Humankind’s Lost Sheep: Divinity School
Note to the reader
This essay has footnotes for
clarity and endnotes to support opinion, in order to touch the
time, space, and flow I would address. I read and write to learn, then dream of
reader-comments toward an achievable better future to humankind. To touch that
stream isn’t easy.
I
attempt to address human psychology impacting 90% and motivating 1/3 of
humankind -- the professed believers among Holy Bible readers. I cannot address
the other 2/3 of humankind, because I have scant experience and observations
beyond my own way of living.
Readers
who conclude that I dream that civic humankind will accept responsibility,
power, and authority to rule the earth to the good to “ourselves and our
Posterity” will be positioned to suggest how to proceed. I am listening.
Preface
During
my lifetime and beginning my 82nd year, humankind’s division seems furtively
acute. I think it is because humankind has, so far, neglected personal duty to
pursue psychological order to the earth. We plan a colony in space yet quietly accommodate
war in our own friendships. Order ends with discovery-of and benefit-from the
laws of both physics and psychology -- the laws. Psychological order begins
with educating youth to pursue human being (verb). We
have no idea how responsible, powerful, and authoritative humankind may and can
be. I think competitive divinity schools could collaborate. Our generation has
the opportunity to discover what human being (verb) means.
Introduction
Humankind,
Homo sapiens, is informed by the laws of physics and nudged by primitive
literature, like Genesis 1:26-28, that neither their creator (whatever it is,)
nor a government will/can usurp human being (verb). Quoting the passage, in the
Complete Jewish Bible, CJB (1998),
with my emphasis,
Then
God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves;
and let them rule over the fish in
the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, and
over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the
earth.”
So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he
created him: male and female he
created them.
God
blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the
sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.”
In other words, each
human-being and their civic collective
is in charge of order on earth.
Divinity originators gloss
over the fact that this passage began in the law codes and treaties generated
by Sumer’s succession of kings from 5500 years ago to 4000 years ago. “God” in
this passage seems the creator of the universe, perceived as the visible earth,
the heavens, and the waters below. From Genesis 2:4, Yahweh seems to have a
representative, Adonai, who speaks to Adam and Noah and later to leaders of
Semitic-speaking people then Israel, who developed Hebrew and Aramaic. Yeshua
spoke Aramaic but did not write.
Institutions
routinely construct divine doctrine that keeps civic citizens isolated. Civic differs
from civil in that individuals voluntarily pursue and aid happiness, neither
initiating nor accommodating harm to or from any person or society. Civic
integrity pursues psychological order. Divinity coerces people to satisfaction
that their God requires their acquiescence – choice is not an
option. For example, to err is human; we are all sinners. However, Genesis
1:26-28 informs that we may and can choose to provide order rather than accept
chaos.
I
think a minority in each generation of Homo sapiens empowers an achievable
better future. And pursuit of mutual happiness can and may emerge in my
lifetime. What’s new to humankind is the Internet, which empowers free speech.
The villains of the world recognize this and are doing all they can to preserve
and control division grounded in belief. Belief is the pursuit of mystery
despite research and discovery. Divinity schools veil belief as power-to-know
without evidence. The semantic consequence is babel among believers.
The civic
minority is constrained by worry that the majority will-not, cannot collaborate
to overcome established semantics – in other words, undo the belief babel. Belief
is entrenched in societies, and the civic minority perceives their life too
short for them to facilitate reform. Unlocking the semantics could -- would
empower reform to human being (verb) rather than impose false hope and belief.
The various claims that human being (verb) pursues the bad rather than the good
can be undone by reforming education, especially divinity schools.[i] Homo
sapiens may and can accept the responsibility, the power, and the authority to
discover and beneficially apply to the good the laws of physics and of psychology.
Due
to variations in the laws of physics and its progeny, such as biology and
psychology, there may always be both bad actors and evil villains. Therefore, something
needs to unlock mutual appreciation among people of good intentions and collaborative
behavior on earth. Perhaps cause-no-harm[ii]
is a psychological law rather than mere civic appreciation. Maybe the laws of
physics plus human intentions to cause no harm comprise the law that guides
human being (verb). An evolutionary example from divinity schools might express
this concept.
Among
the harmful psychologies competitive monotheism created, Christianity’s the
Eucharist and its competition, Remembrance, passionately divert 1/3 of
humankind from the self-interest to not cause harm in their way of living. What
Christians believe becomes more important than how civil neighbors live. The
controversial salvation of mysterious soul bemuses pursuit of life. Divinity
schools rationalize mystery rather than physics and may and can choose to
reform.
