"The rapture is a recent American concept" was what I caught from hearing a bit of a Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview with Jonathan Kirsch on this new book, A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization.

I want to listen to the whole interview because it reminds me of when I was a part of the Jesus Movement in the late 60's/early 70's. I began to be bothered that so many of the central teachings had a very tenuous relationship to anything biblical. The leaders held up the bible and quoted from it but the teachings that followed were not coming from those verses. They presented themselves as bible-based and so in the tradition of the early followers of Jesus. I knew many of the practices came out of the American religious movements of the early 19th century but I didn't realize how much of the teaching had been invented then also.

In this entry on Chuck Smith and his son of Calvery Chapel, it says that he "deemphasized theological sophistication ... But he remained an old-school biblical literalist." I feel so distant from the beliefs of these "biblical literalists."

"Age can make you either stupid or wise. Stupid means you still hold on to lots of resentments; you wish you weren't growing old. Yoga can lift that and bring wisdom and peace," says Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, 60, the cofounder and director of Golden Bridge, one of Los Angeles's premier centers for Kundalini Yoga. Yoga Journal DailyinSight

This morning before I read today's DailyinSight, I was thinking about how I feel less afraid of death and attribute that to my yoga practice. My Dad had a heart attack at 35 years old. I am 54 years old, about how old he was when he had a cardiac arrest and died. A few years ago, I was having some fearful thoughts about what it would be like to have a heart attack and be in the hospital. Now I am feeling calmer and not having those kinds of fears.

While the suffering of illness would be tough, I do not feel like I have a fear of dying. I know it would be difficult for my family and friends but I am confident that one should not fear what lies beyond. There is no heaven or hell. As they say, it is just the universe rearranging itself. If I have a consciousness, it will be nothing like being on earth so I am not even going to bother trying to guess or imagine. I am going to live my life now.

I know that I can have a definite influence on my life today by heeding the quote that began this entry. 'Age can make you either stupid or wise'

Biologist and Writer Edward O. Wilson talks about his new book The Creation. Wilson's appeal to preserve biodiversity is written in the form of letters to a Southern Baptist minister. Talk of the Nation, September 8, 2006

I caught a bit of this. What interested me was when he was asked about the ideal living situation or something to that effect. He mentioned that the Savanna was the place we developed. So a high spot with a view of nature and a body of water. They commented on how expensive Manhattan apartments fit this description.

My lifelong desire to live rurally feels partially explained by this comment. Now I think that desire to live rural means using a lot of gas with the need for driving long distances to visit friends or run errands. Also natural areas get divided into small farms in a way that is not good. For me, this desire seems to be able to be fulfilled by gazing at a park, botanical garden, or natural areas (occasional trips) without actually living in a rural area. That is better for me and I don't think I would like the hard sustained work needed to live in a rural area.

He said he grew up as a true believer in his father's Pentecostal world, a world that could tilt and slide him into hell at any moment, or end with the thunderclap of doom. His earliest memories involve an overpowering sense of sin. "You can never be good enough if you're Pentecostal or if you're fundamentalist," Smith Jr. said. "Jesus may even be upset if you didn't make your bed or brush your teeth."

This portion of the article quoted in the previous post reminded me of the recent visit to a modern praise congregation that I wanted to reflect on. I took a few notes because the sermon seemed to exemplify the worst about the modern praise churches. Besides not getting a chance to reflect, I also don't want to be "holier than thou" in criticizing someone's choice of church and style of ministry.

Father, Son and Holy Rift
For Pastor Chuck Smith, the big issues are undebatable. For Chuck Smith Jr., also a pastor, it's not so crystal clear. Something had to give.
By Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, September 2, 2006

I found this story quite interesting. I don't think I attended Calvary Chapel more than once or twice in the early 70's but the tent and ocean baptisms have always been emblematic of the Jesus Movement for me.

