it will be a very temporary and partial triumph.

This pessimism comes across primarily because the oldest child, Seymour, committed suicide; shot himself with a gun (in A perfect day for bananafish). 

Yet Seymour was (at least to his family) a spiritual genius, the best of the children - a man we are told was both far-advanced and deeply-into the actual practice of Eastern spirituality. 

Therefore, despite that Seymour, like Salinger himself, suffered from Combat Fatigue (true PTSD, not the watered-down modern usage) as a consequence of prolonged front-line participation in the World War II invasion of Europe - we feel that Seymour should, nonetheless - as a kind of saint, have been able to overcome whatever horrors life threw at him. 

The background - and deeply-sad - implication and conclusion; is that there is no answer to the problem of that between life-as-it-might-be and life-as-it is; because not even Seymour could find one. Seymor's failure in this mortal life casts across all the Glass stories a shadow of the inevitability of failure.  

The young Glasses may not grasp this, when they are still growing-up, extraverted, when life is apparently opening-out - and they have the delusional confidence that they will be the first to find this answer. 

But this will always fail; and will lead either to an abandonment of the spiritual quest (as with sister "Boo-Boo" - a socially-integrated housewife and family woman; or else to a frustration and dismay that increases with age (Seymour, and Buddy).

Then there is Waker, who is described as having become a Carthusian monk, vowed to silence for much of the time. It may be that we are supposed to infer that Waker has candidly acknowledged to himself the insufficiency of this mortal life; and looks therefore to the life beyond. 

My interpretation of Waker is that Salinger saw him more as an Eastern monk than a Christian. One who regards this life as suffering and an illusion, from-which we should seek to detach ourselves - awaiting a kind of re-absorption into universal and impersonal divinity. 

In other words; (IMO) Salinger had neither an understanding-of, nor belief-in, the Christian idea (well, some Christians believe it) that this mortal life and our death are real, necessary steps en route to a state of post-mortal divinity that is personal.  

So, I agree with Salinger that this mortal life is inevitably insufficient; and I agree with his implicit conclusion that there is no answer to this problem within the scope of Eastern religion.

(Since; to regard this mortal life as a tragedy of suffering and attachment is not a solution; and to cure our sense of tragic insufficiency with annihilation of "the self" and consciousness is to avoid, but not to solve, the problem.) 

In conclusion, I continue to regard Zooey as a valuable and honest - as well as interesting and exciting - "spiritual story" - but I no longer believe it contains "the answer" to this mortal life!

Rather, Zooey and the other Glass stories show us what are Not the answers... 

But more than just "showing"; through participation in these stories, we potentially live-out putative answers, and experience for ourselves their (noble!) failures; and they leave us to continue the quest for ourselves and in different directions. 

The Jesus Prayer/ Prayer of Jesus

I suspect, or fear, this practice may turn out to be the core of real Christianity, the main means of salvation, in the future - if the mainstream Christian Churches continue their decline and corruption, and assuming the Eastern Orthodox Church does not have a resurgence in the West.

I heard of the Jesus Prayer first, many years ago, in Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger - and I would recommend reading the book discussed there - The Way of a Pilgrim, in the translation by R.M French.

This also is wise and helpful:  http://www.philokalia.org/on_the_prayer_of_jesus.htm

But the Jesus prayer was originated in Orthodox Christian societies, where a core knowledge of Christianity could be taken for granted - and that is certainly not the case now: ignorance and profound misunderstanding are the current norm; and erroneous or false teaching much easier to find than truth!

So (contra what is said in Franny and Zooey, and what is *superficially* implied by the Way of a Pilgrim) I do not think the Prayer of Jesus would 'work' (or even begin to work) unless the person saying it knew the essential meaning of the words.

For this, some prior teaching is necessary - which in our era may have to come from reading.

My own case is so very atypical that I really have no idea what would be right for other people - but I found this essay extremely helpful - Theosis: the true purpose of human life by Archimandrite George: http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis-english.pdf.

However, for me it came after several years of wide-ranging and mostly misguided reading, reflection and discussion - so it may not mean much to someone jumping straight-in.

The point is that Orthodoxy provides a very clear aim - Sainthood - and a (relatively) clear definition of what this entails (ascetic struggle) and what success brings (living in heaven upon earth).

Theosis is a path on which all can and should embark, and it is being on this path that matters to salvation - although almost all will fail to reach the end of the path and most will advance only a few baby steps - the necessary start being repentance (a turning-away from the Kingdom of Man towards the Kingdom of God) and by effort obtaining only a *foretaste* of heaven on earth. Ultimately, it is enough. 

Rehearsing the primacy of the Fourth Gospel

To recapitulate, in brief, why I have settled on the Fourth Gospel as the primary source of communicated-knowledge (i.e. not direct knowledge) about Jesus and his mission:

1. When I read the Fourth Gospel (at the times of my best reading) I get a strong intuitive endorsement of its coherent overall truth (excepting a few verses).

I do not get this coherent witness from any other section of the Bible; but instead variable amounts of partial endorsement balanced by variable amounts of intuitive rejection.

(This feeling about the special quality of the Fourth Gospel goes back about forty years, to long before I was a Christian but tried reading the Bible to discover what it said.)

2. This means that I take the Fourth Gospel as true; and read it as such; and this makes clear that the original Gospel was written to be read by people who knew the author, and knew the author's identity and history.

The first readers were pretty much 'handed' a copy of the Gospel by its author (or a scribe who took it from dictation - or whatever).

The Fourth Gospel (Chapters 1-20) makes it clear that it was written soon after Jesus's ascension - when such events were fresh in the author's mind. Except where otherwise indicated, the Fourth Gospel is either an eye-witness account or came directly from Jesus.

(Chapter 21 was added considerably later, after the death of Peter; and after the church had moved in a different direction from that envisaged by Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, under Peter's direction.)

3. From the internal evidence of the Gospel, the author of the Fourth was Lazarus; and he had, by the end, a very special relationship to Jesus:

• Best friend to Jesus - whom Jesus loved from before he commenced his ministry; Lazarus initially a disciple of John (the Baptist)
• Disciple of Jesus, in the inner group; his most-loved disciple
• Brother in Law to Jesus (who married his sister Mary 'Magdalene' of Bethany)
• Adopted brother of Jesus (via the instruction given Lazarus from Jesus on the cross, to take Jesus's mother as his own)
• The first Man to be resurrected*; then an immortal prophet in his own right
• The first and only eye-witness chronicler of Jesus's ministry, death, resurrection, ascension

These, in summary, are some of the strong reasons why I believe that authority ought to be accorded to the Fourth Gospel above all other sources;including  above any of the other parts of the Bible.

