1. Shalom Place Community
Cynthia Bourgeault's "The Wisdom Jesus"
This topic can be found at:
http://shalomplace.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/43110765/m/893402031
8
08 January 2012, 03:32 PM
Phil
Cynthia Bourgeault's "The Wisdom Jesus"
I've only read the first three chapters of this book and don't
know that I'll finish it, and so am posting my notes on it
below. As you can see, I have some misgivings and am mostly
not enjoying the book.
The Christian church has always recognized the wisdom and
mystical dimension of Jesus's teachings, which is why they are
in our bible. The mistake Bourgeault makes is to consider
Jesus as primarily a wisdom teacher who came to show us how to
become as he is through contemplative practices that get us
out of our dualistic Ego and established in the nondual (that
word!!!) knowing of the heart. Her Jesus seems to be no
different from us, ontologically, even in his relationship
with the Father. The soteriological dimension of Christ's
coming and how we are re-connected with God in and through his
death, resurrection and gift of the Spirit are minimized, if
not mocked, in places. So I've no need to continue reading
this, even though she is very good in places. When I think of
what this book might have been . . . Frowner
-------My notes: quotes from the book are followed by my comments in
parenthases.
Chapter One:
Re. Thomas: ". . . now largely accepted as an authentic
teaching of Jesus."
(Largely? Regardless of its dating, it's pretty clear that it
wasn't one of the "in" books, if it was much known at all.)
Re. Jesus and introducing him as a wisdom teacher and why this
is important: " . . . because most of us think we know
something about this Jesus already. We don't all agree on what
we know, of course."
(We do know something about Jesus already, and I object to
this implication that there is somehow widespread disagreement
about him. The Christian churches agree on much more than they
disagree about. I object, too, to the subtle insinuation that
she will somehow, in her book, give us the real deal.)
Re. beliefs: "It's the primary way that we approach our
teacher, through what we believe about him."
(Belief is more a backdrop, for most, and the common approach
is through worship, prayer, and Scripture study. Still,
beliefs are important, and bad beliefs are especially harmful
1

2. to oneself and the world.)
Re. Jesus: ". . . I've been reaffirmed in my sense that Jesus
came first and foremost as a teacher of the path of inner
transformation."
(That's not really why Christianity arose as a world religion.
Jesus' wisdom teaching seemed to be less important after the
resurrection than Jesus himself as the way, truth and life.
During his life, he was also much sought after as a healer,
too, and seemed to spend as much time healing as teaching.
Indeed, it seems that Jesus saw himself as the good shepherd,
who came to seek and save those who were lost. They are found
through his acceptance and loving embrace.)
Chapter Two:
Re. Christians meditating a la cp and Christian meditation:
"For the first four centuries of Christian experience, this is
the way it was done, Christians connected with their living
Master present in their hearts (the name for this practice was
anamnesis.)"
(I don't think the early Christians did cp or anything like
that. There seemed to be more encounter through liturgy,
charismatic prayer, verbal prayer.)
Re. Pauline writings and Paul's character (written in a spirit
of dismissing his emphasis on soteriology): "Privately he was
clearly worried that something in his being was dark and
damaged (he mentions this from time to time in his epistles)."
(We do not know that this was Paul's experience prior to his
conversion. It's certainly not apparent that this influenced
his theology. In addition to his soteriological perspective,
which is also to be found among other New Testament writers
and the early Fathers.)
Re. the Eastern Christians emphasizing sophiology more than
soteriology: "The Christians of the East saw things radically
differently. Theirs was not a soteriology, but a sophiology."
(Actually they do have a very strong soteriology, believing in
the fall, Original Sin, salvation through the cross, etc.)
"A sophiological Christianity focuses on the path. It
emphasizes how Jesus is like us, how what he did in himself is
something we are also called to do in ourselves. By contrast,
soteriology tends to emphasize how Jesus is different from
us--"begotten, not made," belonging to a higher order of
being--and hence uniquely positioned as our mediator."
(This can surely be both/and, and I do think the New Testament
and Fathers emphasize soteriology more. There's very little
from these sources suggesting that "what he did in himself is
something we are called to do in ourselves," not without his
gifts of Sacramental presence and Holy Spirit.)