Theologically, father and son were on roughly the same page. They preached damnation for the unsaved, the wickedness of homosexuality, and what the son, looking back later, would call "a general hopelessness about the world," one salved only by the promise of an imminent, cataclysmic Second Coming.

I was thinking there was a single paragraph that succinctly described the problems fundamentalists have with him but the list takes a while to recite. Right after talking about his divorce, comes this

Still, his condition alienated him further from his father's church, where depression is widely viewed as a spiritual problem bespeaking flawed faith.

William Alnor, a longtime Calvary congregant and former pastor, expressed the view in stark terms: "I don't believe any Christian leader should be flirting with depression."

Fundamentalists have also been troubled in recent years by gestures they see as a throwback to paganism, such as Smith Jr. giving the sign of the cross at services and hanging his sanctuary with paintings of Jesus in the iconic Byzantine style. In 2005, to make matters worse, he took several extended retreats to a Catholic monastery in Big Sur.

One of his most vocal detractors, William Alnor's wife, Jackie, denounced his "decline into Catholic contemplative mystical religion" and protested outside his church. "I could sense the darkness around that place," she wrote on her Apostasy Alert webpage.

The squall intensified with the 2005 publication of the elder Smith's book "When Storms Come," which Smith Jr. edited. Among many additions Smith Jr. made was a quote from a priest, Anthony de Mello, whose Jesuit affiliation alarmed evangelicals. And on Page 103, Smith Jr. inserted the suggestion that breathing exercises might put one in a spiritually receptive state.

This seemed, in the eyes of some, dangerously close to endorsing a Buddhist practice.

Buddhist! How horrible! This list would not be complete without...

The son: "I met homosexuals who were trying to live celibate lives or be heterosexual, and I heard all about their struggles, and I never wanted to exacerbate that. My heart went out to them. Listening convinced me that homosexual orientation is not something people chose."

One by one they fell away, the doctrinal pillars of the house his father built. Yet Smith Jr. remained under the Calvary Chapel roof, not wanting to embarrass dad by leaving.

This summary and analysis is quite interesting.

Donald E. Miller, a USC professor of religion and author of a book on American evangelism, calls the elder Smith a pioneer of "new-paradigm Christianity" — one who championed contemporary music and casual dress in church, jettisoned traditional church symbols and rituals, deemphasized theological sophistication and paved the way for the modern megachurch. But he remained an old-school biblical literalist, he said, and the contrast with his son is probably fueled by generational differences.

"While Chuck Smith was very much a culturally savvy guy in the 1960s, nevertheless he came out of the Depression period, whereas his son grew up in a completely different era," Miller said.

For Smith Jr.'s part, he believed he was carrying on the work of radical outreach his father started in the 1960s. Since its early days as "the culturally relevant, rock-n-roll worship, hippie church," he believed, Calvary Chapel had regressed into a "hunker-down mentality — ride out the vagaries of this evil world until Jesus comes to the rescue."

The practice of yoga is about becoming clearly self-aware. As I practice yoga over the years, I work to become increasingly aware of my perceptions and beliefs--and to acknowledge they are only my individual perceptions and beliefs. To speak as if they are "truth" with a capital "T" is not to live in reality, and it's certainly not the practice of satya.

To Tell the Truth, The yogic practice of satya (truth) focuses on carefully choosing our words so they do the least harm—and most good.
By Judith Hanson Lasater in Yoga Journal

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."
It has always bothered me that this verse gets emphasized and interpreted to mean that so many others are wrong (ie. One Way!).

When the football team from the church sponsored college I attended was playing a team from a college sponsored by another denomination in the playoffs, a great cartoon was posted on a bulletin board. The dialogue was something like, "Coach, the players from the other college are Christians and pray for victory. Why do we expect God to answer our prayer to win the big game?" Placing his hand on the players shoulder, the coach replied, "Look, you play football and leave the theology to me."

Why is it so important that our interpretation of Christianity be regarded as the truth for everyone. Also it is downhill from there, worrying about pagan babies going to Hell. I just don't think that was the purpose of Jesus' life.