(Each of the above 'evidences' also needs to be tested by intuitive prayer and meditation; to ensure they have been understood and until stable clarity is attained.) 

The Fourth Gospel is our only Primary Source about Jesus; no other Bible sources even claims to be primary.

I further believe that, because of this primacy, the Fourth Gospel has (by divine intervention) been preserved adequately and almost completely down to our time (in the English Authorised/ King James version) - and this miraculous translation and preservation can be seen by its almost absolute coherence (such that the added or changed parts stand out from the whole); and also by its unique beauty and profundity.

If this primacy of the Fourth Gospel is accepted; it should make a significant difference to our core understanding of Christianity as compared with the usual ways of understanding that have arisen since the Fourth Gospel; and which have come down to us via the various churches that arose after the Gospel was first written.


 *Note added: The author of the Fourth Gospel goes out of his way to state that Jesus loved Lazarus - just after Lazarus is first name (11:1) saying (11:5) Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister [Mary], and Lazarus. In 11:35-6 we get "Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!" It strikes me now that this love for Lazarus is linked to him being the first resurrected Man; since in this Gospel, love is mutual; and it is those who love Jesus who are resurrected to life eternal. Perhaps, then, Lazarus was the first and only person who loved Jesus to die, after Jesus became divine and commenced his ministry and before Jesus himself died. Lazarus was, therefore, the only person 'eligible' for resurrection during the period when Jesus was divine and dwelling upon earth. This would explain why Lazarus was resurrected, and why no other people were resurrected, during those three years of Jesus's mortal life.
  

Think Ahead - Look Back. The spiritual perspective and The Problem of "Pain"

There is a spiritual problem with "pain" - especially if "pain" is understood to refer to the whole gamut of aversive emotions, and all kinds of sufferings. And this problem is that it is not then possible to think about complex matters, or follow a chain of reasoning. Instead the "pain" tends to monopolize attention and overwhelm efforts at other purposive activities - including spiritual. 

This may mean that our usual, and ideal, spiritual practices cannot (or at any rate do not) happen - and we may become habitually focused upon the material - on palliating or escaping the "pain". 

What is needed, in a spiritual sense, must be extremely simple - because otherwise it won't happen. 

A "mantra" is one traditional tactic - an over-and-over-repeated word or short phrase: for Christians, this has often been The Jesus Prayer, or (even shorter) the Name of Jesus. 

But these were devised during the "medieval" era when Man's consciousness was such that (to a significant extent) the word was that which was represented: "the word was the thing". Then; to speak the name of Jesus was itself to become aligned with Jesus. 

For modern Men this may not happen. Instead of the name of Jesus having a positive spiritual effect, it may be that the name of Jesus just loses all meaning and spiritual connotations when too often repeated. 

...It just become automatic, a habit, like humming an "ear worm" tune. 

Here is another possibility, that sometimes works... The aim is to get-out from the materiality of here-and-now, and to restore a spiritual perspective on the current situation. 

The tactic is:

Think Ahead - Look Back 

This simply means to Think Ahead in order to imagine being in resurrected eternal life in Heaven; then to Look Back from imagined salvation onto your present situation. 

If it works, this will - for at least a moment - put your current "pain" into an eternal and Heavenly perspective. 

It des not make the "pain" go away, or even diminish it; but it is a reminder that it cannot go on forever, and will come to an end: a Good end, that is a beginning.

Since Earth is "a school" and the eternal role of mortal life is as a time and place of learning; Looking Back is a proper attitude to enable this learning, during times that would otherwise be wholly negative. 

Think Ahead, Look Back is more difficult and complex than The Jesus Prayer; but if the prayer isn't working, it might be worth a try. 

Good habits and civilization - especially prayer

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A devout life is not much about the flash of understanding but is mostly a matter of using insights into truth in building-up good habits; and this can be influenced by our will.

Modern society is a mechanism for inculcating bad habits, especially the habit of seeking instant pleasure, intoxications and distractions; a habit of regarding ourselves as passive recipients for 'entertainment'.

Against this we can inculcate Good habits - such as frequent participation in Holy Communion, reading of Scripture and devotional books (spiritual 'injections' as Fr Seraphim Rose called them), and most of all a habit of prayer.

I think that the use of one or a few repeated short prayers is especially valuable in modern conditions.

This practice is especially associated with Orthodox mysticism, and has a remarkable 'track record'; but it need not be Orthodox nor mystical.

The prayer chosen was traditionally drawn from scripture - the New Testament or Psalms or Prophecies. Or there is the Jesus Prayer - which has various versions.

The prayer is repeated and repeated whenever the need for prayer is remembered. There is no delay in finding a 'suitable' place or adopting a posture; as soon as the need is remembered the prayer is said (either quietly with the lips or in the mind).

Repetitions can be counted-off on the fingers - or with a device such as a prayer rope or rosary (maybe concealed in the pocket).

As the habit develops it will be found that sometimes the prayer comes to mind or is already running through the mind or being said unconsciously and without intention, and this is itself a reminder to pray consciously and with attention now.

The prayer can function as an alarm call; whenever we surface from the maelstrom of the modern world there is the prayer, ticking away, and reminding us of the real things.

A good habit to acquire!

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"Our Father" - by Peter Mullen

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From a homily on The Lord's Prayer by Rev Dr Peter Mullen 

We note that it starts with Our. Of course each individual stands before God and his own conscience and must take personal responsibility. But when Our Lord told his disciples to begin this prayer with Our, he was reminding them – us – that we are a community of souls. Each man is responsible for himself, but no man is an island. Our stands for our shared concerns, our shared life together.

But the prayer moves in the very next word from ourselves to God. And what a sensational move it is – for we are told to think of God as Father. The word used by Jesus is truly astonishing. It doesn’t mean as in “When did you last see your father?” Or “Just wait till your father gets home!” It was the Aramaic word Abba which means dad or daddy. It is the affectionate word, not the stern title. Now for a simple prayer this is stunning.  In the first two words we are identified as a community of souls under God. our Father. And this God who made the sun and the other stars, Maker of all things, Judge of all men, we are told to call him our dad. The Lord’s Prayer is more revolutionary than you think.

Father, who art in heaven. So the moral rules are not ours; they are not set by the community; morality is made in heaven. Morality is transcendent and values are absolute and not to be mucked about with as our petty committees, commissions and politicians think fit. So here we are living our lives, but living them under God. “There is no life not lived in community and no community not lived in praise of God”. I have always loved that line from T.S.Eliot. But T.S. Eliot takes seventeen words to tell us the truth. Jesus takes only two: Our Father.

