A Common Sense Approach to Understanding Christ Consciousness: Reimagining Christianity

There’s a growing backlash against the term Christ Consciousness, especially on social media, where ideological lines have hardened and conversations are too often shaped by reaction rather than reflection. The critics seem to come from two main camps—fundamentalist Christians and hard-nosed materialists. Ironically, while these two worldviews often consider each other diametrically opposed, they find common cause in dismissing the idea that Christ represents anything more than either a singular historical person or a myth woven into an outdated worldview.

Let’s start with the fundamentalists. For them, the phrase Christ Consciousness triggers a defensive response rooted in dogma, not discernment. It doesn’t matter how rich or theologically nuanced the term might be; if it isn’t found in their tightly sealed canon—especially not in the King James Version, with its 17th-century English and 4th-century theological scaffolding—they see it as a threat. Their understanding of Christ is largely limited to the atoning work of Jesus of Nazareth as the blood sacrifice demanded by a wrathful God. Their entire framework hinges on penal substitutionary atonement, personal salvation, and the inerrancy of the Bible as they interpret it.

To such a framework, Christ is not a state of being, not a universal reality, and certainly not a consciousness. He is a man—historically located, doctrinally defined, and monopolized by their theological system. The Christ is Jesus and only Jesus, and the rest of the world—some 7.5 billion people—is either saved through this narrow formula or damned. Any attempt to broaden this view is, in their eyes, heretical, New Age nonsense, or worse—demonic.

But what they miss, or refuse to consider, is that Christ is not Jesus' last name. Christos is the Greek word for anointed one, and in deeper esoteric understanding, it refers to the anointing of divine consciousness—Logos-consciousness. The New Testament itself introduces this cosmic dimension when the Gospel of John opens, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” This Logos is not limited to first-century Palestine. It is the creative, ordering principle of the cosmos, echoed in Greek philosophy and Hermeticism as divine reason, or Nous—consciousness itself expressing itself through form.

On the other side of the debate, we find the materialists. They reject Christ Consciousness not because it threatens religious orthodoxy, but because it threatens their reductionist view of reality. For them, Jesus—if he even existed—was just a Jewish mystic or apocalyptic prophet speaking exclusively to the sociopolitical situation of ancient Israel. They reduce Paul’s writings to early Christian sectarian politics, locked in their own time and place. Anything that smells of spirituality, metaphysics, or transcendence is dismissed as woo—irrational, unverifiable, and therefore meaningless.

But materialism itself is beginning to crack under the weight of evidence. Quantum physics, neuroscience, and even branches of cosmology are forcing serious thinkers to reconsider the primacy of consciousness. Bernardo Kastrup, Donald Hoffman, and others are mounting persuasive cases for consciousness as the bedrock of existence—not as an emergent property of matter, but as the ground of being itself. If we accept this—and many are—we are suddenly standing on metaphysical ground that makes Christ Consciousness not only plausible, but deeply resonant.

Christ Consciousness is not about ignoring history, or bypassing the ethical and prophetic dimensions of Jesus’ life. It is about realizing that what animated Jesus is available to all—that the Logos is not confined to a single man or a single religion, but is the divine template within each of us, the imago Dei awaiting awakening. It is the part of us that remembers—not with our brain, but with our soul—who we are and what we come from. It is what the Gospel of Truth, a Valentinian text, calls our forgetfulness of the Father and the return of that memory through Christ.

Both the fundamentalist and the materialist critiques fail because they do not address the spiritual reality that most people live with daily. They do not account for the overwhelming human longing for meaning, for transcendence, for connection with something greater. Nor do they adequately address the mounting evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain but localized through it, as light is focused by a lens. They do not explain near-death experiences, mystical visions, or spontaneous awakenings—because they do not want to.

The fundamentalists cling to a brittle orthodoxy that makes God small, petty, and tribal. The materialists cling to a brittle rationalism that makes consciousness an illusion and love a chemical. Neither of these is satisfying to the spirit. Neither reflects the boundless presence of the Christ, who said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” That is not history; that is eternity speaking through a man fully awake.

We must remember that Christ Consciousness is not a call to abandon Christianity. It is a call to transcend the limitations placed on it by those who confuse the wine with the wineskin. To be in Christ, as Paul often said, is to be in a new state of awareness—a new creation. But this awareness is not exclusive. As the Spirit was poured out on all flesh, so is the Christ available to all consciousness. Some may call it the Logos, others Buddha-nature, others Atman, but the essence is the same: divine awareness within, urging us to awaken, to love, to remember.

