Here’s a little bit of a start, of some detailed points, to get the podcast
going. Pressed for time, I’m feeling ready to jump in a discuss the
remaining topics verbally. I’ve written and spoken about these topics
previously, so I’m just refining and customizing some existing coverage of
these topics, to present the ideas specifically in the context of “the
Emergent conversation”.
I will probably duplicate (re-post) these paragraphs in more specialized
discussion threads.
I’m feeling like typing is slowing me down; my thinking is running ahead. I
just hope there won’t be too many silences, since I’m committed to not
spending the time to edit-out silences or other junk. Although there will
be that “noise” as opposed to signal, I’ve listened to many podcasts, and I
know that no one gets to the point more than I do. Too many podcasts have
half an hour of worthless junk before getting into the substance of the
interview.
______________________________________________________
> The tepid “Emerging church” vs. the radical “Emergent church”.
>
Brian McLaren claims that the Emergent movement or “conversation” is against
the religious right but is certainly not advocating the religious left.
However, as critics point out, it completely appears that McLaren is
identically the same as the Christian religious left, the mainline
denominations. A challenging exercise is to list the differences between
McLaren and mainline 20th Century denominations:
McLaren de-emphasizes denominationalism, and calls for unity and open
communion across all brands of Christianity including Catholic, Protestant,
Pentecostal, Evangelical, and Eastern Orthodox.
McLaren emphasizes the Social Gospel even more than mainline does.
Emergent disparages Joseph Shelby Spong as merely *modern*-era liberalism.
But there’s no clear difference between McLaren or Marcus Borg, and Spong:
they uncritically retain the historical Jesus assumption, and read all
miracles and High Christology as metaphor that was piled on top of the
mundane, non-miraculous historical Jesus. Actually, McLaren is nothing but
a fine-tuned version of liberal mainline modern-era Christianity.
McLaren downplays “belief” as the center and essence of Christianity,
perhaps more and more clearly and consistently than the Liberal Mainline
does.
The inferior podcasts I’ve heard are those of the merely “emerging church”,
including run-of-the-mill, long-winded, low-information-density “edifying
sermons” that play out a metaphorical theme. The better podcasts are fully
“emergent”, focus more on the Roman Empire as meaning-context for the New
Testament, and are more like scholarly summaries. McLaren and Borg almost
always get to the damn point immediately, which is the kind of ergonomic
efficiency that is needed more.
What’s most missing in my comparative matrix is Mainline Liberal
denominations, such as Episcopal. (See my thread titled “Views on NT Xy:
Redactors, Evangelicals, Emergent, Freke, Horsley, Wright, Pilch,
Groenewald, Allegro”.) McLaren strives to distance himself from the Liberal
Mainline, but his critics simply label him as “very liberal and left”, which
would equate him with the Liberal Mainline that he strives to criticize
along with the Evangelical Right. Emergent (McLaren) is only slightly
different than the Liberal Mainline, and it’s no surprise that critics
simply equate and conflate the two positions, which largely overlap.
I’m tired of hearing Emergent presentations that barely touch on the Roman
Empire meaning-context. The only way to have any grasp and explanation of
New Testament Christianity is to put more than 50% of the focus on the Roman
Empire meaning-context. There’s still way too much discussion, in podcasts
by Borg and McLaren, of the New Testament themes and applying them in
today’s world, with often no discussion at all of the Roman Empire
pre-existing meaning-context which New Testament themes were specifically
designed to push against.
The Emergent movement is more environmentally conscious, by its inherent
nature, than other variants of Christianity.
______________________________________________________
> Psychotomimetic drugs (that is, hallucinatory drugs).
>
Correction: “hallucinogens”.
It is forked-tongue evasiveness when Christians talk on and on about how
much they want to better know the Holy Spirit, while they censor themselves
from any mention of psychedelic drugs, which everyone now knows causes
religious experiences. This is a willful, deliberate, conscious cover-up
everyone is participating in. It’s a loudly taboo topic that everyone knows
they are supposed to avoid.