Hallowed means holy, awe-inspiring. Can there be anything more awe-inspiring than the commandment to call the ruler of the universe your dad? This is a brilliant setting up by Our Lord of what looks like a contradiction in terms. God is close enough to be called dad, but he is strange, transcendent and terrifying enough to be hallowed. All creation and all values emanate from this hallowed centre who is God himself.

Continued:

Thy Kingdom come is a prayer for God’s rule to apply to us. Before you pray this prayer, be careful you understand what you’re praying for. It’s a bit like the three wishes: be careful what you wish for – you might just get it! God’s Kingdom is the rule of justice and righteousness. Do you really want that? We have all heard trendy parsons praying for justice in various parts of the world and for what they like to call social justice in Britain – by which they mean, Please God don’t let the Tories get in. But justice is much more troublesome than that.

 

Justice means getting what you deserve. So before you pray Thy Kingdom come, ask yourself, Would I like to get what I deserve? I suspect only Mr Pecksniff and Mr Bulstrode think so well of themselves that they would like to get what they deserve. It is self-righteous people – those full of self-esteem – who glibly and thoughtlessly ask to be given what they deserve. The saint, the truly godly person, is scared stiff of asking to be given his desserts – because he knows he is unworthy. God help us if we ever get what we deserve!

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Do you want God’s will to be done in your life? I say in your life and not as the sanctimonious guardians of correct thinking mean, in Iraq or Africa or the United Nations. I ask this because you can be sure that God’s will for you is not what you will for yourself. What do most people want? Health for themselves and their families. To have a bit more money. What you’ve got is never quite enough is it? You know the saying, You can never be too rich or too thin. And added to these things, most people want a bit of recognition – some clowns want a lot of recognition: to be thought well of by one’s fellows.

Well, to be thought well of by ones fellows it is necessary not to think well of yourself. What is God’s will for you? It has nothing to do with seeing you comfortably off and all your peers saying Yes Mr Smith, three bags full Mr Smith. What a fine fellow you are! God’s will for you is that you surrender your will to him. Self-esteem is not a virtue. It is a sin. And God wants you to will to love him, serve him and obey him. The Gospel tells us to love God with all our heart. This is misleading in an age when heart is a word associated with touchy-feeliness and sentimentality. The original word in the Gospel means something much more like will, or deepest desire, what you hold most dear. That is what Our Lord refers to when he says, Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

You want God’s will to be done in your daily life? Then you are asking for God to turn your heart away from yourself and towards him, to seek his will. This means prayer and service, denying yourself and turning to God and the interests of your neighbour: actually being more interested in God and your neighbour than in yourself. As Jesus said, Take up your cross and follow me. So just think twice – when you pray Thy will be done, that’s what you’re praying for.

Give us this day our daily bread. That is, not what you’d like over the foreseeable future, a long-term investment to make sure I’m kept in the manner to which I have become accustomed. In fact the one thing you can guarantee about the foreseeable future is that it’s not foreseeable. You want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans. Your daily bread is not what you’d like at all. It’s what you need. And it’s what you need only for the immediate present. For the spiritual warfare you must constantly be fighting against your own evil and selfish impulses.

The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer of crisis. It imagines us as under attack from evil all the day long. Some of this evil comes from outside ourselves. But most of it lurks within us – in our own sin and weakness and lack of devotion; in our self-esteeming persistence; in our failure to love God. Give us this day our daily bread is then a prayer for spiritual resources in the immediate crisis. And the embodiment of it is sacramental. Stop being full of yourself. Come to the Blessed Sacrament as often as possible and be filled with the bread of life, the life of God instead.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. It’s another of Our Lord’s jokes. For we don’t forgive those who trespass against us. We say, D’you know what that bastard’s done to me now? I’ll settle his account, make no mistake! Here Jesus is using supreme irony to teach us something overwhelmingly important. He is drawing our attention to the fact that we know, deep down, that we don’t readily forgive one another. He is telling us just how wonderful the love of God is – for while we do not forgive one another, God still forgives us. As St Paul says, God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Of course, the understanding that God forgives us – bad as we are – ought to give us pause for thought and encourage us to try to forgive those who wrong us. But there’s nothing soppy about this. Forgiveness does not mean condoning evil. And if what the other bloke is doing is against God’s will and God’s kingdom, God’s revealed purposes, then the right thing to do is to rebuke him. This is the justification for righteous warfare, for the criminal law and for discipline in the church. Forgiveness is not laxity. As the Spirit said to the church at Laodicea, because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. 

Lead us not into temptation. The pathetic modern version of this, I remember, was Do not bring us to the test. And all I could ever think when I heard this was that God didn’t want me to go to Lord’s to watch the Aussies. It is often said that God does not lead us into temptation. How strange then that it should say at the beginning of chapter four of St Matthew’s Gospel: Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And he was tested there. We must remember that Christianity is the religion of crisis. We are being told every moment that we must decide. The evangelicals are right to talk about making a decision for Christ. But they are wrong if they think this is a once-and-for-all event.

Crisis, I tell you. Crisis. There is no escape from it. Beautifully and shockingly put Eliot: For the pattern is new in every moment/ And every moment is a new and shocking/Valuation of all we have been.

In the crisis there is nothing for it but to cry out, Deliver us from evil! This is the climax of the Lord’s Prayer to which it has been building all through. When newspapers talk about evil, they mean foreign dictators and home-grown paedophiles. When Tolkein or J.K.Rowling write about evil, they mean goblins and witches. When bishops talk about evil they refer to earthquakes and floods and stockbrokers. But the evil Our Lord says we must pray to be delivered from is our own evil.

And what does our evil consist in? Entirely in this: in our willing compliance with our worst instincts; in our obsessive desire to excuse ourselves; in that accursed thing self-esteem; in our refusal to admit our selfishness; in our coldness towards God; in our luke-warmness about our faith; in our lack of passion and zeal for Christ; in our half-belief and paltry commitment; in our preoccupation with anything but God. For the theme of the Lord’s Prayer is that everything except God and our relationship with him is trivial and beside the point. The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer that every impediment to our total being with God be removed. There is nothing else but God and his love:

For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory; forever and ever. Amen

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Note: Peter Mullen is a penfriend. He is an officially-retired Church of England Priest whose faith is based upon the doctrines and usage of The Book of Common Prayer and the Authorized Version of the Bible (i.e. the 'King James' Bible). In other words he is a rare living example of what used to be the mainstream in the Church of England, but which is now almost extinct. He is also known as a writer and editor of anti-PC books, often deploying robust humour and satirical wit.

