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Christianity - A Perfect Perversion of the Original Intent of Jesus
by
Cliff Havener and Margaret Thorpe

Every now and then, we see a bumper sticker that says, “Jesus is coming, and, boy, is he pissed.” You'd be pissed, too. You had seen the source of  all the frustrations and chaos in which people kept losing themselves. And you had taught people how to free themselves from it  You thought you'd left a legacy of enlightenment and personal freedom, at the cost of your own life, and now you discover an institution, founded in your name, that is larger and more oppressive than the ones you sought to free people from when you were here. It not only denies everything you taught, it is nothing more than a different incarnation of everything you challenged. Wouldn’t you be pissed – and how!  

Jesus of Nazareth understood how the universe works.  He understood its principles and taught, essentially, that life is holy only when it is holistic and lived consistently with those principles.  If there is such a thing as original sin, it is the continual attempts of people to ignore universal reality and to exert illusory control over that which is far greater and more enduring than we.

Whether you consider yourself a Christian or not really doesn’t matter.  Jesus of Nazareth was what we would call today a systems thinker.  He saw wholes, patterns, and the full context in which we live.  He wanted others to see that, too.  It didn't happen. To understand why, we have to start by looking at the universality of systems. Then we’ll look at the dynamics of human-made social systems and the way in which people, in most instances, persist in deviating from the universal reality of how things work, thereby creating things that don’t work and making ourselves miserable in the process.

Some Basic Principles of Systems

So far as we know, everything that exists is a system – “a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole”.  “Unified wholes” with interacting and continuously changing components are the essential nature of our surroundings, of the entire universe.  If you are a religious person, call this God’s Design.  If not, call it Nature or Reality; it’s the same thing.  

People, as sentient beings, have always known that we live in systems, though only recently have we verbally articulated this knowledge.  We have ancient and universal representations of systems.  They are all the same - concentric shapes emanating outward from a nucleus, like a stone thrown into a pond.  They appear as circles, ellipses, and spirals, even in petroglyphs and decorative stones from several thousand years ago.

Systems and Purpose

We depict systems with a nucleus or a starting point.  This nucleus is the system's central organizing principle, its reason for being, its purpose.  It defines the system's nature.  As participants in an indefinite system far larger than ourselves, we cannot discern the purpose of systems we did not create.  Perhaps God created them; perhaps they self-organized.  But we can know the purpose of systems people created. Whenever people create a system, they have a reason – and how they define it defines the nature of the system that evolves from it. Suppose we create a new school.  If we say its purpose is to mold children into responsible public citizens, we will get a very different structure, with very different processes and participants, and with very different results, than if its purpose is to assure children the freedom and opportunity to think, create, and live fully their present and future lives.

Purpose is not tangible.  One can’t see it, hold it, touch it, carry it around, or prescribe it.  Yet purpose is cause; all else is effect.  A seed, for example, is the nucleus, the origin, of the plant it will become.  It contains the entire design of the plant.  The design in the seed becomes manifest – tangible – in the mature plant.  The early stage of systems is the same.  There is a concept, an idea, a philosophy which must be given material forms and processes that will accomplish the original purpose or intent.

Unless we intrinsically recognize and know purpose, not only can we not see systems; we also cannot know the meaning of their forms and processes.  Nor, in the case of human-created systems, where we can know their intent, can we tell if the forms and processes are "working", meaning, effectively accomplishing the intent.  The consequences of failing to recognize the importance of purpose, of origin and intent, in the development and course of human-made systems, ultimately are disastrous for the people living within them.

Open and Closed Systems

Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the originator of General Systems Theory, identified two fundamentally different types of systems:  open and closed.  Living systems are open systems.  They continually change, adapt, and evolve because they are interdependent with the larger systems that surround them, their environment.  Most physicists now believe the that universe itself is an open system. 

Closed systems are mechanical and repetitive.  A machine is a closed system.  A tractor cannot evolve and become a boat when the fields flood.  A closed system becomes useless (obsolete) when its environment changes.  Closed human social systems, being mechanical and repetitive, locked into forms and processes that no longer apply, suffer the same fate. 

