What happened to 'Reform Islam'?

Back in 2008 I discovered a new blog, "Muslims Against Sharia." This is a group that wants to preserve Islam as a religion of the modern world, and the way they want to do it is to ‘pull its fangs,’ that is, to edit out all that is incompatible in it with civilised life. One of the primary ways they are doing it is by editing out those verses in the Koran that they believe ‘do not come from Allah.’ I added the 129th comment to a post called Reform Koran, in which they decribe the process of Koran editing. My comment, saved on my blog, appears below this introduction. In it, I compare the ‘scripture absolutism’ of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and try to show why an Islam based on reform principles ends up not being Islam at all.

When I returned to the blog this morning, six years later, using the link above, I noticed that all the comments had disappeared. Moreover, when clicking on the various links in the blog header, only the link ‘Blog’ led me to the original blog webpage. All the other links took me here, which is a page of links returning to the worldwide web. The domain name ‘reformislam.org’ is listed at GoDaddy as for sale. So, what happened to ‘Reform Islam’? I hope its members were not ‘eliminated.’

As a late-comer to this blog and blogpost, and not having been able to read thru all the previous 128 comments (that's a lot!), nevertheless I have this to say:

To edit out the offending verses in the Qur’an is a work for the entire Islamic people, or their representatives. This is, of course, an impossibility, because there is no such thing as an “ecumenical” Islam. There are far too many sectarian divisions.

There is an inherent absolutism in the Qur’an about its contents, that is explicit and cannot even be matched in Judaism or Christianity.

The absolutism in the TaNaKh (Torah-Nevi’im-Ketuvim) of Judaism is implicit, and though the words of the scriptures for them cannot suffer any change, they have a tradition of evolving understanding about them, such that the violent passages in the Torah are modified by the pronouncements of the later prophets, without the necessity of editing them out (G’d forbid!).
The absolutism in the Bible of Christianity is an extension of the same inherited from Judaism, in which it is admittedly a participant. A verse in the final book of the New Testament, the Revelation, is explicit that anyone who adds or subtracts from the words “of this book” will receive all the plagues described in this book. This verse is often erroneously applied to the whole Bible, but it actually only applies to the book of Revelation. The absolutism of the Christian Bible is still just an extension of that applied by Judaism, and the way in which it is moderated is the same as in Judaism, by an appeal to reason and adaptation to culture. For both Jews and Christians, this willingness to modify or reinterpret the actual, unchangeable texts, still elicits problems, controversies and divisions.

The absolutism of the Qur’an can thus be viewed as a fortified version of the absolutism of the other two religions “of the Book.” Yet, this absolutism contains, as has been pointed out in some of the previous comments, unsolvable contradictions derived from the very pages of the Qur’an itself. Analyzed by an impartial logician, the Qur’an contains self-contradictions at a level which cannot be combined with the level of its absolutism, and thereby disproves itself as an infallible and perfect utterance of Allah. Similar contradictions can be found in the TaNaKh of the Jews and the Bible of the Christians, but they do not invalidate these scriptures, because the level of absolutism is simply not as high as that of the Qur’an.

As an example, the Qur’an speaks of Miriam the sister of Moses as also being the mother of Jesus. This is a well known mistake, and by itself demonstrates a logical, historical error that invalidates the whole of the Qur’an, because the Qur’an is to be accepted as absolutely perfect and correct.

Another example, in the Bible Jesus makes reference to the eating of sacred food from the Temple by secular persons who should not have eaten it, as having happened during a particular high-priesthood. In historical fact, the high priest He cited was incorrect. Yet the Christians claim that Jesus is God, and that the Bible is inerrant. How can this single example not invalidate both claims? First, because they believe Jesus assumed the human nature with all its characteristics, including fallibility in knowledge as well as the temptation to sin (the Jews call this “the evil impulse”), it was possible for Him to make an error as being human, though they believe that because He was also God, it was impossible for Him to yield to temptation or to sin. Second, because the Bible is believed to be inerrant does not invalidate it because it is not considered to be the “Word of God” in the sense that the Qur’an is so believed. Instead, like the incarnation (descent into human nature) of the Son of God, the inspiration (descent into human literature) of the Word of God can exhibit the same possibility of error in historical facts and other details.

Now, for the Christian, one more fact or item of belief also strengthens the absolutism of the Bible without turning it into a blatant bibliolatry (idolatry of a book), and that is, the Word of God and the Son of God are both names of the same Being, who is considered to be a person (hypostasis) of the Holy Triad (One Divine nature in three hypostases). Therefore, to call the Bible “the Word of God” is, though universal and unchallenged, still a conventional simplification or application of the absolute belief that Jesus is Himself the Word of God (the Divine Logos of the Father), but that the Bible is His explicit, written "image," and therefore reliable.

The point of my comment is this, that the Qur’an claims to be what Jesus is, that is, the Word of God. Muhammad therefore becomes what the Virgin Mary is, that is, the means by which that Word entered the human world. Is it not obvious that here we have two completely and diametrically opposed ideas?

If you plant a tree, and year after year it yields bad fruit. If you cultivate it, if you graft onto it branches of other trees with good fruit, if you care for it and try to improve it in every way possible, and yet it bears bad fruit no matter what you do, then there is only one thing to do. Chop it down, uproot it, and plant a tree with good fruit.

The tree with bad fruit is the Qur’an.
The tree with good fruit is the Bible.
And what is the good fruit that is hanging on that tree?
It is Jesus.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34:8)

The Asker and the answerers

Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος, ‘El Greco’ - The Resurrection

Who is this obscuring My designs with his empty-headed words? Brace yourself like a fighter. Now it is My turn to ask questions and yours to inform Me.
Job 38:2 Jerusalem Bible

Who is the Asker, who the answerers?

We always assume that we ask the questions, and God answers them, but in actuality it is He who asks, we who must answer. Yes, must. That’s the one thing in which we do not have free choice,
whether to answer or not.
It is the very price of our being.
Put off answering for a time we may, but not indefinitely.

And what does He ask? Will He ask us a question for which He has not prepared us, of which we had neither inkling nor warning?
No, the question He will ask is one He has already asked.
It has been written down.
We can read it for ourselves before we will hear it from His lips.

What our answer will be is the sole determiner of who we were,
who we are, and who we will forever be. Yes, will, not shall.
We have freedom to answer what we choose,
but not to withhold our answer.
It is His very question that brings us into being,
and it is our very answer that makes our being eternal.

Jesus turned around, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?’ They answered, ‘Rabbi,’—which means Teacher—‘where do you live?’ ‘Come and see,’ He replied…
John 1:37-39a

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been in this condition for a long time, He said, ‘Do you want to be well again?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the sick man, ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed…’
John 5:6-7a

Looking up, Jesus saw the crowds approaching and said to Philip, ‘Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?’ He only said this to test Philip; He Himself knew exactly what He was going to do. Philip answered, ‘Two hundred denarii would only buy enough to give them a small piece each…’
John 6:5-7

Jesus heard they had driven him away, and when He found him He said to him, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘tell me who He is so that I may believe in Him.’ Jesus said, ‘You are looking at Him…’
John 9:35-37a

Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection. If anyone believes in Me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said, ‘I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, the One who was to come…’
John 11:25-27

His disciples said, ‘Now You are speaking plainly and not using metaphors! Now we see that You know everything, and do not have to wait for questions to be put into words; because of this we believe that You came from God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Do you believe at last?…’
John 16:29-31

Near

I can’t help it. I love the Church. I don’t care if she is imperfect.
I can’t help it if she’s all too human. What would you have her be?
She can only be what she is, but by faith,
she will be what Christ, her divine Bridegroom, has made her.
Yes, she is His Bride, she, and no other.