Christians should pray to Jesus directly (not to God the Father with Christ as a mediator) - according to the Fourth Gospel

This conviction has been building on me since I began to immerse myself in the Fourth Gospel ('John's' Gospel) - which I take to be the most authoritative book of the Bible.

Again and again we are told that the essence of the Christian life is belief (i.e. faith, trust) in Jesus, in (or on) the name of Jesus; and that Jesus was the creator (co-creator) of this world - and that we know the Father by knowing Jesus, and that (in effect) this knowledge supersedes, makes unnecessary, the old religion of the Jews focused on the Father.

It sees like a plain, one-step, inference (if we are using the Fourth Gospel as our source) that we should pray directly to Jesus. (And not therefore, as is usual, to The Father, 'in the name of'/ mediated by Jesus).

The Eastern Orthodox do this already, in The Jesus Prayer (one version of which would be: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy upon me.') - so this is not a new-fangled innovation. Plus of course many/ most 'simple' Christians have always prayed to Jesus - whatever their priests or pastors might say.

It is, indeed, common sense and obvious - so much so that I wonder at the motivation behind the prohibition among most Christians against praying direct to Jesus. To me, this looks like an attempt to prevent the fullness of the new dispensation from taking effect - a pushing of Jesus away from us, to one remove; and an implicit denial of his sufficiency.

Anyway, it is worth the experiment - pray to Jesus; our eldest brother - the very act of doing which is salvation because it is an act of belief.

Prayer addressed to Jesus is primary

For Christians; prayer addressed to Jesus is primary - because it is by-Jesus that we attain salvation. 

This world, this Primary Creation, is mortal, temporary; goodness is mixed with evil and death... Therefore eternal salvation to wholly-good Heaven without death is the most important thing - for those who want it. So, prayer to Jesus must be primary. 

Prayer to God the Primary Creator, is about our hope or intention to affect positive change in this mixed,  temporary, mortal world. 

Miracles and answered-prayers are the provenance of the God, Primary Creator: because God is creating this world, and it is by creation that miracles are effected and prayers answered.

Amelioration during this mortal life is potentially significant, especially if this leads to faith in Jesus Christ, or helps us to learn spiritual-lessons from the experiences of mortal life.

But prayer to God for present help, is secondary in importance to the eternal matter of salvation. 

 

Reader's question: What is the power of prayer?

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Reader's Question: "What is your understanding of the power of prayer? How does it work? What should we prioritize in prayer? For example, I often pray for others who are effected by natural disasters like the recent Earthquake in Nepal but the prayers can feel feeble/ineffectual because I am so remote to the 'world' of these people and the extent/scale of human tragedy in such events can be difficult to comprehend. In contrast, when I pray for the soul of a friend who has died or a closer loved one the prayers feel more spontaneous because of my natural emotional connection to the people, places or events. Are more sincere prayers more effective spiritually? Or does the effort of extending our hearts to less attainable/difficult ground e.g. praying for those we do not like or whose practices/behaviours we find difficult to tolerate, render the prayers somehow more noble and worthwhile?"

My Answer: Since you asked me, I will give you my personal focus, rather than trying to summarize what is usually (and correctly) emphasized.

My main idea is that prayer is more of a means than an end - it is desired of us that we open and maintain lines of communication with God - as a person, as our Heavenly Father, so that God is central in our lives and that we come habitually to recognise God at work in our lives, in the world, in the universe and for eternity. On that basis, the more things we pray about, the better.

Therefore I try to pray frequently, whenever I remember - which means the prayers tend to be silent (or nearly silent), and brief, and in all sorts of times and situations. Mostly I give thanks, and ask for protection and help for those I love - sometimes for relief from my own, or other people's, pain and misery - and the courage to endure.

I am certain of the value of prayer in the sense that I have experienced several examples of miraculous answers to prayers - although I have not communicated these to other people because I regard them as being 'for' my own faith. Other definite benefits have been personal revelations and answers to questions communicated as a strong impression of the answer - these have created and sustained my faith, and removed stumbling blocks.

But on a specific, instance by instance basis, I do not think we usually know what happens to prayers or as a result of prayers - except that it sometimes emerges that my prayers led to the 'best' result, even when in retrospect it could be seen that I was praying for the wrong thing, the wrong result.

When I was aligned with Eastern Orthodoxy, I tried to pray continuously using the Jesus Prayer or something similar - but I would no regard this as

1. Unbalanced - we are not all of us supposed to pray all the time, because we have other things to do, and other ways of communicating with God, for example meditation (although I do not rule out that some few individuals are supposed, destined, to pray all of the time).

2. Wrongly emphasized - I now believe that it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of our relation to God, for us continually, or frequently, to be requesting his mercy. We have it; and it must be saddening and perhaps irritating to God that we do not trust him and the goodness of his intentions, but feel constrained to beg him and propitiate him

- God does not need propitiating (in this sense) because all propitiation (in a different sense) was done for us by Christ and (in another sense) it is only wicked tyrants (like the Pagan gods) who demand propitiation.

So my main prayer is what I have heard called 'arrow' prayers - multiple silent, short, thanks and requests; some few memorized (fragments) of Psalms and of prayers from the the Book of Common Prayer. And the rarer more focused and lasting prayers in solitude, when I may be seeking a sense of communion and understanding, relief, strength etc.

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How does prayer work? (When it works)

A post at Wm Jas Tychoneivich's blog discusses ways in which prayer may be effective. It stimulated me to add a comment about my own understanding of effective prayer - to answer that troubling question of how it is that my prayer might lead to good results that would not have happened without that prayer of mine. What is my contribution? Why is my contribution necessary?:

The way I think of this at present is that prayer is (or may be, for some people) a way of aligning ourselves with God's creative project, through love. 

Therefore the difference that is made by prayer (when there is a difference - when through love we are aligned with God's purposes) is by 'Final Participation'. 

That is we, as individuals, change God's creation our-selves, because (at that time, temporarily) we are fully in harmony with God's creative motivations: we personally add-to creation, from within-it.

In a nutshell; I see answered prayer as miraculous; and the miracle can be done by God alone (perhaps to confirm our faith - that worked for me!); but sometimes, by prayer, we participate in making the miracle.

Sometimes, indeed, the miracle could not have happened without our personal participation ("God could not have done it without me").

