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Brother to Brother: An “Eternal” Debate

An intimate dialogue between brothers of the

same upbringing, but with divergent points of
view about what is "truth" and other "eternal"
issues of contention.

Richard J. & John M. DeAngelis

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DEDICATION

First to the vast and mostly silent citizens of the world

from every walk of life and religion that simply live “to
care,” not only for their own, but to show kindness to all in
as much as it is possible when their path crosses the path of
another, moment by moment, day by day, year by year.

Second to our most loving Mom who continues to live

in this way as a shining example to me and my four
wonderful brothers and to our Dad who supported us in
most every endeavor even when we were diverted from
what he perceived was the path that suited us best.

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Brother to Brother: An “Eternal” Debate

Contents

Preface

Introduction 18

1. Our Spiritual Formation 20

Was your upbringing in the church beneficial or not?

2. Written Words & “The Reader” 33

Is “Absolute Truth” so easily defined or not?

3. “The” Message of Salvation Defined 47

Are you in or not?

4. A Story of Conversion 61
Am I in or not?

5. The Ultimate Question 80

Is there such an “Exclusive Heavenly Club” or not?

6. First Do No Harm 88
Can we sing “Kum-Ba-Ya” Together or Not?

7. Living in a Pluralistic Society 94

Accept it or not!

Epilogue 97

Afterword 112

Postscript 124

Acknowledgements 132

Appendix 135

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Preface

First of all, you must understand that I was raised

within the Roman Catholic tradition, but only by my Mom.
Not that my Mom was in any way a single mom, it’s just
that my Dad needed his down time at home on Sunday
mornings after having spent the previous six days and
nights of the week working at three jobs, each of which
might have equaled a full time job by some standards.
That’s not to say that he wasn’t “there for us” because at
least in my memory, he was “always there.” Well, how
could that be you ask? Even if my memory is not all that
good, at least the memories that I have are basically very
good with regard to my personal past --- I started working
for my Dad at the young age of nine or ten. He owned and
managed three pizza shops which were initially started by
his “Daddy” (as he was lovingly called) whom started the
original Giovanni’s Pizza Shops in a mountain town of
West Virginia. The top of my head at that time stood about
one foot just above the countertops where the pizzas were
made, but somehow I learned to make pizza and I think was
able to do a pretty good job (at a dollar an hour, what
should they have expected after all). The pizza shells or
crusts were pre-baked so there wasn’t a need to throw the
dough into the air to shape the pizza pie, or anything really
all that complicated. I also bused and cleaned tables, but I
especially loved running the cash register. I think I took
after my Father in that I was always pretty good with
numbers, but neither of us learned to read all that fast or
well for that matter.
On those late nights after working at the pizza shop, I do
recall getting home around two or three in the morning
when everyone was sound asleep. My Mom now looks
back and tells us that she never slept well until she heard
the front door open and then knew that all of her children
were home safely. I think I remember mostly, the fear of it

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all, the dark rooms, and the sounds in the silence that
stirred the imagination of my mind, especially when the
night crew liked to tell ghost stories just minutes before
they would drop me off at the front door of my house.
Going to Catholic Mass on Sunday mornings, all
dressed up with our uncomfortable clip on ties, was not
really something I looked forward to doing, but we knew
that it would upset Mom if we refused to go. We did kick
and scream from time to time, but all in all, the nice thing
about Catholic Mass (at least when I was growing up) was
that you got in and within fifty minutes, you were out the
back door. I guess my Mom knew that we didn’t really
enjoy much “small talk” after church. Besides, she had to
get home to prepare a Sunday afternoon feast which we not
only loved, but had become accustomed to from the
beginning of our impressionable little lives. My Mom had
four boys by the age of twenty two, and I was the second of
the bunch. I pretty much remember consistently sitting
down together as a family around two or three o’clock on
Sundays, and at four thirty but never latter than five, the
other six days a week. So what was the big deal about
giving up about an hour out of a week, if for nothing else,
but to make Mom happy! Of course we were always so
considerate of each other --- Not!!!
My Father eventually sold out of three of his businesses
and began a new career in the building construction
business. Shortly thereafter, I started working as a “Mason
Tender” at which time I was about twelve years old, and
remember working mostly for a much older man that
looked a bit like “Popeye the Sailor Man.” He was a very
hard worker and during the summer months it was nothing
for us to work about sixty hours a week. By that time my
wage had risen to a whopping four dollars an hour. That
was big money back then in the late sixties and early
seventies. The first brick mason I ever worked for was my
Dad’s business partner Bill Bucklew, and at that time, my

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Dad paid me $1.85 an hour --- however I was once told by

my Dad’s first partner that I should have been getting $2.00
an hour which to even me, seemed like a bit unfair, so I
was basically satisfied with the pay I got every other week.
My baby brother (the fifth and final son) was born on
February the 19th, about two months just before I turned ten
years of age. He was such a cute and sweet little boy, I
can’t ever remember not loving him in every way. In
retrospect, I suspect that my Mom brought him along to
church at such a young age, if for no other reason than the
fact that my Dad had never changed a baby diaper. In his
defense of course, one must remember that we only had
cloth diapers back then and one had to use those big sharp
safety pins to secure the diapers in place, so perhaps, my
Mom was afraid that he might poke her little baby with a
sharp safety pin during his first attempt.
While my baby brother John was just learning to walk, I
was learning to curse with the best of the men on my Dad’s
construction crew. I’ll never forget the time a couple of the
carpenters encouraged me to drip plastic pipe glue down
the crack of this burned out arthritic plumber’s ass while he
was bent over in a ditch laying plastic pipe with his pants
hanging down like one of our current day teenage skate
boarders. He came in to work the very next morning raging
mad and cursing me in a memorable way, threatening to
kill me as he flung small two by four boards toward my
head. I successfully avoided being hit during one of his fits
of “righteous indignation,” and he eventually died which
allowed me to finally breathe a sigh of relief which brought
the hope that I would perhaps, survive my teenage years
after all.
This was just the beginning of my “religious” formation.
By the way, in my efforts to spread “the good news,” it was
not unusual for me as a young sixth grader to find myself
out on the playground with a few of my best buddies as I
taught them the latest “dirty words” that I had learned the

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weekend before while at work. In reality, I loved the vast

majority of those construction workers and I think that
pretty much, “they loved me too,” with the exception of the
aforementioned, which goes without saying of course.
They were basically good ole boys that made an honest
living, loved their wives and kids and provided a decent
living for their families. They seemed also to have a great
respect for their Boss, my Dad, and he likewise treated
them with the respect and appreciation that they not only
earned but deserved. As a whole, my family of seven was
by no means perfect, but we all seemed to function fairly
well at least most of the time.
By the time I graduated from the local Catholic High
School, I began to personally question the need for what I
came to know as a rather mysterious hierarchical system
within the Catholic Church, and besides, by that time I was
learning far more from my own personal study of the Bible
than what I learned in those 15 to 20 minute rather vague
and seemingly impertinent “homilies” during the once
weekly Mass. So basically, my personal spiritual journey
at that time took me to a more instructional and practical
bible teaching church that rather quickly led to many
significant changes in my life. At that time, my Mom
became very concerned, especially when one of my best
friends who was an altar boy in the Catholic Church started
to consider my point of view, much to the dismay of his
father, who was to be sure, “a die-hard Catholic.”
Eventually, my Mom came “to see the same light of my
new found form of Evangelical Christianity,” and even
though it was initially tough to persuade her, she eventually
did leave her rather strong family roots in Roman
Catholicism as well.
So why write this book you ask? Well, not only to
engage in dialogue, but to basically try to satisfy my need
to forge a greater understanding among peoples of different
faiths and to help my Mom more fully understand exactly

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why I have “turned even a different corner” and have over

the last fifteen years or so, invested a great deal of time and
energy attempting to understand so many other world
religions and truth claims including eastern religions in
general and Buddhism in particular. Yes, my Mom is, as
always, watchful and protective of her children and of all
that might be influencing the hearts and minds of those she
most closely loves and to whom she feels certain are her
primary responsibility --- not only to teach them how to
live a good life while on this earth, but to ensure that they
“arrive” safely on the other side of the grave in the realm of
eternity since that time will inevitably come for us all.
So how did it begin? Shortly after a dialogue ensued,
somewhat out of the blue between my youngest brother
John and me over an email I wrote, we soon surmised that
perhaps there are others that would like to follow along as
we delve into a loving debate with respect to various issues
of contention regarding the differences of our spiritual and
religious beliefs and practices --- but more than ever, in
light of the various wars with strong religious overtones
which are seemingly forever raging throughout our world at
large.
Now neither of us is expecting this book to end up on
the New York Times best seller’s list, but we trust that our
efforts will not be completely in vain. We hope and pray
that this “eternal” debate will be received in an ecumenical
spirit, and that no offense will be taken by any of its
content --- At least this is the honest intention of our hearts
and the spirit with which we both write.

Brother Richard

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My “formative years” have many obvious

similarities with Richard’s since we were living under the
same roof for the first 12 or 13 years of my life. However,
due to the fact that there is ten (10) years between us in age
(he is so very old) and I am the youngest of five (5) boys,
my experiences and what I remember of my childhood are
quite a bit different. I’m certain that my memory is much
better than my brother’s however.
I was definitely a “Mommy’s boy” and was very
emotionally attached to her from as far back as I can
remember. I will never forget when I was probably eight
(8) or nine (9) years old, my parents went on a trip to Spain
and my Mom had a sitter stay with us (mostly to prevent
our twin brothers from killing me before she returned). I
acted like I was excited that she was leaving and had hopes
of constantly play games with the sitter. Truth be told, an
hour after she left for the airport, I was weeping
uncontrollably. I couldn’t comprehend how much I would
miss her before she left and then, all of the sudden, she was
gone and I simply lost it!
Regarding my memories of church, my Mom did take
me to Catholic Mass once a week or so, but I don’t
remember dreading it the way my other brothers did. In
fact, I remember somewhat enjoying my first Holy
Communion and first confession. Oh how I wish I could
remember what I confessed! One thing is certain however,
and that is that I’ll never forget going to Sunday school at
St. Mary’s Catholic Church and being told that Jesus lived
inside of me. This was a very intriguing concept that I
latched onto as a young boy. I remember how excited I was
to jump out of the car when we pulled into the garage at
home after mass. I ran inside and proclaimed to my older
twin brothers Jay and Jeff (who liked to punch me and tell
Mom that “I ran into their fist”) that when they hit me, they
were actually hitting Jesus, because Jesus lived inside of

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me. Turns out they didn’t care all that much or believe my
bold new theology!
My Mom did her best to protect me from their physical
assaults but in their defense, I was quite the little
annoyance and tattle tale, and as you might have expected,
there was no shortage of things to tattle about! When I was
in the third grade, my brother Jay (who was seven (7) years
my senior) and I got into an altercation of sorts and I ended
up with a broken ankle. When the doctor looked at the x-
ray, he showed my Mom the break and was concerned that
perhaps I had been “abused.” She explained some of the
details surrounding the tumultuous relationship that I had
with my older twin brothers and since the doctor knew my
parents and believed her story, they didn’t call social
services! The doctor did warn her however that she needed
to be careful and to insist that my brothers go easier on me.
When I came home from the hospital in my full plaster
cast from the top of my thigh to the tips of my toes, my
brother Jay was devastated by what he knew he had done. I
had to sleep on the couch that first night with large pillows
propping up my leg. Jay felt so bad that he wanted to sleep
on the other side of our orange, “L” shaped velour couch
right beside me, his baby brother. I recall having had lots of
emotions that night, not the least of which was the feeling
that perhaps my brother Jay loved me after-all.
My Dad by this point in his career had done very well
for himself in the construction and development business
and the three (3) jobs that he had worked when my brothers
were my age had been paired down to just one full time
job. He worked hard during the days but his evenings after
dinner were mostly spent watching TV in his special chair.
I remember sitting with him in his big cushy chair watching
football games and feeling so very safe and secure. He was
and still is a die- hard West Virginia Mountaineer sports
fan and we would rarely miss a home football or basketball
game.

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I suppose that our Dad spent more time with me than

with any of my brothers by that point in time in his career.
We did many other things together including skeet shooting
at the local skeet range and fishing on the weekends at our
lake house in western Maryland. I especially remember
how he would take me to breakfast at McDonald’s every so
often (just the two of us) which I enjoyed ever so much. He
would rarely miss one of my track events or one of my
basketball or baseball games. I wanted to impress him and
get his approval more than anything in the world. He would
always tell me that I did a good job or played a good game
but he would then follow that up with some things that I
could have done better or how I might improve. At times I
had so wished that he would leave out the constructive
criticism and simply focus on how well I had done. My
Dad always wanted the best for me though and that was
just his way of trying to make me better.
My brother Rick who is the primary author of this book
was always there for me and saw himself as my protector. I
would run to him for shelter if my Mom wasn’t around
when one or both of the twins came after me for something
I had done to provoke their wrath.
Rick was the one who had a spiritual awakening in the
family and began diligently studying the Bible and going to
church. I assume that this is why he began living differently
than he had before. For example, he no longer would hide
marijuana in the tail light of his car or cuss all that much.
He started listening to tapes by John MacArthur for hours
on end and take notes while he listened! The transformation
that I saw him go through back then when I was only
thirteen (13) year old left a lasting impression on me to say
the least. Before long we were no longer going to Catholic
Mass but rather going to the CMA (Christian Missionary
Alliance) Church where Rick was attending. I really
enjoyed listening to the Pastor as he would speak and pray
as one who had a personal relationship with Jesus. I wanted

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what he and my Brother Rick seemed to have! I wanted a

personal relationship with the God of the Universe as the
Pastor described and you can be sure that I also wanted to
avoid going to Hell!
One Sunday in August when I was fourteen (14) years
old, the Pastor asked if anyone wanted to receive Jesus as
their personal savior and if so to repeat a prayer after him.
That was the morning I made a profession of faith and
committed my life to Christ. Of course I didn’t fully grasp
what I was doing but I had already seen a rather drastic
change in my Brother’s life so I couldn’t imagine that I had
much to lose and was hoping that there was much to be
gained. Even now I recall the words of Augustine that “we
are like a God-shaped vacuum that only He can fill.” I
believe that this was certainly true of me even before I
professed my faith in Jesus. I always knew that there had to
be more than just living and dying. I had this hunch that
God was not only real but seemingly very personal as well.
Now I wish I could say that I continued to grow in my faith
and have since lived happily ever after. That wouldn’t be
true by a long shot. Jesus said in John 16:33 “…In this
world you will have trouble. But take heart, for I have
overcome the world.” Little did I know that the turn of
events in my life which were to follow would in fact put
this new-found truth to the test!
My parents were ready to move from the cold winters in
West Virginia and decided that it was good timing to move
to Florida, just as I was about to begin high school. We
moved to Naples in 1984, just in time for me to enroll in a
small Catholic high school. My first year of high
school went perfectly well and I loved the freedom of
turning 16 and driving all over town on Friday evenings
listening to music by various artists from Michael Jackson
to U2. I started attending a youth group during my
sophomore year of high school at a Presbyterian church
where I met a girl named Kelly. She was very mature for

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her age and we seemed to have a lot in common. She was a

Christian (which wasn’t a pre-requisite but a bonus) and
was also very attractive (a pre-requisite). She drove a little
yellow Fiat Spider and had a great family. I was starting to
experience feelings for her and so we began dating. She
was a year older than me and attended an even smaller
Christian high school close to my school. We would go to
the beach together and hang out every chance we could.
Before we knew it, our relationship had become very
serious and before too long, she informed me that she was
pregnant. I was just 16 and she was 17. What was
happening here? I had everything mapped out for my future
and didn’t have a single concern in life prior to this life
altering “unexpected” event. To say the least, my world
was about to be turned upside down.
Her parents were so supportive and loving during that
difficult period in our lives. We managed to “stay together”
but it wasn’t without a great deal of struggle and
difficulties. She graduated and walked with her class while
nine (9) months pregnant. Our daughter was born on July
12, 1986 just two (2) years after I had moved to Naples. I
graduated the following year and went off to college in
Gainesville, which is about a four hour drive away. I drove
home to see my daughter every weekend, but it wasn’t the
same as being with her every day. I loved her so much and
couldn’t stand being away from her during the week. By
the time our daughter turned three, we had decided to
marry but more out of obligation than anything else, even
though we were always “committed” to making things
work as best as we could. A week or so after the wedding,
the three of us left together as a family to The University of
Florida in Gainesville where I was working on my
Construction Management degree. Our first year was
awful! We had no idea how marriage was supposed to
work, let alone how to be parents at the same time. Our
daughter also suffered from separation anxiety in that she

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had become very attached to her grandparents the first three

(3) years of her life. Even though we had tried attending
different churches in Gainesville, each one seemed deader
than the next, and by then, we were feeling rather
disconnected as though we just didn’t seem to belong.
We needed God to do something significant or we
weren’t going to make it. We finally heard about a new
church that was meeting in a school cafeteria and how good
the preaching was. We were warned that it was pretty lively
and probably much different than that which we had
become accustomed. Sure enough, it was very different.
The Pastor spoke with such authority and excitement about
the Bible. It was like we were the only ones in the room.
We thought for sure he was reading our mail or spying on
us because he would preach about things that were so
applicable to what we were dealing with and for the first
time, the scriptures came alive to us. The worship was also
very different. The people were clapping and raising their
hands. We thought, surely they can’t be serious, is this for
real or just some kind of a show? We eventually came to
know most of the folks at this small church and we came to
believe that they were in fact sincere, genuine, and
trustworthy. What we eventually came to realize however,
was that they had a relationship with Jesus that had
transformed every area of their lives. We came to love the
Pastor and his wife and before we knew it we were falling
in love with Jesus, actually for the first time. We had both
made professions of faith earlier in our lives but this was
different. We couldn’t wait for church the following week
or for our small group to meet on Thursday evenings. We
learned about various spiritual disciplines including
praying, fasting and tithing. Wow, this was all so new and
exciting to us. When I would read Jesus’ words in the
gospels, they would jump off of the page at me as if I was
reading them for the first time. This must have been what
my brother Rick experienced years ago I thought. I recall

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the first time I raised my hands in worship and how

emotional I became as I seemingly surrendered to God. I
know now as I look back that we were just beginning to
scratch the surface of what we have come to know to date
as an ever deepening relationship, not only with our Lord
Jesus Christ, but with each other.
I eventually graduated and accepted a position with a
construction management firm in Naples so we moved back
home. Over the ten (10) years that followed, we had a son
and a second daughter. Kelly and I began to discover what
the Bible had to say about our roles in marriage. How I was
to serve and love my wife as Christ loved the church and
gave Himself for it, and she was to honor and respect me as
unto the Lord. We just celebrated our 21st anniversary and
three years ago our “unexpected” first child, now 24,
married a wonderful young man of God and currently
serves as our Student Ministries Pastor at our church. Our
son attends a Christian College in Illinois, and our youngest
daughter is in high school. All of our children truly love
Jesus and have committed their lives to Him. Jesus
certainly has overcome the trouble of this world and my life
is a living testimony to the verse I referenced earlier in the
Gospel of John.
His grace is indeed sufficient, for His power is made
perfect in our weakness. So if you are overwhelmed by the
circumstances in your life, as you contemplate the words
within this dialogue, my prayer is that God would reveal
Himself to you as you submit yourself to His authority, for
He alone is worthy.

Brother John

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Introduction

When I was 35 years old, I was rather certain that I had

come to know “the answers,” at least to the most important
questions, regarding many of the spiritual and eternal issues
of contention and truth claims. The following is a list of
just a few of the issues that we intend to explore in this
book:

1) Why all this fuss over defining “absolute”

truth; isn’t anything that is true, plain and
simply, “the truth,” be it absolute or
otherwise?
2) What is absolute truth and is such truth
knowable?
3) When should we as parents begin to teach
our children so that they too will come to
know this precious truth with the hope that
they can perhaps avoid the pitfalls that
caused us to stumble during our formative
years, and ultimately be assured of eternal
life?
4) Where is such truth most assuredly found or
to be discovered?
5) How do we really change in light of that
knowable truth and is there a difference
between “head knowledge” and a “heart
knowing?”

From the outset I must admit that my passion for sharing

what I “knew” to be “the truth,” was overwhelming back
then, to say the least. Just the thought of another individual
being led to such truth, at that time in my life, was enough
to bring heart felt tears to my eyes. Yes, I was, as I look
back, for better or worse, an extremely sincere Evangelical

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Christian. On that same note, the thought of my children

somehow missing “this truth” that I held to so dearly, was
at that time in my “life of certainty,” almost more than I
could bear.
To date, I have since passed the age of 50 and as I sit,
with my oldest of 4 children no longer a teenager and my
youngest about to begin high school, many things in my
heart and mind have changed. What exactly has changed,
and how did such changes take place over the last 15 years
or so you might ask?
Basically, as my understanding of myself and others has
evolved, I must admit that I am no longer so certain of
much of what I was certain of then, and my ideals in life
have been dismantled almost one by one, through any
number of experiences and inter-faith friendships that I
have forged over those last 15 years. In any case, perhaps
you will relate to some of the dialogue herein or perhaps
it’s just superfluous and/or “over-the-top.”
For whatever it’s worth, this book is an effort to at least
attempt to address some of these questions and issues, and
to explore some of my ever evolving thoughts. In contrast,
my brother will present his steadfast convictions regarding
these “eternal” issues of contention. Ultimately, if these
types of “eternal” issues interest you even to a small
degree, then I am hopeful that you will gain something of
significance as you board our train of thought through the
content of these pages; whether you agree or disagree with
one or the other----for that is obviously your prerogative.
In the Preface, you read some of the details surrounding
the formative years of our lives, and now let us further
explore what we have chosen to call some “eternal issues of
contention,” not only with openness and honesty, but most
of all with respect for one another, knowing that the
opinions expressed herein simply reflect our knowledge
and experience to date given our admitted biases and
limiting backgrounds.

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Speaking of biases, I am reminded of the words of my

most beloved paternal grandmother Mary during a recorded
family interview many years ago. When asked, “What
advice would you give to your grandchildren and great-
grandchildren?” She responded with a passionate tone and
said, “They don’t need any advice since they had the best
parents in the world! All they need to do is to follow in
their parents footsteps and they’ll be just fine.” No bias
there, right? Of course right!
By the way, the idea for this book initially came
following a short story that I wrote and emailed to my
Brother John and a few of my friends (the detailed story is
in the Appendix if interested). When a second email that I
wrote seemed to contradict that which I wrote in the initial
story, my brother became somewhat confused and
concerned and so a dialogue ensued between the two of us.
Therefore, the vast majority of the content for this book
was created from our emails; one to another, Brother to
Brother.

Brother Richard

1. Our Spiritual Formation

Was your upbringing in the church beneficial or not?

