Heaven?

"for your reward is great in heaven"  Matthew 5:12 (NRSV)

The idea that those who suffer on earth are rewarded in heaven is questionable.

If there is no hell because there is no punishment then perhaps there is no heaven and no reward.

It seems to me that the parable of the laborers who each receive a penny no matter how long they have worked is the key.

There are no woes to suffer and no great rewards.  Each will receive a penny and that will be enough.

Mediums do not describe people in heaven or hell, they describe people with their loved ones - their family and friends, even their pets.  Perhaps this is heaven.

This would support the idea that love is the organizing principle of the universe.

Love is its own reward.

So Love.
Love God and love your neighbor.

Perhaps that will be enough.


(Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.)

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The Churches.

The Churches also do good in the world.
For the poor, the destitute, the sick, and the troubled.

God understands that they are full of fear.
They will not listen.
And He will not force them.

So we wait.
Until the time is ripe.

Until then we talk about fear - fear of God, fear of Satan, fear of poverty, fear of strangers, fear of difference, fear of crime, fear of violence, fear of sex, fear of evil....

We pray that the Churches will see, overcome their fears and open their hearts to men and women and to God.
For we cannot love while we are afraid.
Once our fear is gone what is left is Love.


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Son of Man and Son of God.

Jesus used the epithet Son of Man when he was referring to himself as a product of the world and humanity, i.e. his human personality and body.

When he used the epithet Son of God he was referring to the part of himself which was related to God, i.e. his soul or spirit.

We are all products of both the world and God.

We all have personalities which have been formed by reaction to the world around us and our experiences in the world.

We also have aspects of ourselves which are created and formed by God.

This is where Jesus got into trouble with the Pharisees.  It was O.K. for him to call himself Son of Man because that meant to them that he was born in sin and therefore in need of redemption (through them).

It was not O.K., however, for Jesus to call himself Son of God because that meant that he had some sort of relationship with God which was outside of their control.

"''And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father - the one in heaven.'"  Matthew 23:9 (NRSV)

And therein lies the problem.  We don't need the Pharisees in order to have a relationship with God.

That is not to say that God is not there - in His house.
He is.
That is why Jesus goes to Jerusalem - to go to God's house.
When he gets there, however, he behaves unpredictably.  He criticizes the authorities.  He says that they have perverted God's message.  Turning love and compassion into privilege and profit.

They crucified him for that.

Why does God not stop them?

Perhaps He cannot stop them.

They will not listen to Him speaking through His prophet.

And God does not use force.

"'For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say,"Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord."'"  Matthew 23:39 (NRSV)

"'Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.'"  Matthew 14:28 (NRSV)

The Pharisees have usurped the power of God (the Temple) for their own profit.

And they do not share power.

So we are all Sons of Man and Sons of God.

Our task is to return the message of love and compassion to its rightful place in God's house.

Until them the blind lead the blind.


(Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of  Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.)

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The Law.

The whole of the law is love.

Those rock stars and celebrities who have sold their souls to the devil have done so on the basis of received knowledge.

This knowledge is told them by religious authorities.

The religious authorities concerned believe that God is harsh and judgmental, that He does not approve of sex, and that homosexuality is an abomination.  They also believe that there is a devil who is constantly tempting humanity with a view to getting them into hell.

The devil worshipers believe that if God does not approve of sex and wealth, then the devil can deliver these things if you sell your soul.

They have made their decision on the basis of false information.

The religious authorities' image of God is false.  It has been handed down from generation to generation through fear and violence.
It is not Jesus' image of God.

There is no devil, neither is there a hell.

Satanism is the inverse of traditional Christianity.  And traditional Christianity, as formulated under Constantine and Augustine, is false theology.

If there is no devil he cannot deliver wealth and sex.
If there is no hell they cannot get us into it.

Most of their beliefs and practices come from traditional Christian beliefs - sin, temptation, damnation - backwards.

But these are false beliefs.

That is why I can feel some sympathy for them.  They have been misinformed.

Talent and transits account for the success that comes to some of them.  Failures they ignore.  The same things happen to stars who have not sold their souls.  Sex and wealth.  There is no need of Satan.

So God will not blame them.  His heart is full of compassion.  He does not destroy them.

It is a gigantic misunderstanding.

Neither will He destroy the religious authorities who informed them.  Their beliefs came from fear, fear handed down from father to son for generations.

So love your enemies, understand them and understand God.

God is a father, He does not punish His children when they act out of ignorance. Ignorance of the law is an excuse.  The law in any case is love.

Do sex and wealth bring happiness?

What bring s happiness is our relationships.  And our relationships are the love in our lives.

God is love.
The whole of the law is love.

So those who have turned to the devil can be reconciled like the prodigal son.

