confessions of a heritic

Confessions of a Heretic 2009 Rev. Ed Conrad

A heretic is usually defined as "someone who believes contrary to the fundamental tenets of a religion or spiritual way of life they claim to belong to." I claim to be a follower of the wisdom and teachings of Jesus and other enlightened wayshowers. Historically Jesus became an icon portrayed in very narrow terms nearly 1700 years ago by a select
council of men.

Since that fateful convocation, all adherents have been told by religious hierarchy that they must agree with this portrayal and in addition agree to a theology and assumptions that were largely determined by this council of Nicaea. This became Christianity. Still, all these years later, Christianity in large part holds to the viewpoints which were set in stone between the years 300-400. Anyone through their own discovery, prayer, research, and/or spiritual practice
who has expressed contrary views has in most Christian circles been deemed a heretic.

I am grateful and honored to be a part of this growing wave of heretics or contrarians. I've never claimed to belong to the largely Pauline Christianity that was codified and frozen in place in the 4th century. I belong to those who see Jesus as the first fruits of a unique spiritual way of life that combined an Eastern philosophy of "seeking the kingdom within" with the very sweeping and redemptive teaching of unconditional love and forgiveness even of our so called enemies.

He never gave this deeply spiritual and profoundly human way of life a name. Those involved in this movement shortly after Jesus' earthly departure were often called followers of "The Way". This "Way" was just that- a way to live fully, to open the corridors of our conscious awareness to the inner temple of God/Goddess/All That Is, and to break the hold of religious dominance and fear.

These contrarian heretics, what I used to call "raretics", have been murdered, imprisoned, tortured, ridiculed, demonized, rejected, and told they are doomed to eternal suffering. We have mostly emerged from these
dark ages, but much of the rhetoric of "true believers" critical of these contrarians remains.

Excerpts of an interview with best selling author and retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong appeared in the March-April issue of Unity magazine. In this article, his heretic is revealed. He says, "the trouble with traditional Christianity...is that it is built on two assumptions that are inadequate and dying. First, salvation must come from a God outside us--a theistic God...Second, human beings are fallen, broken, sinful, and in need of redemption." He goes on to say, "It was always the single heretic that saved the church", and the article continues--"First the heretic gathers enough followers so that there are 'too many people to burn,' (Spong's words) then the ideas become a
movement and eventually a reformation."

Unity in its 120 year history beginning with Charles and Myrtle Fillmore has at times endured the wrath of orthodox Christians because we dared to hold a differing point of view about the nature of God, the nature of humanity, and the nature and message of Jesus.(a role model rather than the one and only savior) As a Unity minister, I certainly have received my share of vitriolic comments. If you've been in Unity a while, you may have also been told that,spiritually and theologically speaking, you are simply wrong. So be it.

Ultimately, for me, the gospel of love is for everyone no matter your religious or non-religious persuasion. Rather than condemn when other's beliefs or visions differ, as Bishop Spong puts it, God is best seen when people "live fully, love wastefully, and be all that we can be."

I suspect that a good number of you have been "hereticking" along with me for a while. Keep going. Follow your heart. And, next time you see me, wink if you're a heretic. I'll wink back.

Merrily hereticking,
Ed

I was born into this world on Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is a moveable feast whose date is not fixed to a particular day of the calendar year but moves in response to the date of Easter and celebrates Yeshua’s (Jesus in English) triumphal entry into Jerusalem several days before his crucifixion. For almost all of my life, especially as I’ve approached Palm Sunday each year, I have felt a kinship with Yeshua, but not in the conventional sense. To extract Yeshua from all the hypotheses, assumptions, and dogma about him and know him as he truly was leaves me for the most part having to resort to the same strategy as many others- study, pray, hear the words he was likely to have uttered and create a hypothesis of my own. I’ve been working on this off and on since my preschool days at Central Methodist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

After all my encounters with Yeshua in study, prayer, dreams, and conversations with experts and novices alike, here’s where I stand presently. He was born into this world in springtime from a young mother and a father who was considerably older. Like selective others born into this world, he possessed extraordinary gifts. Those gifts were enhanced over time through his contact with the mystical, esoteric traditions within Judaism. He developed the rare skill of being able to shape the dimension of invisible substance which allows a person to have amazing command of the physical world. This dimension of life out of which all form comes forth into existence Charles Fillmore called the living ether.