In a world of 8 billion people, with less than a third identifying as Christian and only a fraction of those as evangelical fundamentalists, it is absurd to imagine that God’s work is confined to one theological lane. The Logos speaks all languages, wears all faces, and reaches all hearts. The Christ is not the mascot of a religion. The Christ is the anointed awakening of divine consciousness in humanity—and we are all invited.

It is time to reclaim Christ Consciousness not as an alternative religion, but as a deeper reality. It is time to stop arguing with dogma and start living from presence. It is time to remember—not just intellectually, but spiritually—that we are of God, that we are not separate, and that the Logos is the animating force behind every act of love, every moment of grace, and every whisper of awakening in this fractured world.

That, to me, is the gospel worth sharing.

 

Reimagining the Problem of Evil: What about the Problem of Good? Part 2

Before we begin, I want to be clear that what I’m sharing here is not dogma, nor do I claim it as the final word on the mystery of existence. Rather, I offer it as one logical explanation for why evil exists alongside good. For me, this perspective is deeply satisfying—it ties together what I’ve observed about consciousness, polarity, and the cycles of life. I share it not to convince, but to complete my thought process about the problem of good that I’ve spoken of before. If materialism struggles to explain why good even exists, then perhaps by exploring reincarnation, Hermetic principles, and the nature of consciousness, we can see how good naturally emerges as the highest truth.

Welcome again, friend. I want to continue where my reflections on the problem of good left off, but this time through the lens of reincarnation and the Hermetic principle As Above, So Below. I believe reincarnation is not just a mystical speculation but a deeply logical extension of how reality operates. Everywhere in the material world, I see cycles—seasons rise and fall, rain evaporates only to descend again, planets trace their endless orbits, and life itself moves through birth, death, and renewal. If the below reflects the above, as the Hermetic axiom says, then it only makes sense that consciousness itself is cyclical.

But let’s pause here. Why should we assume consciousness is foundational? Because at the very root, what we call reality is not material at all. The Kybalion makes the profound statement that The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental. You may dismiss the book as a 1908 work by Atkinson, but I see it as a distilled revelation, stripped of superstition and ringing true to the deepest part of me. If the ultimate nature of the universe is mental—if the fabric of reality is consciousness itself—then everything we perceive as “solid” is but a slower vibration of that same universal Mind. Spirit, matter, thought—all are on one continuum. And if Mind is primary, then so too is the experience of Mind, which means life itself is a series of conscious explorations.

This is why reincarnation is not about punishment or reward. I don’t subscribe to a karmic view where you’re sentenced to future lives as repayment for past mistakes. Consciousness is not petty like that. Instead, reincarnation is simply the natural rhythm of divine Mind experiencing itself. Here I lean on Donald Hoffman, whose evolutionary game theory suggests that what we see is not “reality itself,” but an interface designed for survival. He argues convincingly that consciousness is foundational. When asked what consciousness is up to, he pointed to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, which shows that mathematics—and by extension, information—is inexhaustible. Consciousness, infinite in potential, is endlessly experiencing itself through conscious agents like us.

Bernardo Kastrup takes this further. He sees each of us as dissociative alters of a single universal mind. We are both part of the whole and seemingly separate within it, like waves on one ocean. It’s a paradox that isn’t truly dualistic. In Hermetic thought, it’s not two opposing realities but one reality stretched along a spectrum—from the densest matter to the highest spirituality. So yes, I am in Divine Consciousness all the time, and yes, I am also a unique personality within it. Both are true, simultaneously.

Now, why does this matter for the problem of good? Let’s go back to the Hermetic axiom: As Above, So Below; as Below, So Above. If we look at the “below,” at this material existence, we see that people prefer love over hate, joy over sorrow, goodness over evil. There may be exceptions, but overwhelmingly humanity gravitates toward the higher vibrations. That tells us something about the nature of the “above.” If consciousness is foundational, and if the below reflects the above, then at the highest echelon of spirituality, love, joy, peace, and goodness are the natural state of Divine Mind. That’s why Paul called these the fruit of the Spirit—they are intrinsic qualities of the source itself.

But someone might object: if love is preferred, if good is higher, then why does evil exist at all? Why must sorrow, hate, and suffering be part of the experience? To that I answer with the law of polarity. Polarity is not merely an abstract idea—it’s embedded into reality itself, from quantum fields to electromagnetism to the moral fabric of life. To truly experience and appreciate peace, one must know what strife feels like. To understand the depth of joy, one must have walked through sorrow. To value love, one must see the absence of it. Polarity isn’t a cosmic accident; it is the necessary contrast that makes conscious experience meaningful.