When people create social systems, they may create them as open or closed.  Systems that begin as open may become closed.  The key issue to remember is that open systems are  dynamic -  alive,  active, and changing - adapting; closed ones drive toward static equilibrium - changeless and non-adaptive. Whether a system is open or closed is determined by how the people within it define its nucleus, its core, its purpose, its "reason for being". 

The Essential Determinant

At the core of every human social system must be a transaction between two principal partners who understand each other as equal beings playing different roles.  In personal relationships, it's the two people. In education, it's the providers of the information and those who use it - the teachers and the students. In business, the two principal partners are the producer of the product or service and its user. In healthcare, it's the doctor and the patient.

The critical question is, "For what purpose does the transaction occur?” Everything else in the system is defined by the answer to this question. In an open social system, the critical partners are aware of their interdependence and any statement of purpose is inclusive; it recognizes benefit to both parties.  In a closed social system, the partners do not recognize their interdependence. Statement of purpose by one is exclusive of the other. Each recognizes only what he or she wants, ignoring the reciprocity between them.  If, in starting a new business, for example, we say its purpose is to make money, which considers only the seller's best interests, we are creating a closed system.  If, however, the seller says its purpose is to provide users with some form of unique usefulness, even something as simple as potato chips they really enjoy, the seller is creating an open system by recognizing the best interests of the other principal partner.

The Lifecycle of Human Systems

George Land, in his book Breakpoint and Beyond, posited that organizational and social systems have two demonstrated phases - the formative and the normative.  In the formative phase, the system is open.  In the normative phase, it becomes closed and begins to die.  He also tells us that there is, theoretically, a third phase – the integrative  – in which a system remains open by skillfully balancing the qualities of both the formative and normative phases.

The Formative Phase

All social systems begin intangibly in someone’s mind as a concept, idea, philosophy, or solution to a problem.  Once people have defined the purpose for a system, they move to manifest that purpose - to give it material forms and processes that will accomplish it.  Whether the intended system's purpose is originally open or closed, the work in this phase is highly creative. It's mostly problem-solving - trying to create something that has not previously existed. In this phase, the key questions are, "What are we trying to do, and why?".  People focus on outcomes.  The formative phase is about "making it up as you go along". Decision making criteria are highly qualitative.

A new system will succeed or fail depending on its relevance to a principal external partner, recognized or not, and upon the collective, and diverse skills of the people working to manifest its purpose. A diversity of skills is critical to materializing any system's purpose. Therefore, a formative system values people for their creativity, and their authenticity, which affirms each individual's unique value.  People in formative systems feel alive.

Because working in a formative system requires creativity, it propagates whole brain use, especially use of right-brain functions, which is severely discouraged in a normative system.

The Normative Phase

If a system is closed in the beginning, that is, has no principal external partner who wants or needs what it provides, it dies quickly.  But, if there are external beneficiaries, whether recognized by the providers or not, the system begins to grow.

At some point, people sense that what they’ve been building is working.  “People are buying what we’re selling."  "Our congregation is growing."  We’ve got the plane up in the air; now all we have to do is keep it there.”

They believe they have successfully identified all the forms and processes necessary to actualize the original intent. They concentrate on repeating what’s working. Even if the provider - the business, school, church, political party, whatever - originally valued its principal external partner, it no longer does.  It becomes more and more concerned with its own internal operations, its forms and processes, policies and procedures, regimens, rites and rituals, its operating "norms".  Specifically, it focuses on faithfully repeating them over and over with no deviation, no diversity. This is the mechanical model.

For products coming off an assembly line, the mechanical model works.  For people, it’s a disaster. The system now requires people within it to conform to its views, its forms and its practices without question. Its so-called "leaders" – managers, teachers, ministers, directors - are actually the enforcers of the system's norms. They say to employees, students, members, participants:  "Here's how we do things around here. Conform and you can stay.  Think for yourself and you're out."  In other words, “Be normal.”  

Talented, creative, original thinkers with new insights, such as Jesus of Nazareth was, are declared "out" - very, very out.  They refuse to "check their brain at the door", to mindlessly abide by unexamined assumptions.  Organizations, whether companies, school districts, government agencies or religious denominations drive them out until no one is left to ask "Why are we doing this in the first place?" and "Is what we're doing really working?"