The apostle writes,
‘Do not stay away from the meetings of the community,
as some do, but encourage each other to go;
the more so as you see the Day drawing near’ (Hebrews 10:25).

What if the meetings of the community are occasions
for glorying in the flesh?
What if going to them angers and upsets you?

Well, ask yourself then, ‘Why is this?’

What are you doing
that you notice the glorying in the flesh of the brethren?
Who is it that you have your eyes on,
them, yourself, or the Lord?

Ask yourself, ‘Who am I to be angry?
And why should I be angry?’
Who is being offended? Who is offending?

To offend is a choice, to be offended, the same. Yet God, who has the greatest and most just cause to be offended by our sinful thoughts, words and deeds, He forbears. The ‘righteous’ put themselves forward to castigate and judge the unrighteous, and the ‘correct’ advance to rebuke those who offend them.

All the while, the eye is not single, the body is not full of light, in the one who lets himself be offended by the folly of others, in the Church, or in the world, it doesn’t matter.

‘When you go to the temple, be on your guard.
Go near, so that you can hear;
the sacrifice is more valuable than the offering of fools,
even if they are unaware of doing wrong’ (Ecclesiastes 4:17).

I know whom it is that I have trusted,
I know in whom I have believed.
I know the truth He speaks, and that truth is strong to save,
as He has said, and sets me free.

Free from what?
Free from judgment, free from fear, free from ignorance,
free from hatred, free from every bondage
to what can be seen, heard, touched, tasted or thought.

How can one say he loves God and His Christ,
while he hates the Church?
Perhaps he hasn’t yet grasped what the Church is.
Perhaps he only hates the false images of the Church
that have tucked themselves into the corners of his mind.
Perhaps he thinks that the Church is only what he sees.

The world thinks that Jesus Christ is only what it sees.
The world thinks He’s just a man.
Looking past His miracles
because ‘just a man’ can’t perform miracles,
‘It must be sleight of hand—He’s just tricking us!’

So the Church too is only what he sees.
A broken down, corrupt, self-centered society of hypocrites.

‘They’re just a bunch of hypocrites!
They’re just play-acting, pretending to be sinners
so they can pretend that they’re saved!’

Looking past their miracles—hypocrites can’t perform miracles
—he focuses on what he’s chosen to see,
just as he’s chosen to be offended.
It’s a vicious circle, literally.

Yet the Church, like Christ her Divine Bridegroom, is different on the inside than she appears on the outside. Her exterior may be plain, it may be rude, it may be disfigured, as it is written of her Spouse,
‘His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and His form marred beyond human likeness’ (Isaiah 52:14)
that He was not recognized for who He was.

So it is with the Church. Those who look only at her outside never really enter her and see her from the inside. Even when they seem to enter her, they still stand apart as her judge, just as Pilate while in the presence of Christ stood apart, and asked mockingly,
‘What is truth?’

The Bible cannot be understood outside of the Church,
nor dogma outside of divine worship.
Neither of these, not the Church nor its worship,
are within our control as followers of Jesus.
All that is within our control is our own wills,
and free will was granted to us as a test of our being.

Do we chose to take offense and give offense through the abuse of our free wills, or do we choose to follow the commandment?
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself’ (Luke 10:27).

And who is our neighbor?
It is everyone we meet, and not least our brothers in the faith,
with whom we are joined in one body, the Body of Christ, the Church,
to whom the apostle writes,
‘my greetings to the Lady,
the chosen one, and to her children,
she whom I love in the truth’ (2 John 1).

This is why I say, I love the Church. This is why I encourage you too, brethren, to love her. Don’t set yourselves up over her to judge her, but treat her as Christ has treated you, overlooking your sins and giving you time to repent. This is what John the Revelator means when he writes,

Happy the man who reads this prophecy aloud,
and happy those who listen to him, if they keep all that it says,
because the time is near.
Revelation 1:3

He is the Truth

I love the Muslim people, but I do not love the religion of Islam. I also do not love the religion of Christianity. There are times when the Christian religion acts as an oppressor of its own people and of other peoples. That happens when churches build up systems, allowing the people to remain in ignorance of the Word of God (Jesus Christ), and continuing to emphasize the ‘religion’ of Christianity.

Yes, I worship God in the temple, but I prove my worship to be genuine by imitating the apostle Paul, who said, ‘the God I worship spiritually by preaching the Good News…’ and by following what James the brother of Jesus said, that ‘pure, unspoiled religion in the eyes of God our Father is this, coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.’

Jesus Christ is the Truth, He does not just tell us about it. He is the Truth. When you read the Gospel of John in the Holy Bible you can easily see that the teachings of Jesus are true. You can also easily see that Jesus did not come to start a new religion. Jesus was and still is a Jew. He is alive now, not like the hidden imam or anything like that, but really alive. He came to break the chains of religion. He came to bring to us the possibility of true union with God.

Yes, God is One, but His Oneness is not merely mathematical unity. God is so completely and perfectly One, so absolutely without a partner, that His Oneness is not changed or diminished by letting His Word (Jesus Christ) shine out as Light to the world of men, or by letting His Holy Spirit warm us and change us, mere humans, into the children of God, living in Him, joining in His Oneness while remaining forever truly ourselves.

This is what Christianity should be all about, not what passes for Christianity in the world—churches and religious groups fighting each other blindly.

I invite my Muslim, my Christian and, yes, my Jewish brothers to know the Truth of God, that is, Jesus Christ, son of Mary, the Living One, the Word of God through whom all things were made in heaven, on earth and everywhere, and in whom all live and move and have their being. I invite you to get a copy of the Holy Bible, and read what Jesus Himself has said and done, and see for yourself who is and who is not a prophet of God.

Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.’
John 3:3

Originally posted February 5, 2007

What cannot stand

“One day in the next century that Church – tens of millions of Christians trained to die – will be released into global mission and our prayers for the fall of Islam will be answered.”

I read this in a post some time ago, and now I've forgotten where, but it was full of optimism and statistics to prove that Christianity was going to overcome Islam.

Somehow, I got a different picture from this post and its encouraging statistics. First of all, statistics mean nothing. Sorry, but I don't pay them any attention. Only God has the means to measure how many human beings have come to know Him and have accepted His Son and are “trained to die,” whatever that means to you or me.

Second, I saw from comments left on this blog that the more important issue for most people was whether one is a post-millennialist or some other kind of philosopher. Don't ask me, because I just believe what the Word of God says and don't try to interpret, and I don't deal in labels.