Brother John, I just wrote an email to an old friend of

mine that I recently reconnected with from Jr. High school
days, and her response led to the following train of
thought. I guess that I have felt a need to explain a bit to
you about why we haven't raised our kids in the church, so
I thought I would pass a bit of this onto you. The details of
the context in which this was written are not all that
pertinent, and I’m certain that you’ll get the basics easily

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enough: I probably already expressed the jest of this to you

in the past at least a few times, but even so, here goes
again.
With regard to our spiritual formation, does one have to
be raised in "the church" with all the lingo and words, or is
it just as good to have a role model or a parent that teaches
us loving kindness through their example so that we
develop a deep sense of security within ourselves and can,
therefore, extend that same unconditional love to others as
we mature through time? My kids have not been in church
much over the years for any number of reasons, and I am
not certain as of yet how "this experiment" will turn
out. It’s all very interesting however, my youngest son
transferred from the public school system last year to a
really wonderful Catholic school in our area and he had to
learn the “Lord's Prayer” among other prayers for the first
time. We played a game where I would start a line in the
prayer and he was supposed to complete the sentence. I
was so sorry that I didn't have a recorder at the time; it was
one of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life. My
wife and I about laughed till we cried. Now the details are
gone from my mind, and only the ideas of the memories
remain. Anyway, then one of our lifelong baby sitters who
is not catholic also played the game with us and I
remember one of her lines of the Hail Mary. I started out,
"Hail Mary full of grace, and then she continued... "God is
Big and In Your Face." We all laughed, but that is all I can
remember.
In summary, I do want my children to have a very deep
and secure sense of faith, but like so many young kids that I
have seen that were raised in the Church, I am afraid that
they have been "immunized" in a way, to the spiritual truth
that they have been taught. What I mean is that just like an
immunization where you are given a shot of a small dose of
the real thing, and then your immune system mounts a
response that forever prevents you from getting the real

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disease in the future. Well by analogy, I have seen many of

these kids that were forever in Sunday school and at church
(here in the bible belt that means Sunday morn, Sunday
evening and then again on Wednesday nights) and they, at
an early age, were given a bit of the real truth, but they
were too young to receive it and somehow their spiritual
immune systems could hear the words but not rightly
process the truth and meaning of such words. As they got
older, it seems to me that perhaps the words had little to no
real meaning to them since they had heard it so much in a
context and at a time when they were not ready or yet
willing. Therefore, they became immunized to the truth at
such a young age. Anyway, just a theory of mine, my ideas
may backfire on me one day. Rearing kids is such an
experiment where there may be a lot of information out
there about "How to..." but such things don't always apply
since there is never a never, and never an always. I
obviously don't pretend to know all the answers, but the
older I get, the more I tend to reevaluate just about all of
the answers that I had been given during the years of my
spiritual formation.

Brother Richard

________________________________________

Brother John Responds:

Thanks for sharing that brother. I have to be honest

with you, and I say what I am about to say as lovingly as
possible, so please don’t receive this as being at all critical.
Rick, you are a true paradox wrapped in an enigma, most
puzzling to me to be sure. It appears as if you say things
that you want to believe but deep down don’t truly believe.
In the email to your friend you speak of this “experiment”
about raising your kids outside of “the church” and how

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you are not sure how it will turn out but are hopeful that it
will turn out for the best. These are not your words exactly,
but rather my inference. Here is my take on the whole
raising kids in church thing for what it is worth. Can kids
be raised outside of the church and come to a point where
they choose on their own to pursue Christ as their greatest
desire? Of course they can, I am a perfect example of that
and there are countless better examples than me of that as
well. The question is this, are you raising them outside of
the church or outside of Christianity altogether. I would
submit that these two options are in fact very different
approaches all together. All of us want the very best for our
kids and want to prepare them as best we can for life. If you
knew that one path would lead to life and the other would
lead to destruction, wouldn’t you want to influence them to
choose the path to life? Of course you would!
If we truly believe that the bible is the inspired word of
God and is true, then doesn’t that require a certain response
from us? I agree with your “immunization” theory for the
most part but I also think that a “hands off” approach to
allow kids to make their own spiritual choices can be very
scary. We all know that the world is not taking a “hands
off” approach when it comes to spirituality. Every negative
influence under the sun is vying for our kids’ attention and
allegiance and it is our responsibility, I believe, to shepherd
our kids’ hearts to taste and see that God is good. Proverbs
22:6 says that if you raise a child in the way they should go,
when they are old, they will not depart from it. I love that
verse because it doesn’t say they will never depart from it,
it says later on, when they can make their own choices they
will not depart from it. Now, back to your “immunization”
theory; I completely agree that when parents cart their kids
to church, youth groups, church functions their whole lives,
as if to check off a box, thinking that the church’s sole
influence will change them, this doesn’t guarantee anything

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lasting. Kids are far too smart and they will very quickly
realize that religion is boring and lifeless.
I believe that they develop their belief systems much
more deeply by what is caught versus what is taught. So, if
kids can watch their parent’s lives and see that consistently
their parent’s actions and convictions and their beliefs and
behavior are in perfect alignment, then they will develop a
world view that is consistent and lasting, not confused and
chaotic. Now, couple that with a genuinely loving church
family, and a vibrant youth group that surrounds them with
people who will challenge them to the heart of God and I
believe you will have kids that will choose the path that
leads to life and they will develop a deep conviction which
is much greater than a simple belief. On the other hand, if
there is hypocrisy that kids see then it’s likely that the
parents will lose all moral authority to speak into their kids’
lives because they know that what the parents say and what
they do are not consistent.
Jesus calls us to be salt and light, to live so authentically
for Him that people around us, including our children, get
thirsty for what we have. Our kids watch us from a very
early age to see if this relationship with Christ is for real or
if it is just a religious activity. Is it just rules taught by men
or does it truly bring life, a life like Jesus spoke about in
John 10:10? I hope I am not coming on too strong, I could
definitely go on and on and on, (sounds like someone else
I’m related to…) and expound on so many of these points
but I honestly believe that the reason I found Christ at the
age of 14 is because I watched how you developed a
relationship with Him and I wanted what you appeared to
have. Of course I eventually strayed like many and didn’t
know exactly what I was committing to other than perhaps
what I would call “fire insurance,” in that I didn’t want to
go to hell. But as I grew older, I realized the difference
between simple salvation and living with Jesus Christ on a
moment by moment basis aware of His Lordship in and

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through my life which is what I am still learning day by

day. I love you my brother, you were always my protector
and I knew that when Jay and Jeff were beating on me that
I could run to you for protection. You were Jesus to me at
an early age and your salt made me thirsty. I praise God for
your influence in my life.

Brother John

Brother Richard Responds:

Thx much John, I think that this type of discourse is

very helpful and I would like to continue along these lines
and expound further on these truly important issues. If you
will allow me, I will take more time perhaps once a week
so as not to forget but not daily so as not to overwhelm. So
give me till the weekend to have time to respond. Perhaps
it will all end up in a book one day. We will call it Brother
John and Doubting Thomas, A Discourse on The
Christian Faith in the Post Modern Era, or something like
that. What about the title, The Lives of Two Brothers, So
Close Yet So Far Away. After my wife read some of the
content, she thought it would be best titled, All the Shit in
My Head and her sister thought that title superfluous and
that Shit Head would suffice. Let's just see if and how it
develops and then decide on a title when we figure out
where it goes or where it takes us. Kind of like another
experiment. I like experiments, can you tell?
I am serious for a change, I think this is great. Can you
put up with me once a week or so? I will give you a
vacation if you need one!
Sincerely With Love,

Doubting Thomas

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That is awesome brother, I would love that! I look

forward to your response. I totally think you should write a
book...

John DeAngelis EPH 3:20

_________________________________

Brother Richard Responds:

Brother John,
Forgive me if I lied, no response at end of weekend ----
all I have amassed is a stack of note cards upon which are
pertinent thoughts that I wanted to express which are
written but not ready to compile and send. Just thought you
might not sleep if you didn't hear from me as promised.
Perhaps writing once monthly will be a more reasonable
target for this discourse. You would be proud however
since I have been stimulated to search my Bible which I
haven't really done in some time. I generally read a good
bit with some reference to some spiritual text including but
not limited to the Bible, but this weekend it was the Bible
that I picked up.
By the way, that reminds me of one of my favorite
spiritual text’s which was written by Kahlil Gibran in the
early 1920’s entitled The Prophet. Every short chapter is
amazing but you would especially relate to and love the
chapter on Children. I can't resist, I have the book in front
of me since I couldn't be sure of the spelling of the Author's
name, and now the page is turned to the short chapter I just
mentioned. Here it is, and I quote:
And a woman who held a babe against
her bosom said, Speak to us of Children,
And he said: Your children are not your

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children, they are the sons and daughters

of Life's longing for itself. They come
through you but not from you, and though
they are with you yet they belong not to
you. You may give them your love but
not your thoughts, for they have their own
thoughts. You may house their bodies but
not their souls, for their souls dwell in the
house of tomorrow, which you cannot
visit, not even in your dreams. You may
strive to be like them, but seek not to
make them like you. ("Not that that
would be so bad in your case") For life
goes not backward nor tarries with
yesterday. You are the bows from which
your children as living arrows are sent
forth. The Archer sees the mark upon the
path of the infinite, and He bends you with
his might that His arrows may go swift
and far. Let your bending in the Archer's
hand be for gladness; for even as He
loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also
the bow that is stable.
I didn't mean this to be a response to your last writing
in that it makes none of the points I had written on my note
cards, but it does bring one verse to mind along with a
thought. The verse is the last verse of the book of John
which is one of my favorites which says Jesus did many
other things as well. If every one of them were written
down, I suppose that even the whole world would not
have room for the books that would be written.
My point being that I really have a hard time, (after
having fallen in love with so many spiritual texts as the one
quoted above which is from one of my favorite Sufi
Muslim writers), imagining that such words in their entirety
are not also truly inspired by God. That is, by the same
God that inspired the Bible as we know it. I personally
have come to a point where I am most comfortable with

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many paradoxes ---- hence, it is no surprise to me that you

see such in that which I have written. While I love all that
you wrote, I especially like what you said in reference to
spiritual formation outside the church: Can kids be raised
outside of the church and come to a point where they
choose on their own to pursue Christ as their greatest
desire? Of course they can, I am a perfect example of
that. My point exactly, both of us are examples of two
individuals that came to a living and deep faith quite
separate from that which we were raised to believe, which
in my mind points to The Archer's Hand. I don't doubt that
our children need our guidance and direction whether they
heed it or not, but I just prefer to avoid what I have seen in
many instances as a rigid indoctrination which I feel can
not only be stifling but down right harmful. I also in some
ways believe that it takes more faith to let go and let God
bring our children in His time to wherever He sees fit, but
not without perhaps an exemplary life of unconditional love
like that which we had from our mother, and an occasional
swift kick in the ass which we needed and got from our
father.
I guess I didn't tell a lie after all, the end of the weekend
and a response none the less.
Love you my brother, and have a great week.
Your Lifelong Protector,
Brother Ricardo
_________________________________

Brother John Responds:

I actually was waiting all weekend for your email and

when I read the first paragraph on my phone this morning I
thought, “Well, at least he touched base with me even
though it won’t be part of the discussion.” Forgetting
whose email I was reading apparently, I quickly

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remembered and read on and then had the thought, “Wow,

how long would this have been if he had put his note card
thoughts in this email?” You never disappoint me though
brother! So first let me just say how excited I am that this
has sparked perhaps a renewed “stimulus” to search the
Bible and other spiritual texts. That is very exciting to me
for sure. I enjoyed the text you shared from The Prophet
and I actually somewhat like the author’s metaphor of our
children being “arrows” sent forth from us, the “bows.” I
feel as if the author is overly limiting our influence on the
“arrows” but nevertheless let’s take it to a logical
conclusion. What I infer from this text is that our children
are the arrows, we are the bows, and God is the archer.
What I would suggest in keeping with this metaphor is that
if we as parents are the bows and God uses us to send our
children forth, then who aims the bow and directs where
the arrow goes? The obvious answer is that God does. So
then this begs the question “are all bows and arrows the
same?” Of course they aren’t!
Even though I am not a hunter (as you know), I do know
that there are different sizes and strengths of bows, as well
as countless variations of arrows. The one thing I am sure
of is that, like anything else, if the bow and arrow are not
made ready or properly prepared to be fired, then the
outcome will not be successful. I would assume that there
are such things as proper string tension, joints that might
need lubricated and cleaned, the arrow shafts must be free
from cracks and their points sharpened etc., etc... So it
seems as if the author (whether on purpose or not) is
making an appropriate correlation to the significant
responsibility of the parents in the process of child rearing
so that we as parents are to be prepared and thus ready to
be picked up and used by the “archer.” Perhaps we can
agree on this? We evidently also agree that a “rigid
indoctrination can not only be stifling but down right
harmful.” What I am speaking of though isn’t a “rigid

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indoctrination” at all. We both know that religious activity

for religion’s sake is death and Jesus spoke against that his
entire ministry. In Matthew 12:34 Jesus rebuked the
Pharisees and said to them:
You brood of vipers, how can you who are
evil say anything good?! A good man
brings good things out of the good stored
up in him and an evil man brings evil
things out of the evil stored up in him. For
out of the overflow of the heart the mouth
speaks…
He blasted them for saying one thing and doing quite
another. No, what I am speaking of is an intimate
relationship with Jesus lived out so authentically in front of
our children that they can see, not only by the words we
speak but by every decision we make and action they
observe --- that Jesus is worth living for! That He is our
sufficiency, our joy and our strength, and that He is the
Way, the Truth and the Life and that He alone deserves our
worship. A book I am currently reading by Tedd Tripp
titled Shepherding a Child’s Heart says:
It is imperative to be clear on this issue.
Parenting is not just providing good input.
It is not just creating a constructive
atmosphere and positive interaction
between a child and his parent. There is
another dimension. The child is interacting
with the living God. He is either
worshiping and serving and growing in
understanding of the implications of who
God is, or he is seeking to make sense of
life without a relationship with God. If he
is living as a fool who says in his heart
there is no God, he doesn’t cease to be a
worshiper-he simply worships what is not
God. Part of the parent’s task is to
shepherd him as a creature who worships,
pointing him to the One who alone is

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worthy of his worship. The question is not

“will he worship?” It is always “whom will
he worship?”
So what I got out of this text and I’m sure you will
agree, is that shaping influences are just one part
(important part) of the equation. Each and every one
of us is born with a “God-ward orientation.” In
other words, the heart is not neutral. We either
worship God or idols. These idols are not small
wooden or stone statuary. They are the subtle idols
of the heart. The Bible describes such idols using
terminology such as fear of man, evil desires, lusts,
and pride. The idols include conformity to the
world, embracing earthly mindsets, and “setting our
affections on things below.” As our children interact
with their childhood experience, they interact based
on their God-ward Orientation. Either they respond
to life as children of faith who know, love, and
serve Jesus ---- or they respond as children of
foolishness, and unbelief, who neither know Him
nor serve Him. The point is this: They do respond.
They are not neutral. They are not simply the sum
total of what you and I put into them ---- they
interact with life either out of a true covenant of
faith or out of an idolatrous covenant of unbelief.
God designed all of us to be worshipers, whom
or what we worship is entirely up to us. God gave
us free will and the ability to choose. My family and
I had the privilege of having lunch with Dr. Henry
Blackaby yesterday. He is a best-selling author of
many books not the least of which being
Experiencing God. I have read many of his books
and do his daily devotional “Experiencing God Day
by Day.” His book Spiritual Leadership
significantly changed the way I lead here in my
company. Anyway, he preached at our church

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yesterday and we were able to buy him pizza

afterwards. He is one of the Godliest men I have
ever been around. We left the lunch and all of us
kept talking about our discussions well into the
evening. My son Drue and I stayed up till 12:30
a.m. discussing what we talked about and watching
different You Tube videos online of different
sermon excerpts. It was one of the most significant
moments of my life with my son. So, why am I
sharing all of that with you? Henry has five children
and all of them have chosen to go into the ministry
in some capacity. One is a missionary, two are
pastors, one is president of a seminary etc. The
bottom line is, all five of his children have been
called into the ministry and love Jesus with all of
their hearts. I asked him if he ever placed an
expectation on his children whether spoken or
unspoken, to go into the ministry. He said that he
never even mentioned it to them. He never wanted
to pressure them in any way ---- he simply loved
and served Jesus, loved their mother (they have
been married for 50 years now) and loved each of
them for who they were individually. God called
each of them in His time. Henry’s life was attractive
and authentic. His kids wanted what he had because
they watched God’s activity in his marriage and
every aspect of his life. They could see the genuine
power of God in every area of his life. There comes
a point in every child’s life where they either
choose to make their parent’s faith their own faith,
or they choose to reject it, whatever that faith may
be. I look forward to your next email.
John M. DeAngelis EPH 3:20
Brother Richard Responds:

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John,

This is not the reply, just an acknowledgement. I also

love Henry Blackaby and went through his entire study
guide Experiencing God when it first came out and was so
popular. He is indeed "a genuine article." It was the best
study guide that I had ever worked through and I was
excited and enthralled till the end and the daily moment by
moment awareness that it espouses truly never leaves you
once you have experienced this level of "God
Perception." It is along the same lines of Brother Lawrence
in his classic Christian book "Practicing His Presence"
which I also love. It was great that you got to meet him
and I am not surprised that his children have become what
they are. This is in my mind rare, but certainly possible
and so great when it happens. More to come...

Brother Ricardo

________________________________________________

2. Written Words & “The Reader”

Is “Absolute Truth” so easily defined or not?

Brother John,

I do believe that at the heart of our beliefs, we are more

similar than different, but like always, the meaning and
significance that we attach to “words” tends to get in the
way so that I tend to resist some of what you express and
you in turn do the same. Then to complicate things further,
all of our minds filter that which we see and read through a
grid. This grid represents our beliefs, preconceived ideas,
notions, definitions of what we have come to accept as
truth or perhaps “the one and only absolute truth.” To

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complicate things further, we then have various

interpretations of such “truth” that we also attribute to such
beliefs and ideas according to one’s ever expanding grid.
The grid in some people’s mind has many linear lines and
others, more curves. There are also colors within the grids
that represent another dimension. The more colors and
curves, the more dimensional one may be if you will allow
me to play out this analogy a bit more. If the lines are all
fairly straight (horizontal or vertical) and black or white in
color, then this type of grid will only accept the
same. Suppose that there are any number of thoughts and
lines of reasoning that represent either linear, curved and/or
all colors of the spectrum.
Without meaning to be too simplistic or demeaning, the
streams of thoughts expressed in your last correspondence
(at least in my mind), as you quote from that book, are
fairly linear and black and white. All things seem to be put
into neat little boxes: the espoused “truth” is stated as
“either this or that.” It plays out like this and I quote: He
is either worshiping and serving and growing in
understanding of the implications of who God is, or he is
seeking to make sense of life without a relationship with
God. If he is living as a fool who says in his heart there
is no God, he doesn’t cease to be a worshiper-he simply
worships what is not God. In these manners of
expression, all things are placed in nice little dualistic
boxes. I realize that this is done for emphasis, and that
there are in reality opposite ends of any variety of
spectrums, but more often than not, the reality of most
people’s lives generally falls somewhere within the
spectrum and not on either extreme. This manner of
expression is some of what I label as “extremism.” This
same type of “extremism” continues and I quote ---- he is
either worshiping God or idols. These idols are not small
wooden or stone statuary. They are the subtle idols of the
heart. The Bible describes such idols using terminology

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such as fear of man, evil desires, lusts, and pride. The idols
include conformity to the world, embracing earthly
mindsets, and “setting our affections on things
below. What about this as another possibility: We tend to
create an image of what we think God is and wants, and
then, we in our innocence and ignorance, worship that
which we think is God or God like? This of course can be
idolatry as well. Jesus did say ---- For many will say to me
on that day, Lord - Lord, did we not do this in your name
and that in your name…Of course there are many well
intentioned individuals that perhaps fall into this camp.
They don’t have to be what most view as extremist either
and think that God told them this or wants them to do that;
---- like blow themselves up to become martyrs to attain a
special place in God’s Kingdom with the hope of several
virgins awaiting them in heaven.
How about the possibility that we are all equally
vulnerable to varying degrees of self-deception and
whether we think we are in fact God-Like or not, remains
not for us to be completely sure, but this judgment is God’s
and God’s alone. I know that we have not been left
completely in the dark, but have been given many
parameters whereby we can measure the authenticity of
what is likely truly of God or God-Like, but I personally
have my doubts ---- that what has evolved in a relatively
short period of time (perhaps since the time of Luther’s
reformation or even later), the so called “Evangelical
Christian Movement” truly has a market on this truth of
what is of God or God-Like. In fact, the North American
Christian Evangelical Movement to me looks more like
good old “American Marketing and Capitalism” at its finest
where bigger is better and more is always desired. I’m not
sure that the Jesus that I imagine would fit in that camp so
comfortably either. I prefer to take the attached name of
the deity out of the picture these days, and look for the
simple fruit of the spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience,

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kindness, faithfulness, forgiveness and self-control. I do

not believe that Christianity has exclusive rights to such
fruit either. In my experience, not that I have always
understood it, but much of what I have seen in people as I
walk through life is that many that never even claim or
verbalize their allegiance to a named Deity, are just as
likely to live in a manner befitting of the “fruit of the
Spirit.” In fact, in my experience, it is the few Buddhist
Monks that I have known and learned from that look more
like the Jesus that taught the “Sermon On the Mount” than
the many preachers of evangelical Christianity whose lives
I have come to know in my experience and lifetime.
Bottom line, there are so many from all walks of life, of
all creeds and colors, and from many different religious
backgrounds ---- that are in my mind a true reflection of my
image of who Jesus and/or God is and what He looks like.
When I see Him, I cannot deny Him, regardless of what he
or she calls him or herself. Outward names that we attribute
to one or another have come to mean little to nothing to me
at this point in time in my life and I am so grateful that I
have seen Him so often and in so many, and I am so
grateful that I also see Him so clearly in you, my brother
John. So in other words, even if Jesus is the only name
given among men through whom we must be saved ---- that
doesn’t guarantee that we in fact always recognize the Real
Jesus when we see Him. I believe that various events in
history have served to distort the truth to some degree or
another, and therefore, when some seem to reject such truth
claims, what they have really rejected is that which they
have attached to such a truth claim from their personal
experience ---- perhaps because of a certain degree of
repression or persecution that they have experienced either
directly or indirectly through their ancestors. In other
words, any given well-meaning Jew, Muslim, Hindu,
Buddhist or any other reasonable person that strives to
know the truth and live a life of love and by faith, would no

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more reject the Real Jesus and all that He truly is, than you
or I would ---- but if someone that called themselves a
“Christian” treated me in some hateful way as a Jew,
Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist, then such a person would not
likely accept this so called projection or so named person
associated with the one that they call Jesus, their savior.
Enough for now, you have been so patient with me,
thank you for loving me so well by your willingness to
listen to your not so linear thinking brother who perhaps as
John MacArthur has so aptly stated, “is so open minded
that his brain fell out.”

