Could this be the true prosperity gospel? - Reimagining Christianity

 Today, I felt a stirring within me, a kind of quiet revelation that unfolded like a whisper from the depths of consciousness itself. It began in an unexpected place—my reflections on the prosperity gospel and the Word of Faith movement. I’ve long watched how they take passages like Haggai 2:6-10, where God declares, “I will shake the heavens and the earth… the silver is mine, the gold is mine,” and use them as a catalyst for a theology of manifested wealth. They claim that being right with God and exercising faith will draw material prosperity into one’s life.

But as I meditated on that familiar text, a question rose in me with surprising clarity: If consciousness is fundamental, if consciousness itself is the Creator and the ground of all being, then what does it mean to be right with consciousness?

It’s not the same as being “right” with an externalized deity—some faraway God demanding a particular ritual or obedience. No, consciousness is not outside us; it is the essence of who we are. It is the unshakable presence, the divine Logos within, the awareness behind all appearances. To be “right” with consciousness must mean something different entirely.

I shared this question with my wife Sonya, and she answered with a simplicity that cut through all abstraction. She said, “It would be to surrender to the flow, like a drop in the river. A drop in the river is the river, and all it can really do is go with the flow.”

Her words resonated deeply because I have come to see that the truest spiritual wisdom is often the simplest. A drop cannot resist the river and still be a drop. In its surrender, it discovers it was never separate at all. It is the river. And in that instant, I realized that being right with consciousness is not about striving or demanding or forcing alignment—it is about letting go. It is surrendering the illusion of separateness and flowing as the river flows.

Then, my mind returned to the shaking described in Haggai. God says there will be a shaking of heaven and earth, and this same passage is quoted in Hebrews to speak of the removal of what is temporary, leaving only the unshakable kingdom. And suddenly, it clicked. This “shaking” is not punishment or wrath—it is the alchemical process of purification. It is the removal of illusions, false identities, egoic striving, and all the “lead” of the human condition. What remains after the shaking is the pure gold, the unshakable essence of being.

In this way, the shaking is not something to fear but to embrace. It is the very process by which the false gives way to the true. And here’s the paradox: the Word of Faith movement looks at this shaking as a means to gain prosperity, but in truth, prosperity in its highest sense comes only when you no longer cling to it. When you have surrendered the illusion of control and become one with the river, the river naturally carries you where abundance flows.

I began to see the whole passage in an entirely new light. When Haggai says “The silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord,” it is not the voice of a possessive deity; it is consciousness itself reminding us that all substance, all wealth, all manifestation is already held within the field of being. Nothing truly belongs to the ego-self, because the ego-self is an illusion. But when you awaken to the deeper truth—that you are a drop of the river, inseparable from its source—you realize that all wealth belongs to you because you belong to it.

This is the secret that both alchemy and the law of attraction hint at but often fail to fully reveal. True spiritual alchemy is not about transmuting physical lead into gold; it is about transmuting the heavy, dense lead of our unconscious mind into the radiant gold of awakened consciousness. The law of attraction works only partially when driven by egoic wanting. But when you stand in the pure awareness of the river, when you no longer grasp but simply allow, manifestation becomes effortless.

This, I believe, is why so many who chase prosperity in the name of faith end up disappointed. They are still grasping, still acting as if they are separate from the river, trying to manipulate its flow rather than become it. They have yet to experience the shaking that removes the false. But when the shaking comes—and it will—everything impermanent will fall away, and only the unshakable kingdom will remain.

That kingdom is not a place. It is a state of consciousness. It is the awareness that knows, without doubt, that it is one with the Source of all things. In that state, you don’t have to strive for wealth, health, or manifestation. These things arise naturally, like flowers along the riverbank.

This realization reframes the entire conversation about prosperity. It is not about “getting” something you don’t have. It is about realizing that you already are the Source expressing itself. You are the consciousness in which all abundance appears. When you stop clinging, stop resisting, stop identifying as a separate self, you become the channel for infinite creativity and wealth.

I think of the ancient Hermetic axiom, “As above, so below; as within, so without.” The shaking of the heavens and the earth in Haggai is mirrored within the human soul. As the false is shaken away within, the outer world also reorders itself. When you are aligned inwardly with the unshakable, the outer becomes a reflection of that harmony. This is why Jesus could say, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” The “kingdom” he spoke of is the same unshakable consciousness Haggai foresaw, the same river Sonya described.

