How does morality fit-into Christianity?

By my understanding - there are two common wrong ways of conceptualising Christianity: one is the traditional, the other liberal.

The traditional is that Christianity is primarily a system of morality; and salvation (i.e. resurrection into Heaven) is a reward for a 100% effort to live in accordance with a moral system (repenting all failures to do so).

Traditionalists believe that to advocate and/or not to repent, sexual behaviour outside the code is at least a self-exclusion from Heaven, or (more traditionally) an absolute barrier to acceptance in Heaven.

The liberal view is that Christianity is a gift of salvation from Christ to all; and has essentially nothing to do with morality, especially not with sexual wishes, expressions and behaviours.

Nowadays; the traditional way, in practice, puts a system of sexual morality at the heart of Christian living; while the liberal believes that sexual morality is a matter of worldly expedience merely - an accidental (non essential) product of individual disposition and social circumstance.

Liberals believe that anybody who wants it can dwell in Heaven post-mortem - and sexual behaviour is of near-zero significance; except that those who falsely-insist sex is primary are excluded from Heaven; on the basis that if the sexual code adherents were included, then Heaven would not be Heaven.


I regard both as wrong. Essentially, Christianity is about mortality, not morality; but morality is linked with resurrection into Heaven. I need to explain this, because it is not obvious to most people.

Where does Christian morality come-from? I believe it comes, ultimately, from the condition of Heaven; which is 'organised' (spontaneously, naturally) on the principle of loving creation.

Heaven is a matter of immortal, resurrected persons living (loving, creating) in families*. 

Yes, Heaven is for all of those who want it; but - because Heaven is 'a family affair' - sexual morality is deeply linked with the wanting of Heaven. Because sexual morality is about families.

Those who - in mortal life (unless they repent) - reject the Heavenly-reality of marriage and family Do Not Want Heaven; and therefore will not have it.


Any explicit this-worldly System or legal code of morality - including sexual morality - will inevitably be deficient; since all verbal expressions are both incomplete and distorted. Nonetheless, there is, in actually-existing reality, a morality of Heaven.

The morality of Heaven is based on love, and love is bound-up with creation - the primary (but not only) form of creation is generation, reproduction, i.e. family.

The reality is that we Just Are God's Children and spiritual siblings; Jesus is our brother. It is ultimately all a matter of relations and relationships.

This mortal life is a domain of learning, therefore not intended as a place of perfection; mortal living is temporary, intrinsically corrupted and corrupting; and our salvation is to become saved-from this intrinsic sin. Sin is the condition of mortality. To be saved from sin is to want what Heaven offers - immortal resurrection into the condition of Heaven.

Those who do not want resurrection, and/or who do not want to remain conscious and free agent selves, and/or those who do not want family - all such do not want Heaven; and will not have it.



Why do people reject family? Look around, it isn't uncommon...

Some expediently reject their actual mortal family, perhaps because their earthly family is unloving - some are rejected-by their families; but that is not significant unless they reject the ideal of family.

Many who have utterly miserable and dread-full actual mortal families will - and perhaps with greater intensity - wish for a life of ideal, immortal, uncorrupted family life. They will yearn for the ideality of Heaven because the actuality of earth makes them aware of their need and desire for the truth of family.

Such will be saved, and will find their way to Heaven; because that is precisely what Jesus made possible.


But it seems that there are many (especially nowadays, in the West) who reject family - not in practice but in principle; not specifically but generally.

Often because the Heavenly condition of loving creation in familial relationships (including Men and extending to the divine  - the divine being Men in exalted condition) is something they reject as an ideal.

Such may want to be fully independent agents, without any family ties; perhaps because family ties block what they most want - which may be sexual, or may be related to other gratifications from status, power or whatever. A prime motivator of anything other-than the family ideal, means they do not want what Jesus offers.

There are those who reject the ideal of divine Heavenly family - and therefore in this mortal life they quite spontaneously seek other primary goals; and advocate other ideals...

Some do not want resurrection but prefer to remain spirits. Some do not want to become more divine, but are satisfied with them-selves as they are. Some do not want eternal life of any kind. Some hope for an end to their consciousness - they are tormented by self-awareness. Some want eternal happiness, but do not want eternal and loving relationships. Some want to use people, not love people.

None of these want Heaven; and (since God loves us) they will not have Heaven forced-upon them; theirs is some other destiny.


So, in an ultimate sense, the link between salvation and mortality is real because of our motivation and our ideals.

Those who are motivated to accept Jesus Christ's gift of Heavenly life will - quite naturally and spontaneously, as a consequence of this motivation - have and express and advocate the ideals of Heavenly life during their mortal lives... albeit that ideal will always be modified and impaired by mortal constraints of human limitations in understanding and corruption.

After all, salvation to eternal life is salvation-from these mortal constraints. Salvation is necessarily on the other side of 'biological death'; so there is zero possibility of attaining the ideal in this mortal life.

But not-to-have the ideal is not-to-get the ideal.


Therefore, actual earthly morality is inextricably-linked with immortal Heavenly life.

In other language: ultimately and primarily, sin is the condition of mortality, not morality; and morality is necessarily a part of Heavenly immortality.

Thus Heavenly immortality is attainable only via the motivations of mortal morality. 


*Note: It might be asked where this idea of Heaven organised in families comes from? Three possible, staged, answers are that 1. The idea is to be found in the Fourth Gospel. 2. This is confirmed and amplifed by the Mormon Restoration. And 3. that anyone who has this idea may have it confirmed by divine revelation and direct intuition.

Neglect of Heaven and Resurrection: The worst effects of modern materialism?

The materialism (aka. positivism, scientism, reductionism) that swept the world over the past centuries - but especially from around 1800 with the industrial revolution - had several devastating effects on Man's assumptions. 

Men lost sight of some key pieces of knowledge that were of vital importance.  

Unbelief in God, and that this is a created reality, are two well known losses; but others are also spiritually lethal. 

One is the insight - dating at least from the Ancient Greeks - that our mortal life in this world cannot ever be satisfactory.  

The insight that a world characterized by change, decay, and disease could never, under any circumstances, be wholly satisfactory; used-to-be so obvious, that to argue for it would have been regarded as silly. 

This understanding included that a life which ended in our death (and the death of everybody and every Being we knew) was by that unavoidable fact inevitably and fatally flawed.

Yet, by the middle 19th century and for another century, the intellectual world was filled by ideas that aimed (whether explicitly or covertly) at creating a utopia on earth and this mortal life! 

The insight had been lost, therefore the impossibility was simply denied. 

People were busily engaged in adapting or inventing 'new religions' (or replacements for religion) which tried to implement all their wishes in this mortal world, 'forgetting' what the ancients had always known - that the nature of this world (and our-selves) is such that utopia, perfection, our ideal life - is intrinsically impossible (in this world). 

The best that could be devised was that Men might evolve or develop a kind of consciousness for which the unsatisfactory nature of this world was obscured and deleted from awareness; that Men should therefore aim (by one means or another) become completely happy with an evanescent world of disease, degeneration - and death. 

In effect; this required a reduction in consciousness and a loss of humanity; although it was often advocated as a higher consciousness and a step toward divinity! (Often by deploying a distorted misapplication of ideas selectively-drawn-from Hinduism, Buddhism or Sufism.) 

In other words; intellectual culture, and indeed the spontaneous awareness of the masses, lost sight of the fact that this world can only become satisfactory in the context of Heaven to follow. 

The intrinsic problems of this world, which are fatal to human gratification if this world was indeed everything; can be understood as positive and beneficial 'learning experiences'; but only if an eternal Heaven comes after. 

This reached such a pitch that even Christians downplayed the importance of the central promise of Christianity - of resurrected eternal life - and began to focus more and more exclusively on the moral benefits of Christianity - as they may be revealed in this world.

Christianity began to be seen as essentially a morally-enhancing religion: as a means to the end of improving individual and social morality. 

Even so great a Christian as CS Lewis said it was better if Christians did not think too much about immortality, but became Christian for other reasons primarily (mostly moral reasons). 

Lewis himself converted to Christianity before believing in the reality eternal Heavenly life; and he regarded this as A Good Thing because he felt that the alternative was to convert from mere terror of death.

The need for an eternal perspective came to seem childish, immature, selfish - rather than a plain metaphysical necessity for understanding this mortal life. Somehow, Christians were supposed to reconstruct their faith such that resurrection was 'an optional extra' rather than at the very core of the faith! 

In time this world became, therefore, firstly more-important-than the next - and finally all-important; so that now many/ most Christians base their religion in this-worldly and political projects. 

(This led to the convergence of Christianity with Leftism, then - as of 2022 - the absorption of mainstream Christianity by Leftism.) 

And the loss and dissolution of 'the self', of our distinctive personal nature; even the post-mortal loss of body (instead of resurrection) - instead of being regarded as an intrinsic flaw to be superseded by Resurrection into Heaven - became regarded as actually definitive of the highest spirituality and mysticism: even among Christians!

Such deep errors have by-now so thoroughly pervaded modern mainstream culture; that the real Christianity rooted in Resurrection and eternal Heaven has come to seem almost bizarre, eccentric, foolish. 

We have now all-but lost the convinced utopianism of the late 19th and early-mid twentieth centuries, so that a mood of nihilism and despair has settled onto the mass of Men - and has driven them literally insane.

Consequently, we are living through a purposive and advanced strategy of global self-destruction masked by the thinnest veneer of oppositional socio-politics - sustained by a relentless shallowness, triviality and refusal to think about the fundamental and false metaphysical assumptions upon which our entire public discourse is constructed.