Now, let’s return to reincarnation. Some lives are filled with beauty, love, and peace. Others are marked by tragedy, trauma, and darkness. How can that be fair? How can we reconcile the child who suffers in war with another who grows up in abundance? The only answer that resonates deeply with me is this: over eternity, the experience is egalitarian. Over infinite lifetimes—or perhaps outside of time altogether—each conscious agent experiences both poles in equal measure. I have known great suffering, but across the vast tapestry of existence, I have also known great joy. Over the long arc of eternity, it all balances.

This is not to diminish the pain someone feels in a single lifetime. From within time, trauma is real and devastating. And I would never add insult by telling a victim they chose their suffering. No—choice isn’t the right word here. Instead, consciousness, in its infinite nature, allows for all experiences, not to punish but simply to be. And while it’s no immediate comfort, the greater picture reveals that suffering doesn’t define the whole of who we are. We are eternal. We are divine. We are part of the ongoing creativity of universal consciousness.

So how does this tie back to the problem of good? Materialism struggles to explain why good even exists—why love feels inherently higher than hate, why joy is preferable to sorrow. But in the framework of consciousness, it makes sense. Good is not an arbitrary preference. It is the highest vibration of the universal Mind. Evil and suffering are the shadows that make the light visible, but they do not endure. Over eternity, love is what remains, because it aligns with the source.

Reincarnation, then, is the cycling of conscious agents through experiences of all polarities, until every potentiality of consciousness is known. But ultimately, what stands at the top is love. Not because a deity demanded it, not because of moral dogma, but because consciousness itself prefers it. As Above, So Below. As Below, So Above. The fact that we, in this material plane, instinctively value love over hate is proof that at the highest level of reality, love is the essence.

So when I reflect on the problem of good, I see no contradiction. Good exists because consciousness is foundational, and consciousness at its purest vibration is good. Polarity allows us to experience its opposite, but only so that we can truly know what good is. And over eternity, no one is cheated. Every soul, every fragment of the divine mind, experiences the full spectrum, until it all balances and returns to the oneness from which it came.

This is why I reimagine reincarnation not as a prison of karmic debts but as an endless dance of exploration, a celebration of infinite potential. And this is why, even in the face of suffering, I hold to the quiet assurance that love, joy, and peace remain the highest truth.

 

Reimagining the Problem of Evil: What about the Problem of Good?

When someone raised the classic problem of evil—why a good and all-powerful God would allow suffering and wrongdoing—my friend Aaron Tomlinson responded with a disarming but profound question: “Why doesn’t anyone talk about the problem of good?” That simple reversal changes the entire conversation. For if evil challenges our belief in God, goodness challenges disbelief. Why, in a universe that could be indifferent or hostile, do we find love, beauty, kindness, and self-sacrifice? Why should there be moments of transcendent joy, awe at the stars, or a mother’s love for her child?

Goodness is not just the absence of evil; it is a real, positive presence. Think of the countless ways it manifests—acts of heroism, quiet kindness, forgiveness when revenge seems easier, generosity when it is costly, and love that asks for nothing in return. These things are not required for mere survival. They go beyond instinct. They have a depth that feels eternal, as though they point to something beyond themselves. Philosophers and poets alike have noticed this. The Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz wrote that the very existence of beauty and moral truth in the midst of horror suggests there must be a source beyond the material. Mary Midgley, a moral philosopher, likewise argued that the fact we experience awe, wonder, and moral obligation is more surprising than the fact we experience suffering.

Even if we admit evil exists, we can’t deny that goodness is preferred. Across time, culture, and belief systems, humanity overwhelmingly gravitates toward love rather than hate, peace rather than war, justice rather than oppression. Even those who commit atrocities often twist them into justifications for some perceived “good,” revealing that deep down, the human conscience elevates goodness above all else. This universal preference shows that good is not just one side of a coin. It is the summit, the highest point. Evil simply becomes the necessary polarity that allows good and all its radiant qualities to be known, experienced, and chosen.

This polarity has meaning. Without darkness, there is no contrast for light. Without sorrow, there is no depth to joy. Without the existence of hatred, the power of love cannot be fully recognized. But in the human experience, these dualities are not equal. Love resonates more deeply than hate. Joy lingers in the soul longer than despair. Peace carries a substance that conflict cannot imitate. This tells us something profound: good is not merely the opposite of evil; it is the preferred reality, the one toward which all things move.