And those who have informed them, the usurpers of Jesus' Church, can be saved. Their fear can be overcome once they see it for what it is - man-made.

Then perhaps we can love God and love our neighbor.


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Dis-ease.

(a)  When there is pain in the body it is a sign that something is wrong which needs attending to.  Dis-ease it is called.

When there is suffering and pain in the world it is a sign that there is something wrong with humanity that needs attending to.

For what is humanity but a vast interconnected body.
The body if humanity.

If there is pain here or suffering there it is a sign that the flow of love is not reaching that area.  It may be that there is a blockage.  It may be that news is not reaching others.  It may be that some are not listening.  It may be that others do not care.

It is fear that blocks the flow of love.
Fear of losing our privileges, fear of strangers, fear of difference, fear of obligation.

It is time to begin to break down the invisible walls that separate us and see the suffering of others - in our society and in the world.

(b)  If we are to do this effectively we must challenge business conventions and corporate culture.  For what is this but petrified fear: fear of poverty, fear of justice, fear of revolution, fear of idealism, fear of losing money, fear of need.

This causes business leaders to use their media - television, radio, newspapers, magazines, movies, sports - all of which they own - to control public opinion, politicians, and employees so that they don't have to be accountable to anyone.

Perhaps it is time for us to regard them as corporate citizens who are accountable to society as others are.  To do this we must look at the conventions and the laws relating to business and corporations.
There, hidden beneath, we will find their fears.

It is this we should address.


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Dogs.

It is hard to believe that since the 1960s there has been a resurgence of black magic and Satanism in rock music that has cast a spell over the whole world.

This web of evil is all but invisible to normal sight, indeed the perpetrators of this crime are seen as saviors and role models, especially by the young.

What this does is backwards.  They take the astrological aspects of their audience and propagate the negatives of those aspects, thus entangling their fans in chains.

Whilst posing as helpers they poison their listeners with negativity.  The most obvious of these is suicide.  Note how many rock musicians write songs about death.

Death is a theological negative which they believe gives them immense power over humanity.  At once sabotaging any spiritual quest and hiding the truth about themselves.

This is not magic so much as propaganda.

It works on the unconscious level.  Backwards under the music.  Negative suggestion.

This practice has spread to sports and movies, T.V. and books.
Black, death, magic, monsters, vampires, drugs, insanity, promiscuity, transgression, materialism, money, sex, corruption, evil, hell.....

They believe that they have killed any spirituality in human beings and separated them from the Church.

They prey on people's rejection of traditional religion and believe that they have severed their fans connection with God = Death.

They have always been obsessed with image - their image with the public - they manipulate images and words, even going forwards in order to appear good or wise, which is the height of deceit.  Then they spin backwards into evil.  It is diabolical and difficult to see.  They lie and deceive.  They are whited sepulchers. Worldly cynics, they laugh all the way to the bank.

They call themselves Dogs - that Gods backwards.

They make the mistake, however, of identifying God with the Church. The religious authorities of the Church are closer to the Pharisees and Sadducees than they are to God.

Rock musicians have internalized the theology of sin and death and, believing God to be some kind of patriarchal bully, turn to the devil for what they want: sex and drugs and rock and roll.

They sell their souls to the devil and do the devil's work.

So they tempt you and try to get you into hell.

But there is no hell.
Their image of God is completely wrong.
They are wasting their time.
But the negativity and sabotage still has an effect.
It ruins people's lives.
It distracts people from their purpose.
It turns people away from God.
It tries to kill you.

Our task is to break the spell.
You can tell people what they are doing.
But people take things at face value.

Perhaps the best way of stopping them is to pray for them to see their errors, the errors which caused them to rebel in the first place, and be reconciled to God.

Then the overwhelming machinery - which is whirling backwards into darkness - can move forwards at last.


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The Flower of Love.

When I set out to put down on paper my revised beliefs about Jesus, the Bible, and religion I began with What I do not Believe.

It seems to me that the popular movement of progressive theology is at first a demolition of traditional Christian doctrine.

The Fall/Redemption, Penal Substitution, supernatural interpretation of the Bible, which has dominated Christianity since the time of Constantine, is being systematically dismantled.

The cry goes up that we are destroying people's simple faith and if we take that away there is nothing left.

First of all I would say that there is rubble.  We can pick and choose what we wish to retain from the rubble.

But even without that what remains is not nothing.

What remains is unconditional love.

The teaching, the theology of unconditional love has always been the bridesmaid not only in Christianity but in all the world's religions.

I believe that what remains, when you strip away the concepts with which we clothe our religious figures, is unconditional love.  This is the true religion.  And it is universal.

Whether the purveyors of the old religion of fear and guilt will allow this new flower to bloom is problematical.  They will not give up their power easily.

What the future holds is yet to be seen.  


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