Evangelizing my mind

I am studying the Books of Kelly’s at Futurelearn, university courses on line.  I am also reading St. John’s Gospel, A Bible Study Guide and Commentary by Stephen K. Ray from Ignatius Press.  My friend Anne is attending the Catholic Church. She was expelled from her local Anglican Church or so I’ve heard.  Having started Baptist, attended United, then Pentecostal and Anglican I’ve also been a tourist in the Catholic Church studying with priests at their seminary. I didn’t  know this book of Stephen Ray’s was catholic per see though I could have told by the publisher Ignatieff.

 I’d just wanted a single Gospel and wished to read it not carrying about the bigger bible.  I’d had a folio years back and enjoyed reading it in free moments. Book of Kell’s is just the four gospels. St. John’s gospel written much later, around 100 ad remains the most mystical.  I’m interested in the mystical or spiritual aspects of church teaching. I meditated with the Benedictines and enjoyed Merton.  St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross were most moving to me at different times in the past.  Kay’s guide and commentary is very written and right off I enjoyed his discussion of Catholics and Protestant Bible Study. 

Before Martin Luther the Church was the home of the Bible and Church teaching and tradition were the bulwark of truth.  Luther introduced sola Scriptura, ‘Bible Christians’. 

He says they believe 1. There is no infallible authority outside of the Bible alone 2, There is no official interpretation or interpreter of the Bible. 3. The Bible is perspicuous (easy to understand). 4. Any individual can read the bible and interpret it for himself.  This pretty well summarizes the overall Protestant position but especially the ‘evangelical’ protestants viewpoint.

Catholics by contrast Kay says see it as 

1. the authority of the apostles and the Church preceded the New Testament writings, and the tradition of the Church is an equally infallible authority flowing from the same divine well spring

2. The authorititative interpretation of the Bible is the prerogative of the Catholic Church through the living Magisterium

3. The Bible is not always easy to understand and needs to be considered within it’s historical contextual framework — within the community to which it belongs.

4. Individuals can and must interpret the Bible within the framework of the Church’s authoritative teaching  not bases on their ‘own (private) interpretation”.

I hadn’t recognized it but I loved the idea of the ‘teachings’ and indeed the ‘verbal tradtion’ preceded the actual writing of the Gospels.  Much of Paul, the first major interpreter of the Bible was written before the first gospel was put to pen.  Mark is considered the earliest gospel , followed by Matthew then by Luke then John.  Mark dates from about 66-70 ADD, Matthew and Luke 85 -90 and John 90 to 110.  Paul’s teachings and letters date to 50 AD.

There almost endless writings and many gospels including Thomas and Mary which are not ‘approoved’.  Different gatherings of church leaders selected what was to be the ‘bible’.  It’s even more confusing because the original teachings were in Aramaic and Greek translated to Latin and then Rome. In my briefest study of Hebrew I was amazed at the fluidity of writing of the day. Later in the making of the English dictionary history I read that the ‘precision’ of words we use today is purely a modern device.  Words are an approximation. The word tree conjures a mental image for me that is vastly different from the billions of others who might learn a similiar word in their local for the greenery in their neighbour hood or language.  There are some 30,000 interpretations of gospel and not surprising.  The 4 gospels served as an internal ‘proof’ of the veracity of the story of Jesus Christ because the different perspectives over views are so highly consistent, like photographers at an event.  

Based on this the Catholic argument that their verbal tradition predates the written is powerful. There’s also been the conspiracy favourite that the Catholic library houses ‘secrets’ which never made it to the public ‘bible’.  When you consider 300 AD and the Catholic Church becoming the State Church under Constantine , the materials considered at Nicea is quite overwhelming.  All of that information and discussion is in Rome, at the Vatican.  Only the church’s inside men are allowed to read it.  Not every riff riff gets into the library though I understand they’re fairly considerate. The fire of Alexandra that destroyed the greatest library in the world is not easily forgotten by scholars. 

The monks who wrote the gospels by hand copying and recording from the Vulgate Bible of the day didn’t have a printing press or internet.  

Protestant, I’ve loved reading the Bible myself and have enjoyed many a church sermon as an ‘interpretation’ of the Bible. Hermeneutics in technical terms. Later I’d spend years in seminaries studying the Bible and teachings of the church.  Dr. Carl Ridd at University of Winnipeg, Dr. James Houston at Regent College and others have attempted in their way to enlighten me.