The medieval philosopher Maimonides wrote that evil is not a true force but the absence of good. Like darkness, it has no substance of its own; it is merely the lack of light. Everything God created, he argued, was inherently good. What we call evil is a deficiency, a void where fullness of being is missing. And because it is a lack, it is temporary. Goodness, by contrast, is real and enduring. This view makes evil less of an equal power and more of a shadow that disappears when the light fully shines.

Modern moral philosophers echo this. Mary Midgley pointed out that if the universe were truly indifferent or governed only by survival, why would humans have the capacity for awe, kindness, or selfless love? Why would music, art, and beauty matter? Why would compassion appear in moments when natural selection would favor indifference? Goodness, she argued, is the greater surprise. It demands explanation.

This is why some theologians and philosophers speak of the problem of good as a challenge for disbelief. If the universe is random and purposeless, why should love even exist? Why should there be moral beauty that transcends evolutionary utility? Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and Alvin Plantinga have all made versions of this argument: objective moral values, and our recognition of them, point to a source beyond the material. They suggest a moral lawgiver, or at least a deeper reality that anchors goodness itself.

But we can also understand this in the language of polarity and preference. The material world is built on dualities—light and dark, life and death, love and hate. These opposites create contrast so that consciousness can experience meaning. Without shadow, we would not see the brilliance of the light. Without the chill of despair, we could not know the warmth of joy. Yet when we look honestly, good always outweighs evil in its lasting impact. It draws the heart like a magnet pointing to true north. This aligns with the Hermetic principle, “As above, so below”—the polarities of our world exist so that the soul can awaken to the higher reality beyond them.

When we examine humanity’s deepest longings, what do we find? We long for love, for peace, for goodness. Even those who wander in darkness yearn for redemption. Across lifetimes, cultures, and belief systems, the higher pole is always preferred. This reveals that good is not arbitrary—it reflects the essential nature of being itself. Evil is only the foil, the shadow needed for good to be recognized, and because it is rooted in lack rather than fullness, it cannot ultimately endure. Goodness, by contrast, is eternal because it springs from what is real and whole.

Think about the moments that touch you most deeply. Sitting quietly by a body of water. Holding a newborn child. Hearing music so beautiful it brings tears to your eyes. These experiences transcend mere survival—they hint at a deeper purpose. They remind us that the highest aspects of life—love, awe, wonder—are not illusions. They are more real than the suffering that temporarily clouds them. Evil may cause us to ask why, but good answers with this is why. It gives meaning to the journey.

So yes, there is a problem of evil. But Aaron Tomlinson was right to ask about the problem of good. Why should there be love at all in a universe of mere particles and chance? Why should beauty exist if everything is only survival? Why should kindness break through indifference? These are not trivial questions. They point toward a deeper source, something beyond polarity itself—where there is no longer opposition, only the fullness of what we call good.

About Aaron Tomlinson:

My friend Aaron Tomlinson is a former evangelical pastor who once carried a powerful healing ministry. Over time, he deconstructed from the toxic and rigid aspects of evangelicalism, yet his heart for truth and spiritual growth remains as vibrant as ever. These days, he still offers rich, thought-provoking teachings most Sunday mornings on Facebook Live from 11 a.m. to noon Central Time, simultaneously streaming on his YouTubechannel. He also leads a private community called New Day Global, a safe space to explore all-things-spiritual beyond the limits of traditional dogma.

I’m deeply grateful to Aaron for pointing out something that feels so simple yet profound—what should have been obvious all along. While many argue about the problem of evil, strict materialism faces a far greater challenge: the problem of good.

A Fresh Look at the "Sabbath Rest" Part 2: Reimagining Christianity

When we read the passage from Hebrews, it might at first seem like a stern warning of an angry God barring people from His rest. The text says that those who disobeyed could not enter the Promised Land, and it recalls God’s anger with those who rebelled in the wilderness. But if we look beneath the surface, if we remove the veil of fear-based interpretation, we see something far more profound, far more liberating. The Israelites didn’t fail to enter because God arbitrarily withheld rest as a punishment. They failed to enter because they could only participate in what they truly believed. The barrier was never God’s reluctance; it was their unbelief.

Unbelief is not merely the absence of mental agreement. It is a refusal or inability to rest in the truth of what already is. God had promised to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey—a land already prepared, already theirs. But when they faced giants and uncertainty, their hearts hardened. They chose to believe the voice of fear over the voice of the Promise. They saw themselves as grasshoppers rather than children of the Almighty. Their inner perception shaped their outer reality.