Brother Ricardo
________________________________________________

Brother John Responds:

Wow, I am going to need some time to respond to this

one in full. Much of what you stated is indicative of
someone who perhaps feels like people are inherently good
and being a “good person” and doing good works will
somehow earn their way to heaven or Nirvana, or
reincarnated into a better life; which are the premises of the
other religions you mentioned, especially Buddhism. The
bottom line is this, if you don’t believe in “absolute truth”
and that the bible is that truth, then “that truth” will not
likely lead to the conviction or belief that Jesus is who He
says He is ---- The way, the truth and the life and that no
one has access to the Father and salvation except through
Him. If this is the case, then there isn’t an argument,
analogy, scripture or anything else that is going to sway
you. This becomes a simple faith issue, or an issue of belief
or unbelief, whatever the case may be... Love you bro.

John M. DeAngelis EPH 3:20

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Brother Richard Responds:

Let’s talk about “absolute truth” a bit. First and

foremost, let’s start with the assumption that there is in fact
only one “body of absolute truth” (i.e. a collection of
writings that have passed the test of time with critical
scrutiny which you and I now know as the Protestant Bible,
excluding the apocryphal writings that are included in the
Catholic Bible). There is still another factor that must enter
the equation if such an established “body of absolute truth”
were to be inculcated into the mind of an individual. I also
understand the scripture which states that without the
interpretation that comes from the aid of the Holy Spirit,
that it would be impossible to understand this “body of
absolute truth,” in fact, without the aid of the Holy Spirit
the scriptures are said to be “foolishness” to the
unbelieving and unredeemed heart. However, one must
concede that there is a critical and inseparable role that any
given individual plays in the equation with regards to the
transfer of that established “body of absolute truth” to the
mind and heart of any given individual. Whether one is
reading the words of another author by way of
commentary, or one is listening to the spoken word of
another teacher/preacher—all of these scenarios necessitate
that one multimillion dollar word,
“interpretation.” During our early years of development,
we mostly rely on the interpretations of our parents,
teachers, priests, preachers, rabbi’s or guru’s to feed us
some “body of truth” that they believe is important to them
from their perspective. However, our interpretation is also
intimately entrenched in such experiences of formation so
that ultimately by the time such “absolute truth” is really
processed in one person’s brain, it was filtered through any
number of writers/speakers/teachers ad infinitum ad
nauseum as John MacArthur (JM) likes to say. I should

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know, for one period of my life, I was likely, as true of a

disciple of the person and teachings of John MacArthur as
anyone could be. I listened to several hundreds of his
sermons by way of cassette tapes for approximately 8 to 10
years of my life. I first encountered his mega church in
California as a 19 year old. Interestingly, several years
later, I also recall a much younger man that was perhaps a
better disciple of John MacArthur than me. I heard this
young man speak at a youth rally after a Sunday evening
church service at MacArthur’s church. I was about 25 at
the time, and I can vividly recall how much this young man
in his early twenties spoke. Honestly, his words, actions,
and intonations were a carbon copy of his mentor, John
MacArthur. Please don’t misunderstand me ---- I’m not
suggesting that there is something significantly wrong with
John MacArthur. He is, in my mind, one of the greatest
Bible expositors of our time. More than any other that I
have been privileged to learn from, he was and is in my
opinion, the most dynamic and disciplined Bible teacher
who unapologetically teaches that the Bible is “the
undeniable inerrant and inspired absolute word of
God.” His teachings about dispensationalism and the
details as to why the Word of God is closed to addition is
unmistakable. I can recall some of what he taught from
the Book of Revelations even now about how ---- if anyone
takes even a jot or a tittle of the “word of God” away from
this “Absolute Truth” which has been once and for all
delivered unto the saints ---- than his inheritance in the
Kingdom of Heaven would be taken away ---- and if
anyone should be so bold as to add anything to it, it shall be
added to him the plaques and damnation that are written
herein (my paraphrase from memory).
Getting back to my concern, when I saw and heard this
younger disciple of JM, I truly became frightened. Why?
Because as well intentioned as this young man might have
been, I couldn’t help but wonder ---- who was this young

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man under that “JM Mask?” This reminds me of a Bible

story when some guy in the bible was attempting to cast out
demons from some possessed individual, and the demon
spoke back and said, “Jesus I Know, and Paul I know, but
who are you?” I was taught that in this specific instance, it
was likely that this unrecognizable individual wasn’t
rightly related to Jesus and Paul, in that he wasn’t born
again by the spirit of God and therefore had no ability to
work the miracles that surrounded the lives of Jesus, Paul
and the other apostle’s. On the other hand, I wonder if the
demon was wondering the same thing that I was wondering
about this young “JM Disciple” and that is ---- “ who are
you, this isn’t really you ---- what kind of a game are you
playing here pretending to be someone that you are not?”
I would like to talk to that individual after the passing of
what must be 25 years. I would be interested if he speaks
and acts in a similar manner. Is he a Bible Teacher? Not
that any of this would be so bad ---- he may have in fact,
made a great teacher. But was he real, or did he somehow
become simply a duplicate of someone else where the ink
that might have genuinely defined his life was somewhat
smudged and his unique image, a bit distorted?
This brings me to another important point of concern
about what I perceive we should become as we mature
through our adult lives. Think for a moment about how we
were created in the “Image of God.” In other words if you
will allow me to recall, in the image of God created He
him, male and female created He them (a quote from The
Book of Genesis) ---- Or to personalize it a bit further if
you will allow me to Christianize ---- we were created in
the image and likeness of Jesus.
Speaking of interpretation, my lovely wife Ruth and I
were just discussing the latest breakup of my second son’s
relationship with his latest girlfriend. She said that my son
Devin is beginning to understand and comprehend how
much he is like his Dad. I asked, “How is that so?” She

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stated that he just decided that he was tired of this girl. She
suggested that the girl either said something wrong or did
something wrong and he just simply “lost interest.” To
which I retorted, tell Devin that if he was like me, all he
would have had to do was to wake up one morning and
somehow for any number of complicated reasons, he would
just know and realize that this girl was not for him and that
there was no more reason to continue on in that
relationship. My wife suggested that he would just ignore
her all together since that’s what I would likely have done
until the girl would begin to hate him. Then I said that I
never recall it happening quite that way with me! My
interpretation of my past was simply that I had a
tremendous need to explain myself at such times (some
things never change), and when I would lose interest in a
relationship, even if I knew that such an admission would
cause hurt, I always hoped that we could somehow end the
relationship as “friends.” As my wife walked out the door
to read on the back porch, she reminded me that this was
the way that I interpreted my past. There again, with ones
grid or filter, we all see and hear the experiences
surrounding our lives somewhat differently. In that same
vain, I especially enjoy getting together with large families
and listening to them tell a specific story from a shared past
and how each one recounts the same experience so
differently.
Now, getting back to the “Image of God,” to quote the
psalms, we were fearfully and wonderfully made. I think
this also means that we were uniquely made, in that
everybody’s DNA is unique to that individual. Just as there
are no two fingerprints that are alike, our DNA imprint is
absolutely unique as well. While there are a lot of
similarities, we are none the less, unique. Getting to the
point, it has been my experience that in the average North
American evangelical churches, we are taught to try to be
“like Jesus” primarily. No argument there, how or why

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should it be anything else? After all, if we want or chose to

be a Christian, who else are we supposed to try to
emulate? Is emulate the same as imitate? Paul says that we
should be imitators of him as he is an imitator of Christ. To
me, an imitation is less than real in the strictest sense. An
imitation is not the “Real McCoy.”
So what I am saying is that when we are presented with
an interpretive model of whom or what we are supposed to
be, do we not risk becoming something other than that
which we truly are or were made to be in the deepest part
of our being? Not to say that we shouldn’t learn and grow
into what we become and that we shouldn’t have
wholesome and good examples to try to emulate, but I
suppose I am saying that without a bit of diversity, we’re
likely to develop in a rather narrow way. Who were some
of my childhood teachers/mentors and what books did I
read? One of my childhood favorite guru’s was Leo
Buscaglia. Leo wrote some of the most amazing self-help
books that I can recall. Why I was so into self-help books
at such a young age, I simply don’t know? Looking back, I
must admit that I had some unusual late childhood
mentors. Let me recount a few. A Jesuit Priest by the
name of John S. Powell that wrote such a favorite book of
mine entitled Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am. Not
only do books and authors play a vital role in our formation
as individuals, but the people we associate ourselves with
also has a significant impact on our
development. Speaking of which, at the impressionable
age of 15, I in fact fell in love with my best friend’s older
sister (she was 21). My Mom was so concerned that she
called the Author of the series of books that I was reading
thinking that this Author was putting thoughts in my head
that were possibly contributing to my inappropriate
relationship with “Mrs. Robinson.” He evidently had no
consoling words to offer, and simply said that he did the
same thing when he was my age. This was not what she

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wanted to hear, but the truth that I still believe to this

present day regarding that “first love”--- was that she was
the best thing that ever happened in my life up to that point
in time, and it was her influences that eventually played a
large part in my decision to pursue a serious academic
career toward the study of medicine, not to mention how
she and her family really helped me develop in many other
very positive and important ways. Never-the-less, my Mom
survived that 3 to 4 year crisis, and I guess I did too! Not
however, without the aid of a few significant friendships,
perhaps the most significant of which was my junior year
high school English teacher at a Catholic High School
where I was raised in West Virginia. He was a layman, not
a priest, but very in tuned with his spirituality. He in fact
took our junior class on a spiritual retreat at a nearby
monastery where I vividly remember seeing a movie that
was tailor made for me at that time in my life. It was
entitled “A Time To Run” and I saw this at a time when my
Mom was threatening to kick me out of the house if I didn’t
stop the relationship I was in with this “older woman.” I
specifically recall that at the very end of the movie, I
hurried to the bathroom so that no one would see the
obvious tears streaming down my face. I also remember
him taking me to Pittsburgh to see a lovely lady that he
cared for deeply but she was a young nun. A beautiful nun
I might add. Let’s just say that she looked nothing like the
Nun’s at my Catholic High School. I wonder what ever
happened to her not to get too far off this beaten path.
In other words, when you consider that which I express,
you must see it in the context of my point of view, for it
was indeed formed from a multitude of perspectives,
experiences and influences. Even the music we choose to
listen to is and can be very effusive and help to define who
we are, what we think and how we relate to our world and
what makes up “our unique reality.” I rarely listened to
anything but depressing love songs although I never saw

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myself as particularly depressed; I was just interested in all

things relational. I didn’t say rational, but relational. Not
sure that you can be both at the same time, just kidding. I
remember one of my friends throwing my music cassettes
out the window of my car while screaming at me, “get rid
of this bum--out music.” So you see that my distorted
formation is becoming clearer. I was also always a bit
“self-defecating,” I mean “deprecating,” actually I did shit
myself once from laughing so hard while playing pool with
a friend. Yes, I do have a sick mind, but so do you or you
wouldn’t be laughing. What were we talking about?
To summarize and finally make my point; I fear that if
not careful during our spiritual formation, that we will not
find our true Self that we were specifically designed like no
other (by the one true God) to be; but that we risk
becoming an imitation of an image that we are given, an
image created by the interpretations of those whom we
come into contact with whether we like it or not. I am
thinking of how so often times that history repeats itself;
specifically with regard to various types or forms of
abuse. Unfortunately all too often, the abused becomes the
abuser, and so it goes. Such behavior appears to result at
least in part from an imitation of an interpretive imprint if
you will.
I do believe that the emphasis of our individuation as
unique men and women should be on becoming our best
and truest Selves with a capital S, and not like something
that someone else imposes on us whether in some overt or
subtle way. To use an analogy of an old movie, I do not
think that God ever intended for us to be “Stepford
Children” created and formed in the image of another
person’s image or idea of who God is or what they suppose
Jesus looks like in spite of how knowledgeable of spiritual
things one is or how carefully one is able to “rightly divide
the word of truth so that he may not fear, but become a
good workman approved by God and prepared to do good

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works.” So I believe that we must be careful in this subtle

regard, lest we be guilty of becoming a distorted image of
what another person imposes on us instead of the one
unique individual that God in fact created us to be. It may
perhaps, all be more a matter of emphasis, and less a matter
of specific belief. I may not believe all that differently than
you, but what I have come to believe that is more worthy of
emphasis may have shifted significantly through the years
to the point where I don’t think it my path to critically
judge another’s ability to rightly divide the word of truth,
but that my emphasis is on simply accepting them just the
way they are and leaving the saving to the savior Himself,
lest I give the impression that I am “holier than thou,” and I
scare them away from the kindness, forgiveness
graciousness and acceptance that would draw them into a
genuine unconditional relationship without any high or
mighty agenda or reason to persuade one in any particular
direction.
Another reason I have changed my emphasis over time
is that I became very interested in reading “conversion”
stories of individuals from either one faith to another or
perhaps from one denomination to another as one would
grow on their particular path. I even enjoyed going to talks
given by former this that or the other, and now they have
become this that or another. What always seemed to amaze
me and what still strikes me as rather odd, is that at
whatever point in time or perspective these people were
speaking from, they looked back at what they were and
now seemed to “have seen the light,” and were more sure
than ever in their faith that they came out of a system of
belief that was in some way incomplete and they have
come to a new belief, that for them, is more true and
complete. What was interesting was that one might go, for
example, from Catholic to Protestant, and another would go
from Protestant to Catholic. I can give you many examples
that I read about and tell you that many of these people are

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not only well meaning, but much smarter than me. To hear
their detailed conversion stories, they were not only
convinced, but convincing as well. Remember, that they
are all pretty much studying the same “absolute truth”, but
through their unique encounters with teachers and
experiences, their minds were changed and their focus
underwent a significant shift. For a while I enjoyed delving
into the subtleties of various schools of thought within
mainstream Christianity, but eventually was just as
enthralled with other people’s experiences when they
encountered truth claims outside of mainstream
Christianity. I enjoyed a two day conference that I attended
many years back presented by a former devout Christian
that became a Jew. Not a Messianic Jew, but an individual
that had become a traditional or semi orthodox
Jew. Certainly there were many that I studied that were
Jews and then came to accept Jesus as the Messiah. These
individuals that made “the switch” exuded the peace of
God that seemed to pass all understanding. Speaking of
peace, I can particularly relate to a Confuses saying; “Man
that throws woman to ground has piece on earth.” Just
kidding!
In conclusion, even though I may or may not limit that
which I have come to believe, to the closed canon, (i.e. the
Protestant Bible) as the only “Absolute Truth,” I have
logically concluded that all of these other people, perhaps
much smarter and/or more spiritual than I, can’t all be right
in their ultimate conclusions ---- So why should I be so
bold or perhaps ignorant and try to conclude that I have
found the one and only “Absolute Truth,” even if I believed
there is or was such a thing. It all comes down to one thing
in my pea-brain, and that is ---- I can no longer waste my
time in life analyzing and critiquing all truth claims be they
from any number of seemingly genuine and meaningful
sources, all I can do is to do unto others as I would have
them do unto me by loving them without an agenda in an

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unconditional fashion with no hope to gain anything except

a genuine friend and a new perspective that perhaps is not
only worthy of respect, but perhaps a part of the whole of
what may in fact also be “absolute truth.”
More to come, my brother,

Ricardo

________________________________________________

3. “The” Message of Salvation Defined

Are you in or not?

Brother John Responds:

Hey brother, hope you had a great weekend. Drue and I

went to the Tampa Bay vs. NY Giants game yesterday and
had a blast. A friend of mine who we went with us was able
to get us sideline passes because his Dad is a coach for the
Giants. It was a really great time and a lot of fun to
experience it with Drue. OK, enough of that, let’s talk
about the last two “chapters” you sent me! Lol! I’m not
exactly sure where to start so I suppose I will just start with
the first email and work my way into the most recent one.
You made so many statements that I want to address and
others that I probably won’t end up speaking to in specific
detail but hopefully the spirit of what I am saying will
cover those as well. First let me start by saying that if you
think some of the words that I wrote had “extremist”
tendencies you will probably really think I am an extremist
after you read this email. I feel like I am in good company
though because Jesus Himself was accused of being an

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extremist and was killed because of His extremist views as

were His disciples. The statement that, no one comes to the
Father except through me as Jesus said, is extreme. Much
of what Jesus said was in fact so extreme that many people
in His day told him that his teaching was too difficult and
the statements He made about Himself were just too
“extreme.” You said that “We create an image of what we
think God is and wants, and then we in our innocence and
ignorance, worship that which we think is God or God
like?” You then quoted Matthew 7:21 where Jesus said:

Many who say to me on that day Lord,

Lord will not enter the kingdom of heaven
but only those who do the will of my
Father who is in heaven. They will then
say to me but Lord did we not prophecy in
your name, and in your name drive out
demons and do all kinds of good works
and I will say to them depart from me I
never knew you.

I agree with you that those who create an image of what

they think God is and wants are in great danger of hearing
“depart from me I never knew you.” That is why I feel so
strongly that the bible is our measuring stick. This verse
doesn’t create uncertainty but it specifically implies that
there is a “will” (plan) for each of our lives. I also agree
with you that Christians don’t have a corner market on the
expression of the fruit of the spirit. However, defining the
“fruit of the spirit” (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control) by
being a good person or doing good works is a flawed scale.
This “fruit” must be an outward manifestation of a
transformed heart and mind. Otherwise, they are simply
behavioral guidelines and disciplines that one has to
consciously practice. So, let’s talk about fruit for a minute.
I don’t know anything about planting, growing or

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harvesting fruit although I do have an orange tree in my

back yard that generates hundreds of oranges every year
without me doing anything to the tree to deserve them.
What I do know about fruit trees is that the branches that
are attached to them don’t have to consciously force the
fruit out. The fruit grows on the branches because the
branches are attached to the tree (vine). If the branches
were to be cut off from the tree, the branches would have
no ability to grow fruit. They would be useless sticks.

I have struggled over the years to discover what God’s

“will” is for my life, always wanting to make sure I am not
one of those who hears “depart from me I never knew you”
when I stand before Jesus on the day of judgment. I know,
there I go again with extreme words like “judgment”, lol!
Well, last year on an ordinary Sunday I woke up at 5:30
a.m. as I do every Sunday to get ready to leave the house
by 6:30 so I can be at worship practice on time by 7:00 a.m.
(Our church is about a 25 minute drive) I got in the shower
and was in kind of a daze from lack of sleep and I started
praying that “God’s will” would be done in my life. When I
don’t know what to pray I would typically pray (almost
habitually) that “God’s will” would be done in my life. For
the second time in my life (it happened one other time on
Easter Sunday morning of last year but I’ll save that for
another time) I heard God speak to me. Not audibly but in
my spirit. It was that still small voice that scripture speaks
of when you know that you know it is God speaking to you.
Now brother, I know what you are thinking, “How do you
know it was God and not those linear black and white lines
in your extremist mind!?” Admit it, you were thinking that!
Here is what I have come to discover through studying
God’s word. God speaks in four primary ways. 1) Through
prayer 2) His word (bible= sword of the spirit) 3)
Circumstances, and 4) The church (others). As I was in the
middle of praying that “God’s will” would be done, Jesus’

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words in John 15:5 popped into my head which is when He

said: “I am the vine and you are the branches, if a man
abides in me and I in him he will bear much fruit, apart
from me you can do nothing.” Now, I had read those words
a hundred times and it was never a “word from God”, but
this was different. I felt like God pierced my spirit and
spoke them to me specifically. I heard Him say that I don’t
have to ever wonder if I am in His will or pray that I am, all
I have to do is abide in Him and I will be in His will and
bear much fruit. My immediate response was to cry out to
God and ask “how Lord, how do I abide in you?!” “What
does that look like?” Immediately John 6:33 popped into
my head where Jesus said “Seek first my kingdom and my
righteousness and all of these things will be added unto
you.”

In other words, I have to focus on Jesus and His

kingdom and He will take care of the details. For the first
time in my Christian life I knew what it meant to abide in
Jesus. That is that “God’s will” is far more about “being”
than it is about “doing.” I realized that up until that point I
was trying to force the “fruit” out on my own strength
when all I am called to do is abide in Jesus, seeking Him
above all else. He has become my greatest desire, my
greatest need, my sufficiency, my everything! I realized
that prior to that I was trying to control my relationship
with God, trying to control everything really. A huge
weight was lifted off my shoulders that morning. I felt like
the man in the bible who was blind and now could see after
Jesus healed him! As you stated brother, many other people
in many other religions display this “fruit of the spirit.”
What separates the other religions from being a follower of
Christ is that the other religions “practice” displaying these
fruits as a discipline to earn their way into heaven. In all of
the other religions that you mentioned, “good people go to
heaven.”

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I like how Andy Stanley writes it in his book How Good

is Good Enough? Bear with me as I share some excerpts
from the book. He can say it much better than I. The logic
flows something like this:
There is a good God who lives in a
good place reserved for good people. This
God goes by many names. He is behind all
major world religions. Therefore, all
major, and possibly minor, religions
provide a legitimate path to God and,
therefore, heaven. The criterion for
making it to this good place is to be good.
Each religion has its own definition for
“good.” But what they all have in common
is that men and women must do certain
things, and not do certain things, in order
to assure themselves a spot in this good
place with a good God. (Or to come back
around as even a better person in some
religions like your well-intentioned, right
living Buddhist monk friends).
Make Sense? I’m not so sure it does.
When you ask these folks if God appeared
to them and asked “Why should I let you
into heaven?” the most common response
is “I’ve always tried to…”, “I never…” I do
my best…” Everyone eventually comes to
grips with the fact that the mortality rate
for humans is 100% and in spite of the
fact that they believe there is something
better on the “other side of life”, they are
not at peace, and for good reason. You
see, as “good” as they are- and I’m sure
they are pretty good, they aren’t really
sure if they have been good enough. They
hope so. And they are certainly better
than….well…than certain people they
know. But how good is good enough?
Where is the line? Who or what is the
standard? Where do they currently stand?

