I'm curious what others take from Jesse Lee Peterson's ideas on Christianity. I am most impressed by the fact that he has remained fixated for decades on the same basic message, mainly that your faith must cause you to turn inward to be reborn and grow and so he is militant in avoiding the pitfalls of standard religious orders and practices to accomplish this. If I understand him correctly, he argues that to have the Holy Spirit actually guide you you have to allow that to be the case and not confuse it with your own will or the ideas and understanding of others. For example, if you use something external (a pastor, a drug, Church doctrine), you then become dependent on that as a source for your truth and you will surely need that in perpetuity. In effect, are you not submitting to that rather than what the Spirit inside of you can surely reveal? If you haven't repented of your intellect, how have you been Born Again of Christ, and not dead in Adam?
The more I've done his silent prayer, the more I am aware of my thoughts. And I notice even hearing/reading people recite doctrine/theology or when I listen to sermons online, I can sense I am being dependent on the knowledge of others, but I haven't gone first to the true source. I haven't allowed God to reveal a truth to me so that I can actually know it. In this light, it makes me sad to see how many Christians push a Church or Biblical interpretation as a means for people's salvation because it makes them dependent on something outside of themself rather than putting real faith in The Spirit. You will hear serious theologians/pastors actually argue straight-faced that their proper belief in the Bible or dedication to conserving the Church was the reason Christianity has survived. I don't mean to be cute, but that seems heretical on its face. God could raise up stones. Maybe that is cute, but the idea that men abided or that the Bible is such a powerful text that God has remained present in the world seems absurd.
Since being challenged by Peterson's message, I also have observed that I often seek wisdom and sources of opinions so that I can judge people/tribes I dislike, so even in my quest for knowledge, much of it is actually to judge or hate others, or provide a sense that I have consciousness over a topic. Do I really know the bible or my views on social issues, do I really have an opinion... has God really revealed anything to me truly? or do I simply collect the best and most persuasive arguments that I can utilize in some war of intellect, thus worshipping my own intellect. I believe Jesse calls out this thinking, connecting it to Adam and Eve, stating that is simply the fall of man repeated, that one makes the error in believing they can know both GOOD and evil. "Playing God" as he says, which leads to the resentment, the recessing into one's imagination, and not living in the present, where God is.
Fundamentally, when I started taking what Peterson said seriously, I saw the major flaw in believing I had been born again as a young person and yet somehow I believed I had a right to resent people for years, even my own father for his failings. I did not understand my father's sins, and thus I did not understand my own. It was in returning to him and forgiving him that I took the first real step in doing the word, so to speak. If you can't go and forgive your own father, telling him that he is forgiven with a fixed eye and in total love, how can you say you are of Christ or that you are born again? But so many Christians seem hard pressed to even imagine giving up their right to resent, believing its a long journey to being a more well-rounded spirit, and yet we wonder why it's so hard for people to actually submit to what the Bible tells them to do in ordering themselves in relationship to God. Is it not that most people, even Christians, have yet to be truly born again, as Peterson argues because they tricked themselves into thinking they had a renewed mind?
Side note: He seems to get many Biblically-based Christians upset when he says Christ is the Son of God, but he is not God. I don't know if that is a pragmatic and semantic argument--meaning he doesn't want you to think you've found Christ simply by saying he's lord rather than knowing he is The Only Way to know God.
This is my first post, thank you for your feedback.
The more I've done his silent prayer, the more I am aware of my thoughts. And I notice even hearing/reading people recite doctrine/theology or when I listen to sermons online, I can sense I am being dependent on the knowledge of others, but I haven't gone first to the true source. I haven't allowed God to reveal a truth to me so that I can actually know it. In this light, it makes me sad to see how many Christians push a Church or Biblical interpretation as a means for people's salvation because it makes them dependent on something outside of themself rather than putting real faith in The Spirit. You will hear serious theologians/pastors actually argue straight-faced that their proper belief in the Bible or dedication to conserving the Church was the reason Christianity has survived. I don't mean to be cute, but that seems heretical on its face. God could raise up stones. Maybe that is cute, but the idea that men abided or that the Bible is such a powerful text that God has remained present in the world seems absurd.
Since being challenged by Peterson's message, I also have observed that I often seek wisdom and sources of opinions so that I can judge people/tribes I dislike, so even in my quest for knowledge, much of it is actually to judge or hate others, or provide a sense that I have consciousness over a topic. Do I really know the bible or my views on social issues, do I really have an opinion... has God really revealed anything to me truly? or do I simply collect the best and most persuasive arguments that I can utilize in some war of intellect, thus worshipping my own intellect. I believe Jesse calls out this thinking, connecting it to Adam and Eve, stating that is simply the fall of man repeated, that one makes the error in believing they can know both GOOD and evil. "Playing God" as he says, which leads to the resentment, the recessing into one's imagination, and not living in the present, where God is.
Fundamentally, when I started taking what Peterson said seriously, I saw the major flaw in believing I had been born again as a young person and yet somehow I believed I had a right to resent people for years, even my own father for his failings. I did not understand my father's sins, and thus I did not understand my own. It was in returning to him and forgiving him that I took the first real step in doing the word, so to speak. If you can't go and forgive your own father, telling him that he is forgiven with a fixed eye and in total love, how can you say you are of Christ or that you are born again? But so many Christians seem hard pressed to even imagine giving up their right to resent, believing its a long journey to being a more well-rounded spirit, and yet we wonder why it's so hard for people to actually submit to what the Bible tells them to do in ordering themselves in relationship to God. Is it not that most people, even Christians, have yet to be truly born again, as Peterson argues because they tricked themselves into thinking they had a renewed mind?
Side note: He seems to get many Biblically-based Christians upset when he says Christ is the Son of God, but he is not God. I don't know if that is a pragmatic and semantic argument--meaning he doesn't want you to think you've found Christ simply by saying he's lord rather than knowing he is The Only Way to know God.
This is my first post, thank you for your feedback.