Admonitions against independent, original, creative thinking have the effect of allowing only left-brain use. That's all that's necessary to "follow the rules". Use of right-brain skills, those required to create the mental pictures that disclose purpose and meaning - comprehension of the intangible or "spiritual"-  is prohibited. Therefore, people raised and trained in normative systems lose the ability to "see", that is, to comprehend the intangible causes of tangible effects. They are, in effect, socially conditioned to be spiritually blind. They can't "see" with their "mind's eye". That explains why they don't "get it". The ability to "get it" has been trained out of them.

As a system increases in size, its functions become more developed. They specialize.  Nature also specializes, but doesn't normalize.  Natural living things, that is, all species except man, operate in open, adaptive systems. They go directly from their formative phase to what Land called an integrative phase. They change their operating subsystems in accord with their primary purpose.  When whatever they're doing doesn't work anymore, they do something different – based on purpose - rather than unquestioningly abide by the existing rules.  Their subsystems evolve interdependently because doing so is critical to the larger system's chances of survival.

Non-human living systems, which are, by definition, integrative, show us that diversity, variance, and creative adaptation directly correlate to survival and health.  As Darwin pointed out nearly 150 years ago:

So, in the general economy of any land, the more widely and perfectly the animals and plants are diversified for different habits of life, so will a greater number of individuals be capable of there supporting themselves.  A set of animals, with their organization but little diversified, could hardly compete with a set more perfectly diversified in structure.

These are God’s systems, if you will.  They have been evolving, adapting, and changing to perpetuate themselves since they originated.  We might say they celebrate their oneness and inclusiveness. Whatever they do, they always do it for purpose and because it works, not because “it’s the way we do things around here”.  And they don’t go searching for heretics to expel, either. 

The Integrative Phase

Integrative systems are those which are materially manifest, but which are directed by their originating, open purpose rather than by the forms, processes, rites, and rituals which evolved from it. Its processes are highly flexible so as to assure manifesting the system's purpose under changing conditions. Such systems evolve themselves toward ever greater rhythm and harmony – the “music of the spheres”, as the hymn says.  Natural systems inherently recognize and depend upon the continuous exchange of value among the many diverse elements participating in them.  They both create and operate at the same time.

We believe that integrative systems are what everyone from new age gurus, who may say “higher consciousness”, to organizational developers, who may say “empowerment”, are groping toward. In fact, most areas of human endeavor are beginning to recognize the "holistic" view, even if they haven't gotten to the realization of its source - the ability to know and act from an open, inclusive purpose. In this sense, we could say that we are experiencing Jesus' "second coming", although He is by no means the only human who ever had this view of reality. It's a trait common to people we call "geniuses" or "true visionaries" like Einstein, Gandhi, Buckminster Fuller, Frank Lloyd Wright, William James, Carl Jung, to name a few. In fact, a strong case can easily be built that children are born with this view, but are socially conditioned to "be normal" instead. A major element of that conditioning, as we shall see, is "the church".

Creating an integrative system essentially means to consciously recognize and live by the system's open purpose.  Recall that purpose drives the nature of a system – its structure, its processes, its attitudes, its results. Recall, also, that, each partner in an open system is dedicated to promoting the other partner's best interests.  The integrative phase unifies the fragments of the normative by recognizing the system's original, open, inclusive intent or purpose.  It doesn't mean throwing away what exists. It means discovering why it exists and then redesigning the system, based on current conditions, to accomplish that original intent. 

People in integrative systems know the basis of unity between the principal partners, even after the system has become large and materially complex. Therefore, they can see the meaning behind its forms and processes. They know why things do or don't make sense.  They know what to change and when to change it.  They make decisions from purpose.  Unlike a normative system, whose complexity is incomprehensible, people can comfortably function in the complexity of an integrative system because they have the foundation of mutually beneficial purpose for organizing all the details.

In addition, people in integrative systems are valued for their unique and diverse talents that contribute to accomplishing the system's original, inclusive intent under changing conditions. The members of the system are empowered rather than disempowered.  Integrative systems, in essence, support life instead of attempting to destroy it.

