Kai thought about the words “our God”. ‘I mean I guess we can be proud that we bear the Jesus-colored badge on our lapels,’ Kai thought. His studies in postmodernism and his conversations with new age types, Carl in particular, had made Kai humbly dubious about making any claims to objective truth. He felt compelled to show off his broad, open-minded understanding.
“Our God certainly pulled through somehow. I’ve been thinking about that man. It’s interesting. Maybe I experienced him as Jesus because that’s how my subconscious recognizes God. Maybe it was an inherent divinity that I’ve learnt how to access by personifying him and using the power of belief to access the powers that are available to everyone. And like when I’m singing in church, I do get those electric shivers. Now they could be God, or my belief in that it is God is what is needed to unlock the unfathomable power of ourselves. ”
“Hmmm, a sort of Divine placebo effect?”
“Yeah man, yeah. Like mind over matter type thing. ‘cos I reckon God, or Truth, or whatever you call it manifests itself to different people in different ways. My friend once told me this sweet Indian story about a buncha blind guys who came across an elephant and tried to figure out what it was. The elephant represents like Truth, or God, you know. No one had ever seen an elephant at this point. So one of them grabs the elephant’s leg and says ‘The elephant creature, she is like a pillar’; another one goes for the tail and goes ‘No, you’ve got it wrong, the elephant is just like a rope’; and the one who feels the trunk says that the elephant most resembles a tree branch. They all contradict each other based on what part they grasp. See none of them were wrong, but they all had limited understandings and needed to put their truths together to get a clearer picture and avoid arguments. I dig that story because it shows how all truth is relative depending on the context you’re in. Each religion is a different blind guy.” Kai used a pompous hand gesture to indicate the conclusion of his explanation of all things mysterious. He then waited for the expected impressed look that was bound to pass over Luke’s face when he realized the kind of intellect that was in the room with him.
He got a different kinda look instead. Luke’s face softened in what seemed like a look of recognition, excitement, and sorrow all rolled into one. “Ah yeah I also like that story,” he began slowly, acknowledging Kai’s choice. “You made a couple of very interesting points. One is about the fact that the Christian God might be a personification of our intrinsic abilities. Or a way of understanding reality that gives us access to the Transcendent’s power. What that makes me think is that if the way to access that realm is through an acceptance of what Jesus has done then that says some fascinating things about our constitutional makeup. Like an innate need for submission and acknowledgement of guilt.”
Luke locked himself in a distant gaze, expanding his attention into the furthest reaches of the realm outside the window. Then he snapped back into sharp focus, continuing onto his next train of thought, “And the question that comes up with the elephant story is: Wouldn’t you have to know what a creature called the elephant is in order to understand the story? That would be the only way it makes sense. It seems to me that claiming that Truth is broken up into little facets like that, with each sector only grasping one facet, assumes a more total understanding of the situation than each of the sectors is trying to advocate. The view that ‘all truth is relative’ claims to be a larger truth statement than all the other religions are making. Which is ironic because the statement ‘all truths are relative’ is a truth claim itself.”
He was right! Kai had never thought of it like that!
Luke paused for a moment, seemingly thinking these things through and letting Kai in on that thought process. Then he gently continued, “I guess one of the differences between religious truth claims and postmodernist ones is that the religious claims have integrity unto themselves. They admit to the exclusivity of their claims, while the relativist view is somewhat self-contradicting. I mean how can it be an objectively true statement to say that there are no objectively true statements? In fact the claim of inclusivity, like ‘accept that everyone is right or else you’re small minded’ is one of the most exclusive claims itself!”
Woah, he had a real good point. That’s kinda what Kai had thought about Carl’s mindset. Kai was following along, and was gobsmacked by this gangsta’s razor-sharp rationality. He wanted to say something, but didn’t know what.
“Yoh,” Kai began, and then paused, “that’s pretty deep. I hadn’t noticed that internal contradiction there. I’ve gotta think about that more. I love stuff like that!”
