7. The Consistency of Divinity

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Let us begin where all theologies begin — from a position based purely on statements of belief. From these statements of belief will emanate secondary statements of belief. Though seemingly sterile and aseptic, this discussion is basic to clear thinking about God and God's relationship to us. Let us begin building this new Loving-God Theology with beliefs that are fully in alignment with the God-Mind within us. 

Evolutionary concepts of God — 

The origin of people, this planet, and the universe has mystified people since the dawning of conscious thought. Early tribal peoples had in common similar concepts of a "creator." Those myths and beliefs evolved slowly over the eons. Native Americans and the ancient Hebrews each developed a creation story that included the modern concept of a single God. 

The Old Testament reveals the evolution of the Hebrew God in a series of God concepts including Yahweh, The Most High El Elyon, El Shaddai, Elohim, and The Supreme Yahweh, a God separate and apart from them. Their God was an all-powerful, distant king, who was revered, worshipped, feared, and appeased. This Man-god was a mysterious, invisible super-person who affected their lives, and who was responsible for the fortunate and the unfortunate events they experienced. Their concept depicted God as the ultimate tribal leader, a Man-god who expressed the full nature of a king who ruled over all the earth and all existence. He was all-powerful and could organize the forces of nature on earth and in heaven to the Hebrews' advantage or disadvantage according to His mood. Therefore, it behooved Hebrew believers to attempt to please Him. 

Their concept of God was the highest, ultimate concept of a deified human, a humanized deity who occupied the most powerful position of their culture. This monarch even had power over good fortune and bad, and over life and death. He was a personage of such power that the fate of their nation could be arranged at will by this King-god. He could command legions of followers, vanquish enemies, and provide abundance in their fields. He was a corrector of faults, a stern lord of the lands who chastened those who fell into bad ways of living. He was seen as a provider and caretaker, much like a paternalistic king whose behavior was personal and emotional. 

Their god had super-human emotions, needs, and wants. God was described as angry, wrathful, emotional, vengeful, loving, an all-provider, and the slayer of enemies, but also a God who could be cajoled, wheedled, and seduced by prayerful and worshipful believers. This God's anger could be appeased by human sacrifice, then later by animal sacrifice. 

Over time, the Hebrew God-concept became so enmeshed and institutionalized in religious rules that it could not mature along with the growing intellectual and spiritual growth of its most God-conscious and spiritually insightful members. Hebrew prophets revealed newer Godconcepts and newer truths about the nature of God that were often at odds with the older, institutionalized God-concept. What the prophets provided were new spiritual paradigms of the God-concept that required believers to think in new ways about the nature of God and God's relationship to them. Consequently, many prophets were stoned to death or exiled. 

By the time Jesus arrived, the religious laws of the Hebrews had become so rigid and extensive that they inhibited the spiritual growth of individuals. Obligatory religious rituals got in the way of developing a personal relationship with God. To the individual, God had become obscure and remote. It is no wonder that Jesus was assassinated by the Sanhedrin: the Good News of a loving Presence of God within each of us that Jesus revealed was radically at odds with the Hebrew's traditional and institutionalized concept of a God that was outside of believers. 

Loving-God concepts of Jesus — 

If we fully accept Jesus as a Son of God, as the incarnate representative of God among people [John 5: 43], then we must also accept that Jesus and God were well acquainted and that Jesus had an eternal relationship with God and an intimate knowledge of what God was really like. Is this too simple to understand and appreciate? How long had he known his Father, God? Was it one week, a month, a year, a thousand years, a million years, or billions of years? Further, should we accept or believe what Jesus said about his Father - God? 

Use a personal example of your own to understand the credibility of Jesus' description of his eternal Father. Examine one or two of your longest enduring relationships. If you have had an ongoing, daily relationship with someone for twenty years or more, don't you feel confident that the description you could give about that person would be accurate and credible? Undoubtedly, your description would be free of any significant errors. 

Jesus assures us, "I and the Father are one" [John 10: 30], and many similar phrases that speak of Jesus' intimate knowledge of God. Since Jesus' origins are purely spiritual, holy, and divine, we can accept his descriptions of God as the most accurate and reliable available to us. It would seem reasonable to accept Jesus' revealed concept of God over the evolutionary God-concept of the ancient Hebrews. Here, in his own words, is how Jesus described God: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect'' [Matthew 5: 48]. 