"From the Gospel of Thomas and the Nag Hammadi collection in
general, from the Syriac liturgies, from the African desert
fathers and mothers, from Celtic poetry and Chinese 'Jesus
2

3. sutras' the same sophiological message emerges. 'Yes,' says
Jesus, 'as I am, you, too, can and must become. I will be here
to help you. But you must do the work yourself.'"
(I object to this whole idea of considering these sources as
on the same level as the Gospels and writings of the fathers.
There is, here, too, a kind of Pelagianism at work.)
"'Gnosis' is a perfectly acceptable New Testament word: the
apostle Paul uses it repeatedly to describe the intimate
experience of knowing and being known in Christ."
(Yes indeed! There is a strong mystical under-current in
Paul's writing. Good that she recognizes this. Obviously,
then, Paul's soteriology and mysticism can co-exist. But she
has just dissed Paul's emphasis on soteriology!)
(Re. Jesus' teachings not being prophetic.) "His message was
not one of repentance and return to the covenant. Rather, he
stayed close to the perennial ground of wisdom: the
transformation of human consciousness."
(Jesus certainly did preach repentance, metanoia. Repentance
and transformation go hand-in-hand. For Jesus, metanoia had a
moral dimension as well -- a turning away from a life of sin.)
Chapter Three
Begins with a story about a "well-known Souther Baptist
theologian" who stated ("in a broad Texas drawl" no less) that
his whole Sunday school training could be summarized as:
"Jesus is nice, and he wants us to be nice, too."
(Umm, was he talking to little kids? Is this supposed to be a
comment on Southern Baptist beliefs, which I know to be much
meatier. Listen to sermons by Charles Stanley or Adrian Rogers
on the net if you have time; they're very good. Makes a nice
foil for this chapter.)
"One of the most important books to appear in recent years is
called "Putting on the Mind of Christ," by a man named Jim
Marion. . . ."
(JB reviewed this book briefly awhile back and found serious
problems with it. I tried reading it years ago and couldn't
get very far as it was a kind of Wilberian version of
Christianity. Jim Marion and I also had an extensive
discussion on this board about his book, "Death of the Mythic
God." See my review of it on Amazon.com. There are serious
problems with his approach, but it does resonate with CB's
neo-gnostic spirituality.)
"While he (Jesus) does indeed claim that 'the Father and I are
one' (John 10:30)--a statement so blasphemous to Jewish ears
that it nearly gets him stoned--he does not see this as an
exclusive privilege but something shared by all human beings."
(In the same sense that Jesus and the Father are one in Being?
That's not been the Church's understanding. We are not one
with the Father in the same manner as Jesus was.)
"There is no separation between humans and God because of this
3

4. mutual interabiding which expresses the indivisible reality of
divine love."
(This sentence follows the above and is a good description of
a person living by the Spirit, as was Jesus, of course, but it
obfuscates the ontological meaning of Jesus's "the Father and
I are One.")
"'Love your neighbor as yourself'--as a continuation of your
very own being. It's a complete seeing that your neighbor is
you. There are not two individuals out there, one seeking to
better herself at the price of the other, or to extend charity
to the other; there are simply two cells of the one great
Life."
(Well, at least there are "two" cells. But it's sheer nonsense
to say that there are no individuals, or that love is a
recognition of my neighbor "as" myself. That might be a kind
of empathy or compassion, but love thoroughly recognizes and
appreciates the other as "other," not as some extension of
me.)
(Re. her section on the Ego as dualistic operating system. One
gets the impression that she considers this some huge mistake
-- an evolutionary error, perhaps, but definitely an
infliction.)
"There is no small self, no egoic being, no thing that's
separated from everything else that has insides and outsides,
that has experiences. All these impressions are simply a
function of an operating system that has to divide the world
up into bits and pieces in order to perceive it."
