While I appreciate many of the things Dr. Brown discusses and his use of classic literature like Paradise Lost et al, his generalization of religion as being all about obedience control and hierarchical dominance is just lazy. This isn’t to say those elements are not present in versions of various religions, but a careful student of world religions can see elements of control and freedom (both good and bad et paradigms as he frames them are present). Also as a protestant christian, the reformation was about freeing the conscience from terror and from strict obedience as it relates to the carrot of salvation. His version of God as a being who is bored is boring to me - especially since he has said he’s taking guesses as such important matters.
The philosophical underpinnings of religious traditions and even some of their revelatory commitments may yet be helpful moving into the age of disclosure. But of course this is just my opinion.
Here are some thoughts i put together for a theological conference i’m speaking at tomorrow. if anyone is near west virginia come on over and say hey.
Not the god,…… a god.
Your reflections are like an island of coherence and sanity.
Courtney's area of expertise is political science so he's good at mapping the power structures of the prison system. He's not a theologian or a mystic which can be more helpful for mapping the way out of the prison system.
Thanks Amalynn. I do think he does a good
job explaining the poetry of Paradise Lost and the intention and complexity of it. It’s when he pivots to all religion as a control myth, i react against even while understanding the reality of some control systems in a multibillion person religion.
At a deeper level, to me
jesus is someone i believe I know and have been communicating with throughout my life and have know jesus to be one of mercy and love and even the church, while a mixed bag like any institution, has done much good too.
I wrote this song in AI for a good friend, who is also clergy, on the death of his mother a few days ago. The event was full of dreams of visions for those gathered at her death bed. I put all of it into this song. Full of mercy, love and promise.
https://aisonggenerator.ai/share/Roses%20Through%20the%20Solar%20Spheres&id=5000912
Grant, thank you for sharing this song, it is beautiful.
I felt the deep grief, the love, and the spiritual reality of passage in it.
The roses took me back to the moment when my own mother died and the whole room was filled with the scent of roses.
It seems to me that the control systems go after what is most alive. What holds the wildness of beauty, truth and love, the living spiritual reality that can’t be contained or controlled. They can cover it up, imitate it, confuse and confound it, but the living reality remains.
When Jesus is a living flame you know deeply in your own heart (as you do), then this is a love affair. You know the deeper flame, mercy, love, compassion, grace. It is alive. It is resonance and attunement. It is not an abstract idea.
The church became attached to institutions (and all institutions can become brittle), but it didn’t begin that way. But if you uncover the heart of it, then it is simply those gathered together around the living flame. It becomes a hearth, and a hearth sustains life. And when people gather around that living flame in love, especially in a moment of loss, that feels to me like the church in its truest form: a living hearth.
So when your friend was in the moment of the transition of his mother, he found himself not alone, but surrounded by loving friends like you. This is the living hearth that sustains life in a real way.
Thank you for listening to that and for your understanding. Peace be with you.