Widespread
consideration to civic influence from Jesus, né Yeshua could
defeat Christian competition for favor in afterdeath and establish human psychology
to the good during life. If so, reform is possible through churches educating
adults and youth to pursue human being (verb). Believers in any of some 45,000
Christian sects[iii] or
denominations[iv]
including Messianic Judaism may and can choose to neither cause nor accommodate
harm yet still pursue private hope and comfort in their God. Human being (verb)
can simultaneously apply physics and behold mystery.
On
the other hand, Flannery O’Connor uniquely, generously pursued yet neither
imagined nor articulated “the ineluctable truth”.
O’Connor boldly used the word “violence” to express her truth: the Eucharist. I think she knew the audience would
recoil from violence. Shock empowered her fiction. Alas, I cannot ask her: why
violence? I can only write, speak, and act to assuage naked passion, because it
causes harm and suggest that Yeshua’s civic influence proffers relief. I hope O’Connor,
although deceased, may agree she is a friend of mine.
Background
Yeshua,
humankind’s principal political philosopher to the good, [v]
has only potential influence, because his name has been untraceably abused by
competition among monotheists. Divinity scholars advise, 0ur-God will beat your-God,
regardless of the-God. By “the God” I mean whatever constrains the consequences
of human choices rather than divinity phantasms, for example, Jesus the
redeemer or Christ of Yeshua’s resurrection. Humankind’s pivotal political
philosopher is Yeshua the Nazarene. He was born 2000 years ago, at the recent
edge of Homo sapiens developing grammar. Grammar was essential to start writing
law codes 10 thousand years ago[vi],
in order to pursue political power.
The God’s political philosopher?
Globally,
perhaps 90% of inhabitants are aware of some variation of the ancient Greek transliteration,
“Iēsoûs”, which came from
“Yeshua”. And 2630 million (m) [vii]
of 8020 m people believe in “Jesus”, a 500 year-old competitive name. A small
faction, 15.7 m [viii] recognize
Yeshua as the name his Nazarene-Jewish family used 2000 years ago. But only
2.3% [ix]
of Jews claim Yeshua was the Messiah to Jews. [Some
people call “Messianic Jews” Christians. [x] It’s
complicated: I would ask the believer what to call her or him. [xi]] Does
anyone call you by another name, say Jack Sprat even if you are female, and try
to make it stick? Divinity schools impose division on otherwise civic people.
In
review, while perhaps 90% of global inhabitants know of Jesus, only 32.8%
believe in Jesus (the controversial Christian entity), 0.2% accept Yeshua as
teacher/rabbi but not as Messiah, and 0.004% believe Yeshua was the Jewish
Messiah, who would, in a second coming, unite to one nation the 12 districts of
Israel. Israel exists and many Jews still await their Messiah.[xii]
How small is the micro-minority who pursue Yeshua’s civic influence to
humankind to accept the duty to rule on earth in the God’s image? Am I alone? I
don’t think so, but don’t know.
Since
the Messiah was to unite Israel, Messiah-to-serve-Gentiles stretches the
monotheistic competition that divides Judeo-Christianity if not humankind. I
suggest a transitory political expression, Jesus, né Yeshua (Jesus born
Yeshua), in order to accelerate discovery, acceptance, and appreciation to
Yeshua[xiii]
and the civic good he proposed for acceptance by humankind. That is, Yeshua did
not advocate human being (verb) merely to offend either humble theologians, or
civic leaders, or their mutual collaboration but to fulfill humankind’s purpose
on earth: to pursue order to the good. In Yeshua’s civic influence, believers
do not belittle non-believers and vice-versa. However, divinity schools partner
with governments to grow their institutions, dividing humankind.[xiv]
Between “Jesus” and “Yeshua” there
are many civil and religious issues -- state and church competitions-- that
make “Yeshua” a matter of entity more
than of name. He was born the
historical Yeshua[xv], biblically
a descendant of both King David and of prophetic speculation[xvi]:
an anointed king would establish a nation. But as Yeshua emerged in adulthood,
affirming Genesis 1 more than Genesis 2,
improving the Torah, embarrassing the Chief Rabbinate[xvii],
and shaming[xviii] the
magistrate, he received injustice like Socrates suffered under the men of
Athens.[xix]
The legislatively powerless Rabbinate convinced the Roman magistrate to execute
civilly innocent Yeshua. That Jesus and Yeshua are different entities is
demonstrated in a debate, both by the presenters and the audience. At 91
minutes into the debate, the rabbi says, “I don’t [say] ‘Yeshua’, because that
is Judaizing of Christianity”.[xx] I
do not assert that I know the entity Yeshua:
It’s simply the entity I appreciatively trust and commit to, in order to
protect myself from divinity schools, ancient or new.