Such a view depends on my understanding that Men are destined to be (i.e God's hopes that we will become) full sub-creators, creating originally - generating from our true selves - within God's primary creation.  And that it is possible for people (including, perhaps, you and me) to become aligned with God (briefly and intermittently) during our mortal lives.

If or when this happens, then prayer could lead to effects origiating from our-selves. This would be a miracle that we personally had a hand in (in the same fashion that Jesus did miracles; and for the same basic reason and by the same basic mechanism - but Jesus was in the miracle producing state all of the time, for the years of his ministry, and potentially across the full range of creation).

One familiar example is genius. The truest and purest act of a genius is to perform a miracle that originated from himself, a miracle that could not have happened without that genius's specific contribution.

Genius I take to be a model for prayer that miraculously affects reality.

The Method of Jesus - So absolutely right; but why so indirect?

Giving somebody the Gospels to read can provide a confusing experience. Assuming that Jesus was - through his life and ministry, trying to tell us something new and important, he went about it in a strange way. Why?

Why are the stories of Jesus's life mostly a matter of him telling parables, performing wonders and making enigmatic comments? What did he mean by this?

Owen Barfield has an astonishing chapter called The Mystery of the Kingdom in Saving the Appearances (1957) which suggests the answer. He analyses the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 20: 9-13; Mark 4: 9-12; Luke 8: 9-10) - in particular "For whoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand."

Barfield remarks that, taken as it stands, this seems immoral, indeed brutal. But traced to the relevant implied passages of the Old Testament, the parable seems to be talking about idolatry - and in Jesus's time, the major Jewish idolatry was of Pharisaism: idolatry of The Law. That is, seeing the word of God as something 'out there', something literal, something interpreted by expert-rulers to which 'we' need (merely) to submit, passively. 

To paraphrase Barfield (as I understand him) the suggestion is that Jesus is introducing a new era in which we must live from-within, from God-in-us, creatively and imaginatively. In the Gospels; Jesus himself seems to 'model' this life for us; living from the heart, from inner evaluations - by personal prayer, personal revelations, by intuitive and imaginative acts of many kinds.

Suddenly, the whole Method of Jesus seems to make sense! The parables are designed to compel people to use their imagination in understanding (or else, merely be confused) - in their very nature, parables are the opposite of legalism: they are non-rule-like, indirect, inexplicit/ implicit, un-paraphrase-able...

Much the same can be said of the miracles - their 'meaning' is not something that can satisfactorily be set out 'in prose' - in the same way that the meaning of a true poem cannot be set out in prose. And more generally, perhaps especially in John's Gospel (written by his beloved disciple, and one of the great artistic and philosophical geniuses of the ancient world - at least on a par with Plato); Jesus will seldom give a straight answer to a straight question - nearly always he is allusive, poetic, hinting...

The idea seems to be that to understand the Gospels we must meet the words and actions of Christ with a response from within ourselves - and nothing else will suffice! Attempts to extract a 'system of laws and instructions which can be codified and forced-upon people are thwarted (or such attempts at paraphrasing are made to feel, to the evaluation of our hearts, deeply unconvincing, obtuse, manipulative).

Barfield is saying that to someone 'that hath' the capacity to meet Jesus's words and actions with an imaginative response from that which is divine within them; then there is given understanding - and growth towards god-hood. But to someone 'that hath not' this capacity... well the whole thing seems absurd and nonsensical at best, and perhaps a cynical and brutal exercise in evasion and arrogance.

In cosmic terms; the life of Christ marks the (divinely intended) turning-point in the historical evolutionary unfolding consciousness of Man - the subtleties and many aspects of of which I will have to leave-aside at present. (Please read the chapter - and indeed the book; but don't expect a quick and easy comprehension.)

What I take from all this, is a new appreciation of the absolute appropriateness of what Jesus said and did, and the wrong-headed (indeed idolatrous) literalness with which this has been so often misinterpreted by those who 'hath not', who do not understand, who are seeking to make Christianity into just-another-religion of obedience to social control: of passive submission external laws, rituals and rules.

We cannot be given Christianity, we cannot be given an understanding of the meaning of Jesus; each person must gain this for himself or herself by developing within that which Christ wanted us to develop, and gave us the means of developing. But we, personally, must do it - and there are no shortcuts or signposted paths; the Method is active, creative, imaginative, intuitive.

How should I understand a poem, a painting, a piece of music? Think of the nature of the only true answer to such questions, and how an inner development of imagination is required... Analogously; 'what did Jesus teach; what did he mean?' are questions of the same general type. 

Jesus Christ and the ongoing Second Creation - reason for a personal relationship with Jesus during this mortal life

I have been blogging recently about the idea that Jesus's "cosmic" role was the Second Creation that is Heaven - Jesus made possible resurrected eternal life, and therefore Heaven. 

But, in addition, Jesus has a role as the Good Shepherd, who will lead each of us to Heaven, if we choose to follow him from love. 

One part of this leading, is for Jesus to show the way and make possible our transformation from mortal to immortal that is resurrection. 

Another aspect is that Jesus - who is the Holy Ghost - can (if voluntarily sought) provide guidance, comfort and positive encouragement, on a moment-by-moment basis, during this mortal life on earth. 

This guidance/ comfort/ encouragement from the Holy Ghost may come via prayer - in other words, by prayers addressed to Jesus. Or it may come by any other manifestation of a loving friendship with Jesus; such as in meditation, or by directing our thoughts and attention to Jesus at any time or place or situation.   

(It's not that I regard prayers and thoughts directed at God the Primary Creator as a wrong thing to do - but it seems to me that these are not specifically Christian. A Christian should, surely, be focused on Christ? And that includes prayer, meditation, and our best kind of thinking.)  

The purpose of this mortal life can be conceptualized negatively and positively. 

Negatively, there is the matter of learning from problems and mistakes, from disease and death, repenting sins... and the like. 

But a positive and strongly-motivating life goal is essential in these adverse times; and this motivation (because of the corruption of churches, along with other institutions, to the-side-of-evil) must be something that arises-from and works-at the individual personal level. 

In the first place it seems evident (from our own set-up and the way the world now is) that this motivating-purpose is something we need to work-out for ourselves, consciously and by active choice. 

This needs to come primarily from our intuition - which means from our real and eternal self. 

But this inner source is, of course, prone to error and self-deception; and that leads to the special role of the Holy Ghost. 

I think that, in general (there are exceptions), the role of the Holy Ghost is Not to provide primary guidance: Not to "tell us what to do". 

But instead the Holy Ghost is meant to serve as a check and confirmation on what we have personally discerned and worked-out. 