So when the writer of Hebrews says, “They could not enter because of unbelief,” it is not a statement of divine vengeance. It is a statement of spiritual law. You cannot walk into a reality your consciousness does not embrace. Just as a bird cannot soar if it refuses to trust the air beneath its wings, the soul cannot enter God’s rest if it clings to the illusion of separation and lack.

This is why the text calls us back to the word Today. “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” Today is always the eternal Now—the only moment where awakening happens. The past is gone, the future is a projection, but Today is the living presence of God calling the heart to trust, to soften, to yield. To harden the heart is to resist that present invitation to rest.

Now, think of the rest being spoken of here. It is not merely a day off from labor or a geographical territory like Canaan. It is the Sabbath rest of the soul, the inner knowing that you are safe in God. It is what Psalm 91 whispers when it speaks of “the secret place of the Most High,” the hidden dwelling where no harm can reach you. “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” The secret place is not a physical location; it is a state of consciousness, a trust so deep that fear loses its grip.

This rest is echoed across spiritual traditions. The Kybalion, drawing from ancient Hermetic wisdom, speaks of the All as the infinite mind in which we live, move, and have our being. It says, “There is a world of comfort and security in this realization when once attained. Then calm and peaceful do we sleep, rocked in the Cradle of the Deep—resting safely on the bosom of the Ocean of Infinite Mind, which is THE ALL.” This is the same rest that Hebrews describes—a rest not limited by time, culture, or dogma. It is the universal truth that when you know you are held by the Source of all, you can finally stop striving.

But the Israelites in the wilderness could not see that. They saw the promise through the lens of their fear, and so fear became their experience. They wandered for forty years in a desert that mirrored the desert of their inner world. Their external exile was simply the manifestation of their internal unbelief. The writer of Hebrews is telling us: Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t believe that the giants in your life have the final word. Don’t believe the illusion that you are cut off from God. Don’t let your heart harden when the voice of Love calls you to trust.

The anger attributed to God in these texts is metaphorical. It is the human attempt to describe the inevitable consequences of living out of harmony with truth. When you step out of alignment with divine reality, you experience turmoil, not because God is wrathful, but because you’re resisting the very flow of life. It’s like stepping out from the shade into the scorching sun and blaming the shade for “punishing” you. God is always rest. God is always promise. It is our hardened hearts that make us restless.

So the passage invites us into a deeper realization: Rest is already here. The Promised Land is already spread before us. The secret place of the Most High is already within us. But we cannot enter it through striving, fear, or self-effort. We enter by faith—not faith as mere mental assent, but faith as trusting awareness. Faith says, “I belong. I am safe. The Source that brought me here will not abandon me.” Faith allows you to participate in the reality that is already true.

When you embrace this, you discover that all of life is designed to bring you into this rest. Every challenge is an invitation to trust more deeply. Every wilderness moment is an opportunity to let go of the old fear-based stories and awaken to your divine identity. You are not a grasshopper in a world of giants. You are a beloved expression of the Infinite, a part of the All.

So “Today, if you hear His voice,” don’t harden your heart. Let the voice of Love dissolve the illusions. Let the truth of Psalm 91 surround you: “You are safe under My shadow. No evil shall befall you. You are held in My secret place.” Let the wisdom of the Kybalion remind you that you are “rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” eternally secure in the infinite mind of the All.

The rest of God is not something you earn. It’s not a destination you travel to. It’s the eternal reality you awaken to when you stop resisting. It is the spiritual Sabbath, where you cease from your works, your anxious grasping, and simply be. This is the true fulfillment of the Sabbath law—not a rigid day, but a state of abiding trust where your soul finally exhales.

So Hebrews calls us, not to fear God’s supposed anger, but to recognize that our belief shapes our participation. If you believe you are estranged, you will feel estranged. If you believe you are unworthy, you will live as if you are outside the promise. But if you believe you are one with Christ, a sharer in His life, you will walk in the rest that was always yours.

And so we come full circle: The Israelites could not enter the rest because they could not see themselves in the promise. But we can learn from their story. We can soften our hearts, open our eyes, and say yes to the reality that has always been waiting for us. Today—this eternal now—you can hear His voice. Today, you can let go. Today, you can enter the secret place.

Rest is not postponed. Rest is here. Believe it, and you will know it.

 

A fresh look at the “Sabbath Rest:” Reimagining Christianity

When I read the words of the Kybalion—“we are all held firmly in the Infinite Mind of the All, and there is naught to hurt us or for us to fear”—I hear an ancient whisper that echoes across every true sacred text. It is the same voice that calls in Psalm 91, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” It is the same voice that the writer of Hebrews urges us to heed, inviting us into the Sabbath rest of God, a rest not bound to a day of the week, but to the eternal state of being rooted in the One.