Missionary or exploiter?
Three years after Yeshua’s
execution, Paul, a Jew and trained as perfectionist for Torah, which I deem civic
guidance intended to constrain error in living, appointed himself ambassador to
the Gentiles. A civic citizen can easily perceive that extending successful
coercion from a small community to an exponentially larger one is politically
astute. Paul preached that three blessings[xxi] favored
non-Jews in eternal afterdeath. No Jewish divinity school ever proposed
afterdeath. Five years later, Matthew 28:19 codified belief in The Trinity[xxii],
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Divinity made Paul’s 3
blessings a triune coercion
that obscures if not dismisses Yeshua’s civic influence.
Paul’s triune legacy proffers mysterious
eternal life to God-elected soul phantoms. No one ever proved souls exist, yet
people believe Paul in order to ignore Yeshua’s civic influence, especially
encouragement to accept Genesis 1:26-28, even to perfection. Instead, the
antinomian believer hopes for favorable afterdeath by the precious blood of
Christ. What travesty! I prefer humility to the God and pursuit of Yeshua’s
civic influence.
A most arrogant person, Paul, only
3 years after Yeshua’s execution, challenged the Jewish title “Messiah”, which divinity
developed into “Christ” -- Messiah to the Jews would be Christ to the Gentiles.
These are divinely constructed entities, rather than mere competitions with
Yeshua’s person. Paul developed his politics for 14 more years, continually encountering
Gentile opposition to male circumcision. (That’s right: female mutilation[xxiii]
did not matter to Biblical divinity!)
Therefore, in 50 CE, in Jerusalem, Paul
appealed to a fledgling group of diverse Messianic Jews, bishop-ed by Yeshua’s brother,
James. Others present were John with elders and Peter. These few Jews represented
neither the rabbinate nor Yeshua’s influence to the good, with the possible
exception of James. The
group privately compromised, in order to allow Gentiles to pursue a factional
Yahweh[xxiv]
on 4 abstentions: abstain “from
what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and
from fornication”. [xxv] That
seems like a group plus one. Most Jews, Israel, did not think Yeshua was the
Messiah, so the compromise was not from an Israeli council. Note the abstention from blood, because blood
calls to mind the Eucharist, Remembrance, and risk of infectious disease,
including STDs yet is essential to the divinity of Christ if not Jesus.
The representatives at the Council
of Jerusalem, 50 CE, are traditionally regarded as the founders of
Christianity, and subsequently divinity scholars called Paul “the apostle” even
though he was not of the twelve Yeshua chose. However, Acts 15 shows that each
party, all Jews, had divisive opinions respecting Judaism, the Torah, Yeshua’s
execution, circumcision, Messiah, Gentiles, and Israel. Neither Jesus nor
Christ had been thought of. Since then, the divinity divide exacerbated
exponentially.
Ending blood sacrifice
Did Yeshua suggest consumption of blood and flesh? Or
did the laws of physics convince Jews, earlier than Gentiles, to avoid blood
contact, let alone consumption? Did the 50 CE Jerusalem council’s’ set of 4
abstentions reflect blood borne STDs before medical technology caught up with
human experience? Did the Roman destruction of the second temple in 70 CE consolidate
Jewish thinking about blood sacrifice? Were Gentiles unaware-of or insensitive-to
Israel terminating blood sacrifice in 70 CE? Did Israel regard Yeshua’s
execution the end of blood sacrifice?
Evolution to human being (verb) and appreciating blood-functions
We know not where human being (verb) is going nor where civic
integrity has been. Homo sapiens began emerging
maybe a million years ago, dominated hominids perhaps 200 thousand years ago,
eliminated cross breeding perhaps 15 thousand years ago, and invented grammar
with which to record city-state negotiations and develop law codes 10 thousand
years ago.
Trial by error is, and was in primitive times, a useful
research method. Trials with unknown toxins encourage avoidance of the
associated consumption or practice. For example, sexual promiscuity always
risked STD. It’s not difficult to affirm ancient logic about the power of blood
and modern faulty experiments with it as medicine.[xxvi]
Yet even now, some people toy with blood-ingestion. Noah’s 4 thousand year-old covenant
prohibited blood-ingestion, and that ancient directive carried forward through
Acts 15 (after Yeshua’s execution). [xxvii]
Is there evidence Homo sapiens was vaguely aware of STDs 10,000 years ago? Maybe
so. What about drinking Yeshua’s blood?