I am considering attending McLaren’s 2008 tour to point out how he is not
really post-modern, because he continues to adhere to the assumption of a
historical Jesus and he continues to not consider the Eucharist as
psychotomimetic plants. Thus Emergent claims to be post-modern, but
actually, is merely a continuation of the modern-era predominant
paradigmatic assumptions, including the Social Gospel, which was, in a
sense, predominant during the 20th Century, given that the Liberal Mainline
had an affinity for at least some version of the Social Gospel, just like
Emergent.
If Emergent actually wants to get back to New Testament Christianity and
away from the modern-era paradigm, they must subtract the historical Jesus
and add visionary plants as the Eucharist — only then would the early
Christians in the Roman Empire recognize Emergent as being the same as them.
Dullness is not a problem in the Egodeath theory — because dullness is
never a problem in psychedelic drug experiencing, which is and was the only
authentic Eucharist. Christianity, or what passed for it during the modern
era, was dull only because the authentic, psychedelic Eucharist was omitted.
______________________________________________________
> No historical Paul, and, less interestingly, no historical Jesus.
>
______________________________________________________
> What kind of writings are the New Testament books? How to read the New
> Testament.
>
______________________________________________________
> References to LSD, psychedelia, and Tim Leary found in emerging church
> podcasts and weblogs.
>
The Jesus People movement of the early 1970s
There’s an active, taboo common knowledge and interest in psychedelics,
among Christians, that has been censored and self-censored since LSD was
illegalized in 1966.
______________________________________________________
> How Allegro was right, and how he was wrong, and why we must move through
> him, and cannot move around him.
>
Discuss Allegro’s right and wrong aspects for an Emergent audience. How
Allegro fits into Emergent.
______________________________________________________
> The primary origin and context of New Testament Christianity was the Roman
> Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, not Jerusalem in the 1st century.
>
Emergent needs to always emphasize this, and not leave it out of any
discussion. Don’t discuss abstracted “kingdom of god” anti-empire
principles in today’s world, without discussing them in some depth in the
Roman Empire meaning-context. Ground the discussion, or else it becomes
meaningless and we revert to the modern-era mental framework, and lose the
meaning of the New Testament.
______________________________________________________
> The evidence that proves that all religion was based on psychedelic drugs
> throughout the Roman Empire, including the Christian Eucharist during the
> first several centuries and beyond.
>
Emergent strives to be “alternative”, but won’t be significantly an
alternative without psychedelic drugs.
______________________________________________________
> Integrating Emergent, the psychoactive entheogenic Eucharist, and the
> ahistoricity of Jesus and all the apostles.
>
In discussing what’s so good about Emergent but what’s so limited about
Emergent, a good approach is to compare and contrast Conservative
Christianity, Liberal Mainline Christianity, the Emergent movement (as
merely a corrective variant of Liberal Mainline), and the Egodeath theory.
There are 3 main positions, relevant for discussion with conventional
Christians: they want to know whether the Egodeath theory matches
Conservative Christianity, or whether it matches Liberal Christianity. The
Egodeath theory is a 3rd basic position, which combines High Christology
with altered-state metaphor.
o Conservative Christianity has a High Christology but one that is based in
the ordinary state, resulting in literalist-supernaturalism. Conservative
Christianity takes it for granted that “the gospel” is all about how to get
into heaven after you die.
o Liberal Mainline has a low Christology and reduces metaphor to the
ordinary state. The Liberal Mainline leans toward the Social Gospel instead
of how to get into heaven after you die.
o The Egodeath theory holds that New Testament Christianity was the use of
visionary plants to have a communal altered-state experience of personal
powerlessness and God’s transcendent power, leveraged in service of setting
up a social-political system that was *specifically* an alternative to the
Roman Imperial social-political system. Combines High Christology with
altered-state metaphor. The gospel is not about how to get into heaven
after you literally bodily die; it is about bringing Godly justice into the
world, and about leveraging the altered state experience of ego death and
transcendent experiencing (such as an experience of heaven) toward that
objective.