“So do I!” Luke replied, recognizing a kindred spirit in Kai, “and there are few things that float my boat more than an invigorating thinking sesh.”
If this guy was such a thinker and knew about postmodern relativism, why did he settle for being a pastor, such a seemingly grey profession amongst a world of color.
“What’s so different about Jesus then? He’s so last millennium,” Kai said as non-confrontationally as he could muster. He began to feel disrespectful to ask, but quickly brushed off that encroaching British politeness.
Luke didn’t seem offended. In fact he had a faint smile gracing his face that made it look like he welcomed this kind of debate.
“I’m glad you asked!” Luke beamed genuinely. He nuzzled into his recliner and dropped his shoulders even more, as if making himself at home in the subject. “For me Christianity explains the way that things are better than any other system of thought. Empiricism is obviously reductionistic; relativism is obviously too defiant of logic. The picture doesn’t make sense without God. K so now we’re in the realm of religion. And oh there’s truth in almost all religions fo sho! And if their belief system leads them to adopt a way of life that’s in line with Truth then they are a wonderful agent of change in civilization. We can learn from things like Buddhism’s detachment from the world. I dig Zen’s one-handed clap – that amuses me! Then there’s Hinduism which emulates eclectic openness, Judaism’s loyalty to law, Islam’s submission. I’ve met some really wise people from a bunch of different faiths. I’ve met some wise atheists.
The Bible does talk about the fact that there is a level of understanding that is made available to all of thinking humanity called Common Grace. You can see this in a bunch of places, like Psalms, Romans, and Hebrews. This explains why there are so many atheists who live better moral lives than the vast majority of Christians including me!
But there is a unique level of revelation that revealed itself in the work of Jesus Christ. This is an upheaval of the conventional pattern of thought, legalism, which permeated even the Jewish mindset that Jesus was born into. Legalism is humanity’s default mode of functioning – we have to earn things to get them. You try to earn your salvation through things like living a good life, sacrificing, meditation, and understanding.
Here’s the thing: every other system of thought involves humanity’s effort to reach up to God. There’s only two ways that can go: if you’re pulling it off as a result of your own effort then you look down on those who aren’t. Like the Caste system of India. And the people who had a vested interest in keeping things in default mode are the ones who killed Jesus! Or the other alternative is that if you aren’t pulling it off, you’re plagued by guilt and shame. It’s a lose-lose dichotomy.
Christianity is the only religion that claims that God came down to us. Which is splendid news man, ‘cos our attempts to reach perfection are never gonna be good enough! It’s like a bunch of us standing on one side of the Grand Canyon and trying to leap to the other side. The Buddhist bra may well get the furthest, who knows, but we all dismally take the Fall.
Christianity is a weight off your shoulders ‘cos it’s an acknowledgement that you’re not good enough. But we’ve been adopted by God and become His children because of the price that Jesus had to pay in order to adhere to God’s attribute of Justice. The Gospel is good news because salvation is a gift! Grace means it’s undeserved. It’s this paradigm shift that inevitably leads to good works, which flow out of us because we love God, not ‘cos we have to do this stuff to be saved. Faith leads to works and understanding, and works and understanding lead to more faith. It’s a beautiful, increasingly white snowball effect!”
This kinda made sense to Kai. It seemed to penetrate deeper than the theories his mind had been bouncing around, which always bounced back off reality with less energy. And at least the Christians admitted that they thought their worldview was exclusive, instead of implying it contradictorily through the false humility of Postmodernists.
Kai had other questions though. He maintained his alignment with being straight to the point, and wasn’t gonna clown around with this educated monkey man. He was gonna bring up the subject of monkeys.
“That’s deep man. But as a thinker, how do you reconcile rationality with Christianity? Like what about things like science and evolution, which seem to make sense. Christianity seems so archaic. Please take off your pastor hat man, I’m sure there are certain things you wouldn’t wanna say in your role as a pastor so as not to lead people astray. But I wanna hear what you personally think.”