(So why, then, would God and nature inflict such an illusory
mechanism on the human race? Of course, she is correct in that
the Ego is not an absolute center of reality, and is embedded
in the Self and intended to function as the agent of Selfactualization. It's perceptions of separate things are not
illusory except insofar as it fails to conceptually or
attentionally understand them as parts of an interdependent
whole, and this is indeed a problem. But the problem is not
the perception of duality so much as the failure to perceive
the broader web of existence. It is our false self
conditioning that prevents us from doing so, and the
consequent interior shame, fear and resentment that locks us
in on ourselves. )
"His (Jesus's) whole mission can fundamentally be seen as
trying to push, ease, shock, and wheedle people beyond the
'limited analytic intellect' of their egoic operating system
into the 'vast realm of mind' where they will discover the
resources they need to live in fearlessness, coherence, and
compassion--or in other words, as true human beings."
(Well-said, but the means by which He accomplishes this is not
so much by encouraging contemplative practice that we might
become as he is so much as by bringing us into his own
consciousness through the gift of the Spirit. That's what the
good news is about, and is why Christianity spread throughout
the world.)
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Phil, 08 January
4

5. 2012 04:48 PM
08 January 2012, 04:20 PM
Derek
Thanks, Phil. You saved me $9.99! I don't think I'd enjoy the
book, either. From what you've told us, she likes to make
broad claims ("now largely accepted," "this is the way it was
done") based on selective use of evidence followed by
unwarranted generalizations.
Let's just take one point. I looked up what Maurice Casey
(Jesus of Nazareth: An independent historian's account of his
life and teaching ) had to say about the Gospel of Thomas. He
relegates it to an appendix of his book on the grounds that
it's of little use to the historian trying to reconstruct the
historical Jesus. He concludes that it grew over time,
beginning with authentic sayings of Jesus, but then
incorporating material suggestive of second-century Syriac
Christianity. That's a long way from CB's assertion that the
Gospel of Thomas is "now largely accepted as an authentic
teaching of Jesus."
quote:
Originally posted by Phil:
When I think of what this book might have been . . .
Frowner
Yes indeed.
08 January 2012, 09:27 PM
Shasha
Phil,
I watched a video clip interview with C.B. She talked about
Jesus being special insofar as he was 'enlightened' to the
one-ness consciousness, like you and me can be too...as though
that was his big gift to the world.
Sounded much like Tolle, et al non-dualists.
Pah--L-E-E-E-Z!
09 January 2012, 07:13 AM
Derek
quote:
Originally posted by Shasha:
I watched a video clip interview with C.B. She talked
about Jesus being special insofar as he was 'enlightened' to
the one-ness consciousness, like you and me can be too...as
though that was his big gift to the world.
Did you mean this one, Shasha? (Fast forward to 13'41" to get
to the relevant bit.)
09 January 2012, 09:06 AM
5

6. Shasha
You nailed it, Derek! That's exactly the piece I was referring
to.
What she is suggesting is that finding the "Divine" is finding
non-dual consciousness, as presumably she has. Here we go
again...!
(Of course, reading her books directly is more important to
understanding her full take, but my eyes can't handle too much
reading so I resort to video/ audio teachings.)
Notice the hostess of the show ends with pitting the real
teachings of Jesus, as an enlightened master, against the
'traumatizing' destructive Church created later. CB's
teachings seem to set up this kind of conclusion, most
unfortunately!
09 January 2012, 09:58 AM
Phil
Hey, nice work embedding that video clip, Derek. Smiler
I don't know that you can draw too much of a conclusion about
her approach from that clip, however. Jesus surely was an
enlightened teacher, as she noted, and probably the first that
part of the world had seen. But what does this mean,
especially when the term "nonduality" is used to characterize
his enlightenment? There can be no doubt that his primary
focus was on doing the will of the Father, and that his
spirituality was deeply influenced by Jewish theism.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Phil, 09 January
2012 02:12 PM
10 January 2012, 10:11 PM
johnboy.philothea
So many, both East & West, tend to get epistemology wrong (per
my take on things, anyway). So, in recent years, when I go
spelunking for spiritual treasures, I have learned to wear a
hermeneutical hard hat to avoid gouging my empirical/logical
head on erroneous propositional stalactites and thick
existential boots to avoid stubbing my Gospel-ready toes on
heterodox axiological stalagmites.
