Polishing The Jewel Of Christianity

Christianity is a perfect jewel with no imperfection. Nevertheless, in order to behold

this jewel in all of its perfect splendor, we need to polish away the accumulated crusts, as it
were, of woefully cruel ages gone by. Metaphorically, the polishing that I am speaking of is
the act of questioning. The trick is in letting God give the answers.
Unless we truly question, we will never receive the spiritual gift of discernment. The
way we should question is with meekness. The Beatitudes tell us to be meek. The word meek,
however, has over time become unduly associated with timidity. In actuality, the word Jesus
used, which was translated as ‘meek’, would be better translated as ‘receptive’. Jesus was
saying that we should be open to God, but he didn’t mean that we should approach God with
timidity. We should question without timidity. For example: ‚Listen God, what about this
aspect of my religion that, to me, has all the markings of human ignorance?‛ Now, God may
not answer in a great thunderclap. In fact, it may take much meditation, which is ideally an
entering in to a receptive state, a stilling and letting go of our thinking mind and of our
preconceived notions, and it also may take learning from repeated observations of cause and
effect, but God will answer. Personally, I have found that there are three basic misconceptions
which fall away when the jewel of Christianity is polished, and these are as follows:
1. The misconception of exclusivity. Historically, many Christians have taught and
been taught that all non baptized people are not in a state of Grace and thus will be denied
heaven. This belief has caused blindness to the unique gifts of other cultures and religions,
and culture and religion are ultimately inseparable. While some Christian denominations have
come to extend the ‘grace of baptism’ to all pagans of goodwill, reasoning that such pagans
would accept it if they understood, it is nevertheless essentially denied that God can work
within the pagans’ own religion, thus the notion that only Christian baptism can save them.
2. The misconception that there is such a thing as eternal damnation. Historically, this
fantasy of warped minds, eternal damnation, has often been projected upon members of other
religions as well as upon any errant Christians who might refuse heaven at some point after
which it is said to be too late for them to repent. For centuries, Christians aspiring to meekness
have dutifully taught their children that there exists a place of eternal suffering, where
suffering serves no purpose, where there is neither hope extended, nor the free will to wcwn
choose to hope. We are told that once a soul is in the eternal hellfire, God will not or cannot
help them, as if God were arbitrary or cruel or unable or indifferent.
3. The misconception that each soul’s human experience is limited to one lifetime. The
Bible tells us that the Jews of Jesus’ time believed in reincarnation. They used the term ‘born in
sin’, meaning that life circumstances are divine punishment for past wrongs. But Jesus taught
that God does not punish. Jesus taught Grace. Jesus spoke of physical rebirth and spiritual
rebirth. The original Christian belief is that the soul journeys through lifetimes toward
perfection. St. Paul wrote that Jesus ‚became perfect‛ and thus became ‚our forerunner‛.
Now I will clarify the above three points, devoting just one page to each, plus a page
about what I think Christianity is. And that makes five pages because I want to keep it short,
and in my experience anything over five pages is not short.
1. On the errors of exclusivity
Thankfully, the grosser misconceptions of exclusivity are much rarer these days
amongst Christians, and we may consider this fact as an example of how popular Christian
understanding can and does change. Consider that once it was commonplace for Christians to
assume that all non-Christians were a priori not getting into heaven. For example, medieval
popes once taught that ‚all pagans and Jews and heretics and schismatics will go into the
eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are
joined with the most Holy Roman Church‛ (Eugene IV, 1441 AD), but modern popes teach: ‚in
the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the
dictates of their own conscience, the members of other religions respond positively to God’s
invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or
acknowledge him as Saviour‛ (John Paul II, 1998). While the Catholic Church may submit that
the newer teaching was always implicit (though unrecognized) in the foundational doctrine,
who can deny that this newer teaching reflects a radical shift in cultural consciousness and a
widespread growth in understanding? And there is an example of polishing of the jewel of
Christianity. Nonetheless, there are subtler layers of exclusivity yet to be polished away. And
perhaps we can accomplish this in part by studying the history of Christian inclusivity.
In Mark 9:40, Jesus says ‚whoever is not against us is with us‛. Surely it was in the
spirit of this passage that the early Christians sought to retain all that was noble and worthy
from the pagan world as part and parcel of the new civilization of Christendom. We find early
Irish monks following the poetic forms and themes of their pagan predecessors, and likewise
incorporating the metaphysical symbols of earlier pagan traditions into their stonework and
illuminated manuscripts. We find, far and wide, churches built according to the sacred
geometrical patterns of pagan Gnostic traditions. And we find early Christian theologians and
philosophers seeking to build upon the great erudition of their pagan predecessors. From the
Gospel of John’s use of the pagan concept of Logos, to the great Neoplatonist theologians of the
third and fourth centuries, to the medieval Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, we see a continual
attempt to harmonize pagan wisdom and philosophy with Christian theology.