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Do they have enough time left to stash

away enough good deeds to
counterbalance their bad ones? And just
who is in charge of this whole operation?
God? If so, he ought to have been a bit
clearer about how this whole thing works.
If our eternal residence hangs in the
balance based on how we live, we could
certainly do with some direction. Some
standard, or a mile marker or two would
be helpful, don’t you think? Perhaps a
midterm! So why is it that even the “really
good” people at best “hope so?” I’ll tell
you why----Because nobody can tell you
how good you have to be to go to heaven.
Nobody! You mentioned the terrorists who
are convinced that blowing people up are
good and that it secures for them a place
in paradise. We both believe that they are
seriously deceived. But who are we to
judge? They are simply following the
teachings of their religious leaders and
interpreting their scriptures differently.
That’s what most of us do, isn’t it? The
difference must be in how one applies that
which they interpret I suppose. We
believe God wants us to love our
neighbors; they believe God wants them
to blow up their neighbors. Or is it just a
different interpretation of who our
neighbor is? Is their God good? They think
so. You see, once you get past the
emotional appeal, the “good people go”
view has some major problems. First of
all, if good people go to heaven, then we
need a clear and consistent definition for
what is good. We need a list. We need to
know that the rules reflect God’s standard,
not something manufactured by important
looking guys in robes. If God allows good
people into heaven, but he does not

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bother to specify what he means by

“good”, it leaves one to wonder just how
good God is. Think about it. You would
never hold people you cared about to a
standard you refused to reveal. As a
teacher, you wouldn’t give tests on
material you never covered. When mere
mortals act in this manner, we complain
vehemently. We yank our kids out of
those schools. We refuse to work for those
kinds of companies. Yet when it comes to
God, somehow we have grown
accustomed to his duplicity. Apparently,
the whole world has. Do you know why
the various world religions cling to this
view in one form or another? Simply
because there doesn’t seem to be any
good options! What else can we believe?
If good people don’t go, who does?
Perhaps everybody goes to heaven. That
would be great. But that would mean the
majority of religious leaders have misled
us for generations. And if everybody is
going to make it, why doesn’t God just tell
us?

So what about the bible? There are so many verses that

contradict this “good people go” view. Romans 3:23 says
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:10 says “There is no one righteous, not even
one.” Romans 6:23 says “For the wages of sin is death.”
And of course we can’t leave out Romans 3:20 which says
“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight
by observing the law; rather, through the law we become
conscious of sin.” This cosmic scale of right and wrong is
problematic at best. What constitutes a passing grade? Do
we go to heaven if 51% of our deeds are good or is it 70%
or 90%?

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And what about our thoughts you ask? You say,

“Brother, you have to factor in God’s grace and mercy
don’t you?” Well, I don’t know, what would make us
believe that we should factor that in? The writings of mere
men that have been so influenced by their upbringing and
perhaps shaped by their experiences and perspectives as it
relates to the lens through which they view the world? I
mean, did the disciples have linear black and white grid
lines in their minds or colored, curved lines when they
witnessed and documented Jesus raise Lazarus from the
dead and countless other miracles. How about when they
saw Jesus crucified and on the third day appear in bodily
form to them? In fact, if good people go to heaven, Jesus
completely misled his audiences and, on at least one
occasion, wrongly comforted a dying man. The truth is,
Jesus taught the very opposite of what most people in the
world believe. Jesus taught that good people don’t go to
heaven. Furthermore, he taught that God was intent on not
giving people what they deserved. Jesus claimed that God
desires to give men and women exactly what they do not
deserve.
So what is the point of all of this discussion? If you are
looking for a God who lets good people into heaven, stay
away from the New Testament. And by all means avoid the
teachings of Jesus. Jesus didn’t claim to be a way to
heaven; He claimed to be the only way to heaven. This kind
of extremist talk has certainly separated His teaching from
that of the other spiritual leaders of history. So He either
was or wasn’t who he claimed to be. He was either telling
the truth or lying. Either his followers called it as they saw
it, or they made up all those stories. On numerous
occasions, Jesus equated Himself with God. But instead of
disregarding him as a lunatic, many continue to quote him
in order to gain support for one cause or another.
So my brother, the question I have not yet asked you but
I am dying to know is this. What do you believe about

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Jesus? Who do you believe he was? Clearly you don’t

believe in the bible being the God inspired inerrant word of
God? I’m a little confused by the duplicity in your own
writings. Some things you say make me think that you do
believe and other things you say such as “outward names
that we attribute to one or another have come to mean little
to nothing to me at this point in time in my life” make me
think that you have abandoned the deity of Jesus Christ
altogether or in part. So perhaps there are some options
about Jesus we can talk about? One possibility is that Jesus
was lying about himself. I know you talk about the
multimillion dollar word “interpretation” but most of
what He said leaves little to no room for misinterpretation.
A second possibility is that Jesus was crazy. That he truly
believed that he was God’s one and only son and that he
came to bear the sin of the world. Perhaps he was so
convinced of it that he became convincing to others around
him. We have seen that kind of thing happen before with
cults. A third possibility is that Jesus never actually made
those claims but flawed people misunderstood him and
wanted him to be that Messiah so badly that they added to
his words after his death. This is the most convenient
option because it allows us to pick and choose the things he
said that make sense to us and cast aside the things that
don’t make sense to our “pea brains.”
Then there is the last possibility, that He was exactly
who he claimed to be; the Son of God who came to take
away the sins of the world. If the last option is in fact the
case, then we have some decisions to make as to how we
respond to the person of Jesus. His disciples were so
convinced that the 4th option was in fact the truth that they
not only continued to believe in Him and spread his
teachings, but they eventually were arrested and put to
death themselves.
Now, no one will knowingly die for a lie. And don’t
make the mistake of “lumping” his followers with other

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individuals who have died for causes through the ages

(whether worthy or unworthy). The followers of Jesus did
not die for what they believed. They died for what they
claim to have seen. Hundreds of thousands and perhaps
millions have died for a belief system, capitalism, freedom,
Islam, communism etc. But the first century followers of
Jesus died because they claimed that He came back to life.
The resurrection of Jesus was the centerpiece of their
message. The Old Testament was clear; sin required death.
God had allowed the prescribed death of an animal to
temporarily substitute for the death of the sinner. But the
death of a lamb didn’t permanently erase the guilt
associated with sin; it merely “atoned for,” or “covered
over” the sin. With this in mind, let’s look again at this
extreme, exclusionary claim of Jesus: I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me. It is precisely because He was the Lamb of
God. Sin had to be paid for, and He paid the price. Now,
our choice is simple; we can either toss aside the Bible as
some misinterpreted, antiquated book of fables, or we can
acknowledge that maybe God knows something that we
don’t.
So if good people don’t go to heaven, than who does!? I
believe that it’s the people whose sins have been forgiven.
Romans 8:3 says “For what the law was powerless to do in
that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin
offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man.” To
follow the logic of your last email, assumes that we just
need to accept everyone for who they are and what they
believe without passing judgment. But Christianity teaches
that we need a savior. That is quite simply what divides
Christianity from every other world religion. Some would
suggest that it isn’t fair that there is only one way to God.
What about all of the other religions around the world?
Why is Christianity so exclusive and elitist?! So Dogmatic!

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The bottom line is this; Christianity is the fairest possible

system in a world that is irreversibly unfair. Certainly more
fair than adhering to a list of rules or a standard that we
can’t find, created by a God who hasn’t had the courtesy to
explain the whole grading system. So does something have
to be fair to be true?
When my daughter Maddie gets a bad grade on her math
quiz (she is doing much better this year) it is unfair in her
opinion, but unfortunately for her, very true. I’m sure we
could come up with a million examples of things that are
unfair but nevertheless very true. So fairness doesn’t
determine truth. In fact, Christianity is based on the
premise that God laid aside fairness and opted for grace and
mercy instead. Thank God! I certainly don’t want God to
give me what I deserve. I don’t want him to be fair, do
you? If he was fair, he would give me exactly what I
deserve. Instead He gives me grace and mercy. Fairness
would determine that we die for our own sins. Instead God
sent his one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him
shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16. God
sent his son to bear the weight of sins that he didn’t
commit. That certainly isn’t fair to God! I don’t know how
to explain the evil and unfairness in the world. I don’t know
how to explain how bad things happen to good people.
What I know is that Christianity offers both an explanation
and a solution. The explanation is that when sin entered the
world, life became irreversibly unfair. The solution
is…well I think Paul in Romans 5:8 says it way better than
I could. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So what
could be fairer than that? Everybody is welcome;
everybody gets in the same way; everybody can meet the
requirement. You concluded your last email with the
following: I can no longer waste my time in life analyzing
and critiquing all truth claims be they from any number of
seemingly genuine and meaningful sources, all I can do is

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to do unto others as I would have them do unto me by

loving them without an agenda in an unconditional fashion
with no hope to gain anything except a genuine friend and
a new perspective that perhaps is not only worthy of
respect but perhaps a part of the whole of what may in fact
also be “absolute truth.”
I agree with you that we should accept people as they
are without passing judgment, but I also believe that we
need to love them too much to abandon them there. 2
Corinthians 5:22 says: We are therefore Christ’s
ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal
through us. I implore you my brothers to be reconciled to
God. God made him who had no sin to become sin for us so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow
gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads
to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the
gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few
find it.
Jesus calls us to be salt and light and to live distinctively
different lives. So attractive to the rest of the world that
they become thirsty for what we have. I’m not implying
that very many Christians actually do this very well. I am
simply saying that is what we are called to do. How are you
living that would make someone say, “There is something
different about Rick,” he has something that I don’t have.
He is so authentic and genuine. His actions and convictions
are in perfect alignment. His beliefs and behaviors are the
same. What he says and what he does actually line up.” I
think anyone who knows you brother would say that you
are genuine and authentic, not judgmental. So when they
get thirsty for what you have and ask what is different,
where will you point them? Back to whatever belief they
currently are holding on to. Or will you point them to the
Savior? God certainly doesn’t want to create “Stepford
children.” That would imply mindless robots acting out of

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instinct or programming instead of freedom of choice. But

he is specific that he wants us to be imitators of himself.
Jesus spoke numerous times about children in the scriptures
and how we should be like them. In Matthew 18:3 he says,
I tell you the truth, unless you become like one of these
children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Faith like a child is what is required to accept him. I am
glad I’m not as deep of a thinker as you. I think the
“smarter” we become the more we think we are entitled to
understand God. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to
serve a god that I can fully understand. If I could fully
understand Him with my little brain, then He wouldn’t be
God. So I have come to accept that I don’t have to fully
understand Him. Isaiah 55:8 says “For my thoughts are not
you’re your thoughts neither are your ways my ways
declares the Lord.” Proverbs 16:25 says “There is a way
that seems right to man but in the end it leads to death.”
That gap between what I understand and what doesn’t
make sense is where faith comes in. Hebrews 11:1 says
“faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what
we cannot see.” Hebrews 11:6 says “Without faith it is
impossible to please God. Whoever wants to come to God
must first believe that he exists and that he rewards those
who earnestly seek him.” I want to conclude by sharing a
couple of paragraphs from Dr. Gregory Boyd’s book,
Letters from a Skeptic where he speaks of other works
which claim to be God’s word.

It shouldn’t surprise us to find that

there are other works which claim to be
God’s word. When a starving person
doesn’t have any real food to eat, he
fantasizes a dinner of his own creation. As
C.S. Lewis once remarked, “Myth points to
reality.” Myth expresses the heart’s
conviction that such and such should be
real. If there is a genuine “Word of God,”

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we should expect to find mythological

approximations of it in cultures where it is
absent, or at least where it isn’t
recognized for being what it is. I don’t
think this is being narrow-minded, as you
suggested. Narrow-mindedness does not
attach to what you believe, but how you
believe it. If I refused to consider any
perspective, any religious book, and any
philosophy which disagreed with my own,
that would be narrow-minded. But just
because I hold to a belief that disagrees
with other perspectives, other religious
books and other philosophies doesn’t itself
make me narrow. No matter what you
believe, there will always be more who
disagree with it than who agree with it.
“Truth is one, but falsehood is manifold.”
The Bible itself tells us to “test everything.
Hold on to the good” (1 Thess. 5:21).
Subject any and all claims of revelation to
the same test, and you find, I contend,
that the Bible stands alone as the definite
“Word of God.” All other works may, and
do, have wonderful literary and
philosophical insights within them. But
they do not communicate to humanity the
one thing that is most needful: the person
of Jesus Christ.

So sorry this is so lengthy brother, but it is your own

fault really. You said so much in the last two emails that I
felt compelled to address them and that is what made it this
long. Maybe the next one you send won’t be five pages! No
one else is going to want to ever read this just because of
the shear length of it all! Love you my brother. Talk to you
soon.

John M. DeAngelis EPH 3:20

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4. A Story of Conversion
Am I in or not?

Brother Richard Responds:

You ask me some personal questions my brother as

though absolute truth in some way depends on what I
think and believe. Of course we both know that “IT” does
not. However, as I understand your mindset and system of
beliefs fairly well, I do understand that you have honest and
legitimate concerns for me and my eternal well-being and
therefore in your obligation to all that you love, you ask
some very reasonable questions.

I will respond in kind with my personal story of

conversion and then perhaps talk at greater depths as to
what I believe “conversion” means, not only for me, but
what it looks like when one is transformed from one way of
thinking to another, and the subsequent change of heart and
mind that one then experiences upon this journey toward
“heaven, peace, eternal life/bliss.” First of all we must
establish and agree that “the eternal” is not only something
that pertains to the “after-life,” but also to the present
moment, as well as to the next moment, and the next, and
so on and so on, ad infinitum. So I think that we will agree
that “conversion” means “to change from something at one
point along this continuum, to something else at another
point along this infinite continuum. I guess in a Biblical
sense, we can compare it to the word “repentance” which
as you know means “turning from oneself and turning
toward God” which in a more specific sense is another
example of conversion. I previously mentioned how
fascinated I have been over the years with “conversion
stories,” and how so many well-meaning and intelligent
individuals have written many books about their

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“conversion stories,” and how amusing it has been for me

to read these very genuine and heartfelt stories of how one
converts from Catholic to Protestant, and another from
Protestant to Catholic. My favorite is specifically the life
of a former Reformed Presbyterian seminary trained
minister by the name of Scott Hahn that converted to
Roman Catholicism and wrote the book entitled “Rome
Sweet Home.” Or how others that I have read about have
converted from Presbyterian to Anglican, and now they
have, “found the only true path.” Enough about them, what
about me, just me…
My first thought is, where to begin? I was always
naturally inclined toward personal relationships for as long
as I can remember and had an obsession with wanting to
understand how we think and how such thinking causes us
to behave in various ways. One of the books that were
pivotal in my early adult life was written by Lawrence
Crabb entitled The Basic Principles of Biblical
Counseling. I think that you would whole heartedly agree
with his line of reasoning and thinking and his premise as I
recall is that we all act in accordance to our beliefs, and that
unless we have right beliefs, we will fall prey to the
deceptions of our faulty thinking and consequently, we will
behave in a way that does not lead to wholeness and
blessings in our lives. In other words, we all live in a semi-
deluded state of belief about ourselves, God, and others at
any given point in time, and the more we come to
understand the truth about ourselves, God, and others with
regard to any specific detail, the more balance and blessing
will flow in and through us and the more we will be, “In
the will of God” for our lives. I still believe this basic
premise by the way, and I do think that this basic principle
is still very much a part of “My Grid” through which I see
most or all of life.
As you know, we were raised in the Roman Catholic
Church and we went to church with Mom every Sunday

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long before you were born and for several years

thereafter. I first received Jesus into my life and was “Born
Again” while on a Charismatic Catholic Retreat while
watching the movie I previously mentioned A Time To
Run. Do you remember, I ran to the bathroom with tears
streaming down my face and had to escape the ridicule of
my peers, none of whom seemed to have had the same (at
least) emotional experience? I was seventeen years young,
and that conversion led me even further into the world of
self-help and various spiritual books with the primary focus
being on understanding personal relationships but centered
on the development of a very personal relationship with
Jesus Christ. I came to understand and believe that Jesus
was “the way, the truth, and the life,” and my relationship
with Him was and still is very personal. For indeed; it is
“in and through Him that we live and breathe and have our
being.” This is absolute truth for me and has in no way
changed. What has changed is that in my system of beliefs,
this has become progressively more and more all-
encompassing; in that He, which is God, is either “No
Where” or “Now Here” to quote Eckhart Tolle in his book
The Power of Now. I choose to believe that He is “Now
Here.” Of course everything changes depending on where
the space is placed among those two simple words. I
therefore believe that God is in fact omnipresent which is
consistent in my manner of thinking/believing. For where
can we go from His presence (Psalm 139 7-16), or as
Romans 9:38 states:

For I am convinced that neither death

nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither that present nor the future, nor
any power, neither height nor depth, not
anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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I think that this also includes many other things as well,

namely all things. You can insert any noun you
wish. Let’s try some --- for I am convinced that neither my
beliefs, ideas, actions, nor inactions, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Therefore what kind of heresy am I espousing now? We’ll
get to that later. Let’s get back to my ever evolving beliefs
and the multiple series of my personal conversions. Two
years or so after I first accepted Jesus, I visited our Uncle
John in California and for the first time in my life, visited a
thriving independent protestant church with him and his
family and heard the well-known bible teacher John
MacArthur teach with convincing clarity and unwavering
certainty. Well, a new phase in my journey had begun, and
since then and for several years that followed, I consumed
the bible teachings according to Grace Community Church
under the leadership of John MacArthur, Jr. via his
unending series of cassette tapes. During that phase of my
life, I was also very much involved in The Christian and
Missionary Alliance Church in Morgantown under the
leadership of a wonderful Christian man by the name of
Douglas Miller. I grew in many ways through many
experiences, books and teachers, but all from a similar
perspective as you might imagine, from the perspective of
mainstream evangelical Christianity. Looking back over
the last 30 years, I have been involved in many ways with
most every kind of “ministry” that exists under the
umbrella of that world view. Some of my favorite teachers
included C.S. Lewis whom you quoted in your last
response. You mentioned how Jesus was either Lord, Liar,
or Lunatic which was taken from his infamous book
entitled Mere Christianity. Josh McDowell was another
favorite of mine, and I even heard him speak on my college
campus at WVU back in the late 70’s. I devoured his
books on Christian apologetics entitled Evidence that
Demands a Verdict and his sequel entitled More Evidence

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that Demands a Verdict.” He also liked to quote from the

likes of C.S. Lewis and gave a wonderful and
impressionable dissertation on “Jesus: Lord, Liar, or
Lunatic.”
Prior to starting medical school in the fall of 1984, I
even spent time in a graduate program in Portland, OR at
Western Conservative Baptist Seminary after the
recommendation by John MacArthur himself. The most
wonderful teacher that I remember from that short 3
months was a man named J. Grant Howard who wrote
another of my favorite books entitled The Trauma of
Transparency. I feel like I could have written that book,
and again the theme was basically my life’s major, namely;
the development of personal relationships centered on the
person of Jesus Christ. Whether my life truly reflects that
which you define as Christian or not, you ask the question;
what do you believe about Jesus? Who do you believe he
was? Then you go on to say based on all of what I had
written that: Clearly you don’t believe in the bible being
the God inspired inerrant word of God? I’m a little
confused by the duplicity in your own writings.
Well, I do believe that the bible is the inspired inerrant
word of God. However, people like you and me are not
inerrant, and we are the ones that are left to understand and
interpret that which is inerrant. Here in lies the “duplicity”
if there is such a thing. It’s more accurately a multiplicity
and not, therefore, a simple duplicity. That is to say that
for every person that reads and attempts to understand the
sacred text of the Bible, there is a unique interpretation,
hence, a multiplicity. This is OK, and exactly why there
are so many well-meaning people that are a part of any
large number of isms or schisms which have naturally
evolved since the beginning of language and the
development of all written words. It’s interesting to me
how the more tribal one is in their thinking, the surer they
are that they have “found that one truth” and that so many

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are so certain, that those, that are outside of their “circle of

belief” are “going to hell.” Give me a break!!
I personally believe that Jesus is the Son of God, born of
a virgin, lived a sinless life, was tried by the religious
people of His day because of His blasphemous claims to be
equal to God or “one with the Father,” and He was
therefore crucified on our behalf and for the sins of the
whole world according to the eternal plan of the one and
only almighty God, and on the third day, God raised Him
from the dead and that He will come again in Glory to
judge the living and the dead.

So whether we live a life that is in accord with that

which we say we believe or even if we live a life in silent
expression of our beliefs, it will ultimately be up to the one
and only judge of all to determine “who’s in and who’s
out,” and that’s why I believe that God didn’t leave it up to
us to do anything to secure our place or position in either
this life or the next. In other words, He did all that was
necessary for our salvation and to satisfy the justice of God
whether we as individuals, existed or not. It does not
therefore depend on me or you or anyone else, in my
opinion. Perhaps this is my interpretation of Romans 9:16
which states “That it does not, therefore, depend on man’s
desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” So in light of that,
you might say that I have come to live as though His
salvation is universal and based on His once and for all
sacrifice, because there is nothing that I could have done,
nor is there anything that I have to do to gain access or
admission, since He paid the price. He had to be true to
who He was, and in turn, I have to be true to who I am. So
the real question becomes, who am I? Why? --- Because
that is who I have to be! OK, what about the “Faith” thing,
and “Belief” issue. For without faith, it is impossible to
please God. I believe this as well, but given all else which
has been expressed, only God can give us this faith, even

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this faith is a “gift from God.” So there again, it is not

dependent on me in the sense that if God chooses not to
give me faith, then I cannot please Him and then I will
never rightly believe and therefore not enter into the narrow
way that you spoke of in your last response. This can be
very confusing --- this play on words and that is exactly
what it has become, as one looks into the world at large
with all the various truth claims of the various peoples of
“faith.”
There was a time over 15 years ago or so, when I was on
such a vigilant and watchful guard, always and forever
critically analyzing every truth claim that was out there,
that I was finding fault with just about every system of
belief and discipline of science, psychology, and form of
religion. In fact, I still have the copy of Pope John Paul’s
wonderful book entitled “Crossing the Threshold of Faith”
where I had underlined and outlined the many ways in his
book where in my opinion, “he had missed the spiritual
boat.” I was not sure, but suspected that Pope John Paul
and perhaps even Mother Theresa of Calcutta had missed
this one and only salvific boat upon which “My Jesus” was
captain. This is what the teachings of John MacArthur led
me to in my very personal experience. Not to place the
blame on him, but this was simply my experience. It was
about that time when a patient named Jerry Wempe entered
my life and I was convinced that God was going to use me
to show this individual my very special and exclusive body
of truth and surely he would be converted to my manner of
evangelical Christianity. Jerry was an amazingly well read
jovial individual that came into my office with a briefcase
full of spiritual books. He was of the Catholic persuasion
(God help me help this wayward soul, was my prayer), and
we started to exchange books and ideas over the ensuing
year or two.
The first book I gave him was a book by Josh
McDowell entitled, More Than A Carpenter,” and he gave

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me a book by John Sanford (An Episcopal Priest and

Jungian Psychologist) entitled The Kingdom Within.” I was
certain by this time in my life that my faith was unshakable
and that I could handle anything that he could throw my
way, and that in the end, that he would see the light as I
saw it so clearly then. Well surprise, surprise, as Gomer
Pile used to say, over the years that followed, many
undeniable “truths” were opened up to me and once again I
underwent yet another “conversion.” Since then I have
been open to some of the most amazing teachers, books and
individuals of all walks of life and faith and although my
personal core beliefs (believe it or not) remain the same,
my understanding of what it means for me to live my
personal journey of faith with such core beliefs has taken
on new meaning --- as I am created anew each and every
day through Christ Jesus whom is still my Lord and
savior. As I look back at all the teachers that I have been
privileged to have studied and learned from, I probable
relate most closely to the writings and person of Thomas
Merton who was the novice master at the Abby of
Gethsemane outside of Louisville, KY for twenty five years
or so prior to his accidental death in 1968 while attending
an interfaith conference with Buddhist Monks in
Bangkok. I personally place him among the likes of C.S.
Lewis in that he, like Lewis, came to a mature and steadfast
faith after many “worldly experiences,” and quite
independently of parental upbringing and/or
persuasion. Thomas Merton was not only a prolific writer,
but a God-Gifted teacher that had a most relaxed and
natural way of expressing himself. I have listened to all of
the recorded lectures that he gave to the young Catholic
Monks back in the 60’s and in fact had the pleasure of
spending a four day semi-silent retreat at that monastery for
my fortieth birthday. It was supposed to be a silent retreat,
but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut for the entire four days,
imagine that!!

