At some point very early on in its development, Christianity split between two different pathways:
one path stayed with the teaching of Jesus and the primacy of ethics,
the other started with the return of Jesus and, therefore, with supernatural belief.
Today, ethics has been largely sidelined, viewed as secondary or subservient to belief.
Don Cupitt argues that the time has come to give ethics priority in defining and shaping religious life.
“No longer should we aim to conserve the self, preparing for eternity:
we must simply expend it, by living generously.

Introduction Introduction

Where did the world-famous Nelson Mandela get his ideas from?
He grew up in a world at war within a culture of African Mission schools.
Maybe from the Christian social agenda of Leo Tolstoy filtered through that of Mahatma Ghandi.
The foundation of all of these teachers, and of many others, was the Sermon on the Mount.

However historic Christianity is based on supernatural hope, rather than on that teaching.
The early believers were socially quietistic and yet were religiously expectant.
Neither Catholics nor Protestants were called to live out the teaching of Jesus.
The believer was, and is, mainly concerned with their self-purification
in preparation for welcome into a supernatural existence after death.

The whole system of thought and practice was individualistic,
was all worship without any concern over ethics.

In such Classical Christianity, as devised by St Benedict in about 530AD,
the Christian ideal is to live a life devoted, overwhelmingly, to worship.
. This principle is still current in church-going today, but, in contrast,
non-church-goers focus instead on the ethical teaching of Jesus,
and many live their lives according to his principles,
without the burdens that the church imposes.

It is now time to rescue Jesus from where his followers have buried him.
A second resurection perhaps!

1. What did Jesus teach? 1. What did Jesus teach?

From the earliest of days there were two paths to Christianity.
The first focussed on the teaching of Jesus and put ethics first.
The second centred on the return of Jesus and supernatural beliefs.
The most influential body of believers took the latter course.
The main business of the church was worship and sacrifice.

Today that opinion has changed as belief in the supernatural fades.
The result is seen in the steady decline of church membership,
a situation that can only be reclaimed by
a fresh appreciation of ethics as
the foundation of Christianity;
as what Jesus taught.

Yet we may find it difficult to separate the words of Jesus from church teaching.
We can only rely on the Gospels, because Paul's teaching leads us away
to the idea that all we have to do is respond to God's generosity.
Jesus, instead, calls us to live the life that he described as
the Kingdom of God.

In traditional doctrine, the way to sainthood was by self-purification.
This led to one's personal attainment of eternal salvation.
In the ethics led version, there is no vision of eternity.
The dream is to make a better world for others.
Self is simply expended.

This may not be seen
as an attractive alternative!
We are left with an uphill struggle,
to revive the agenda of Jesus.

2. Scattered and Gathered 2. Scattered and Gathered

The people of God may be scattered and spread around, or
gathered and unified to one place and opinion.

We may see Jesus as a scatterer, generous to a fault, giving without counting the cost.
Self lives in the now-moment; pours itself out without worry over the future.
But the Jesus of Matthew's Gospel is careful to lay down treasures in heaven;
he keeps one eye on the eternal world of his future inheritance.
The original Jesus was remembered for a couple of decades,
but then the more cautious, practical version took over.
The Jesus of Paul began to influence the legends.
The original Jesus was buried under the altar
of concern for personal salvation.

3. The Glory and the Dream 3. The Glory and the Dream

What is our image of unmediated divinity?
Not even Moses is seen as able to see God's face.
But then we are promised, it seems that we shall spend eternity
gazing into that lethal white-heat. Does it make sense?

An Islamic view of God is of an indwelling deity.
This can also be seen in some Christian views,
as the Spirit that dwells within us.

Maybe Islam is a step ahead here!

Another view associates the sacred with particular sites;
places where the feeling of the numinous is apparent.
These are in Scripture and in classical literature.
People, today, go on pilgrimages to seek them out.
The Spirit is only found at that special place.

In this view, it was not Moses that was key to the meeting with God
but the mountain, Sinai, itself.
We have made a logical mistake!

However, the message of Jesus totally lacks
any sense of God's awesome holiness.

From the beginning, it was apparent that divinity needs to be shielded from humanity.
Over the centuries God has been dispersed so as to bring heaven and earth together,
and the ethical concepts of Jesus have become central to religious reality.

4. Creation, Divine and Human 4. Creation, Divine and Human

Before the Enlightenment, it was rare to think that humans could be creative.
Only the king's word maintained, or could alter, the created oder of life.
The State was the only real organisation and Creation was a cosmic version of the State.
At the top of it all was God who had set the laws by which Creation existed.
The laxity of Jesus in relation to the Law threatened this structure.

Jesus, in challenging the Law, announced the end of an entire vision of the world.
He announced the closure of the familiar gap between heaven and earth,
and of the familiar line sof communication between the two entities.
"Teach us to pray" said his confused disciples, in this new environment.
and Jesus showed them how the new situation operated
through his example and parables and teaching.

Christianity could have become a more advanced religion if it had followed Jesus.
In the eighteenth century Christianity died.
In the nineteenth century there were desperate attempts to resurrect the corpse.
Today there is hope of a new realistic version of Christianity may emerge.

5. At the End of the Real 5. At the End of the Real

There is a need for new philosophies and religious thought.
In a conservative world, there was little appetite for change.
First the real is defined, then our place in it
then an ethic was prescribed to match our behaviour to that situation.
This pattern is followed in Christian tradition from the earliest times.

In pre-scientific times, the cosmos was portrayed as a ready-made, fixed and divine order.
The organisation of heaven and earth followed the same pattern.
Despite the decline of Christianity, belief in the old ideasl lives on.

Biblican criticism has undermined the story of Christian origins.
The authority of the Bible is unlikely ever to be restored.

It is time for a new beginning.
*We are not specially priviledged.
*Our God is not the one and only true version.

There is no security.
Everything is in flux,
passing away rapidely,
including myself.

6. Moral Faith 6. Moral Faith

We live in the hope , the Dream, that things can be better.
Within that Dream, difference is replaced by equality and justice.
We become a real part of humanity only through another.
We become attuned to service.

There has always been a difference between a person's outward appearance
and the reality of what he/she is inside; God's view.
Part of spirituality is being able to face that difference.

We are told, taught, to find divinity by introspection.
Most mystical language discards externals to grow closer to God.
We unthought all that is not God to reach divinity.
This approach is being discarded.
The real you is what others see of you.
The soul no long requires to be purified,
expends itself in interaction with others.

This approach can be found in the oldest layers of the Sermon on the Mount,
eg Matthew 6:25-30.
The religious life becomes this worldly in sacrificial love of others,
without any thought of eventual reward.
Traditional Evangelical or Roman Catholic doctrine,
follows Aristotle's teaching, to expect reward for austerity now.
Jesus's teaching takes the opposite approach.

6. Moral Faith 7. Moral Faith