From 1 John 4: 8 & 16, we are told that, "God is love.” Within these two statements rests Jesus' loving-God concept and description of God's true nature: God is perfect and God is loving. Jesus added, “God is spirit..." [John 4: 24] to ensure we are not mistaken as to God's form. God is perfect and God is love. This is Jesus' loving-God concept. Jesus did not say anything to the contrary in any of the New Testament. 

What Jesus said about God is very simple and easily understood. The key words he used were: Father, love, perfect, and spirit. These four words are the hub and center of Jesus' loving-God concept. He described God in simple terms his followers could understand, and the youngest and the oldest of us can understand today. It is very clear, yet today many Christians struggle with conflicting ideas about what God is and how God behaves. 

The nature of God according to Jesus. The word "father" does not say so much about his nature as it says who God is to us. The word "father" tells us about God's relationship to his human children. It is important for us to fully appreciate the unlimited dimensions of God's relationship to us: God's relationship to us is loving and embodies perfection, the perfection we seek in our own relationships with others and with ourselves. Jesus' concept of God provides for the development of a healthy, functional relationship between God and each of us that is best described as a loving and supportive father/mother-child relationship. 

The word "spirit" also does not say so much about the nature of God, but does tell us what God is and what God is not. Being spirit, and being The Creator outside of time, God is everywhere present at every point of time. God's Presence is at once in the entirety of the universe and yet existent in a space smaller than the distance between the particles in the nucleus of an atom. God's Presence can simultaneously be outside of us and intimately within us, each of us. 

From Jesus' description of God's primary aspects of perfection and love, we can spin off many related aspects of God's nature. Love can exist without perfection; and perfection can exist without love. But combined they become the nature of God: God is unqualifiedly perfect, unqualifiedly loving, without asides, without qualifications, without exception, without conditions, reservations, or boundaries. God is not a mixed metaphor, not a being defined by irony, in definition. Consistent with that, God is a good and friendly God. 

"God IS Love" [I John 4: 8,16]. It is our simplest prayer, a statement of faith, yet an understanding of God's true nature — one that is simple enough for children to understand and elders to appreciate and strive to become. This premise gives structure and definition to a personal, loving, co-creative spirituality. Either God is a God of love or God is not. John didn't say that God was loving sometimes and vengeful at other times. And neither did Jesus! He said God is love. 

God is within each of us. Having been asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you" [Luke 17: 20-21], 

The God of the ancient Hebrews was outside of their lives, as a monarch or king is outside of his subjects' lives. The thread of that concept is woven throughout all of the Old Testament books. The most important revelation Jesus gave us through his life, the way he lived it, and his word is that God is not distant from us. God is not outside our lives, but intimately involved in our lives when we invite The Creator to participate. 

Jesus' revelation, the "good news" of the New Testament gospel, is that we are no longer apart from God, and God is not apart from us. God’s Divine Fragment in us is a beacon guiding our own immature spirit. Having received our own spirit, we are literally spiritual sons and daughters of our spiritual Father who has joined us in our life’s struggles and joys and is available to us when we ask. 

Imagine, no, accept and know that God, the source of all knowledge, all wisdom, all love, all benevolence, and all goodness and perfection is instantly and constantly available from within us when we ask. We are not apart from God — God is wholly available in us to guide us and draw us to him. Jesus said, "I and the Father are one," and this can be paraphrased for us as, "The Father as spirit, and I as spirit, live in this life as one spirit; the only condition required is that I must will to join with God, and then make decisions that demonstrate love in action.” That can only occur through us if our concept of God is the same as Jesus'. 

God waits in the timeless Eternal NOW for us to conceive of God as God really is, even if that takes us an infinitely long period of time. God waits with eternal patience. It is our task to conceive of God with the same clarity as God understands us, no matter how long that takes. Only when we accept God as a loving God and understand God's benevolent relationship to the universe can we begin to effectively and powerfully invoke and emulate God's creative presence through our lives. 

Revising Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’ life and death ―

If we accept the Loving-God Theology and Jesus' own concepts of a loving God, we must reevaluate the purposes of his incarnation, life, and death. This may take us aside in our discussion, but in the end it will give us a far broader understanding of how magnanimous and expansive God's love is for us as exemplified in Jesus' life. 