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We naturally need the words of others and the examples

of others to see how they fit into the fabric of our lives and
to express that which we have come to believe at any given
phase of our lives, but ultimately, I believe that we need to
become who we as individuals were meant to be. For I
believe that we are intrinsically and inextricably bound to
our creator from eternity past, through our brief worldly
existence from birth till death, and through whatever
follows into our eternal futures. So then, as Frances
Schaffer asked in his defining book, How Should We Then
Live, I also ask myself that same question. It really bothers
me that so many well-meaning evangelical Christians focus
mostly on two phases of this eternal existence, namely our
spiritual birth (being Born Again), and what follows after
our death (Heaven or Hell). While I don’t mean to
minimize the importance of such, it just concerns me that
with this primary focus and mindset, one can easily miss
the importance of the “here and now” which I believe,
should be our focus. Not only the “Kingdom Within, but
the Kingdom that is at hand, among us, here and now.”
Now to be fair, I do know many wonderful Evangelical
Christians that do seek to find “that balance” between
living in the moment, while preparing for the afterlife as
they believe it might be, according to their interpretation of
the Holy Scriptures. Most of them, in my experience, are of
this moderate majority that silently goes about their way
endeavoring to live according to “The Golden Rule.” But
again, these individuals will not likely be heard or seen “in
the eyes of the world” any more than the vast majority of
the Muslims (or those of any other faith for that matter) that
live in very much the same way. It always seems to be the
extremes that make the loudest statements and cause the
most polarization and potential problems. I am not by any
stretch the first to suggest that we all need each other in
some way or another to serve as a reflecting mirror because

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each of us can only see from such a finite and limited point
of view.
In fact, I remember my good friend Jerry Wempe once
told me for example; that Catholics and Protestants really
need each other, but few realize it to their demise. In what
way I asked? Catholics need to be evangelized and
Protestants need to be sacramentalized he said. I thought
at length about what that might mean. Having come from a
Catholic upbringing, it was all so easy --- you just got
baptized as a baby and “you were in”, no need to
fret. However, to have a genuine and personal conversion
that leads to a relationship with your creator as an adult
independent thinker is quite another matter --- quite
independent of an institution that for centuries has held the
keys to the kingdom of heaven. What about the Protestants
needing to be “sacramentalized,” --- what does that
mean? Exactly that when one’s focus is forever and always
on getting in and checking out, they tend to miss the
“sacredness” along the road each and every moment ---
And that “holiness” may in fact look more like
“wholeness”, and not as much like an individual that is so
“heavenly holy, but no earthly good as I have heard others
say from time to time.

Speaking of my pursuit of “wholeness,” no tool has

helped me more in this endeavor than an understanding of
the Enneagram. Many books have been written on the
subject of the Enneagram --- one only has to Google the
word and an abundance of hits will be found. My daughter
likes the site http://www.9types.com/ as a primer. Of all
the personality theories out there, in my opinion, none
compare to the Enneagram. In my experience, of all the
spiritual guidance that I have sought through the years,
none has given me more understanding into the “blind
side” of my life than this “tool for conversion.” The built
in paradoxes within this system of understanding ring so

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true to the human condition that I highly recommend it to

anyone that is willing and ready to see that which might
have otherwise been hidden, not only about themselves, but
about their children, spouses and coworkers. The
Enneagram has slowly evolved over countless years and it
has been adapted and applied to many aspects of life. From
a Christian perspective, some would certainly say that Jesus
was the perfect balance of all the existing 9 types, and to
see oneself and others through the eyes of the Enneagram
and the balance of the nine types --- is to begin to see “the
face of God.” So the Enneagram theory of personalities
basically is about finding balance in our lives. The
renowned author and Franciscan Priest Father Richard
Rohr in an excellent lecture series entitled The Enneagram,
Naming our Illusions makes the interesting assertion that
our gift is also our curse, and that we all tend to overly
identify with our gift and thereby fail to develop in a well-
rounded or balanced fashion.
Now what about this “center or balance” that many refer
to or speak of… An excerpt from a classic book I was
reading just this morning by James Allen entitled, As a
Man Thinketh and Other Writings aptly states so
beautifully what I believe Jesus taught and lived by His
example as He strove to broaden the minds of those in His
day. Taken from Chapter 12 entitled: “Standing Alone”
and I quote:

A man does not commence to truly

live until he finds an immovable center
within himself on which to stand, by which
to regulate his life, and from which to
draw his peace. If he trusts to that which
fluctuates he also will fluctuate; if he leans
upon that which may be withdrawn he will
fall and be bruised; if he looks for
satisfaction in perishable accumulations he

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will starve for happiness in the midst of

plenty.

Let a man learn to stand alone, looking

to no one for support; expecting no favor,
craving no personal advantages; not
begging, nor complaining, not craving, nor
regretting, but relying upon the truth
within himself, deriving his satisfaction
and comfort from the integrity of his own
heart.

Then, from the next chapter entitled Understanding the

Simple Laws of Life

Walking those byways which I have so

far pointed out, resting in their beauty and
drinking in their blessedness, the pilgrim
along life’s broad highway will in due time
come to one wherein his last burden will
fall from him, where all his weariness will
pass away, where he will drink of light-
hearted liberty, and rest in perpetual
peace. And this Right Understanding of
the Simple Laws of Life. He who comes to
it leaves behind him all lack and longing,
all doubt and perplexity, all sorrow and
uncertainty. He lives in the fullness of
satisfaction, in light and knowledge, in
gladness and surety. He who
comprehends the utter simplicity of life,
who obeys its laws and does not step
aside into the dark paths and complex
mazes of selfish desire, stands where no
harm can reach him, where no enemy can
lay him low-and he doubts, desires and
sorrows no more. Doubt ends where
reality begins; painful desire ceases where
the fullness of joy is perpetual and
complete; and where the Unfailing and

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Eternal Good is realized --- what room is

there for sorrow?

He then goes on to discuss how complex we tend to

make life with desires that are insatiable and he uses the
story of the Prodigal Son to make the point about being
discontent and thinking that there is something better “out
there”, and not until he was reduced to the utmost extremity
of starvation that he turned with longing towards his
father’s home. You alluded to a recent revelation you had
that led you to the realization that life was more about
“being” and less about “doing.” This is so true and the
more our doing comes out of a deeply centered being, the
less stressful “the doing” seems to be.
As I look at your life, I see how another sentence that
James Allen writes is true about you.

When a man is rescued from selfish

desire his mind is unencumbered, and he
is free to work for humanity. No longer
racing after those gratifications which
leave him hungry still, seeking no
rewards, he can concentrate all his
energies upon the faultless completion of
his duties, and so accomplish all things
and fulfill all righteousness. On the other
hand, the man of desire needs the
promise of reward to urge him to
action. He is as a child working for the
possession of a toy.

It’s ironic that both of us have material wealth, but had

to learn what true wealth is from the materially poor which
we both learned by traveling to third world countries.
Somehow, all things belong, perhaps they benefited from
our material wealth, but we are even more indebted to them
for their spiritual wealth that they seemed to show us that
we so desperately needed. Not to aggrandize the poor, but

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Jesus understood the irony of it all and gave instruction to

each according to that which each needed, regardless of
their social or spiritual status and He does the same for us
today through the experiences we encounter in and through
the lives of others. I doubt that any of these haughty and
spiritual words mean a hill of beans to many of the poor
people you encountered on your last trip to Peru. The child
that was so swollen didn’t need a sermon on how to be
saved, but that 18 month old needed basic nourishment to
sustain his precious little life and you were there to do what
Jesus would have done by providing the real nourishment
that he needed in the moment of that day.
So what do I believe? I believe that all of life is a two
way street, not only in our relationships with each other,
but also in our relationship to God. Yes, we are saved by
Grace through Faith, and that not of ourselves, it is a gift
from God, lest any man boast. However, it was those that
failed to give to the “least of these water when thirsty, and
food when hungry”, that Jesus called “doers of
evil.” Recall that stunning statement of Jesus when he said
“what you failed to do to the least of these my brothers, you
failed to do to me, and what you did for the least of these
my brothers, you did unto me.” Now if that doesn’t leave
you shaking in your boots nothing will. So I believe that
it’s not just faith, but our works somehow do matter --- not
that we necessarily “work our way into heaven,” but both
are intrinsically related and equally important as far as I
choose to understand this, yet another paradox. In the final
analysis, as I look far and wide throughout Christendom, I
have come to basically believe that doctrine divides but
that love abides. At least this is my take home message
from the widely known 13th chapter of First Corinthians
on Love --- that these three remain; faith, hope and love,
but that the greatest of these is love. And what is the first
and most important commandment --- to Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, soul and mind and the second

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one is like unto the first which is to love your neighbor as

yourself. For this is the sum of the law and the
prophets. The first is like unto the second; in other words -
--- if I do not rightly love my neighbors who include my
enemies, then I do not rightly love God. For loving one is
the equivalent of loving the other and vice versa. No
dualism there, it’s all one and the same. So how should we
then live? I believe that as we grow in knowledge of
ourselves and others, then we slowly begin to reconcile that
which we at one time perhaps concluded was foreign, but
now come to understand that in fact, what we thought was
“the other” is really a part of the whole --- for we are all the
same in the eyes of God, without difference or condition. I
therefore believe that we are all equally loved by God and
somehow will be saved by Him (or Her) in His (or Her)
time in His (or Her) way. I love you my brother and I am
so proud of all that you are and the work that you do for so
many others…

Brother Richard
_______________________________________________

Brother John’s Response:

Good afternoon brother, sorry it has taken me so long to

get back to you but we have been traveling quite a bit and
honestly it has taken me this long for my brain to recover
from your last response. Lol! Actually I was quite relieved
to read certain parts of your response (especially your
statement of faith) but at the same time I find myself
becoming more confused by the duplicity or as you stated
so appropriately, “multiplicity” of the different themes and
thoughts that run through your responses. I never know

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where to begin so I will just start typing and see where it

goes. I do agree that “the eternal” is not only something
that pertains to the “after-life,” but also the present. Jesus
said in John 10:10 that He “came so that we might have
life, and have it with abundance.” I fully agree that He
meant here and now and not just after we die. We are
eternal beings now and forever. I also agree with your
definition of “conversion” and “repentance.” There is
another word that we haven’t spoken much about yet but
we should throw it into the mix and that is “sanctification;”
which of course means--- to make holy, to purify, to set
apart as sacred or to consecrate. This “conversion” can
happen in an instant, but the “sanctification” can take a life
time. The Bible Dictionary says this about sanctification.

Sanctification involves more than a

mere moral reformation of character,
brought about by the power of the truth:
it is the work of the Holy Spirit bringing
the whole nature more and more under
the influences of the new gracious
principles implanted in the soul at
conversion. In other words, sanctification
is the carrying on to perfection the work
begun in conversion, and it extends to the
whole man (Rom. 6:13; 2 Cor. 4:6; Col.
3:10; 1 John 4:7; 1 Cor. 6:19). It is the
special office of the Holy Spirit in the plan
of redemption to carry on this work (1
Cor. 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:13).

You talked about your favorite conversion story. My

favorite conversion story is that of Saul, who had a very
real and personal interaction with Jesus and completely did
a 180 turn around more so than anyone I have ever heard of
in history. Saul/Paul didn’t stop at conversion, he allowed
the Holy Spirit to complete the work that was started and
lived an abundant life in Jesus even though most would

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look at the circumstances of his life (ship wrecks,

floggings, prison, ultimately death) as not being very
“abundant” or desirable. I believe that Paul did find the
“one true path” to salvation just as you and I have in Jesus.
I loved hearing that you believe that Jesus is “the way, the
truth and the life” and that your relationship is very
personal with Jesus. You said “this is absolute truth for me
and has in no way changed.” So then what has changed for
you as I’m inferring from your previous writings, is that
you believe that there is more than one path to salvation
and more than one absolute truth. Am I correct with that
inference or am I overstating something? Or is it that you
just want to be careful not to judge anyone else’s religious
points of view because what is truth to you and I may not
have to be truth to everyone? But that wouldn’t be absolute
truth would it? I looked up the definition of absolute truth
and here is what I found. In general:

Absolute truth is whatever is always

valid, regardless of parameters or context.
The absolute in the term connotes one or
more of: a quality of truth that cannot be
exceeded; complete truth; unvarying and
permanent truth. It can be contrasted to
relative truth or truth in a more ordinary
sense in which a degree of relativity is
implied.

It seems to me that if “absolute truth” is different for

everyone, or there is more than one “absolute truth”
regarding salvation, then it is really “relative truth” and not
“absolute” at all. This is where my confusion starts
creeping in with your viewpoint. You quote scripture and
state articulately what you believe about Jesus but then say
that because of filters and grids and interpretations that it
doesn’t have to be truth for everyone, since after all,
everyone has been shaped by experiences, viewpoints etc.

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etc… So once again this truth is relative and not absolute,

right? I am not trying to be pedantic in any way; I just
really want to understand your orthodoxy!
I am the first to admit that I don’t have everything
figured out and there are countless things I don’t
understand about God, faith, salvation, grace etc. etc... ---
But I don’t think I have to understand all of this either,
because my mind wasn’t created to fully understand all
things such as these. By the way, that is where faith has to
come into play. I am simply trying to trust God with all of
these details and to not major on the minor issues that
separate or create divisions.

You quoted from Romans 8:38 which talks about

nothing being able to separate us from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I love that verse so much and of
course agree that nothing can separate us from His love. I
also believe that God loves the people that spend a Christ-
less eternity in a real place called Hell. You switched some
nouns out of this verse in your last email so allow me to do
the same with some different words. For I am convinced
that neither “my lack of belief, choices or unrepentance,
will be able to separate us from the love of God…” So
again, while God’s love for us is complete and undeniable
no matter what we do or don’t do, there are different
outcomes depending on our response (or lack of response)
to God. You said, “Therefore what kind of heresy am I
espousing now? We’ll get back to that later.” I am not sure
you went back to it or maybe I missed it. Let me know
either way!
If you believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant
word of God, then there are countless verses you would
have to chalk up to man’s misinterpretation in order to
arrive at a “Universalist” viewpoint that says God loves
everyone no matter what, therefore, everyone goes to
heaven. “Just be true to who you are.” I am trying to

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understand what exactly you believe about this? Who do

you believe spends eternity in Heaven? Do you believe that
all roads lead to the same place because of God’s unfailing
love?
You stated “I have come to live as though His
salvation is universal and based on His once and for all
sacrifice, because there is nothing that I could have done,
nor is there anything that I have to do, since He paid the
price.” What about verses like Romans 10:9-10 which says
that:

If you confess with your mouth that

Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead, you
shall be saved, for it is with your heart
that you believe and are justified and with
your mouth that you confess and are
saved.

So based on this it would seem that there are some things

that I must do as a response to God in order to be “saved.”
John 3:16 says …whosoever believes in Him shall be
saved. Again, the necessary response is “belief,” in order to
secure this salvation. Are these misinterpretations?
You are a brilliant writer and even though I have to read
your responses several times to fully grasp all of the
seemingly contradictory points, I chalk up much of my
confusion more to my inability to get inside of your head
(scary thought) and understand your overall theology than
your inability to communicate your thoughts effectively.
You definitely keep me on my toes! Just when I think you
are going to zig, you zag and when I think I understand
something you are saying, you throw something else out
that makes me wonder if more than one Rick lives in your
brain! Perhaps you have multiple personalities! Richard---
the doctor, professional, or somewhat more serious
intellect. Rick--- the husband, Dad, or friend. “Ricky Pick

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Pick”--- the crazy, fun loving, devil may care, all accepting,
anything goes guy. And finally, “The Pickle”--- sort of all
of the above wrapped into one really terrific, hard to fully
understand, wonderful personality whom everyone
including me, loves like crazy no matter what.
I have so much more to say but time is running out on
this Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving so let me
wrap up this one and pick it up again next week. I am
thankful for you my brother on this Thanksgiving. I love
our dialogue and the ability to talk through these issues.

Brother John Eph.3:20

_________________________________

5. The Ultimate Question

Is there such an “Exclusive Heavenly Club” or not?

Brother Richard’s Response

So much has happened in the world since your last

response. Most notably the recent natural disaster in Haiti
where over 200,000 perished rather suddenly as the earth
either swallowed them up or their roofs collapsed over their
heads. Many more are expected to die in the aftermath as
you well know. I was not surprised to hear that you rather
quickly gathered a team of construction experts together
from your area in Florida and at your own expense flew
down to assess the construction needs of an orphanage on
the shore near Port Au Prince. Then just yesterday prior to
the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in
Vancouver, a young 21 year old luger from Georgia
(Russia) instantly went out of control on a practice run
flying off the fast track suddenly colliding with a concrete
wall which sadly ended his young life. The war in
Afghanistan wages on, as does the fight against insurgents

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in Iraq where sudden deaths are reported daily from one

bomb or another exploding into oblivion the lives and
dreams of many innocents in a split second. I realize that
none of us are guaranteed another day or minute of life on
this earth and that the Bible therefore exhorts us regarding
this unknown with such words as, “now is the appointed
time of our salvation, today is the day of our salvation.”
For who among us can fathom the mysteries of life and
death, let alone the possibility of an afterlife, not to mention
that all too familiar impending “judgment” that some
believe awaits us all at some point in time after or
immediately upon our death. Salvation, another huge word
that begs for definition and perhaps means something
different to us all. The hope of salvation which might even
change the way we choose to live the rest of our life or lead
us, perhaps, to choose to take our own life with the lives of
“the infidels” so as to secure a place for ourselves in “white
paradise.” Imagine a God that rewards such suicide
bombers with multiple young virgins that are awaiting
these “martyrs” in paradise.
Regarding this particular militant Muslim extremist
point of view --- one of the questions that remain in my
mind is, “Why would God punish these young virgins in
paradise or do they just willingly consent to sexual
relations with these misled suicide bombers?” Besides,
where do all of these “young virgins” come from? Are
there that many that have died and gone to heaven, or is
there just a ready supply? Perhaps these virgins exist as a
result of the Mormon God that cohabitates with women
with “rabbit speed” producing innumerable “Stepford
Spirits” that somehow acquire bodies with virginal vaginas
that then willingly succumb to the many “suicide bombers”
upon their arrival in white paradise. Maybe the suicide
bombers only have virtual sex with virtual vaginal virgins
in a more Docetic sense. Forgive my sacrilege, but from my
point of view, all of these deductions are obviously simply

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ludicrous. Now, from the more mainstream Christian world

view, the scriptures generally teach that all have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God, and that we simply all need
to be saved from our sins and therefore from ourselves and
the “sinful state” in which we all exist whether it be from
the moment of our conception as the seed of sinful man
unites with the seed of a sinful woman, or from our first
selfish cry “mine” as a two year old toddler. The debates
regarding how we are saved from such a sinful state are
numerous. From the Roman Catholic dogma of our need
for the “salvific baptismal waters” during infancy
administered through a God ordained priest, to the need for
our “full immersion water baptism” when we reach the ever
illusive “age of accountability.” The doctrinal debates by
many scholars are endless even within mainstream
Christianity let alone how the doctrinal debates increase
exponentially when you consider those outside of
mainstream Christianity not to mention those outside the
Christian faith. So my conclusion is that even if “absolute
truth” exists” which I believe “it” does --- we as imperfect
narrow minded culturally blinded human beings, cannot
possibly know what “it” really is in any “absolute”
way. Especially when we are discussing the few but
complex and controversial issues at hand.
Let’s add just another issue to the debate surrounding
the controversy of salvation. Mainstream Christianity says
that “without the shedding of blood, there can be no
forgiveness of sins,” and that since God is not only Holy,
but also just --- Jesus, the God-Man (a sinless fully human
being born of a virgin yet fully God) had to come to the
earth on our behalf and shed his blood to satisfy the justice
of God so as to pay the price or penalty for our
sins.” Simple enough that even a child can understand it,
right? Try telling that to a Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, or
a Seventh Day Adventist in the 21st century or to St.
Augustine of Hippo in the first century or one of his

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followers in the early part of the 2nd or 3rd century. You

realize that mainstream Christians hold to the belief which
they feel is “absolute truth” that if you don’t believe in the
Trinity (that God is actually three persons yet one) and that
if you don’t believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of
God, then you cannot be “saved.” I can just see the
scholarly Muslim’s and Jew’s laughing at all of this verbal
obfuscation. Then one must also consider the controversies
within mainstream Christianity in these early centuries on
various other issues such as the proponents of
Manichaeism, Donatism, or Pelagianism. Then jump
forward to the sixteenth century with Martin Luther and the
debate regarding salvation that he stirred up in the world at
that time, and look where that all led. My head is already
spinning, someone get me off of this train. I just typed in
“debate on the trinity” on Ask.com and got the following
answer:

Do you have to believe in the holy

trinity to go to heaven or can you just
believe that Jesus was sent by God
to tell us about God?
In: The Bible, Christianity, New Testament
[Edit categories]

Answer:
*Please note this is from a Christian
protestants point of view*

Its hard to say a definite answer, for you

don't just stroll up to God one morning
and ask him etc.
I believe that Jesus is the son of God. God
sent down his only son to save all the
sinners (that’s all of us because no one is
perfect) from going to Hell.

The Holy trinity is God-Jesus-The Holy

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Spirit.
Though they maybe different people they
are all the same person.

Hope this is understandable.

*The following point-of-view is provided

by an agnostic who has spent the better
part of his adult life researching the
truth*(haven't found it yet) *Also please
note this will probably turn into a long
discussion or debate but I will try and give
honest answers with tongue in cheek
humor to defuse any and all flaming.*
(Yaa fun times)

First and foremost I would like to point

out that Jesus was a Jew, and if you
believe in the Jewish faith there is no hell
so no worries and we can move on, oh
don't eat swine.

