About Rethinker and its Author(s), FAQ, and Stuff Like That
Pithy Epithets
Here are
some semi-famous quotes which seem to embody the spirit of rethinking well.
“The first to
present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.” – Hebrew Proverb
“The first key to
wisdom is assiduous and frequent questioning. . . For by doubting we come to
inquiry, and by inquiry we arrive at truth.” - Abelard
“The greatest
enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Stephen Hawking
“It is in the nature of man to like what he is familiar with and in
which he has been brought up, and that he fears anything alien. The plurality
of religions and their mutual intolerance result from the fact that people
remain faithful to the education they received.” - Rabbi Maimonides
“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is
thinking with the majority. The
second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is
thinking.” A.A. Miline
Who writes
for Rethinker.net?
Currently
the only writer—and I use the term quite loosely--for rethinker.net is
me--Christopher Travis Haun.
Quite the opposite
of claiming to be a great thinker, re-thinking is my way of compensating for
being an otherwise poor and gullible thinker.
Some of my
rethinks dabble in history; but I'm no historian. While occasionally dabbling in philosophy, I
am no philosopher either. Most of my
rethinks revolve around biblical theology; but I am only a theologian by
hobby. But, then again, if the provocateur Martin Luther is right here,
it is “not understanding, reading or speculating, but living—nay, dying and
being damned—that makes a theologian.”
Although
much of the banter that goes around as theology today may be little more than
semantic ping pong, I think there may be no nobler ology than sincere theology.
As the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah
was told,
"Let not the wise man boast of his
wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches, but
let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me, that I
am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth, for in
these I delight," declares the LORD.
While I
cannot boast that I know the Lord well, I do stand in awe over what little I do
know of him. Rethinker.net is in part an
attempt to articulate what I have rethought in the pursuit of this knowledge.
Regarding
theological presuppositions, my childhood revolved around a
dispensational-evangelical Christian church.
And I did spend two years in evangelical Bible schools. But with a mind more maverick than herd,
packaged systems of thought are things to be questioned rather than
swallowed. The first Bible school I left
at age eighteen because questions and uncertainties had left my mind in abject
chaos, my soul in despair, and my heart embittered toward the seemingly silent
and distant God. Believing that school
to be interfering with my education, I left the college scene to find work and
to pursue answers to the questions that questions that besieged me. Rethinking pretty much everything, I explored
all manner of ideas in the desperate attempt to find some confidence in
something solid. After a foundation was
machinated and proven sturdy to my standards, I started studies at a different
Bible school--Tyndale.edu. I left it
soon after to focus my life on marriage and family.
Not being an
academic theologian has its advantages. Since my paycheck does not depends in part on
upholding the doctrines of a specific school of thought I have more felt
freedom to explore, to use my unusual perspective, and to rethink. The
rethinks on this site should have a unique viewpoint. I trust
there is some value in that.
For the past
decade I have been a professional computer networking geek. My job exercises the parts of my mind which
involve entering, assessing, and troubleshooting unfamiliar and complex
networks--clients and multi-tier servers, protocols and packets, processes and
threads. I’m the guy who every day
traces the symptoms back to their root cause problem source and figures out how
to fix it after others have tried and failed.
In rethinker.net I attempt to apply these same mental muscles to more
important arenas of life. It’s my venue
for attempting to troubleshoot some of the greatest problems of life.
What is the
vision for this site?
A large part
of Rethinker.net’s reason for being is simply to provide me a venue where I am
forced to try to make intelligible to myself just what it is that my rethinking
has led me to so far. After years of
constant rethinking I’ve found that I have a worldview that finally seems to
have some coherency, foundation, sanity, and healthiness. But I’m only now beginning to try to
articulate it such that it will be intelligible to others… perhaps intelligible
to me too. The articulation process
forces me to me to rethink what I think I believe and have already
rethought. Articulation for others also
helps me become more intellectually honest and objective. When I begin to find words for some ideas I
sometimes see how stupid they must seem to others and I’m given cause to
rethink them more deeply. I enjoy the
attempt to try to make sense of this strange thing we call the world and this
strange thing we call life. It is also
an attempt to force me to open my tentative conclusions up to the critique of
others. (Seriously—write me and stretch
or correct my thinking!)