And what of the law of attraction? It, too, fits into this vision—but not in the superficial way it is often taught. It’s not about forcing the universe to give you what your ego wants. It’s about aligning with the flow so completely that what you desire is no longer separate from what the universe desires to express through you. In that moment, manifestation is no longer a personal achievement but a natural unfolding.

So yes, I believe the prosperity hinted at in Haggai is linked to alchemy, the law of attraction, and the mysteries of manifestation. But it is a deeper, truer prosperity than the one often preached. It is the prosperity of becoming whole, of becoming the river, of knowing yourself as the consciousness that cannot be shaken. When that happens, even material abundance flows—not because you sought it, but because you no longer resist the fullness of life itself.

Today’s revelation leaves me with a quiet peace. I don’t need to chase after the things I once thought I lacked. I don’t need to fight the river. I only need to remember that I am not separate from it. I am a drop that is the river, and the river is infinite.

 

Jesus: Reimagining Christianity

If someone were to ask me, “What’s your relationship with Jesus?” I’d probably laugh and say, “It’s complicated.” And honestly, I suspect I’m not the only one. For many of us who have wandered beyond the fences of evangelical orthodoxy, the figure of Jesus is not so easily defined, not so easily claimed. But still, he lingers. There’s something about him—some persistent gravity—that keeps drawing us back. And maybe that’s the mystery.

Do I believe Jesus existed? Yes, I do. I believe there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth—a mystic, a teacher, an itinerant preacher who walked the hills of what was then called Palestine. But I don’t think he fit cleanly into the categories the Church later imposed on him. He wasn’t born into a system that had the conceptual framework for what he carried. His teachings, his presence, his vision—they all seem radically ahead of their time, even transcendent of time altogether. He spoke in metaphors, in paradoxes, in symbols. Not because he was trying to confuse people, but because the truths he embodied couldn’t be captured by literalism or dogma.

Sometimes I imagine him journeying eastward in his so-called "silent years," perhaps traveling with traders or spiritual seekers. I find it entirely plausible that he encountered Eastern mystics, sages who were exploring the same eternal questions from different cultural angles. Perhaps it was there that he deepened his awareness of union with the divine, of the illusory self, of the inner light. Whether or not history will ever confirm it, the idea resonates with something deep inside me. It gives me a Jesus who wasn’t a closed theological system but an awakened soul, a man who remembered who he really was—and by extension, who we really are.

And that, to me, is the crux. Jesus didn’t come to make us grovel or fear the fires of divine punishment. He came, I believe, to wake us up from our forgetfulness. The forgetfulness of our divine origin, our shared spark of the cosmic Parent. He came to pull back the veil, not impose a new one. His words were never about exclusion, but expansion—about going beyond tribe, temple, or tradition and realizing that the kingdom of God was within us all.

So what do I make of the cross? Of the resurrection? I don’t need Jesus to be a substitutionary sacrifice for my sins to believe that his life and death had power. The idea that he died to satisfy God’s wrath always struck me as the theological version of cosmic child abuse—untenable, unjust, and deeply misaligned with the Jesus I sense behind the veil of dogma. What if, instead, the crucifixion reveals something about us—our fear of change, our violent reaction to divine truth—rather than about God’s character? What if the resurrection isn’t about biology, but metaphysics—a symbol of transformation, transcendence, and the soul’s ability to rise beyond even death?

In this sense, I find it meaningful to believe that Jesus did ascend—not in some literal way into the sky, but into a higher vibrational reality. That he exists now in a more ethereal dimension, as a spiritual helper to those attuned to him. Like other enlightened beings in various traditions—Buddha, Krishna, or even the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism—Jesus might be present to guide, inspire, and awaken. You don’t have to call him “Savior” in the penal substitutionary sense to be blessed by his presence. You just have to be open.

But here’s where things get messy. Has evangelicalism ruined Jesus for people like me? Has orthodoxy hijacked the man and the myth so thoroughly that what remains is a hollow caricature of control, fear, and exclusion? I think for many, the answer is yes. The Jesus they’ve heard about in church is too small, too angry, too tribal. And too many of us were told that unless we subscribed to this narrow vision—complete with hellfire and legalistic hoops—we were damned.