Few can perceive the once obvious truth that these mortal bodies and this mortal life are - even at best and most ideal - a transitional phase; necessary but not final.

Therefore, it has become extremely difficult for people to recognize what was once obvious - that the only full and coherent answer to the fundamental inadequacy of mortality in this world; is Christian Resurrection into Heaven. 

This is why Blaise Pascal in his Pensees correctly stated that all Men would - if only they understood it - want Christianity to be true. 

And that is the proper basis for Christian conversion: to want Christ's promises of Resurrection into eternal life in Heaven to be true; and then to discover for oneself that it is true. 

If you don't want resurrected eternal life in Heaven - well, then you aren't a Christian (surely?)

If you don't want resurrected eternal life in Heaven - then you aren't a Christian. That seems straightforward fact - because, if you want something else, then you don't want this. 

Yet when I have previously written on this subject, I have received comments and communication that seem to emanate from a feeling of hurt or exclusion - as if I was somehow preventing access to people who (instead of resurrection and Heaven) wanted Nirvana, to be reincarnated to further mortal lives, to become a spirit, or insensible, or have their Self/Ego annihilated. 

(Positively to be a Christian needs more than wanting resurrected life in Heaven - because Christian also requires a conviction/ faith/ trust that this can only be attained by (in some sense) following Jesus Christ - although Christians differ widely in their understanding of what 'follow' means and entails.) 

Reflecting on this strange matter - whereby, for example - people seem to want both 1.) to be resurrected with an eternal body, living as a person in Heaven, in the presence of Jesus Christ and God the Father; and simultaneously after dying to become to be a spirit (with no body); not a person - because without agency or self-awareness; and assimilated-into or absorbed-by a God who is an impersonal deity.  

How could such contradiction and confusion arise? 

I think the reason is simple - which is that people do not think seriously about what happens after biological death - and self-identified Christians do not think much about what actually happens at resurrection and in Heaven. 

Resurrection has become so uncertain, people seem afraid to think beyond it. Furthermore, by some doctrines, resurrection is delayed - perhaps to the 'second coming', day-of-judgment (something not told us by the Fourth Gospel - where both Lazarus and Jesus resurrect within a couple of days, and there is no such thing as the 'second coming'). 

At any rate, resurrection is treated as if far-off, and in some sense is regarded as not-our-concern; and indeed there is a superstitious sense that it is presumptuous (hence unlucky) even to think about it but certainly to speak or write about it. 

I sometimes feel this myself - even though I don't agree with it; that I am 'tempting fate' by 'taking for granted' my resurrection to the extent of thinking beyond it- despite that (in the Fourth Gospel) it seems clear that Jesus wants us to be confident about our salvation (in the same way a young child should be confident about the love of his parents). 

At any rate; this mental block on resurrected life has many malign effects. For one thing, it makes for this confusion as it what is, and what is Not, Christianity. For another, it has made people massively over-focused on this mortal life - as if what happened here and now was the 'main point' of Christianity; whereas exactly the opposite is told by the Fourth Gospel.

Christianity is primarily about what happens after biological death; and that is made clear in principle: resurrected, eternal life, in Heaven, as Sons of God. It is by the implications of this other-worldly fact that we may infer what Christianity means for this-world.  

The effect that Jesus Christ has on this mortal life can be imagined as a glorious light cast back from the reality of our life-beyond-death; and this means we need to regard that resurrected life as real. 

We need to expect our own personal resurrection into Heaven with maximum confidence; need to dwell upon it - including the details and specifics, as best we may. Only thus can we combat the colossal weight of totalitarian materialism that presses-down upon us; a mass and detail of this-worldly-ness - that otherwise would tend to crush us into hope-less-ness and despair.  

"Anything but Christianity" is rooted in the rejection of resurrection

"Anything but Christianity" is axiomatic for modern mainstream culture. In other words, whatever the attitude towards religion and spirituality (from broad sympathy to total atheistic rejection); there is a special animus directed-against Christianity. 

And few are even explicitly aware of this in themselves. 

I speak from experience. For several decades before I became a Christian, I was a 'spiritual seeker'; and had regarded myself as (in some general way) broadly in favour of some aspects of Christianity; and I had read (and thought about) comparative religion, mythologies of the world, modern spirituality (New Age), and even modern Christian theology. 

Yet, in truth, my was attitude that I was looking for An Answer everywhere except in Christianity. 

When reading Christian material, I was always pleased to see it reinterpreted in the light of other religions or traditions. "If only Christianity were more Buddhist, or New Age spiritual - if only Christianity could admit it is just one of many paths to truth - then I might find a home there" was the sort of idea. 

But at the root of it, as I now see that what I was objecting to was resurrection. I did not want to be resurrected after death; I did not want to stay myself, in an eternal body: I did not want to repent my sins and dwell in a Heaven among other such resurrected Beings. 

Of course I didn't believe resurrection was even possible! I thought the idea was (very obviously!) childish wishful thinking to be found only among the weak-minded; or that nobody really believed it but pretended in order to reassure themselves or manipulate others. 

But believing that resurrection was impossible nonsense was not the root of it: the root of it was that I rejected it. And, because I rejected specifically what Jesus Christ achieved and offered us; naturally I rejected Christianity. 

I think that my own ex-views are not uncommon; I believe that many of those who reject Christianity do so in a specific way (i.e. "Anything but Christianity"); and that many of these people reject Christianity because they personally do not desire resurrection. 

Many desire, instead, some form of self-annihilation: whether the mainstream atheist-materialist view that the subjective-self ceases when the body dies; or the Western-Eastern religious view that our self-awareness dissolves (back) into the universe and a state of blissful Nirvana; or that we persist after death in an immaterial, disembodied form - spirits, ghosts, or whatever. To all of these; the offer of resurrection is unwanted, is rejected.   

A few people desire to reincarnate into mortal bodies on this earth; to come back over and again, and relive this kind of temporary life among in this entropic world; and these do not desire the final answer of resurrection with an eternal-body. 

In other words; the trend for unpopularity, and the increasing scarcity, of Christianity is rooted in what modern people do not want. As things stand, modern people do not want what Christianity has to offer - quite aside from whether they believe that the offer of Christianity is a true and valid one. 

The question is why modern people nowadays do not want and reject that which was, a couple of thousand years ago and for many centuries, regarded as the greatest possible Good News.  

Jesus as an addition to pre-existing religion - who then transforms what went before

It is interesting to try and understand the essence of 'Christianity' - the single main thing that Jesus did, if you like - and when you do, it seems that there are actually quite a wide range of answers. 

My own (Fourth Gospel derived) idea is that Jesus brought the new possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven to those who followed him. 

Others regard the coming of Christ in terms of setting up a new religion - and then participating in the prescribed activities of that religion. Or a changed relationship between Man and God. Or provision of a source of guidance for (this mortal) life. Others focus on a change in 'reality' in the totality of the universe - an 'evolutionary' view. Others take a morality-focused view; which see immorality/ 'sin' as The Problem, and Jesus offering a solution. There are also other ideas - a surprisingly large number!

But if my own understanding of Christianity as "following Jesus to Heaven" is accepted (as a thought experiment, if nothing more) then it is interesting to consider what happened during the years of Jesus's ministry when a Jew or a Roman Pagan decided to 'convert', to become a spiritual follower of Jesus - to consider what this meant in terms of their pre-existing religion. 

My understanding is that - initially - a belief in Jesus was understood in terms of an addition to what was already believed. The Jew added a belief in Jesus to his pre-existing religion, and the Roman likewise. 

In other words, the new thing about becoming a follower of Jesus was the expectation ('hope') of eternal resurrected life in Heaven - to come after this mortal life and after death; and that this resurrection was to be attained by following Jesus. 

'Following' involved having faith in Jesus (in his being the Son of God, thus divine - therefore able to do what he claimed) - and 'faith' meant something like loving and trusting him. 

I think this - specifically about the Jews - is what Jesus meant in those passages of the Gospels where he implied that no aspect of 'being a Jew' needed to be changed in order to become one of his followers. 

It also fits with the miracles of faith; where the miracle happens in someone who 'believes-on' Jesus - specifically, personally; without regard to the nature of his specific religious life - which might be Jewish, Samaritan, or any type of Pagan. 

This idea of 'Christianity' as pre-existing religion-plus, fits with the observation of people who seemed to be (to to believe themselves to be) Christians and Jews, or (presumably) Christians and Samaritans, or Christians and Roman or Greek Pagans. 

It happens because the original Christianity was actually composed of "pre-existing religion"... and then 'adding Jesus'. 

This idea of Jesus as 'an addition' to religion is quite different from - almost the opposite of - 'syncretic' ideas of a religion formed from combining aspects of "Christianity" (as it later became) and "some other religion". 

The idea is instead that Christianity has an essence - which is the following of Jesus to resurrection - and this essence can be added to almost any other "religion". 

But of course, adding Jesus does not leave the pre-existing religion untouched, unchanged! Far from it! In the first place, the Christian idea of death as followed by resurrection (for those who believe-on Jesus) must displace whatever description of death was given by the pre-existent religion. 

So the expectation of Heaven needs to replace Sheol, Hades, paradise, reincarnation, annihilation or whatever was previously expected. 

Furthermore, adding-Jesus inevitably works-back on the pre-existing religion. 