Rethinker.net
is also here in the hope that some others will examine the unexamined and
challenge pre-understandings, prejudices, assumptions, inheritances, and
traditions. I know that the herd cannot
be less than the herd; but if there were more mavericks who don’t follow the
herd perhaps the herd can be influenced.
If that’s too optimistic, then it is at least my hope that the mavericks
who have been herd animals will “wake from their dogmatic slumbers” and start
rethinking for themselves. I hope this
site can help to create a network of rethinkers who have goodwill in thought
(and deed) for all peoples of the earth.
A few people
have been helped by my rethinking and have encouraged me to share them in
writing. It is my hope that these writings will help others rethink the
deep-soul questions of life. I’ve been
able to help a few people who were in a chaotic state of mind to find a
substantial degree of stability and health.
I hope this site can capture some of that for the sake of some.
Jeremiah
also was given a revelation of a future time when the Lord would not be as
distant as he seems now, that he would do something amazing, and, as a result,
everyone will be a theologian:
"The time is coming,"
declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of
Israel and with the house of Judah. . .
I will put my law in their minds and
write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his
neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all
know me,
from the least of them to the
greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and
will remember their sins no more."
Until that
future revelation, one of the main purposes of rethinker.net is to attempt to
tell my brothers and cousins and neighbors, “Know the Lord!” Hopefully rethinker.net can serve as trigger
and catalyst for what little knowledge we can have of the Lord in this life in
this chapter of history.
You seem to
write with from a Christian perspective.
So what kind of Christian are you?
I understand
that it is useful to pigeon-hole me.
Since this is not avoidable, I’ll try to provide my preferred
category.
Christian?
Am I a
Christian? I’m not quick to accept that
label. I’ll only accept it if given the
chance to make some major qualification.
Denotatively, yes; connotatively, no.
For the words Christian and Christianity have so many negative
connotations which I think I don’t deserve and hopefully never will. And yet the denotative meaning of “one who
belongs to Christ” is one meaning that I accept without hesitation, for I am
his. Unfortunately there are so many
Christs in the marketplace of ideas that it becomes necessary to define clearly
which Christ one belongs to. I would like to believe that I belong to
Christ. In so far as it is up to me, I
believe I do. My name is Christopher
which, in Greek, means “one who carries Christ.” I hope I can begin to live up to this fine
name in word and deed.
Protestant
Christian?
Beyond
Christian, I’m reluctant to accept the label of “Protestant” for connotative
reasons. There is so much inside of
what we collectively recognize today as Protestantism which I protest. It is not the five-solas that
Protestantism once was famous for which I protest. And there have been moments, such as while
reading Bernard Ramm’s book Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of
Hermeneutics—where I kept thinking, “Well, when you look at it
from the hermeneutical standpoint, I fit well with the original Protestant and
Calvinistic method.” Despite appreciating
and even respecting many of the writings of theologians in Protestant,
Lutheran, Calvinistic, Presbyterian, and/or Reformed traditions,
I’m going to still tend to shrug off labels like Protestant, Reformed, and
Calvinist.
However, in
one sense I am more of a Protestant than Luther and Calvin were. For my protest goes far deeper against the
post-Constantine Greco-Roman Church than those of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and
Knox. The Reformers were merely
reformers of the Roman Church system and protested only a few parts of that
system. Unable to reform the Roman
Church, they ended up creating new churches.
But these new churches retained much from the Roman Church and the
latter Augustine. Ultimately I prefer
stronger verbs like recover, recreate, return or restore to ‘reform’ and
‘protest.’ Reformation is perhaps the
good thing that serves as the enemy of the best. When our Lord that you cannot put new wine
into old wineskins in order to illustrate how the old Mosaic-Rabbinic system,
built largely upon the covenant cut at Sinai, could not accommodate the
manifold blessings of the New Covenant, so too I don’t want to waste time
trying to fill old wineskins with new wine.