New International version John 14:6 Jesus

answered, "I am the way and the truth
and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me"

Peoples New Testament "14:6 I am the

way, and the truth, and the life. This is
said in reply to Thomas. Without him
there would be no Way revealed; no
divine and saving truth, no immortal life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by
me. Not only can no one enter the
Father's house without him, but no man
can come to the Father on earth so as to
enjoy his favor. There is no other name
given under heaven among men whereby
we must be saved (Ac 4:12)"

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New American Standard Bible John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection
and the life; he who believes in Me will
live even if he dies.
So, as through his spoken word you would
have to believe in the trinity in order to
enter heaven. But the fact of the matter is
the Christian doctrine of the Trinity
teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit as three persons in one Godhead.(
In the Latter Day Saint movement, the
Godhead is the focus of worship and
devotion within the faith. It consists of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Depending on era and denomination, the
Latter Day Saint movement
accommodates a variety of doctrines
concerning the interrelationship and
metaphysical nature of the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.) The doctrine states that
God is the Triune God, existing as three
persons, or in the Greek hypostases, but
one being. Each of the persons is
understood as having the one identical
essence or nature, not merely similar
natures. Since the beginning of the third
century, the doctrine of the Trinity has
been stated as “that the one God exists in
three Persons and one substance, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.” Trinitarianism,
belief in the Trinity, is a mark of Oriental
and Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman
Catholicism and all the mainstream
traditions arising from the Protestant
Reformation, such as Anglicanism,
Methodism, Lutheranism and
Presbyterianism. The Oxford Dictionary of
the Christian Church describes the Trinity
as “the central dogma of Christian
theology.” So as long is you shoot for faith
in at least one of the three you will be

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praying to the same divine being and

should be covered in the end.
Plus Jesus said, “I leave you peace; my
peace I give you. I do not give it to you as
the world does. So don’t let your hearts
be troubled or afraid.” John 14:27 NCV
What ever you believe, your god already
understands the choices you were going
to make and still loves you.
PS that was a whole lot of typing so don’t
flame me for spelling or punctuation or
grammar
*EDIT FROM THE CHRISTIAN GUY*
Well that sure beat the cr@p out of my
answer.
*Edit from Agnostic Guy”

No offense (seriously), but it doesn’t

surprise me as religion is taught to you in
the church. I seek the truth through all
possible avenues. An open mind will teach
you more than a conditioned one.

OK, I’m back; someone give me a gun, really I’ve got to

end it!!! A couple more things and I’ll quit. The other day
I recall a really nice and sweet elderly World War Two
Veteran who came into see me with a small skin cancer on
his nose (see his picture with all his medals).

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Well, he started telling me about the grace of God and

how as a young 18 year old, an enemy bullet went whizzing
by his head during a fire fight and many of the men in his
company were killed on that day. He proceeded to tell me
that if he had been killed that day, then he would now be in
“hell” since he “did not know Jesus as his personal savior
at that point in his life.” I inferred from what he said that
many of his comrades that came from a similar background
of similar age whom also did not “know Jesus as their
personal savior” but who sacrificed their lives for our
freedom are now suffering the torments of the eternal fires
of hell. At least that is what he believed, but thanks to the
Grace of God, this kind and gentle man was still alive and
has since been saved from the fate of hells fire because that
bullet missed him but hit his friends. No disrespect to him,
but “GIVE ME A FRIKEN BREAK!” No, I can’t believe
in this kind of narrow minded culturally blinded God as
though a god such as this even existed. I believe that no
greater love has any man than someone lay down his life
for another and that regardless of what those young men
believed in their hearts or confessed with their mouths, I
refuse to believe that they are suffering in any of hells fire.
One more final thought that came to me the other day as
I sat watching my youngest son play soccer during try outs
for an Olympic Development Program team here in SC. I
thought that “Evangelical Christianity” along with their
formula’s for salvation reminded me of these young
hopeful kids and how many of them hoped to one day enter
into the elite and exclusive Major League Soccer (MLS)
and to play on one of these teams one day. Here were all
these kids practicing with all their abilities and with all
their hearts with the hope that one day, somehow, they
would be accepted into “this kingdom” known as the
MLS. Oh but “narrow is the gate and few there be that will
find it.” Isn’t this what the late day evangelical Christians

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believe about all of those individuals whose beliefs differ

from their own. That no matter how hard or how sincere
they practice their religion or form of spirituality, that they
will in no way ultimately be able to enter into their
Exclusive Heavenly Club (EHC), because they didn’t
believe the right things or speak from their hearts the right
name. All right, you caught me; I admit that I do
personally believe in God and that Jesus is His Son, and
that He died for my sins and the sins of the whole world. I
also believe that this did not and therefore does not depend
on me, or anyone within the “whole world.”
There are a lot of really bad people in all religions that I
think perhaps deserve to be punished, but I will leave that
for God to work out in His perfect way and in His perfect
time. And I don’t pretend to understand much of this either,
it’s just that my mind can no longer allow me to believe
otherwise though at one time I too believed just like you. I
love you LIKE CRAZY no matter what, and of this one
thing I am certain.

6. First Do No Harm
Can we sing “Kum-Ba-Ya” Together or Not?

Brother Richard Continues:

As a practicing physician of 20 plus years, somehow in

my conscience I am regularly reminded of the familiar
words from the Hippocratic Oath that I committed myself
to so many years ago ---- that is to, “FIRST DO NO
HARM.” No physician in their right mind ever set out to
intentionally DO HARM. However, I can assure you that
“TO DO NO HARM” is no easy task. When one is dealing
with disease or cancer, one must always weigh the risks vs.
the benefits of intervening although it may appear obvious
that “intervening” is not only appropriate in most cases, but
usually necessary. However, intervening usually involves

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some level of invasiveness that may in fact be potentially

disfiguring and/or somewhat destructive. Is some level of
destructiveness always necessary to bring about some
potentially positive effect or change? What about in the
realm of psychological constructs with reference to such
things as violent Jihad, revenge or self-preservation. In the
world where “the most fit” survive, some cultures have
seemed to have come up with the short end of the stick and
therefore if they are to compete for their survival, they have
to either find “a bigger stick,” or develop “a new trick.”
Some even resort to sacrificing themselves for their
“greater cause.” Isn’t this what Jesus did? He willingly
gave up his life, i.e. sacrificed his life for the lives of
others. Well isn’t that what’s in the minds of these crazy
suicide bombers? I know of more than one ideology where
one is willing to “give up their lives for the lives of
others. It seems that many of the followers were in every
way trying to get Jesus to give up this idea of self-
mortification. After all, they wanted him to fight for “their
cause” and overthrow “their oppressors,” and to ultimately
establish “the kingdom on earth as it was in heaven” which
he spoke of so freely as He declared his much deserved
kingship that he alone was worthy of claiming.
So it happened back then in the days of Jesus, that those
that were being oppressed had a rather radical leader and
what did he do? Well, in the end, while still very much in
the prime of his life, he reportedly willingly laid down his
life and died for a “greater cause.” Now I am not
supposing that Jesus was a suicide bomber as you try to
follow this train of thought, I just want to point out that
perhaps in the minds of any radical extremists, it does make
sense that they somehow accept their honored fate as a holy
martyr just as we Christians accept and respect the
martyrdom of the Apostles of Jesus, of which, 11 out of 12
died a martyr’s death. Recently I watched with much
interest Christiane Amanpour’s CNN Special about “The

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Son of Hamas” which is the title of a recently published

book. The author was interviewed while three others, all
from different backgrounds and very different perspectives
sat in the background and offered commentary on various
aspects of the interview of the young Mosab Hassan Josef
who was a son of one of the seven founders of what many
consider the Palestinian terrorist organization known as
Hamas. At the age of nineteen, he reportedly was captured
and tortured by the Israeli intelligence organization known
as Shin Bet. Over the course of the time of his
imprisonment, he reportedly was befriended by his captors
and eventually came to realize after the example of Jesus,
that unless we learn to “love our enemies,” that there will
be no chance of ever achieving peace in the Middle
East. As a child, he was taught to hate the infidels, the
enemies of Islam and he rejoiced and took pride in
successful suicide bombings where some or many
“infidels” were killed. After his “conversion” to
Christianity however, his new mission was to inform the
Israeli’s of potential suicide bombings so that they could be
prevented thereby saving innocent lives. He is currently
viewed by some as a type of savior but by others as a
traitor. He himself claims to have saved even his own
father “at least ten times,” although he could not save his
father from being arrested and put in prison which is where
he is currently being held in Israel.
Following the CNN special, I went to their website to
read the various comments on Amanpour’s Blog regarding
the above topic. What surprised me was how negative so
much of it was, from both sides of the divide. The young
Mosab Hassan Josef’s seemingly genuine conversion was
wrought with much suspicion from both sides. Perhaps he
was brainwashed some said! Some were enthralled how he
came to “The Truth” and comments about monotheism
were debated with reference to the Name of the one true
God which “is not Allah” they retorted. These were

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obviously comments made by someone living here in the

west and they’re obviously ignorant of the fact that even
Christians living in the Arabic world refer to their Christian
God by the name of Allah. Allah is the name for God in
Arabic, regardless of whether one refers to the God of
Muhammad or the God of Jesus. So when we look into
some of these things even a little bit below the surface, it
becomes apparent how simple nomenclature, in addition to
the differences of our languages, in some ways are
responsible for a least some of our points of
contention. Upon reading Amanpour’s blog further, I also
wondered why so many in the west were so critical of
young Mosab when in fact he could have turned out so
much worse, perhaps as a suicide bomber himself. Yet
still, it was somehow necessary for some to criticize young
Mosab Josef and question his credibility. Perhaps his zeal
for his new found faith and beliefs did come across with a
bit of naïveté and his sense of his role and level of
importance was a bit self-aggrandizing. However, I would
suggest that we ought to encourage anyone that is making
even a small evolutionary step toward peace while turning
away from violence and war. In other words, if he could
have turned out much worse than it appears, then why can’t
we be grateful for this step and give him our acceptance
and congratulations by way of some form of
encouragement, and loose the harsh criticism?
Tying it all together now, I would like to simply ask,
why can’t we all think before we act or speak and at least
attempt to “FIRST DO NO HARM,” if at all
possible? Must we always seek to criticize instead of
perhaps taking some time to explore the “other side” so as
to seek some common ground that might eventually build a
bridge toward some hope or progress and ultimately
forgiveness and acceptance? Critical words have the
potential power of destruction as does a surgeon’s knife,
but if carefully constructed ---- kind words and words of

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acceptance can breed seeds of reconciliation and ultimately

bring us a step closer to peace and a step further from death
and destruction.
On the other hand however, didn’t Jesus also say that He
came not only to bring peace, but also a sword? Jesus was,
among many other things, referred to as the “Great
Physician” and I suppose that at times, He must have done
what we might call, “necessary and even painful surgery”
so that some might be healed to at least some degree, of
their unique cultural and religious blindness.

We are all familiar with the ever so popular WWJD, but

I might like to also ask, “What Would Jesus Have Said,” or
perhaps, WWJS (What Would Jesus Say)? ” Well my Jesus
might have said that which I sent to you the other day when
I quoted Thomas Merton. At least I can truly imagine Him
saying something very close to this:

At the center of our being is a point of

nothingness which is untouched by sin
and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a
point of spark which belongs entirely to
God, which is never at our disposal, from
which God disposes of our lives, which is
inaccessible to the fantasies of our own
mind or the brutalities of our own
will. This little point of nothingness and
absolute poverty is the pure glory of God
in us. It is, so to speak, His name written
in us--as our poverty, our indigence, as
our dependence, as our son ship… It is
like a pure diamond, blazing with the
invisible light of heaven. It is in
everybody, and if we could see it we
would see these billion points of light
coming together in the face and blaze of a
sun that would make all the darkness and
cruelty of life vanish completely...I have
no program for this seeing. It is only

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given. But the gate of heaven is

everywhere.

Brother John‘s Response:

Thanks Brother, This short statement is difficult for me

to reconcile with scripture but it is a nice thought. Scripture
speaks of our sin nature and how our hearts are deceitfully
wicked but it is a nice thought. Love you brother!

John M. DeAngelis EPH 3:20

Brother Richard Responds:

Oh Hell,

Can't you ever just sit around the fire with me

and others hold hands and sing Kum-Ba-
Ya. Or however you spell it!!

Ricardo

Lol, that is hilarious! I love u bro!

John M. DeAngelis EPH 3:20

_______________________________________________

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7. Living in a Pluralistic Society

Accept it or not!

Brother Richard Continues: Anyone Surprised?

So I thought I would use this as another point of debate

so as to try to put it all in some context that makes some
sense, so let me try to summarize this mess! My primary
point being; that first of all, if God created Man and
Woman, and I believe He did; then after he did that,
whenever or however that was done; he declared that it
“was good.” So if we remember that what was made was
deemed “Good” by the creator, then perhaps our true nature
at our very core is in fact, “Good.” Not to say that we
didn’t somehow eventually become “something” else, that
is to say, something other than good, but remember that we
were first of all “Good.” Consider also that the Bible does
speak of “the light of God in every man” ---- for without it,
no man would ever recognize truth when that truth is
presented. For we can only understand that which we are,
hence we can understand the light because we are a creative
and intimate part of that light, which is the light of God
which does dwell within every man and woman, at least to
some degree, regardless of however dim, that light within
may be. So perhaps Merton’s quote is not really
contradictory to my understanding of the Bible. You simply
need to broaden your understanding, and then perhaps we
can sing Kum-Ba-Ya together--- So saying it again,
“WWJS?” I believe that He not only has said so much
already in the scriptures, but that He continues to speak
through us all to the degree that His light is within. So
perhaps, some truth is in everyone, and perhaps, “the gate
of heaven is in some way, everywhere.
By the way, I love it that just very recently a much
respected teacher within “Islam” declared a “Fatwa”
denouncing all forms of violence, especially the killing of

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others by way of suicide bombings. Supposedly this is

expected to have a large impact on many young people
being raised in the faith so as to more fully understand
“The Deeper Truth of the Teachings of their profit,
Muhammad.” Evidently such a “Fatwa” is analogous to a
Papal dictum when the Pope speaks “ex-cathedraly” which
is believed by faithful Catholics to carry the force of being
infallible and as binding as any and all the revelation of the
one true God. So you see, you must simply believe that
God still speaks and that His word cannot be divided into
words with less or more importance; it is all
“TRUTH.” Truth by which we should not only live by to
build up our faith and to increase our godliness but it
should in every way reflect a portion of the very life and
light within us, but not only in us, but in and through every
living soul that lives and breathes because of Him and that
Spirit that alone can give sustenance to all of our lives, both
physically and spiritually --- for perhaps in reality even
they cannot be separated. For example, can you imagine a
non-breathing body that has a spirit, or how about the other
way around. In other words, can you imagine a spirit
person without a body that is still somehow breathing? So,
if you can acknowledge that all breathing persons are doing
so by their reliance upon and the direct power of the one
and only Spirit of God through which we all live and
breathe and have our being, then you perhaps can imagine
that this same breath, and light does in fact dwell in all men
and women regardless of their “religious” heritage or
persuasions.
I guess to believe that we are more alike than different
forces each of us to further explore our cores, and that at
our core, we are all really very much alike regardless of any
man imposed borders or verbiage that begs to define where
we’re from and what we personally believe about what we
were taught to believe vs. what we have truly and uniquely
and individually “come to believe.” If that’s not enough to

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confuse you as you try to consider, then try to consider how

our beliefs might really have little merit or meaning if we
happened to be one of the unfortunate souls that is currently
subsisting on a riverbank fearing the coming rainy season
knowing that they have barely a piece of plastic to cover
their heads or a bit of clean water to drink. It’s all so very
different from the perspective of the “privileged” from
which the two of us obviously sit.
Speaking of various backgrounds and different religious
persuasions, whether we happen to believe that pluralism is
good or bad for us or our country, it is a fact of life that
pluralism is here to stay, and of this I am certain. So how
now shall we live, to paraphrase the title of Chuck Colson’s
recent behemoth book? With over one sixth of the world
population of Muslim persuasion, and obviously a larger
percentage Christian, not to mention a lesser but in no way
an insignificant fraction of the Jewish faith, shouldn’t we
first and foremost seek to understand one another and
thereby as the Dali Lama suggests, try to encourage all to
go deeper into their respective faith traditions with the hope
that through it all we might at least learn to humbly serve
and respect one another and through understanding, build
bridges based on that which we find as common ground
instead of always focusing on our differences which tends
to lead to extremism, alienation, and in its extreme,
annihilation. I believe that if we search hard enough in our
pursuit of mutual understanding then we might at the very
least find ourselves on a path that stands a chance to co-
exist. Just because we try to “understand” someone that is
different than ourselves doesn’t mean that we necessarily
subscribe to whatever it is that “someone” might do or
believe, but a greater understanding I believe, is always a
step in the right direction.

Brother Richard

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Epilogue
Speaking of our need for understanding, there are two
books that I would recommend that shed light on two
competing cultures and ideologies within the faith of Islam.
The first brings understanding to the world of extremism
and the life of Osama Bin Laden, and the second is a cry
for moderation with the hope of combating such
extremism. The First: Growing Up bin Laden: Osama's
Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World by Jean
Sasson.

My first concern as I considered purchasing this book

honestly was, "will the profits somehow secretly support
Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda?” However, after having
read the most fascinating featured article entitled "Osama's
Prodigal Son" in a recent Rolling Stone Magazine issue, I
was so captivated that I had to get this book. I was
somewhat comforted, however naïve, to read the very last
paragraph of this book and in every way trust and hope that
Jean Sasson will be enabled to fulfill the words of her
promise where she states; "I sincerely believe that nothing
will further the cause of peace more than the education of
our young. I would like the readers to know that a
percentage of the profits from the sale of this book will be
devoted to the cause of education." Finally she says, "May
all roads lead to peace." In this light, I do hope this most
captivating and revealing story is read all over the world
and is translated into many languages.
The main characters in this book, (Osama, his first wife
Najwa, and their fourth born son Omar) however
imbalanced they are, so clearly express at least three of the
nine very distinct and extreme personality types if one is
even remotely familiar with the Enneagram Personality
Theory. Of interest to me is that the Enneagram Personality
Theory, so clearly typifies the pathology that is inevitable

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when, for whatever reason, any one of us lacks balance and

are driven toward or ignorantly consumed by, some form of
extremism. In this case, Osama appears to be an extreme
"Eight Type," that sees the world through the eyes of an
underdog, with a naturally understandable albeit grossly
distorted desire to rid the world of those that would
dominate, subjugate, oppress, hijack and occupy his
understanding of "Islam" and his "Holy Land." This of
course is "his reason for living" and his life's mission, and
nothing will stand in his way.

However, as fate has it, when we so vehemently desire

to fight that which we detest, we often become that which
we hate; namely dominators, subjugators, oppressors,
occupiers and hijacker’s with the end result being some
form of death and/or destruction to most of those whose
lives we touch. Just like the character Tevye in the popular
musical Fiddler on the Roof quoted that if everyone "took
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, then the whole
world would end up blind and toothless.” Such is the nature
of war and revenge, it always has been, and always will be.
Now if Osama had his way, his fourth born son Omar
would have taken to the same "violent Jihad" but
thankfully, his fourth born son Omar has a different vision
of what he hopes for and wants the world to be. A quote
from the 21st chapter; "if my father was counting on me to
carry out his dreams, he would be sorely disappointed. At
my first opportunity, I would lift my feet from my father's
footprints and make my own." While Omar grew up with
such a great desire to please his father and to gain his
approval, Omar seems to be a "Type Two" personality and
has found the inner strength and courage to stand up to and
oppose his father with an equal tenacity that this "Type"
often expresses when "pushed over the edge" by an all-
powerful "Eight Type." So Omar's desire and "reason for
being" is to perpetuate aid and peace first for his own life

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and then for the lives of others. On the one hand, Omar
speaks of his father's determination where he says about his
father, "He would never turn his back on Jihad, even if it
meant that everyone he loved, including every wife and
every child, was killed because of his actions." On the other
hand Omar states earlier in the same chapter through his
experience with "Real War" that, "I was sorry to
continually disappoint my father, but I came away with
renewed determination that war was the most useless
exercise imaginable. While perched on that mountaintop, I
had pledged to spend the rest of my life speaking out
against the very thing my father so loved."
Then there is Osama's first of five wives Najwa, a most
beautiful portrait of an all loving, submissive and self-
sacrificing "Nine Type" that avoids conflict at all cost. In
so many ways she is the unconditionally loving mother that
most of us desire to have and some so desperately need.
However, unfortunately, the culture within which she is
raised along with her natural propensity to "go along to get
along" with the "powers that be," kept her from even
questioning, let alone opposing the nature of her all
powerful husband that eventually became "the monster"
that the vast majority of the world has now come to know.
It is so interesting to me and at the same time so sad how
this extreme sect of Islam known as Wahhabism to which
Osama subscribes is so against any modern interpretation
of Islam while he paradoxically raced around in any
number of his Mercedes cars, and was forced to accept
modern medical care when he or his children were near
death. He also of course espouses and maintains such a
modest so called "protectionist" world view toward women
so that they remain pure in the eyes of Allah. In their view,
it's perfectly acceptable to take so many wives and to have
as many children as possible. They say that they want to
perpetuate Islam and to reproduce and multiply so as to
fight against those that would otherwise dominate them, i.e.

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the Christians and the Jews. On some level this makes

sense, but what these extremist seem to fail to see is that
99.9 % of the people in the world are all going about their
own business doing the best they can to live peaceably in a
multicultural, diverse and ever increasingly complex world.
Just like Najwa went about her daily life doing the best she
could to care for those that made up her world, so do the
vast majority of all people of all religions and races.
However as I look at the overall picture of individuals like
Osama bin Laden (thank God they are rare) and his unique
personality and try to understand how he came to be, I see a
perversion of everything holy and good, an absolute
mockery of any true God: A God who is love, the giver of
life, and not the perpetrator of death in any fashion or form.
Like many extreme "Eight Types" that I have known,
when out of balance, underneath the façade of their all-
powerful personalities, they are some of the most insecure,
weak, controlling, and pathetic human beings on the planet,
of which I personally think Osama is King. Peace on Earth
and Good Will toward All Men and Women!! Read this
book, you will not be able to put it down.

The second book, Acts of Faith, The Story of an

American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation
by Eboo Patel.

I believe this is a very important book written by a most

moderate Muslim that started the Interfaith Youth Core
and is teaching the all-important perspective that we all
should hope flourishes so that extremism of all kinds in our
country can be minimized. Many of you have demanded to
know where the real voices of the Moderate Muslims are
in this country, and why they are not speaking out. Well,
here is at least one voice that offers us concrete answers to
that and many other important questions.

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Last of all, I would say that my effort here is in no way

novel, and that many others, much greater than I have also
mellowed through the years as they developed a greater
understanding of others and their diverse worlds in which
they lived. In the book by David Aikman entitled, Great
Souls, Six Who Changed a Century. Quoting a bit out of
context, but with reference to Billy Graham:

Why this preoccupation with peace?