Human value-realizations, in general, and where religion is
concerned, especially, are not primarily realized through
exercises like formal propositional logic and conceptual mapmaking. This means that, if we get one or more premises wrong,
all value will not be lost and our edifice of faith will not
come tumbling down (such as from the removal of some
foundational epistemic cornerstone).
Instead, our realization of values is much more informal, a
lot more like a simple combination of love and common sense,
which grows from our actively engaged participatory
imaginations. These imaginations are like our hometown
knowledge, something we know backward and forward but cannot
always easily articulate, for example, such as when we try in
vain to help some out of town visitor with directions.
6

7. This is why we can so often find ourselves positively
resonating with others' evaluative posits, with their
practical approaches, with their moral sentiments, with their
spiritual aspirations, with their social inclinations, with
their cultural affinities, with their aesthetic sensibilities
and even with their political prescriptions, only to
otherwise, even perhaps much later, discover that we differ
profoundly regarding their religious apologetics!
Because both life, in general, and religion, in particular,
are far more common sensical, pragmatic and existential than
formally logical, our religious 'argument' will be grounded in
what I like to call an 'existential disjunctive' or a living
as if and its so-called philosophy will best be expressed
through a life well-lived and much less so through any
conceptual formulations. This is to suggest that it makes a
lot more sense when it comes to religion to, as the cliche'
goes, do as I do and not as I say because, the fact of the
matter is, I have found very few people who can offer a fully
coherent apologetic for their deepest existential orientations
even though I have encountered very many who are, otherwise
and apparently, living lives so very lovingly, so very well!
It is precisely because of our immersion in dualistic thinking
and problem-solving that we provide such miserably
reductionistic accounts of the richly textured, heavenlycontoured depth dimensions of our unfathomable human
experience as imago Dei! Only story-telling, lyrics, song and
koan can even begin to convey the full participatory
constellation of human belonging, desiring, behaving and
believing! Whether encountering another in person or as an
author, then, I am very much interested in what manner of
community they participate, what constellation of desires,
practices and beliefs they gaze at, all of this taken as a
whole, and find that this will always be much more informative
regarding my discernment of their actual existential
orientation than any particular practice or belief of theirs
otherwise considered out of context. (Concretely, for example,
do they practice the sacraments? value Eucharist? engage
liturgical prayer? kataphatic devotion? communal discernment?
pray the Credo? value science, philosophy & culture? live the
moral life? affirm community?) This is not to diminish any
errors of theirs that I might encounter but it is to suggest
that it is worthwhile investigating whether or not that error
is located in their existential living out of the mystery or,
rather, in their inartful accounting of same. This is also to
suggest that there is a wealth of wisdom to be mined from our
encounters with others of all traditions.
A lot of names have been mentioned along with Bourgeault's Rohr, Keating, Barnhart, Marion, Roberts, Panikkar, Tolle,
Wilber and others. I'm not going to wholesale endorse or
defend anyone's entire approach but will critique one element
at a time. Consistent with what I have said above, though, I
can tell you that I have mined GREAT VALUE from these authors,
some more than others, some less. I have found, at times,
7

8. that, in some ways, certain authors get hypercritical of the
West while over-romanticizing the East. Many others do just
the opposite. Our first clues will ordinarily involve some
false-dichotomy, either-or thinking, all or nothing
approaches, categorical dismissals or uncritical defenses.
Another clue will involve failures of nuance, category errors,
poor definitions, no disambiguations, talking past one another
and such. Hence, the mission statement of my present thread at
philothea.net
My primary interest has been that of epistemology or how it is
that we know what it is that we imagine we know. For my part,
I subscribe to an integral, holistic epistemology that aspires
to give each moment in every human value-realization movement
its proper (not necessarily equal!) emphasis. Easier said than
done. Hence my suggested correction of Wilber's aq | al with
my aq | al | at or all quadrants | all levels | alt the time (
kairos not chronos). This is also how we correct either an
undue emphasis on either dualistic or nondual approaches. But
beyond these concerns of epistemology, both properly
considered and properly articulated, there is MUCH to
recommend, in my view, in the approach of those who pursue
inter-faith and inter-religious dialogue and reconciliation. I
resonate with the overall thrust of these visionaries even as
I offer my corrections (whether epistemological, metaphysical
or theological). These efforts are relatively new and the
state of the art is immature. It is important, then, that we
give everyone a fair hearing and the benefit of the doubt. It
is true enough that we must avoid any facile syncretism,
insidious indifferentism or false irenicism. But it is equally
true that we recognize and affirm the truth, beauty, goodness
and love found in others' approaches, even while critiquing
any errors, for there is but One Author and Gift-Giver, Who
lavishes such gifts and does not hold back.