In
70 CE and later, other Jewish writers[xxviii]
mimicked Paul’s dubious report that Yeshua broke bread and poured wine to
symbolize distribution of his life to the 11 apostles plus the one who had
betrayed him. Paul’s divinity claim is in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29:
For what I received from the Lord is just what I
passed on to you — that the Lord Yeshua, on the night he was betrayed, took
bread; and after he had made the b’rakhah he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is
for you. Do this as a memorial to me”; likewise also the cup after the
meal, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant effected by my blood; do this, as often
as you drink it, as a memorial to me.” For as often as you eat this bread
and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.
Therefore, whoever eats the Lord’s bread or drinks the
Lord’s cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of desecrating the body and
blood of the Lord! So let a person examine himself first, and then he may
eat of the bread and drink from the cup; for a person who eats and drinks
without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. This
is why many among you are weak and sick, and some have died!
I cannot discern receipts
“from the Lord” or quotation of “the Lord Yeshua” from Paul’s rationalizations
and do not accept this Passover story. It refutes the message since Noah that
blood is not to be consumed. It claims that ceremonial error ruins the physical
Lord. It invites self-judgement, which I refuse to practice. The consumer
cheated if they did not proclaim a second coming.
Yeshua
improved Moses law, the Torah, without refuting physics. Paul boasted of the
authority to construct a new covenant. Paul witnessed against Yeshua, in my
opinion.
Research informs that blood is a hazardous mixture
Research
brought medical care up to date with Biblical exclusion of ingesting blood and
beyond, launching Infectious Disease as a licensed practice in 1972, 52 years
ago. We know that “arteries, veins and capillaries . . . carry blood
[containing plasma] throughout your body.” [Plasma delivers] oxygen,
proteins and other nutrients [and collects] debris like damaged and cancerous cells,
bacteria and viruses. Lymph nodes [initiate cleanup for return to the
bloodstream].” [xxix],
[xxx],
[xxxi] Modern practice is to avoid direct contact with blood. I can neither
ceremonially pretend to risk blood borne toxins nor preserve an ancient,
misguided practice. Nor can I encourage others to follow beliefs that defy
physics; I can only preserve believers’ civic privacy provided they cause no
evidence of harm.
Paul’s
opinion about Messianic body and blood have no standing respecting pursuit of
Yeshua’s civic influence to the good on earth. I am comfortable being neither
elect nor antinomian. I do not know enough to claim preference yet cannot deny
serene acceptance that I am not elect. I am comfortable that Cynthia
is elect and know she is civic. I would neither modify nor pacify my most
precious gift: I accept Cynthia’s person.
Semitic-speaking ancestors hoping to persuade the God
In Sumerian
Ur, a polytheistic civilization, diverse groups used sacrifices to worship polytheistic
gods, such as fire, including blood-sacrifice and body-sacrifice, even humans
were killed for presentation to the fire. Sometimes, the victim was dissected,
and select parts were burned so that the smoke would please the god in heaven
or enhance the fire.[xxxii]
It seems some groups believed that fire is a cleansing god. Some dissected body-parts
were consumed by priests who were desperate for protein.[xxxiii]
Bible writers confuse theistic
backgrounds, using careless brevity. For example, quoting, Genesis 11:28, “Haran
died before his father Terach in the land where he was born, in Ur of the
Kasdim”. There is ancient, literary evidence that Terach, Abraham’s father,
left Ur, because his son Haran was politically sacrificed in the fire. [xxxiv]
The king or competitor would disprove Abraham’s divinity. Abraham’s father,
Terach, may have moved family, entourage, and property to escape human
sacrifice to the fire. In a new land, Abraham continued animal, fowl, and grain
sacrifices practiced in Ur.[xxxv]
Sacrificing domestic animals was not cheap. Perhaps Abraham initiated
monotheism,[xxxvi] yet
he did not found divinity school.[xxxvii],
[xxxviii]
Semitic descendants
Semitic descendants, the ancient
Jews, Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob, developed elaborate
ceremonies to humble themselves to Yahweh, including annual sprinkling of blood
on the altar. The development covered hundreds of years, in lands where factions
still practiced human sacrifice to the fire, [xxxix]
three generations after Isaac’s intended murder under Abraham’s knife.
However, Israel stopped blood
sacrifice after Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, 4 decades after
Yeshua was executed. “The emerging rabbinic community declared that Torah study, prayer, and
acts of loving-kindness would replace sacrifices.” [xl] This
illustrates that development of human being (verb) continues after authorization
of the Tanakh in the 10th century CE[xli] and
updating in 1917![xlii]
Factional Jews progress.
“In modern Judaism, the only rite
that requires the shedding of blood is the circumcision of
newborn males.”[xliii]
Many people object to circumcision on the basis of physics; some prefer
male-body wholeness. Yeshua was circumcised: Luke 2:21 CJB, “On the eighth day, when it was time for
his b’rit-milah, he was given the name Yeshua.”