In other words, the expectation of immortal life in Heaven affects the understanding of mortal life on earth - affects it in innumerable ways. 

I suppose that this was the basis for the development of the various Christian churches - these are the various consequences of the expectation of Heaven, on Man's understanding of life on earth. 

And the churches vary because the order and priority of these changes strikes people differently. Since the changes in mortal life are secondary consequences of the primary reality of resurrection; there will often be disagreement as to which ought to come first, which ought to be most enforced. 

But our situation here-and-now, in 2022, is that of no pre-existing religion. "Following-Jesus" cannot easily or obviously be added to Zero - not in the way Jesus could be added to Judaism or Paganism. 

Atheism is the - increasingly mandatory - basis of all serious social life and discourse. Religion is everywhere subordinated to ideology - and that ideology is top-down, imposed, and evil. 

Our rituals and rules are secular (i.e. Satanic in nature and by intent) - not divinely-attributed. 

Jesus is not believed in his promises because he 'cannot be' divine, because 'the divine' is seen as untrue, mistaken, a lie - and indeed impossible. 

Resurrection and eternal life are seen as sheerly incoherent in a materialist world where spirit and the soul are seen as merely mythical, pathological or manipulative.  

 

Such is our situation. Men of 2000 years ago (and much more recently) were able to understand what Jesus meant easily and quickly. They could become 'Christians' (followers of Christ) almost instantaneously; simply by understanding that Jesus offered something more than their existing religion, and by experiencing the spiritual conviction (faith) that this offer of resurrection was real and possible. 

The offer still stands, and can still (in principle) instantaneously be accepted - and then the expectation of Heaven can still begin its inevitable (but unpredictable, because so wide-ranging) working-back to transform a Man's pre-existing convictions... 

Yet the Good News of Jesus Christ cannot nowadays simply add-onto and re-shape existing religious convictions because there are none, and even the basis for religion is destroyed and replaced by a secular, materialist, leftist ideology*.

(An ideology which is in-actuality a mostly-covert Satanism - not neutral but evil.)

The potential follower-of-Jesus ("convert") must also choose to reject many foundational modern metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality; and choose instead to adopt beliefs within-which Christianity makes sense, and can do its work. 

And against the background of evil materialistic nihilism - this must indeed be a conscious choice; and (because the world of institutions and rules opposes it) this conscious choice must be personal - that is, individually-motivated. 

The essence of Christianity remains the same as ever - what makes a huge and adverse difference is that Modern Man is deeply damaged by this-worldly materialism, a nihilism that is deep and habitual, and by a tacit-and-denied allegiance to the evil agenda of Satan. 

*Note: This is why I regard it as a misleading error to call the global, mainstream modern ideology of 'leftism' (or political correctness, or 'woke') "a religion" as so many of those who oppose it do. Despite some superficial resemblances, the leftist ideology is not a religion, it is instead anti-religion - the negation of religion. This is proved by the fact that it cannot (like Judaism, Greek or Roman Paganism etc) be added-to by Jesus, to make someone a real Christian. Precisely because leftist-ideology is Not a religion; if you "add Jesus" to leftist ideology you merely get a fake-Christianity. You get that Christianized-leftism of the kind propagated by the leaders of the major Christian churches and denominations. 

Pantheist, Monotheist, and Jesus-centred Christians

It seems to me that the religion of Christianity - as expressed in the major churches (variously, since very early in church history); was formed from people who wanted several different and mutually incompatible things. 

There were "pantheists" who believed in one deity which was everything - so it was vital that the deity was itself everything, or else had-created everything from nothing. 

They were focused on the inevitability of change and death ("entropy") which they saw in all material things; and therefore recognized the ultimate and ineradicable insufficiency of incarnate mortal life on this earth. 

They also believed that consciousness was a false separation from the reality of universal deity, hence a curse. 

These pantheists yearned most for escape from this incarnate, earthly, mortal life and the curse of consciousness; and their hope was to become pure spirit, and exist in a "timeless" state of impersonal bliss. 

There is no essential role for Jesus Christ in this tradition. 

Jesus is either dissolved back-into the unity of deity; or else regarded as a teacher, helper, advocate or some other such...  

(A job that is no doubt admirable, but secondary and dispensable.)  

This pantheistic strand got rolled-up into orthodox/ mainstream Christianity, especially from the pre-existing Neo-Platonists and mystery religions. In its purest form this led to the Christian Gnostics; but it is found in all the main Christian churches today - most of all in the monasticism of the Catholic churches, and least of all in Mormonism - but is present in all to some degree. 

The other main strand of the religion of Christianity was monotheism; which was mainly from the ancient Hebrews, and the Old Testament. 

This emphasizes a supreme and jealous personal God as the only deity; but its focus was on Man's behaviour and happiness in this earthly mortal life. 

The monotheistic concern was with evil rather than with "entropy". Its concern was with forming "God's people" as a group. 

The monotheistic focus was on morality, on the conduct of life - which was conceptualized as a comprehensive and mandatory Law; with many rules - dictating that which is virtuous; prohibiting that which is evil. 

Morality in this-life dictated the after-life; and the major focus of the after-life was Hell rather than Heaven. 

Hell was the default state of eternal torment - while Heaven was both uncertain and vague, and mostly co-opted from the pantheistic tradition. 

In other words, the monotheistic Heaven (in so far as it is thought about at all) is only superficially distinguishable from the depersonalized state of a pure spirit, dwelling in timeless bliss; thus we get the mental-pictures of de-individualized ranks of Heavenly choirs engaged in perpetual cycles of worship, praise, and celebration of the one God.  

Since there must be only one God; the role of Jesus in this monotheistic scheme is very confused, and indeed incoherent. In practice therefore; Jesus is seen as a Messiah whose fundamental task is to abolish evil on earth. 

This means that - for monotheists; the concept of entropy is subsumed within the concept of evil.

The monotheistic strand of Christianity is found wherever law, rule, and authority are primary; and in such situations Christian churches become structurally all-but indistinguishable from other monotheisms - Jewish or Islamic.   

The task of Messiah is to transform earth into Heaven, to immortalize this mortal lie - and purge it of all evil. 

Since this has not happened; Jesus's mortal life was seen as a failure - and he must therefore return in a Second Coming; in a role indistinguishable from that of the one God; to finish the work of Messiah. 

Traditional, orthodox, mainstream Christian churches are composed of various and oscillating admixtures of Pantheism and Monotheism - varying between times, places, and persons. 

Jesus-centred Christians only really exist as individual persons, or small groups - because they (we) are not church-rooted. 

This kind of Christianity is (potentially) described pretty fully in the Fourth Gospel ("John") - when this Book is regarded as autonomous from, and primary among, all scriptures. 

The focus is post-mortal and incarnated - on resurrected eternal life in Heaven; and Jesus is seen as having made this possible - which is a divine act of creation.

Therefore Jesus is fully a God; therefore a God later than, and in addition to, God the primary creator (therefore monotheism is not true).  

For Jesus-centred Christians; Jesus was absolutely essential for those who desire salvation. 

Before Jesus there was no salvation; and without Jesus salvation would not have been possible. 

Jesus-centred Christianity is personal and inter-personal. 

Jesus was and is a person. Men are individual persons in mortal life. Jesus and Men stay persons after resurrection and in Heaven. 

Love is between persons - not abstract, not "unconditional". 

Consciousness is retained after resurrection. Individual natures and purposes are retained after resurrection.  

For Jesus-centred Christians; without Jesus, there would not be any resurrected eternal life, Heaven would not exist; and it is only by following Jesus that Men can make the choice of resurrection into everlasting life in Heaven. 

Note added: In summary; Pantheists and Monotheists fitted-Jesus-into pre-existing religious structures; suitable for church-based religions - a process that inevitably had the effect of leaving Jesus structurally-inessential, if not redundant (despite whatever protestations). [Of course; I presume that many Christians have been ignorant of, ignored, or pushed hard against the official theology and doctrines - and lived what was de facto a Jesus-centred Christianity - which needed no church, and need not be known to anyone else.] If, instead of insisting upon Pantheism or Monotheism; we start with Jesus and what he said and did (according to the most authoritative source) - we get a Christianity with a very different structure and emphasis. 

Why does mainstream-orthodox-traditional Christian theology underestimate Jesus?

My position is that Jesus brought us the new possibility of resurrection to eternal life in Heaven - a Heaven that (unlike this mortal world) is a place of beings motivated by freely-chosen love; and therefore a situation free from entropy/death and evil. 

Heaven is therefore a Second Creation. 

And Heaven is a place where Men are wholly Sons of God, therefore not just observers or enjoyers; but active participants in divine creation. 

Before Jesus this was not possible. Jesus's life, death and resurrection was necessary for this to happen.

And this is why Christianity is unique, and itself necessary for those who desire for themselves resurrected life in Heaven.

(It follows that Christianity is Not necessary for those who desire something else than resurrection and Heaven.) 

**

So why does mainstream, orthodox, traditional Christian theology fail to acknowledge this? 

I think there are two main reasons. 

One is the commitment to making Jesus's Jewishness into something theologically necessary. The other is the commitment to defining God monotheistically and as omnipotent. 

When theologians are committed to Jesus's necessary Hebrew ancestry (including that he was the Jew's prophesied Messiah, the rightful King of the Jews on earth); then they are compelled to integrate the Old Testament with the Gospels (including the Fourth Gospel "John" which ought to be regarded as primary).