This rest is not inactivity. It is not sloth or escape. It is the cessation of striving in the egoic sense. It is the realization that the very ground of our being is upheld by a Love so vast, so infinite, that there is no need to clutch or grasp. It is, as the Hermetic teaching says, to know that in the All we “live and move and have our being.” And once we awaken to this, we begin to see that we were never separate, never abandoned, never in true danger. The storms of life remain, but the heart is no longer tossed like a ship in rough seas. Instead, we become the calm at the center of the storm, the still point in the turning world.

For much of my life, I was taught that Sabbath was a day to keep rules—a ritual obligation of rest, almost a burden that could ironically become its own form of work. Evangelical orthodoxy often reduces the Sabbath to a moralistic checkbox, another duty added to the pile. But Hebrews 4 shatters that shallow understanding. It speaks of an ultimate rest, a rest that God Himself entered into, and one that remains open to us here and now. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from His.” This is not about a 24-hour reprieve from labor but about ceasing the inner compulsion to prove ourselves, justify ourselves, or save ourselves.

This Sabbath rest is grace embodied. It is the lived experience of knowing we are already enough because the Infinite—the All, the Divine Logos, the Beloved—has already enveloped us. When I enter this rest, I find myself beyond the reach of fear. I remember that the ego is a transient illusion, and the soul, even in its individuality, is still an emanation of the One Consciousness. The Kybalion says, “There is no power outside of the All to affect us.” And this is the same truth that Jesus spoke when he said, “My sheep hear my voice, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

So what does it feel like to truly live in Sabbath rest? It feels like exhaling after holding your breath for years. It feels like laying down the heavy armor of control, of needing to manage every outcome, and trusting that the same Infinite Mind that holds galaxies in their orbit also holds you. It feels like waking from the dream of separation and remembering that you were always embraced. It is not a feeling reserved for monks or mystics; it is the birthright of every soul who dares to stop striving and simply be.

I see this theme everywhere when I look past the surface of the world’s sacred texts. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, “Surrender all duties to Me alone and do not fear, for I shall liberate you from all bondage.” That is Sabbath rest. In the Tao Te Ching, Laozi writes that those who are in harmony with the Tao are not harmed by tigers or soldiers because they are aligned with the Source. That too is Sabbath rest. And in the Gospel of Truth, attributed to the Valentinian tradition, the Savior is described not as one who imposes guilt but as the one who awakens us from forgetfulness. Forgetfulness of what? That we are already in the embrace of the Father, already home in the All.

The tragedy is that much of religion has reversed the order. It teaches us to work for acceptance, to strive for transformation through sheer reformation of the self, forgetting that true transformation is not achieved but received. This is why Hebrews warns, “Make every effort to enter that rest.” It sounds paradoxical—make effort to cease effort—but it is the most vital effort of all. It is the effort to let go, to unlearn the deeply ingrained habits of fear and striving.

In my own journey, I have seen how the demon of religion, as I sometimes call it, keeps people spinning in cycles of guilt, fear, and performance. It whispers, “You are not enough. You must do more, be more, give more, believe more.” But the voice of the Infinite is different. It whispers, “Be still and know that I am God.” It says, “My grace is sufficient for you.” It says, “Enter My rest.”

And this rest is not passive. It becomes the womb of new creation. When we stop thrashing in the waters of anxiety, we float. And when we float, we discover the Ocean itself is alive and carrying us. From this place of rest, true action arises—action not rooted in fear or ambition, but in love. The Kybalion describes it beautifully: calm and peaceful do we sleep, rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.

This is why the Sabbath rest is not just about pausing one day in seven; it is about living from a state of inner Sabbath all the time. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath and declared himself “Lord of the Sabbath,” he was pointing to this deeper reality. The Sabbath is not a restriction; it is liberation. It is the freedom of knowing that the weight of the world is not on your shoulders.

So, in this rest, I find a quiet rebellion against the machinery of fear that drives the world. I find that the need to prove myself dissolves. I can love without condition because I am no longer running on empty. I can forgive because I am no longer defending an ego that feels threatened. I can sit in silence and know that silence is enough.

And I realize this: Sabbath rest is the beginning of enlightenment. It is the threshold between the fragmented self and the wholeness of the Divine. It is where the finite dissolves into the Infinite, not by losing identity in a nihilistic void, but by remembering its truest identity as a spark of the All.

The Psalmist says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” The Kybalion says, “We live and move and have our being in the All.” Jesus says, “Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Different words, same truth.

