Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 3

In theology, it impresses me to find evidence of active thinking - rather than defensive parroting

Its a sad, but inevitable, fact that almost all of Christian theology - is merely defensive parroting. 

Which is to say that the discourse is just people expounding arguments and evidences they have learned from sources approved by the church to which they have chosen to affiliate. 

It is awareness of this parroting quality (on one or both sides) that may produce that sense of frustration at lack of engagement, of unseriousness, of insincerity - or even cowardice; which has been so off-putting to so many modern people who are considering becoming Christians, or who are expressing genuine (not merely expedient) doubts about aspects of their church or Christianity generally.

I suppose there must have been some people who were actively thinking about Jesus Christ and Christianity at some point in history! Indeed, I suppose that the letters of Paul are evidence of this kind of grappling. 

But there has been in Christianity, and very early, and for most (not all) of subsequent history - probably as in most other religions - a strong tendency to draw a line under this thinking for oneself - and a switch to stating (dogmatically) that this primary engagement has been done, the results are in - and the answers are as follows...

From which point the idea is that good Christians need to understand and believe, to learn and rehearse, and to parrot. 

At which point there is no point in talking to them! Arguments are futile! Debate is simulated!

Unless - that is - you are merely curious about such people; or if your goal is to become like them, and be guided in all your fundamental life understandings, motivations and choices - by an institution. Which is, evidently, still a popular aspiration - although almost-never actually achieved.   

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Further Note: I have often myself engaged in this defensive parroting! So I know it by inner experience. 

For instance, in medicine, doctors explanations are of this kind, because the doctor has never himself been through the background to medical facts and claims, but is merely repeating what he has been taught or otherwise learned. And, of course, most enquiries and dissenting directed at doctors is (almost inevitably) itself shallow and ignorant, or selfish or manipulative... and is not motivated by a genuine desire for discovering truth. 

At other times, after becoming a Christian, I sometimes found myself in the same situation. I accepted the truth of some external claim - but did not really know it for myself or from primary experience - and indeed such experience tended to refute the external claim, but I deferred to authority on the basis that cleverer and better informed people than myself had been deemed to have sorted-this-out long ago. 

It was really when I - almost against my will - was nigh-compelled to dig deeper and deeper towards the most fundamental aspects of Christianity; that I began to find it ever more obvious that this would Not be how God would set-things-up! 

I mean; I began to feel clear and sure that God would Not create us and the world; such that we were supposed to pick some particular social institution (a church), then adopt an attitude of obedient service and trusting credulity to that institution. 

That would be an absurdly unreliable, fragile, contingent way to plan a system for the salvation of Mankind!  

At around this point, I began to notice when I was parroting about Christianity, and to dislike myself for doing it; and instead felt a necessity to discover the truths by my own thinking and spiritual experience - and to regard such as the bottom line or my understanding of reality - rather than regarding Christian faith as deference-to and parroting-of any particular external source. 

 

Why is "pride" often considered the worst sin?

The sin of pride is especially insidious and perhaps ineradicable, and an absolute barrier to salvation: because it is the ultimate complacency that "I am good enough as I am".

Salvation is resurrection, and resurrection is a remaking such that we become wholly good, wholly motivated by love...

This includes our recognition that we need remaking, that we need to reject and leave-behind that of us which is dissonant with the euphony of divine creation.

But if we are spiritually-proud, we see no reason why we need to be remade to be fitted for Heaven. 

The proud Man wants, instead, that Heaven be fitted around himself as-is.

Such pride seems very common and normal, and is found among the despised, weak, poor and sick - as also (more obviously) among the strong, arrogant and famous.

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Note: Of course, pride is not the only blockage to salvation. Self hatred is another, because it is our-self who is resurrected. If we hate our self, we will not desire to be resurrected.

The latest massive-global Litmus Test

The most recent global Litmus Test from the totalitarian Establishment has been very successful. 

Almost everybody I have sampled online has failed it.

Which is to say, people have taken sides - when both sides are ultimately evil - as intended; such that the (Sorathic) agenda of chaotic evil has been advanced.

The last Test on this scale was the Arrakis war (CHOAM versus the Fremen) which was two years ago, so there has been plenty of time to plan this latest.

These Tests are clever, they aren't easy; they're designed to fascinate, shock, induce fear and anger, dupe, misdirect specifically those who have passed the earlier Tests successfully - and this has been achieved.

The lesson of the Litmus Tests, taken together and so-far, has been that Christians cannot allow the totalitarian Establishment to set (and therefore control) the agenda, our moral focus, our life-values, our bottom-line principles for discernment.