What “prayers for the fall of Islam”? I would bet that if any Christians actually pray for the fall of Islam it is relatively few. Pray for the fall of what cannot stand? What kind of prayer is that? We already know that Islam is in the process of falling as we speak. It's not directly attributable to any Christian gang warfare strategy against Islam, though the availability of the Bible through the internet and all the other internet resources is certainly making headway. Yet these resources are not our claim to victory. Those who make use of them on their own initiative—the Arabs and other Muslims themselves—are far more responsible for the melt-down going on in Islam than we are.

Islam is falling right now not because of our statistics or our efforts. It is simply a false and backward politico-religious system whose time has finally come—for dissolution. The Information Age provided by the humanistic world system that cares nothing for our Christian faith has provided the platform for Islam's fall. We Christians may take credit for it, just like Catholics believe Pope John Paul II was responsible for the fall of Communism, but I think both interpretations are missing the mark.

People want to be free. They want to be happy. They want to live without constant fear for their lives. They want to know that they can raise a family and pass on their heritage to their descendants. The following of Jesus Christ is always possible in every situation, but with various costs. In Saudi Arabia, the cost is probable death. In America, the cost can be apostasy. Why? Because a church that is victorious in the world always becomes ‘Imperial Church.’

We know this, we who are Orthodox Christians. We Greeks have learned our lesson. The throne behind the altar in our churches can be sat in by no one but Christ or His earthly representative, the Christian Emperor. We expect ours to be sat in by Christ alone. Our last emperor went down on the walls of Constantinople in 1453, proving the vanity of worldly power. Some of the Russians haven't apparently learned that lesson well enough yet, despite the murder of their last emperor; many of them seem to be holding out for an earthly emperor to sit on the throne behind their altars.

Islam is dying. It's death throes are proclaimed in the violence of the Mujahideen. We will live to see the fall of Islam, but it won't be like the fall of communism. History never quite repeats itself. The Christian opportunity is never more present than in one's own household. Before we glory in the evangelization of the Islam-enslaved peoples, have we witnessed to ourselves?

It has to be Him

‘Anyone who rejects you rejects me.’ This is a mighty word of Jesus, and it has become a stumbling-block for both the world and the Church. The missionaries go forth to the world spreading the gospel message with varying success and failure. Success is sometimes achieved by enticements or the display of power. The Orthodox to this day report with pride that the conversion of the Slavs came about because the emissaries of the barbarian prince were awed by the splendor of the Divine Liturgy in the great church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. This is used as a kind of historical bait, as well as trophy, by modern Orthodox Christians. Why then don’t today’s barbarians come flocking? Maybe there’s more to the message of the gospel than mystic splendor.

‘Anyone who rejects you rejects me.’ History tells a sad tale of the spread of Christianity, in large part because those who spread the gospel used bible texts as bastions and towers, even against the truth. What truth? There can’t be any truth outside of the gospel, so there isn’t. ‘If anyone wants to follow me, he must renounce himself, take up his cross, and follow me.’ There can’t be anything good among those we want to convert. They must renounce it all. Give it all up. No works done before regeneration, nothing they had before we brought them the gospel, can they keep. It must all be trashed. That’s their cross. Now, after they’ve killed everything in themselves that comes from their foul ancestors, they can follow us—which means, of course, follow Christ.

‘Anyone who rejects you rejects me.’ The Lord is here saying, in a religiously ironic way, that the message is, in effect, not a set body of knowledge, an ‘information virus’ as some have called doctrinal Christianity, but somehow a personal encounter. Though there is a body of knowledge, even saving knowledge, it can’t be handed over, transmitted, until there is a receiver. That receiver is produced not by tinkering with men’s minds, but by re-imaging their hearts, and that can only be done by a personal encounter. What kind of encounter? Well, the only encounter that matters, a personal rendezvous with Jesus Christ, who is who He says He is: Lord, Savior, even God. If there is a virus His ambassadors carry, it is no mere information. It has to be Him.

‘Anyone who rejects you rejects me.’ Why do they reject, and who or what is it that they are rejecting? Human beings are rational animals, reasoning souls. In the Akathistos Hymn, St Romanos calls the saved Christ’s ‘logical flock.’ How did they get that way? Isn’t it because humanity is, though somehow fallen, the image of God on earth? Isn’t it because they are, in some mysterious way, God-bearers without knowing it? Isn’t Christ telling us, when He speaks of rejection, that the message we are to bring, the good news, is something really more than mere words, that it is the Word Himself, not something that can be rejected, but Someone? And who, then, can reject that Someone, who is love itself in the form of a man? Who rejects love? Is it they, or we?

‘Anyone who rejects you rejects me.’ No, brethren, there is no room for rejection when what we bring to the world is Christ, not as an imperial proclamation, but as a marriage proposal from the King of Glory, whose Kingdom is built not on men’s backs, mortised with their sorrows, tenoned with their fears, and roofed with false authority. The messengers must first themselves be receivers before others can become what they are. Why do great souls reject the gospel? ‘I will become a Christian when I see one.’ Are words such as these an attack on the Church and its work? No, brethren, but they are a judgment on us who claim to be what we are called to be, saints, that is, receivers of the message, ambassadors of God, even Christ-bearers. Is He really with us?

Interpretations of love

There are so many interpretations of love among people.

One interpretation says…

We must love people, that is, want what is best for them,

have a good will toward them,

but we don't necessarily have to want to be with them,

or put up with them.

This is where many a marriage ends up, and many a congregation.

This is the love that can be commanded

and, once we've hedged the commandment with escape clauses,

we're free to follow this "commandment."

Though there are many kinds of love among us,

the Word of God is the only teacher of what love is.

How we apply it depends on how much we want to see.

For me, just to look, really look, at another human being,

or even at a fellow creature,

without thinking, without measuring, analyzing,

just looking,

for me love comes to the surface quickly.

I want to know the person I am looking at,

and spontaneously I want to love them.

Freedom intervenes to set the limits.
Does the other person want to be loved, or is it an intrusion?
Do I want to activate the love which naturally rises in me,

or will I let it die,

look the other way,

because I realise there will be a price to pay?

I hold myself "ready to love" others,

because Jesus may come to me in the guise of my brother.

I do not fret over whether I should or must love my neighbor

in an active way.

I just love the one who is put before me this moment.

If love requires action beyond that point,

I try to do whatever love demands.

The aftertaste of love is prayer, specifically intercession.

Mother Gavrilia says, "Love does not get tired."
I know what she means…

Once, when I was loving the brother whom God placed before us,

it didn't matter to me that I had to stay with him the whole day,

eating little, taking no rest, just making sure he was fed,

that he would stay awake (we were all up many hours that day!),

that he had somewhere to go while waiting for his bus connexion.

I just wasn't tired.

I could've stayed up all night with him, because I was loving him.

Love just doesn't get tired.

Have you ever noticed how John 3:16

(the often quoted scripture)

and 1 John 3:16

really go together,

and how the 3:16 in John's first letter is really a completion

and commentary of the 3:16 in John's gospel?