So the question becomes: Can we take him back?

Can we reclaim the mystic Jesus, the cosmic Christ, the wisdom teacher who pointed not to himself as the object of worship but to the divine within us all? Can we disentangle the man from the myth—not to destroy the myth, but to redeem it, to let it breathe again? I believe we can. I believe we must. Because buried beneath centuries of theological scaffolding is a spiritual revolutionary who whispered truths that the institutions couldn’t contain. He told us we were light. He told us we were gods. He told us the kingdom wasn’t somewhere else, someday, but here and now.

So yes, my relationship with Jesus is complicated. It’s layered, nonlinear, full of both reverence and rebellion. But I still walk with him—not behind him as a sheep, but beside him as a fellow soul trying to remember. Trying to wake up. And if that makes me a heretic in some eyes, so be it. I’d rather be called a heretic with a living connection than a saint with a dead creed.

In the end, I believe Jesus still matters—not because he fits into any box, but because he breaks them. And maybe that’s the best kind of relationship: not tidy, not tamed, but transformative.

 

Big Tent Christianity: Returning to the Spirit-Born Roots of the Faith

Long before Christianity became a fixed institution, it was a movement of seekers, mystics, rebels, and visionaries—people drawn not to creeds but to a Person, to a transformative encounter with divine love in the figure of Jesus. The early Jesus movement was diverse, messy, and radically inclusive. It was, in the truest sense, a big tent. As we stand today in an age of deconstruction, spiritual exploration, and post-institutional yearning, perhaps it's time to return to those roots—not by retracing steps into the past, but by reimagining the future of faith in the same Spirit that birthed it.

In the first century, the line between Jew and Christian was not as sharply drawn as later history suggests. Jewish followers of Jesus gathered in synagogues, worshiped on the Sabbath, and honored the Torah. Gentiles were invited into the covenant not through exclusion or supersession but through grafting in, as Paul described in Romans 11. The table was being widened, not dismantled. The temple had been replaced—not by a new set of laws, but by the indwelling Spirit that transcended every religious border.

Jesus himself modeled this radical inclusion. In John 4, he spoke to a Samaritan woman at a well—a moment considered scandalous not only for its gender dynamics but for crossing entrenched ethnic and religious divides. Samaritans and Jews had long-standing theological differences and mutual disdain, yet Jesus saw no barrier. He offered her living water, not after conversion, but as an act of divine invitation. In doing so, he signaled that the geography of worship—this mountain or that temple—was now obsolete. Worship in Spirit and truth was the new paradigm.

This ethos of expansive belonging carried into the second century. Contrary to later portrayals of rigid orthodoxy, the early church was a mosaic of spiritualities. Gnostics, proto-orthodox believers, Jewish-Christians, and others worshiped together, shared sacred texts, and debated passionately. Figures like Valentinus, Basilides, and Marcion represented streams of thought that were exploratory, mystical, and philosophical. Even the Apostle Paul, often co-opted by dogma, was a radical thinker who preached a gospel that shattered social and religious boundaries. His words in Galatians—“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female”—echo the big tent vision that lies at the heart of the gospel.

It was only when Christianity sought alignment with imperial power that this spaciousness began to collapse. With Constantine came canon, creed, and coercion. The tent was folded up and replaced with walls and pulpits. Heresy became a weaponized label, and the once-vibrant field of diverse Christian thought was narrowed into dogmatic corridors. Yet the Spirit, as Jesus said, “blows where it wills.” It never stopped whispering to mystics, heretics, and outliers. The big tent never really disappeared—it simply became harder to find.

Today, as many question traditional religious forms, there is a fresh hunger for this early openness—for a Christianity that transcends theological tribalism and welcomes the deep, healing mystery of Christ in all its expressions. This is where Big Tent Christianity is not a novelty or compromise, but a retrieval. It’s not watering down truth; it’s drawing from a deeper well.

In this tent, there is room for the esoteric Christian who sees Jesus not just as savior but as awakener—one who reminds us of the divine image we carry and calls us to remember what we’ve forgotten. There is space for the gnostic Christian, who reads the Gospel of Thomas alongside John and Paul, not as contradiction but as complement—a different lens on the same radiant mystery. These voices were present at the beginning, silenced by institutional fear, but now returning with prophetic insight for a disenchanted age.