Because if we do allow this, by adopting an assigned role, joining a "group" - we are thereby consenting to be enlisted into a project of The Enemy.

We may never know the exact nature of this evil project, indeed there will probably be more than one purpose.

But whenever there is a top-down disseminated global frenzy and we feel the pressure to adopt A Position; we should recognize what is going-on.

Meaningful places are objectively real to me - but why?

For me, there have always been only a few and specific "meaningful places" and I feel more-or-less out of it and adrift anywhere else. 

Where I live now and the surrounding area is meaningful; and also where I used to live in the South West - Devon (although I haven't visited there for a very long time) and Somerset.

Outside these, not many. London, the South East, and pretty much all of the Midlands - except the Welsh border counties (eg Herefordshire, Shropshire) - leave me decidedly cool. 

I find parts of the Scottish side of the Borders to be very magical, and I used to find Edinburgh meaningful, but not for a long time now. And I never found Glasgow meaningful, which was why my time living there made so little an impression. 

Keswick is a favourite meaningful place, and Stratford upon Avon another. 

The first time I went to Norwich I was very taken by it; but later visits did not confirm this. However, I was very taken by Ely (I've been three times, now) and much of rural fenland Cambridgeshire - but not Cambridge itself. 

Oxford, I used to find meaningful, and visited many times across 50 years - but I also found that the magic of the place was progressively fading with every repeat visit. I shall be revisiting soon, and will be curious to see how it is faring...

The point of all this - is that experience has taught me that there is something objective about whether a place or area is meaningful to me. It's not something I can "manufacture" by will power. 

Places that are "theoretically right" for me, and which I strove to find meaningful - can stubbornly resist; and remain disenchanted (Glasgow, Cambridge, for instance). 

While, on the other side, I have also been surprised at how some places grabbed me - Stratford, for instance, I fully expected to find too much of a "tourist trap" yet I was actually bowled-over, and have had many holidays there.

The reason and significance? 

I think it has something to do with our personal destiny.... 

For reasons we probably will never know, I think we get some kind of inner spiritual guidance - subtle, but decisive and strong - about where we ought to be spending our time - and where Not. 

The Good Thief and instant conversion

And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 
Luke 23: 39-43

I have long been fascinated and inspired by the Biblical examples of people becoming an "instant Christian". 
Whether these narrated events actually happened is, for me, secondary to the fact that I understand the Gospel writers reported them as things that could have happened - and therefore (presumably) instant Christianity was consistent with early Christian practice. 

A particularly beautiful story is that of the "Good" or "Penitent" thief (later dubbed Dysmas by Apocryphal sources). 
What I get from this is that becoming a Christian was a simple and quick matter, in the beginning. 
It can, as here, be reduced to two main requirements, encapsulated in the sentences: Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom and To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

In reverse order I take this to imply: 
1. That Dysmas wanted that which Jesus promised - resurrection into Heaven, which I extrapolate from "with me in Paradise". 
2. That Dysmas recognized Jesus for what he claimed to be ("Lord"), and as following him to be The Way for Men to attain resurrection into Heaven. This, I see as consistent with "remember me" - meaning that salvation is by a personal relationship with Jesus.

Of course, I don't claim that these brief and narrative Bible versus entail the truths of salvation! But I find that they resonate with these truths; and that the felt-message is one of hope and joy for all Men, who are all (and always shall be) ultimately "sinners" - that is we are never, ever, fully-aligned with God's creative will. 
The Good Thief demonstrates that this is not a barrier to our attaining Paradise - so long as we desire to become fully-aligned. 
And that the transformation of our future state is but the work of a moment. 

I, Claudius/ the God and 4-Dimensional Chess in politics

I wonder if it was Robert Graves's massively-influential two-part pseudo-autobiographical novel I, Claudius (or "Clavdivs" as it was written on the cover of the version I read - and which my Granny noticed and read-out phonetically, leading to a continuing family pronunciation-trope) and Claudius the God; that popularized the 4-Dimensional Chess understanding of political leaders - so evident among the self-styled "Right" in the US today. 

Before Graves's books, it seems that Claudius was regarded as a mediocre and weak Emperor, who came in-between the two ultra-evil (hence much more interesting) Emperors: Caligula and Nero. 

Of course, Claudius Caesar was also the Emperor who successfully conquered England - so for us there is an inclination to assume that there "must have" been something more positive to him; since he succeeded in beating "us" where the great Julius had failed (twice). 

At any rate; Graves decided to depict Claudius as a good, clever, and sympathetic man; whose underlying desire and purpose - unspoken, kept in his secret heart - was to abolish the position of Emperor and restore the Roman Republic...

Who nonetheless, by a series of accidents, ended-up becoming the Emperor instead!