Integrative systems require people to use their whole brain - to be able to both "see" and "do".

Jesus of Nazareth taught an integrative view of reality.

Jesus – What He Knew and What He Taught

Jesus was what we today would call a whole-brained person.  He saw and understood systems, and He knew what they tell us about the essential nature of humanity.  From the perspective of systems, He used both formative and normative capabilities, both His right and left brains.  In short, he was an integrative person.  If you are a Christian, you believe that God gave Him these capabilities and sent Him to teach us the fundamental truths of God’s plan.  Matthew Fox, when he was still a Dominican priest, wrote in Original Blessing that Jesus had come to teach the wonder of God’s creation, which Fox calls our “original blessing”.  For those who are not Christians, Jesus’ teachings still carry a universal message about who we really are in the greater context, a message also delivered by many other timeless teachers such as the Buddha and Lao Tzu.

Yet the churches founded in Jesus’ name tell us that His mission was to save us from our sins. Our "sins”, they declare, are the manifestation of our inherently evil nature, which will send us to Hell in our next life.  Only by believing in Jesus as Christ can we be saved from this fate.  We submit that this was not at all the message of the real Jesus of Nazareth.  We believe He sought to teach people to see the intangibles behind the forms and processes that surrounded them, to understand the essential meaning of Nature, Reality or God’s creation by recognizing and accepting our role as participants within living, dynamic, eternal systems.

One of the most notable characteristics of Jesus’ teachings is that He continually spoke symbolically, using metaphors (an implied comparison in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used to define one thing is applied to another), similes (a figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another), and parables, entire stories built in symbolism.  We believe this was His way of trying to open people’s minds to see pictures, patterns, entire systems, rather than just tangible, discrete, literal objects.  He precisely wanted not to be taken literally because He believed that people had to become much less literal if they were to see and understand God’s creation.

In addition, as Fox notes, the parables recognize the listeners as partners with the teacher, not subordinate subjects or objects.  “Jesus proves by his parables,”  he wrote, “how much he trusts in the power of images and in their capacity to arouse truth to the openhearted, open-minded hearer.  Parables are nonelitist.  Jesus trusts the intelligence of his listeners as well as their integrity.” 

But, unfortunately, most of Jesus' listeners had been thoroughly normalized. He was regularly frustrated by the inability of people, especially His own disciples, to comprehend what He was really saying.  The disciples, and the vast majority of people to whom He preached, had been raised and trained in normative systems. Their ability to "get it" had already been severely damaged, if not totally destroyed. Take, for example, His parable of the seeds:

A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.

And some fell upon a rock, and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away because it had no moisture

And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it.

And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when had said these things, he cried He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.   (Luke 8: 5-8)

But the disciples didn't understand what the parable meant so He had to explain it to them:

And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?

And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.

For the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they believe and be saved.

They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy, and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.

And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid that shall not be known and come abroad.  (Luke 8: 9-17)

This parable not only illustrates Jesus' propensity to use tangible symbols to represent intangible concepts, it also illustrates the real meaning of terms He used over and over again. Anyone reading the gospels to attempt to understand His intention would have a difficult time not recognizing that he repeatedly used the terms "Word", "Word of God", and "Kingdom of Heaven" to mean “the whole Truth” - the intangible, spiritual concept or meaning behind the material forms and processes we perceive with our five senses. He repeatedly referred to this as "the light", as in "seeing the light" - comprehending, understanding, "getting it".

All Jesus' parables have the character of using physical symbols to represent intangible concepts, albeit, much to the confusion of everyone. He used even more subtle metaphors than that of the sower, as in this use of the term "leaven", which, once again, He had to explain:

And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.

Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.

(Matthew 16: 5-7)

How is it that ye do not understand  that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadduccees.  (Matthew 16: 11-12)

Jesus used "leaven", a common term describing a physical agent, to mean doctrine, philosophy or underlying intent and used it to symbolize the intangible purposes that cause observable outcomes.