Keep alive in yourselves…

…what you were taught in the beginning.
1 John 2:24a

It's time to remember the signs. Let's do that before we forget them. Things will always look different down here, so let's not be caught unawares.

The Border

Originally, the border between the Church and the world was put up, not by the Church, but by the world, which could find no use for, and would not tolerate, this indigestible people. The Church constituted something like an Indian reservation or a ghetto, or even worse, a leper colony within society, a social entity which should not be, but nonetheless was. It was an embarrassment for and accusation against the classes that ruled the world.

Among those untouchable and unmentionable people, leaders arose, chosen not for their excellence or eminence in any worldly endeavor, but for their abject surrender to the service of the others. The world looked on in wonder at these hopeless imbeciles following a crucified criminal, surprised that they could have so much love for one another, but even more stupefied at their lack of survival instinct—they didn’t fight back when attacked by the world, they prayed for, and even more incomprehensibly, thanked those who injured and killed them!

They would not contribute any more than was exacted from them for the maintenance of the world system. They didn’t stand up for their own rights. They didn’t agitate for social reforms or strive for the betterment of any society except their own. Only among themselves, by common and unwritten consent, did they abolish customs that the world regarded normal, but which they abhorred—infanticide, sexual license, slavery, the ‘festivals.’ In this regard, the world felt justified in labeling them ‘haters of humanity,’ in segregating and controlling them by an elaborate system of ‘tests,’ such as the performance of acts of public worship to the state deities.

The charge of atheism brought against them was designed to infuriate the working masses of the world, which by and large were ‘religious,’ and which could be depended upon to punish the Church at the slightest provocation, thereby freeing the world rulers from overt responsibility for the persecution of these deranged trouble makers, undeserving of the name ‘human.’

No, the world had no use for, and would not tolerate, this indigestible people. It would give them no avenue for worldly success or security—economic, educational, social—not unless they, individually, renounced their allegiance to their pathetic God by publicly conforming to the world system and taking what they called among themselves ‘the mark of the beast.’ If they did that, they were allowed the cross the border. They were free at last from the unreasonable restrictions placed upon them by their crazy beliefs.

After some time had passed, the Church, to the astonishment and discomfort of the world and its rulers, had grown much larger than had been anticipated. The elaborate system of tests and containment strategies that they devised could not keep the borders of this neglected area from expanding. The Church even crept into places it had never been seen before. It was to be expected that among the unschooled rabble, some would defect to this weird cult, lured by the rumors of ‘brotherly love’ and other such nonsense. Everyone knew that these were just cover-ups for their unnatural practices, hypocrites all of them.

But now, and with more and more regularity every day, it seemed that once responsible citizens of the world were becoming uncooperative and difficult, excusing themselves from participating in the rites and rituals, even refusing the world’s most reasonable demands. The infection had spread, from the mere denizens even to the rulers of the world order. What was to be done? How was the world to maintain the border between itself and the Church?

There was nothing else to do but, swallowing its pride (just for a moment), the world would have to ‘become’ the Church. It would have to get inside (disgusting!) the barricade where all that refuse and filth calling itself ‘human’ was holed up, and somehow harness that teeming multitude to a new ‘world machine’ under its benign and rational management.

Since the other side of the border was now larger than the world, there was nothing to do but jump the fence. Soon, ‘under new management’ the Church, having become the world, would be so universal, so thoroughly ecumenical, that to be a leader of it would be an even greater honor than it once was to be a world ruler in former times.

It didn’t matter, not really, that the world would have to let go its old props and proof texts and principles. The Church had a Book that it had gathered together from one of those barbaric, backward tribes, adding to it a few chapters of its own. These could be imbued with new meanings, this Book could be used as a kind of Trojan horse by the world rulers to bring their powerful premises into play, first blocking, then replacing the so-called ‘promises’ in that stupid Book.

‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.’ See? Their own Book is talking about us! Now, no one can oppose us! To make sure of this, all we have to do is establish ‘tests’ to qualify only those who agree with us, send them to school, and teach them to parrot our plans. As for those who won’t…

So a new border had to be put up.
Again, it was put up by the world, not by the Church.

It became difficult, sometimes and in some places, to distinguish just who was on this side of the border, and who was on the other. The world had learned how to juggle names, titles and powers in such a way that sometimes even it got confused about who was who and which was which. The new border, though, did work. The Church was contained, even though imperfectly. The world now had a free hand to save itself, to save the planet, to liberate all humanity from the darkness of ancient superstition—Imagine that! A dying and resurrecting God!—and from the ‘haters of humanity’ who think that they alone possess the truth, and that there is only one way!

‘The nerve of that bunch of fanatics who call themselves “the Church”—why, we can’t even see them! But we can hear them, and they trouble us still, even to this day.’

But, my brothers, let me remind you of these things…

There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the Kingdom.
Luke 12:32

You must not love this passing world
or anything that is in the world.
The love of the Father cannot be
in any man who loves the world.
1 John 2:15

If the world hates you,
remember that it hated Me before you.
If you belonged to the world,
the world would love you as its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
because My choice withdrew you from the world,
therefore the world hates you.
Remember the words I said to you:
A servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted Me,
they will persecute you too;
if they kept My word,
they will keep yours as well.
But it will be on My account that they will do all this,
because they do not know the One who sent Me.
John 15:18-21

I have told you all this
so that your faith may not be shaken.
They will expel you from the synagogues,
and indeed the hour is coming
when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy duty for God.
John 16:1-2

I have told you all this
so that you may find peace in Me.
In the world you will have trouble,
but be brave:
I have conquered the world.
John 16:33

The Border was written and first published on February 6, 2008.
I felt that it would be good to bring it back and share its message again.
It's important to remember who and what we are.
Because “the time is close.”
Revelation 1:3

Exclusive

The primitive Church was very puritanic concerning the Christian spirit. She was not particular as to the vessels in which to pour the new wine, but she was extremely particular as to the wine itself. She borrowed the vessels in Judæa, Alexandria, Athens, Rome, but she never borrowed wine. The Christian spirit and the pagan spirit were just like two opposite poles, like white and black, or day and night. The Church was conscious of it, and jealously watchful that no drop of any foreign spirit should be mixed with the precious spirit of the New Gospel. There existed no thought of compromise, and no idea of inclusiveness whatever regarding the spirit. The terrific conflict of Christianity and Paganism through centuries sprang from the irreconcilability of two different spirits. Were the Church as inclusive as to the spirit as she was to forms, doctrines, customs and worships, conflicts never would arise—but then neither would Christianity arise.

The modern Church is particular as to its institutions, but not particular at all as to its spirit. The Roman Emperors never would persecute the modern Church, for they would easily recognise their own spirit included in her. Nor would the Pharaohs from Egypt persecute modern Christianity. Nor would Areopagus or Akropolis be puzzled so much had St Paul preached to them the modern European Christianity with its complicated spirit of all kinds of compromises with Heaven and Hell, compromise with the State, Plutocracy, Nationalism, Imperialism, Conquest, War, Diplomacy, Secular Philosophy, Secular Science, Agnostic Parliaments, Tribal Chauvinism, Education, Officialism, Bureaucracy, etc., etc. All these things have their own spirit, and every such spirit is partly or wholly included in the spirit of the Church, i.e. of modern Christianity. None of the Christian Churches of our time makes an exception as to this inclusiveness of all kinds of spirits. Even Protestantism, which claims the simplicity of its Christian ritual and administration, represents a lamentable mosaic of spirits gathered from all the pagan corners of secular Europe and mixed up with the Christian wine in the same barrel.