This assumption I found convincing in I, Claudius, which covers the time before he became Emperor; but becomes increasingly untenable as we progress through all the corruptions and evils of Claudius's actual reign, and his final decision to allow himself to be poisoned, and Nero to become his successor. 

Yet Graves sticks with the idea that Claudius always aimed at good; and manages this by attributing all sorts of 4-D chess attributes. Including the final desperate master-stroke of ensuring that Claudius himself would be followed by the worst possible successor - in the (as it turned-out, mistaken) belief that after Nero, the situation of Rome would become so very-bad that (surely?) the Republic would be restored.  

This did not convince me at the time I first read C the G (aged 14) - and it does not convince me now. 

Nor am I convinced by attempts to depict current (or recent) mainstream political figures - who advocate-promote-and-do, many or most of the usual mainstream-evil things; to depict such characters  as being - in their secret hearts - agents for good... 

Biding their time, taking the long view; (like Saruman) regretting that the ultimate end unfortunately entails implementing malignant means, here-and-now... 

But with a Master Plan to ensure the restoration of common sense and decency in public life; by means of a covert strategy far beyond the comprehension of us ordinary mortals - yet working behind-the-scenes, always and tirelessly, for our betterment. 

It's important to recognize how very bad things actually are - civilizationally

A recurrent source of disagreement I have with nearly everybody, and going back to about 2008; is that I am acutely aware that our civilization is in a really, really bad way - much, much worse than almost almost-anybody is prepared even to entertain as a possibility. 

This seems to me very obvious! And also that the problems are as deep as such problems can be - problems of false fundamental assumptions concerning reality, and problems that the strongest human motivations in this life are disordered...

The problem of habitual and compulsive dishonesty (including, most damagingly, with oneself), and the problem of being unable or unwilling to learn from repeated experiences. 

...To mention only some of the fundamental problems. 

I suppose one reason that this conviction of mine is hardly shared, is that people evaluate civilization first in terms of how they personally are feeling, here-and-now - and if they are feeling OK or happy, they infer that nothing can be seriously wrong. 

Or that people evaluate civilization in terms of sheer abstract survival and continuity. SO that as long as things haven't actually collapsed, or can - at least - be imaged as rebounding or self-correcting (even over multigenerational timescales) then nothing can be seriously wrong. 

And under this is the truth that matters of civilization aren't our concern, really. Civilizations are not as product of human will and planning - and neither is their continuation. They are a kind of unavoidable backdrop and essential sustenance - and (evidently) a colossal influence in spiritual aspirations, beliefs,  perceptions - and yet these matters cannot be positively influenced in an overall or top-down fashion (although they can be negatively affected). 

In the end, spiritually speaking; we are individual persons and agents - no matter how much we try to elude this; and our primary social concern is with loving relationships - which are the only like that "society" has to the great dramas of spiritual learning and salvation. 

Therefore I am not-at-all saying that we ought to recognize how very bad things actually are because this might help us to make them better! 

What I am saying here; is that - unless we recognize how bad things actually are - then we Will Not Actually pursue the real business of our lives - i.e. the great dramas of spiritual learning and salvation.  

While some may argue that we don't need to acknowledge the evil nature of the Big Picture in order our-selves to be good; this seems decisively to be refuted by experience. Unless people feel themselves spiritually detached from our civilization in a profound metaphysical and motivational way; then for so long they will be aligned with the agenda of evil - and at a deep level of affiliation that subverts surface declarations and practices.   

In other words: observation of what happens when not; brings me to the conviction that we need (yes need) to sense, know, acknowledge, take-account of; just how very bad things really are civilizationally - if we our-selves are to be able to become clear about this mortal life - and make Christian personal discernments and choices. 

To be free to choose to follow Jesus, and to learn from our actual lives; entails that we know the nature of our spiritual situation in this world.  

Anything less just doesn't cut it. 

The desire for spiritual power...

Once one has acknowledged the reality and primacy of the spiritual world, comes the question of what to do about it; and since we dwell in this world then it seems inevitable we shall hope that spiritual power will be used to improve this world in ways that we desire. 

This motivation is often ascribed particularly to those who practice magic in its various forms; but is equally common among the religious - including Christians. 

Most of what Christians hope-for and work-for is focused on improving mortal life in this world - albeit sometimes this improvement is conceptualized in terms of providing a better environment for the encouragement of conversion and spiritual development. 

Yet, I suppose that most Christians would acknowledge that their primary efforts ought to be devoted towards eternal life beyond this mortal life - to whatever is the form of spiritual preparation for Heavenly existence that they personally regard as most necessary and desirable. 