There is also room in the tent for a variety of views on atonement, which has too long been narrowly defined by penal substitution—the idea that Jesus was punished by God in our place. While that model may comfort some, it has wounded many more. Big Tent Christianity honors other interpretations that are equally, if not more, faithful to the character of Christ and the message of the gospel.

The Christus Victor model sees Jesus as the liberator who broke the powers of sin, death, and fear—not by absorbing wrath, but by triumphing over darkness through love. The moral influence theory sees in the cross the ultimate revelation of divine compassion, awakening in us the same love. The therapeutic model, rooted in early patristic thought, understands salvation as healing—the transformation of the human condition through divine grace. And the universal reconciliation view, which echoes the mystics and the early church fathers like Gregory of Nyssa, proclaims that God’s love is ultimately irresistible, that every knee will bow not through force but through the magnetism of divine goodness.

These perspectives are not enemies of the faith. They are part of the tent, offering language for those who find the old scaffolding insufficient for the spiritual architecture of today’s soul.

Big Tent Christianity also dares to affirm that the Spirit speaks in tongues we’ve yet to learn. It listens to the contemplatives, the Pentecostals, the progressive pastors, and the deconstructing doubters. It welcomes queer Christians who find in Jesus their deepest home, and interfaith seekers who are drawn to the Christ but not the creeds. It is not relativism; it is reverence. It is not anti-doctrine; it is anti-domination.

The common thread in this wide canvas is not doctrinal agreement, but relational fidelity—to Christ, to one another, and to the Spirit who continues to call us beyond certainty into communion.

In this reimagined ecclesia, the table replaces the pulpit. Conversation replaces condemnation. Experience is valued alongside exegesis. Mystery is not the enemy of faith but its womb.

Big Tent Christianity is not for the faint of heart. It requires courage to let go of inherited boundaries. It invites discomfort as sacred growth. But it offers something profoundly needed: a spiritual home for the disillusioned, the exiled, the mystical, and the still-seeking.

It is time to enlarge the place of our tent, as Isaiah urged. To stretch the curtains wide, to not hold back, to drive the stakes deep—not to enforce, but to anchor this new, ancient way of being Church.

What lies ahead is not a return to early church romanticism, nor a utopia of perfect harmony. There will be tension. But tension is a sign of life. And love, as Jesus showed, is the tension worth embracing—a love that crosses every line, opens every door, and calls all prodigals home.

This is the tent Jesus pitched. And it is large enough for us all.

 

Reimagining the Word: A Journey Through the History of Bible Translation

Over the years, I’ve spent countless hours poring over texts, examining manuscript variants, studying the movement of language through time and geography, and reflecting on how what we now call “The Bible” came to be in the form we hold today. As someone who has walked a winding theological path—one that bridges evangelical reverence, scholarly critique, and mystical curiosity—I’ve found that understanding the history of Bible translation is not merely academic. It’s spiritual. It’s revelatory. It’s a lens through which we can discern not just what was written, but how those words were preserved, shaped, and at times even distorted, across the centuries.

Let’s begin at a place of awe and mystery: the Codex Sinaiticus. Dated to approximately AD 330–360, this Greek manuscript stands as the oldest nearly complete copy of both the Old and New Testaments. Discovered in the 19th century at Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, the Codex Sinaiticus includes not only the full New Testament and large portions of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures), but also early Christian writings like the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas. Today, this codex is split between the British Library in London, Leipzig University, the National Library of Russia, and its original monastery.

What’s striking is how little the 17th-century King James translators knew of this treasure. When the King James Version (KJV) was translated between 1604 and 1611, scholars had no access to Sinaiticus, nor to Codex Vaticanus—another early 4th-century Greek manuscript sitting largely unnoticed in the Vatican Library. The translators of the KJV had to work with far later Greek manuscripts—what we now refer to collectively as the Textus Receptus, compiled from 12th to 15th-century Byzantine texts. This means that, despite the KJV's literary majesty, its textual base was already more than a millennium removed from the earliest witnesses to the New Testament.

Even Codex Alexandrinus, a 5th-century Greek manuscript, didn’t make it to England until 1627—well after the KJV had been published. In contrast, the Textus Receptus, which formed the Greek backbone of the KJV New Testament, was first published by Erasmus in 1516, based on a small number of later manuscripts. He famously had access to only one manuscript for Revelation—and it was incomplete. Erasmus ended up back-translating missing sections from the Latin Vulgate into Greek. So, ironically, the Greek New Testament that became the basis for English Protestantism included reconstructed passages not originally found in Greek at all.