Luke grinned calmly, a gleam on the verge of leaping from his eye. The question must have tickled his fancy.
“Take off my pastor hat, I like that! It’s very true that when I’m in my pastoral role there are huge responsibilities, and it’s safest to adhere to tried and tested doctrine. The scandalous stuff happens behind the scene!” Luke winked. “I absolutely love making my intellect earn its keep. It would be patronizing to sit here and tell you I have all this figured out. Christianity makes the most rational sense to me, and has been proved true in my own life. But that’s personal testimony that’s hard to convey in any real depth. Ah yes, and I find the evolution issue fascinating! But see I really don’t see rationality and Christianity as being mutually exclusive. In fact our era’s obsession with either/or is one of the main obstacles to transcending this current paradigm.”
Kai loved the word paradigm, and Luke’s subtle criticism of Descartian dualism. He attuned his listening even more as Luke continued, with the look of a man about to launch his debut album.
“Christianity has been ridiculous in the past, there’s no denying that. Those big hats certainly weren’t an indication of big brains! But then again it was no more ridiculous than the surrounding society was, from which the church unfortunately derived so much of its character. Sadly God and the insatiable drive for power are a case of either/or.” He smiled. “But our culture has insisted on ditching the Truth that the Church is based on instead of just ditching a particular form of the institution. We’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater, despite the obvious signs that the little chap has thriving vital signs and would grow into a giant-slayer with a little nourishment! The past mistakes of Christianity are a reflection of its incarnation in human nature, and not its essence. It’s like rejecting everything science has to offer because it was behind the creation of the atom bomb. No, that’s a straw man fallacy that continues to be blown up relentlessly.
Actually you know, Christian thinkers have always been on the forefront of innovation and progression. I mean I’m talking guys like Newton, Galileo, uh…Roger Bacon…William of Ockham….Descartes too.” There was a long pause here as Luke looked upward as if to plead for his compadre’s names. Kai didn’t mind waiting, as he never knew of Christianity’s prominence in a field he always thought was counter to it, “…Blaise Pascal, Louis Pasteur,” Luke continued, “You get the point. There are a bunch of others I can’t think of off the top of my head. They certainly put the top of their heads to work; faith is not a hibernation of the cortex. Ok sure, Christianity was standard in their day, which would have inclined them to adhere to it, but still, it didn’t strike them as contradictory to their rationality.
Evolution? Maybe! Science has expanded in leaps and bounds, and if our current understanding leads in the direction of evolution then maybe that sheds light on one of God’s grand organizing principles. We also may only have a partial picture of it, so we must be careful to interpret new discoveries in light of Scripture. Both help advance the other. Science itself originally developed from the notion that an intelligent God must have designed an ordered universe. Even the word ‘‘cosmos’ means order. It’s only recently that we’ve pitted these allies against each other. United we stand, divided we fall.”
Kai smiled at the little testimony to Luke’s American roots thrown in at the end there. He wondered where we was from, but didn’t want to break focus now. He was too interested in this Christianity subject. Kai had read the New Testament through about 7 times in the last year, and was a good way into the Old Testament. He knew all too well that Genesis says that the world was made in 6 days. He had a theory about this, but had never told it to anyone. He didn’t think they’d be interested. But now he felt like this space between Luke and him was safe, almost sacred, ground on which he could do no wrong. He was going to put it out there.
“Ya I agree my bru, I don’t think that science and spirituality are mutually exclusive. I think Christianity might all be an analogy. I’ve got this theory,” Kai began. “Maybe parallel to physical evolution is an evolution of consciousness. Both need the other to be able to manifest. Systems within systems. ‘cos surely mind and matter aren’t separate like we used to think. It’s old news that quantum physics has already proven that.”
He wanted to go off on a tangent about what quantum physics has proved about space and time, and tie it into lucid dreaming, but he decided to stick to his theory.