The Church of the East excommunicated thousands of those who crossed themselves with two fingers instead of using three fingers. The Church of the West burnt thousands of those who did not recognise the papal organisation of the Church as the only ark of salvation. Yet there is rarely to be found in the Church annals an excommunication on the ground of chauvinism or brutal egoism. No one of the world conquerors—neither Napoleon nor Kaiser William—have been excommunicated by the Church. It signifies an extreme decadence of the Church. And this decadence penetrates and dominates our own time. Speaking on the reunion of the Churches the peoples of the East are anxious to know, not whether the Church of the West has preserved the unmixed Christian spirit in its integrity, but whether this Church still keeps Filioque as a dogma, and whether she has ikons, and whether she allows eggs and milk in Lent. And the people of the West are anxious to know whether the Eastern Church has a screen quite different from their own screen at the altar, and whether she has been always tenaciously exclusive in teaching, worship and organisation. Who of us and of you asks about the integrity of the Christian spirit? If St Paul were amongst us he would ridicule our controversies on Filioque and all the trifles concerning Church organisation and the external expressions of Christianity. He would ask: What happened with the spirit he preached? What happened with this spirit which excommunicated de facto the Jewish narrow Patriotism and the Roman Imperialism? Have we still this exclusive spirit which moved the world effecting the greatest revolution in History? I am sure he would have to repeat with good reasons to every Church and to everyone of us: ‘If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.’

Well, we must come again to this source of Christian strength and greatness, which is Christ’s spirit. A new revival, yea, regeneration of Christianity, could be possible only in a united Christian Church; and the union of the Church is possible only upon the ground of the primitive Church, which was inclusive in teaching, worship and organisation, but exclusive in spirit. On the day when we all exclude from ourselves the Jewish and Greek and Roman spirit, and retain only the pure Christian spirit, we shall be at once ready to include each other’s Church into one body, into one Christianity. We must be clear about it, and we must confess that the divisions of the church are due to the invasion of a foreign spirit, an unclean spirit, into the Church. When the Church cleanses herself from this foreign unclean spirit she will be victorious over herself, and from this victory to the ultimate victory of Christianity over our planet will be a very short distance.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Inclusive

Judaism was destined for the people of Israel only. The Christian Church was destined for the people of Israel too, but not for them only. She included Greeks as well.

The Greek polytheism of Olympus was destined for the Hellenic race only. The Christian Church was destined for the Hellenic race too, but not for it only. She included Indians as well.

Buddha’s wisdom was offered to the monks and vegetarians. Monks and vegetarians the Christian Church included in her lap, but also married and social people too.

Pythagoras founded a religious society of intellectual aristocrats. The Christian Church from the beginning included intellectual aristocrats side by side with the ignorant and unlettered.

The Persian prophet, Zoroaster, recruited soldiers of the god of light among the best men to fight against the god of darkness. His religious institution was like a military barracks. The Christian Church included both the best and the worst, the righteous and the sinners, the healthy and the sick. It was a barracks and a hospital at the same time. It was an institution both for spiritual fighting and spiritual healing.

The Chinese sage, Confucius, preached a wonderful ethical pragmatism, and the profound thinker, Lao Tse, preached an all-embracing spiritualism. Christian wisdom included both of them, opening Heaven for the first and showing the dramatic importance of the physical world for the second.

Islam—yes, Islam—had in some sense a Christian ambition: to win the whole world. The difference was: Islam wished world-conquest; the Church, the world’s salvation. Islam intended to subdue all men and bring them before God as His servants: The Church intended to educate all men, to purify and elevate them, and to bring them before God as His children.

And all others: star-worshippers, and fire, and wood, and water, and stone, and animal-worshippers had a touching sense of the immediate divine presence in nature. The Church came not to extinguish this sense but to explain and to subordinate it; to put God in the place of demons and hope instead of fear.

The Church came not to destroy, but to purify, to aid and to assimilate. The destination of the Church was neither national nor racial, but cosmic. No exclusive power was ever destined to be a world-power.

The ultimate failure of Islam to become a world-power lies in its exclusiveness. It was with religion as with politics. Every exclusive policy is foredoomed to failure: the German as well as the Turkish and the Napoleonic.

The policy of the Church was designed by her Divine Founder: “He that is not against us is for us.” Well, there is no human race on earth wholly against Christ and wholly unprepared to receive Him. The wisdom of the Christian missionaries therefore is to see first in what ways Providence has prepared a soil for Christian seed; to see which of the Christian elements a race, or a religion, already possesses, and how to utilise these elements and weld them into Christianity. All that, in order to make Christianity grow organically, instead of pushing it mechanically.

In conclusion let me repeat again: the wisdom of the Church has been inclusive.

Inclusive was the wisdom of her Founder, inclusive the wisdom of her organisation and of her destination. Exclusiveness was the very sickness and weakness of the Church. That is why we in the East in the time of sickness of the Church looked neither towards Peter, nor Paul, nor John, but towards the Holy Wisdom, the all-healing and all-illuminating. For Aghia Sophia in Constantinople, the temple dedicated to Christ the Eternal, includes in itself the sanctuaries of Peter, Paul and John; moreover, it is supported even by some pillars of Diana’s temple from Ephesus and has many other things, in style or material, which belonged to the Paganism of old. Indeed, Aghia Sophia has room and heart even for Islam. The Mohamedans have been praising it as the best of their sanctuaries!

Look to the Holy Wisdom! Look beyond Peter, and Paul, and John—through them and still beyond them! Every Church has her prophet, her apostle, her angel. Look now over them all to the very top of the pyramid, where all the lines meet!

Either Christianity is one, or there is no Christianity.
Either the Church is universal, or there is no Church.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Want to be one

What is more important in the Body of Christ than unity? The world does not believe because it sees that the Church is not the abode of peace, unity and love, but only another society much like itself, full of jealousies, usurpations, war and discord. It knows that we have a good Lord and God but that He must not be worth very much, that we do not really believe in Him very strongly and truly, because our belief hasn’t changed us very much. It looks in at our door and sees a house no better than its own. It looks at our family and sees the same dysfunction that afflicts its own family. Why would the world want to enter into the Kingdom of God, if that Kingdom is only the same as its own under another name?

The human world, the human race, is stopped in its tracks, cannot take the next step in its evolution, because the only part of it that has the possibility of taking the first steps has chosen not to. The only new man in the history of the world has appeared. Though we fought against Him with all our might and were able to bodily kill Him, He was not defeated but instead defeated everything in us that keeps us down. What is worse for us is that the Man did not go away but is always present in our midst, and still we, the Church that claims to be His Body, the Body of Christ on earth, His Presence, that people who can of all peoples take the step into the new humanity, the new world, do not take it.

