Back to basics. What is the Christian mission? To teach the Gospel
and to heal the sick. The Gospel: that Good News. What version
do we use? Roman, Orthodox, Pre-canonical, Revised, New Revised,
Protestant, Postmodern? The recent pronouncement of "informed"
Bible "experts" (the Jesus Seminar), using all the tools
available to modern scholarship, is that only ten per cent of
the sayings attributed to Jesus are authentic. A tithe of text
remains.
We're living in the age of the autodidact, the self-taught, where
each is a self-styled authority. The conservators of doctrinal
Christianity see great peril massing at their doorstep. To some,
the whole Christian superstructure seems to be on the verge of
becoming a mausoleum or museum, or hopelessly anatomized into
a myriad of sects. Ecclesiastics see authority being wrested from
their auspices and claimed by individual laity. They see Christianity
being pressed to serve a multicultural agenda that relativizes
all religion and even admits enlightened humanism as equal partner
to its democratic ranks.
Nor is this disrupting trend likely to subside. On the contrary,
the collapse or destructuring of traditional systems will accelerate
in these predawn hours of the emerging Aquarian dispensation.
Max Heindel's relevant analogy is of the breaking down of a building
to its discrete units so that they may be reconstituted according
to the needs of the new structure. The need to believe, the power
of belief, remain. What is believed changes, is amplified, modified.
The credal core of Christianity abides. Christ is the cornerstone
of the belief system. But what structure is built on that foundation?
The edifice of Christianity is founded on the Incarnation of Christ
in Jesus, the Crucifixion of the personality, and the Resurrection
of the Christ Spirit. All obvious and occult truths are implicit
in these three facts.
Our concern, as students of the truths given by the Brothers of
the Rose Cross, is that what we espouse not be a stumbling block,
but a stepping stone. We must cast our net out of the "right"
side of the boat if we are to encounter a "school" of
fish. We can "fish" haphazardly or follow the direction
of the One Who knows (ICHTHYS). As we propose and promote "new"
concepts, it is vital that we be seen as exemplars of the (old)
law, not as mere anarchists or self-styled cultists, for then
our privileged knowing scares and scandalizes.
A delicate balance exists between self-reliance and personal responsibility
for proving the truth of the Teachings and demonstrating universal
fellowship and interdependence in Christ, which has been the Church's
function. All too easily can self-responsibility be perceived
as anti-authoritarianism and egotism. We want to exercise great
care not to mislead potential beneficiaries of the Teachings by
seeming to advocate proud un-Christian autonomy. So we take pains
to distinguish between the personal self and the Christ-instilled
transpersonal Self.
While Aquarian energies already are taking an apparently negative
form, impelling many to "do their own thing," be a law
unto themselves, proclaim unlimited rights for their persons,
repudiate the value of historical experience (including all formal
religions), it is especially incumbent upon us who are in possession
of potentially unsettling information that we be judicious and
circumspect in our personal affairs and genuinely attentive to
the needs of any who impinge on our lives. Knowing the easy confusion
that may arise in the minds of others who, out of fear of what
is new (and therefore threatening), may rush to judgment, we want
to be sensitive to what in our conduct might be seen as abrasive
or contentious or self-seeking. Especially as we are called to
cultivate greater reliance on the inner truth, the Christ within,
are we under constraints not to have that fealty construed as
pride and unneighborliness.
We must first personally receive the Good News in substance, even
as Holy Communion, for that is really what it is. The crux of
the gospels, the Bread of Truth, is the gift and giving of the
Being of Christ. As He says, "I am the resurrection and the
life." If we ingest and digest this Good News (Christ resurrected),
we become membered into It (Him), as both exponents and exemplars,
as both apostles and disciples. This membership in Christ constitutes
healing. We are healed and can share healing in and through our
persons. As we receive, so we give. The messenger (angel) becomes
testimony for the message (evangel). Living the life, we shall
not only know the doctrine, we shall show it. This is the ultimate
form of teaching, and makes for the surest healing.
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