The Latin Vulgate, of course, loomed large in the background. Translated by Jerome between AD 382 and 405, this version of the Bible dominated Western Christianity for over a millennium. Jerome’s translation was groundbreaking: he turned not to the Septuagint (as many earlier Latin translations had) but to the Hebrew texts for much of the Old Testament. Yet he retained some Old Latin traditions and appended books not found in the Hebrew canon—what Protestants later labeled the Apocrypha. By the time of the Reformation, the Vulgate was declared the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1546.

The KJV translators consulted the Vulgate but did not rely on it. Their stated aim was to return to the “original tongues”—Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New—though ironically, their Greek texts were centuries removed from the originals. Nevertheless, the Vulgate was invaluable for comparison, especially when the Greek or Hebrew texts were ambiguous. But Protestant theology demanded a certain distance from Rome, and so the Vulgate’s influence, though real, was ultimately limited.

The KJV project was itself a marvel of scholarly collaboration. Fifty-four translators were appointed, though only forty-seven completed the work. These scholars were divided into six companies across Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster, with each team assigned a specific portion of scripture. Their method was rigorous: individual translations, followed by group discussions, revisions, and a final committee review to ensure consistency and beauty. The result was a literary triumph—but also a translation deeply shaped by the limitations of its day.

So what were those limitations? Most crucially, the Textus Receptus was laden with later additions and theological expansions. Consider Mark 16:9–20, the so-called "longer ending of Mark," which includes the signs that will follow believers—handling snakes, drinking poison, etc. These verses are absent from the earliest manuscripts but included in the TR and therefore in the KJV. The story of the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53–8:11? Again, absent in earlier manuscripts, but present in later Byzantine copies. Or take the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7–8—"the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one"—a Trinitarian flourish found only in very late Latin manuscripts, and yet embedded in the KJV.

In contrast, modern translations rely on critical texts like the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (currently NA28) and the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (UBS5). These texts are based on thousands of manuscripts, including 2nd–3rd century papyri and early codices like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. They often prefer shorter, more difficult readings—on the principle that scribes tend to expand, not abbreviate, and that theological harmonization usually came later.

Then there’s the Majority Text, a 20th-century attempt to reconstruct the New Testament by following the readings found in the majority of surviving manuscripts—most of which are Byzantine. While similar in many respects to the TR, it doesn't carry the same theological glosses. The SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT), edited by Michael Holmes, offers another approach: a textual collation not based on manuscripts directly, but on scholarly editions like Westcott and Hort, Tregelles, and the Majority Text, with an eye toward openness and clarity.

All these efforts—Nestle-Aland, UBS, Majority Text, SBLGNT—represent the flowering of modern textual criticism, a discipline that didn’t exist in the time of the KJV. Back then, scholars didn’t have access to the thousands of manuscript witnesses we have today, nor the discipline of comparing them methodically using internal and external criteria. Today’s scholars consider things like geographic distribution, date, scribal habits, and even linguistic flow to determine what is likely original.

Some may ask: does all this matter? Isn’t the Word of God still the Word of God, regardless of textual variation?

Yes—and no.

The divine spark, the inspiration behind scripture, is not bound by human hands. But the vehicle of that inspiration—the text itself—was entrusted to fallible stewards. And if we are serious about truth, then understanding how that text has changed, expanded, and sometimes even been manipulated over the centuries becomes a sacred responsibility.

This is not about undermining faith. It’s about deepening it. When I look at the history of Bible translation, I don’t see a reason to abandon the sacred. I see a reason to approach it with humility. To study. To compare. To listen to the voices of the past—both those preserved and those nearly silenced. And to let the Spirit speak freshly in each generation.

The Word is alive, yes. But it has also been edited. To ignore that is to risk mistaking the wrappings for the gift. To recognize it is to more clearly behold the light shining through all the layers of history, culture, doctrine, and translation.

So for those of us who walk the line between tradition and critique, between reverence and reform, this work matters. The Bible we hold is not static. It is, in a very real sense, a living document, shaped by scribes, monks, reformers, skeptics, scholars—and yes, by the Spirit of God moving in the hearts of those willing to ask, seek, and knock.