Graham’s globe-trotting during his
decades of worldwide evangelism, his rich
experience of different world leaders, his
encounter with hugely varied theologies,
ideologies, and politics, had made him a
very different man in his sixties and
seventies from what he had been three or
four decades earlier. He was still
preeminently an evangelist, convinced
that evangelism alone was his true calling
in life. But there was now a depth, a
richness, a subtlety, indeed a generosity
to his judgments that, whatever his early
virtues had not been present in Graham
the zealous young man. (Even Ruth came
around to acknowledging that his trips to
the Communist bloc, which she had
fiercely opposed at first, had been the
right thing to do.)

Would that we develop such a depth, a richness, a

subtlety, and indeed a generosity to our judgments as we
endeavor to live our lives in peace with our neighbors in
our ever smaller but vastly diverse world in which we live
and breathe and have our being.
In the final analysis, at least as far as I’m concerned, my
core beliefs have not really changed, but have certainly
evolved toward a more universal understanding of who I

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believe Jesus was and still is. I can’t help but imagine how
He might respond to the many crises of our time in this
present day and age where religious, ethnic and cultural
pluralism are so prominent and political correctness is the
common language of our land. I do imagine that as He
offended many then, that He would likely do the same now.
I would assume that the politically power hungry
imperialist might be foremost on his list, but as I am
reminded of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth,
pride, lust, envy and wrath ---- I would also imagine that
none of us would be exempt from our need of His gentle
guidance, understanding, tolerance and forgiveness. I
wonder how closely associated the meaning of the word
tolerance and forgiveness really is in God’s grand
vocabulary? Even if we are forgiven, I suggest that God
must look at all of us at times and just have to tolerate
many things that we do or say.

As has always been the case with me, just when I

thought that I have discovered something worth sharing or
publishing, I then discover something on the same subject
written by someone else, which expresses “that something”
much more simply, and certainly more succinctly, and with
much greater integrity and degree of scholarship. Well, if
you will allow me to truly close with “that something” then
I promise to put an end to this “eternal” debate. I do
believe that it really does “tie it all together.” Thus far, in
this Epilogue, I have recommended a couple of books with
reference to Islam, one in reference to Billy Graham, an
evangelical Christian, and my last recommendation is a
book that I believe is out of print, but is still available on
Amazon.com. It was first published in 1946 by Simon and
Schuster and written by a Jewish rabbi named Joshua Loth
Liebman and the book is simply entitled, “Peace of Mind.”
The rather lengthy quote below is taken from a subsection
of the fourth chapter aptly entitled “Love or Perish!”

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Tolerance Is Love

How can we best love our neighbors?

Many are the pathways that men choose
to follow in their pursuit of altruism. I
need mention but one or two. We best
show our love for our neighbors when we
achieve an inner tolerance for the
uniqueness of others, when we resist the
temptation to private imperialism. As a
matter of fact, the world is full of private
imperialists, those who cannot conquer
any foreign territory but who make those
nearest and dearest to them pay tribute
all of their lives to their tyrannical decrees
– the father, for example, who forces his
artistic son into his business, or the
mother who rivets her daughter to her
service by chains of pity and guilt, subtly
refusing the daughter a life of her own. In
contrast to these totalitarians within the
family circle we show love to those closest
to us when we permit them to be
themselves rather than to submit to the
strait-jacket of our dominating desires –
when we refuse in the name of love ever
to demand unconditional surrender from
our son, our daughter, our wife, our
brother.

A love of neighbor manifests itself in

the tolerance not only of the opinions of
others but, what is more important, of the
essence and uniqueness of others, when
we subscribe to that religious philosophy
of life which insists that God has made
each man and woman an individual sacred

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personality endowed with a specific

temperament, created with differing
needs, hunger, dreams. This is a
variegated, pluralistic world where no two
stars are the same and every snowflake
has its own distinctive pattern. God
apparently did not want a regimented
world of sameness. That is why creation is
so manifold. So is it with us human
beings. Some are born dynamic and
restless; others placid and contemplative.
One man’s body is that of a wrestler’s –
thick-muscled, strong, vibrant, needing
far greater physical outlet than does the
pale poet or the gaunt ascetic. One man’s
temperament is full-throated with
laughter; another’s tinkles with the sad
chimes of gentle melancholy. Our
physiques are different, and that simple
difference often times drives us into
conflicting fulfillment of our natures, to
action or to thought, to passion or to
denial, to conquest or to submission.
There is here no fatalism of endowment.
We can change and prune and shape the
hedges of our being, but we must rebel
against the sharp shears being wielded by
others hands, cutting off the living
branches of our spirits in order to make
our personalities adornments for their
dwellings.

The achievement of true tolerance in

personal relations is a prerequisite not
only in ethics but also in individual
adjustment. As long as we are unhappy if
others do not conform to our wishes and
our ideas of what is proper, good,
acceptable, we show that we ourselves
are not certain of the rightness of our
inner pattern. He who is sure of himself is

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deeply willing to let others be themselves.

He who is unstable in his own character
must reassure himself by trying to
compress others into his mold.

We display true love for our neighbors

when we cease to demand that another
person become a modified version of our
ideas – a revised edition of ourselves.

Tolerance, which is one form of love of

neighbor, must manifest itself not only in
our intimate personal relations, but also in
the arena of society as well. In the world
of opinion and politics, tolerance is that
virtue by which liberated minds conquer
the evils of bigotry and hatred. Tolerance
implies more than forbearance or the
passive enduring of ideas differing from
our own. Properly conceived, tolerance is
the positive and cordial effort to
understand another’s beliefs, practices,
and habits without necessarily sharing or
accepting them. Tolerance quickens our
appreciation and increases our respect for
a neighbor’s point of view. It goes even
further; it assumes a militant aspect when
the rights of an opponent are assailed.
Voltaire’s dictum, “I do not agree with a
word that you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it” is for all ages
and places the perfect utterance of the
tolerant ideal.

A delicate balance must be struck by

the tolerant man, a balance between
unreasoned hatred – grounded in
ignorance and fear – and pale
indifferentism, which may be merely a
symptom of spiritual sloth. “Much that
passes for Tolerance,” says John Morley,

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“is only a pretentious form of being

without settled opinions of our own, or
any desire to settle them.” Tolerance is
not moral laxity or easy deviation from
established principles. If we say
apathetically, “One notion is as good as
another,” we are not being tolerant; we
are merely being lazy. Yet if we attempt
to force our neighbor to conform to our
convictions, we run the gravest of all risks
– the risk of violating the rights of others.

Inspired guides in these matters –

John Milton in England and Roger Williams
in our own country – recommend neither
a mealy-mouthed acquiescence nor a
cocksure pugnacity. Emphatically not the
latter. Dense, unenlightened people are
notoriously confident that they have the
monopoly on truth; if you need proof, feel
the weight of their knuckles. But anyone
with the faintest glimmerings of
imagination knows that truth is broader
than any individual conception of it,
stronger that any fist. Recall, too, how
many earnestly held opinions and
emotions we have outgrown with the
passage of years. Given a little luck, plus
a lively sense of the world about us, we
shall probably outgrow many more.
Renan’s remark that our opinions become
fixed at the point where we stop thinking
should be sufficient warning against
premature hardening of our intellectual
arteries, or too stubborn insistence that
we are infallibly and invariably right.

Viewed in this way, tolerance becomes

the bulwark of social and individual
liberty, the guarantor of a hundred civil
rights, and the chief element in any

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cultural advance that a society may

expect to make. Undermine tolerance or
whittle it away, and you diminish the
traditional liberties we so arduously
struggled for and endanger the fight for
the freedoms still to be won. Our free
press, our privileges of free assembly and
religious worship, our very dikes of
tolerance, laboriously built, privately held,
and individually practiced. When we relax
our private grasp of tolerance, when we
fail to practice it in our individual lives, we
jeopardize the structure for all.

There have been some great apostles

of tolerance in America; George
Washington’s intervention in behalf of the
Tories is a little-known example. When
patriotic hotheads wished to plunder Tory
estates and do violence to their persons,
Washington permitted the Tories to depart
peaceably for Canada. Demanding liberty
for conscience himself, Washington
defended it in others. Roger Williams,
denied religious liberty in Salem, made a
hazardous trek on foot through wintry
forests to found Providence, the first
sanctuary of civil and religious tolerance in
America. Phillips Brooks, in a famous
sermon, condensed his philosophy of
American tolerance in these words: “It
expresses a perfectly legitimate and
honorable relation between opposite
minds. I disagree with my friend. But I
respect him; I want him to be true to his
convictions yet I claim the right and duty
of trying to persuade him to my belief.
Tolerance is the meeting in perfect
harmony of earnest conviction and
personal indulgence.”

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But despite the hardihood of its

occasional champions, tolerance itself is a
fragile plant. Untended, it withers and
dies. As it fades, another growth – the
poisonous mushroom of intolerance –
takes its place. This does not happen
suddenly, but by imperceptible degrees. A
privilege is shorn away, a censorship
erected, a hatred takes root, oppressive
legislation in enacted, and soon we are
living in the black forest of intolerance,
sunless and fearsome for all who dwell in
its shade.

Democracy is the principle of tolerance

extended into the sphere of politics.
Tolerance preserves, rather than destroys,
minorities. And these minorities in turn
perform a valuable function by acting as
brake upon the party I power. This is a
major premise of our government. Take
away tolerance and our democracy will
not survive.

Religion and Love

The task of religion, as far as love and

hate are concerned, is immensely clarified
by the discoveries of dynamic psychology.
Men no longer should be exhorted to
altruism but should be taught to recognize
the face of self-hate in all its guises of
both narcissism and masochism. Religion
now can teach man the inner origins of
warped attitudes toward the self; it can
teach him how to overcome these
distorting enemies of inner peace. Religion
can remove the mask from false love of
others which actually is sadism in
disguise. It can teach us to become
sensitive and subtle in our understanding

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of the meaning of love, counterfeit and

real. And it can strengthen us in the
conviction that love of neighbor is no
illusion but is part of the ultimate
compulsion of the human universe.

Religion can now help us understand

that people who want always to receive
and never to give are cases of arrested
development. They are to be pitied and
helped to develop, just as we take stunted
children with glandular defects and
through hormone injections and endocrine
extracts enable them to mature
physically. The time must come when we
shall be subtle enough to see with the eye
of our imagination the soul of the selfish
man as we now can see the stunted
physique of the abnormal man. Then we
shall realize that the totally self-centered
individual is really a moral cretin, a
spiritual imbecile-that he who tries to take
but not to give to life inevitably dies half a
man.

Religion illumined by modern

psychology can now teach men the
meaning of “love,” immature and mature.
Love is not mature when it presents to the
“self” a reparations bill for the indemnity
of past defects, a reparations bill that the
human ego can no more play than an
impoverished and vanquished nation can
satisfy a vengeful victor. When we
demand of ourselves extreme perfection,
extreme independence, extreme
saintliness, and extreme power – then, no
matter how much attention we may lavish
upon our mind and spirit, we are loving
ourselves the way the inquisitor loves the
heretic that he is burning.

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Mature love of our neighbor is

unconditional love which does not ask the
impossible, but which understands that
the ideal of life is tolerant growth, flexible
mutuality, and progressive harmony. Love
becomes mature when it achieves the
attitude of respect for the valuable
aspects of the “self” and the “neighbor.” A
man who is capable of treasuring the
constructive and creative aspects of his
own personality, who sees them as part of
a larger social inheritance, is willing both
to give and to receive affection without
seeking to make himself the master over
others or the slave of others – such a man
has entered the holy of holies of genuine
adult love. End quote…

Just the other day, a dear elderly patient of mine

expressed how her granddaughter was such a devoted
Christian that she “only associates with Christians as much
as possible and will certainly not get involved in a serious
relationship with a Non-Christian.” I smiled as she spoke
with such assurance and pride... While I do understand
from where she is coming with this kind of expression of
faith, however, I sensed underneath it all, more of a fear of
the “unknown other” than an actual assurance of a deep
seated faith. I dare say that this upstanding lady in our
southern society likely falls on the far right of our political
system as well, and just as she has insulated her life over
her past 75 years from ever really getting to know anyone
of the “unknown other,” I suspect that her granddaughter
will likely do the same. This is not, in my opinion, how I
would define the “tolerance” spoken of above, but instead a
by-product of more of the same extreme fear that has
polarized our world and continues to sow seeds of discord
with resultant ignorant “intolerance.” In my view and
experience, it is not so uncommon for many evangelical

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Christians in this country and culture to freely espouse

“that whom-so-ever will may come,” and deeply believe in
this gospel message of “inclusivity” ---- but in actuality,
they often unconsciously harbor such fears of the
“unknown other,” such that their entire lives are lived in a
continual state of extreme “exclusivity” as though “the
unknown other,” really doesn’t even exist. So if this in any
way rings true, then you might perhaps better understand
why I would rather believe and live, whether it’s true or
not, as though His salvation is universal.

Guess who?

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Afterword

By wisdom a house is built and through

understanding
It is established;
Through knowledge its rooms are filled
with rare
and beautiful treasures.
Proverbs 24:3&4

We’ve all heard that it’s “the squeaky wheel that gets
the grease!” I believe that this trite little phrase certainly
holds true at many levels within our media driven society,
especially here in the western world where our freedom of
speech is held in such high regard as a foundational
building block upon which our western democracy and
constitution is built. However, what concerns me is that
perhaps the loudest voices have taken an extreme view that
actually distorts what I believe might more closely
represent “the truth.” For example with regards to the
general stance of the right leaning “moral majority” that
often speak of “the fact” that our nation was founded upon
“Christian” principles. How are they defining “Christian”
in this context? I suppose that they loosely define
“Christian” to mean that which they are, which I personally
think needs further clarification. Since it seems to me that
the voices that are shouting the loudest would have us
believe that our nation was founded not only on “Christian”
values, but more specifically on the doctrines so defined in
the Bible as it is so understood and interpreted by the
predominately right-wing “Evangelical Christian
Movement.” Not meaning to get to far off the beaten path
here, but let’s at least recall “the fact” that Thomas
Jefferson (who was certainly not the least of our founding

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fathers) was a “Deist” and that he actually was so bold as to

rewrite his own version of the “Gospel of Jesus” as he saw
it, to such an extreme I might add so that it was
understandable and reasonable according to his world view.
In fact, he basically took out every verse that even hinted of
any supernatural undertone, and ended up with a much
shortened version of the gospel accounts of the life and
morals of Jesus of Nazareth, purposefully leaving out any
mention of the virgin birth or resurrection. Now it’s not that
I personally believe as Thomas Jefferson did in this regard,
it’s just that as “Christians,” I believe that we are exhorted
to seek out and to earnestly attempt to find “truth” in all
areas of life, and that we should not knowingly
misrepresent anything that is even in a subtle way “sold” as
the “truth” just to satisfy or push “our agenda.”
Now I love my county as much as the next of my fellow
Americans, but at times, it appears to me that we
“Americans” would rather look back with one eye closed,
so as to deny or at the very least, fail to admit or
acknowledge the widely known “shadow” side of the
origins and founding of this great nation. Has anyone not
read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American
History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen? So
what’s the point? I believe that it’s such “short
sightedness” that tends to get us as a nation into most
trouble in any number of ways regarding our religious
ideals which in many instances is nothing more than
narrow minded nationalism, to be kind, and downright
ignorance, to be blunt. Now I didn’t mean to get into
politics but since we have already discussed religion and I
dare say “beat that horse to death,” then why not at least
superficially address a few other areas of controversy in
this conclusion.

The first law of thermodynamics states “that for every

action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Now

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we’re talking “absolute truth!!!” With regards to religion,

what concerns me most about the rise of terrorism is that
the well-meaning Bush backers with their extreme agenda
mostly supported by the religious right --- A.K.A. the
“Born Again Evangelical Christian Movement” --- is
becoming in some ways how the world views
“Christianity” as a whole. Now if this is true, then I might
rather follow His Holiness the Dalai Lama in hopes of
bringing what I believe is a “kinder and gentler Jesus” to
the view of the world. A world in desperate need of balance
and peace among all peoples with the hope of alleviating
suffering at all levels and to avoid instead what we continue
to witness as an ever increasing and understandable
“Blowback” --- The Costs and Consequences of American
Empire which is actually as you may know the title of
another important book written by Chalmers Johnson in the
year 2000, just one year before 9/11 which in some ways
defined even more clearly the meaning of “Blowback,”
which is basically the first law of thermodynamics in living
color. On second thought, perhaps 9/11 more clearly
typifies the Second Law of Thermodynamics which is:
“That all things tend toward disorder” --- The Law of
Entropy.

On two separate National Holiday’s, sometime in the

early part of our countries war efforts in Afghanistan and
Iraq; in my frustration, I sat and wrote these excerpts with
which I will attempt to close and put an end to this book:
The more recent one was written on Memorial Day in 2008
and it is as follows:

My wife Ruth and I just returned from

Williamsburg, VA and had the opportunity
of reviewing a bit of our Colonial history.
We most enjoyed an hour long
dissertation by a phenomenal orator
playing the character of Thomas Jefferson.

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My father-in-law was indeed a great

admirer and scholar of Thomas Jefferson,
and listening to the orator speak reminded
us so much of him. My father-in-law is a
retired master engineer and he served in
the US Navy for 20 years. While listening
to the dissertation, Ruth and I both gained
a greater appreciation and respect for her
father William W. Gentry. His manner of
speech, demeanor and philosophy in so
many ways was evidently patterned after
the life of Thomas Jefferson.

The night before, we were walking in

the historic district of Williamsburg and
came across a small crowd of tourist much
like ourselves, and they were captivated
by the speech and conversation of one of
the local historians. He was not “in
character” at the time, but was still in
costume. Interestingly, he was discussing
and debating with the onlookers current
affairs and was drawing correlations from
his understanding of the history of the
Revolutionary War to our current
involvement in foreign lands, specifically
Iraq. Admittedly he was against the
invasion and occupation of Iraq and
interestingly, he compared the difficulties
the British faced in fighting a non-
conventional insurrection two to three
thousand miles away in a foreign land and
how it progressively weakened the
Colonial Army and eventually bankrupted
the Motherland, much like our current
conflict with Iraq and Afghanistan which
are stressing our military and certainly
further bankrupting this country.

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And finally an excerpt from the other letter that I wrote

on Veterans Day in 2004, the year that George W. Bush
was re-elected to serve his second term in office, which I
titled:

True Religion & Other Religious Rhetoric

There was a time from my eighteenth

year until the age of thirty-five, that
fundamentally, I pretty much was sure in
my mind of all the answers to most of
life’s important questions regarding
morality and other life and death issues.
In the end, I believe that it is often our
fears that dictate to each of us the truth
about how we choose to define our
morality --- and after all, we will always
be able to find some so called “inspired or
inerrant” text to support our old, and/or,
our new found fears.

In the New Testament book of James,

it says that “True Religion is to take care
of widows and orphans.” If I am certain
of nothing in this quagmire of confusion,
at the very least I am certain of this; and
that is --- that we are not supposed to be
creating more widows and orphans by our
direct or indirect actions, but taking care
of them instead. Of course, we are a
“moral majority” and we have made our
voices heard by re-electing President
George W. Bush. After all, he was the
only “moral” choice for the American voter
so by inference it must be that to stand on
the left of center is to side with the
“immoral minority” where most sit on the
side of the pro-choice and gay rights
supporters. Now what I am talking about

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here has little to do with abortion or gay

rights, but it appears to me and others,
that the democrats failed to rhetorically
persuade enough voters that there are
just as many, if not more, equally as
important “moral issues” that face our
nation, and that the global impact of our
foreign policy actions will continue to
speak louder than our “rhetoric.”

Speaking of rhetoric, a story in today’s

news took me a bit by surprise in that it
speaks to, at least in my mind, the subtle
but blind hypocrisy that sometimes under-
lies the “rhetoric” of the Right-Winged
Moral Majority. The issue at hand on this
Veterans Day in 2004 was the objection of
this religious right group to the “foul
language” in the movie “Saving Private
Ryan” that was scheduled to air on prime
time television in an attempt to bring
some degree of awareness to the reality
of war on this day of remembrance. Help
me out here if you will, but is this not the
same group of people backing the war
effort of this current administration? Are
they really serious about not wanting to
allow their children to hear the “foul
language” in this movie but the images of
killing and war are some how less
offensive and not the real point of
contention or objection. I guess one has
to focus on something relatively trivial in
order to abjectly deny the real horror at
hand while they cast their vote with their
eyes shut to the consequences of this
leader’s intentions and fear mongering
administrative aggressions.

So as it applies to politics, it also applies to religion and

perhaps to every other realm of life, both in the here and

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now and even possibly in the here-after. Rhetoric has

confused many a soul --- built up and brought down many
kings and common men alike, but in the beginning and in
the end --- all that counts is a listening ear that lends itself
to kindness, which hopefully will lead us all to a greater
understanding of many truths both simple and profound,
both relative and absolute, not only toward those of our
“own kind,” but toward the “unknown other”--- be they
found in churches, communities, or in other countries
throughout and upon which we all stand together, on this --
- our shared planet.
May each of us continue to strive not only to survive
but to thrive as we all do our small part in humility as
we serve one another in a spirit of cooperation through
brotherly love which alone will ensure our necessary co-
existence!
Well, we started this not so little book project about
a year and a half ago and it’s almost Christmas. So all I
have left to say is what little Cindy Lou Who from
Whoville said at the very end of “The Grinch That Stole
Christmas” and that is:

God Bless Us, Every One!!!

Ok, I lied again, just one more thing --- did I tell you
what I wanted for Christmas this year besides wanting
my entire family to sit down together and for the first
time watch “The Fiddler on the Roof?? I’ll give you a
hint; it’s the same thing that I wanted last year and the
year before...

Of Course, --- World Peace...