This, then, seems to be our situation. The way we are made and the way of the world dictates that we cannot help but focus on the material and physical conditions of this mortal life, and from our own perspective. 

While at the same time Christians know that this ought-to-be secondary to regarding the spirit as primary and post-mortal life as the priority. 

In this respect, the situation resembles the rest of life: we know better than we can actually live-by, and often by a large margin; and therefore repentance rather than reform is the only sure answer. 

Nonetheless, most people make matters much worse than they need to be by their chosen commitments to this-worldly engagements; and then they are led-into choosing to make this-worldly considerations (usually political in nature) not just their consuming interest - but their bottom-line morality: that upon which they are most motivated, most intransigent.   

Unfortunately, the Christian churches encourage exactly this; in that they operate in terms of self-definition, inclusions and exclusion, primarily in terms of various this-life and this-worldly stances... As is almost inevitable for any institution in today's totalitarian environment. 

In conclusion; the most important thing is that we can and do, as individuals and in our personal conviction, stand apart from this-worldly concerns; and refuse to be manipulated sufficiently to keep a clear head and heart about what is primary...

Get clear on what ought-to-be most important.

And what ought-to-be our bottom-line, no compromise, motivating convictions. 

...This will not be found in the realm of public discourse; which is the domain of Satan. 

Apparently very few people, very few Christians, are able to accomplish this basic spiritual task at present.

As is evident from their passionately-expressed concerns about an event mega-reported as top news in the mainstream mainstream over the past couple of days.

This is, in other words, another Litmus Test - and, as usual, most self-identified Christians who have expressed their "opinion" (i.e. adopted a pre-allocated role in the totalitarian narrative) have - so far - failed it spectacularly.  

Residual spontaneous enchantment that can be elicited by religion, and its dwindling

One conceptualization (derived from Barfield and Steiner) that I have found helpful; is that modern Man is emerging from a situation in which we had a significant (and powerful) residuum of spontaneous enchantment, by which our experience was of participation in the world around us - and when this spontaneous tendency lay dormant until triggered by symbols, rituals, and various "spiritual systems". 
This was the situation of Men in Classical and Medieval times - the times when institutional and formal religions emerged and dominated spiritual life.
But since around the advent of modernity - perhaps starting some 5000 years ago, but becoming dominant something like 2000 years ago in the Industrial Revolution era; we have been incrementally coming-into a situation when the spiritual systems with their symbols, rituals, texts etc are no longer able to evoke that latent enchantment (hence mass atheism) - or only weakly so (hence the feebleness of current religions - see 2020 for confirmation of this feebleness). 

Because formal religions and spiritual systems really did work in the past; then it is usually assumed that they are the only and proper way of evoking enchantment here-and-now...
And then it turns out that they actually don't release our latent capacity for enchantment because that latent capacity to become enchanted by symbol and ritual has dwindled, often to the point of disappearance... 
And Here We Are. 

The usual inferences are:
1. Give up on religion because it doesn't work. 
2. Hold fast to religion, even-though it doesn't work. 

But my inference is that religion - no matter how effective it really was at eliciting the experience of enchantment, in some places and times - was itself only ever a spiritual system, and religion never-was the spirit itself. 
Our task is to go behind religion and seek the spirit directly - with the expectation that strong, convincing, and motivating enchantment - shall reliably arise from such an encounter.
And this requires faith that personal seeking of direct spiritual experience is indeed what God wants from each of us, here-and-now. 
 

Notice: The movie Greyhound, 2020

I have just re-watched the movie Greyhound (2020) written by and starring Tom Hanks; which focuses on the Captain of a destroyer (from which the film is named) escorting a convoy from the US to Liverpool in early 1942. 

It is the Captain's first escort mission; and the movie is seen from his perspective - its subject is really the responsibility of command in a life and death situation; and the depictions of anti-submarine war are exciting, and (given that there is a lot of CGI, inevitably) involving and convincing. 

Overall Greyhound is a very good movie - which is well structured, paced, and framed - and avoids the usual tedious war movie tropes. Only c.90 minutes long (like most of the best movies!), it is never hurried, but nonetheless packs-in a deal of detailed incident.

The Captain's devout Christian faith is presented sympathetically and as integral to his admirable character. I found the service in which he presided as three sailors were buried at sea (in a brief gap in the combat) moved me to tears.

After watching it for the first time, I read the CS Forester book - The Good Shepherd - from which Greyhound was derived; and would also recommend that as excellent. 

One difficulty is that Greyhound was sold to TV's Apple plus during the Birdemic - so that it never got a cinema release, and was never properly distributed. How to watch it without subscribing to yet another streaming service is a problem; for which those interested will need to seek a solution.