Nor do I care for the attempt to build new wineskins out of pieces of
old wineskins. I am then perhaps a
Protestant who protests not just the Roman Church’s departure from the
Apostolic faith but one who also protests the Protestants inability to return
to the Apostolic faith.
My main
protest is that the Protestants have blood stains on their hands. This alone to me proves that the Protestant
Reformation did not succeed in returning to the faith that Christ and his
Apostles handed off to the first generation church. Protestants under the leadership and examples
of men like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli have the blood of Catholics,
Anabaptists, other Protestants, Heretics, and Pagans on their hands. For this reason alone I would reject the
association with that which is called Protestant.
Evangelical
Christian?
I more than
hesitate to accept the label Evangelical any more. Denotatively it may be a fine label for
me. But its connotations make vomitously
ill. Evangelical means too much and too
little. Whatever it might mean
denotatively, the connotation now includes popular evangelical support for
“pre-emptive invasions” of nations. I
don’t belong in that boat. I was raised
in the soil of an American Evangelical Christian subculture. There can be
no doubt that much of my rethinking grinds upon every aspect of that
evangelical inheritance. It is also quite likely that one of the primary
audiences I hope to impact with my rethinks are the Evangelicals. I think they could use a fair amount of
rethinking. The Rethinker.net site was
born when it became clear to me that the majority of American Evangelicals were
giving unthinking support for the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq,
unthinking allegiance to Caesar. The invasions were the catalyst for me
to realize that my allegiances may not to the same kingdom that Evangelicals
seem to be attempting to build. Like many others who have heard the
Sermon on the Mount and not buried it under rationalizations, I have been
attempting to part from the paths of the churches of the last 1,700 years of
history in favor of reconstructing something hopefully more closely resembling
the Christ-centered life we read about in the New Testament. I'm very
interested in trying to reconstruct something resembling a "New Testament
Church" network of communities.
Fundamentalist
Christian fits the same pattern for me.
Emerging
Christian?
While I have
some notable commonalities and sympathies, I definitely don’t truly fit in the
stream of ‘Emerging’ Christianity. Am I part
of the Emerging Church
movement? It's impossible to be
unaffected by post-modern thought. And there is much about the emerging
church which I find sympathy for. Like
them I too want to find ways to deal with the problem of the modern church
being irrelevant to real life. I
sympathize with their desire to transcend the doctrinal frictions they see when
they look at the visible churches. I appreciate their willingness to
challenge and rethink almost everything but don't appreciate their willingness
to embrace almost anything. I don't share their penchant for
anti-intellectualism, irrationalism, neo-kantian skepticism, existentialism,
and syncretism. They don’t seem to be truly interested like I am in
getting back to the original model and the original foundation for the faith
and practice. They seem more interested in building a new post-modern church on
a post-modern foundation of sand.
Brethren
Christian?
Of all the
labels offered so far this is the most tempting. For one thing, it helps disassociate me with
the more blood, sword-swinging, gun-shooting forms of Christianity. Similarly, it would help to show that I tend
to make a serious distinction between the kingdom of Christ and any
geo-political kingdom that men might be trying to build on earth. But even there I don’t quite fit perfectly
there. I do feel substantial kinship to
and sympathy for several of the various brethren groups--Swiss Brethren, Schwarzenau Brethren,
Moravian Brethren, Grace Brethren, Plymouth Brethren,
and the earlier Waldensian
brethren. I appreciate how they
seemed to be not mere attempts at reformation but sincere attempts to get back
to the original and apostolic paradigms.
And I respect them enough to listen to them and let them help me rethink
things. All of these minority groups
have in different ways stressed discontinuity between the earthly purposes of
Israel and the Church in one way or another while the majority forms of
Christianity tend to stress continuity.
