01-12-2010: Zenith On the Subject of Religion

We would like to offer some writings on our beliefs, not just an endless series of "business" articles. Trouble is, our beliefs are so uniquely individual that almost everyone will find something offensive in one part or another of them. This in turn costs us readers. Still, we believe we have much to offer the true seeker, so we proceed.

We start with the fundamental premise that as Christians, we believe Jesus died to pay for our sins, that Jesus was God, that He overcame death, and that we can have eternal life if we believe on Him. We believe the Bible was inspired by God, and whatever is in there that seemingly contradicts itself or is historically inaccurate or of questionable morals or inconsistencies was put in there on purpose by God to make us think.

Already we have a problem with most simple-minded evangelical fundamentalists, conservatives who believe if one flaw can be found in the Bible, their entire faith will be destroyed and "God is a liar." Such an attitude stretches "the doctrine of inspiration" to the limit. The Bible stands as our guidebook, our frame of reference, and a test against which "messages from God" can be discerned whether to be actually from God, or from instead our own twisted brains. But it is a spiritual frame of reference, not a history book, nor a completely consistent set of morals and ethics, but rather a set of principles which often contradict themselves and upon which we must come down on one side or the other of various controversies. We believe those who spend endless hours trying to prove the historical accuracy of the Bible or disproving Darwin, are wasting their own and everybody else's time, for such is not the purpose of the Bible. But if it is powerful enough to be banned in public schools, there must be something more to it than atheists and other secular humanists would have you believe.

There are "little" contradictions in the Bible and then there are what we call "the Biggies." The "Biggies" are those which cause whole new denominations to split off from the rest of the greater Church of Jesus, the Christ. An example of a "Biggie" would be the notion of Baptists and Billy Graham that once you are saved, you are always saved. Most of the mainstream Christian church rejects that doctrine. We believe it, because we believe certain Bible verses support the fact that God is not an indian giver.

In describing what we do believe, we often zero in on Mormons, because they, to a great extent, represent what we do not believe, but they do it very artfully. For example, we have many associates who are members of the Mormon Church who have told us in confidence that, "We do not reallly believe all that baloney. But they are good people, they help each other, and there are social advantages to joining." Does this seem incredibly hypocritical? In our opinion, not if you look at the membership of churches in practically every modern denomination. In every church you will find these people, who find social or even business advantages in joining a group whose statements of faith they don't believe. Frankly, we see nothing wrong in it. We see nothing wrong in it as long as there is moral ethical agreement, but there may well be something wrong with it in one's dealings with the Almighty, if in fact people lie about their beliefs for personal gain. That is why, in our opinion, so many church "members" feel uncomfortable about discussing theology and avoid the subject wherever possible stating that they "just believe" and "It's not good to ask too many questions."

There have been endless books written by conservative authors attacking the Mormon Church as an "illusion" and we cannot hope to cover all that they cover here. But we note one example, which you will find plastered all over the Internet of a criticism based upon what was, not on what is. This is the so-called Mormon "Article of Faith" which reads, "As God once was, man is, and as God is, man may become." If you go to a Mormon website and read their Articles of Faith, you will see this appears nowhere in their writings, at least not today. How could so many conservative authors make that false charge unless there were some basis? Possibly the Mormons at one time did believe this, but we are told they definitely do not today. So are we to judge Jehovah's Witnesses on the basis that they predicted the end of the world in 1914? The Witnesses came pretty close to being right in Eastern Europe at least, as many of the conventionalities opf war, the grand duchies, and kingdoms were destroyed forever as we once knew them, never to return. But we believe religions should be judged on what they state and believe today, and not held accountable for yesterday's mistakes. Therefore, we think it inappropriate to criticize Mormons on the basis of whether Joseph Smith ever found golden tablets, or whether or not he could read Egyptian hieroglyphics (which clearly he could not), but rather on the basis of what is in the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine & Covenants, and the rest of their "sacred writings," as we understand them today.

We believe our financial success is based upon a principle that hypocrisy with other humans may be justifiable, but not hypocrisy with God. If we are told by our church to pray for Mrs. Kravitz, a widow down the street who is dying of cancer, who is unemployed and looking for a job, and has a son on drugs, we may not care. We don't know Mrs. Kravitz personally, have no feelings whatever about her, so what should we do? A "Zenitharian" is very apt to say, "I don't care about Mrs. Kravitz down the street. I don't know who she is and could care less about her problems. I want a million dollars!" Thus, the "Zenitharian" prays to God for the million dollars knowing that God will detect his hypocrisy if he prays for Mrs. Kravitz. He may well be praying for the wrong things, but at least he is being honest with God. God seems to appreciate the honesty and will often, but not always, reward it.