Preliminary Issues. Why did a Son of God come to this planet in the life of Jesus? Why did he take the form of a human? Why did he take the hazardous challenge of developing from an embryo to a fully-grown man? Did he come to this planet for us only? Why did he die? Why did he die as he did? What purposes were served by his death? Was there any purpose at all? Was his death an awful, despicable action taken by vengeful men, rather than a requirement of a vengeful god? 

In light of Jesus' loving-God concepts, what place do sacrifice, atonement, and redemption have as beliefs about an eternally loving God? Why were these concepts developed? What purpose did they serve when they were developed and accepted by Christendom? What purpose do they serve now? 

All the reasons why Jesus, a Son of God, came to this planet may never be known that would help us more fully explain his life and death. Few writers have asked, "Did Jesus, as a Son of God, come into a human lifetime for any purpose that would aid his own spiritual evolution?” While answering this question would be outside the scope of this essay, making a vivid comparison may aid readers to more fully comprehend the gravity of what a Son of God did by coming to this planet. 

The life of Jesus. When this Son of God came to our minuscule planet, he made the stunning transition from a timelessly-eternal spiritual being of unlimited intelligence and power to a fragile physical being with a limited physical lifetime of almost non-existent power and energy. What would it feel like for you or me to make a transition of similar magnitude? Imagine how you would feel and what your thoughts would be if you voluntarily made the transition from a fully mature, intelligent human such as yourself to a newborn Dalmatian puppy. Or to a tadpole in a pond. Or to a worm in a rotten apple. Or to a leaf-eating caterpillar and then to a butterfly. Try to put yourself into each of these situations as a conscious being now with limited awareness and intelligence. That's the kind of transition, but with an even greater magnitude of difference, that this Son of God made when he moved from pure, all-powerful spirit into a physical embryo in Mary’s womb. 

It would be a profound understatement to say that he humbled himself as a Son of God to become a material human. By making the incredible transition from a co-creator in the universe to living as a mortal, he humbled himself to a degree none of us can imagine for ourselves. Perhaps that is why, for nearly two thousand years, we have been struggling with the interpretation of his life, and why we still haven't grasped the magnitude of what he did or the reasons why. 

What is more stunning is that Jesus came to teach us how to create a loving, co-creative relationship between our Creator and ourselves. That much seems obvious in light of his three-year ministry telling people about basic loving relationship skills that also would aid their spiritual journey. 

The death of Jesus is a topic that is germane to more fully determine if the Loving-God Theology and Jesus' own loving-God concepts are applicable to the interpretation of his own death. Although Jesus said a good deal about the nature of God and knew far ahead about his death, he said nothing in his own words about it in terms of sacrifice, atonement, or redemption. Paul, on the other hand, had a lot to say about the life and death of Jesus. Let's begin by reviewing what Paul said, since he is the most influential early interpreter of Jesus' life and death. Remember, Paul had never met Jesus to have a discussion directly with him so as to understand clearly why all of these events took place! 

For most of us, events that are many centuries old have lost their drama. How easily we forget what tremendous impact a meaningful event had on the individuals who experienced it. Consider, for instance, the personal impact the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., the shooting of the Pope, Anwar Sadat, Indira Gandhi, John Lennon, and other notable public figure had on their immediate advisors, staff, supporters, family, and close friends. Consider your own reactions to a sudden or violent death of a family member or close friend. Imagine that personal shock multiplied many times if you knew that the person you revered was a Son of God! 

Play the role of Paul with me for a few moments. In order for us to understand how and why Paul interpreted the purposes of Jesus' life and his death as he did, we must become Paul and feel what Paul felt. Early on, Paul was known as Saul, a well educated Jew who fiercely persecuted the Christians. One day as he was on his way to Damascus, Saul had a spiritual experience. In an instant, he was in the center of a light so bright that it blinded him for three days. In the light he heard the words, "Paul! Paul! Why are you persecuting me?" 

Stunned, but not incoherent, he asked in return, "Who is speaking, sir?" 

And the voice replied, "I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting!" [Acts 9: 3-20]. 

For those few moments, Saul was on the receiving end of a conversation with Jesus — the same Jesus who had already been killed by arrangements made by the Sanhedrin. In asking Saul this one question, all of Saul's questions and objections of Jesus' authenticity were answered. In doing so, Jesus had, metaphorically, let Saul see "the wiring under the board." Saul realized,
1) Jesus was who he said he was;
2) knowing this, he had to embrace and endorse the authenticity of Jesus and his ministry with the same energy that he had once denounced them. Saul was a converted believer. He was a new man, and he renamed himself Paul. 