One of the main ramifications of this discontinuity has been that the
majority church has had no qualm about spilling the life blood of its
competitors and dissenters while the brethren groups have preferred to let
their own blood be spilled. One thing
the various brethren groups have in common with one another and with me is that
they seem to have tried to chuck the old, established versions of Christianity
entirely and tried to recreate something resembling the original using the New
Testament. So if we can ignore some of
the specifics, I suppose I’d accept the categorization of being a brethren type
of Christian.
Maverick
Bastard Christian?
I don’t
belong to any denominations and don’t have any affiliations. I have never once pledged membership to any
church despite having attended several.
I believe there is one church and it is an invisible collection of
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ which stretches across all national and
racial and denominational boundaries. I
belong to the one universal, global church.
I suppose a good category for my type of Christianity is Restorationist; But I don’t fit any of the Restorationist
types of Christianity listed on Wikipedia.
So all in all I feel like perhaps the category I can best offer is this: Maverick Bastard Christian. ‘Maverick’ because I’m not in the company of
any herd I can see. ‘Bastard’ because I
don’t have any father figure or parent tradition which I feel is an adequate
vehicle back to the original, first-century, apostolic brand Christianity I
read about in the New Testament.
Which
thinkers have had the greatest influence on your thinking?
I have
serious trust issues. For better or worse, I don't trust men. I’ve
known too many of them to trust any of them—including myself.
The only
thinker i have come to dare to trust is that mysterious fellow most call
"Jesus." And by Jesus I do not
the Jesus of Western Christianity but the Yeshua (or Y’shua or
Yehoshua) of the New Testament. Who did Jesus endorse as speaking for
God? Which of the Hebrew prophets did he quote from as if they spoke for
God? And which ambassadors did he
appoint to speak for him? Outside of Jesus and those he set as
authorities I have major trust issues.
I have no
allegiance to the Nicene Creed or the pronouncements of the Council of
Chalcedon, for example. But I probably agree with most of its
propositions. I have no allegiance
whatsoever to the Westminster Catechism and Confession either—although I
probably agree with most of its proposition. I can listen to anyone and
hopefully learn from everyone. But I can't let them have any authority
over interpretation.
I may have thomistic leanings for
epistemology and hermeneutic, for example, but I will never ever crown Thomas
Aquinas as an authority in the slightest sense. I probably won’t even purchase or read any of
Aquinas’ works. (As future leisure and
money afford, however, I may purchase some of the works of neo-thomists.) I may have leanings towards Calvinism but I
don't trust John Calvin’s writing as an infallible interpreter of the
revelation of God. I don’t own any of Calvin’s writings but would not be
averse to comparing my take on Scriptures with his. I may still be dispensationally
sensitive but I don't put any real faith in or allegiance to thinkers like
J. N. Darby, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Walvoord, JDPentecost, and Robert
Lightner—and don’t even get me started about guys like Scofield, Hal Lindsey,
and John Hagee.
Having so
prefaced, allow me to say without apology that the top influences upon my
thinking have been Christ-intoxicated men.
William F.
Heidbrier, my grandfather, often impressed me as a man of real quality. I often thought as I grew up that I wish the
world had a million more men like him for, if it did, the world would be a far
better place. I think I was right. He was my Aristotle, knowing something about
everything. He was a man of
understanding. He loved his Lord Jesus
above all, he loved his wife more than words can express, he loved his family,
his local church, the worldwide church, his country, all nations of the world,
and the world of nature. Although we
did have at least one major disagreement, I think all in all this man might be
the main reason—the main living argument—for why I became and somehow remained
a Christian.
There are
two men who invested time and conversation into me in my teenage years.
Both had very positive impacts on my thinking about many things. I might
be a very different person without the influence of either of them. Todd
Wiseman demonstrated the need to rethink everything of importance, to question
even the authorities in your inherited ‘school of thought,’ to draw out the answers
for yourself from the scriptures, and the need to blur or obliterate the lines
between clergy and laity. Bill Kraftson
gave me a tremendous head start into topics of classical Christian apologetics,
basic theology, and practical Christ-like living inside a healthy marriage and
family. Many of his nuggets of wisdom
still echoes through my mind. Both of
these men had marriages that made me think marriage could be a cool thing.
