The Mythical Jesus Podcast

We sit down today with my good friend Thomas McConkie. Thomas has so much to offer us. Deeply grounded in Buddhism and meditation and an expert in explaining development and Thomas has a unique perspective on Jesus having chosen intentionally to live out his spiritual life in this moment in a fundamentalist sect of Christianity. Nothing about Thomas is off the cuff or accidental. His life is one of intent and being present and holding space. I hope you enjoy today’s conversation where we discuss faith development and Jesus and some of the ways those two interconnect.

Resources:

Thomas McConkie’s podcast Mindfulness +

Lower Lights Spiritual Center

Spectra Development Course

Thomas McConkie’s book of Faith development

The post Mythical Jesus: 028: Thomas McConkie – Soul Changing Work appeared first on Christ of Faith.

Today we discuss the idea of the phrase faith crisis.  What it allows your religious tribe to do and how it may not be helpful at all to your journey.  Most religious systems would love for you to portray your shifting values and beliefs as a problem with you.  And so today we discuss whether such is helpful or even true.

I don’t like the phrase faith crisis. It is not accurate once you grasp what happened and it allows your religious tribe to paint you as broken and less than. Its your crisis and hence your problem is the story you allow it to tell about you. It also allows other members of that tribe to dismiss you and tell themselves the issue is not the system itself.

People lose faith in beliefs all the time moving out of or into various religious beliefs and systems. I personally experienced growth and that growth put me at distance from fitting in my religious tribe. That distance between what I was and what my former religious tribe  would allow felt like a faith crisis. It was not.

I also had to grasp that my religious tribe tried to filter what information I had access to and what I didn’t. That was felt by me as betrayal. When I finally gathered in the information myself from other sources, I realized my religious system had a truth crisis. The issue was never me in the first place. My religious system no longer represented my values and I had outgrown my religious system and I left the small world of my religious tribe and moved on to bigger and more beautiful things.

I didn’t have a faith crisis. I experienced growth and development, and that growth and development was not supported or validated inside my former religious tribe. That growth put distance between my values and growing integrity versus the values and integrity of my former system.

The system had a truth crisis. Its truth claims are on shaky ground. So shaky in fact that it did all it could to whitewash its narrative and portray its narrative as way more faith promoting then they are. As it emphasized false stories and shielding its members from unfaithful but true parts of its narrative, a fracture occurred and as hard as I tried I lost trust in it. The betrayal, loss of trust, and the trauma I saw it inflict on others could not be repaired or reconciled. Eventually for my own well-being I had to let it go.

The post Mythical Jesus: 027: Faith Crisis and Other Bad Words appeared first on Christ of Faith.

Today we sit down with Geoff Fitch, one of the founders of Pacific Integral. Pacific Integral seeks to impact human development, leadership, and social change at the emergent edge of consciousness and action. Geoff and I sit down to talk about human development. What it means to leave a tribe, the fractures that make us aware of deeper stages of development, The shift to inner authority, and how we take previous stages with us. I hope you enjoy these interviews. If you have a recomendation of someone to interview please email me at “BillReelJrAT Gmail DOT Com”
Thanks for listening

The post Mythical Jesus: 026: Geoff Fitch – Developmental Fracture appeared first on Christ of Faith.

In Episode 25 we explore Jesus’ use of parables and how using parables offers flexibility for the audience to learn based on their own stage of development.  We hit on the idea that Jesus interpretation is given to his apostles and closest disciples of which the author of these gospels was not present for.  That Jesus may in fact have been silent allowing wise space for others.  Such understanding of biblical criticism and scholarship may in fact offer more room then we thought on what these parable mean to us personally.

The post Mythical Jesus: 025: Parables Spoken With Silence appeared first on Christ of Faith.