Other parables make even clearer His emphasis on paying attention to the intangible purposes that drive the systems around us, not just to tangible forms and processes.  His well-known story of the mustard seed quite clearly asks people to see that the nucleus of any system contains its entire design and determines its tangible results:

Another parable put he forth unto them saying, The Kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.  (Matthew 13: 11 and 12)

A mustard seed, or any seed for that matter, is the nucleus of the plant it will become because it contains the entire design of the plant. The design in the seed is made manifest by the mature plant.  This is precisely synonymous to what we see in the formative stage of systems - intangibles - concepts, ideas, philosophies - being given material forms and processes designed to accomplish their original purpose or intent.

The Gospel of Thomas is one of the Gnostic Gospels not included in the New Testament by the established Church.  It is also now believed to be the earliest Gospel in which one of Jesus’ followers recorded His teaching.  In this Gospel, He is quite explicit that original intent – purpose – is the key to understanding and to life:

Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death.

The most essential principle, then, in this systems view of reality is that a system's originating purpose is the outcome it intends to produce. Therefore, its true beginning, its purpose, and its end, or outcome, are the same.

When we understand that systems are the fundamental pattern of the universe, and that their intangible purposes, not their material manifestations, drive reality, we begin to see Jesus’ references to spiritual reality, to Heaven itself, in a different light.  A linear, or normative view, confined to the tangible, the material, concludes that Heaven must be a physical place and it must come after life on Earth.  From a systems perspective, however, spiritual and material exist simultaneously, and the question becomes which is of greater importance in understanding and being comfortable in life.  We suggest that Jesus was not teaching people to wait for some future life in some intangible place called “heaven” but to know, here and now, and to pay attention, to the intangible meanings behind their tangible manifestations. Spiritual reality is simply the intangible causes of tangible effects - the purpose or intent that creates the actions and behaviors, which are the forms and processes that manifest the intent.

From this systems view, the following passages from the Gospel of Matthew become not an exhortation to suffer now in expectation of a better life later on, but rather to focus now on comprehending meaning and purpose instead of being concerned only with the material objects, forms, and processes that manifest them:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  (Matthew 6: 19-21)

And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.  (Matthew 19: 24)

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.   (Matthew 26: 41)

We interpret these statements, especially the "camel" parable, to simply mean that a "normal" person, concerned only with the forms and processes of physical reality, doesn't "see" (comprehend) the intangible dynamics, intentions and meanings ("the kingdom of God") behind these forms, processes, rites and rituals . This is true simply because "normal" people are so predominantly "left-brained".

Jesus and The Normative System

In recent times, many people dissatisfied with the view of Jesus presented by traditional Christianity have argued that He was, in fact, a political revolutionary, out to destroy the power structure of either the Judaic community in which He lived and/or the Roman government of occupation.  Seen in conventional literalist terms, there is some evidence for this in the Gospels.  Passages such as the following from the Gospel of Matthew might be viewed this way:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.

For I come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." (Matthew 10: 34-36)

But, when we look more closely at Jesus of Nazareth’s criticism of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were the power structure of the Jewish community, we begin to see that His message was not at all about a change of government but, rather, about a change of perspective - a different view of life and reality - from emphasis on forms, processes, rules, rituals to emphasis on purpose, intent, and the creative whole.  He didn’t care who led the community;  He did want it to be an integrative society in which purpose, meaning and intent took precedence over arbitrary human-made controls. "To set a man against his father and the daughter against her mother" we interpret to mean conflict between those who “get” what Jesus is talking about and those who don’t.

The Pharisees constantly chided him for doing good deeds on the Sabbath. In response, Christ constantly challenged their insistence on following rules and regulations that produced suffering and hardship.

And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they [the Pharisees] asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much better is a man than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.  (Matthew 12: 10-12)

An extended passage from the Gospel of Matthew clearly describes the hierarchical structure normative systems use to control and focuses upon their "fatal flaw" - adherence to ritual while ignoring intent and outcome. In this case, it's the Pharisees' observance of  prayers and tithes while violating fundamental principles -  “straining at gnats while swallowing camels”:

Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples. Saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat [Moses being the original giver of the law] All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, [small leather cases containing slips inscribed with Scripture passages] and enlarge the borders of their garments. And love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues. And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi….

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in….

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows houses and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation….