To the point regarding Bourgeault, then, as I mentioned on the
other thread, she does appear to present a false choice
between soteriology and sophiology. But this isn't fatal for,
while her critique of the sophiological tradition in the West
somewhat misses its mark from a theoretical perspective (it's
in our core teachings and tradition), it is, in my view,
otherwise pretty much spot-on from a practical perspective (as
per Merton, too many are being merely socialized, too few
fully engaging transformation). Personally, I am much less
interested in the evidential questions and answers regarding
Jesus' celibacy, whether drawn from exegetical interpretations
(Bourgeault) or literal data-based descriptions (Brown), and
much more interested in why anyone imagines that it would
change the meaning of Jesus' life or overturn any essential
teachings of the apostolic tradition. Also, Bourgeault is NOT
presenting a false dichotomy between celibate and noncelibate
spirituality but is clearly speaking to elements in our
tradition that have perversely over-emphasized the former. As
I wrote on my own thread: In the rather narrow issue under
consideration (i.e. the gender and sex part of the Jesus Path
), our Christian faithful writ large have a pretty darned good
sense of how those realities should or should not be
8

9. approached when it comes to church disciplines, moral
doctrines and formative spiritualities. I find Bourgeault's
critique spot-on and her general sensibilities in that regard
positively refreshing! Again, whatever one may think of her
imaginal interpretations regarding Mary Magdalene and Jesus,
the far more important question is WHY does it rankle this
person or that? Some have better objections than others, to be
sure, but there is no kidding ourselves regarding the
dysfunction arising (and persisting) in manifold and multiform
ways regarding sex and gender in some elements of our
tradition?!!!
My main point is, I reckon, that the values woven into the
fabric of anyone's spiritual, religious, theological &
philosophical garments will not wholly unravel from a few
heterodox threads or pulls of propositional inconsistency;
even though human beings do not always properly don their
formal epistemic attire, this does not mean that they will
necessarily also be axiologically naked.
Bourgeault-related EXCERPTS from philothea.net thread:
For Bourgeault, both gnosis and sophia imply an integral,
participational knowledge carried in one's entire being toward
the end of transformation of one's entire being. She points
out that the Oneness that Jesus talks about is --- NOT that
oneness often implied in the Eastern sense regarding an
equivalency of being (a robust intra-objective identity) but,
rather --- that of mutual indwelling. Once more, the thrust is
epistemic and not ontological as she teases out the
distinctions between those aspects of our consciousness that
do or do not differentiate.
As long as one engages transformation (which I broadly
conceive in terms of theology, Christology, pneumatology and
human anthropology) integrally and holistically (along with
soteriology, ecclesiology & eschatology), as did Lonergan, for
example, that makes good sense to me. Discussions regarding
over- and under-emphases can also be useful. It even helps to
discuss matters of primacy but we must take care to point out
whether we mean it in an ordinal or cardinal sense, in other
words, does it indicate merely the first in a series or in
time or first in importance or in value?
There is likely a case that can always be made against this or
that approach to Christianity vis a vis matters of relative
emphasis. To the extent that sophiology, as inherently
integral and holistic, would include soteriology, it would
make little sense to me to ask which is more important. While
a case CAN be made against many who've overemphasized both the
soteriological and epistemically dualistic, Bourgeault's
question, Savior or Life-Giver? and juxtaposition, soteriology
or sophiology?, DO present false dichotomies, in my view.