And that, to me, is where faith and scholarship meet.

 

Let the Text Speak: Why the NRSVue Respects Paul More Than Your Favorite Translation

The New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition (NRSVue) is perhaps the most significant revision of a widely accepted biblical translation in our generation. What makes it so compelling, for someone like me who treasures both critical scholarship and Spirit-breathed insight, is that it strikes a balance between the intellectual honesty of textual criticism and the reverent mystery of the Word as revelation. In an age where too many translations have bowed to denominational bias or theological control, the NRSVue dares to respect the sacred ambiguity of scripture—particularly in the genitive constructions that have been watered down by dogmatic agendas.

Let’s start with the foundation: the textual basis. The NRSVue, published in 2021–2022, draws on the most authoritative critical editions of biblical texts available to modern scholars. For the Old Testament, the translators used the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, alongside variant traditions like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and even early Targumic and Vulgate renderings. The New Testament relied on the Nestle-Aland 28th edition and the United Bible Societies 5th edition—texts grounded in over a century of textual scholarship and a critical apparatus that reveals the layers of scribal evolution. And for the Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal books, the NRSVue reached into multiple manuscript traditions, not privileging a single voice but honoring the multiplicity of early witnesses to the sacred.

It’s worth noting that these texts—the manuscripts themselves—are not settled artifacts. They are living witnesses, shaped by communities wrestling with God, mystery, oppression, liberation, and, yes, forgetfulness of their divine origin. A translation, then, is never a static product; it’s an interpretive act. And that’s where the NRSVue excels. It acknowledges the complex matrix from which the Bible emerged while refusing to reduce that matrix to a single narrative dictated by later ecclesiastical orthodoxy.

The translation effort was no small project. It was undertaken by Friendship Press and the National Council of Churches in partnership with the Society of Biblical Literature. The chief editor and coordinator was Dr. Michael W. Holmes, an esteemed New Testament scholar whose work on the SBL Greek New Testament has been instrumental in opening up scriptural accessibility for both scholars and seekers. Over 60 scholars—representing a rich spectrum of denominational, ethnic, and gender perspectives—were chosen not for theological conformity but for academic excellence and linguistic precision. These were people who knew Greek and Hebrew from the inside out, not merely as academic exercises but as living languages of revelation.

Their methodology was grounded in formal equivalence—that is, translating the text as literally as possible while still making it readable in modern English. This is especially important for someone like me who believes that much of the Church’s misdirection stems from paraphrase-heavy, interpretive translations that tell the reader what to believe, rather than letting the Spirit do the guiding. The NRSVue retains the original sentence structures, the poetic cadences, and—most significantly—the grammatical tensions that so often carry the real theological weight.

Nowhere is this more evident than in its handling of Greek genitives—those pesky but powerful constructions that have divided scholars and theologians for generations. Take, for instance, the phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ (pistis Christou). For centuries, most English Bibles have rendered this as “faith in Christ,” as if the whole point of Paul’s gospel hinges on our act of believing. But in Greek, this is a genitive construction, and genitives are notoriously flexible. They can be objective (faith in Christ) or subjective (Christ’s own faith or faithfulness).

And here’s where theology becomes ideology. Traditional Protestant translations, shaped by the Reformation’s emphasis on sola fide, have opted for the objective genitive—"faith in Christ"—because it reinforces the idea that salvation is triggered by our belief. But I believe this framing misrepresents Paul. It shifts the focus away from the divine initiative and the faithfulness of Christ, reducing salvation to a transaction of belief. In contrast, the subjective genitive—“the faith of Christ” or “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”—points to the redemptive act of Christ himself, his unwavering trust in the Father, his surrender even unto death. It aligns with a Christus Victor atonement framework, in which Christ overcomes not legal guilt but the existential grip of fear, death, and alienation.

The NRSVue does not impose one reading over another. It retains the traditional rendering—“faith in Jesus Christ”—but importantly adds footnotes and alternate readings that acknowledge the genitive could also be rendered “faith of Jesus Christ.” This is an act of humility and a nod to modern scholarship—especially the work of Richard Hays, Michael Gorman, and others who have shown how central Christ’s own faithfulness is to Paul’s gospel. The translators respected the text enough not to collapse its meaning into theological convenience. That’s something I deeply appreciate.