As centuries passed, select ancient pagans were awarded certain virtues, but eventually
Christians became quite out of the habit of actually encountering any living and breathing
pagans. As history plainly attests, for over a millennium Christianity was all encompassing in
the West. Excepting a small minority of ill-treated Jews, everyone was a Christian. And aside
from the occasional Crusade, the people of Christendom were quite culturally insulated. Only
in later medieval times were contacts made with the Orient and the Americas. This led to the
so-called ‘age of discovery’, the charting of the globe, and then came the age of colonialism.
Naturally, with the era of colonialism there came a new era of missionary Christianity.
But, alas, in keeping with the exploitative cultural disregard of the Western colonialists, many
Christian missionaries regarded the religion and thus culture of non-Western societies as
something to be destroyed and replaced. Whereas the first Western Christians built upon the
culture and philosophy of their own pagan heritage, the new converts were essentially denied
their own heritage. And this continues to this day. A pagan may no longer be a priori denied
salvation, but his 5,000 year old pagan civilization is often considered a ‘New Age threat’.
2. On the false notion of eternal damnation
It is a sad irony that gathering wisdom from ancient pagan civilizations is now called
‘dabbling in New Age’, because many pagan scriptures are far more in keeping with the
Gospel than are many parts of the Bible’s Old Testament. For instance, we read in the Old
Testament that God once punished humanity with the Great Flood, saving only Noah’s family.
It seems that some period of great catastrophe actually did befall humanity long ago, as every
ancient culture retains the memory of such a time. But according to many cultures, this time of
catastrophe was caused by man and not by God. For example, the Vedic scriptures of ancient
India and the stories of the Hopi tribe tell us that humanity once greatly misused the forces of
nature and so upset the balance of nature that global catastrophe ensued. The reason for the
catastrophe was cause and effect. Another word for cause and effect is karma, the reaping of
what is sown. We all experience karma, it is a learning experience. As the Gospels reveal,
Jesus emphatically taught that karma is not punishment. Thus, various Old Testament
portrayals of God as punishing and wrathful and jealous are not in line with Jesus’ teachings.
So, when we read in the Bible that God became wrathful and caused the Flood, when
we read that it was God who commanded the Israelites to massacre dozens of other tribes
wholesale, women and children included, when we read that it was God who demanded some
kind of payment in the form of animal sacrifice, clearly it was not God but rather that some
Old Testament authors were in the habit of projecting their own ignorance upon God.
Now, many Christians know the above to be true. So why is it that so many Christians
still teach their children that there exists is a place of eternal punishment? That ‚the Bible says
so‛ can’t be a good reason, because clearly the Bible can misrepresent of God. Jesus himself
said that errors can be proclaimed as scriptural truth: ‚Woe to you teachers of the law, because
you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have
hindered those who were entering" (Luke 11:52). We have to read the Bible with discernment.
Discernment is a spiritual gift. We cannot have discernment unless we question and meditate.
The Bible isn’t always morally right. Nor is it always historically accurate. For
example, the Bible says that Moses was a found as a baby in a river in a basket. But the same
tale was told long before Moses, of Sargon of Akkad, of Karna of India, and later of Cyrus of
Persia. But this doesn’t mean that Moses didn’t exist. Perhaps it just became unpalatable at
some point for the Jews to believe that Moses was actually the son of an Egyptian princess.
Anyway. Jesus told a parable about a nonforgiving man being imprisoned until every
penny was paid. This parable is about paying debt, and not about endless punishment. In the
earliest Gospels known, which were written in Greek, the adjective used to describe hell is the
Greek word aionios, which literally means within an age, denoting temporality. The actual
Greek adjective meaning eternal is the word aidios, and this word was used elsewhere in these
Gospels but never applied to hell. In the later Latin Vulgate translation of the New Testament,
from which came subsequent translations, the adjective aionios, used to describe hell, was
mistranslated into 'eternal'. It’s anyone’s guess if this mistranslation was merely accidental.
The truth is that it is never too late for God. Our free will is never revoked. God's
justice and God's mercy are the exact same thing, always directed to our ultimate good.
3. On karma and Grace
Many Christians nowadays will agree that baptism is actually not a prerequisite to
heaven, despite claims made to the otherwise during the dark ages and medieval times.
Early Christians described baptism as a ritual of spiritual commitment, and often
baptized their newborns in this spirit of commitment. But around the 4th century theologians
began to view baptism as a prerequisite to salvation, and thus the baptism of newborns
became a matter of heaven or hell. St. Augustine of Hippo, a great mind hindered by legalistic
scruples, was largely responsible for this new conception of baptism. Alas, one legalism leads
to another. For babies that might die before baptism, legalistic theologians invented Limbo.
Now, these theological shifts date back to the time when Christianity became the state
religion of the Roman Empire, and that was a very long time ago. Ever since that time, the
Gospel account of the discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3:3-14), where Jesus tells
the Pharisee that a person must be born again of water and of the Spirit, has been interpreted
as being about the ritual of baptism. But what was this really about? Get a Bible and read it
yourself. Jesus never once mentions the word baptism. This passage is about physical rebirth
and Spiritual rebirth. When Jesus says born of water he means of the womb, reincarnation, the
law of karma. It is perfectly clear that Jesus was not describing baptism. If Jesus was
describing baptism, then why would he say to Nicodemus ‚art thou a master of Israel and
knowest not these things?‛ The Church wasn’t even founded yet, why would Nicodemus be
expected to know the necessity of the nonexistent sacrament of baptism? Where Jesus says
one must be born again of the Spirit, he means birth into the kingdom of heaven. Ascension.