Her explication of sophiology was helpful. To the extent that
foils can be useful, the proper foil for her, as I see it,
would have been this or that overemphasis on soteriology and
9

10. not, rather, soteriology per se. Also, in citing such an
overemphasis, it does seem that her indictment of the West was
much too broad. Within Western Christianity, there has existed
a constant tradition of sophiological teaching, in the early
fathers & mothers, in medieval doctors, mystics & mendicants,
in esoteric and minority reports, in our religious orders and
consecrated vocations, in our saints and unheralded lay
anawim, in our contemplative and apostolic, cenobitic,
monastic, eremitic and prophetic traditions. So, the core
teaching has always been there as have practical supports and
approaches to robustly transformative realizations. So, the
indictment doesn't stick in that regard. On the other hand, as
Merton observed and lamented, our churches have been much more
about the mere tasks of socialization (part of the journey to
authenticity, to be sure) and much less effective, it seems,
in fostering transformation (coming closer to completing the
journey vis a vis True Self realization and moving beyond the
moral, social and practical to the robustly relational &
intimate). In that regard, the indictment sticks fairly well?
Witness the political polarization of our Christian country as
so often grounded in shallow, fundamentalistic religious
apologetics.
There is a difference in suggesting that "from the start
Christianity has gotten the Jesus path slightly wrong" and in
believing that "the apostolic tradition that emerged was a
distortion of Jesus' teaching and the meaning of his life?"
that celibacy is an essential requirement of the ascetic path
but not the kenotic path? As far as Jesus' physical celibacy
is concerned, Bourgeault is correct, we just don't know.
And it helps to be clear when we say nondual whether we mean,
as you said, nondual mystical experience or nondual epistemic
approach. Keating says that, when Christians hear identity
they best translate that as intimacy, consistent with what
Bourgeault meant in her distinction between an equivalency of
being and an indwelling. Also, as Arraj pointed out, it is a
mistake to impose Western metaphysical concepts on Eastern
phenomenal experiences because the East isn't really doing
ontology; it's more vague than all that. A nondual mysticism
of the self gifts one with ascetical, practical & moral takeaways; it refers to neither metaphysical nor theological
realities, only to an impersonal, existential experience. In
other words, it's religious but not theological; it's
ascetical, practical and moral but not metaphysical or
creedal. The inter-subjective union of the Christian tradition
is actually prayer-related, as is mystical contemplation. Nondual mysticism belongs to an entirely different category and
would not in any way be properly considered in competition
with or as a substitute for anything taught by either the
historical Jesus or our Jesus of faith. So, while one can
certainly ask what place such a meditative discipline may or
may not have had in the Gospels, I personally don't see how
the answer would provide us any normative theological takeaways or even practical ascetical insights.
11 January 2012, 12:16 AM
10

11. johnboy.philothea
quote:
Originally posted by Phil:
"While he (Jesus) does indeed claim that 'the Father and I
are one' (John 10:30)--a statement so blasphemous to Jewish
ears that it nearly gets him stoned--he does not see this as
an exclusive privilege but something shared by all human
beings."
(In the same sense that Jesus and the Father are one in
Being? That's not been the Church's understanding. We are not
one with the Father in the same manner as Jesus was.)
"There is no separation between humans and God because of
this mutual interabiding which expresses the indivisible
reality of divine love."
(This sentence follows the above and is a good description
of a person living by the Spirit, as was Jesus, of course, but
it obfuscates the ontological meaning of Jesus's "the Father
and I are One.")
While most of the Church Fathers did interpret that verse in
an ontological sense, there are reasonable minority views that
received this verse moreso in terms of sharing a design or
plan . It is doubtful any Jews, including Jesus, were doing
metaphysics, in general, much less using a substance ontology
of being/essence, in particular. This is not to deny the
tradition's ontological affirmations, only to suggest that
they needn't rest solely on this verse. Furthermore, if one
changes one's root metaphor to process, then new
interpretations arise, even of the concept being. To wit,
check out Joe Bracken's Process Philosophy and Trinitarian
Theology.