Unfortunately, Holy Bible competition
obfuscates Yeshua’s civic influence
Yeshua,
a Semite and a Jew, reared in Nazareth during a difficult political time,
promoted constraint to the bad in
order to perfect the good. Was
Yeshua a civic citizen, a precocious-Jewish political-philosopher, the Messiah,
The Cross, a divinity, the sacrifice, or something else? Was Yeshua a
monotheist, like Abraham? Or a Trinitarian? Did Yeshua’s blood matter? Was
Yeshua merely a beneficial Jewish political philosopher whom divinity entrepreneurs
obfuscate? [xliv]
Divinity
thrives on belief. A minor Jewish faction hopes Yeshua will return to unite the
12 tribes. A larger society neglects Yeshua to promote Jesus, and a faction
hopes Christ redeems Trinity-elected souls. Those factions have abundant
sub-groups. It has even been suggested that Yeshua wanted to be sacrificed in
order to save the Jews from the Romans.[xlv] But
Yeshua influences successive generations to continually, continuously pursue
civic integrity.
Did
Yeshua suggest consumption of blood and flesh, or is it time to set personally-constructed
competitive-ceremony aside? Can civic citizens pursue Yeshua’s civic influence
without intending to?
Lifetime experiences and observations respecting the Eucharist
Divinity scholars assign Yeshua to
the political underground so severely that civic citizens in successive
generations are unlikely to discover his civic influence. They suppress
innovators, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who praised Jesus’ human example.
I agree with Emerson: ministers
ought not promote ritual consumption of body and blood, even with bread and
wine substitutes. Pretending/attempting to rebuke physics feels wrong to me and
thus opposes my intentions: perseverance to the good by appreciating the
physical and psychological[xlvi],
[xlvii]
laws.
In his adult public-emergence, Yeshua invitingly asked, “What are you looking for?”[xlviii]
Happily to me, French-Catholic Cynthia privately prays in plain sight to the mysterious
God-and-Jesus, pursuing comfort against the unknown. Borrowing words from Leon
Russell, she taught me precious secrets of
appreciation, withholding nothing. I am better because
Cynthia is my friend.[xlix]
Flannery O’Connor,
who died in 1964, violently promoted the Catholic Eucharist, never discovering,
at least not promoting, Yeshua’s civic influence. I regret only the word “violence”
in my appreciation to O’Connor, another civic god who faced death.
O’Connor “violence” and the ineluctable truth
O’Connor’s
art thrives. For example, a biographical film, “Wildcat” was released in 2023. Selected
letters, some to Catholic priests, are in the 2019 book, Good Things Out of Nazareth. (A chance to turn commerce on its head
by promoting Yeshua’s civic influence.) In Mystery
and Manners, 1957, O’Connor explains her art: faith in the Catholic Church.
My family experience with divinity
I
somewhat understand Catholicism.
As a
protestant father, I served my
Baptist church. Roles I liked best were Sunday-school student, choir member,
chauffer in the church van pool, usher, assistant to children’s Sunday school,
Family Enrichment Committee member then leader, donor, and good-will
participant. I never wanted to be a deacon and rejected my maternal ancestors’
hope that I’d become a preacher.
I also
worshipped with my French-Catholic family, on Saturdays or on Sunday evenings. Reading
the catechism, I neither wanted nor took the Eucharist. Mom and Dad had
convinced me that my relationship with the Trinity is direct: I am not to trust
the church – any church. Scarce chance for me to be caught in Jim Jones’ 1978 web.[l]
Unfortunately, my parents neither addressed divinity schools nor recommended comparative-religions
study. (Modern European countries and former colonies are in angst over
Religious Education.[li] Apparently
the struggle between the Church and Lutheranism preserves division of humankind
in Europe.)
After
20 years with internal religious distinctions, I longed to ceremonially unite
with my family of five, without compromising integrity to the God I
perceive. I assume the God knows my thoughts and nourishes my civic intentions
to appreciate each person’s privacy.
I
asked a favor of a beloved priest. Monsignor Stanley Ott explained and held
that priest and parishioners, in liturgical prayer, produce Christ’s-body-and-blood
for personal-consumption. In that practice, both the priest and the
parishioners stand between the Trinity and me. I prefer humility to the God rather
than to the Church: Ott said he loved the Church too much to compromise its
civility (rules). He decided we should meet privately no more. Ott seemed too
civil to the Church to be civic to a fellow human being.