Unity, yes, unity. It does not have to mean what we try to bend it to mean. It is not an ideal that we can say we strive for but are unfortunately unable to achieve. No. Unity in God does not mean administrative unity. We all do not have to be united under one pope or system of Church government. That has been our big mistake, but it stems from another deeper one, the desire to overcome, not ourselves, but others, in the name of God. How senseless, how brutal is our handling of the Message that it no longer has any power in it to transform the world. We are indeed on our last legs, we have indeed reached our next to last day. We have failed to bring new birth to the world.

The Book is there and open to all who can read. The Christians read it and do not follow what it says but only argue about it and talk it to death. The world reads it and picks and chooses what it wants to take in its vain attempt to do without the Spirit what only the Spirit can do. The world and the Church are two disobedient sons, one saying it will do what the Father wills but does not, the other saying it will not do what He says—because there is no Father—and yet does, though without effect. Belief cannot be followed by disobedience. Obedience has no power to transform without faith. Though Christ prefers the obedient faithless to the disobedient believing, neither brings mankind to its destiny.

This talk of mine is no more than idle talk. I am both in the world and in the Church and I share the fate and fault of both. All I know is, I too want to be transformed. I too want to see the uncreated Light of Tabor and seeing it become it. There is no blame or shame that I do not share with all of you, my brothers, all of you, both believers and unbelievers. Nothing about us that divides us matters at all. Nothing. It is only what unites us that matters, and there is only one thing, one Man, that can unite us, and that is Christ. He does not unite us by brute force, by threats, intimidation, or by decree. He unites us by His prayer to the Father, by His life for the world, by His death on the Cross, by His resurrection.

This is what humanity is waiting for, what mankind really desires, what every man and woman, rich and poor, free and slave, really wants. Having this, having the unity that is in Christ, having it not just talking about it, is what dissolves the struggle between man and woman, tears down the wall between rich and poor, and makes of the human race a single family of priests and kings, where none rule but who serve, and where all make progress with not a single one left behind into the new world that Christ has established. He is the new Man, the only One, and what then does that make us? There is no middle ground, though we have made of human history a midden of disappointed hope by our refusal to follow Him.

Can we start today? Is there anything I can do as a single man, you as a single man or woman? If you are a pope, a bishop, a priest, a minister of the gospel, a missionary, a witness, a worker for Christ, whatever you call yourself, if you say you are following Christ, is there anything you can do? Is there anything you can do to make a difference? There is no program to follow, no principle to espouse, no compact to subscribe to. Have you been baptized and believed? Now just go and say and do what you hear Jesus saying and see Him doing in the holy gospels. Step into the shoes of the fishermen, but don’t do what you want, do what He wants. He is alive. He will tell you. I cannot do that. I can only listen for myself.

Humanity is waiting to take the next step in its evolution because those who know that the step has already been taken by Christ have refused to follow, but only squirm in their seats as they watch the Jesus movie and read the lives of the saints. The world will not believe until it sees God among us. Is He really there? Is He really here, with us? Do we believe that? If we do, then what are we doing sitting here like this? No, it isn’t just what we can do. In fact it is nothing at all that we can do that will transform humanity. Only He can do that, but we must first want it, we must first give Him our permission. We must let Him transform us.
All we need to do is want it.
Want to be one.

…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
John 17:21

Guilty of Orthodoxy

God provides a safeguard and accountability mechanism within the Church when individual Christians simply follow Jesus and not the church leaders. They don't even have to form themselves into militias. God does that in directing them, and the weight of their obedience falls on, and crushes, false authority and ecclesial abuse.

Not recognizing this, some people would rather cling to their religious attitudes instead of to Christ, and then band together to accuse, judge or vilify church leaders, whether rightly or wrongly. We see this all through history. The mob, sometimes composed of clergy as well as lay busybodies, will haul a church leader on the rug and quickly dispose of him as so much garbage, and then he turns out to have been a saint. Nektarios of Aegina is an example of this. An extreme example taken from more remote times is Hypatia of Alexandria, who was murdered by a mob of mad monks, because they accused her of being a bad influence on the prefect, and causing a division between him and the Alexandrian pope.

But Orthodoxy is sweetness (not in the sentimental sense) and light (the light of Christ), love of the brethren (abject self-denial expressed not in flagellation but in hospitality), and a willingness to be at peace with everyone. Real saints are guilty of this kind of Orthodoxy, no matter what churches they belong to, and God knows who they are.

Burial

Orthodox Christianity maintains an explicit insistence on burial of human remains, denying a ‘church burial’ to those who opt for cremation, but I am not sure that it is consistent in applying this rule. Personally I do not know anyone who was an Orthodox Christian and who was cremated and yet had memorial services and a funeral performed. My wife’s grandmother, the daughter of an Orthodox priest but not, to my knowledge, an ‘active’ Orthodox Christian while she was alive (she let her children, my wife’s mother and her siblings, be ‘christianized’ in the United Church of Canada), was cremated and her boxed ashes buried on top of her husband’s buried remains, because there was no possibility of burial with his remains any other way. I do not believe the Church was involved in her funeral at all.

In east Asia the Orthodox Church allows cremation, I have been told, because that is the normal procedure for the disposition of the bodies of the dead in those cultures, but I cannot confirm it. Having been to Japan and visited the grave of the mother of a friend of mine, whose ashes are interred in a monument on the grounds of an ancient Buddhist temple, I never got the impression that there was anything disrespectful in that form of burial.

I think that the insistence on burial of the whole body rather than cremation or other methods which destroy the corpse goes back to the very strong feelings about the integrity and necessity of the body's survival that we find in ancient Egypt. I also think that ancient Egypt, as well as ancient China and other early cultures derived their insistence on whole body burial from the possibly universal prehistoric human reverence for, and fear of, the dead, as we find from the evidence of graves all over the planet. True, some of the prehistorics may have cremated, maybe even a majority, but of this I don’t think we have evidence. How could we?

The attitude prevalent in pop Christian culture in the West of the cocky belief that ‘I won't be there (in my dead body) so it doesn’t matter what happens to it when I’m gone,’ has come from the same shallow veneer Christianity that produced the pentecostal movement, bandstand and talk show Christian worship, and the prosperity gospel. It is essentially a gnostic attitude of ‘spirit-good, matter-bad’ which when taken to its logical conclusion results in spiritualism and other ‘New Age’ philosophies, and denies the incarnation and full manhood of Jesus Christ.

On a practical level, I think that burial versus cremation is ultimately a kind of ceremonial orthopraxy that has been agreed upon because it is an expression of the other truths of Orthodox Christian faith (and here I am not speaking of Orthodox as applying only to the ancient churches with this word in their titles, but all mainstream Christian churches). In other words, cremation of one’s remains, even as a Christian, doesn’t exclude a soul from salvation or the mercy of God. Only rebellion and apostasy do that. For this reason, I think, the Church could change its practice and allow it, as long as there was consensus on the matters of faith of which it is one (and not the only one) of the representations. This is why, I believe, it is allowed in regions of Asia where Orthodoxy exists.