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.  (Matthew 23: 1-7, 13-14, 23)

Some closed, normative systems like business, for example, cannot actively control their principal external partner. Producers cannot control users, they can only ignore them. But others, like governments and religions, can assume greater authority and control over their external partners,  especially if they claim to be based on the "unknowable", and, therefore, the "unchallengeable". But their level of control is "given" by those subordinated and limited to the degree to which they accept the institution's rules and premises. These passages do not call for the overthrow of a government or ruling class but, rather, for a much more fundamental type of revolution – a change in the way we see and understand reality. Jesus is not talking about revolution of a material type – which would have been of far less significance. He was advancing a perspective that would end the "normal" view of reality and normative human systems, and, therefore, the power senior members of normative systems have over their subordinates. No wonder Calaphas and the other high priests, and Pontius Pilate, were anxious to get rid of Him.

Jesus of Nazareth had been heard, although not necessarily understood. His teachings were not promptly forgotten at his death but were recorded in the early gospels as people remembered them.  So what happened?  How is it that the very churches founded in his name called themselves “orthodox” – defined by Webster as meaning “conforming to established doctrine, especially in religion” and meaning literally, in Greek, “straight opinion”?  Compare the definition of “orthodox” to the definitions of “normal”:  “not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle”; “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern”.  Did we get, in the name of Jesus, precisely what he sought to overthrow? We think so.  Fox thinks so.  Though a Catholic priest when he wrote Original Blessing, Fox challenged orthodoxy, to rid itself of “left-brain-itis” which, he said, “is a lethal disease that today has quite literally the power to destroy all the earth.” "Left-brain-itis", "normal" and "normative" are synonymous.

Orthodox Christianity - A Consummately Normative System

Orthodox Christianity is certainly one of, perhaps the most, powerful normative system in history. If you believe, as we do, that Jesus’ mission was to free people from the perceptual blindness and oppression of the normative systems he found in Israel two thousand years ago, then orthodox Christianity was a new, but perfect perversion, of his intent.  Was this intentional or were those who took it upon themselves to create the church, beginning with St. Paul, simply normative thinkers who missed his whole point?

We think that, at least initially, they just missed the point – but that may be more significant than it sounds.  According to Elaine Pagels in The Gnostic Gospels, "The New Testament term for sin, hamartia, comes from the sport of archery; literally, it means 'missing the mark'."  It's no great stretch to describe this, in current English, as "missing the point", which is to say "you don't understand", "you don't get it".  True “sin”, then, with which Augustine led the young church to become obsessed, may have nothing to do with eating forbidden apples – and everything to do with failing to grasp the integrative view that Jesus presented.  Fox writes that the failure to recognize the inherent partnership of all relationships, what we call today the "holistic" or "integrative" view of reality, is the ultimate “sin”:

Separation, Subject/object relationships.  Fractures and fissures in our relationships.  Take any sin:  war, burglary, rape, thievery.  Every such action is treating another as an object outside oneself.  This is dualism.  This is behind all sin.  Interestingly enough, this understanding of the sin behind sin is found in Eastern spiritualities as well….

Christianity exhibits this ability to create dualistic antagonisms in more subtle ways. In Western history, for example, sectarianism first split the human race into the God-fearing versus the Heathen. . The God-fearing split into Christians and Jews. The Christians created more antagonistic dualities: God against Satan, Heaven against Hell, Good against Evil, Man against Woman, spiritual against material. The Christians split into Protestants and Catholics. Then the Protestants divided into Lutherans, Congregationalists, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists and other denominations. That's how dualism works. It's the mechanism of separation and fragmentation which epitomizes normative systems.

Such dualistic separation and normative structure was well entrenched before Jesus' time. After all, that's what He was attempting to change. The Tao Te Ching (also Tao Teh King) by Lao Tzu is entirely devoted to reconciling antagonistic "opposites". It is believed to have been written about 500 B. C.

The normative perspective dominated the development of orthodox Christianity as soon as the first churches were organized, probably within 50 years of Jesus’ death. By A. D. 55, Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthian church, was laying down rules as to how Christians should live, with respect to marriage, sexuality, and circumcision.  He also explicitly begins to assume authority over others, not just teach the message of Jesus:

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do….To the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.   (Emphasis ours.)