Happily,
if not fortunately, Dad, Emerson, and Thomas Paine convinced me to trust my
opinion when someone disagrees, especially regarding Jesus, né Yeshua’s civic influence. Dad, in civic integrity, regarded
many Bible passages as mysteries. When stumped by a passage, he’d say, “I don’t
know the truth.” Unlike Paine, Dad did not end up seeming un-civic.
My
family’s psychological diversity did not compete with Msgr. Ott’s Church dogma.
I think divine dogma is mistaken. Transubstantiation detracts from Yeshua’s
affirmation that humans are gods/judges facing death and are charged to pursue
the good to the earth.
Appreciating
the God’s will that humankind may and can rule in the God’s image, institutions
that divide civic people are like the lost sheep in Yeshua’s parable of 99 in
the flock.[lii] Let me
repeat that. Institutions that do not
pursue order to the earth, as suggested in Genesis 1:26-28, are the
metaphorical lost sheep among humankind. Divinity schools work to preserve
and advance their dogma. It is not too late for them to reform, in order to aid
humankind to accept its civic duty on earth.
Our
teenaged children, at UBC[liii]
by my request, stopped taking Remembrance after I read Herschel Hobbs’ opinion[liv]:
Only believers-who-chose-baptism-by-submersion
are invited-to the Lord’s Supper. I think Yeshua’s civic image opposes Hobbs.
Civic Emerson opposed divinity
O’Connor condemned[lv] Unitarian
Minister Ralph Waldo Emerson for urging Remembrance without bread and wine.[lvi]
Emerson was serenely sincere in his opinion and consequently resigned ministry
at Second Church of Boston, [lvii]
then a Unitarian congregation.[lviii]
Harvard Divinity School recognized Emerson decades after his world renown.[lix]
He has been my friend since youth,
when I first read, in the mid 1950s, “Self-Reliance”. And reading “Divinity
School Address”, in the late 1990s, I thought: at last, my opinion aligns with
another person. I express 2 regrets: first, I did not read “Divinity” before
fathering our Catholic family and second, Emerson had not discovered and
written about Yeshua’s civic influence. Emerson could have cited, for example,
Matthew 19:4-5, “Haven’t
you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and that he said, ‘For this reason a man should leave his
father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two are to become one
flesh’?”. I was not aware of this passage when I married
Cynthia and am fortunate that we lived its principles.
Violent truth?
O’Connor’s
Mystery and Manners, Pages 82-83, got my attention. I quote, with my emphasis,
as follows:
The artist uses his reason to
discover an answering reason in everything he sees. For him, to be reasonable
is to find in the object, in the situation, in the sequence, the spirit which
makes it itself. This is not an easy or simple thing to do. It is to intrude
upon the timeless, and that is only done by the violence of a single minded respect for the truth.
I recoil, perceiving O’Connor
presented self-reliant perseverance as violence. The ineluctable truth yields
to neither violence nor to personal truth and demands humility. Bishop Baron
happily, glowingly recounts O’Connor-violence to her-truth: “Well, if [the
Eucharist] is a symbol, I say, to hell with it.” [lx]
Whether
spoken, written, or quoted, verbal violence stuns me. Yet I appreciate O’Connor’s
quest for ineluctability, which requires triune evidence: unavoidable,
unchangeable, and irresistible.[lxi] The
ineluctable truth yields to neither opinion, nor to reason, nor to divinity
schools. O’Connor’s “reason” cannot “discover [the God] which makes itself”.
Can divinity pursue Yeshua’s civic influence?
I
think both Emerson and O’Connor pursued, yet neither one discovered,
appreciation-for Yeshua of Nazareth’s civic integrity. So far, neither writer’s
art unites the Church or overcomes divinity school innovation against physics. I
think UBC pursues happiness to joy for humankind rather than to selected
believers, so may and can lead church reform then divinity reform. It requires
accepting that the laws[lxii]
hold humankind responsible for order to the earth.
Conclusion
Considering
the number or religious denominations, sects, and philosophies in the world, it
is no wonder humankind is divided. Glows there a spark that could excite the
civic faction to pursue order on earth? Perhaps it is appreciation to the laws
more than to either the good or the God, a mystery. We can accept the God but
may not define it. What about children? Can intention to educate them to pursue
human being (verb) ignite adult reform? Can adults discover and commit-to
self-satisfaction in doing all they can to help children?
One of
humankind’s courageous proponents to the good on earth is Yeshua, born in
Nazareth 2000 years ago. About 1/3 of the world’s inhabitants place their hopes
and comfort in Jesus’ blood. It is such a passionate belief it seems uncivil to
question it. However, scholarship seems to inform that the statement “whoever disowns me before others I will
disown before my Father in heaven”, came from Yeshua[lxiii]
rather than either from Jesus or from Christ. Further, Matthew 18:4 reports
that Yeshua said, “the greatest [adult is] whoever makes himself as humble as
this child”. What if ignoring
Yeshua’s humility assures chaos on earth?