The veneration of ikons in the Orthodox Church is another representation of the same point of faith that is covered by the practice of bodily burial of the dead. Both of them represent our faith in the sanctification of matter. Ikons, relics of the saints (incorrupt bodies or body parts of ancient martyrs and confessors), the blessing of conjugal relationship in the marriage mystery, all these represent the same truth: God enters matter and enlivens it, as He wills, when He wills, and ultimately all the universe will partake of the Divine Nature when His incarnation in and among us has come to its perfection. That is why, for the Orthodox, heaven is not the purely spiritual realm of departed souls, but the restoration of the universe as material and spiritual Paradise, something that hasn’t happened yet, but for which we and all those who have gone before us wait for. When that Day arrives, then heaven will really begin, as will hell.

But that's another story.

Distant, purple mountains

The Lord is merciful, brother,
and He loves us more than we love ourselves,
and He fears more for our safety and salvation than we do,
and He is only trying very hard
to not let us slip out of His tender hands,
which hold us loosely enough for us to experience freedom
and taste danger,
yet tightly enough to keep us from falling,
unless we really want to.

Praise be to Jesus Christ,
who does not listen to those who accuse His lovers,
even when it is the lovers themselves
who, by fear or doubt, accuse.
For He comes not to judge the world,
but to give His life for it, for us,
for you, brother, and for me.
And the narrow way to which He leads us
will always lie ahead on our path,
not at our choosing,
not when we want it,
but when we least expect it,
are unable in fact to see it for what it is
until we have, carried in His arms,
passed through it.

The way I take today seems so wide
I can see the walls of the chasm
only as distant purple mountains
on the horizons north and south,
but I know that the wide river of my life
was a trickle at its source
and, near its end, passing through those gates of fire,
will again be a trickle,
but to the sea it flows,
into that calm though restless sea of the Lord of all,
who shall take me by the hand, look at me,
and say 'beloved'
as together we walk on that endless shore.
And you, dear brother, with Him, with me, are one.

One of us must go

The characters and the scenery may change, but the plot and the story line is always the same: this world is too small for man and God to both be here.

Adam and Eve are still just as alive as they ever were, and so is the serpent.

The Bible is, if it were nothing else, the greatest and longest dramatic masterpiece of all time: man writing his own judgment and sentence on himself, or is it God?

It seems too complete and too honest to have been written just by man. No man or men could bring such a body of evidence, or write such an invincible judgment, or be so generous and merciful in the sentence, to have written this Book.
Is that why some of us think it is inspired?

Though we can’t stand the sight of Him, and wish He would go away, He is written all over our flesh and spirit, and we know that He is the Truth about us.

This is the mystery of our very existence, and we know it. We are drawn to the light as the moth is to the flame, attracted to Him, unable to go back to the darkness, yet we know somehow that what we now are will suddenly end, with no turning back, once He draws us to Himself. Yes, for is it not Him drawing us that we experience as this attraction?

Yes, this world is too small for man and God to both be here.
One of us must go, and we know who that one is.

Nothing but Jesus

The image inset left is a calligraphic ikon of the Lord's Prayer in Arabic. The islamic prohibition of ikons resulted in a culture just as permeated with calligraphy ikons as the Christian East is permeated with graphic ikons, such as the Pantokrator above. To bridge the gap—and infuriate islamic clerics—Arab converts to modern Christian churches produce calligraphy ikons of bible verses like this one. It even mimics the general layout of the Orthodox ikon. But that's not my topic.

I started watching a music video of an Arab female vocalist singing Psalm 51 in Arabic, but I couldn't get past the instrumental introduction and her singing of the first few verses. Just as I do not attend concerts of Byzantine chant or other music associated with Orthodox worship, I don't attend or watch concerts of any kind of worship music, not even Christmas carols. However, this is just me.

Worship is worship, and music as the expression of worship belongs only in the home and in the temple of God, nowhere else. If you carry the temple with you into the world, when you are evangelizing, reading the scriptures and singing the prayers publicly, that is still the temple. When you are teaching the chants and preparing people for worship, that is the home. Really, there is only one place where worship belongs, and it is in the home; the temple is the macro and the family ikon corner the micro, and everything else is in between.

So people were rejoicing that Arab people are finally turning from Islam and finding Jesus, and are now able to worship the true God and sing all those wonderful new pop Christian songs in Arabic, even Psalm 51 can be sung in Arabic by a beautiful female vocalist.

Psalm 51, and any other psalm, is meant for prayer and meditation. Yes, of course, they can be sung, but still, only for worship. The Christian pop worship style and the presentation of music for religious entertainment are both fundamentally opposed to Orthodoxy, which is just biblical Christianity. It's great that Arab people are becoming Christians, but are they exchanging one religion for another, or are they entering into the freedom of the gospel?

Modern pop Christianity, especially pentecostal, makes huge claims for bringing the world to Christ, but the work of evangelism is done by Christ in us, as we witness for Him one day and one person at a time, with attention, care and commitment.

Arab Orthodox Christianity exists in both Greek and Coptic forms, and I have heard Psalm 51 chanted in Arabic by priests and cantors in the Church. Yes, it's beautiful when chanted in the traditional style, but more than beautiful, it calls the heart to prayer, to pray the words as they are heard being chanted.

This is all there waiting for the Arab peoples to rediscover, but many will have to go through the pasteurization process of pop Christianity, and when they're ready, by the mercy of God may they find out who and what the Church of Christ really is. Until then, they're still on a shaky foundation, trusting in human beings and exulting in the flesh while saying they are in the Spirit, and not realizing how they have been misled.

The greatest lies come in the flashiest wrappers and are bought by the most self-centered customers. The choice is always still out there, though, waiting to be made, no matter how we start out in our belief in Christ. You can't be Christ's and the world's friend at the same time. You can't serve two masters. The stronger desire always wins.

Desire nothing but Jesus.

Things human, and things Divine

There is a persistent problem in encounters between two kinds of religions. Those that are based on reliable historical testimony, and those which depend on fabrications based on, but not consistent with, historical testimony. In the first group are to be placed: Most varieties of Judaism and Christianity. In the second group: Islam and Mormonism, and a host of insignificant cults derived primarily from all four religions.

Scholars continue to study the historical sources of Judaic and Christian scriptures, because they have left a physical trail. Scholars study Islamic scriptures only within the closed context of these scriptures themselves, since historical and fictional elements are intermixed. No serious scholars study the Mormon scriptures, which are acknowledged by all impartial authorities to be entirely fabricated.

There can never be serious dialog between the members of the first group of religions and the second, because it always resolves itself into accusations of lying on both sides: The first group asserts that the scriptures of the second group are fabrications; the second group asserts that those of the first group have been corrupted and are therefore inadequate. In plain language, the other group is lying.

Between Judaism and Christianity, something similar happens in such encounters, because these two religions are essentially the same, yet different, based on a single fact asserted by Christians but denied by Jews: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His historicity is rarely doubted by Jews, only the content of the historic record challenged. On the Christian side, nothing can be asserted against Judaism, except its denial of Christ.