Compelled, therefore, to emphasize the continuity with Jewish monotheism, and a specifically racial (and this-worldly) account of Jesus's work and achievement (because the Messiah was the rightful King of Jews in this-world). 

If Jesus is seen as part of an ancient and tribal process of a monotheistic God; then this apparently pushed some early Christianity theologians (whose view became dominant, then mandatory) to abolish Time from Christianity - which led them to elide, ultimately deny, the difference before and after Jesus.

(Because when Time is regarded as ultimately, divinely, unreal - then all Time is one, and there is no before or after: that sequential view of history is just an illusion from the mortal perspective.) 

Instead of being something newly possible, Heaven became regarded something more like a return - resumption of a paridisal state of blissful contemplation, worship, and joyful gratification.

The difference between Paradise and Heaven is that Paradise is essentially static. 

Paradise may be cyclically conceived (like the cycle of fights and feats in Valhalla), or a state of suspended-Time - with the abolition of Time. 

But in Paradise nothing essential changes: Paradise is not going anywhere - it Just Is. 

Whereas Heaven is properly understood as a transformation of this mortal life -- to become a life for all rooted wholly in love, having eliminated entropy/death and evil - such that love and all creation become everlasting, while remaining dynamic and growing. 

Heaven is a continuation - in a new form - of divine creation (or rather divine create-ing). 

Thus the term Second Creation for the work of Jesus... 

Thus Heaven is open-ended, dynamic, and changes creatively - eternally.  

Jesus can only bring something wholly new insofar as Jesus is a divine being distinct from God the primary creator. 

If there must be One God, and Jesus is divine; then Jesus is merely a part of God (as with the paradoxical-mystical mainstream conceptions of the Holy Trinity) - and since the One God has always been, and was primary creator: then Jesus is nothing new. 

If God is an Omni-God - omniscient, omnipotent, omni-present, impassible etc - then Time must abolished, and God must live outwith Time - therefore Jesus is nothing new, because there is nothing new. 

From the above it can be seen that (unnecessary, mistaken) decisions about metaphysical assumptions - presumably introduced by some early Christian, and probably Jewish, theologians; had the effect of rendering Jesus Christ theologically dispensable. 

(Whatever bald assertions to the contrary are so strenuously, but incoherently, asserted!)

This; because whatever Jesus did was also regarded as done by God the primary creator; and Jesus could not be separated from God the primary creator - therefore Jesus the mortal Man was inessential.

Indeed, because Time is ultimately illusory, whatever Jesus did was actually already-done before Jesus was conceived and born!

Consequently, through these and other stream of thinking that converged theologically; Jesus's work and transformative achievement was blurred, distorted and diminished; and this was done (I infer) in order to fit with Hebrew and monotheistic theological assumptions: assumptions that soon became theological dogmas.   

What happened when the pagan Roman-Britons converted to Christianity?

A favourite theme of the late, great Geoffrey Ashe was that the transition between paganism and Christianity went smoothly and peacefully in Britain. 

Unlike on the European continent; the British pagans (whether Druidic or Roman in their religion) did not seem to persecute the new Christian religion; and later-on the Christians did not persecute the pagans when they got the upper hand. 

What seems to have happened is that the Christians took-over the sacred pagan sites, and 'repurposed' or rebuilt them as churches; while the pagan Gods were replaced with Jesus, Mary, and the Saints on the basis of analogous religious functions.

(Most famously; the pagan British goddess Brigid, was replaced by the Irish Saint Brigid.) 

As well as its socio-political significance; this is theologically interesting; because it suggests that there is no fundamental conflict between paganism and Christianity; that - somehow or another - people could move from pagan to Christian without major spiritual or societal upheaval. 

I think this gives us a clue to the essence of Christianity; or, more exactly, what distinguishes it from paganism. 

What the smooth-transition tells us on the one side, is that (despite what so many people have said, and what is still asserted) there was not much to distinguish paganism and Christianity in terms of morality and lifestyle. 

The everyday and societal practice of paganism and Christianity don't seem to have been very different. 

What is very different between paganism and Christianity, is what happens after death! 

It seems to me that the Big Message of Christian missionaries; the "unique selling point' that Christians had to offer over and above anything the pagans said; was the prospect of resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

Whereas the pagan religions could point at either some kind of afterlife life as depersonalized spirits - in an underworld or maybe as ghosts lurking in this world; or else some kind of reincarnation into the same kind of life all-over-again but as a different person...

Christians came along with their account of Jesus Christ who died and rose again and ascended to Heaven; and who offered the same possibility to those who would follow him. 

And this prospect apparently appealed greatly as a possibility superior to anything in paganism. 

I think it would have been obvious to ancient Britons, as it was later to the Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen; that what Christians offered was superior if it was true. 

But how could people know it was true - above and beyond trusting the historical stories of the missionaries?

One form of validation was miracles: when the missionaries were Saints who could perform miracles, then this validated their claims, because it proved they had a link to the divine.

But a second, and probably more widespread, form of experiential proof was by participation in the Mass, the Eucharist, Holy Communion.  

Following-up an insight from Philip K Dick; I think we can imagine that Men, at that earlier stage in the development of consciousness, would spontaneously, passively, overwhelmingly experience participation in the Mass as a literal re-living of Jesus's death and resurrection. 

In the Mass; Jesus died and came to life, and was actually-present here-and-now to those participating. 

This (or something spiritually analogous) would surely have been a compelling validation of the actuality of what Jesus offered. 

In sum; I think the conversion from Paganism to Christianity as it was actually experienced by people in the early centuries AD (people, it should be noted, whose consciousness was significantly different from you and me) was essentially very simple, which was why it could be very quick - and why mass-conversions, and even mandatory conversion, made sense at the time. 

It was an expression of the desire for resurrection after death, as preferable-to/ better-than anything paganism could offer. 

And the method of achieving this desired goal, was to be admitted to the community who ritually re-enacted Jesus's death and resurrection, such that he became actually present to the believer.

 

Note added: This post comes after a whole bunch of earlier posts in which - as a result of reading the Fourth Gospel as the primary and most authoritative source about Jesus's teaching - I became increasingly convinced that the core message of Christianity (i.e. the offer of resurrected eternal life in Heaven) had become de-emphasized and somewhat buried throughout the history of the Christian churches. In my opinion; the advent of Mormonism from 1830 was, to a significant extent, made possible by Joseph Smith's "re-discovery" of resurrection as the core promise of Christianity. Mormonism also brought a completely new and fundamentally different set of fundamental metaphysical theological assumptions concerning reality as pluralistic, developmental etc. But I believe that the main appeal of the new type of Christianity in its early decades was its clarity-about, and focus-upon, post-mortal life - treated very 'realistically' and as something that could (with certain conditions) confidently be anticipated - and with potential for continuation of loving mortal relationships.  

What is the relationship between Christianity and the decline of the world? The basis of Romantic Christianity

It used to be assumed (taken for granted) among Christians, that the coming of Jesus Christ made the world a better place in some ultimate sense; and that conversion of a person or nation to being Christian did much the same. 

But I regard it as a fact that - spiritually - the world now is much worse than was the world 2000 years ago; because there has never before been so much (and top-down, official, propagandized, mandatory) inversion of true values. 

I regard Christianity as essentially about the next world, not this-world; so its effects on this-world are secondary to changes in attitudes and expectations consequent upon the desire for salvation. It is the desire for salvation - and also the expectation - that constitute the main societal effect of Christianity; and this main effect has manifested very differently among Christians of different types, times and places.  

Standing where we are, in 2023 and in The West; we find a world that has not just turned away from Christianity, but turned against it. 

Like it or not; the societal agendas of Christianity (and the other religions) have been subverted, corrupted... and are now largely subordinated-to, indeed assimilated-into, an international leftist, atheist, materialist ideology. 

A Christian now stands largely alone, or with a handful of companions; in a world where institutions (including churches) are actively net-evil - or else in present danger of becoming-so. 

The fact of Christianity's failure to make the world a better place ought not to surprise anyone whose faith is rooted in the Fourth Gospel - but that has not been the basis of Christianity (which, in practice, is rooted in the Synoptic Gospels, the Epistles, or church theology and tradition). 

When it became a church-focused, church-mediated, religion; Christianity almost-inevitably became primarily social. The church agenda was more often mainly up-front about this-wordly behaviour; and only much more secondarily and remotely about resurrection and Heaven. 

Indeed, Christianity has often become millennialist in its nature; and focused upon this-world being saved and redeemed by a second coming of Jesus Christ - implicitly acknowledging that Jesus only half-succeeded in his mission, and needed to come-back in order to finish the job. 

This, as I say, was partly a consequence of the expectation that Christianity implied that the world - this mortal world - would become a better place: indeed a perfect place. The coming of Jesus from heaven to Earth was taken to mean that a process had-been initiated by which the Earth would (by some combination of gradual and radical change) become Heaven. 

Well, as I said above; not only has this not (yet?) happened after 2000 years - but (IMO) this-world is further from Heaven, than ever before in the history of Mankind. Realistically, therefore, Christianity is now an individual-level religion - essentially 'about' the spiritual relationship between the individual Christian and Jesus Christ... Or else (if society is regarded the index of success) Christianity is a failure, and looks set to become worse. 

Another aspect of the two millennium span since the time of Jesus Christ is that Men have changed from being immersed in their group identities, to being very-much individuals. Insofar as modern Men have group identities, these are chosen (and often changed). 

In the past, Men lived essentially as part of various groups they were born-into or socialized-into; much of their behaviour was spontaneous and driven by unconscious group factors; and their choices were merely amounted to 'take it or leave it', and were very much buried in those identities. 