In my life, I gained perseverance from the God, a mystery,
and guidance to the good from Yeshua, talking to the people he met. Happily, I earned
these two opinions enough to articulate them, during recent months after I
returned to UBC.
Also, in writing this essay, I improved my opinion that the
1787 U.S. Constitution, only 237 years old, intends the civic faction, We the
People of the United States, to pursue “to ourselves and our Posterity”, the
laws of statutory justice rather than of judicial precedent. About 12 prior generations left to “ourselves and our
Posterity” the opportunity to establish and maintain the United States’
constitutionally stated intentions. The United States would pursue laws that conform to both physics and to
human being (verb). This can be presented in another essay.
Opinions more civic than mine may and can be used to educate
youth to pursue human being (verb). I seem to be in the smallest minority yet
do not doubt the power of civic acceleration.
Epilog
Some
readers may think it strange that I would grant one writer, Flannery O’Connor,
importance to me (despite her mystery of “violence”), on par with one of the
writers featured in the Bible. I left UBC (and Christianity) in 1994, telling
Pastor George Haile that I could never discover Phil Beaver if I continued
church isolation. All the books and articles I read and civic dialogues since
then aided discovery that Yeshua’s civic influence always protected me from
divinity school competition. Yeshua’s modern integrity emerges when two civic
people transparently share and work to resolve heartfelt concerns and
commitments.
Acknowledgements
Briefly, I would not have written
this without 4 recent encouragements. Co-pastor Tanya Parks, UBC, asked for
2-minute book reviews to share at a monthly luncheon for seniors and agreed to
hear my talk on Flannery O’Connor’s “Mystery and Manners”, a non-fiction book
posthumously published. Second, Jerry Trahan read the script for the talk and
asked what I meant. Third, O’Connor’s posthumous friendship deepened as I tried
to address Jerry’s question. Underlying these events
is the mutual search comprehend the God’s message that is led by Kenneth
Tipton’s Sunday school class, the Nomads.
PRB, 7/5/2024, updated 7/11/2024
Copyright©2024
by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the
publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright
notice is included.
My wife
of 54 years and mother to our 3 children.
[ii]
Agathon, in his speech, informed me of the power of appreciation: it neither
initiates nor accommodates harm to or from anyone or any god. See in Plato’s
“Symposium”, online at Symposium, by
Plato (gutenberg.org).
[iii] Online
at https://www.livescience.com/christianity-denominations.html.
[iv] Online
at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members.
[v] Albert
Einstein is another of humankind’s unrecognized political philosophers. See “The
Laws of Science and The Laws of Ethics” at https://www.samharris.org/blog/my-friend-einstein.
[vi] Online
at https://www.britannica.com/topic/cuneiform-law.
[vii] Online
at https://research.lifeway.com/2024/01/22/8-encouraging-trends-in-global-christianity-for-2024/.
[viii]
Online at https://www.jewishagency.org/jewish-population-rises-to-15-7-million-worldwide-in-2023/.
[x] Online
at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism.
[xi]
Messianic Judaism is divided by semantics. For example, one body of believers
seems to assert that Yeshua is Abraham’s Jewish branch Messiah; http://www.cbyjanesville.org/what-is-messianic-judaism-1.html.
[xiii]
Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua.
[xiv]
Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XI,
online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm#chap11.
[xv] Online
at https://jewishjournal.com/culture/180539/.
[xvi] Online
at https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/22047/Prophetic-Speculations.htm.
[xviii]
Online at https://www.history.com/news/why-pontius-pilate-executed-jesus.
[xix] Online
at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates.
[xx] Online
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_oCkfe4ivQ&t=2674s.
[xxi] 2
Corinthians 13:14, “May the grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit be with you all.”
[xxii] Converting Paul’s heartfelt wish into
grounds for a triune God illustrates the art of semantic imposition. Capitalized,
Triune is a synonym for “Trinity”, “the
unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead according
to Christian dogma.” The dogma would impose divinity on the Pauline hope, in
order to promote competitive monotheism. The tactical construct cannot distract
me from the God, whatever it is.
[xxiii]
Online at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47131052.
[xxiv]
Online at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh.
[xxviii] See
each Mark 14:22-26 (70 CE), Matthew 24:17-30 (60 CE), and Luke 22:7-20 (80 CE).