He continued, “Genesis is like an allegorical poem. It’s got the structure of it with the repetition of refrains and stuff. It makes sense, right, ‘cos if it was literal and the sun and moon were only made on the 4th day, it seems like a random way to measure time for the first 3 days. Consciousness is something that emerges as these systems advance through evolution. God’s creation increases in complexity as the days progress - from water molecules, to plant life, to animals, and finally humans. Then once homo sapiens had built a brain that could handle our kinda sized cortex, the possibility of experiencing the Self emerged, which allowed the beginnings of an understanding about Other, God, to dawn with it. The system began to recognize itself. If you think of humans as cells, well cells began to have insights into the organizing power of the Brain.”
Here Kai wanted to digress again and go into how the recent connection of individual consciousnesses through the internet was like neurons in a brain connecting, which could signal the dawn of an unprecedented era. He shook himself free of that divergence, and criticized his mind for its spaghetti of tangents. He stopped talking and looked up to the right to regroup. “Ok so God finally revealed Himself to consciousness in a man named Adam. The rest of the species at the time remained rooted in their subcortical, animalistic structures. See, that kinda works, right?”
Before Luke had a chance to answer, Kai wanted to cover a couple more bases. “Oh ya, but there’s two other options. Maybe we have misinterpreted our archeological findings ‘cos we’re looking through the lens of our current ideology, almost like people in Galileo’s time justified their belief that the sun revolves around the earth ‘cos they could see it doing so. Or the other possibility is that there is a completely different answer to these questions that I don’t have the foggiest idea about!” He laughed out loud, catching himself a little off-guard.
Luke had had a twinkle in his eye the entire time Kai was talking. He waited a moment before he answered, smiling. “God reveals Truth to us through the use of our faculties, not by shutting those bad boys off. It’s great to see you taking these intellectual journeys brochacho. Jesus Himself tells people to rock their discursive thinking in passages like Matthew 6:26. Compare yourself to the birds man, and soar.
“And like Paul instructs us to test the kinds of spirits that dwell in teachings; he goes on to say that any spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. So it’s good to see you grappling with these things. Contrary to popular opinion, pastors don’t have all the answers.” Luke’s teeth flashed in his genuine grin. “But we do know Someone who does!
“I think there could well be a nugget of truth there. It needs to be mined though, mind,” he added with a smirk. “Your theory ticks a couple of Biblical boxes, and it leaves a couple vacant. Like there are poetry texts in the Bible. It’s more of a library than one single book actually. And you don’t even need proof of address to get library membership! It holds many different literary genres from many different times and authors. But it has the common denominator of God’s voice speaking through it.
Having homo sapiens around would explain how Cain was able to marry women from another tribe after he ran away, and also why Genesis goes on to refer to ‘sons of men’ and ‘sons of God.’ We all become sons of God by waking up to Him, recognizing our rebellion, and approaching Him through the light of the Gospel. This means letting go of the old primal, animalistic way of functioning which involved the primary pursuit of power, sex, and possession. It’s not that these things are bad, as in Gnostic or Greek denial of the flesh, but they need to be redeemed. The Gospel is a reanimation of this life, a revitalization and return to its original purpose. It’s almost like the next phase in evolution that Darwin would give a big bearded thumbs up to! And Jesus ushers that possibility in.
Just be careful here my African brudda. It’s important to separate speculation from revelation. It’s fun to think about these things and bounce them off peeps. But just make sure that you are continuously bumping them up against solid rock, and people who represent solid Rock. That’s how stones get polished you know, friction lad, friction. ”
Kai felt validated in his theory. He knew enough about Christianity though to know that some of these things would probably be deemed heretical by the more orthodox types. Was Luke not going to comment on his statement that Christianity is one big analogy? Kai wanted to test that by being a little more confrontational about it.
“Ya sometimes I feel like it’s easier to just dismiss any fact behind Christianity completely. The allegory might work, but it kinda seem like it’s just an attempt to reconcile these things by shoving them into each other and coming up with a deformed hybrid that doesn’t bare any of the genetics of either of its parents. Like if we interpret Genesis allegorically, why not interpret everything else in the same way and dismiss it all as a fable?”
