MODERN MINDFULNESS - GOD FOR THE PRESENT AGE

MODERN MINDFULNESS

GOD FOR THE PRESENT AGE

By Reverend Samuel Orrin Sewell

INTRODUCTION

Alfred North Whitehead, a brilliant mathematician, historian and educator and a Nobel Prize winner for literature, makes a fundamentally important point about the evolution and advancement of theology. He used a metaphor to clarify the origin and historical progression of all religions. He explained that an important spiritual insight is like a spring gushing up in the middle of a desert. It is pure and refreshing, replenishing and vitalizing to those who drink from it. Unfortunately it also begins to attract people, animals, plants, and trees, which die, turning into debris, polluting the purity of the original, spiritual oasis. Likewise, the more removed from the origin of sacred insight, the more polluted the religion becomes. The biggest damage is that religious genius has disciples and followers whose behavior distorts and becomes ungodly and secular, tainting the essence of the message of the religion’s founder.

A timeline of historical religion reveals that there have been dramatic changes. In its beginning, religion was mostly behavioral rather than theological. History reveals a recognizable pattern to the history of religions world-wide, so I intend to illustrate this pattern by pointing out the valid foundations, showing the false dynamics that intrude, and then revealing the modern mindfulness to displace those falsehoods.

This book is designed to illustrate the evolutionary process that exists between the historical origins of religion and the way it is perceived by modern people.

CHAPTER ONE

Let’s start with a review of Judaism’s valid premise, eventual decline and the evolution from ritualistic priesthood to a wisdom religion

The first Judeo-Christian introduction to the Zadoks came when the city of Salem, which was presided over by the Zadok priests, was visited by the biblical patriarch Abram long before Judaism became a formal religion.

 More than a thousand years later we find the Zadok priests in the Kingdom of David. The city of Salem became named Jeru-salem. There are more than 100 Biblical references to Zadok involvement in the overall history of Israel.

The Biblical New Testament Book of Hebrews affirms that Jesus was a Zadok Priest. “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchi-sedec.” Hebrews 7:11.

As the founder of the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), Abraham not only acquired the Zadok priesthood (Michelzedek) influenced concept of God being a divine event rather than a divine being, but he also inherited pagan religions that required culturally indoctrinated  rituals, religious sacrifices and even human sacrifice. 

The Zadoks never intended that the word Yahweh would be seen as the name of a God. In Hebrew, Yahweh is not a noun or the name of a god, but rather a verb, translated as ‘act of being.’ So the Zadoks see the cosmic principle that governs all Reality as a verb. God is not a divine being, but actually a divine activity, event, behavior, conduct, or accomplishment . It is understandable that the Zadoks had no theology. It was more like they asked themselves the question, “Knowing what we know, what then must we DO?”, Luke 3:10. So the Zadok religion, if you can call it that, or more accurately the Zadok practice, implies sacred behavior, rather than sacred theology. The word Zadok is often interpreted as righteous or justice.

From the early beginnings of the three Abrahamic religions, there was a dichotomy inherent in how that religion was practiced. That dichotomy has permeated the Abrahamic religions ever since. The Lord wants admirable behavior rather than rites and rituals. If God is a divine event, all events that are in his cosmos need to be divinely inspired activity if they are to be blessed with divine nature, thus God requires divine behavior, not ungodly dogma. Jesus said, “All men will know you are my disciples if you love one another;” he did not say, “You need to believe in the virgin birth, the trinity, etc. in order to join my church.”  The fundamental premise and the modern mindfulness of religious practice was more about how you behaved than how you believed.

So Judaism began with a simple profound premise, namely, God is a Divine Event, not a Divine Being.

Over the centuries, it became full of rituals and sacrifice, so as time progressed, the rituals and sacrifices dominated until the Divine Event was barely perceptible.

Here are two examples of ungodly mindfulness: 

·      Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son Isaac exemplifies the pagan theology, and the intervention of an Angel interfering with that sacrifice is an example of the godly mindful mindset, thus illustrating the dual nature of early Abrahamic religions.

·       Genesis[15:9] He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."
[15:10] He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.
[15:11]  And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
[15:17]  When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

The animal sacrifice described above in Genesis 15 is an example of the ungodly pagan religion, and the advice of the prophet Micah below exhibits the modern godly mindset.

“With what shall I come before the Lord
    and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God”. – Micah 6:6-8

So the pagan and modern theologies had existed side by side for thousands of years. They also have conflicted with each other, shifting from one domineering influence over the other. We need to preserve the enlightened influence of the basic premise and work on eliminating the pagan influence.

The Jewish prophets made a valiant attempt to restore the pure essence of the Jewish Theological Foundation for thousands of years, to no avail. The primitive influence continued to show its ugly face. The most influential of the Jewish prophets was Jesus, who said,

 

 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”  Matthew 23:27-28 

 

Like the other prophets, Jesus was killed by the ungodly-influenced Jewish priests.

 

So if divine events aren’t influenced by God, who’s influencing the ungodly ones?