C.S. Lewis
I think C.S.
Lewis was the first thinker to awaken my logic from slumber. The writings of C.S. Lewis awakened me to
the possibility and beauty of logical thinking about philosophical, religious,
historical and theological topics. He also may have been the one who is
most to thank for causing me to start reading in my youth and teen years.
He also may be the one who inspired me to try to begin writing. I don't
read Lewis much anymore and I don’t recommend him to others anymore. But I continue to have an appreciation for
his mind, his imagination, his background in myth and folklore, and his
idiom.
Norman
Geisler
Norman Geisler may be
the most influential upon my thinking. But I don’t think it is a case of
me thinking a certain way because I learned it from Geisler. On many things it was more a case that I
heard Geisler saying things that I already was thinking—only he said it better. Out of the cacophony of voices I heard in
younger life, his thomistic shtick has come out on top as being the most
helpful to taming the chaos of my mind.
I do respect his mind and his learning and teaching in matters
philosophical and theological. I have found that I do tend to agree with him
generally. I’m not a follower of Geisler though. If he says something I would never believe it
just because it’s Norm who said it. But
I would listen to it and take it very seriously. For in introduction to his apologetic
writings, I’d recommend I
Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.
I am most thankful to him for helping me to crawl out of the mangrove
swamp of intellectual chaos and find a firm foundation with thomistic “first
principles.” Second I am grateful for
Geisler impressing with me of Christ’s view of the scriptures of the Hebrew
prophets and apostles. Third, I am also
very grateful for him teaching me how philosophy has invariably impacted
theology. Fourth, I also appreciate his
method of rethinking Calvinism in a way which to me seems to allow both God and
reality to be more mysterious, a way to harmonize the sovereignty and freedom
seen in the Bible, and a way to arguably avoid some philosophically repugnant
difficulties. [Most of Norm’s books,
tapes, mp3s can be purchased at http://impactapologetics.com; http://normgeisler.com; http://www.internationallegacy.org/ApologeticTraining.aspx.]
J. Dwight
Pentecost
J. Dwight Pentecost
has become one of my favorite theologians. I respect his writings quite a
bit and can’t help but think that he’s got some tremendous insights into the
Scriptures. For a light, introductory,
and savory taste of his writings, I’d recommend The
Parables. For a taste of his heavier
stuff, I’d recommend Thy
Kingdom Come and Things
to Come. Perhaps most important is
his The
Words and Works of Jesus Christ.
They have helped me to make sense of what was otherwise confusing in the
Scriptures. He is strong on premillenial
and dispensational eschatology but has avoided what I call dispensensationalism, the wacky strain of
dispensationalism.
Leon Morris
Leon Morris has been a long
time favorite theologian of mine since I was introduced to his
commentaries. Morris is a man of the Cross. His books The
Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, The
Atonement, and The
Cross in the New Testament are some
of the dearest books I have devoured.
Leon’s books helped me see why Paul would say, “I knew nothing while
among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
His writing style has always been something I have appreciated. His understanding of the Hebrew and Greek
linguistic and cultural contexts of the biblical books was more than
refreshing; it helped to end a time of abject doubt by humbling my doubts and
making me realize that I had not understood what I was doubting. Perhaps Morris more than any other made me
see the need to read the entire Bible through Hebrew lenses. Although I don’t fully embrace the G.E. Ladd
style Premillenialism like he did, I can still respect that attempt to find a
balance between “kingdom already” and “kingdom not yet” to feel like this is a minor
disagreement.
