Pondering the Path 01

On one level, it’s enough that I follow my convictions. That is the bottom line; it’s the fallback position I take when nothing makes sense in the world around me. Walk in the light you have.

On another level, the Lord has called me to reach for a long view, something that is entirely out of fashion in our Western society. I strive to see the train of human events with a prophetic eye.

We are beset by a large body of plutocrats who give some limited lip service to such things. They provide a robust example of being heart-led — in a certain sense — across a longer sweep of history than is common among the little people. But their hearts are darkened by commitment to something man-centered. Their review of the sweep of history is narrow and partisan. They serve a pantheon of false gods.

We need to be deeply cynical of them, and of the Harlot Church leaders who ride that Beast. If you grasp biblical mysticism and the uniqueness of Hebrew epistemology, then a review of Church History is not very encouraging. We know that the solidly anchored ancient point of view of the Apostles faded rather quickly, if we go by the collected papers and letters among church leaders (“Early Church Fathers”). The substance of mystical faith that lay behind the New Testament writings was lost almost as soon as the last apostle died around 100 AD. The mystical teaching that arose from that faith took a little longer to fade.

Keep in mind that the church leaders had for the next two centuries struggled through a long train of heresies, but their answer to each of these was to seek a defense of the mainstream teaching on the same grounds as the attacks. They fought the fruit, but didn’t bother to cut down the tree. They did not handle the disputes the way Paul would have; they kept getting drawn off into intellectual disputes without a solid spiritual foundation. They didn’t fight the epistemology. God alone knows what happened to the legacy of intellectual background Paul himself carried, but it would appear he didn’t find too many apprentices to train in the ancient Hebrew philosophical orientation. We can discern that Paul understood the differences between Hebrew and Hellenistic epistemologies, but we have no evidence he ever identified that as an issue. We are in no position to question how God was working on that issue.

So after that two centuries of doctrinal conflict, we see that the church leaders face another major problem. Having languished long under Roman persecution, they were eager for any measure of relief that might come from official recognition. So eager they were that they left the door of compromise open too wide. That is, while they stood firm on doctrine, they were very weak on organizational practice. They had long ago drifted into a more Greco-Roman structure, with little memory of the ancient Hebrew covenant family image. This was their primary vulnerability, and it’s where Constantine was able to bribe them into complying with his political agenda.

Constantine needed a church that looked like the imperial government he hoped to form: united and disciplined in the Roman sense of things. All he cared about was the fruit of a burning conviction, not the conviction itself, nor how it results in a tribal covenant identity. He was by no means a believer, only an astute politician who favored the unifying potential of Christian religion as he saw it. Lacking a solid grasp on the biblical Hebrew model, the church leaders were unable to present a solid front on organization itself. They didn’t have a biblical covenant; they had an ecclesiology. This left them vulnerable to Constantine’s demand that they end the doctrinal squabbles by establishing a clearly documented authoritarian edict. That’s not how the Bible says we should handle such things.

In the Kingdom of Heaven, one does not elevate human intellect to a high position of trust. We are careful to identify what human intellect can produce, so as to distinguish that from the kind of conviction the Holy Spirit produces. Conviction cannot be reduced to doctrinal proposition. Truth has never been propositional; it has always been personal conviction. Divine truth has always been variable in expression because God, being a genuine Father and Lord, doesn’t treat any two of us precisely alike. No one else can know exactly what I know, because no one else can duplicate my experiences and DNA.

In Church History, we have no tradition of seeking to clearly understand just what it is about serving God together that gives us a common ground for fellowship. There is no study of how we learn to tolerate things that cannot possibly be the same for all of us. Instead, church leaders have instituted a whole range of things they demand others embrace on pain of various means of coercion. You can’t tell me today’s religion bigshots don’t lust for the legal authority to persecute dissenters. Every time I turn around, I run into a clarion call for the brand of unity “in Christ” that is merely intellectual in nature, and it comes from every nook and cranny, as well as from great leaders.

I’ll grant you that Scripture warns Christ will not return until His bride is ready, spotless and clothed in His glory. But that purity is not a matter of theological orthodoxy. It is something else entirely on a another level. I won’t pretend that I understand it yet, but I’m striving for a different answer based on a different epistemology from what dominates the field these days. My divine calling includes a drive to come up with a different strategy that looks more like the times God poured out His blessings on His people. The social stability of shalom is not the same as political stability; God’s peace is not confined to what humans call “peace”. I’m doing my best to dig through the false assumptions exhibited in Church History to something that stood before there was a church, when the Messiah walked this earth.

So what do I hope to accomplish? On one level, it’s nothing more than mere obedience to the divine calling. I’m walking in the light given to me. Is there a long view here? Sure, but it passes too much through things I cannot see yet. I understand the necessity of pointing to something eternal in all of this, but all I have is a shadowy outline, a shadow cast by glory shining out on the other side. It’s enough light to see the path, but only a step or two ahead of where I am now.

It’s certainly not about me. I didn’t get this far by clinging to some vain hope of being remembered as some great sage and founder of a religion. We don’t need another religion — not just one. We need a million new religions individually sprouting in every soul who sincerely seeks the Lord. We need to treat religion as an individual response to the divine provocation of the Holy Spirit’s Presence in the soul. We need something else to bind us together, not a common religion. Maybe we can refer to a meta-religion, a religious study of religion itself, but not another organized religion with a recognized founder, etc.

So while it’s my job to look far into both past and future, that doesn’t mean I should expect to see all pertinent details. I’m not the One shaping this. It does help if I have a long view to drive me forward into the shadows of tomorrow, but a perspective is not the same as specific insights. I have no reason to expect a particular outcome.

More about this later.