As a mega-simplification (!): First we decide what we ought to do; then we consult with the Holy Ghost that we have got-it-right; that this is, indeed, what we ought to do. 

So far; we are still in the double-negative territory... 

However; the positive role of the Holy Ghost is then in the comfort and encouragement, the energizing and enthusing, deriving from "knowing" that we are indeed personally and in these exact circumstances: doing the right thing.    

What is the Way of Affirmation? (Via Positiva)

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Since I encountered the idea in 1987, I have found it very difficult to grasp what Charles Williams meant by the Way of Affirmation, or Via Positiva.

This is not surprising in itself for two obvious reasons. The first is that I was far from being a Christian at that time (much further away than I imagined); the second is that it is always hard to understand Charles Williams on any subject! 

What I gathered was that he was putting forward a life of poetry and engagement with life - with the world and especially romantic love - as an alternative spiritual path, in contrast to the more obvious (and more obviously effective) negative path of withdrawal from the world, discipline of the mind and body and in general asceticism.

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Also related to this is the idea that there may be a way to God via Joy and embrace of mystical union as well as the more familiar path of awareness of sin and repentance.

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(Of course these paths are emphases rather than absolutes, there is always some mixture. Even an ascetic Saint requires some minimal conditions for the sustenance of their life.)

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The dangers of this line of thought are obvious. In general, young men don't need much encouragement to pursue a life of pleasure and call it joy, of sexuality and call it romance, of self indulgent hedonism and call it union with the divine!

Yet to state the hazards does not invalidate the idea, since the hazards are great along the other path: especially spiritual pride or prelest.

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Yet the idea of the positive way still seems vague, its success unsure and its relationship to the tried and tested and effective negative way unclear.

My current thoughts are as follows:

The negative way is essential to a Christian life. It is essential that each Christian begins with an awareness of the sinfulness - that is to say the worldliness, selfishness and gratification-seeking - of human life as such. It is essential that this be repented, and that the Christian ask God (via Christ) for forgiveness. It is essential, also, that some degree of control over worldly motivations be attained - some degree of asceticism - else the Christian will be merely a leaf in the wind of chance and circumstance.

So the negative way must come first.

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Beyond that perhaps requires a recognition of individuality.

I am unsure whether the positive path of affirmation reaches as high as the negative ascetic path: I know that the negative path leads to Sainthood, to an earthly life lived in heaven. I don't know whether the positive path can attain that. I don't know whether there were affirmative Saints.

Yet for an individual it may be possible that the way of affirmation may take them higher than asceticism.

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What does the via positiva aim to do?

I think it relates to the method used for orientating towards God.

The positive way tries to move towards communion with God via the activities of life: via Love and Work, especially.

This is sometimes expressed as consecration of these activities to God.

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Crudely, this might be done by (in effect) interrupting these activities by periods of reflection and prayer - but this is in fact to 'stop doing' the activity of loving or working for the duration of reflection and prayer, so is clearly unideal.

Attention can be only one place at a time, so this suggests that the consecration of love and work to God should not be a matter of self-awareness but be implicit.

And, given that spiritual striving should be continuous, it further suggests that the way of affirmation would need to establish a context of prayer for the activities of life. Not so much a background, as a permeating environment of prayer.

And this seems to point back to something like the formation of a habit of continuous use of the Jesus Prayer or other short prayers used with multiple repetitions  (although other methods are imaginable).


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Such matters are explained and described in Unseen Warfare as translated into English from the Russian version by Starets Theophan the Recluse:

The method was invented of saying short prayers, which would keep the thought of straying, nor of going outside. St. Cassian speaks of this, saying that in his time this practice was general in Egypt (Dicourses x.10). From the teachings of other fathers we see that it was used on Mount Sinai, in Palestine, In Syria, and in all other places throughout the Christian world.

What other meaning have the invocation: ‘Lord have mercy!’ and other short prayers, which fill our divine services and our psalmody? Thus, here is my advice: choose for yourself a short prayer or several such prayers, and by repeating by themselves on your tongue, and keep your thought focused on one point only-remembrance of God.

Everyone is free to choose his own short prayers. Read the Psalms. There you can find in every Psalm inspiring appeals to your state and most appeal to you.

Learn them by heart and repeat now one, now another, now a third. Intersperse your recital of prayers with these, and let them be on your tongue at all times, whatever you may be doing, from one set time of prayer to another. You may also formulate your own prayers, should they better express your need, on the model of the 24 short prayers of St. Chrysostom, which you have in your prayer book.

But do not have too many, lest you overburden your memory and lest your attention runs from one to the other, which will be totally contrary to the purpose for which they were designed- to keep attention collected. The 24 prayers of St. Chrysostom is the maximum; one can use less.

To have more than one is good for variety and to enliven spiritual taste; but in using them one should not pass from one to another too quickly. Taking one which corresponds best to your spiritual need, appeal to God with it until your taste for it becomes blunted.

You can replace all your psalmody, or part of it, by these short prayers; make it a rule to repeat them several times- ten, fifty and a hundred times, with lesser bows. But always keep one thing in mind- to hold your attention constantly directed towards God.

We will call this practice short prayerful sighings to God, continued at all moments of the day and of the night, when we are not sleeping.

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The highest form of prayer I can imagine

All sincere prayer is good; but some forms are higher than others - and it is reasonable to expect the form to develop as our consciousness develops through stages of life. 

As a child, our prayer tends to be petitionary (asking for things to happen) and also propitiatory - begging for things not to happen; including making deals with God ("if you do X for me, then I will do Y for you"). 

This form of praying could be characterized as excessively egotistical; in the sense that it is often the surface, personality and this-worldly 'me' that is talking to God. As if we knew better than God what God ought to be doing...

Later in life, we may become aware of this egotism and self-assertion as a major barrier, standing between us and God. 

Then we may aim for an ideal of 'sitting before God', and of prayer as silent, contemplative; an opening to allow God to 'take over'. The idea of removing the self, and our own will - so that only God's will is done. 

Yet this ideal of self-effacing prayer is so passive as to be aiming implicitly to delete our-selves from divine creation. We are implicitly assuming that it would be better if we personally did not exist, better if we never had been born - which means as if we were never created by God... 

Yet God did create us - and presumably He knew his business! He would hardly have created us if the ideal was then for us to disappear-into His creation! 

I may not actually be able to do it reliably; but I can see that what God would most want from us is not to sit in a passive, obedient merely to absorb and transmit divine creation (as if we were Not There); because this would add nothing to God's creation. 

Admittedly, self-effacing prayer removes the problem of sin, and stops us from actually fighting against God's creation and will. And this is desirable. 