quote:
The second theologian to be considered is Heribert Mühlen,
a Roman Catholic who has published two works on the Trinity in
recent years: Der heilige Geist als Person and Die
Veränderlichkeit Gottes als Horizont einer zukünftigen
Christologie. Only the second will be considered here. Taking
note of the altered world-consciousness of human beings in
this century, according to which Being is to be understood in
strictly interpersonal terms, Mühlen suggests, first of all,
that the classical expression homoousios, as applied to the
Son’s relationship to the Father, does not necessarily mean
that the Son is of the same substance as the Father but only
that he is of equal being (gleichseiendlich) with the Father
(VG 13). Accordingly, the way is now open to conceive the
being of both the Father and the Son as the being or reality
of a community. In fact, says Mühlen, Scripture itself implies
that the union between Father and Son is not really a physical
union within a single substance but rather a moral union
within a community (e.g., John 10:30: "The Father and I are
11

12. one"). Like Moltmann, Mühlen then presents the Spirit as the
personified bond of love between the Father and the Son, who
at the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross is breathed forth
upon the world to unite human beings with one another and with
the triune God (VG 23-24, 33-36).
11 January 2012, 01:20 AM
johnboy.philothea
quote:
Originally posted by Phil: Re. Jesus and introducing him
as a wisdom teacher and why this is important: " . . . because
most of us think we know something about this Jesus already.
We don't all agree on what we know, of course."
(We do know something about Jesus already, and I object to
this implication that there is somehow widespread disagreement
about him. The Christian churches agree on much more than they
disagree about. I object, too, to the subtle insinuation that
she will somehow, in her book, give us the real deal.)
Re. beliefs: "It's the primary way that we approach our
teacher, through what we believe about him."
(Belief is more a backdrop, for most, and the common
approach is through worship, prayer, and Scripture study.
Still, beliefs are important, and bad beliefs are especially
harmful to oneself and the world.)
Re. Jesus: ". . . I've been reaffirmed in my sense that
Jesus came first and foremost as a teacher of the path of
inner transformation."
(That's not really why Christianity arose as a world
religion. Jesus' wisdom teaching seemed to be less important
after the resurrection than Jesus himself as the way, truth
and life. During his life, he was also much sought after as a
healer, too, and seemed to spend as much time healing as
teaching. Indeed, it seems that Jesus saw himself as the good
shepherd, who came to seek and save those who were lost. They
are found through his acceptance and loving embrace.)
These are some good points. I will add another excerpt of mine
from our philothea.net thread:
quote:
I resonate most with Luke Timothy Johnson and N.T. Wright
but would not so narrowly categorize them as Jesus the Savior
theorists. I think they both very well articulate a much more
robustly integral Christology, as I tried to articulate,
myself, in my opening post, where I offered a Fivefold
Christology/Pneumatology : If we look through a Lukan prism,
we might see a fivefold Christology, which recognizes that
Christ came to orient, sanctify, empower, heal and save us. As
Luke’s narrative continues in Acts, we see the Spirit
continuing this divine work.
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13. Considering Bourgeault's work as a whole, including her
priesthood, I'm certain she'd not object to your abovecontextualization of belief.
Your observation that bad beliefs are especially harmful to
oneself and the world is certainly true but those bad beliefs
do differ in nature and of course present in degrees of harm.
To your point, for example, Stanley Jaki made a compelling
case that science was stillborn in certain cultures! On the
other hand, some disagreements regarding ascetical disciplines
and meditative practices and their practical implications
remain unresolved and good peer reviewed research is needed.
Since Centering Prayer keeps getting a mention, folks may want
to dig deeper. For example, Google the syntax: +"centering
prayer" +complementary and alternative medicine and see
Pastoral Psychology Volume 59, Number 3, 305-329, DOI:
10.1007/s11089-009-0225-7. Other research is being done at the
California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, as well
as in chemotherapy settings, for depression relapse
prevention, in post traumatic stress disorder and even using
brain tomography. And Jim Arraj left us this gift.
11 January 2012, 01:49 AM
johnboy.philothea
quote:
Originally posted by PhilFrownerRe. Jesus' teachings not
being prophetic.) "His message was not one of repentance and
return to the covenant. Rather, he stayed close to the
perennial ground of wisdom: the transformation of human
consciousness."
(Jesus certainly did preach repentance, metanoia.
Repentance and transformation go hand-in-hand. For Jesus,
metanoia had a moral dimension as well -- a turning away from
a life of sin.)