Yet we have been treated to incredible distortions by members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church who believe the Bible instructs us how to pray and we must pray like that. An example would be Armin Gesswein's "School of Prayer." (Gesswein was actually Lutheran.) According to Gesswein, when he was young in high school and given a math homework assignment, his first act was to look up the answer in the answer book, then work toward solving the problem to find the answer. Many math teachers discourage this practice, but the point is that Gesswein applied this also to prayer, i.e. "praying from the answer to the answer." God instructs us on how to pray, i.e. "the Lord's Prayer" in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and then we pray as God instructs, much like a puppet on the end of a string. Some denominations, like the Assembly of God, Lutherans, Catholics, and others, repeat Lord's Prayer so many times it begins to lose all its significance in an endless "mouthing" of the words. Is God pleased by this sort of prayer? We believe it is appropriate to try to place yourself "in the mind of God" to find some of the answers. While we may never be able to see exactly what and as God sees, the exercise of trying will reveal many of the absurdities of many Christian denominations.

People do bizarre things in the name of "messages from God." Here Mormons seem to have it more right than many other faiths, because they apparently believe God is not present. Their concept of "the Trinity" is suspiciously different from the mainstream church's. They believe God's influence is present, but divide up the Godhead and rely more heavily upon the Holy Spirit than some other faiths. But do they really have this connection through the "Holy Spirit?" We believe it is not ours to judge another faith in this matter, at least not on the basis of the claim of the connection itself. There are many of our associates who believe the hymn, "He walks with me and He talks to me, and He tells me I am His own..." They are referring to Jesus in a a very real sense. To that we respond, "If you can see Jesus sitting in the chair next to you, and He talks to you and you talk back to Him, but we cannot see Jesus sitting in the chair next to you, what does that say about one of us?" The truth about the hymn itself, is that it was written about Mary Magdalene, not your average Christian, who indeed walked with and talked with Jesus after the Resurrection, at least so we believe.

A prize example of why we like Mormons would be the situation where a couple of twenty year-old kids, female "cuties," came to the door of our office to witness to us for their faith. These "sisters" or "missionaries" as the Mormons like to call them were intelligent, sincere, hard-working, dedicated, and well-trained in what to say. We always like to debate theology on top of being lonely at times, so of course we said, "Come on in, let's talk!" Our goal was to keep them coming back, not to convert them to our way of faith, but rather to get inside their heads to see what they believed, and how it differed from what we believed. Our faith is often strengthened greatly by this exercise. We find flaws and holes in our faith which must be plugged, or we find an inability to witness effectively to Mormons, yet as part of their training they are good listeners. That is a rarity in Christian churches today.

So we talked and debated, and as stated before, our goal was to keep them coming back. An earlier set of cuties left us when, as Mormons like to do, they asked us to place our hands on the Book of Mormon and pray to God to ask of the Book of Mormon were true. Our response was to place our hands on the Bible and ask the cuties to pray and ask if that book were true. "Oh no, we can't," they said. "Why not?" "Because we know it is true."

"Oh, this book over here we know is true, but this other book over there we have to pray about?"

"Why do you invite us into your office when you reject everything we have to say?"

From there it was down hill all the way, and the cuties left never to return. We were determined not to make that mistake again. As we said, this was an earlier set of cuties. So with these newer kids, we listened patiently until one said something astounding and we could keep silent no longer. This kid said, "Gentlemen, I am an apostle, and I have the authority to speak for Jesus." This controversial statement contained two buzz words that caused endless debate in our circles. The words were "authority" and "for." Our conclusion was the missionaries did not have that authority. We based this notion on John 12:49-50, where Jesus is reported to have said, "I don't speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say." (New Living Translation.) So if even Jesus at that time did not have "all authority," or at least did not choose to use it, then how much more must we be careful when claiming the authority to speak FOR Jesus (put words in His mouth?) When debating this in our own church circles, a surprising lack of agreement exists on what authority we do have and how it should be used. In the Book of Acts, apostles were given the authority to cast out some (but not all) demons, cure some (but not all) sicknesses, but were they given the authority to speak FOR Jesus? Many would say, "Yes," because they were given the Holy Spirit, through which they had a direct line to God. Then, like Bennie Hinn, they could claim, "It is the Holy Spirit working through me, not I of myself, who performs these miracles." But we didn't quite see it that way. So we said to the sister claiming that authority, "I'm a sinner; you're a sinner; but Jesus was perfect." Then like Lloyd Benson talking to Dan Quayle in the vice-presidential debate we added the fatal line, "Sister, you're no Jesus!"

"We are not coming back," said the sisters, as they dusted off their feet and moved on to better prospects down the street. We had defeated our primary objective to keep them returning.

What authority then, do we have?