He established forms,  processes, and rituals to be followed in churches – and got very specific about it, too - much as the Pharisees had done to the Jews:

Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head – it is the same as if her head were shaven….when you come together to eat, wait for one another….About the other things I will give directions when I come….

Now concerning the contribution for the saints:  as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.  On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come….

In contrast to Jesus’ parables, Paul’s letters sound like a cross between corporate employee handbooks and IRS regulations.  By the time he wrote to Titus, one of his anointed missionaries, around A. D. 64, not only is Paul focusing upon redemption from sin but also, quite clearly, upon establishing church authority over believers:

…awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority.  Let no one disregard you.

By the second and third centuries, the normative Christian system was just about complete.  Paul Johnson, in A History of Christianity, summarizes the views of Origen, an early 3^rd century church leader and philosopher:

He portrayed the Church, as part of his theory of universal knowledge, as a sacred sociological entity.  The analogy was with a political state.  Of course the Church had to have its own princes and kings.  Of course they governed their congregations far better than state officials.  Their position was infinitely higher and holier, since they administered spiritual things, but their status was similar to those of judges and secular rulers, and therefore the laity had to show them reverence and obedience even if they were inadequate or bad men.

The stage had been set for the arrival of Augustine in the next century, who would solidify fear of original sin as the reason why Christians must submit to Church authority.  In the name of Jesus, who told the Pharisees to quit this very sort of stuff, the Orthodox Christian church managed to instill more social control and less authentic, spiritual freedom than the Pharisees even contemplated.

The real genius of this control mechanism is that it can't be challenged. When a product or service provided by a normative company is no longer useful to its users, they stop buying it. Even though our education system has some legal support that punishes kids for not attending school, at some point, kids who realize education has little to offer them can drop out.

But what do you do about a hypothesis that can't be tested because it's based on an "afterlife"?  That's why Christian churches portray God as the ultimate judge of good and evil. This is, by far, the most effective way for the church to portray God in order to pursue its own best interests. Since its premise is founded on an afterlife, the final consequence must also be there. God is the enforcer of what the church wants. This permits the church to shield itself from challenge to its controlling authority, the equivalent of social revolution, by simply saying "Hey, don't complain to us. We're just acting in accordance with God's will. We didn't create these rules [which, of course, it did]. We're just God's representatives, passing along what He wants. Abide by them, you go to Heaven. Don't, and you go to Hell." This representation of God is not only God in man's image, it's God in man's normative image.

While Christianity certainly didn't invent normative systems, it knew how to perpetuate them.  It’s famous worldwide for its wars. Conducting war in the name of someone who said "Love your enemies" and "turn the other cheek" is pretty substantial evidence of the disconnect between Christianity and Jesus.

So let's be very explicit. The fragmented, dualistic, adversarial, confined to the material, not comprehending  the intangible or "spiritual" element of reality - the "normal" or "normative" view of life - is the real meaning of the word "sin". And one of the most powerful proponents of this view is the Christian church. We can't imagine a more "perfect" perversion of Jesus' original intent.

The Gnostics - Consummately Integrative

Why didn’t the people, in the early days of Christianity, who did understand what Jesus was talking about speak up?  “Hey, wait a minute, all this theological debate and structure and rules was exactly what He was trying to get rid of.”  They did; their views of life, its meaning, and the importance of finding God within oneself and oneself within God are well-recorded in the texts known as the Gnostic gospels, or Nag Hammadi papers, which were uncovered only in 1948.  “Gnosis” means “knowing” and they knew.  They did not need to be told or led through forms and processes.  As Dr. Elaine Pagels points out in The Gnostic Gospels:

Orthodox Jews and Christians insist that a chasm separates humanity form its creator: God is wholly other. But some of the gnostics who wrote these gospels contradict this: self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the self and the divine are identical

Pagels goes on to say:

Many gnostics....... insisted that ignorance, not sin [as defined by the Orthodox Christians] is what involves a person in suffering. The gnostic movement shared certain affinities with contemporary methods of exploring the self through psychotherapeutic techniques. Both gnosticism and psychotherapy value, above all, knowledge - the self-knowledge which is insight."