But surely God created us for positive reasons, to do something good - not merely to refrain-from-doing bad things? 

God created us, I believe, so that we may choose to develop such as to join our personal creativity and love to that of God. 

We live so as to add-to creation, by our continuing existence. 

Yes, to do this efficiently (to avoid fighting our-selves) we would indeed need to eliminate sin and evil from our will - we need to cease to oppose divine creation - but we would also need to add-our-bit to creation. 

Therefore, I believe that prayer should ideally be personally active and creative; and therefore not ego-less, self-effacing and contemplative. 

Exactly this has been made possible to us through the work of Jesus Christ; by resurrection to eternal life in Heaven. In Heaven, and after resurrection, the ideal can become eternal reality. 

But how do we actually do this; here-and-now; during mortal life and on this side of resurrection? 

For a start, in this mortal life, it cannot be done in any complete and permanent way from our own will-power, effort and practice; because we are all indeed tainted by sin and egotism and selfishness that cannot be eradicated (or at least not without also eradicating the possibility of active, personal and creative prayer).

The highest form of prayer is, however, possible here-and-now - so long as we accept it will be brief and usually partial in degree; as are all attainments in this mortal life - yet still of permanent value. 

(Whatever actually is achieved in this temporary life on earth, will be retained, will be added to the totality of eternal divine creation; and then potentially experienced forever by those who are resurrected to Heaven.) 

In thought much is possible - and to any person - that is not possible in the constrained material realm. By knowing what we most want, what we are aiming-at; then we are able to attain it in our thinking. 

Thinking what? Well, for instance thinking about our own death and resurrection, and about Heaven. Thinking about our deepest Good desires - thinking on that we value most deeply and permanently; thinking on those we love, on what we value in those we love. 

Thinking on the truth, beauty and virtue of God's creation; and on our own thoughts and deeds that add to this creation (maybe in practice, but certainly adding to creation in thought - in potential). 

Thinking in a spirit of gratitude to God and affirmation of divine creation; with intent to contribute to it. 

In essence, perhaps; by thinking on joy and love in our own lives and ideal thoughts; and 'consecrating' these joys and loves to God's creation. 

In our imagination; adding our joys to the permanence, development, and eternal growth of creation. 

Such seems to me the highest form of prayer. 

What was it like to Be Jesus?

 Walk with me by Greg Olsen

In trying to imagine what Jesus felt as he lived his life; it comes to me that he experienced it as a Man does (and should).

In particular, Jesus did not know what would happen until it was happening. However (unlike you and I) when it was happening - when Jesus was actually in the situation - he always knew exactly what to do: he knew and did the right thing.

Yet, until that moment, nobody could have said what 'the right thing' was - indeed, Jesus himself could not have said it: he needed to live it to know it.

This was an unique ability of Jesus. He recognised these moments, not by prediction nor by prophecy but as they arose - in general, he recognised the prophecies were happening (certainly he could not have said in advance-detail how the prophecies were going-to-be fulfilled).

Unlike ourselves; for Jesus life was Not trial-and-error. Yet neither did Jesus know his path before he trod it: rather, his path unfolded under his feet as he walked...

For example, and perhaps the most significant example; it seems that Jesus did not fully know why he was here nor exactly what he had to do, until it was done - until 'it is finished'; at which point he died.

This was to live in perfect faith. Not to live by unconscious instinct, neither to 'manufacture' a life of rules worked-out in theory beforehand; but knowing precisely what to do, exactly when it needed to be done - knowing this sometimes from within, and sometimes by asking in prayer.

Children do not feel a need to propitiate their loving parents - real Christians ought Not to regard God as needing propitiation

I have often written of the un-Christian, indeed anti-Christian, idea that God want, needs and demands propitiation. 

I have also often written about my conviction that the spontaneous and natural "spiritual knowledge" of young children was built-into us by God, for our guidance, and as the basis of that adult knowledge we develop from properly-interpreted experiences and (usually) increasing capacity. 

I was considering my own childhood compulsion to pray (I was aged about 5-6 years), and how such prayers were almost entirely propitiatory in nature: I would beg my god (who was, I think, conceptualized as Thor) for the safety and survival of those I loved; and these prayers "needed" to be specific for each person, were desperate, and were repeated over and over again to the limit of my endurance.

These prayers were a ritual (before sleep) needed to avoid the punishment of harm being visited on those I loved. 

And, although the ritual was done to avert harm, I was very unsure of its effectiveness. Partly this was because of a sense that if I said or did anything wrong, then this would at least negate the prayer; and it might even evoke a punishment for my mistake - such that just what I prayed against, would be inflicted as the punishment.

(This seems to have been a common view of religious ritual through much of history, e.g. in the European Middle Ages - i.e. that it must be done exactly correctly or else it would do more harm than good.)

My first thought was to wonder whether this childhood experience of spontaneous propitiatory prayer was a guide to the real nature of God. I wondered if the fact I prayed in this style and spirit without being told, might be evidence that this was the real nature of God and his relationship with us. 

But then it suddenly struck me that I never felt the same way about my own mother or father. 

I never felt that my parents wanted, needed or demanded "propitiation". Indeed, the idea never even crossed my mind. 

The reason was obvious: I knew that my parents loved me. 

And I knew this - it was my solid faith. 

Therefore, because my parents really loved me and I knew it; propitiation was utterly alien and inappropriate - and indeed would be hurtful to loving parents. 

The God of whom Jesus speaks is spoken of as his Father and our Father, as the ideal and perfect loving Father.

Of Course a loving Father does not want propitiation - certainly He does not demand propitiation, nor does God our loving Father punish his children for failing to perform sufficient or correct propitiations...  

Jesus is saying pretty plainly that the real God, the Creator, is our loving Father*; and asking us to have the same "faith" in God's love that a child may have in the love of good parents - as I had in the love of my parents. 

By talking of and to his loving Father; Jesus is saying that a God who is regarded as wanting, needing, demanding propitiation is a false God; because the real God (the "Christian" God, the true creator) is of an absolutely different kind - God is Jesus's actual loving-Father, and our actual loving-Father; and we should have absolute confidence that He loves us as the ideal and perfect Father. 

Many, most - perhaps all? - other religions conceptualize their God or gods in ways that make propitiation of such God/s natural and needful...

And there are plenty of Beings - including human-beings, as well as various spirit-beings, including demonic - that do demand propitiation...

But these are not who Jesus meant by God.

(It very often seems to me that many self-identified Christians {and especially those who profess ultra-orthodox or traditionalist convictions} are actually - albeit implicitly - worshipping the God of Judaism, and/ or of Islam, rather than the Father of Jesus Christ.)  