The same reverence appears in how the NRSVue handles Romans 1:5 and 16:26, where Paul speaks of the “obedience of faith.” Again, the Greek ὑπακοὴ πίστεως (hypakoē pisteōs) is genitive, and again, translators must decide: Is this obedience that results from faith? Obedience that consists in faith? Or perhaps obedience that is the expression of true, trusting allegiance?

The NRSVue keeps the phrase “obedience of faith” intact—a wise move. Rather than over-explain Paul’s meaning, it preserves the multilayered significance of the phrase. In my understanding, this phrase refers not to a legalistic obedience that earns merit, but to the kind of heart-level transformation that comes from resting in the faithfulness of God. When we awaken to God’s love—as expressed in the faithful, obedient Son—we naturally begin to live in accordance with that love. That is the true obedience: not moralistic striving, but love responding to love.

And this is where the NRSVue resonates most with my theological outlook. It preserves the possibility of divine mystery. It doesn’t flatten Paul into a Reformer’s slogan or a systematic theologian’s logic tree. It leaves room for readers to wrestle with the text, to ask: Whose faith is this? Whose obedience? And what does it mean to be transformed by the faith of another?

In a very real sense, the genitive constructions in Paul’s writings are not just grammatical choices—they are windows into a deeper reality. If Christ is the faithful One, then our salvation begins not with our belief, but with his knowing, his obedience, his love. We are drawn into that reality, awakened from our forgetfulness, and transformed not by obligation, but by grace remembered. This is the heart of the gospel, and the NRSVue has honored it by refusing to over-determine the text.

In an age when control and conformity often masquerade as faithfulness, the NRSVue offers something much more precious: faithfulness to the text itself, to the grammar of grace, and to the Spirit who still speaks through words that remain alive. For those of us who believe that salvation is a process of remembering who we are in the Divine, and who recognize the Logos as the awakening Word rather than a static rulebook, the NRSVue offers a trustworthy companion on the path.

This is not merely a translation. It is a mirror held up to the mystery, inviting us to see with new eyes and to hear once again the voice that says, “You are mine.”

The Kybalion and the “All” as the Father - A Reimagining Christianity Narrative

The anonymous authors of The Kybalion—those early-twentieth-century “Three Initiates”—were neither churchmen nor biblical exegetes, yet their slim volume has proved to be one of the most compelling modern articulations of classical Hermetic wisdom. At its heart lies an audacious assertion: “THE ALL is MIND; the Universe is Mental.” In other words, beneath the surfaces of matter and motion there abides a boundless, intelligent Consciousness in which everything “lives, moves, and has its being.” For readers steeped in traditional Christian language, this “All” can sound impersonal, even abstract. But if we listen closely we discover striking resonance with Jesus’ own name for God—Abba, Father—and with the Johannine vision of the Logos that was “with God and was God” before anything else existed. The “All” of Hermetic lore and the Father of mystical Christianity need not stand opposed; together they unveil a breathtaking portrait of a universe that is simultaneously intimate and infinite, mental and maternal, transcendent and tender.

In classical Christianity, the Father is frequently imagined as a transcendent Creator enthroned beyond the cosmos, commanding angels and decreeing destinies. By contrast, The Kybalion paints the All as the very substrate of existence itself: an omnipresent Mind whose thoughts crystallize into galaxies, atoms, and souls. At first glance these two portraits seem irreconcilable, yet both traditions insist on one crucial insight: nothing is truly separate from its Source. When Jesus tells his disciples that “the Father and I are one,” he is not constructing a doctrinal puzzle; he is giving voice to an experiential reality. Likewise, when the Hermetic sage declares that “the All must be in all, and all in the All,” he emphasizes an ontological union that precedes every creed. Separation, then, is a powerful illusion born of limited perception—a veil that invites our awakening rather than our condemnation.

The Kybalion is organized around seven Hermetic Principles, and none is more relevant to this union than the Principle of Correspondence: “As above, so below; as below, so above.” The Gospels echo this wisdom when Jesus teaches his followers to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If heaven is the invisible dimension of the All, and earth its visible expression, then every act of compassionate creativity—feeding the hungry, forgiving a grievance, sowing beauty—becomes a local enactment of a cosmic pattern. We do not imitate a distant deity; we participate in the very mind of God. The Father is not an external judge dispensing favors from on high, but the living intelligence that pulses through synapses, seashells, and starlight. In such a universe, prayer shifts from pleading to alignment, from coaxing a reluctant power to consenting to the current of grace that already courses within.