Brother Richard

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Brother John Finally Responds:

OK Brother Richard, you have emailed me and called

and in your subtle and kind way have hinted too many
times now, that I really needed to send some of my final
thoughts. You remind me of the guy that prayed to God
--- “Lord give me patience, and give it to me now!” All
right, I have heard you loud and clear; let’s see what I
can do to summarize my thoughts by way of some
concluding remarks.
At this point, I’m not even going to try to go back
and attempt to specifically respond to any line by line
item or thought, they are simply too numerous, and I
could never keep up with your endless or should I say
“eternal” ability to somehow find the time to put your
thoughts on paper. I believe that the bulk of our
differences basically come down to an overall difference
in our world view, and I think that at least this much is
clear. You obviously have adopted more of a “New Age”
philosophy that believes all, and accepts all so that in
your need for everyone to live in this world in peace,
you have come to this; but not without many
compromises. To put it bluntly, it sounds to me as
though you have “sold out” that which at one time you
held “near and dear” with respect to “the truth” that you
once believed was “the truth that was once and for all
delivered unto the saints” to quote the scriptures one
more time if you will allow. Remember that in the end
while the world will be crying for “Peace, Peace --- but
there will be no “Peace” until the Prince of Peace comes
again to reign in glory. You mentioned that we will all
die somewhere back there in all your ranting’s, but
failed to mention that even though all will die and that
all have died; let’s not forget that Jesus didn’t stay dead
for long. For on the third day he rose again and
appeared to countless people that were alive at that
time and also appeared to Saul while he was on his way
to Damascus to kill more Christians when he had his 180
degree conversion. You will recall that he was blinded
by the light of Christ and was given specific instructions
as to how to have his sight restored. That was the

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beginning of a new life for Saul whom then became Paul

and became the greatest protagonist for the cause of
Jesus Christ where just minutes before, he was the
greatest antagonist that ever lived. Now if you no
longer believe these scriptures or somehow interpret
them some other way, then as I said before, there is no
room for debate. Not to get off track, but I happen to
believe that this same Jesus that appeared to Saul and
many others, will come again to judge the living and the
dead just as it is stated in the Apostles Creed that you
used to quote in Catholic Mass when you were a child.
Now what about this idea of the second coming of
Christ? I know that there are many differences of
opinion among the scholars of Scripture regarding “end
time” events, but let’s suffice it to say that the vast
majority of mainstream Christians believe that Jesus
was resurrected in bodily form, and that He will likewise
return to this earth in that same bodily form. I don’t
pretend to understand what that “eternal glorified bodily
form is like, but I do believe that when he appears in the
end (whenever that will be in the grand scheme) that
those who believe will appear with Him and so we will be
with Him forever throughout all eternity. Now if you
believe in “the eternal” and that Jesus is the Alpha and
Omega, that proceeded from the Father but had no
beginning or ending then perhaps you can understand
why I continue to hold fast to the many other things
which I have said as I have tried to express that which I
believe.
I realize that many people of many faiths such as
Muslims or the Jews don’t believe that Jesus actually
died on the cross or that He rose from the dead, but this
is simply where I choose to disagree. So in the end, I
can agree to disagree, but I must be true to my heart by
living a life by the grace of God in and through the Spirit
of God which He will freely give to all who will simply
ask. He said that I stand at the door and knock and that
whom-so-ever hears my voice and opens the door, I will
come in and have supper with him and him with me.
So while you know that I would love to sit by the
fire with you or anyone else for that matter and sing

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Kum Ba Ya --- but I truly don’t want anyone of any faith

(anywhere in the world for that matter) to miss the
ultimate camp fire where those that know Jesus Christ
as their personal savior will be able to sit and sing Kum
Ba Ya for all eternity if they like. However, like John the
Baptist who baptized with water and said “that there
was one that was coming whose sandals I am unworthy
to untie --- that He will baptize you with fire.” So just
as John the Baptist pointed the way to the one much
greater than him, so I, John your brother must likewise
point you and others to that same Jesus so that you and
they will not possibly experience a Christ-less eternity in
some other form of fire. Now these are not my words,
but the words of Him whom I believe lives and reigns
with the Father, the only true God and to whom we will
all somehow someday give an account --- when He
comes again to judge the living and the dead. In the
end, and it will only be then, that there will be true and
everlasting peace. So I say why simply settle for world
peace when such a peace is only temporal, but that in
fact you can possess eternal peace by accepting the
Prince of Peace this day. So I will close this “Eternal
Debate” and allow Jesus to speak from the scriptures
one last time if you will bear with me and allow Him to
speak in the entire 14th chapter of the book which is
written by my namesake John --- and I quote:

Jesus Comforts His

Disciples
1
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You
believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My
Father’s house has many rooms; if that
were not so, would I have told you that I
am going there to prepare a place for
you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come back and take you to be
with me that you also may be where I am.
4
You know the way to the place where I
am going.”

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Jesus the Way to the Father

5
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t
know where you are going, so how can we
know the way?”

6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me. 7 If you really
know me, you will know[b] my Father as
well. From now on, you do know him and
have seen him.”

8
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father
and that will be enough for us.”

9
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me,
Philip, even after I have been among you
such a long time? Anyone who has seen
me has seen the Father. How can you say,
‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe
that I am in the Father, and that the
Father is in me? The words I say to you I
do not speak on my own authority.
Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who
is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I
say that I am in the Father and the Father
is in me; or at least believe on the
evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very
truly I tell you, whoever believes in me
will do the works I have been doing, and
they will do even greater things than
these, because I am going to the Father.
13
And I will do whatever you ask in my
name, so that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. 14 You may ask me for
anything in my name, and I will do it.

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Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit

“If you love me, keep my commands.

15

16
And I will ask the Father, and he will
give you another advocate to help you
and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of
truth. The world cannot accept him,
because it neither sees him nor knows
him. But you know him, for he lives with
you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave
you as orphans; I will come to you. 19
Before long, the world will not see me
anymore, but you will see me. Because I
live, you also will live. 20 On that day you
will realize that I am in my Father, and
you are in me, and I am in you. 21
Whoever has my commands and keeps
them is the one who loves me. The one
who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I too will love them and show myself
to them.”

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said,

22

“But, Lord, why do you intend to show

yourself to us and not to the world?”

23
Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me
will obey my teaching. My Father will love
them, and we will come to them and make
our home with them. 24 Anyone who does
not love me will not obey my teaching.
These words you hear are not my own;
they belong to the Father who sent me.

“All this I have spoken while still with

25

you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,

whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind
you of everything I have said to you. 27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give

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you. I do not give to you as the world

gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled
and do not be afraid.

28
“You heard me say, ‘I am going away
and I am coming back to you.’ If you
loved me, you would be glad that I am
going to the Father, for the Father is
greater than I. 29 I have told you now
before it happens, so that when it does
happen you will believe. 30 I will not say
much more to you, for the prince of this
world is coming. He has no hold over me,
31
but he comes so that the world may
learn that I love the Father and do exactly
what my Father has commanded me.

“Come now; let us leave.”

He, who has an ear, let him hear...

I love you my brother Richard,

Brother John

________________________________________

Postscript:

Wow!! You are freaking amazing!! I don't think I could

have summarized it better myself!! I thought you were
kidding when you said that you would write it for me if I
took too long! I should have known better! The strange
thing is that while I was reading it I started questioning if I
actually wrote it in my sleep or if I just forgot that I wrote
it! You were able to "channel" my thoughts extraordinarily
well! You are quite a talented writer as I've said before and

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your ability to argue both sides of the issue is more

evidence that you know the truth better than most.
However, you are conflicted like many "food court"
Christians who want to pick and choose the truths that
make sense to them from multiple religions and faiths
much like one would walk by multiple restaurants in a mall
food court and taste free samples being handed out before
deciding where they might want to eat. I believe, for you at
least, that when you become hungry enough and have
reached the end of your samplings that you will ultimately
decide to feast on Jesus Christ the "Bread of life" and drink
from His well from which "you will never thirst again."
Until that day I will be here praying for you and praising
God that He ended the "eternal debate" by sending Jesus as
a perfect atonement for our sins. I love you my brother.

John M. DeAngelis EPH 3:20

Brother Richard’s Very Last Response: No More Lies...

I’m sitting here at 6:30am on this Sunday morning with

headsets on listening to Russ Hudson speak on the topic of
“The Enneagram as a Tool in our Spiritual Journey” from a
recent conference held in conjunction with Richard Rohr in
New Mexico over the New Year of 2009. This seven CD
series just arrived three days ago on my door step and I’m
on Disc 2 at the moment. Oddly enough, as I listened to
the introduction to this conference given to over 600 people
almost two years ago now, I am utterly amazed at the actual
content. Well again I am reminded of how my thoughts
and efforts are so unnecessary. Why? You guessed it, these
two guys expressed in two hours what took me countless
hours and over 100 pages of writing to express ---- and as
always, here again, I have found something that I think

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(given the necessary open and teachable listening ear) is

much more simply put with greater clarity and scholarship
than I could have ever expressed with my limitations,
particular background and giftedness.

So I will briefly reiterate a story that I just heard on the

nd
2 CD as Russ Hudson shares an old Zen parable about
three very devout monks and their Master who was
pointing to the moon.

One of the monks was so fixated on the

Master with such love and adoration that
he never awakens, the second monk was
carefully studying the Masters finger and
he likewise never awakens. Now the third
monk whom also loves the Master, looks
at the finger, but follows the finger and
sees the moon. It is only this third monk
that awakens.

Russ Hudson then goes on to explain what this little Zen

parable means which I think is profound and in most
everyway summarizes the intentions of my portion of this
book. You, Brother John, continue to point me to our
Savior Jesus Christ, and I continue to respond ---- Yes I see
Him, and yes, I love Him!

Now I simply ask that you (without first critically

analyzing and immediately stamping it as “New Age”)
carefully listen to the content of this CD series when it
arrives in your mailbox this next Wednesday before this
Christmas of 2010.

This is my loving prayer for you as I do always

appreciate your loving prayers for me. And for others; if
little else is taken away from this project of ours, I likewise
highly recommend that they obtain this conference on CD

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that I have highlighted in my recommended reading list just

below.

So what’s left but to state, as we close this “Eternal

Debate” ---- that my prayer is ---- that we will all,
somehow, someway --- Remain Awake.

Brother to Brother

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Brother Richard’s Resources and Recommended

Reading

Why am I afraid to tell you who I am? By John Joseph

Powell

Love and Living Loving and Learning by Leo Buscaglia

The Trauma of Transparency: A Biblical Approach to

Inter-Personal Communication by J. Grant Howard

Comparative Religion for Dummies by William P. Lazarus

and Mark Sullivan

The Kingdom Within: The Inner Meaning of Jesus’

Sayings by John A. Sanford

The Mind of Christ/ You Have A Call Waiting by Dean

Douglas Johnson

If Grace Is True by Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland

When We Talk About God, Let’s Be Honest by Kirby

Godsey

Choosing To Love the World by Thomas Merton

An Open Heart by the Dalai Lama

Our Religions: The Seven World Religions Introduced by

Preeminent Scholars from Each Tradition

Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism by Scott

& Kimberly Hahn

Surprised By Truth: 11 Converts Give the Biblical and

Historical Reasons for Becoming Catholic by Patric
Madrid

The Laws of Spirit: A Tale of Transformation by Dan

Millman

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The Five Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz

Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan

Crossing the Threshold of Faith by Pope John Paul

Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life by Henri

J.M. Nouwen et.al.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Growing Up bin Laden by Jean Sasson

Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, in the

Struggle for the Soul of a Generation by Eboo Patel

The Jefferson Bible by Thomas Jefferson

The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson by Charles B.

Sanford

Early Christian Writings: Penguin Classics

Great Souls: Six Who Changed a Century by David

Aikman

The Sermon on the Mount by Richard Rohr (Feb 25,

2010 Retreat on CD)

The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr

and Andreas Ebert

Enneagram as a Tool for Your Spiritual Journey by

Richard Rohr & Russ Hudson on CD: (Note, I just
received this audio series a few days ago after I
completed this book project, and as I have listened thus
far to the first two CD’s and was amazed at how most
every detail that Richard addresses really was the best
summary of my point of view that I attempted to
express but with greater clarity and in less than one

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hour. I highly recommend this which can be obtained at

credencecommunications.com.

The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to

Psychological and Spiritual growth for the Nine
Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson

The Enneagram Made Easy by Renee Baron & Elizabeth

Wagele

Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef with Ron Brackin

Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the

Western World by Lama Surya Das

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

by Eckhart Tolle

Following the Path of Jesus by Eknath Easwaran (Nov 7,

2008)

Constantine’s Sword: a DVD Documentary by James

Carroll

PBS Video Series: Searching for God in America

In The Heart of the World by Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Soul Life by Thomas Moore

Peace of Mind by Joshua Loth Liebman

War Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Against War on Iraq by

Milan Rai

What Went Wrong? The Clash between Islam and

Modernity in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American

Empire by Chalmers Johnson

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Brother John’s Resources and Recommended

Reading

How Good is Good Enough by Andy Stanley

Letters from a Skeptic by Dr. Gregory and Edward Boyd

Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp

Fields of Gold by Andy Stanley

The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn

The Seven Checkpoints by Stanley and Hall

The "Every Man" series by Arterburn and Stoeker

The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

Desiring God by John Piper

Louder than Words by Andy Stanley

What kids wish parents knew about parenting by Joe

White

When your teen is struggling by Gregston

Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby

The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick & Alex Kendrick

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Acknowledgements

Brother Richard

I want to especially thank the many mentors that I have

had over the course of my lifetime to date, including but by
no means limited to the following:
Cathy Herrington Drzal --- who saw in me at a very
young and impressionable age much more potential than I
ever imagined that I could have, while she patiently helped
me through my junior and senior years of high school, prior
to which time --- I cared little about the importance of
academic pursuits.
John F. MacArthur --- whom in my mind, is the greatest
Bible teacher and expositor of the Word of God that I was
so privileged to learn from during the earliest days of my
spiritual formation.
My Uncle John DeAngelis --- for not only introducing
me to his brother-in-law (John F. MacArthur), but whose
life-long example as a compassionate physician and
educator of others, inspires me as he tirelessly continues to
care for his patients unselfishly at the age of 78.
Jerry Wempe, a very special friend and patient of mine,
that in my mind, God used to show me yet another
dimension to our Savior Jesus Christ.
The late Thomas Merton --- who’s many writings and
recorded lectures served to broaden my scope of interest
and understanding beyond a more western idea of how
Jesus is presented toward a more universal point of view,
which includes eastern thought and the value of the
teachings and examples of our Buddhist brothers and
sisters.
My parents --- to which I have said and written before --
-that it would be impossible for a son to repay them for

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their gracious kindness, even if he could carry his father on

his right shoulder and his mother on his left for one
hundred long years. By the way, don’t worry Mom and
Dad, neither your favorite son John or I have delusions of
grandeur regarding our writing abilities so you can rest
assure that we won’t be quitting our day jobs any time
soon.
Last and most to my wife Ruth --- for the many ways
and times that she has shown me what the grace of God
looks and feels like --- especially through the valleys of our
past 25 years, and even more so during those rare times
when I lost my way and mistakenly thought --- that
perhaps she was not my soul mate, when in fact, she has
always been.

Brother John

I have a handful of people that I would like to thank in

no particular order of importance. I will only specifically
mention family because to list all of my friends that have
made a significant impact on me would require more names
than anyone would care to read and I'm certain I would
forget someone. I have the most incredible friends who are
very much like family and they have encouraged me and
loved me more than I can express. I am eternally grateful to
all of them.

My loving parents who showed me the importance of

family and commitment. I can't imagine having a more
incredible Mom and Dad. Thanks for everything you have
done for us.

My Father and Mother In-Law Ron and Nancy Kurtz

who not only raised the most amazing woman in the world
but showed me such grace as I learned to be a Godly

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husband to their daughter. Ron, who passed away about

five (5) years ago after a battle with cancer lived a beautiful
life devoted to his wife, family and Savior.

My Brother Richard who introduced me to Jesus when I

was 14 and who encouraged (badgered) me to finish my
portions of this "Eternal Debate."

Finally, my loving and beautiful, Proverbs 31 wife Kelly

who is my life mate with whom I am desperately,
hopelessly in love. I can't imagine loving her more but
somehow, someway, tomorrow will come and I will love
her even more. Thanks for being my refuge and making our
house a home for our 3 (soon to be 4) awesome kids. A few
years ago, John and his wife also acquired a most loving
son-in-law with the marriage of their oldest daughter. I
could write a book about my love for her and our children
but I'll spare you and end this now.

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Appendix
How Subtle Insensitivity Leads to Dissension

I propose that “Deep-Seated Dissension” may often

result from at least one or a multitude of
misunderstanding(s) and/or misperception(s) and perhaps a
bit of human insensitivity where at least one party is guilty
(at some level with some degree of ignorance) of
such insensitivity. The end result --- someone is
offended, and such an offense taken stirs the
resident anger within the offended one, which if not
to some degree diffused, could lead to any level of
conflict and even possibly a fight or an all-out war
between the offended and the perceived offender.
An afternoon experience at the movies took me
by surprise in a way that led me to the above stream
of thought. Certainly there was some correlation
with the plot of the movie (District 9) and all that
ties in with what I’m about to describe, but the plot
of the movie only added to but would not detract
from the realization that my experience brought.
First of all a small bit of background: Just as
the movie ended and we were walking out past the
trash can, I made a comment kiddingly to my son to
the effect that the gentleman walking directly in
front of us was “one of them” (a half human/ half
alien). “Look at his arm” I said jokingly to my
son. I don’t think that the man walking in front of
me heard me, but if he did, surely he knew I was
just joking! He oddly pushed the door shut as we
were trying to exit as most usually try to hold the
door open (which in retrospect was a bit odd), but I
didn’t give it a second thought. Then I noticed that
he kept looking back at me and I naturally looked
back at him. I thought perhaps that he recognized

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me and that he might be a patient of mine so I was

just about to ask him: “Do I know you?” But before
I could speak, he spoke out to me saying: “Do you
have a problem?” It really took me by surprise
because for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine how I
might have offended him unless he just heard my
comment that I had just made in jest and took me
seriously. I responded by saying “No, I don’t have
a problem.” To which he went on to say that I was
a poor excuse for a father to my son by setting such
a bad example by cutting in front of him in line. I
really at that moment had no idea what he was
talking about so I stood there dumb-founded and
befuddled probably with a surprised grin on my face
which didn’t make him any happier. I apologized
as much as I could for having offended him stating
that I was only kidding. However, he was still
referring to the fact that I had rudely cut in front of
him prior to the start of the movie. As I tried to
think back, I did remember that as we walked in
toward the concession area, there was one person
being served on the right side and evidently this not
so gentle man just behind him. Within a split
second, another concession attendant went to the
other side and said; “I can help someone over
here.” Being closer to that side anyway, I naturally
and directly went toward that attendant where there
was no one in line and I was promptly
served. Without thinking for a second that I had
offended anyone, all these emotions were evidently
stirred within him, without the slightest inkling on
my part or in my mind that I had done so.
Back to the end of the movie: So as this guy
became more confrontational, I finally sensed that
he was serious and the best thing I could do was to
apologize as profusely as I knew how. He did not

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seem to calm down, but stood like a tiger about to

pounce and continued to allude to how I should be
ashamed and embarrassed for setting such a poor
example to my son. All-the-while, his son and wife
stood glaring at me with what seemed to me to
indicate their total alliance and agreement with his
words and actions. As I opened the bathroom door
he said, “I wouldn’t want to hurt you,” to which I
replied, “I wouldn’t want to hurt you either.” “I
don’t think you could” he retorted with even a
greater amount of emotional intensity. I then
proceeded into the bathroom toward the stall just
shaking my head in wonderment. As we all
ultimately left toward our car, I could see them as
they entered their car, slowly and seemingly
purposefully. They pulled out behind us but not too
uncomfortably close. We both exited in the same
direction and as I finally turned off the main four
lane highway, my son and I watched in amazement
as his left hand exited his car window and flipped
me off as a final gesture indicating his obvious
contempt.
As I sat down in my comfortable home chair and
reached for the closest book, I flipped the pages and
read this: (An excerpt from The Mind of Christ:
You Have A Call Waiting by Dean Douglas
Johnson, a book I was recently given by the wife of
the Author whom recently passed away).

“Insight” is defined as “the capacity of

understanding, perceiving, discerning, or
being able to penetrate to otherwise
hidden truths.” There are few attributes
more valuable than insight, whither into
history, current events or human
behavior. Nothing can make a greater
contribution to appropriate decision-

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making and constructive relationships

than insight into why a situation has
developed, or why another person is
acting in an unusual, or inappropriate, or
antagonistic manner.
While some are naturally more
insightful than others, insight into human
behavior and events (both past and
present) will remain limited apart from
sensitivity to the spiritual dimension of
life. Possession of the Mind of Christ
keeps one cognizant of the spiritual
dimension, and thus ensures a
considerably more accurate and quality of
insight into every aspect of human
existence.
Apart from a personal experience of
the reality of the spiritual dimension, a
person’s comprehension of existence and
all that occurs on the human scene will
remain considerably restricted. It is
simply impossible to gain a truly accurate
understanding of what has happened,
what is happening, and what will probably
happen within the created order without
some authentic knowledge about the
Creator and the plight of sin (human
resistance to the will of God) upon the
human scene.
It is only through a personal
awakening to the spiritual dimension that
one’s vision begins to encompass the full
spectrum of existence. This awakening
becomes a reality through acquisition of
the Mind of Christ though which one gains
insight into the original intent, the will,
and the vitally necessary redemptive
activity of God from the genesis of
creation to the present. With the Mind of
Christ one becomes endowed with the
most accurate and dependable insight

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possible into human behavior, current

events and history.
Those who do not possess the Mind of
Christ frequently ask how a loving God
can allow wars, tragedies, disease and all
the other problems that plague humanity
to occur in His creation. Those who
possess the Mind of Christ understand
through their insight into spiritual reality
that it is sin (human alienation from God)
which is responsible for the dangerous
environment in which we live, as well as
for all the suffering, anger, callousness
and contemptible behavior that are rife
throughout human society. Truly, when
equipped with the Mind of Christ one
possesses “the capacity of understanding,
perceiving, discerning or penetrating to
otherwise hidden truths” in every aspect
of life on this planet.

Maybe this guy was from another planet, or perhaps

District 9. Or just maybe, I truly was in a bit of a hurry and
thus insensitive to that one which was offended who
“knew” in his mind that I had cut in front of him in the
popcorn line and that I was therefore “a poor excuse for a
father.” Well maybe I am a “poor excuse for a father,” and
deserve to be “taught a lesson,” and should have had my
head bashed in for such a transgression. I’m not really sure
what the “truth” is, but you can be sure that I will be
looking over my shoulder for that guy I angered who drives
an old red Ford sedan with the license plate number that my
son and I remembered by heart.
Thankfully, he didn’t follow us as we turned off the
highway and headed toward our home. My son latter
asked, “Dad, do you think that he set a good example to his
son by flipping you off as they drove away?” To which I
replied, “It’s OK since I don’t think his son saw him do that

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anyway.” My son just laughed as I wrote down the license

number on a piece of paper. He asked why I would write it
down, and I told him that if I end up dead soon, the number
might come in handy since I don’t think there is anyone
else I can think of at the moment that I have offended to
such a degree.
I wonder even now how silly many of our ideas and
perceptions or misperceptions lead to all levels of
dissension which ultimately leads to much unnecessary
suffering and fighting. It’s all very sad really, especially
since I have just wasted a perfectly good hour recording all
this and you did the same by taking the time to read it.

Brother Richard

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About the Authors

Richard J. DeAngelis is a practicing dermatologist
that limits his practice of twenty plus years to the
evaluation and treatment of skin cancer and often states that
he is “only skin deep,” but in fact has always had a passion
for “the deep things of the Spirit.” He is happily married to
both his first and second wife (one in the same person) and
they have four beautiful children.

John M. DeAngelis is an entrepreneur extraordinaire,

co-founder of the DeAngelis/Diamond Construction
Company of Naples Florida, and he is likewise happily
married to his first and only wife and they have three
beautiful biological children and are currently in the
process of adopting a fourth child.

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