The Emergent movement is merely a variant of Liberal Mainline, or an
adjustment to Liberal Mainline — with emphasis on open communion,
non-denominationalism, church unity, and flexible belief
(non-foundationalism, non-doctrinalism, non-confessional; not “religion as
confession in doctrinal belief”). Emergent is merely a correction of some
of the bad church habits of the Liberal Mainline.
Emergent is a corrective on Liberal Mainline (the Social Gospel), which
requires further correction. Which type of Christianity is closer to the
truth, closer to New Testament Christianity in its original Roman Empire
meaning-context, and closer to the Egodeath theory: Conservative
Christianity, Liberal Mainline Christianity, or the Emergent movement? All
3 are hopelessly confused, because they commit the ordinary-state fallacy,
producing different results:
o Conservative Christianity commits the ordinary-state fallacy, resulting
in literalist-supernaturalism. And it so happens that Conservative
Christianity puts *all* emphasis on going to heaven after you die, so that
they wholly condemn and avoid the Social Gospel (even Environmentalism,
crucially), and ignore the theme of “good news: the kingdom of god has now
arrived in the world”, which is the main content and theme of Jesus’
teaching.
o Liberal Mainline and Emergent Christianity commit the ordinary-state
fallacy, losing a high Christology, reducing the anti-Caesar Jesus figure to
an ordinary man, and failing to connect at all with the Holy Spirit and its
intense altered state which is required in order to perceive the all-power
of God over human power. What is the purpose of Christianity: to get into
heaven (per Conservative Christianity), to bring justice and ethics to the
world (per the Emergent extreme of the social gospel in the Liberal
Mainline), or to have a collective intense altered-state experience of
heaven and God’s overwhelming power, through ingesting the Eucharist, in
service of a counter-imperial social-political configuration (per the
Egodeath theory and per the New Testament)? The Holy Spirit, through the
Eucharist, applied toward the alternative Kingdom of God: does Conservative
Christianity provide that, or does the Liberal Mainline, with Emergent
corrections, provide that?
Does Conservative Christianity provide a collective intense altered-state
experience of heaven and God’s overwhelming power, through ingesting the
Eucharist, in service of a counter-imperial social-political configuration?
Does Conservative Christianity provide the Holy Spirit, through the
Eucharist, applied toward the alternative Kingdom of God?
Conservative Christianity does not provide a collective intense
altered-state experience of heaven and God’s overwhelming power, through
ingesting the Eucharist. It does not provide the Holy Spirit, through the
Eucharist.
Conservative Christianity does not strive to manifest a counter-imperial
social-political configuration. Conservative Christianity does not strive
for the alternative Kingdom of God in the world, but strives to do away with
the world and wholly replace it, as a project jumbled together with
literal-supernaturalist escape from the world into heaven after we die.
Does Liberal Mainline Christianity (with Emergent corrections) provide a
collective intense altered-state experience of heaven and God’s overwhelming
power, through ingesting the Eucharist, in service of a counter-imperial
social-political configuration? Does Liberal Mainline Christianity (with
Emergent corrections) provide the Holy Spirit, through the Eucharist,
applied toward the alternative Kingdom of God?
Liberal Mainline Christianity (with Emergent corrections) does not provide a
collective intense altered-state experience of heaven and God’s overwhelming
power, through ingesting the Eucharist. It does not provide the Holy
Spirit, through the Eucharist.
Liberal Mainline Christianity strives to be the vehicle through which
arrives a counter-imperial social-political configuration. It strives for
alternative Kingdom of God, as an ethical and just configuration. This
end-goal matches the end-goal of the New Testament, but not the means of the
New Testament, and not the along-the-way goal of the New Testament, which
was the intermediate objective of spiritual regeneration — a general kind
of objective that was held in common by the mystery-cults of antiquity, and
by the general religious use of visionary plants throughout antiquity.