F.F. Bruce
Pretty much
everything I said about Leon Morris I should also say of F. F. Bruce. Frederick was very insightful, a very good thinker,
had an amazing scope of knowledge of Western literature, and he wrote
well. He had amazing understanding of
the bible books, the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman cultures. He could interact with the higher critics of
his day, come out unscathed, and protect others from them without ever being
nasty about it. He remained a teaching
elder in his Plymouth brethren assembly even though he had dropped the
dispensationalism that that same tradition had produced. I don’t agree with him on everything but
still highly respect him. Someday I’ll
probably own a copy of all of his books.
He was definitely a man of the cross, so to speak.
S. Lewis
Johnson
S. Lewis
Johnson was a theologian and Greek scholar I have great respect for. I can’t seem to embrace the five points of
Calvinism in quite the same way as he does, but apart from that I have
benefitted greatly from his expositions and writing over the years. I had the pleasure of having him as a
professor of two advanced Greek exegesis courses: The Upper Room Discourse and
Romans 9-11 at Tyndale.edu. (His MP3s
and PDFs can be found at http://www.sljinstitute.net/
and http://www.believerschapeldallas.org/.) S.L. Johnson was also a man of the
cross. And although he remained
dispensational he too avoided dispensensationalism.
David
Cummings
David Cummings of Australia
helped to shake the Christianity out of the auditorium and into raw family life
and community. I also love his stories
from all over the world. He was a force
in my mind for focusing on the family above all, not being satisfied with
passive churchianity, and of course he was a major proponent of missionary work
and Bible translation. I’ll try to put
some of his mp3s up on this site soon after I get permission from him. David’s bio includes this snippet: “International
Ambassador for Wycliffe Bible translators, former International President and Director
of Wycliffe Bible Translators in Australia and New Zealand.”
Francis
Schaeffer
I’m
reluctant to mention Francis
Schaeffer but have to admit that deserves honorable mention. His
heart was in the right place even if his ultimate legacy is one I lament. I find it unfortunate that Francis has proven
to be the main fellow who opened the floodgates of politically focused action
into the world of American Evangelical Christianity. I suppose Schaeffer is one
of the reasons I am now extremely reluctant to accept the label Evangelical
without major qualification. In the Kuyperian flow, I think
Francis had great intentions of taking Christianity out from behind the
stained-glass bubbles and into all arenas of real life--high and low. And while I agree whole heartedly with Kuyper
and Schaeffer that the Christ-like life needs to dominate every arena of life I
also disagree strongly with them that this needs to be applied at the State
level… that it needs to be applied at the high levels for the hope of a
trickle-down effect. I would argue that
this holistic application of “the way” needs to be applied to the lives of
individual believers/disciples and collectively to the communities of
believers—the Church. I also think it
very unfortunate that Schaeffer followed Van Til in wrongly
blaming Thomas Aquinas for grafting humanism into Christianity. Aside from these two main disagreements, let
me readily say that his non-political
writings strike a chord that resonates well in my soul. He understood the need to practice radical
Christian love in the home and immediate community. If you can filter out the misguided political
applications of his theories there is much of value in some of his
writings. One thing I can recommend of
his (if you can somehow filter out the political stuff that dominates every
other page) is The
Church at the End of the Twentieth Century.
Also his book True
Spirituality deserves honorable mention.
Jewish
Christian Thinkers
I am trying
to pay attention to some of the Jewish-Christian voices. I don’t feel
like any specific names are worth mentioning at this point however. Well, no, two come to mind: Arnold
Fructenbaum of Ariel ministries and Steven
Ger of Sojourner Ministries. Some of the Jewish-Christian voices seem
misguided to me. Ron Mosely’s popular
book Yeshua;
A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church was not just
disappointing but very misguided, I judge.
The writings at http://jerusalemperspective.com
offer great potential value in shedding light upon the Hebrew Scriptures but I
have serious reservations about the higher critical echoes I hear coming from
the depths of that site. I don’t think
rabbinical and Talmudic writings should be used in addition to the Scriptures
but I do think they can occasionally be useful for shedding light on them. For the Scriptures were written by Hebrew men
with Hebrew minds. Contrary to popular
assumption, Paul was not the hellenizer of Christianity; he was a Hebrew of
Hebrews who was used as a bridge to the Hellenistic world. To understand the scriptures well I believe
we must shed our Greco-Roman-British-American lenses and start reading through
Hebrew lenses. This does NOT mean, however,
that anyone should be put back under the yoke of the laws God gave to the
Israelites at Sinai.