In this Episode of the Mythical Jesus Podcast we explore the affect we have on the world through both time and space.  By time and space we mean this.  How the actions or ripples we initiate have influence across time meaning now and into the future and how what happened in the past brought us to this moment.  And across Space meaning right now right here our actions affect essentially everyone.  Not just our immediate family or extended family but friends and co-workers and complete strangers everywhere.

The post Mythical Jesus: 024: Seeds Scattered Across Time And Space appeared first on Christ of Faith.

Today We sit down with Bishop John Shelby Spong.  Jack is a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church. From 1979 to 2000 he was Bishop of Newark (based in Newark, New Jersey). He is a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator and author. He calls for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines.  We talk to Bishop Spong about his life, his own faith journey, and what he sees as the problems with Christian fundamentalism.  We talk about how dynamic growth is not the measuring stick for is a Christian Church is healthy.  We talk about the deconstruction of one’s faith and how one can stay in the spiritual wrestle and not throw in the towel even as one’s religious framing falls apart.  If you have not ever heard of Bishop Spong can we suggest several enlightening venues to get to know him better?

Resources:

Bishop Spong’s Criticism of Biblical Literalness

Bishop Spong’s recasting the story of Jesus

Debate between Bishop Spong and James White.  This debate is a great model of of two intelligent and informed people coming to a discussion holding different developmental ground.  One is a very Binary/outer authority/literal believer and the other anon-literal, nuanced/with Inner authority.

Books by Bishop John Shelby Spong:

Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy: A Journey into a New Christianity

Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile

Jesus for the Non-Religious

Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy

Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today

Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World

The post Christ Of Faith: 023: John Shelby Spong – Value Beyond Biblical Literalness appeared first on Christ of Faith.

Today we are in Mark 4: 21-25.  We often think when we have Truth on our side or more importantly when we have Wisdom on our side that putting such truth or wisdom out into the world, it will readily be accepted.  Truth be told, such is almost never the case.  Most people being in ethnocentricity don’t have ears to hear or eyes to see such wisdom.  They prefer the the authorities within their system and they prefer to be bound by comfortable beliefs rather than truth.  Our expectation is unfounded.  Truth and wisdom spreads slowly through multiple voices and vehicles and takes decades if not centuries to take hold.   Jesus of Nazareth seems to grasp this and seems to operate with the understanding that his responsibility is to share wisdom and that such wisdom will rarely be utilized in the moment and that sharing such comes with grave risks.

The post Mythical Jesus: 022: Truth Takes Centuries appeared first on Christ of Faith.

Today we are in Mark 4: 1-8 which is the famous parable of the sower and the seed.  The Seed or the word (Christ within us) is cast about on various landscapes.  The path that is already and still constantly trodden, the ground full of thorny brush, the path covered with stones and rocks, and the fertile ground.  Jesus is said to have told his disciples the meaning of the parable by an author who seemingly was not there.  What are we to make of this and is not the beauty of a parable the safe space to write your own meaning?  To take your own interpretation based on your unique individuality and and unique experience?  Today we talk about and then do just that!

The post Mythical Jesus: 021: The Sower and The Seed appeared first on Christ of Faith.

Today we are Mark chapter 3:20-34.  Jesus does something strange in these verses which is to seem to push back against his family and welcome in those who sit with him as family.   This event feels uncomfortable to us.  This feels anti-Jesus and yet there is a great lesson to be learned here.  That while we love our biological family it is often they who understand us the least as we move out of a binary dualistic world.  They seem the least interested in the wisdom inside us and most quick to dismiss us.  But when we truly transform there are others who feel drawn to us.  Who feel drawn to the wisdom that we hold.  These are the folks with which we sit at each other’s feet and break bread together and help each other grow.

The post Mythical Jesus: 020: Those Who Sit With You appeared first on Christ of Faith.

This Episode is Audio from outside the Mythical Jesus Podcast.  This is a sermon from another faith on “Stages of Faith”.

Here is a sermon given in their Church on the Stages of Faith

The post Stages of Faith: South Edmonton Alliance appeared first on Christ of Faith.