Indeed, this immersive unconsciousness is probably why a church based Christianity was inevitable 2K years ago. It simply did not make sense (it was not a matter of awareness) to Men of that era, that an individual could and did exist primarily apart from the groups into-which he has been born... And therefore (because he has-chosen) that each Man's religion just-is now his own responsibility. 

Nowadays, this alienated individualist state (sometimes termed alienation) has gone from being the subject of vast comment and discussion, to being simply taken for granted and unavoidable.  

So; these are two great conclusions that I draw from the past 2000 years: 

First that Christianity is not primarily about the world, but about each individual Christian; and second that nowadays (like it or not) we experience ourselves primarily as individuals. 

I said these seem like 'facts' to me; but of course that isn't really accurate: I see them as assumptions that are unavoidable when I am honest with myself.  

And this forms the basis, my foundation, of that way of being a Christian that I (and a few others) term Romantic Christianity. 

Death before and after Jesus (and the possibility of resurrection)

The coming of Jesus Christ changed the nature of death.

More exactly, I believe that this happened at the point of his baptism by John; the time when Jesus became divine; when the divine spirit rested upon him and stayed with him.

From then; those who loved, trusted, had-faith-in, 'followed' Jesus (those who wanted to be resurrected and dwell in Heaven for eternity) would be resurrected.

So time is real, history is real; the nature of death is divided into before and after that moment. That moment introduced the new possibility after biological death; which was resurrection to eternal life.


Before Jesus, there was no resurrection. When Men died, the spirit was separated from the body. What then?

My understanding is that the body is what enables greater agency, greater freedom; our capacity to be an actor rather than acted-upon. A spirit without a body has a much lesser degree of agency; so when the body dies there is a loss of The Self.

We experience an analogous situation each time we sleep. Sleep itself represents two of the possibilities after death - when we live in the spirit.


Deep sleep is the loss of consciousness. We are alive but don't know it (or barely so); alive but unaware of anything. This is the nearest reality to the subjective perception of death as annihilation.

Genuine annihilation of an individual spirit is impossible since our primordial spirit had no beginning, is eternal, has no end - but self-awareness can be annihilated (which represents a return to our primordial state, before we became Children of God) - alive but unaware.

When this state of alive-but-unaware is pleasurable, blissful - then it is Nirvana; the state of being sought by Hindus and Buddhists. So I am suggesting that deep sleep is a temporary Nirvana.


Dreaming sleep is equivalent to Hades or Sheol; which are seen as conditions of 'delirious', or demented half-being; when men become witless ghosts or similar.

This is seen in the state of dreaming sleep insofar as we are in a passive state of being. Memory constantly slips away, our capacity for agency is feeble so that we 'go along with' whatever is happening.

Dreaming sleep is an experience of passivity, loss of reason and purpose. It is a vision of spirit life without incarnation.


I suggest that these states - Nirvana and Hades, corresponding to deep and dreaming sleep - were the possibilities of spirit life before Jesus.

A further possibility was reincarnation. The spirit could be re-housed in a new body.

Since the body, and its specific nature, affects the spirit - this meant the reincarnated spirit, reborn and leading another life, was 'a different person' - not the same person repeated.

An analogy would be a relative who shares a certain fundamental similarity, the same flavour, deep character - "He's Just Like his uncle John...".


After Jesus a further possibility was introduced, in addition to 'Christian resurrection' - and this was Paradise.

Paradise takes various forms - Valhalla, or the Muslim Paradise. Implicitly, Paradise is a state in which our-selves are retained and our agency; so paradise is a kind of resurrection.

But Paradise is not a resurrection to the presence of God and the participation in the work of creation that is Heaven. It is a place where one's favourite activities become possible, in principle eternally (and subject to the limits of that aspiration, and the constraints of mutual existence).

Paradise (in its variants) is, indeed, pretty much the lower or 'Telestial' Heaven as described in Mormon theology. It is pleasurable and enjoyable, but in Paradise men are not qualitatively different from how they are in this mortal life - there is no ascent to a higher, more conscious and creative and loving, form of life.

In sum; Paradise is essentially uncreative, passive ('contemplative', appreciating, consuming) a reversion to childhood or adolescence; to Original Participation. And I believe it is possible that some people in Heaven are actually experiencing Paradise - e.g. those who are resurrected as (in their essence) children, but who live (as children) with their families who include those who are participating with God in the work of creation.  


What about Hell? Well some will choose that, on the basis of how they choose in mortal life - maybe even a large majority of people in the modern West.

These are self-excluded from heaven, and self-excluded from resurrection; Hell is the exclusion of Love.

Such remain spirits in the condition of Sheol, but isolated by the perspective and priorities of those who choose Hell.

Their state seems terrible to me; and is based upon a primary (pride-full) dishonesty of denying that they are God's children living in God's creation... but Hell is what they get, having rejected all the above.

So, Jesus brought Hell, as well as resurrection in Heaven - because it is deliberate, conscious rejection of the world of God, Good, Creation and Love that makes Hell hellish.

Note added: Resurrection is the single most astonishing, incredible, mysterious thing about Christianity. That is my point. What that means is that resurrection is Not something that can be 'explained' in common-sensical, ordinary, easily intelligible, procedural terms as if it was a chemical manufacturing process. It is incredible. I am not At All surprised if people don't believe it. Nonetheless, resurrection is something near the core of what Jesus taught (and did). I think resurrection is probably a much more important fact of Christianity than commonly regarded. We should work from that, rather than try to make the incredibility go away.
 

What's wrong with trying to make Heaven on Earth?

The utopian project to make Heaven on Earth reached its zenith in the middle 20th century with the triumph of Communism in many nations; but has never been officially or explicitly abandoned - and in a covert and incoherent fashion still motivates the political Left (which now rules the world; sometimes operating under other such flimsy disguises as conservatism, republicanism, capitalism etc.).

The contrast drawn is between - on the one hand - Christianity which offers resurrected eternal life in Heaven - only attainable on the other side of that transformation that is biological death (aka. 'pie in the sky'). And on the other hand; mainstream, materialistic socio-political Western ideology; amplified by the promises of transhumanistic technologies, which offers a positively transformed Heaven on Earth.

Of course, any such thing is currently blocked by the inevitability of disease, ageing and death and the limitations of human intelligence and emotions. Also the inevitability of suffering.

But (so the utopian hopes go) assuming these can be cured by (waving of hands at this point...) advances in technology (drug progress, genetic engineering, computer-brain interfaces... whatever); then why wait for something as uncertain as Heaven-beyond-Death when we can have Heaven-Now? 

All assuming that humans can live forever, without ageing or disease; without suffering or misery (unless they want it; and then only as much as they want for as long as they want) - and with as much happiness and pleasure as they desire. Potentially a life of bliss...

Who wouldn't want that? 
 


And even if Christians can have Heaven after death - what about everybody else?

What about those (presumably a vast majority) who do not want to follow Jesus; including those who do not believe Jesus, who hate Jesus; who are bored, indifferent or hostile to Christian ideas of Heaven - especially if these require onerous restrictions on lifestyle (especially sexual expression)?

Assuming it is achievable; a techno-Leftist utopia promises a Heaven for everybody! And here and now and for-sure.  

That is the special appeal of Heaven on Earth; that is why so many people regard HoE as morally superior to the Christian Heaven.

Universal happiness forever... Better by far, yes?


No.

Not better, but in fact Hell on Earth, rather than Heaven.

But why so?


Leaving aside issues of feasibility (and I do not believe it is possible to do these things - indeed I anticipate a continuation of the already-happening collapse in human capability) there is a basic reason why Heaven on Earth is actually Hell; and that is that any actual Heaven on Earth must be based on compulsion.

Why? Because Heaven on Earth is only possible with universal cooperation.

It would not be Heaven if people were free to exploit, parasitise, destroy, foment discontent; and from everything we know about human beings, universal assent and support to anything is attainable only by universal and irresistible compulsion.


When people believe that they are engineering universal happiness and immortality (even or especially if this really were possible) then the end would justify any and every deployment of effective means.

Humans would be compelled to be whatever was required for Heaven, for their own good; and/ or humans would be replaced by something better-than (at any rate different-from) humans - who would go along with utopia.


Heaven on Earth must be utterly unfree - hence Hell.

Because Hell is not correctly defined as miserable, but as a state of permanent spiritual enslavement. Hell is still Hell even when its denizens are compelled-irresistibly to be happy - because then the denizens are no longer Men.

The condition of absolute unfreedom is the obliteration of the self, the person, the Man in essence. 

Such a state may be chosen, Hell is apparently what some people - perhaps many people - want. But when Hell is imposed, as it would need to be to make 'Heaven on Earth', then Hell would become universal. 


I'm not saying that this is possible, indeed I believe it to be impossible. The creator has not set-up creation to allow Hell to be imposed.

But I simply point-out that wanting Heaven on Earth is actually wanting universal Hell: it is to take sides with the agenda of the demons; with those who oppose God, the Good and Creation. 


What about the Christian Heaven and its selectivity? Why can't Heaven be for everybody?

I hope that the above will help make clear why. My understanding is that selectivity is the only way that Heaven can be Heavenly, and at the same time free.

Selectivity is the only way that the denizens of Heaven can be real Men, with real selves, real agency; really participating in the work of divine creation (bringing their own distinctive, additional contribution to creation).