This is why we think, 'They must be joking' at best, when we encounter the pronouncements of the ayatollahs and other Islamic teachers, or hear about Muslim beliefs about Jesus, for example. We are here meeting a fabrication of something we consider fundamentally true and incontestable. The boldness of the Muslim (and Mormon) assertions is designed to unnerve and destabilise us.

But God is God, and though we mock each other, He cannot be mocked. Aside from all religions true or false, He is; and all those who have had experience of Him, whether Christian or not, know more about Him than the belief systems of all religions combined. Only those who have had this experience are in a position to distinguish 'the stale from the fresh' in things human, and things Divine.

Esoteric

There are no hidden meanings in our letters besides what you can read for yourselves and understand.
2 Corinthians 1:13

I have always been amazed whenever I read this line at the beginning of the apostle Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth. Right here and in no uncertain terms we have a declaration by one of the writers included in the New Testament that the ordinary Christian can be confident of understanding the simple, saving message of the Word of God. Am I not stretching things a bit? After all, maybe the apostle was only talking about his writings, his letters. Maybe he was even talking only about this particular letter. No, he uses the plural, so that means all of his letters. Too bad we don’t have all of them, but what the Lord wanted us to have, we have.

And he says ‘our letters,’ as well. Doesn’t that mean letters written by the other apostles? And if that is true of the letters, might it not be true of the gospels? Well, they hadn’t been put down in writing yet: they were still being lived. Even so, I get the impression that it was a priority for the first generation of the Church to make sure that whatever was written down was written clearly, concisely, truthfully, simply and directly, in an idiom that the audience would have no trouble understanding. It was, I believe, the same spirit that imbued the reformers of the Church of England to provide scriptures and liturgies in a tongue ‘understanded by the people.’

This primitive protocol of the first generations of the Church was, I think, preserved for many centuries, but as society underwent decay and suffered the barbarian invasions, language changed, native intelligence was stifled, yet for those who could still read and think for themselves the same clear, clean light of the Word of God was still accessible and proved that ‘there are no hidden meanings in [the New Testament scriptures] besides what you can read for yourselves and understand.’

This precious deposit was guarded zealously by the early Church, and what escaped, or was expelled, from the community of faith was taken up and further mutilated by those who had religious principalities to build and fake mysteries to hawk, like frontier potion peddlers. All of this was so obvious even in the days of the holy apostles that they were warning us about people like this right from the beginning. Human nature will always produce spiritual counterfeits. Anything is preferable to the Truth, because Truth is not for sale, it’s free. But lies command a high price: they’re always in demand.

As it was in former times, so it is still today. Just as the attack was pressed home against the Church of the holy apostles, so it is directed against the Church of Christ today.

Be careful, brethren, of objectifying the Church as the ‘organized church’ and looking for esoteric truths. There are no esoteric truths in Christ that can be passed down from master to disciple as in the non-Christian religions, or even as in some forms of Judaism. Whatever makes the claim to be that is patently false. But I didn't say there are no esoteric truths in Christ, just none that can be passed down or handed over: that is what tradition is, and tradition is only the form that can be filled with faith, our personal faith, and through which we can commingle with other disciples of Christ.

Yes, esoteric truths there are, actually, not plural, truths, but only singular, Truth. Esoteric, hidden Truth in Christ there is, but it cannot be described or handed over to anyone, so you will not find authentic esoteric teachings among the church fathers. You may find one or two here or there who have come down to us through the memory of the Church because of their holding some idea that earned them notoriety. But these thoughts will not prove to be fertile soil for the life of the Spirit, only various kinds of poorly drained swampland for the delectation of the superstitious, or else hard, unwaterable clay from which a new man cannot be made, but only slept on by the tough-minded.

Stay close, always, to the words of holy and divine scripture, and follow behind the fathers and mothers of antiquity who followed Christ not with their heads alone but with their feet. There is no ‘formal church’ that became irreversibly corrupt most likely in the first century, either discovered by historical scholarship, or speculated into existence by idle and curious intellects. The very word of Jesus prevents this, for He said that the very gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, and who can imagine either, that the divine Bridegroom, the Nymphios, would hand over his turtledove to the Beast. Whatever the institutional Church looks like outwardly through its activities, the true Church still lives within that structure.

Back to the esoteric. I said there is esoteric Truth, and that there is only One. And I want to qualify that statement just once by telling you that it is the Cross.

One thing that a Christian, that is, a follower of Jesus, can always rely on, no matter what church he belongs to or attends. You cannot go wrong, ever, if you imitate Christ, and do only those things you see Him doing in the gospels. The visible and institutional Church can be falling away around you, but with your eyes fast focused on Jesus, you would scarcely notice. What you would see, however, is what Jesus is doing right now to remedy the situation, and you, if you are following Him, are privileged to share with Him the work that He, not you, sets yourself to do.

Thinking His thoughts, loving as He loves, redeeming the time, welcoming the stranger, overlooking offenses, healing the sick, seeing clearly so that the blind around you may also see, suffering the humiliation of your own human weaknesses without abandoning the work or the discipline of the Son of God, keeping your heart free from malice: These are the worthy tasks, the fulfilling of the only commandment, that erases sin in both the Church and in yourself, because it is letting the fire of Christ burn all unrighteousness from the inside out, leaving only what He has recreated in you and in the Church—that is as close as I can get to pointing to what you will never learn from books, only from following the Son of God, walking with Him the way of the Cross.

So, brethren, as I always say, ‘Go with God.’

Living in the material world

In the material world of things around us the farmer works the earth. So also in the spiritual world there are two elements to be considered. It is necessary for man to work the soil of his heart by a free deliberation and hard work. For God looks to man’s hard work and toil and labor. But if the heavenly clouds from above do not appear and the showers of grace, the farmer for all his labor avails nothing.

This is the sign of Christianity. However much man should do and how many justifying works he should perform, he should feel that he has accomplished nothing. And when he fasts, he should say, “I have not fasted.” When he prays, let him think, “I have not prayed.” Persevering in prayer he should say, “I have not persevered. I have only begun to practice asceticism and to labor.” And even if he is righteous before God he should say, “I am not righteous. I am not working, but I begin each day.” He ought every day to have the hope and joy and confidence in the future kingdom and in redemption and say, “If today I have not been delivered, tomorrow I will be.”

It is like the man who plants a vineyard. Before he ever begins work, he entertains hope and joy as he ponders in his mind the vineyards and counts up his profits, even though there is no wine yet. And in this way he puts himself to work. Hope and expectation make him toil enthusiastically and for some time even he undergoes great expenses, paid out of his pocket. It is like one who builds a house or cultivates a field. At first he undergoes expenses to himself, but in the hope of future profits. It is the same way in this matter. Unless a person keeps before his eyes joy and hope, namely, “I shall obtain salvation and life,” he cannot bear patiently afflictions or the burden or accept to travel along the narrow road. For it is the presence of hope and joy that allow him to labor and bear afflictions and the burden of traveling along the narrow path.

St. Macarius, Spiritual Homilies, 26.10 12

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14