I so  enjoyed recently attending the Book of Mormon musical in London near Piccadilly. I really laughed very loudly. It was so apropos and sacrilegious but definitely tainted with truth. Mormonism is indeed one of the latest interpretations of Christ’s gospels.  The earliest were the Jews of the day.  Jesus was a Jew and the Sanhedrin, the Synagogue and leaders of the church rejected his teachings and with the auntority of the invading army of Romans had him crucified.  Early censorship was less sophisticated the subtleties of the ignorant narcissist Justin Trudeau’s preening censorship efforts today.  However St. Paul and St. Matthews and the Apostles in general were Jews and when I visitted Jerusalem I stayed at the Anglican Church there with the Jewish reverend who definitely approved of the evangelical movement ‘Jews for Jesus”.  

The next great interpretation of Gospel came with Mohammed.  His violent rankings clearly drug addicted or insane at times are a full on interpretation of Jesus Christ from the 15t h century. By no means my favourite interpretation given all the passages about killing Jews and further censorship.  It still is an interpretation of the Bible.  It comes later.  

This book by Kay St. John of the Gospel is to my mind really a good academic study in the best of sense. These days with the devolution of the universities in Canada and the political and  management override of ‘truth’ for profit has indeed undermined the very ‘authority’ of the ‘educated’ and especially the ‘university’.  When the University of Toronto granted medical degrees to medical students failed by the ‘faculty’ a decade back I was very open to the profound criticism of learning promoted by Dr. Jordan Peterson. I was further appalled with a local administrative doctor who was given an ‘honorary degree’ in Addiction Medicine questioned my several academic degrees of Addiction Medicine and not only that discounted the teaching of my most learned colleagues. She had the ‘power’ of the British Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons backed by the wealth and Power of the Political authority and Canada was rapidly becoming communist where there is only one god and one truth and that’s what the STATE is and says.  I was shocked by her bullying ignorance and arrogance and the ‘banality of evil’ so apparent to Arendt that truly lit the fervour of this rather stupid political mignonette. 

Now here is the same ‘debate’.  The rhetoric of ‘appeal to authority’.  God naturally talks directly to me. As a psychiatrist I actually separate ‘truth’ from ‘psychosis’ not by the saying but by the deeds.  I’ve met a dozen Jesus Christ’s and wondered if several of them were the Messiah.  The closest approximation, little different than the many Elvis in Los Vegas, turned out of be smoking industrial amounts of marijuana slipped into the hospital by his friends.  That’ high’ I’d be a man of peace. When he tried to escape naked I just couldn’t believe Jesus would smash into me coming around the corner in the hall dressed in a suit and carrying my briefcase. I thought Jesus would ‘know’ to take the turn wider and not collide with me, at that moment very much a doubting Thomas.  It was then I investigated more deeply and found the friends sneaking supplies through the window and then recognized the smells I’d been noting in the patient washroom.  Weed. 

What is truth.  St. John. Is a good start again.  I find that spiritual texts need to be revisited time and again as they elicit knowledge in me that has been gained since last I reviewed them. In the beginning was the word today means so much more than it met to me as a child.  Today I have the benefit or loss of know quantum physics and the mathematics of music. I especially lover the philosopher Buber and Einstein writings. Indeed more and more I ‘m finding that my scientist colleagues are more mystical and magical that the ministers I hear in church who too often sound like social workers and might well think that the Sermon on the Mount was secondary to feeding the crowd with loaves and fishes.

Mostly I need to evangelize my mind. I need a missionary movement to go into that bad neighbourhood. I love the 12 step teaching that the mind is a lost continent and we shoul;d never explore it solely alone.  The key to spiritual study that I’ve learned in my seeking is the need for a ‘spiritual adviser’. That’s summed up by the statement that there are two things you can’t do alone be married or be a Christian.  So I’m thankful that over the years I’ve benefit from having ‘sponsors’ , mentors’ ,pastors’, spiritual guides , and others who I’ve shared with. I often think of my friend Kirk, a guru today, or at least the disciple of one. We began reading and discussing spiritual texts and varieties of religions when we were pre teens and teens. We still laugh when we talk of God and our various adventures in prayer and meditation  and encounters with the divine.