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There are certain ideas within Christianity that create thought patterns which cause cycles of circular shame. I don’t think anyone came up with these ideas consciously. I think they are a result of an evolutionary process similar to viruses. Leaders began to see the effectiveness of these ideas in creating and retaining converts and attributed this to the working of the Holy Spirit.
One such idea is the concept of sin. Many have been taught within Christianity that we are all born sinners. None of us is perfect and the only one who is perfect is god. And the conclusion is it’s because of sin we are not perfect. We are to strive to be perfect like our father in heaven. And to make up for this shortfall in our nature we are to rely on Christ to cover our sins with his righteousness to allow us to go to heaven, because only perfection will survive in heaven. And when Jesus comes the second time we will be transformed into actual perfect beings to live forever in heaven.
There are two layers to this meme. The first layer is the system of thought which sets up a world view where everything is judged as sinful or righteous. Most Christians don’t realize that these are arbitrary designations which have no basis in reality. They are completely contextual. You will find in many classes on bringing people to Christ that the first step in conversion is convicting the sinner of their sin. Traditional Christianity has no context without this world view. That’s why it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to convert Buddhists,who really understand their own system of thought, to traditional Christianity. Buddhists don’t see everything in black and white or gray for that matter. Their goal is to live without making this designation in what they call the “middle path.”
The second layer of this meme is the idea of perfection. Perfection removes the power of choice because the implication is that there is a perfect law describing every single decision and at this point only God knows what these laws are and what the future holds. For us to be perfect in this sense would require that we have god like powers of knowing the future.
In reality the only option we have is trial and error. Even if we have authority telling us the “right” path we still don’t have knowledge of this until we try it. The problem we have is that there are multiple authorities telling us different paths and all of us eventually have to discover our own path through trial and error. So the expectation of perfection is a circle of shame that will never be realized without god like powers.
One of the best papers on the 12 steps that I read was called, “I am not God.” It was the recognition of the expectations of god like powers underneath a lot of our assumptions about the world and how these circular shame cycles drove addiction. These traditional Christian narratives are also ego based because they focus our attention on our own “goodness” and our own “evil” tendencies. And most of these “evil” tendencies are simply instincts that aren’t good or bad by themselves. We have instincts for sex, food, and pleasure that are all condemned in some form within traditional Christian belief systems.
Values in these types of simplified Christian narratives are simply moral gymnastics that are ego driven and have nothing to do with really experiencing life directly. It is true that Jesus has a few saying that point the way out of this narrative, but Jesus has really been co-opted into this narrative and unless you do a little thinking on your own and expose yourself to some more mystical ideas, you won’t recognize these certain sayings of Jesus.
My suspicion is that these sayings of Jesus came from Buddhism or some other mystical school of philosophy and became part of the Christian narrative accidentally because whoever co-opted them didn’t really understand them. There is evidence of Buddhist missionaries in Judea in the first century and Persian Christianity was invited to China in the 5th century and you find a blend of Christianity and Eastern philosophy in translated Chinese scrolls called “The Jesus Sutras.” There was certainly opportunity for cross pollination.
To live life free of these types of shame cycles does require a psychological re-birth or awakening. It also requires us to give up the subconscious expectations of these “god” powers and accept our limitations. This gives us room to do trial and error without all the condemnation and guilt. It allows us to develop our own powers of reasoning which does give us a form of fore-knowledge based on experience and deduction. We are all accountable to reality and the less dysfunctional narratives we have cycling through our heads the more free we’ll feel.
AnonymousWell said!
I like what you wrote Richard. I remember in seminary writing a paper comparing Jesus’ sayings to the Buddha’s. I was not a little stunned by my findings. Reading about the Jesus Seminar coming to the conclusion that there were perhaps only 8 sayings of Jesus that are authentic happened around the same time. These two events rocked my world.
Thanks Richard!
I wouldn’t want to disagree with anything you have written. As a believer I see sin as missing the mark of what God created us to be – but I don’t believe in the theology based on the fall of Adam. It makes sense to me that God knew that mankind would make a mess of things (Jesus is referred to as the Redeemer before creation) and that life is an ongoing creative process. OK, I’m seen as a heretic by some, but then I’ve never been an evangelical Christian!
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