Death and resurrection is the means by which we can make a free and permanent choice for real-Heaven. That is why Heaven cannot be attained in mortal life, in this world.  

Also; if Heaven is to be Heavenly, it must be freely chosen. If it is not freely chosen it is Hell.

You may, of course (you are free to do so) prefer happiness to freedom; in that case you have made your choice - which, as such, is neutral. But when you desire to impose that choice universally, you have chosen evil.
     

Is your understanding of Heaven minimalist or maximalist?

It is striking how often the expressed Christian understanding of Heaven is extremely "minimalist". In other words; the idea is that very little happens in Heaven. 

Furthermore, in such a Heaven we ourselves are simplified (by subtraction of all sin).

Heavenly life is thus described very simply; including discarding almost everything most people might most value in this mortal life; such as family and marriage; and our most cherished creative and other activities. 

Sometimes, indeed, Heavenly life is reduced to the single activity of communion with the divine. 

This sounds, on the face of it, pretty un-appealing - except as a relief and escape from suffering. 

The usual answer to such objections is that we shall ourselves by-then have-been transformed... 

Such that what seems now to be an aetiolated existence; will, when we are actually in that situation, be wholly satisfying; indeed joyful beyond our current possibility of understanding. 

It is probably clear from the above that I - by contrast - regard Heaven in a "maximalist" kind of way; as greatly enriched by more, and continuousness, of broadly the same kind of positive things that are best in this mortal life. 

Thus I regard Heaven as a place of more, and more loving, and everlasting relationships - including family, marriage, friendship; and ultimately loving relationships of other forms with other kinds of ("non-human") resurrected Beings such as animals, plants, and natural elemental Beings. 

And I regard Heaven as a place of "work" - the best kind of work; that work which derives from creative love. 

Which is to say creative work, fulfilling work; work that adds-to, enhances, enriches divine creation. 

But to return to the minimalist view of Heaven - assuming (as I do) that it is indeed mistaken, and apparently rather ineffective as a positive inducement; it is interesting to speculate why it arose? Why might people have decided that Heaven must be minimalist?

I think it is partly hinted above, by the idea that after sin has been stripped-away; not much would remain. 

Maybe also that it is easier to imagine perfection (which is how some people regard Heaven, although I think this is a mistaken emphasis - because implicitly static) if that perfection is simple?

I think there is also a residue of "historical Gnosticism"; by which I mean the pre-existing (among pagan Romans and Greeks) Neo-Platonism that captured mainstream and traditional Christianity (and not just the recognized Gnostic sects). 

This philosophical ideology (permanently) embedded within-itself what might be termed the religion of "Gospel Christianity" by its metaphysical insistence on philosophical concepts as a mandatory framework for Christianity. 

(Such as an infinite gulf between creator and created, strict monotheism (leading to the abstractions of Trinitarianism in order to encompass the divinity of Jesus); creation being from nothing (rather than an organizing of pre-existent chaotic "stuff"), and God and the divine world being "outside of Time". There are more.) 

Other aspects of this pre-Christian philosophy included a belief that the material was innately evil, and the the purely spiritual was therefore the proper aim; and this led to an ascetic ideal that strove to achieve the greatest possible independence from the material body during mortal life; essentially by subtractive disciplines. 

From this perspective, it is natural to regard Heaven minimalistically, and the denizens of Heaven likewise. 

And the assumption that the divine world - in order to be wholly good - must not change; probably led to the deletion of sequential Time from Heaven - such that there was neither need nor possibility of resurrected Men doing anything in Heaven. They would simple "be". 

(Even the doctrine of resurrection after death, which could hardly be ignored; was transformed into an abstracted, spiritualized, "resurrection body" - which body ended by being hardly regarded as material at all - but instead something more like light than everlasting flesh.) 

Of course the minimalist Heaven may include elements of reaction against pagan (and other) understandings of the post-mortal life as simply a continuation and enhancement of this mortal life - with more of our desires fulfilled, and less of the sufferings. 

These are seen as wish-fulfilment merely - and wish-fulfilment is not (by such an analysis) distinguished from selfish day-dreaming fantasies (e.g. imagining post-mortal luxuries of sex, feasting and/or fighting - according to taste). 

It was probably not until the advent of Mormonism from 1830 that an explicitly maximalist understanding of Heaven (more consistent with the Gospels, common-sensically understood - especially the Fourth gospel) was rediscovered and linked with a metaphysical theology. 

This included a focus on marriage and procreation, family life, and co-creative activities in loving cooperation with God the Father - and a "evolutionary" emphasis on divine creation as eternally "ongoing", continuous, eternally being added-to. 

Ultimately, as always, this question of minimalist versus maximalist understanding of Heaven, reduces to a question of personal discernment based on the deepest intuition that we can arrive-at. Having consciously clarified our awareness of the alternatives, we each need to decide which are true possibilities, and which we most desire for our-selves.

**

Note: This post was stimulated by a comment from NLR at the NCP Blog. 

How is Jesus *necessary* to salvation? The process of resurrection

It is a stumbling block for potential Christians that Jesus is necessary for salvation. And, such is the essential nature of Christianity, that this is a matter which modern people find it very difficult to understand - or, at least, they find it hard to understand as something good.

Quite reasonably, people find it unacceptable that people should be pressured (indeed blackmailed) into becoming Christians by the 'or else' kind of threat represented by the idea of being 'sent to hell' if you don't. There is also a worry about the billions of people (past and present) who either know nothing about Jesus and Christianity or know only some kind of biased/ prejudiced/ selective version - or else are unable to understand it (due, for example, to being babies or young children, mentally handicapped or mentally ill/ brain damaged).

So, it seems unreasonably, and indeed wickedly, restrictive for salvation to be confined only to those who know, understand and accept Jesus. Or else eternal torment in hell...


But the other side of the coin is that salvation should not (indeed cannot), be forced upon anyone - Christianity is an opt-in kind of religion; and that opt-in needs to be conscious, deliberate, a kind of 'informed consent'. How can this be the case - given the above problems of ignorance, misinformation, incompetence, lack-of-capacity... How could everybody be given a fair chance to opt-in?


One answer might be to consider what happened with the resurrection of Jesus; and that he promised resurrection to everybody. Death is the separation of soul/ spirit from body - the body dies, and the spirit remains. Yet the spirit alone is a maimed thing, hardly self-aware, unfree, 'demented' - and this was widely recognised in ancient religions, especially before Christ; where the realm of the dead (Hades, Sheol etc) was a place of barely-sentient spirits. Not a place of torment, but a place where we lost our-selves - forever (unless there was reincarnation).

So, the process of resurrection has at least two aspects: the first is that spirit and body are reunited, we become sentient again, we regain our souls, our selves...

The other part of resurrection is the spiritual process of being re-born to eternal life. This involves a positive, conscious, deliberate choice - because what this entails is allying ourselves permanently with God's plan, his goal of a reality based on Love. Heaven is this world based on Love between persons.

We cannot be coerced to love (else it is not love) - and indeed we would not want to dwell in Heaven if we did not want to live in this world of loving relations - more exactly we cannot live in this world of loving relations if we do not, ourselves, love.

But to be able to live in such a world is not something that we can accomplish for ourselves - it is, indeed, the gift of Jesus. This is why there is no other way than by him. To live in heaven we must believe in, have trust in, Jesus - must surrender our-selves to him so we can be remade fit for heaven.

Such absolute, trusting surrender is only rational if we believe that Jesus loves us. In other words, we must believe-in Jesus - his power, goodness, love - in order to surrender utterly to him; in order to be able to participate in eternal life in Heaven.


For this to be universally available to all men and women, at all times in history and today, regardless of circumstances and place - then it must be something which occurs (or at least can occur) after death. That is; everybody must be brought, after death, to a situation in which he or she makes a fully-informed choice, with understanding of the consequences. This is 'judgment' - and it is our personal choice (although Jesus was responsible for setting-up the choice).

Those who did not (for whatever reason) repent during mortal life are able to repent after mortal death, in this fashion. That is, they can choose whether to accept the gift of Christ, or not.

Hell is what happens to people who choose not - Hell is the people who choose not to live by love, who choose not to trust Christ.


But why specifically Jesus Christ, why must we believe in him personally? Now that the system is set-up - couldn't Christ's role be discarded?

My understanding is that Life, including eternal life, is ultimately personal - not abstract. I regard this as one of the essential aspects of Christianity - because Love requires persons.

It was the work of Jesus as a person to enable us to be saved from permanent death (severance of spirit and body) by repentance, and to be resurrected to eternal life. It was (it seems) necessary for Jesus as a person to go-through what he did (incarnation, birth, life, death and resurrection), and to do so by choice, for us to receive the benefits. It was necessary for Jesus to do this in order that we (that is all men and women) can follow the same path.

Why exactly this should be so is another matter - but that it is so is central to the Christian story.


Anyway, my take-home-message here is that belief in Jesus is indeed necessary to salvation; because being saved entails a surrender of our self to Jesus; and without belief (faith, trust, love) we will not allow ourselves to be saved.

Furthermore, all men and women have been and will be presented with this choice to believe-in Jesus Christ or not - and this choice in full clarity of consciousness and sufficient comprehension of the implications - regardless of their earthly circumstances. This situation is something that is always (sooner or later) made possible and arranged by divine action and intervention.

Why some people get so angry at the offer of resurrected eternal life in Heaven

It may seem strange that so many people nowadays get angry at talk about resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

Why should Heaven talk make them so angry? - even if they believe that resurrection is impossible and Heaven is untrue. 