Kai realized how schizophrenic his own divergence of opinions seemed, but relaxed his shoulders when he saw that Luke understood that he was trying to understand it from both sides of the divide.
“Nicely said!” Luke acknowledged. “Hey brother, if we could understand everything about Life, we would be God ourselves! These meager attempts of us babies trying to understand the stock market are just a manifestation of our inadequacies. Inadequacies that God is well aware of. I think He smiles upon the daunting tasks we try to create! But seek and ye will find. God invites inquisition. Yes every time we come against something seemingly contradictorily, a part of ourselves enters a differentiated split. You can refuse to enter this, but then you stagnate in your faith. If you trust God and let Him lead you, you will come into a more complete understanding, where seeming paradoxes merge. He makes us His children in a heartfelt moment, and then takes a lifetime to reveal his magnificently complex role as a parent.”
Luke’s gentle smile and humble response disarmed Kai as he continued, “Most of the time, viewing the Bible through the context of its various books answers the questions about its intention. It certainly is not all allegorical, and passages like 1 John 4:2 make that blatant. But again that line between allegorical and factual may not be as black and white as we think. Life is largely allegorical, and we may discover that the physical realm is a manifestation of something more abstract. So many passages in the Bible are both literal and allegorical. Like in the Moses story of the Old Testament, right, the blood of the lamb over the doors of God’s people allowed death to pass over them. But it killed all the other firstborns. That blood of the Lamb is further revealed in the New Testament to be Jesus’ blood that spared us from eternal death. Both of these stories really happened in time and space. Both of them speak to the same Truth. God’s work in Jesus is just further revelation of these same messages.”
“Woah, that’s intense,” Kai sighed as he smiled.
He literally felt the pressure increasing in his brain. He loved talking like this, and he had a soul connection with Luke, but he needed time to digest what had been said before experiencing too much pain from a head-first fall down the Christianity rabbit hole.
“Dude,” he said, “this is epic, and I’d love to meet up like this again. When next are you free?”
“I love it bruv. How about next week? We could go for a walk and check some sights, thereby checking two boxes with one swift stride?”
“Nice!” Kai barked at both Luke’s wording and the idea. And it was settled. Yet Kai’s mind was anything but.
This enchanted rabbit hole reality was both riveting and overwhelming. There was way too much to learn about, yet there was nothing that invigorated Kai more than exploring these things. He felt in a world of his own, like a bobbing boat with no anchor, drifting sporadically through the ocean of human experience. He knew all too well that there were sharks in this ocean, and suddenly he missed home.
He sent JP a Facebook message letting him know some of the consciousness journeys he had been undertaking and asking how life in sub-Saharan Dark Continent was. JP took a couple of days to reply, and his wording was brief. Kai gave him the benefit of the doubt though, knowing that internet access was hard for him. Most likely he had paid R5 for 15 minutes at the internet café on the main road. JP mentioned a reggae song that he told Kai to look up, and also to research Haile Selassie 1. Kai was surprised at his abundant usage of the Cape Town cool kid lingo. It was the verbage that was a passport to conversationality with the self-proclaimed elite crew of the southern suburbs. You know, the sponsored surfers, the rugby jocks, the avant-garde artsy types who frequented Kirstenbosch gardens. These latter hippie types were trying to breathe life into their non-conformist, dismissive protests against society. The results of this approach were a few decades buried beneath their bare muddied feet. JP’s use of the language made Kai wonder about how long genuine African heritage can go unadulterated by the Westernized versions of cool that silently squash idiosyncrasies.
CHAPTER 13: Portals are not Toys
The darkness came in like a fog, with a barely perceptible eeriness that began to envelop the world that was full of sunlight minutes ago. Cold, hair-raising shivers crept into Kai’s Cornish cottage, and began