For Paul, the fact of Jesus' presence on earth as a Son of God was doubly profound:
1) Jesus was born on earth; and
2) Jesus died on earth. Remember, although Paul now supported the life and teachings of Jesus, his beliefs were deeply rooted in the Jewish culture, religion, and education. He had an immense faith in the power of God, his God. Now he had an immense faith in his Son, too. Paul was fully aware that God was all-powerful. Nothing could move against the power of God in heaven or on earth. Neither could anything move against Jesus, since Paul knew that he was a Son of God. Yet, Jesus, as a human was crucified on the cross. 

Surely, Paul was profoundly puzzled by three overwhelming questions that needed to be answered: Why did a Son of God come to earth? Why did God and Jesus allow himself to be crucified on the cross? God or Jesus, being all-powerful, could have stopped the development of these events at any point in time. Why didn't they? 

As Paul tried to unravel this immense problem, probably his next question was, "How could such a momentous, profound event NOT be willed by God, since God is all-powerful, knows all, and is present everywhere and could have easily stopped the crucifixion?" Paul would have heard about Jesus' own words while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, "My Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" [Luke 22: 42; Matthew 26: 39,42, 44; Mark 14: 36,39|, which could easily be interpreted to mean, "God wanted it so.” Because it was obvious that God allowed the death of Jesus to occur: Paul must have concluded that God willed the death of Jesus. Most people would have drawn the same, logical conclusion — and millions have! 

Reviewing our earlier arguments, we know that God is love and all that God creates is of love. The death of Jesus was an event created by several men. God had nothing to do with Jesus' death because those men individually used their free will to make that decision. Many times daily, we live out the proof that we have free will and that God does not interfere with our decisions. 

Again as Paul, you would probably form the next question, "Why was Jesus' death willed by God?" A lamp began to flicker in Paul's head when he came to the conclusion that Jesus must have died to *atone for the sins of mankind and of individuals. It seems logical, doesn't it? As Paul knew, individuals, even mankind, were regarded as wholly sinful. 

* atone - to atone for, expiate, propitiate, appease, make amends; redeem, repair, ransom, absolve, purge, shrive; do penance, pay the penalty; sacrifice, immolate… 

Paul would have said to himself, "It all fits! People are sinful; only Jesus a Son of God is without sin. The answer to why a Son of God came to earth and died as he did was to wipe away the sins of all people by the sacrifice of his life." 

This answer made perfect sense to Paul. Sacrifice was in keeping with Hebrew history and Jewish religion. In very early Jewish history, individuals were sacrificed. Later, animals were substituted to atone and appease God for the sins committed by individual believers or by the tribe. It would have been logical then for Paul to accept the idea that the crucifixion of Jesus was a sacrifice. "What a relief,” Paul must have said, "Jesus did die for a reason! He is our Savior!" 

Further, the logic of the sacrificial concept also fits neatly with the ancient Hebrew God-concept: a wrathful, vengeful god, whose love was conditional and needed to be appeased. For centuries, that was the God that Jewish believers and Paul recognized and worshipped, and is, even today, the god of contemporary Judaism and traditional Christianity. 

Paul's logic was tight, with what appeared to be no holes or flaws. It fit historically. It fit Jewish religious and cultural history. Further, it fit the needs of the followers of Jesus, and as importantly, the needs of new believers to understand why Jesus, a Son of God, died on this planet. At the time, Paul's answer gave rationality to an otherwise irrational, illogical, and unreasonable event of immense personal and theological proportions. But, today, we know these explanations are truly irrational and illogical. God did not will his Son’s death, but allowed it to occur. 

A rationalization and justification for Paul’s interpretations — 

The mortal death of Jesus, according to Paul, is an historical interpretation we know well. Paul's interpretations were developed from very immediate, sincere, personal, cultural, and educated perspectives. The Old Testament concepts of God used by Paul restricted his interpretation of the events of Jesus' life and death. Paul's interpretation was appropriate in light of his cultural heritage, religious indoctrination, and education, and from the revelation he received on the way to Damascus. 