This is the Sabbath rest I now live toward—not a mere ritual but a reality. It is the stillness of the soul awakening to what has always been true: we are safe. We are held. We are one with the Source, and nothing outside of that Source has any ultimate power.

So I breathe deeply and let go. I cease from my works, not because the world doesn’t need them, but because they are no longer done from compulsion. They flow from love. And that is the true rest. That is the Sabbath that never ends.

 

Big Tent Christianity 2: Reimagining Christianity - can we liberate Christ as Christ liberates us?

Over the course of my research into the first four centuries of Christianity, I’ve come to see that the most toxic elements of the faith as it exists today—its obsession with guilt, inherited condemnation, and a punitive God demanding payment—are not rooted in the earliest teachings of Jesus or the apostles. Rather, they took shape when Augustine reframed the gospel into a rigid legal system, locking it into what I would call an iron‑age understanding of sin, judgment, and redemption. Before Augustine, the early church offered a message of liberation, healing, and transformation. It was not primarily about appeasing a wrathful deity but about being freed from the bondage of death, corruption, and the oppressive spiritual forces that dominated the Greco‑Roman world.

When I read the early fathers like Irenaeus, I find a strikingly different gospel. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, spoke of Christ as the “new Adam” who relived and healed the story of humanity. He called this “recapitulation”—Christ taking on our humanity so that we might share in his divinity. In Against Heresies he writes, “For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.19.1). Athanasius of Alexandria in the fourth century wrote that Christ’s incarnation was about restoring humanity to immortality and defeating death itself. In On the Incarnation, Athanasius says, “He became what we are, that He might make us what He is.” In their writings, sin was not a legal crime in need of punishment but a sickness, a distortion of the image of God in humanity, something that needed healing. Even Origen’s much-debated “ransom theory” framed Christ’s death as a cosmic rescue mission, liberating us from the powers of sin and death. These early believers saw salvation not as a courtroom drama but as a family restoration, a return to the divine likeness, and a participation in God’s life.

It is also clear to me that the Gentile world did not have the same sense of guilt as first-century Jews. The Greeks and Romans feared death, fate, and the capriciousness of the gods, but they did not imagine themselves as morally condemned before a holy God. Their religion was largely civic and ritualistic. They honored the gods to maintain social order and avoid divine displeasure, not to be absolved of personal guilt. Philosophers like Epicurus and the Stoics went even further, arguing that death was either nothing to fear or a natural part of the cosmic order. The common people might fear Tartarus and mythic punishments, but this was a vague, culturally shaped dread, not a deeply moralized fear of divine judgment. Into this world the apostles preached a God who was holy, who called all people to repent, and who would judge the world in righteousness through Jesus. But they framed Christ not only as the one who forgave sins but also as the one who broke the power of death and liberated people from cosmic oppression. Paul’s words in Colossians 2:15—Christ disarming the principalities and powers—reflect this broader victory, what later theologians would call Christus Victor.

All of this began to change with Augustine. In his battles against Pelagianism, Augustine hardened a view of humanity as totally corrupted, unable even to desire good apart from God’s grace. He argued that Adam’s sin was transmitted not only as mortality and corruption but as inherited guilt. Humanity was, in Augustine’s words, a “massa damnata”—a mass of the damned. From this came the idea that every human being was born already condemned before God, guilty of a crime they did not commit. Salvation, then, became a legal pardon rather than a relational restoration. Augustine also deepened the concept of divine wrath and punishment, making Christ’s death primarily a judicial satisfaction of God’s offended honor and justice.

What emerged after Augustine was a Christianity defined more by guilt than by freedom. In the medieval period, Anselm took Augustine’s ideas further in his satisfaction theory of atonement, portraying sin as a debt to God’s honor that only the death of a perfect God-man could repay. By the time of the Reformation, figures like Calvin pushed this legal metaphor even harder, giving us the full penal substitution model: humanity deserves eternal punishment for Adam’s sin, but Christ was punished in our place to satisfy the demands of divine justice. This view, deeply indebted to Augustine’s framework, came to dominate Western Christianity and still drives much of fundamentalist theology today.

The contrast between the early and later church could not be starker. In the first three centuries, the gospel was primarily about healing and liberation. Sin was a sickness needing a physician, not a legal crime demanding a judge. Salvation was about being made whole, being restored to the divine image, and sharing in Christ’s victory over death. After Augustine, sin became primarily a legal status. Humanity was imagined as standing before a cosmic courtroom where God, as judge, declared us guilty and in need of a substitute to bear our punishment. This shift produced a culture of fear and neurosis, where believers became trapped in cycles of confession, shame, and anxiety over their eternal fate. It also gave birth to exclusionary moralism, the belief that only those who have the right legal standing before God are accepted, leaving everyone else condemned.