Most people live, then, in oblivion - or, in contemporary terms, in unconsciousness….

Like circles of artists today, gnostics considered original creative invention to be the mark of anyone who becomes spiritually alive.

Finally she points out, “Such gnostic Christians saw actual events as secondary to their perceived meaning."

In the Gospel of Thomas, Christ is quoted as saying something that will feel very familiar to people who know the principles of holistic health and spiritual psychology.

"Jesus said 'If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.'"

It would be hard to find more representative descriptions of the integrative view of reality than those expressed by the Gnostics, or of the normative view of reality than those expressed by the Orthodox Christians.

Throughout The Gnostic Gospels, Dr. Pagels notes that the Orthodox Christians insisted on literal, material interpretation of events while the Gnostics focused on the intent the events symbolized. This, of course, reinforced the church's control in the pursuit of its best interests. By insisting that Christ's miracles were literal events, the church effectively separated the natural world, where man lived, from the supernatural world, where God lived. Since the supernatural could obviously do things the natural couldn't, it was "superior", in the hierarchical view of reality intrinsic to normative systems. This allowed the church, as God's emissary, to position itself as the intermediary between the two worlds, but most importantly, as above and dominant over the inhabitants of the natural world. By treating Christ's miracles literally, the church secured its position of control.

The Gnostics really never had a chance. The larger normative world against which Jesus preached was still out there, alive and well.  It was accustomed to power; it liked it, and it certainly wasn’t going to give up and go away just because some preacher, which it executed, said it should.  The Gnostics’ writings were hidden and became lost for nearly 2,000 years because the people who wrote them were quickly declared heretics by the new orthodoxy, many of them losing their lives just as Jesus did.

Fox sees the rapid perversion of what Jesus taught as “political”:

Why has original sin played so important a role for sixteen centuries of Western Christian theology, an even more important role than it did for its originator, St. Augustine?  I believe that the basic reason  is political.  I believe that an exaggerated doctrine of original sin, one that is employed as a starting point for spirituality, plays kindly into the hands of empire-builders, slavemasters, and patriarchal society in general.  It divides and thereby conquers, pitting one’s thoughts against one’s feelings, one’s body against one’s spirit….By doing this it so convolutes people, so confuses and preoccupies them, that deeper questions about community, justice, and celebration never come to the fore.

Everything we know about “the human condition”  in the context of general systems theory suggests that the Gnostic Christians, themselves holistic, integrative thinkers, accurately perceived Jesus’ intent, while the Orthodox Christians, trapped in a normative view of life, perfectly perverted it.  Ironically, the Gnostics’ very understanding led them away from secular power, while those who did not understand continued to crave it – and got it.  Pagels describes the patient internal focus on truth itself which led the Gnostics to a fundamental lack of interest in power struggles:

Consequently, he [the gnostic] considers himself equal to everyone, maintaining his own independence of anyone else's authority: 'And he is patient with everyone, he makes himself equal to everyone, and also separates himself from them

Although....gnosticism 'involves no recoil from society, but a desire to concentrate on inner well being', the gnostic pursued an essentially solitary path.......This solitude derives from the gnostic's insistence on the primacy of immediate experience. No one else can tell another which way to go, what to do, how to act........when they  become mature 'they no longer rely on mere human testimony' but discover instead their own immediate relationship with 'the truth itself'.

Since human social systems typically develop and operate normatively, those who are more interested in purpose and meaning than in power, are invariably not "in power", in the traditional sense. Remember, being "in power" in a normative system comes from not only faithful, unquestioning adherence to its norms, but the willingness to enforce conformity to these norms on others. People primarily concerned with purpose and meaning can't have "position power" in such a system. Rather, they have personal power independent of any system.  The relationship of the Gnostics to the organized church may, itself, be an example of the message Jesus intended us to get: power and control is not the meaning of life.  As He himself said, just before He was crucified by those in power, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

As a holistic approach to all walks of life grows, we progress toward the integrative view of reality that Jesus taught and the Gnostics understood. In that sense, we are moving toward Jesus’ "second coming".

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