Some of you know I’ve been reading this book and I’m really enjoying it, even though the writing is sometimes hard to get through and Tolstoy’s arguments are often hard to come to terms with.  But I wanted to share these thoughts because they seemed so significant.

Read it slowly and take some time to think about these.  Some very deep ideas here.  The bold-ing & nderlin-ing  were done by me to emphasize the “meat” of this particular text (for me anyway).

I hope you enjoy it.

Again, the book is called “The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life” by Leo Tolstoy – 1894

“People talk about the liberty of the Christian Church, about giving or not giving freedom to Christians. Underlying all these ideas and expressions there is some strange misconception. Freedom cannot be bestowed on or taken from a Christian or Christians. Freedom is an inalienable possession of the Christian.

If we talk of bestowing freedom on Christians or withholding it from them, we are obviously talking not of real Christians but of people who only call themselves Christians. A Christian cannot fail to be free, because the attainment of the aim he sets before himself cannot be prevented or even hindered by anyone or anything.

Let a man only understand his life as Christianity teaches him to understand it, let him understand, that is, that his life belongs not to him—not to his own individuality, nor to his family, nor to the state—but to him who has sent him into the world, and let him once understand that he must therefore fulfill not the law of his own individuality, nor his family, nor of the state, but the infinite law of him from whom he has come; and he will not only feel himself absolutely free from every human power, but will even cease to regard such power as at all able to hamper anyone.

Let a man but realize that the aim of his life is the fulfillment of God’s law, and that law will replace all other laws for him, and he will give it his sole allegiance, so that by that very allegiance every human law will lose all binding and controlling power in his eyes.

The Christian is independent of every human authority by the fact that he regards the divine law of love, implanted in the soul of every man, and brought before his consciousness by Christ, as the sole guide of his life and other men’s also. [emphasis mine]

The Christian may be subjected to external violence, he may be deprived of bodily freedom, he may be in bondage to his passions (he who commits sin is the slave of sin), but he cannot be in bondage in the sense of being forced by any danger or by any threat of external harm to perform an act which is against his conscience.

He cannot be compelled to do this, because the deprivations and sufferings which form such a powerful weapon against men of the state conception of life, have not the least power to compel him.

Deprivations and sufferings take from them the happiness for which they live; but far from disturbing the happiness of the Christian, which consists in the consciousness of fulfilling the will of God, they may even intensify it, when they are inflicted on him for fulfilling his will.

And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize the duty of what is called “allegiance”.

For a Christian the oath of allegiance to any government whatever—the very act which is regarded as the foundation of the existence of a state—is a direct renunciation of Christianity. For the man who promises unconditional obedience in the future to laws, made or to be made, by that very promise is in the most positive manner renouncing Christianity, which means obeying in every circumstance of life only the divine law of love he recognizes within him. [emphasis mine]

Under the pagan conception of life it was possible to carry out the will of the temporal authorities, without infringing the law of God expressed in circumcisions, Sabbaths, fixed times of prayer, abstention from certain kinds of food, and so on. The one law was not opposed to the other. But that is just the distinction between the Christian religion and heathen religion. Christianity does not require of a man certain definite negative acts, but puts him in a new, different relation to men, from which may result the most diverse acts, which cannot be defined beforehand. And therefore the Christian not only cannot promise to obey the will of any other man, without knowing what will be required by that will; he not only cannot obey the changing laws of man, but he cannot even promise to do anything definite at a certain time, or to abstain from doing anything for a certain time. For he cannot know what at any time will be required of him by that Christian law of love, obedience to which constitutes the meaning of life for him. The Christian, in promising unconditional fulfillment of the laws of men in the future, would show plainly by that promise that the inner law of God does not constitute for him the sole law of his life.” [emphasis mine]

[Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life]

So what do you think of Tolstoy’s points?

What about this section jumped out at you besides the bold & underlined bits?

Is this part of why Christianity has lost its “way” – has the deeper (perhaps truer) meaning of Christianity been obscured by the desire for power and dispensing justice through violent means?

Something profound from Pharyngula

There’s something interesting on Pharyngula today.  Well, to be fair, there’s always something interesting over there aside from the religion bashing and name calling.

Dr. PZ Myers has reviewed a book entitled “Don’t Be Such a Scientist:  Talking Substance in an Age of Style.”

In his review, he writes:

There are lessons worth learning throughout the book; one of them is one I’ve known for a long time, that science is at odds with popular culture because it is largely an exercise in constant criticism, and people hate being criticized. We encourage a culture of negativity, because it works for us…which means, of course, that I can’t simply let the book slide by with a happy two thumbs up. I must be such a scientist. One of the things Randy seems to be oblivious to is the fact that character and personality are an essential part of the style element he is endorsing, and scientists can capitalize on their particular, peculiar, aggravating set of common characteristics. He tells his story of being the scientific dufus in the company of artists; the guy who takes things too literally, who has strange stories, who can obsess over odd stuff that no one else cares about, and who has enough character that his friends can talk about “being a Randy” and everyone knows exactly what they’re talking about. He writes as if this was a problem, and I can sympathize with some of his embarrassing moments…but it was a strength. He sounds like he was one of the interesting people in his group.

So I end up feeling a bit torn. He’s telling us “Don’t be such a scientist”, and it’s true that there are many occasions when the scientific attitude can generate unnecessary obstacles to accomplishing our goals. At the same time, though, I want to say “Do [emphasis his] be such a scientist”, because it’s part of our identity and it makes us stand out as unusual and, like Randy, interesting, even if it sometimes does make us a bit abrasive. But, you know, some of us revel in our abrasiveness; it’s fun.”

I find these thoughts very profound and insightful, though perhaps not for the reasons they were intended.

Read on and I’ll explain….

“Mommy, You Promised…”

Matthew 18:2-3  2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them,  3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 19:13-15  13 Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them.  14 But Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  15 After laying His hands on them, He departed from there.

In June 1993, a child named Cubby went to be with God, yet his story continues to impact others..
Read the story here:

Cubby’s Story

What IS the “Good News” of Jesus Christ?

I’m just curious what your view of the “GOOD NEWS” of Jesus Christ is??

Looking forward to hearing any comments, good..bad…ugly … etc.

Have a blessed day!!

Chris

Honest Questions about a Parable for anyone reading this…

I wanted to gauge people’s opinions of this parable with a few questions. There are no right or wrong answers. I just want to hear people’s thoughts about it.

Read on…