For Paul, what else could the death of Jesus be but a sacrifice that appeased God and atoned for the sins of all mankind? In his time, the death of Jesus as a sacrifice was a reasonably obvious conclusion. All these factors led him to interpret the death of Jesus as he did. Most anyone at that time would have come to the same conclusion. 

The effect of Paul's interpretation was an immediate healing for Jesus' followers and new believers. Though the violent murder of Jesus aroused self-hatred in believers for their associated involvement in the crime, Paul's interpretation reconciled this horrific event. His interpretation provided a new paradigm for belief that has lasted two millennia. No small feat at all! It provided Jesus' followers with a belief and faith that transcended the death of Jesus and the Apostles, and prevented the fragmentation of the early Christian movement. Paul's interpretation of Jesus' death was needed then to affirm and assure believers that their relationship with God was at peace— that the tearing of the Godindividual relationship was reconciled. 

Paul’s tragic mistakes of logic  — 

Paul's most obvious mistake of logic was that he failed to apply Jesus' own message of a loving God to Jesus' death, and compounded his mistake when he failed to remove his Jewish beliefs from his interpretation of Jesus' death. Paul failed to grasp how immediately and directly applicable Jesus' message of God's unconditional, unwavering, eternal love was to Jesus’ own death. It seems obvious and inescapable now that Jesus' revelation of God's true nature must be used to interpret Jesus’ own life and death! 

Paul's second mistake of logic involved a broad assumption he made about "the will of God." It appears that Paul became caught up in the emotional drama of Jesus' death, which caused him to overlook another very serious error in his interpretation. Paul correctly concluded that God allowed the death of Jesus, but Paul incorrectly assumed that God actively willed Jesus’ death to occur, as though it were a part of Jesus' mortal life plan to end that way. What Paul didn't see was that God allowed Jesus' death to occur by not willing to intervene in the development of events that precipitated Jesus' death. Neither God nor Jesus intervened because doing so would have violated the free will-decision of the men who decided to have Jesus killed. 

Just as Paul assumed that Jesus' death was an expression of God's active will, we can as easily assume that it was an expression of God's passive will. It is logical to conclude that the death of Jesus was allowed by God, and reasonable to conclude that it was thus passively willed to occur but not actively willed to occur. 

Paul's third mistake of logic is a continuation of the erroneous traditional Hebrew belief that our actions toward God can change God's performance for or against us: our sinfulness will change God's nature of loving and compassionate forgiveness to one of anger and wrath; and, our actions to appease God's anger and wrath can return God's loving, forgiving behavior toward us. In effect, these two situations set up a relationship of manipulation between people and God. These two situations make God look like a naïve, doddering old fool. 

Paul's mistake was that he continued to see God's love for His human children as conditional. Paul compounded his error by setting God up as the creator of the sacrifice needed to save the world — by giving up His Son to death and suffering! That is both illogical and irrational. 

The reality of The Eternal Creator is that God's love for us is unconditional. God forgives us because that is an aspect of love — compassion and mercy — and that does not change! Therefore, there is no need for sacrifice of any kind. The reality of our Eternal Creator is that It so loved the world that It provided His Son to live among us, giving us an example of how to live. 

The death of Jesus as a management decision — 

Remembering, "/ and the Father are one," [John 10: 30], the death of Jesus must have involved a shared management decision by God and his Son. We have already discussed and have come to the conclusion that Jesus and God had a close association for perhaps billions of years. In other words, they knew each other extremely well, and had a close, ongoing, and long-term working relationship. We can take for granted that they had discussed the Son's mission as Jesus' on this planet and knew well in advance what the probable outcomes of his life would be. It was predictable, even by humans with a fair knowledge of Jewish and Roman culture and law, that Jesus would be killed for his proclamations, insubordination, and refusal to submit to the demands of Jewish authorities. 

What would be the implications if Jesus did not follow the flow of events to his death? What would be the implications if he followed the events to his death as he did? What would one option say about God that the other did not? Either situation would be open to interpretation. Either situation could be misconstrued. What would be the lesser hazard with the potential for the greater benefit? Obviously, God and Jesus decided that the "least damage, most benefit" option would occur by Jesus' voluntary participation in the events, which led ultimately to his physical death. 

Option #1: God actively willed Jesus to go to earth and die upon the cross as a sacrifice to Himself for the sins of mankind, as traditional Christians believe. This option is contrary and inconsistent with Jesus' loving-God concept and the singular, loving nature of God. It is not a choice the perfect and loving, supreme and ultimate Creator of the universe would make because it is less than a perfect solution a loving, benevolent Creator would choose. 