But morality is not what differentiates the Christian brand in
the marketplace. It is not the value-added take-away above and
beyond the (old) covenant. The New Covenant is suitable to
moral ends, of course, but its concerns go beyond same. Jesus'
essentially value-added teachings weren't moral, although He
did not do away with the Old Covenant. But prophetic teaching
is more broadly conceived to include testimony to the
testament , new or old, hence included the Good News regarding
an even higher law, love. So, clearly, Jesus had a prophetic
role and we are baptized priests, prophets and kings after our
High Priest, King of Kings and Jesus Ο προφητης!
11 January 2012, 01:57 AM
johnboy.philothea
quote:
Originally posted by Phil: (Re. her section on the Ego as
dualistic operating system. One gets the impression that she
considers this some huge mistake -- an evolutionary error,
13

14. perhaps, but definitely an infliction.)
"There is no small self, no egoic being, no thing that's
separated from everything else that has insides and outsides,
that has experiences. All these impressions are simply a
function of an operating system that has to divide the world
up into bits and pieces in order to perceive it."
(So why, then, would God and nature inflict such an
illusory mechanism on the human race? Of course, she is
correct in that the Ego is not an absolute center of reality,
and is embedded in the Self and intended to function as the
agent of Self-actualization. It's perceptions of separate
things are not illusory except insofar as it fails to
conceptually or attentionally understand them as parts of an
interdependent whole, and this is indeed a problem. But the
problem is not the perception of duality so much as the
failure to perceive the broader web of existence. It is our
false self conditioning that prevents us from doing so, and
the consequent interior shame, fear and resentment that locks
us in on ourselves. )
Talk about a great place to introduce our distinctions? God,
self, ego, other, false self, inter-subjective intimacy,
intra-objective identity and so on. At the same time, we don't
really want to turn this into a theodicy question? Why indeed,
necessarily finite in principle, did we have to be so dang
radically finite in so many ways?
11 January 2012, 02:24 AM
johnboy.philothea
quote:
Originally posted by Phil: Re. the Eastern Christians
emphasizing sophiology more than soteriology: "The Christians
of the East saw things radically differently. Theirs was not a
soteriology, but a sophiology."
(Actually they do have a very strong soteriology,
believing in the fall, Original Sin, salvation through the
cross, etc.)
Even within the West, soteriology is variously conceived such
as by minority reports in our tradition which did not see the
Incarnation as being occasioned in response to some human
felix culpa but, instead, built into the ontological cards
from the cosmic get-go. Not all would view Original Sin in
terms of some literal Fall or ontological rupture between us
and God located in the past but as each person's experience of
the consequences of their own personal sin plus the sins of
others plus our radical finitude, which is caught up in a
teleological striving oriented toward the future. Natural evil
is experienced as part of the cosmic groaning in the great act
of giving birth rather than as some punishment visited on us
due to our ancestors' failings. The theodicy question, which
results from too much onto-theology and trying to prove too
much about God's indeterminate nature and analogical
14

15. attributes , gets transformed for us Scotists into What are we
going to do about it? How are we going to respond? What return
shall we make? from the age-old preoccupation with Why so much
suffering if God is all powerful and all good and all knowing?
It is that last poorly-conceived question that gave rise to
all the metaphysical speculation and theological machination
and substitutionary atonement models. This view of soteriology
is, in fact, one major locus for the difference between East &
West.
quote:
Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism have a
substantively different soteriology; this is sometimes cited
as the core difference between Eastern and Western
Christianity. Salvation is not seen as legal release, but
transformation of the human nature itself in the Son taking on
human nature. In contrast to other forms of Christianity, the
Orthodox tend to use the word "expiation" with regard to what
is accomplished in the sacrificial act. In Orthodox theology,
expiation is an act of offering that seeks to change the one
making the offering. The Greek word that is translated both
into propitiation and expiation is "hilasmos" which means "to
make acceptable and enable one to draw close to God". Thus the
Orthodox emphasis would be that Christ died, not to appease an
angry and vindictive Father, or to avert the wrath of God, but
to change people so that they may become more like God (see
Theosis ). [33]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...Eastern_Christianity
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