There are various Biblical passages about reincarnation. For example, Job states ‚naked
I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return thither‛ (Job 1:21). In the Gospels,
we read that the Jews asked Jesus if a man was born blind as punishment for his own sins
(John 9:2). Later, the apostle James states that ‚the tongue defileth the body and inflameth the
wheel of birth‛ (James 3:6, Douay-Rheims translation). This term, ’wheel of Birth’, has been
used in diverse religious traditions to describe reincarnation. The Jewish people were very
familiar with the law of karma. And neither did Jesus Christ deny it, in fact he said that ‚he
who lives by the sword shall die by the sword‛. But what Jesus Christ taught and exemplified
was that man was not made for the law but rather the law for man. The purpose of the law is
not to bind but to free. The true freedom that Jesus taught is called Grace by Christians.
Back to Jesus’ parable of the man who was imprisoned till every penny was paid, the
only reason the man was imprisoned is because he himself did not forgive. Had he forgiven,
then he would have been forgiven of all of his own debts. Grace. Or the parable about the
men who started working in the fields late in the day and were paid as much as those who’d
started early. Grace isn’t earned by the time one puts in, and not earned by suffering.
The authentic Christian understanding is that reincarnation is not an endless cycle. The
ultimate goal of Christianity is ascension to the kingdom of heaven, by living through the
heart, in our own time and in God’s own time. Jesus prayed ‚let them be one as we are one‛.
This knowledge may come as a revelation to some. But it’s only natural that human
misunderstanding doesn’t last forever. History has a trajectory. Jesus himself said that
everything hidden away or obscured must eventually be revealed and brought to light
What is Christianity?
Well, having attempted to describe Christianity by virtue of, regarding misconceptions,
what it is not, I should finish by trying to describe Christianity by virtue of what it is, as I see it.
Firstly, Christianity is about completely forgiving, and I’ll admit that that often seems a
hard prospect to me, but I know deep down that it is really easier than not forgiving. After all,
Jesus said, ‚My yoke is easy and My burden is light.‛
To truly forgive means not maintaining a continuous ‘state of forgiving’ such as: ‚Hi ho
down there! Behold, for am forgiving you! Now you are twice as low and I twice as lofty, for,
behold, I am forgiving you!…..still forgiving you….still reveling in the moral superiority of
forgiving you…Hey! I’m forgiving you!‛ To truly forgive means dropping the moral
superiority and relating to the other person as if it didn’t happen, what offense? And I guess
that’s a tall order, because the battle for moral superiority is played out in all kinds of human
relationships: family, friendships, marriages, workplaces, the political arena, wherever. The
game goes that when someone does or says something wrong then the wronged person wins
the trophy of moral superiority. Advanced adepts at this game will not yell or lose their cool
when wronged, lest by doing so they lose the trophy. Rather, with whatever calmness and
decorum they can muster, they will assume their rightful place upon the bejewelled balcony of
the holy castle of moral superiority, from whence they may look down upon the vast expanses
of their triumph. But, then, sooner or later, ‘Bam!’, they explode with impatience or say or do
something wrong and are as a result hurled ignominiously down into the valley of the cretins,
only to look on as the one whom they have offended begins to radiate with a translucent and
opalescent brilliance and to ascend glittering upwards to the holy balcony of the mountaintop
castle of moral superiority, from whence they may cast their limpid gaze upon those
boundless domains over which they reign in glory. Amen. But then, sooner or later, ‘Bam!’
Christianity is also about generosity, about giving generously, and even about accepting
generosity, which requires discernment, of course. I know for myself, as a person often
involved in endeavors that don’t usually pay off financially, that if not for the generosity of
others I often would not have had the space and time to pursue such endeavors. Accepting
generosity can be a trial in its own right, because there is a duty to be worthy of the generosity.
I know, with myself, that if I’m not careful then I might by accepting generosity allow it to
further my ignorance of worldly practicalities, or I might make of it an occasion to feel guilty
and thus that I should be working hard according to societal norms of senseless toil.
Christianity is ultimately about accepting God’s total generosity, and becoming a
transmitter of that. History attests that there is no limit to the bounty given forth by the great
Saints. They don’t have to strive to eek out smidgeons of niceties like the angry brother in the
story of the prodigal son, rather the treasure of the entire kingdom is theirs for the asking.
Don’t ask me exactly how that works because I’m not quite there, but I know that it’s true.
And Christianity is about day to day living. A practical gnosis, a transmutable wisdom
customizable to any situation from the homeliest terrestrial hearth to the most awe inspiring
celestial convergence. Mother Teresa said it better, a simple path.
Thanks for reading. My book Pagan Streams: An Inquiry Into The Origins Of The Bible is
at www.paganstreams.com. Computer monitors are hard on eyes, so I recommend printing it.