After all, people don't usually get angry about other-people's day-dreams...

But in truth it is not really so difficult to understand...

In fact I understand this anger from personal experience because I was myself one of those angry people, for most of my life. 

As a kid, a teen, and a young adult - I would be extremely annoyed by people promising eternal life after death.

 

It wasn't just that I did not believe in the possibility of resurrection after death, or even persistence in any way after death; but that it struck me as a loathsomely manipulative bribe. 

The story of resurrection and Heaven struck me as a cynical inducement offered to miserable and desperate human souls; only in return for voluntary slavish subordination to a comprehensive system of life-control.

So; it wasn't really the resurrection and Heaven, which I simply regarded as untrue; but the way it was linked to a demand for unconditional obedience. 

This is one strong reason why I regard it as Absolutely Essential that Christianity dissociate resurrection and Heaven - which is the primary promise of Jesus Christ - from any solid causal linkage with any church. 

We need to be clear and state simply that the path to resurrection is something between our-selves and the living Jesus Christ; whom each of us can know personally. 

Only then can people begin to grasp what is being offered, and whether this is something that we personally desire to happen to us...

And then (but only then) How this can happen. 

Creativity and Christianity - in Traditional compared with Romantic Christianity

The can be a conflict between creativity and Christianity - in the sense that being a Christian can be experienced as a constraint and inhibition on creative work. 

This has been experienced especially since the Romantic Era (from the late 1700s) - and some of those geniuses (and others) who were most deeply committed to their creative work (whether in arts or sciences) made 'a religion' from their creative work - took it with the utmost seriousness and made great sacrifices. 

In the 20th century, indeed, it became usual for the greatest creative geniuses to be raised as Christians (or sometimes as Jews) and then to reject Christianity in favour of a kind of 'Genius as Hero' ideology. 

Creativity and Christianity began to be seen as antagonists - since if a genius put his work first it seemed to mean putting Christianity second, which is not to be a Christian at all... 

Yet it was Christianity that sustained the greatest works of genius. And being raised in a religion seems all-but vital to serious creative work; so that when society became thoroughly atheist - creative genius all-but disappeared and is by now undiscerned, disvalued and even suppressed. 

This because without a basis in 'the transcendental'; creativity becomes subordinated to expediency - careerism, money or status seeking etc. 

It seems that unless a genius 'understands' his work to be contributing to divine creation (and this 'understanding is usually implicit) - then he will not give that work the effort and priority which the highest achievement requires. 

So the relationship between Christianity and creativity has become complex. This is because very few people have been raised as serious Christians over the past few generations; spontaneous, un-conscious Christianity is a thing of the past. 

As of 2021 serious Christians are, in effect, adult converts - because in a secular society even serious cradle Christians will need to make at least one (often more) renewed conscious commitments to their faith.  

To be a creative person and to convert to Christianity as an adult can be a significant challenge to creativity. Because when an adult converts he is (nearly always) converting to a particular church or denomination; with a complex framework of rules and expectations. 

Converts are held to a higher standard than cradle church members - and are usually required to make vows and promises of a rigorous and binding nature. 

So the creative Man who becomes a Christian typically finds himself having made a serious commitment to work from-within a detailed and rigorous framework of constraints and expectations. 

This framework of Christian (denominational) practice, doctrine, theology and authority may well interfere with his established creative practices. He may feel his thinking repeatedly bumping-against boundaries - to cross which would seem to take him beyond orthodoxy and obedience. 

He may well feel himself creatively confined - and, at the extreme, may feel safe only when repeating that which has been said before; ringing changes rather than being truly original... 

Consequently, his work may lose its spontaneity, distinctiveness, energy and flow -  it may become second rate, derivative, un-creative.   

I interpret this from the perspective of the changing nature of human consciousness; and that Romanticism ought to usher-in a new way of being Christian that is ultimately based on shared motivation and alignment of creative work, rather than an explicit and external framework of rules. 

The creative Christian (ideally) ought to be working-from, rather than working-towards; working-from the basis of sharing the Christian priority of love. Creating is something that should come from a base of commitment; rather than something that operates inside a framework. 

The hope of Heaven is based upon a commitment to live eternally by love, in Heaven; and to embrace the transformation that is resurrection which makes this possible for Men.

So the Romantic understanding of Heaven is a place where love overflows into creating - a place where our 'work' is co-creating with God; as was the case with primary divine creation when it was the love of God was the cause of Creation in the first place.

 

In other words; Romantic Christianity aims to make genuine, innate and endogenous personal creativity one important way of being a good Christian, a taste of Heaven itself - rather than an incipient source of conflict. 

And this 'works' by aiming at a harmony derived from a basis in love rather than from a set of rule. 

As so often, the loving family provides the best analogy (which is, indeed, more than analogy!); because the family is supposed to attain harmony not primarily by adherence to a framework of practices and rules; but instead from the mutual love of its members. 

Family members are aligned by having the same aims (so they are pointing in the same direction) and then by mutual concern for the other members: a fluid kind of adjustment which is experienced as the voluntary desire to remain in harmony and to help other members in their own loving and creative endeavors.

If creativity is understood in this fashion; then it is indeed optimal from the creative perspective. Instead of Christianity being felt as constraint, it instead provides meaning. 

After all, real creativity is not solipsistic, it is done for the creator alone. Creativity must ultimately be be for others; it needs an 'audience' who will understand, appreciate and use the creative work. 

Romantic Christianity looks towards a world in which everyone is a creator and also audience; and where creator and audience are united by the divine purpose and harmonized in their work by their commitment to love. 

"Being a Christian" is hierarchically-above practicing any specific religion

It seems to me that Christianity - as I understand it, is qualitatively different from "religion".

I regard Christianity as in essence the commitment to accept Jesus Christ's offer of resurrected eternal life in Heaven, through following Jesus post-mortally. 

For a Christian, therefore, life after death involves both a personal transformation (resurrection) and also (implicitly) a qualitatively different existence in a Heaven that is understood in terms of a Second Creation - a creative Heaven entirely motivated by love; and without death, entropy or evil. 

This post-mortal expectation therefore provides a frame for everything else in reality; and especially for this mortal life of ours.

But Christianity does not fill our mortal life. 

Being a Christian does not provide us with a blueprint, rule-book, ethical code, or detailed external and objective guidance for all important matters...

In other words (properly grasped); it seems that "being a Christian" is not really "a specific religion" 

The "religion aspect of life" has been provided by many and various churches through history and today - some of which churches include following Jesus to resurrected life in Heaven as a core element - and these are validly "Christian churches"; but who all in addition offer various and detailed blueprints for daily living. 

Guidance overlaps among validly Christian churches, but it also varies. 

But each church offers, to a significant degree, that specific and detailed life-guidance in terms of principles, practices, necessary obediences etc. which religiously-inclined people seek; and that complex societies and civilizations required in order to function, and be sustainable. 

What I am saying is that "being a Christian" is distinct from being religious; because being a Christian focuses on what happens after we die; while a religion focuses on what we do during this mortal life. 

I am also saying that the relationship between the direct Christianity of what happens after we die, and the "blueprint" religion of what we do in this mortal life; is indirect and uncertain. 

On the one hand; Christianity-itself does not have many very hard entailments -- and on the other hand; most of the multitude of detail in rule-books, ethical codes, and theologies lacks any solid basis in Christianity. 

The true relationship between Christianity and religion is that Christianity comes hierarchically first, above all else, and is the framework for understanding our life and ultimate reality. 

Within that framework of aspiration and faithful expectation; there will inevitably need to be something like a religion.

But the scope and details of any religion, even a genuinely-Christian religion, are-not and cannot-be an entailed consequence of Christianity. 

Note added: This does not mean that all religions, or even all validly-Christian and self-identified-Christian churches, are equally valid. Some will be more Christianity-compatible than others. But it does mean that one could probably be-a-Christian (i.e. by intending to accept the post-mortal offer of Jesus Christ) while practicing a pretty wide range of religions. And this was, of course, the actual situation among the earliest Christians, before a distinct "Christian Church religion" arose - who, after conversion, seem to have continued practicing (for example) their Jewish, Samaritan and Roman Pagan religions. 

Who is capable of becoming a Christian (i.e. of following Jesus Christ through resurrection to eternal life)?

To be capable of becoming a Christian one must be capable of love. That's the basic necessity - and it seems most (but maybe not all) people are capable of love. 

This is necessary because Heaven is a place of love - Heaven is a family; and it is love that gives Heaven cohesion and direction. 

But Christian love is a personal love, a love between Beings, Christian love is Not abstract or diffuse, neither universal nor unspecific. 

Those for whom love is universal do not want Heaven, but (maybe) something more like Nirvana. 

However, love is not enough for a Christian; he must also want resurrected eternal life: he must want Heaven. 

Some people do not want resurrection - but prefer oblivion (or even annihilation); while others want to become a 'pure spirit' rather than be resurrected with a body - and Christianity is not for them. 

Life in Heaven is embodied, loving, personal - and essentially active, because personal love between incarnated Men leads to creation. 

Or, more exactly, creativity is an aspect of personal love; it can be understood as the free activity of agents, capable of originating, generative, genuinely-novel thought and other behaviours. 

Therefore those who instead want an eternal life of contemplative, passive, bliss - will not want Christian Heaven. 

In sum, although in principle 'open to all', Christianity is not 'a universal religion'; because some Men lack the capacity for love or disvalue love, some do not want resurrection, and some do not want Heaven. 