Through this gift Yeshua was able to change the molecular structure of almost anything, i.e., “cure” blindness, lameness, walk on water, transform thought patterns, etc. He’s not the only one who has acquired this knowledge and these skills. Some would call this magic and even his own people were afraid of what they saw and attributed his spiritual deftness to “Satan” simply because they had no reference point for what they were seeing.

Here’s what makes Yeshua more than just a spiritual magician. First, he brought through a “gospel of love and forgiveness” which was inclusive of all who cared to join in, even his Roman persecutors. And, he didn’t use his rare power for show or for harm. For him, none of this was about wanting to be placed on a supernatural pedestal or creating a religion centered around him. At some point in his relatively short life here, he realized that his purpose was partly to share with his closest students the mysteries of universal wisdom and knowledge. This would be coupled with his gospel of love and forgiveness with the vision that his circle of closest disciples would be the leading edge of a widespread spiritual awakening. His intent as I see it was to eventually have all people be transformed through an inner awakening to the Divine Power within them, to be the light of the world. The gospel of love and forgiveness was a must in order for souls to be free from shame, ignorance, and old testament style retribution.

Yeshua, consistent with his cultural and religious influences, would not have been celibate and in all likelihood had a relationship and/or marriage with his beloved companion and disciple, Mary Magdalene. In spite of the dominant patriarchal influences of his day and the influences of the patriarchy on gospel writers, I believe that women played an important role in his ministry and were in his circle of disciples. Strong evidence exists to support this claim.

Yeshua decided that he would not resist what he finally came to realize would be his inevitable end. I believe he had the spiritual wherewithal to avoid this fate. Why did he not act and take control of what was happening to him? Here’s my intuitive as well as informed response: Yeshua’s inner guidance was to go through the experience of death and not resist. He was totally committed to following what he believed he was receiving from his spirited connectedness with his higher power that he called “Abba”. He had moments of doubt, but remained unwavering in his commitment to follow this guidance.

Let me be clear. I do not believe he would have followed this guidance if he thought it meant for him to be a martyr or sacrificial lamb which of course would have been consistent with the traditions and history of Judaism. Much has been written about him being the fulfillment of this Messianic prophecy. In the era of post Yeshua religious fervor and Roman tyranny, writers and individuals desperate for hope could naturally be drawn toward the idea of Yeshua being a saving presence for a suffering people.

My conclusion is that his role was to usher in a new dispensation that was not confined to the restraints of his beloved Judaism and the fulfillment of messianic prophecies. Rather, he understood, if not altogether, at least to some degree, that he was to be the first fruits of the universal truth of eternal life- to be the revelation of the real meaning behind being “raised from the dead”. He anticipated that he could travel through the corridor of death because he had penetrated into the hidden wisdom that understands how to have command of the indestructible reality of the invisible substance that sustains and creates life. And, he needed to show that even the most painful of physical deaths couldn’t destroy this source of life and our oneness with it. His passage through physical death was a resounding call to all people that would reverberate throughout our collective awareness and break the hold of the fear of death….the key to ultimate freedom.

Now, after all the stories passed down about him and written about him by the dozens of gospel writers (there were many more than the four New Testament writers), one has to sort out what could be judged as cultural, religious, political, philosophical and cosmological (antiquated perspective of our world and the universe that had no knowledge of current day scientific advances) biases. I’ve done my own sorting which leaves me with my own summary that I’ve shared above. The beauty of this form of midrash (inner exploration and revelation of scripture and history that arises from ancient Jewish tradition) is it encourages new discoveries of the various hidden aspects of Divinity which to me were not determined for all time by a few zealots, prophets, and writers of ages long since past. I have listened and read and prayed and I’m left with my own conclusions.

Thus, I deeply appreciate the inward moving spiral of understanding that I’ve been on for the whole of my life that has guided me to look more closely at these ancient stories and arrive at a much more nuanced and intimate relationship with the divine man Yeshua and his very special place in our revolutionary collective awakening to who and what we are. His triumphal entry into this world and into my life is a celebration of not only what’s possible but what’s certain to come for all of us. The mysteries of life and death are coming to light. May the movable feast of Palm Sunday move you to consider in your own heart these mysteries that are destined to be revealed. Hosanna in the highest!