The Principle of Vibration—“Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates”—offers further insight into the biblical proclamation that “the Spirit blows where it wills.” The All never stagnates; it is ceaseless creativity. When Genesis depicts God speaking worlds into being, it describes sound-waves of divine speech rippling through primordial chaos, coalescing into form—an image that resonates perfectly with Hermetic vibration. The Father’s word, the Logos, is an ever-oscillating frequency of love, calling chaos into cosmos over and over again. To live in conscious harmony with that frequency is to participate in ongoing creation, to become co-creators rather than passive subjects awaiting an external rescue.

Yet The Kybalion also warns of a subtle danger: to mistake the manifested universe for the All itself. Matter is genuinely real, but provisionally so; it is a thought within the Divine Mind, not a rival to it. Christian mystics voiced a similar caution. Meister Eckhart spoke of the Godhead beyond God, an abyss of pure potential out of which the Father continually begets the Son and breathes the Spirit. Gregory of Nyssa described creation as God’s “shadow,” a necessary but partial self-revelation. Both traditions invite contemplative humility: the All/Father is always more than any concept, creed, or cosmic panorama. Our words tremble on the threshold of mystery.

Recognizing the All as the Father also reframes the problem of evil. In punitive theologies, suffering often appears as divine retribution or inscrutable testing. But if every being is a differentiated expression of the Divine Mind, then even our pain signals some distortion in the field of consciousness—a frequency out of tune with love’s harmony. Redemption, therefore, is less about satisfying wrath than about remembering resonance. This is precisely how The Kybalion treats transmutation: lower vibrations are not annihilated but raised, refined, attuned. Likewise, Jesus heals not by condemning darkness but by flooding it with light, touching lepers, restoring dignity to the shamed, and whispering “fear not” into frightened hearts. The Father/All does not punish for the sake of punishment; the Father transmutes for the sake of wholeness.

Moreover, The Kybalion compels us to revisit hierarchy. If the All truly pervades all, then no person, species, or star can claim monopoly. Institutional Christianity has often vested spiritual authority in ordained clergy, apostolic succession, or magisterial decrees. Hermetic wisdom destabilizes such claims by insisting that divine gnosis is universally accessible. This democratizing impulse harmonizes with the prophetic promise that the Spirit will be poured out “on all flesh.” The Father is not the patriarch of a gated community but the generative root of a boundless family tree. The cosmic Christ of Colossians—through whom and for whom all things were made—is another lens on the same reality: the All is incarnate everywhere, yet nowhere exhausted.

This synthesis invites a new posture toward ecological and social crises. If forests, rivers, refugees, and rival nations are expressions of the Father’s own being, then apathy becomes metaphysical blasphemy. Love of God and neighbor merges with love of planet and enemy. The Principle of Cause and Effect reminds us that every thought and action ripples through the Mind-field. To exploit creation is to wound our collective body; to heal creation is to participate in the Father’s ceaseless self-giving.

Finally, the Principle of Gender—“Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine principles”—offers a corrective to patriarchal readings of “Father.” In Hermeticism, these principles interpenetrate; nothing is purely masculine or purely feminine. When Jesus speaks of God as Father, he is not enshrining maleness but evoking intimacy, origin, and care. The All contains and transcends every polarity, nurturing like a mother, guiding like a father, birthing worlds like a womb of light. To rest in the Father is to rest in an embrace that is simultaneously masculine and feminine, transcendent and immanent, powerful and tender.

Thus, The Kybalion does not threaten Christian faith; it deepens it, illuminating the hidden architecture beneath biblical poetry. The All as Father invites us to move beyond childish images of a bearded monarch and into mature communion with the ever-present Mind that dreams galaxies and whispers in our blood. To breathe is to pray, for every inhale draws the All into the sanctuary of the lungs, and every exhale returns our fragmentary awareness to its inexhaustible Source. In that breath we discover that we have never been exiles. We are, and have always been, at home in the Father’s infinite heart—particles of divine awareness, awakening to the wonder that the All is here, now, and forever in all.