Heaven is for those who want to live in personal love, and to be active and creative - eternally. 

In other words: 1. We need love in order to be capable of Heaven; 2. We need to regard love as primary to be a suitable candidate for Heaven; and 3. We also need to want the life of Heaven... 

We need all three if we are actually to get-there.  

Is following Christ truly a case of "Myth made fact" - Is Christianity, indeed, "a myth" at all?

CS Lewis's conversion, as is pretty well known, had much to do with an idea he got (mostly) from JRR Tolkien that in Christianity Myth became Fact. In other words; that various of the myths of the ancient world came true in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

This is one reason why Lewis regarded Christianity as the completion of paganism (as well as of Judaism) - because in essence it took much of paganism and transformed it by the addition of specifically Christian values - in particular "Faith, Hope, and Charity".

I was greatly influenced by this idea in my own conversion to Christianity; but have now come to regard the "Christian myth" as a misleading distortion of what Jesus actually did and taught. 

My interpretation nowadays is that Christianity is in its essence about the possibility of following Jesus to resurrected eternal life in Heaven - and that this was something new under the sun: an unique possibility; that was (at its core) neither foreshadowed nor foreseen among the ancient religions: neither among Jews nor among Pagans.  

I agree with Lewis that Christianity can be and actually was (especially in the earliest years of Jesus's ministry and the early period after his ascension) an add-on, easily adopted by Jews and Roman or Greek pagans alike...

But I think the reason for this was not because Christianity was aligned with Jewish expectations of the Messiah, nor that it was a completion of Greco-Roman Paganism - but simply because Christianity was a new idea about what happened after death. 

At least initially, therefore, a new Christian convert could (and apparently did) continue to practise his previous this-worldly religion; but with the additional expectation of resurrected eternal life after death...

Instead of (for instance) dying in expectation of the underworld ghost-life of Sheol or Hades, or returning by some version of reincarnation. 

Of course, Christianity as it became, developed and accreted very large and complex mythic elements - for example about Jesus's miraculous conception and early life, and expectation of his second coming. 

So Christianity-as-is has mythical aspects with all sorts of derivations and similarities to other mythic religions. 

But I believe that this was not the case originally, as Jesus lived and taught. 

And presumably this was a major reason why people found it so very difficult to understand what Jesus was actually telling then - i.e. they could not (or would not) discard their existing myths, such as The Messiah. 

And either rejected Jesus for failing to embody the prior myth, or adapted the prior myth to fit Jesus - or else adapted what Jesus did to fit the prior myth (as with the Second Coming, notion) 

I don't know if others agree; but in the IV Gospel I see Jesus trying to tell people something very simple and clear - which they repeatedly fail to comprehend; and this, in part, because they are caught-up in already-existing religious assumptions including myths. 

After Jesus's ascension, things could have (should have, perhaps) gone in the direction of the Christian after-death expectation being added-onto various existing religions - and then modifying their content in a kind of retrospective way (as the expectation of resurrected Heavenly life worked upon the pre-existing religion).

However, this did not happen; and instead Christianity became so elaborated by mythic elements that its clear and simple essence was swamped; but also the confident expectation of being able to choose resurrection was inverted - into the necessity to submit to the judgment of God/Christ-as-King to be-fearfully-hoping to be chosen as worthy of inclusion in Heaven. 

Only in recent generations has it become conceptually and consciously possible to understand that Christianity does not need to be regarded as a true myth; but instead Jesus's work can be recognized as a cosmic transformation, a new post-mortal possibility: a Second Creation -- accessible to those who commit to following Jesus, into and beyond the transformation of resurrection.

What is the spiritualization of matter? (And why do we *resurrect* into Heaven, with bodies?)

Several authors I respect, and from-whom I have derived valuable lessons regarding the evolutionary-development of consciousness (e.g. Rudof Steiner, Owen Barfield, William Arkle), assert that the future and desired state will be one in which (in some way) Matter will become spiritualized. 

Something similar is often asserted by Christians about Men after resurrection - that the resurrected body is spiritualized. 

I entirely agree it is God's intention that in some sense matter will become spiritualized - if Man makes the destined choices in his spiritual development. 

But some people mean by this "that matter will become 'less material'", 'less solid', more 'ethereal' - as if our solid matter was to sublimate into a gas; albeit that such 'spiritual gas' would hold-together into something shaped like the human body. 

So (to caricature, for the sake of clarity) some people regard resurrected Man as if a spiritual-gas; and this is how they try to imagine that immortality is maintained. 

However, I find this unsatisfactory because (by my understanding) it goes-against the spirit of Christianity; such as what we know of the resurrection: of Lazarus, Jesus and what Jesus taught. 

Also, it goes-against a consideration of what advantages it would be in Heaven to have resurrected Men rather than wholly-spiritual beings (i.e. 'angels' as most people think of them). 

There must instead be (I think) reasons why resurrected Men can do positive and God-desired things that are impossible for spirit-angels; or else, why would God bother with creating the whole rigmarole of mortal life?

I think we all should (as a matter of theosis, and because this is the destiny of the development of human consciousness) consciously be willing ourselves towards the spiritualization of matter. 

We in fact increasingly need to do this - if we are to avoid taking the fork towards damnation; because the demonic spirits are working their plans via the modernist 'spell' that all matter is material, and there is no reality to the spiritual realm. 

(Whereas the truth is that the spiritual is primary - and all matter is spiritual: all 'things' are actually spiritual.) 

To believe (as so many do) that there is a separate and superior spiritual reality does not suffice - as we can see in the world around us; where such people are following the demonic lead, and affiliating to The System by deed and word (while, intermittently, affecting detachment from The World). 

Separation of a superior spirit realm (implicitly, or explicitly, regarding matter as evil) does not suffice because it provides no positive reason for this mortal life; this mortal incarnate (embodied) life is merely a test, or a thing to be endured - perhaps a punishment of some kind (whether karmic, or for original sin)... 

Such people merely yearn to die, to lose The Self, and to become wholly spirits absorbed-into the divine. For them, mortal life has no function - it is merely illusion (maya) - an evil to be tolerated. 

What instead we need is not the abolition of matter; but the spiritualization of matter... but what does this 'spiritualization' mean if not 'conversion to spirit'? 

First, that all matter is known as alive, conscious and purposive. 

We first need to recognize all matter, all 'things' as Beings (or as parts-of larger Beings). This could be termed the 'animation' of matter - matter is recognized as animate. 

Secondly, we need to enter into relationships with these (newly recognized) Beings. 

Recognition and relationship.

The point of wanting resurrection into Heaven (of choosing to accept this gift of Jesus Christ) is that we recognize eternally separate-Beings, and strive for a wholly positive and harmonious relationship with these many Beings. 

This is the nature of Heaven. There are many Beings in Heaven; and all present have-made an eternal commitment to live by Love; and therefore their relationships are wholly harmonious - all the Beings share the same aims, which are given by God's primary creation.  

In Heaven we remain our-selves, and live eternally as separate selves with separate wills - but (unlike mortal life) we eternally choose to align these separate wills in loving harmony. 

(What would this be like? Well, we get important glimpses of the loving harmony of separate selves from our experience of (or imaginations of) an ideal human family: and that is the best model for Heaven.)

 

To understand the spiritualization of matter (including bodies) I think we need to reconceptualize what bodies are, and what they are 'for'. 

I assume that our pre-mortal selves in Heaven were spirits without bodies (i.e. our pre-mortal selves are the same as 'angels' as conceived by orthodox Christian theology). We then lived immersively 'in' Love, in a state of one-ness with God; and that we were broadly incapable of free agentic will. 

Before the work of Jesus Christ; all spirit-Beings in Heaven worked-together for a single 'end', and there was no possibility of an individual spirit-Being making a personal contribution to God's ongoing creating. 

From this baseline, we can see that mortal life is about getting 'bodies' to add-to our pre-existent spirit-selves. And death-resurrection is about enabling our bodies to become eternal, and enabling our real selves (our souls) to make an eternal commitment to live by love. 

Bodies open-up a whole new world of possibilities! The 'spirit possibilities' (i.e. of immersive oneness towards a single, God-defined goal) remain possible - but these need consciously to be chosen; because our true-selves have (through the course of evolutionary development) become separated from the primal state of oneness. 

This separation of our personal consciousness from immersion in divine consciousness is a major purpose of mortal life; which is why 'oneness' aspirations are anti-life. And, in these modern times when our consciousness Just Has separated from God's; the aspiration for oneness is both impossible, and harmful in the attempt - leading to alignment with The World (which is extremely and increasingly evil).  

We should understand bodies as an extra way of interacting with other Beings (including God). 

Bodies bring the possibility of a qualitative enhancement of our interactions in heaven. Without bodies there is just the singe creative will of God; with resurrected bodies (in loving harmony of will) are added first each individual person adding his personal-creativity to that of God's; and then the many creative interactions-between resurrected Men. 

The more Men who are resurrected, the greater the possibilities of creative interaction in Heaven - which is always being-harmonized by the eternal commitment to live in-love and to fulfil the implicit goals of divine creation. 

In conclusion, yes we need to spiritualize matter - including bodies. 

But this is Not a process of 'dissolving' or 'sublimating' the-material; it is working towards the permanent creative enhancement of Heaven. 

Because 'bodies' are a positive gift - made permanent and Good by resurrection; and bodies are not about any particular type of substance; bodies are instead about enabling and increasing the creative interaction of Heavenly Beings.