John 13-17 (100 CE) omits the distribution of bread and wine. All except John
may have been trying to fulfill ancient beliefs in Exodus 24:8 and Jeremiah
31:31: blood for a new covenant. Perhaps John alone published after news that
that Jews ended blood sacrifices as a consequence of the second-temple
destruction in 70 CE.
[xxix]
Online at https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/25209-lymph.
[xxx] Online
at https://biologydictionary.net/blood.
[xxxiii] Leviticus 7:31, “make the fat go up in smoke on the altar, but the breast will
belong to Aharon and his descendants”; Leviticus 7:34,” From the fellowship
offerings of the Israelites, I have taken the breast that is waved and the
thigh that is presented and have given them to Aaron the priest and his
sons as their perpetual share from the Israelites.”; Deuteronomy 18:3,
“This is the share due the
priests from the people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the
shoulder, the internal organs and the meat from the head”.; 1 Samuel 2:14, “Whatever the fork brought up the priest
would take for himself”.
[xxxv]
Genesis 15:8-11, ““Adonai answered him, ‘Bring me a three-year-old
cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove and a young
pigeon.’ He brought him all these, cut the animals in
two and placed the pieces opposite each other; but he didn’t cut the birds in
half. Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Avram drove them
away.”
[xxxvi]
Retaining polytheism might have facilitated civic integrity rather than the
chaos of monotheism. For example, once humankind discovered that the sun is a
natural nuclear reactor, there was no incentive to choose a Sun god. However,
it is difficult to dissuade believers in the Trinity, for example. It seems more
difficult to dispel mystery than to resolve myth.
[xxxvii]
Online at https://ancientspast.com/history-of-the-first-known-god-uncovering-the-ancient-origins/.
[xxxviii]
Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism, “Shamanic practices may
originate as early as the Paleolithic, predating all
organized religions.”
[xxxix] 2
Kings 21:6, “M’nasheh
, , , made his son pass through the fire [as a sacrifice].” [Note: Manasseh’s
sacrifice was his son’s murder, in the 3rd generation after
Abraham.]
[xl] Online
at https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Sacrifice/sacpage2.htm#.
[xliii]
Online at https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Sacrifice/sacpage2.htm#.
[xlv] Online
at https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-09-28/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-jews-arent-to-blame-for-jesus-death-a-bible-scholar-asserts/0000017f-e2ec-d9aa-afff-fbfc1e000000.
[xlvi]
Online at https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/the-laws-of-physics-in-ux-what-can-we-be-taught-by-cartoons-and-video-games-304f37563a68.
[xlvii]
Online at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22616-y.
[xlix] Poetic
reference to Psalm 82:6-7, “My decree is: ‘You are elohim [gods,
judges], sons of the Most High all of you. Nevertheless, you will die like mortals”. Yeshua
referenced “you are gods” in John 10:34.
like any prince, you will
fall.’”
[lii] Luke
15:1-7 CJB, “The
tax-collectors and sinners kept gathering around to hear Yeshua, and the P’rushim and Torah-teachers
kept grumbling. “This fellow,” they said, “welcomes sinners — he even eats with
them!” So he told them this parable: “If one of you has a hundred sheep
and loses one of them, doesn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the desert and
go after the lost one until he finds it? When he does find it, he joyfully
hoists it onto his shoulders; and when he gets home, he calls his friends
and neighbors together and says, ‘Come, celebrate with me, because I have found
my lost sheep!’ I tell you that in the same way, there
will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who turns to God from his sins than
over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.” [Note, CJB’s
“This fellow” to me seems warm compared to NIV’s “This man” and is typical of
many rewards of reading CJB. NIV feels like imposition of a construct rather
than collaboration for the ineluctable truth.]
[liii]
University Baptist Church, Baton Rouge Louisiana.
[liv]
Herschel Hobbs, What Baptists Believe,
1964.
[lv] Mystery
and Manners, page 161-2.
[lvii]
Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Church,_Boston.
[lviii]
Online at https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/river/workshop13/178793.shtml.
[lix] Online
at https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/02/when-religion-turned-inward.
[lx] Online
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgo0ONxWiWk
[lxi] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ineluctable
[lxii] “The
laws” refers to the object of human being (verb), which in this essay emerges
as intentions to benefit from the laws of physics, a purpose that constrains
each individual, each group, each nation, and humankind.
[lxiii]
Matthew 10:33, Complete Jewish Bible (1998). I wonder if readers of this
version of the Holy Bible are split between people who believe Yeshua is
Messiah only to Jews and those who think him Messiah to humankind. I accept
judgment by the God and pursue civic integrity by engaging fellow citizens to
consider Yeshua’s reported speech regarding heartfelt concerns.