Billy Graham believes he has the authority to speak for God. As part of that authority he proclaims that once you die, it's over. At that point you either go to Heaven or to Hell, and there are no second chances. This disagrees fundamentally and positively with what Mormons believe. Billy Graham also believes that once you are saved and believe on Jesus, you are always saved and can never be removed from "the Lamb's Book of Life." Most mainstream Christian churches disagree. They believe you can backslide your way out of the faith, thereby losing your salvation. Baptists say then, "You were never saved in the first place." Zenith's position is with Billy Graham on the above two points, but they represent a minority view, particularly if you throw in Roman Catholics who believe in Purgatory.

The Mormon cuties had an insteresting spin on this controversy about "once saved, always saved." They stated, "We believe 'salvation' is meeting God, whereas 'eternal life' is being with God forever after being resurrected." From a memory verse, John 5:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life, (KJV)" we asked the Mormons, "How does that verse square with your definition of Salvation?" In other words, the verse seems to indicate that "salvation" and "eternal life" are synonymous. "We don't know," was the answer. Well, is anyone expected to have all the answers? It was an honest answer and we applaud them for it.

The Nazarene Church, an offshoot of the Methodists, believes one can backslide his way out of salvation. But they fail to define exactly how far they have to backslide before they lose it. "All we can do is try our best," is the response. "It is up to God to decide." They believe the "eat, drink, and be merry" attitude is a possible result from that damnable doctrine of "once saved, always saved." While it doesn't necessarily follow, the Epistles in the New Testament spend a lot of words explaining the evils of the "Gnostics" who apparently believed they could do anything and get away with it once they were saved. Zenith's response is simply to use John 5:24 previously quoted once again to suggest that God is not an indian giver. Baptists rely on the verses John 10:27,28: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Nazarenes add the word "else" to the verse and proclaim, "No one else shall pluck them out of His hand, but we can pluck ourselves out of His hand by backsliding." Apparently, like Mormons, they believe the Bible has been mistranslated and needs elucidation, which they are only too glad to provide.

Joseph Smith is purported to have asked God, "Which church is right?" and down came the answer, "None of them." After that he founded his own church that believes it is the only one that is right and further splintered up the Church of Jesus into yet another imperfect faction. No church is perfect, and it it were, it would become imperfect as soon as you joined it! But Joseph Smith got it right in one sense, we cannot rely on any church or any denomination to direct our beliefs about God. This must be an intensely personal thought-out thing to have any real value at all.

Still, like Alchoholics Anonymous, we cannot rely on our own strength to overcome our adictions. We must rely upon the help of a "Higher Power, as we understand Him." This becomes an intensely personal experience. But mention Jesus in an AA group and you are apt to receive condemnation from at least one member who will voice, "Let's keep religion out of this!" Why is the name "Jesus" so offensive in public schools that prayer is now forbidden and the fear of offending other religions becoming a legalistic requirement entirely in opposition to the conception of the Founding Fathers? It is to us proof of the power and person of Jesus that so many fear him. In Communist China it is forbidden to send missionaries in His name, a jail time offense, so powerful is it that it might topple the godless state?

John Hagee, a popular fundamentalist author, wrote a book"In Defense of Israel," in which he proclaimed that Martin Luther was more anti-semetic than Adolph Hitler! This shocking revelation sent us scrambling to our local Lutheran Church to ask an official pastor there if it were true. "Yes, it is not something of which we are proud. In fact the name 'Lutheran' was imposed on us by Roman Catholics as a derrogatory appelation which unfortunately stuck!" Lutherans clearly do not like to advertise this fact, but are honest about it nonethelesss, refusing to throw out the baby with the bath water for all the good that Luther did in starting the Reformation during a time of churches excesses and abuses of power. Are Roman Catholics to be held accountable for the Inquisition? There were good popes and bad popes. We hold Catholics accountable for what they say and believe today, not the mistakes of yesterday.

In a slight misquote, one of our traders witnessed to a beautiful lady, "Paul said, 'I am all things to all people through Christ which strengtheneth me.'" We submit you will find this nowhere in the Bible, but it sounded good at the time. The response from this "innocent child" was, "Well! He must have had an awfully high opinion of himself!"

For more accurate quotes, we might proceed to Daniel Chapter 4, which was written by the guy who destroyed Solomon's Temple, stole the artifacts including possibly the Ark of the Covenant, and dispersed God's chosen people. Such a section stretches "the doctrine of inspiration" to the limit. Even the supposedly non-controversial Psalms are loaded with David's imperfect prayers which call for vegeance and are self-serving, proclaiming to God, "What a good guy am I." David was not a good guy. The example of sending Uriah to his death so David could get at Uriah's wife Bathsheeba is the example most cited, let alone sleeping with virgins when he was old and near death because he "needed heat." That too, stretches "the doctrine of inspiration" to the limit. But the message, we believe, is not to take the Bible literally even in a spiritual sense, but rather to think through each passage. Where there is controversy, two sides, God's message is for you to decide upon which side you are going to come down. This is not to discredit the Bible as a Holy book. Rather it is to discredit those who spend their days attempting futile efforts to discredit Darwin or the "Big Bang." To read the Bible without thought or depth is the problem, not the book, itself.