The literalism that hardened around Augustine’s framework turned Christianity into what it was never meant to be. By freezing the faith into a narrow, legal reading of Scripture—treating poetic images and ancient metaphors as rigid, iron-clad doctrines—the Western church lost its transformative edge. Instead of offering liberation from fear, it produced more fear. Instead of a vision of spiritual maturity and union with God, it reduced the faith to legal compliance and doctrinal correctness. It made the Bible into a rulebook from the Iron Age, rather than a living witness pointing us toward divine love and wisdom.

Even the early fathers understood the need for openness and diversity in how salvation is experienced. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Christ is the same to all, but His influence is adapted to the needs of each individual; for He is the true physician of the soul” (Stromata, Book VII). This shows they recognized that not everyone meets Christ in the same way. Some are drawn by forgiveness, others by the promise of immortality, and still others by the experience of divine wisdom and healing. Origen too expressed the hope of a universal restoration, saying that in the end “God will be all in all” (cf. De Principiis 1.6.1). Such statements point to a much more expansive and inclusive understanding of the gospel than the rigid frameworks we inherited from Augustine’s legalism.

Even Jesus himself, in the Gospels, met people in profoundly different ways. He healed the sick, forgave sinners, challenged the self-righteous, and offered hope to the outcasts. To the woman caught in adultery, he spoke forgiveness and dignity. To the rich young ruler, he spoke challenge and invitation. To Zacchaeus, he offered acceptance that transformed a greedy tax collector into a generous man. Jesus never forced a one-size-fits-all approach; instead, his ministry reflected a wide embrace that met each person at their unique point of need. This flexibility and openness stand in stark contrast to the rigid legalism that later defined Western Christianity.

I am convinced that the toxicity we see today in fundamentalist and literalist Christianity is a direct result of this historical trajectory. The endless guilt trips, the fear of hell, the obsession with substitutionary punishment—all of it flows from Augustine’s decision to frame the gospel in legal terms. Once that became dominant, it was locked in place by medieval scholasticism and later Protestantism. Fundamentalism is simply the modern expression of this same literalism, trapped in ancient understandings of law and punishment.

Yet, even as I call this out, I also recognize that people meet Jesus in profoundly different ways. Some are drawn to him through the language of guilt and forgiveness, even if I see the fear generated by literalism as toxic. Others encounter him as healer, liberator, or teacher. Different people have different psychological needs, and the gospel meets them in different places. This is why it makes sense to have a big‑tent Christianity, one spacious enough to hold a variety of experiences and theological emphases. Not everyone resonates with the same images or metaphors. Some may find peace in legal language of pardon, while others are awakened to life through the vision of Christus Victor or theosis.

I would even go further and say that Gnosticism, in its various expressions, deserves a place at the table. Though often marginalized and labeled heretical, the Gnostics sought a deeper interior knowledge of God, an awakening from ignorance and forgetfulness of our divine origin. In their best expressions, they reminded us that salvation is also about enlightenment, about remembering who we truly are as children of the divine. While I do not embrace all of Gnosticism’s dualism, I see value in its insistence that the divine spark within us must be awakened, that salvation is not simply external or legal but profoundly inward and transformative. In a truly big‑tent Christianity, even these mystical voices have something to teach us about the depths of Christ’s mystery.

The early church itself seemed to embody this big-tent spirit. Gregory of Nyssa wrote that God’s plan “accommodates itself to the capacity of each” and that “the same medicine is not suited to all patients” (On the Soul and the Resurrection). This perspective honors the diversity of human hearts and allows for different entry points into the life of God. So while I name the guilt and fear born from literalist theology as toxic, I also affirm that the gospel is wide enough to embrace this diversity of human need—including those who find meaning in mystical traditions like Gnosticism, which emphasize awakening, self-knowledge, and the interior journey toward God.

The earliest church understood salvation as victory, healing, and restoration. If we can recover that expansive vision, we can move beyond the narrow iron-age frameworks that have long enslaved the faith. In doing so, we create space for a Christianity that welcomes all—those who still need the language of forgiveness and those who seek the deeper mystery of union with the divine, those who embrace sacramental tradition, and even those who resonate with the mystical insights of Gnostic thought. It is this big‑tent vision that holds the promise of a truly liberating faith, one that reflects the inclusive ministry of Jesus himself, who met every person with exactly what their soul needed.

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.