At this point, the Radix Fidem path clearly alienates the vast majority of Westerners with any inclinations to Christian religion.
What we offer is a path back to Eden; that’s what the gospel is now, and has always been since we were kicked out of Eden. That path is focused on helping spiritually born people claim the full inheritance promised them while on that path. It’s all about that path. Since we cannot possibly know who is or isn’t spiritually born, we have to proceed on the basis of awakening it by walking in those blessings ourselves. We can’t put them on the path; they have to want self-death for themselves. That is, we can at best awaken someone to the awareness they were spiritually born, if indeed they were.
Even that is a miracle of sorts, but at least we can grasp some of how it works. We help people discover their eternal identity. Living like a child of Heaven triggers that recognition in other children of Heaven, or at the very least, it causes them to wonder about things. Since most of them ignore their own convictions, we have to wait for God to push through their mental resistance. Our sacrificial approach to living will trigger a resonance in their hearts. Thus, our mission is awakening the awareness of the heart-led path of faith.
Western Christians are conditioned against this. To be honest, my experience is that self-conscious pagan believers understand Radix Fidem quicker than anyone, because most of them already understand the heart-led way. Their hearts are devoted to some other deity, but they understand how faith works, at least. And a part of our heart-led (conviction led) path of faith is communing with God’s Creation, something very common among pagan believers.
Scripture takes seriously the language of listening to the natural world celebrate the Lord. At some point we ourselves realize that our hearts can hear that worship, so we start taking that more literally. “The trees of the field clap their hands…” We aren’t surprised that Balaam’s ass spoke, because people in Balaam’s culture also believed in a sensory heart. They took such things for granted, even if they were all pagan idolaters. And how do you think Job, or dozens of prophets, heard from Jehovah? Typically it was through the sensory heart of conviction. Most Christians today have no clue what a “vision” is in biblical terms, and can’t discern the difference between normal dreams and a word from God, because they aren’t used to sensing when something comes from the heart versus the mind or sentiment.
By now, this review has hit the high points on everything that makes us so completely different from the mainstream of organized Christian religion. If we make much noise about this stuff, we can be sure only a very few will respond. And how were you led to Radix Fidem? I found the path by small degrees, a step at a time. God blessed me with some kind of talent for putting it in words that speak to a few folks.
To be honest, I think we would be really uncomfortable if there were a rush of folks who thought Radix Fidem was somehow fashionable, lots of folks who had neither faith nor heart-leading. How quickly would that presence corrupt everything we have? How long would it take for some huckster to hijack every term we use? We need to be careful to build a community that resists such a thing by its very nature, lest we end up as corrupt as some churches.
Pagans won’t join us without a miracle touch from the Father, but the same could be said of church folks. It would take a major shock to break them loose from their cherished orthodoxies. That day likely to come, but only God knows if any of them would then turn to Radix Fidem. I suppose it would help if we had some publicity, but that can be dicey, too. It’s too easy right now to get the wrong kind of attention. I suppose if some high profile person joined us and actually embraced a heart-led path of faith, we might make some progress on the publicity front. The Lord may yet draw someone to join us with a talent for publicity, but it’s in His hands, not mine.
If we accept that God is our Chief Publicist, then what’s left for us is to play along with God’s work like loving children. We do our best to mimic the things He shows us we should do. And if the moment is right, we proudly announce that He is our Father. We stand ready to answer questions about it, and maybe correct false impressions. That’s the Great Commission. That’s the path I’m pondering every day. What’s the next step along that path?
And I’m done. You can ask questions if you like.
When we’re talking about self-death, what does that mean, exactly? Death of the ego? Death of the carnal mind? Death of our desires? Death of self-interest? Or is it something else entirely, or some combination of these?
Is self-death something that we do, or become willing to do, or is it something that only God can do?
Symbolism: “I have been crucified with Christ…” Galatians 2:20. It’s denying the ascendancy of the fallen fleshly nature. It’s putting the faith back in charge. It’s a commitment that requires keeping an eye out for the resurgence of the fleshly nature. As some say in parabolic terms: Adam won’t stay nailed to the Cross. You could say it’s an attitude and the better you stick to it, the more your fallen nature is put in its subservient place.
The Luke 7 passage about the centurion really weirds me out sometimes, especially when Jesus says he had greater faith than He saw in Israel. There was some exaggeration there, probably, but it’s still something to think about a pagan being described as such.
The hyperbole was common in Hebrew society, but those listening got the point. Such full abandon to the word of the Lord was indeed rare in Israel.