In conclusion, by the measure of the NT, held as an intermediate objective
in service of a subsequent objective, Conservative Christianity is further
from the NT than the Liberal Mainline is.
Conservative Christianity matches or achieves neither the altered-state
transformation objective of the NT, nor the “just kingdom of God arrived in
the world” objective. Conservative Christianity squanders and dissipates
itself on a confused literalist-supernaturalist misfiring and gross
distortion of both objectives; Conservative Christianity has something
*like* each of the two objectives of the NT, but ends up with merely a
degenerate version of both these objectives. Conservative Christianity has
a degenerate rough equivalient of altered-state transformation through the
Holy Spirit. Conservative Christianity has a degenerate rough equivalient
of striving to manifest the arrived, just Kingdom of God.
Liberal Mainline Christianity (with Emergent corrections) sometimes gives
lip service to the Holy Spirit and “contemplative practices”, but doesn’t
actually deliver the intense communal altered-state experience of the Holy
Spirit, showing personal powerlessness and God’s all-power, or a vision of
God’s throne and kingship in heaven. Liberal Mainline Christianity *is*
faithful to the NT’s subsequent objective of striving to be the vehicle
through which the just Kingdom of God, as a social-political configuration
that’s an alternative to Empire, arrives in the world. That objective is
met fairly accurately in Liberal Mainline Christianity, but even the
Emergent explanation needs to more consistently emphasize the original Roman
Empire meaning-context for which the New Testament was specifically designed
and optimized to go up against.
______________________________________________________
> What it’s like to experience helpless frozenness in spacetime (often as
> Fatedness or predestination) and perceiving the all-sovereignty of God
> over all of one’s thoughts and actions. How this was expressed in the New
> Testament as “crucifixion and resurrection through the Eucharist and Holy
> Spirit”.
>
______________________________________________________
> Explanation of mystery-religion, including Imperial Cult and Christian
> house-church agape meals.
>
Emergent claims to be grounded in anti-imperial Roman Empire
meaning-context, but they put quite little attention on the experience of
the Holy Spirit and agape meals, treating those merely as indications of how
Jesus welcomed everyone and outcasts to purportedly “social events”,
socializing at a regular, ordinary-state meal of regular, non-visionary
food.
______________________________________________________
> Why theology cannot make any sense until the entheogen-and-ahistoricity
> reading of the New Testament.
>
______________________________________________________
> Why entheogen religion must go through Christian theology and take over
> Christianity to return it to the New Testament meaning.
>
______________________________________________________
> Which is more profound and paradigm-shattering: exposing Eastern religion
> as totally corrupt and bunk, or exposing Western religion as totally
> corrupt and bunk.
>
Perhaps the worst, most vulgar and distorting misreading of the New
Testament is to read “Jesus is the only name by which you must be saved” as
a statement against the religion of Buddhism — against Buddha — rather
than as against Caesar.
The book God Is Not Great has a chapter against Buddhism, politically
criticizing how Buddhism supports the emperor and his empire. But there’s
also the untapped potential debunking of the purely religious aspect of what
goes by the name of “Buddhism” today. Meditation is snake oil, bunk, a way
of delaying and avoiding intense religious experiencing rather than bringing
it about — some shamanistic Vajrayana Buddhism excepted. Although today’s
junk Buddhism might be less harmful than today’s junk Christianity, it
amounts to false promises and a fake product — phony, substitute religion,
snake oil. It sells short what religious revelation or transformation can
and should be: the ergonomic entheogen approach, which is the historical
origin of religion including Eastern religion.
______________________________________________________
> Why Christianity, rightly understood per the original New Testament
> Christianity, is fundamentally crippled outside its native Roman Empire
> context.
>
>
The Egodeath theory 