Option #2: God passively willed (allowed) Jesus to die by accepting the will-decisions of the individuals involved, and Jesus concurred. This option agrees with God's plan for free-willed creatures and ironically provides the best example of a totally consistent, loving Creator. 

The only two aspects of will that God can be accused of in the murder of Jesus are that
a) He originally willed each human’s free will to be sovereign and inviolable, and
b) he willed not to interfere in the events leading to and including Jesus' death. Jesus even discussed this issue with his Father and concurred with both aspects of God's will. We know this by his words, "My Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done," [Luke 22: 42; Matthew 26: 39,42, 44; Mark 14: 36,39]. 

At any time that Jesus was on the cross he could have changed the events and rescued his material body from the cross. God could have done that, too. But neither did. God allowed those terrible events to take place because He limited Himself to act — upholding the sovereignty and inviolability of human will-decisions. 

God’s commitment to the inviolability of our decisions — 

Primary to this non-traditional Christian interpretation is the sincere earnestness of God's original commitment not to interfere with the individual or collective decisions of His human children, even when that meant the mortal death of His Son! That is a testimony to the commitment God has for the sovereignty of the free will of his creatures and the expression of their will. God's non-interference in the developments leading to Jesus' death proves that he is not a manipulator of our lives but a sincere creator. 

What this means for us is that we are fully and totally responsible for our decisions, choices, and actions. The wonderful aspect of this interpretation is that it is in tune with the consistent, eternal, unconditional loving nature of God: to create exceptional results using love. This is total confirmation of the accuracy of Jesus' concept of God that he gave to us. 

In the play of our self-will, which God has granted as inviolate, we are responsible for our decisions. God does not interfere. Yet we see and know that God is involved in our lives daily in many ways. How can this occur? Look at it from a parent's perspective: a child must be raised to learn to become a fully responsible adult in a larger society. And though the parent allows the child to make decisions, some of which are harmful to himself and sometimes to others, the parent is nonetheless left to clean up the consequences of the child's actions. It is not much different from the havoc we inflict in our lives and the lives of others, leaving God to bring peace, harmony, and love into expression. God provides an abundance of options for thought, choices, and actions to us, but never interferes in our choices or our actions. 

The men who murdered Jesus did so through the despicable and selfish expression of their wills. They put their will before God's. God's will implies benevolence. Therefore, all acts that are not benevolent are not a reflection of God's will. They were not manipulated by God to kill Jesus. They, alone, were responsible for the murder of Jesus. The individual will of the perpetrators of this crime took precedence over God's will. God created humans with free will, and did not, would not, and will not abrogate man's will, even when that meant the mortal death of his Son. 

As a Son of God, Jesus proved his perfect obedience by not thwarting the will of his murderers or his Father's will. Under similar circumstances, does man have a right to defend himself? Yes, and under different circumstances, Jesus would have done so. But he had a point to make: God does not interfere with man's will. God does not break his own rules. 

Jesus' acceptance of the decisions of the individuals who arranged his murder was as powerful a statement as ever could be made to all the universe that God's love is benign, consistent, unwavering, eternally and universally benevolent, and unconditional; and that God will not interfere in the expression of the will of any individual, no matter what circumstances may be involved. There could not have been a more personal, profound, and poignant demonstration of non-interference with our will-decisions. Further, there could not have been a more powerful and poignant statement about the ultimate responsibility that we have for our decisions and our actions.

Belief, frozen in guilt — 

Within the Loving-God set of beliefs, there is no room for the traditional concepts of sacrifice, atonement, and redemption. Those concepts and the subsequent human guilt and shame associated with the need for Jesus' death to wipe away the sins of mankind have frozen Christendom's ability to conceive of higher, more spiritual and reliable concepts of God. It is time to relinquish these aged interpretations in order for us to accept the truer God-concept: GOD IS LOVE. We cannot put the new wine of Jesus' loving-God concept into the old skin of traditional Judeo-PaulineChristian theology. 

Traditional Christian beliefs about God in effect indict God as a manipulative murderer of his own Son. Doesn't the belief that God sent his Son to his death as appeasement and atonement for the sins of mankind, whom God created, amount to an indictment of murder? God did not manipulate men to assassinate His Son. Would any loving father manipulate others to kill his son? No, not even a neglectful, indifferent human father would do that. So, it is inconceivable that a loving God would send his Son to die as a persuasion to Himself to forgive the sins of mankind He created. That is irrational. 