In the end times when Jesus returns "on the clouds" when "Every eye shall see Him," we are aware that portion of the Bible was written by people who thought the earth was flat. Nazarenes say, "The Bible was not written by God; it was written by men under God's inspiration." Did God inspire David to supply numerous testimonials to God, Himself? Did God need David's testimonial? The Bible is just as often in our opinion, an instruction book on how not to pray, as well as how to pray. We must decide and filter out which parts are which. The Bible is remarkably frank about some of its inconsistencies, ss we believe the men who wrote it were well aware at the times they were writing it. God put inconsistencies in there for a reason, and as we said before, the reason was to make us think, not to say, "We are incapable of understanding, we don't know, don't bother us with Bible questions."

Joseph Smith had a vision. He claims he saw God the Father standing next to Jesus the Son. In two places in the gospel of John and at least once in I John it reads, "No man has seen God at any time." Critics of Mormons like to use those verses to discredit the vision. Mormons respond, "What about Exodus 33:11?" The KJV reads, "And the LORD spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend..."

Zenith believes from intensely personal experiences that man can put himself into "the mind of God." This type of vision is so overwhelming that it could easily "fry" one if he remains in such a state of realization for very long. Such an experience usually indicates that time is an illusion. The vision as well as "time" are a "split second in eternity," a moment of "cosmic consciousness," a power to be everywhere at once, and those who have had such an experience know that God is real. But such a vision must come to one in more or less of an "alpha state," i.e. "choiceless awareness of positive existence." In other words, it cannot be forced. And herein lies the reason why those who accurately report such visions almost always, if not always, have them only once in a lifetime. For once having had it, the very expectation and realization of what "it is" prevents that requisite open-mindedness or alpha state from allowing the experience to recur again. So hopefully, the person gets it right the first time.

There have been visionaries who have been sadly misinterpreted. There is a Korean offshoot of Seventh Day Adventists which believes the second coming of Christ has already occurred in the person of Ahnsahnghong. "ASH" wrote many books with some surprising insights into the Bible, but never in any of them as far as we could see did he ever claim to be Jesus. It was his followers that did him this "favor." The same applies to Buddha. The Buddha never intended his philosophy of the eightfold path to Nirvana become a religion. It was his followers who later did him the "favor" of deifying him. Paul, on the road to Damascus had his vision in a blinding flash of light. True experiencers of this sort of oneness with the Universe or Universal Spirit in our opinion only claim this experience once in a lifetime. If they say they can bring it on at will, then they have crossed over into the next phase of evolution where their senses have improved to allow them to perceive the next dimension and the nature of time itself. We believe this will take several more million years.

With infinity, all things are possible, even reincarnation. Your very atoms may eventually come back into the same assemblage as now after billions of expansions and contractions of the Universe. "Ridiculous!" you say? If you believe such a notion is nuts, then you do not understand the true nature of infinity. Indeed no one does (except God.) That is why mathematicians put a "(" symbol around minus infinity and a ")" symbol around plus infinity, which in interval notation means "not included." If they used brackets, "[" and "]", that would mean included in the interval, but they prefer to say infinity is "undefined." So they do not understand the nature of infinity nor can they conceive of it. That is why all things are "possibilities" in it. We believe certain visionaries can.

These are a few of our beliefs. If you would like us to continue expanding on the subject (and we anticipate few readers will), please send your Bible questions to us by e-mail, and we will do our best to give you an honest discussion of them... although we surely do not claim to have all the answers.

There are many in churches we attend who say, "It is so simple. Everything can be solved with love. Love is the one spiritual quality to be desired above all others."

With that, we absolutely disagree. Touchy feelings and emotions are often extremely misleading. Anyone who has "fallen in love" with the wrong person can quickly testify to that. Rather, it is "truth" that is the spiritual quality to be desired above all others. "Truth" is universal and absolute when it comes to nature and natural wonders. But even "truth" is relative when it comes to morals and ethics. Is it okay to steal food when one is starving? For an answer in the Bible, look to I Samuel 21:5-6 about David and the shewbread. Those who quote, "God is love," as a justification for their first place in spiritual qualities might rightfully be asked, "Is God truth?"

And what about sin? What is sin? If "Hell" is separation from God, what is sin? Is sin willful transgression of God's known laws? Or is it the more thermodynamic definition, "Sin is the absense of good?" We suspect the answer is, "Both!"