Describe
your interactions with the “Eastern Religions”
In my early
teens I went to a “magnet middle school” and soon couldn’t help but note that
the brightest colleagues (academically speaking) were either Indian or Chinese. I realized I had to give them and their
religious traditions some respect. If
these people were so intelligent, surely the religious traditions they grew up
with cannot be unintelligent? I would
have to take them seriously especially since I was wondering seriously how
likely it was that I lucked out by being born into the “true religion.” What I mean here is, from a purely
statistically standpoint, I began to suspect that if my religion was one of the
top ten major world religions, there was perhaps at best a ten percent chance
that mine was the right one. Humbling.
Unnerving. Intriguing. The largest public library in my city became
my second home and I began enjoying the study of comparative religion.
As young
boys are apt to do, I was attracted to what seemed “manly.” Thus the attraction to military service,
warfare, martial arts, endurance of pain, and such. I remember vividly seeing at an early age the
now famous image of Thich
Quang Duc stoically “immolating” himself …
I was deeply
impressed with this Buddhist Monk who seemed to have no fear of death. That seemed like the epitome of manliness to
me and that was a big deal to me at the time.
Similarly there was something very appealing at the time about the
Samurai code of honor (bushido)
which apparently made many Samurai value honor above their own lives. The stories of the devotion of Samurai and
Kamikaze pilots impressed me greatly while the Christianity around me seemed to
be nothing more than people singing and listening passively to vapid
sermons. I was particularly attracted to
Zen Buddhism. I especially remember
Eugen Herrigal’s Zen in the Art of
Archery captivating me around age thirteen or so. The biographies of Morihei Ueshiba, the
founder of Aikido, seemed impressively magical too with his alleged power to
dodge bullets and perform mind-over-matter type feats. I’m sure the Star Wars movies probably
prepared the way for me.
The Ninja
craze of the 1980s interested me in Shugendo and Buddhism all the
more. I learned gems from Ashida Kim
like five ways to dispatch a sentry with a knife, how to gut a fish with your
thumbnail, and little known facts such as the preferred car of the true ninja
is the Datsun 280z. (Who knew!?) But also from Ashida Kim I learned a form of
eastern meditation. There was only one
time, however, when the meditation put me into such a depth of trance state
that I lost myself. I don’t remember
feeling “at one with the One” or anything like that. I only remember waking up in the lotus
position, wondering how so many hours passed that it was now dark outside, and
wondering what had happened to me. The
sense of lack of memory, control, and awareness concerned me and I never
attempted trancing out again.
There is a
piquant irony here. Having grown up in
an Evangelical Christian home and church, when I looked around to try to find a
man who seemed “Christlike”—who most closely fit the description of the Jesus I
had been hearing about in the Bible stories—somehow the most likely candidate I
found was Kwai Chang Caine, the wandering Shaolin monk character, of the TV
series Kung Fu. Caine, as he was usually called, seemed to be
the man who had great power under the control of great wisdom. He was a peacemaker who wanted to do no one
any harm. But when others tried to harm
him he could subdue them. This was a big
deal to me at the time apparently.
In my later
teens I studied a mixture of eastern martial arts. My sempai’s sensai demonstrated some
impressive use of the force known as ki/chi.
That frightened me at the time as something demonic. Now I’m not sure yet where my rethinking is
leading with that.
To be
continued…
Q: Please summarize your rethinking
about Skepticism, Mysticism and Deism
To
be continued…
Q: Please summarize your rethinking
about Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, the Ante-Nicean Patristic
Tradition, the Ecumenical Councils, etc.
To
be continued…
Q: Please summarize your rethinking
about Dispensationalism, Dispensensationalism, and Reformed traditions
To
be continued…