I’m also reminded of Michael Ruse’s distinction (in his new book about the Darwin/Creationism debate) between pre- and post-millenarialists. The question that these camps answer differently is whether Christ will come before or after the millenium. If afterward (post), then it behooves us to usher in the millenium itself by being good stewards.

Great entry!

While the Christian myth is the most complete explication of the process of individuation we have (and this is something that happens “in here,” not something that can be literalized “out there”), the Christian myth itself is an invigoration of earlier myths, that are themselves invigorations of yet earlier myths.

It’s not that we need a “new” myth, but we need to understand better why we ignore (or deprecate) the myth we have.

The first commandment is “one” … not “many.” The first principle is “love” and community, not independence and self-reliance and a mean-spirited winner-take-all philosophy of resource allocation and violent enemy obliteration.

Jesus, who lived his life as a perfect Jew (not a Christian), was clear that the heavens are spread before us … it’s all holy … it’s all God’s body … and we are in constant communion with the One of All. Jesus, who claimed we could all do what he does, was clear that the universe, God herself, would be impoverished with the loss of any one of us. The true story is that we would indeed go out into the night for the last sheep, and we would worry about the one prodigal son who seems lost from our home. God needs “all” of us just as we need “all” of our psyche in full harmonious complete expression.

Literal fundamentalists who cannot heal themselves or the sick, raise the dead, or walk on water have no claim to deep Christian living and no moral authority to levy commandments on others or to interpret scripture “literally.”

All of our prophets have been clear (and generally we ignore or stone them, whether they are “out there” or the small voice of conscience “in here”): Love one another as your selves. If you can manage that, then … give all you have to the poor. These principles (repeated with obvious fidelity throughout all spiritual literature, including Christian … and whispered to us continually from somewhere deep within) are diametrically opposed to the “Left Behind” stories and literalist pseudo-Christian philosophy you cite.

Revelations is not so much a story about what happens “out there” as it is an effort of a man to describe the process of enlightenment “in here” … and the processes the body and nervous system and mind must undergo to relinquish ego to Self, and ego desire to the eternal and infinite in every moment.

It’s not so much a new myth that we need, but for the religious right to stop selectively reading the complete myth that we have … to the point that those of us who struggle to follow Jesus are now reluctant to even declare ourselves as Christians.

If God has a role for us in the Heavens, it would certainly require us to prudently steward the treasures She might loan us. Clearly, if we cannot help steward the earth and the health of those around us with love, She will not loan us even larger treasures.

“Faith” is the bedrock upon which we build the true Temple … and as Jesus pointed out when he declared that if you tear down this Temple I will rebuild it in three days … the Temple that matters is the one “in here,” not anything made of hands “out there.” The myth has Jesus entering a Temple to demonstrate the hypocrisy of priests (”render unto”) and (on another occasion) to throw out the money changers. If we want to read the New Testament “literally,” I suggest that we would studiously avoid priests and temples. If we wisely read the New Testatment mythologically, we will understand that we are “the Priest” and we are “the Temple.”

/e