What this means is that self-identified Christians who believe that their God requires propitiation are making a very serious error. 

(There are many, many, such Christians - often among the most "devout" - and always have been.) 

And if they persist in this error of worshipping a propitiation-demanding God; and if they (for instance) build their core theology, their articles of faith, around the necessity for propitiation; then the God that such people are advocating is Not the same God whom Jesus was addressing. 

In a nutshell: The Christian God is a loving Father, and Jesus asks us to have the same kind of faith in God's love that a good child has in the love of his parents. 

Genuine parental love - by Man of Men, or God of His children - has nothing to do with propitiation. 

   

*Note: I should clarify that ultimately I personally regard God as a dyad of Heavenly Father and Mother for metaphysical (and intuitive) reasons explained elsewhere; but my argument applies the same both to God understood as Father only, and to God as Heavenly Parents. So, I have presented the above argument in traditional language.   

Remission of sins? - wrongness in the Fourth Gospel

When reading the Fourth Gospel, some passages stand-out as wrong.

How these passages got-into the text I am reading is not really important to me - clearly there are many times and ways it could have happened; and equally clearly, when dealing with divinely inspired and sustained texts the normal understandings of secular 'historical' scholarship are inadequate and misleading.

(Mostly, the provenance of error is unknowable because there are an open-ended number of possibilities; it is the provenance of truth which is vital.)


The Fourth Gospel has a form, a method, a shape - overall it is a highly-perfect work, perhaps the most perfect of all sustained works; this means that errors stand out. Furthermore, the gospel is true, and known-as-such; so wrongness stands-out.

From Chapter 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. 21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: 23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. 24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe...

The italicised are wrong, furthermore they are detached from the narrative - which runs straight from verse 20 to verse 24. .

Verse 21: The analogy between the Father sending Jesus, and Jesus sending the disciples, is basically-false.

Verse 22: Jesus has previously explained at length that the Holy Ghost cannot come to the disciples until he has ascended to Heaven - so he cannot breathe the Holy Ghost onto them at this point.

Verse 23: The bald statement that the disciples are being given power to remit/ retain sins (whatever that may mean) is at odds with the rest of the Gospel. The possibility that the disciples be given power over sins, or that such a remission is even necessary or coherent, is in stark contradiction to the overall teaching of this gospel - in the sense of having nothing-to-do-with the rest of the gospel. Furthermore (in this gospel), whenever Jesus says anything as important as this would have been; he always says it several times, in several ways, generally in several places; to ensure it is appreciated and understood.

(Why were these verses wrongly interpolated? Well, at the cost of contradicting the core gospel message; it seems fairly obvious that these verses imply that Jesus ordained his disciples as a priesthood analogous in power and status to himself, and as necessary to salvation. Maybe that explains why they were inserted at some point?...)


The Fourth Gospel is - on the one hand - hard to understand; being expressed in an unfamiliar way; on the other hand it is understandable by anyone who gives it sufficient of the right kind of attention - because it is a window onto universal consciousness.

The fact that the Fourth Gospel is a human product, as well as divine, will not block that possibility - because God is on both sides of the situation: as-it-were present in the text and also as a part of our-selves: present (not in perceptions, not in mental concepts) in the thinking of the real self.

Furthermore; if one is reading the gospel for the best kind of reason - that is, as a kind of meditation/ prayer, for personal and direct knowledge (rather than in order to extract from it rules and regulations for general, public communication and control) -- then the process of understanding, or knowing, is itself of great value and greatly satisfying.


Understanding the Fourth Gospel is not really a finite task that could be done and finished-with; nor is it 'objectively' checkable whether or not the task has been achieved. This is because when talking about the Fourth Gospel - we are only talking about it.

Knowledge comes first - but the communication of knowledge, and its reception, is a different matter altogether.

Three obstacles to Christian meditation - and the difference between prayer and meditation (note added with specific relevance to Mormon Christians)

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I believe that modern circumstances are such that meditation would benefit many, or most, Christians - but meditation is rather poorly understood, and there are at least three significant obstacles.

1. Some Christians regard meditation as bad

2. Meditation must usually be learned

3. Meditation is different from prayer (and also different from creative inspiration).

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1. Is meditation a bad thing?

Some Christians regard meditation as a bad thing - and of course it may be a bad thing if it is done for bad reasons - personal power, wealth or status; to manipulate others for gain, for occult powers or something of that sort.

These are the situations where, instead of achieving communion with God, someone might instead be influenced by evil spirits or one sort of another; and their salvation may be threatened.

But if meditation is done for good reasons, it can do - and probably will do - good.

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2. Meditation must be deliberate and purposive

Meditation is not something that comes naturally to everybody, and modern life is extremely hostile to the possibility of meditation - so unless someone deliberately sets out to meditate, makes time for it, creates the right conditions, and then practices it - meditation is unlikely ever to happen.

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3. Prayer versus meditation

Sometimes people suppose that prayer is meditation - but although there may be some overlap - the two are different.

Prayer is a conversation with God, but meditation is being with God.

Meditation is therefore a communion - and what comes from it is not so much information or guidance; but instead things more like motivation, sweetness, love, companionship, encouragement, inner strength.

These are things which most Christians need, or would at least benefit from - so, meditation should probably be given more attention as an aspect of Christian life.

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Note added 15 October 2014
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Christians have been explicitly taught by divine revelation that prayers should be addressed to God the Father, and that Jesus Christ is an intermediary for these prayers (hence the phrases such as 'in the name of Jesus Christ' which are so often appended to prayers as a reminder of this fact).

Although it is not mandatory doctrine, many Mormons, including the modern General Authorities, have expressed a belief in Mother In Heaven - celestially wedded to God the Father - and they have also stated that we ought not to pray to Mother in Heaven (for the reason previously outlined).

But meditation is different from prayer because it is a state of being-with, and communing-with, God - and meditation is possible because we are God's children and God is within us.

This seems to say that both our Heavenly Parents are within us in a divine sense, including both God the Father and Mother in Heaven - just as both of our earthly parents are 'within us' in a genetic sense.

The implication is that when Mormon Christians mediate, they are in the presence of both Heavenly Father and Mother.

So this is apparently another significant difference between prayer and meditation (the one addressed to the Father via Son, the other to both Father and Mother); and it suggests the particular, unique value of Mormon Christian meditation - that by it, and perhaps only by it, may we come directly to know our Mother in Heaven.

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Continued:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/christian-meditation-as-inward-directed.html *