God is not a heinous god, but a God of love and tenderness. He allowed His Son to go to earth, which for us would be a humiliating experience of profound proportions if we were in God's "emotional space" as a supreme and perfect spiritual being. No, God did not require the death of His Son. That was the work of unenlightened individuals. It was not the responsibility of mankind, the Jews, and certainly not of God. 

As fathers and mothers, we forgive our children many wrongs and hurts because children don't have the awareness, the consciousness, to know when what they do is wrong. Jesus understood this, too, when he said, "Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they are doing." Would our heavenly Father do any less? Never. God's love is so eternally and universally constant and complete that there is no need for sacrifice to buy His forgiveness. Forgiveness is ours immediately when we sincerely forgive others whom we believe have harmed us.

Christian shame and guilt — 

Unfortunately, what hasn't healed is the guilt and shame of traditional Christian believers who continue to accept Paul's interpretation of the death of Jesus. The rationalization for this guilt and shame is that mankind is so sinful that it required no less than the death of a Son of God to atone for the individual and collective sins of mankind. That is the carry-over of Paul's interpretation that hasn't been healed yet, and won't be healed until Christians accept Jesus' loving-God concept, rather than the Old Testament concept of a wrathful God. 

Even today, the guilt and shame of Jesus' murder, death, and sacrifice overwhelm many believers, especially during the Easter season. For many, their guilt is almost insurmountable: guilt for sins committed; guilt for sins not yet committed; guilt for sins that surely will be committed since we are sinful and without possibility of not sinning until we pass from this lifetime; guilt for the associated sins of others; guilt for the sins of humanity; and on and on. 

We no longer need to feel guilty, individually or as the race of humanity for Jesus' death. Though we mourn his death and despise the actions of his murderers, we can accept the occurrence of his death just as Jesus accepted it, without guilt or anguish. 

With a Loving-God Theology and Jesus' own loving concepts of God, traditional Christian theology is cleansed of the toxic shame, guilt, and even embarrassment that millions of believers have felt. We no longer need to kneel and bow in shame and guilt. We can stand beside Jesus, basking in the radiance of our Creator-Mother-God’s almighty, eternal, and constant light of love. We are His children and we have a clear way home. We are wanted and we are needed in God's great universe. Nothing stands in our way except our reluctance to wholeheartedly embrace God's eternal, unconditional love.

Two continuing errors maintained by most Christians ―

Two major errors maintained by most Christians, and originated by Paul, are 
1) their undiscerning acceptance of the Old Testament beliefs in the nature of God; and 
2) their disbelief and untrusting acceptance of Jesus' new revelation about the true, loving nature of God, our mutual FatherMother-Creator. 

It is unfortunate enough that most Christians continue to accept Old Testament beliefs about the nature of God, but the error of that belief is compounded immensely by their seemingly adamant refusal to believe what Jesus said about the true nature of God. It is as though millions of believers since the death of Jesus have missed the point of his life: God truly loves us, individually, personally, and intimately without any conditions. 

If we cannot accept that God truly loves us, how can we emulate the life of Jesus, and apply his words of guidance to live our lives more peacefully, lovingly, and effectively? We cannot. And if we cannot do this, then we cannot truly and effectively apply the power, light, and love of God in our own lives. Thus, we limit our inherent potential to express, live, and demonstrate that love and energy through our lives for ourselves, our fellow brothers and sisters, and our planet. 

Jesus' life was a demonstration of loving relationships: with his Father (our Creator), with his followers, with his persecutors, with his murderers, and with us. If we do not accept his new revelation about the true, loving nature of God, then we will be unable to apply his life as a living example of what sacred relationships are all about: living the example of loving relationships for ourselves and for others. 

When we accept his revelation about the true nature of God, we then empower all the God-spirit potential that exists in us to express and demonstrate Jesus' example of loving relationships in our own lives. Any inconsistency in our beliefs about God causes misalignments between our will to create and the energy of the universe to fulfill our intentions to create. Our relationship to the Creator will be out of alignment and our relationship to the energies God provides in the universe for us to use will be out of alignment, whether that is to create loving relationships with others, or simply to improve the content and context of our lives.