Theology And Diversity

FRI., JAN. 17, 1997, 6:55 AM
FARM, STUDY

In a way this will be a continuation of a previous Teaching, stimulated by the provocative message on the card you “unearthed” from the mess in “Our” table. The sun has not yet made its appearance, and your land is still white with snow and ice, so it is a fine time to have a Teaching that, once again, focuses on My creation of and love for diversity.

Repeating and thus reinforcing… I am quite a competent Creator (and here I speak as the Triune God), so the diversity in the people now alive on this planet is not by chance and not a mistake. In the original Creation story (at least in one of them) Eve was created out of a part of Adam, but was different from him. (And this was fortunate, lest there be only a few of you, still obedient in the Garden). Their first two sons were different from each other, one tending to plants and the other to animals. I abetted the rivalry… and then was surprised when Cain rose up and slew Abel? How did that evil intent and action arise, when I was such a loving and gentle God? And before that there was the talking snake who encouraged deviance from My “first Commandment”.

Abraham had two sons, and, again, I encouraged enmity between them and between their two mothers. And now, symbolically, there still is competition and conflict between the “ancestors” of Isaac and Ishmael, as the Jews and the Palestinians try to work out who controls what portion of that “Holy land”.

Jacob and Esau were twins, but I favored the younger one over the older. Jacob became Israel, and Esau faded out of the spiritual story. I established Israel as My chosen Jewish people, so the Old Testament Scriptures tells. They were not ideal, but I loved them. But what about the diversity of peoples who were “discovered” to have been living in Asia, Africa, even, the Americas? There must be other creation stories, for it’s a rather gigantic leap from Adam and Eve to the diversity of folk that now occupy the various continents.

Though you have some positive feelings for some of the Old Testament folk you increasingly see Christianity as a “break” from Judaism, just as there were “breaks” between Isaac and Ishmael and between Jacob and Esau. I came to earth as Jesus, to be the Messiah that My chosen people had come to expect. When I made My declaration I was rejected… and even crucified, to remove Me as a “threat” to the established religion.

Or did I just allow and arrange for this all to happen, so that one “brother” would dominate and the other remain as a lesser factor, but part of My desired diversity? You assume that I came to Mohammed in quite a different way, but with Scriptures that would be the basis for a “competing” religion. And before all of this, in earth time Hinduism was “dawning”, and out of it came Buddhism. African natives developed ways of acknowledging Me, as did Native Americans, in both continents.

I encourage some of you Christians to go forth to these “others” and bring them into a love for Me, as the Christ, and an acceptance of your religion as “the best”… even “the only one”. Some have been successful, and there now are Christians of all colors and backgrounds. Yet within this Christian family, as you know, there is the range from Catholicism and Orthodoxy to Pentecostal, with your Presbyterians somewhere in the middle.

And then, in My love for diversity and in My spirit of fun I call you into the mystical tradition, which is an “offshoot” that touches virtually all of these ways of relating to Me, but is both treasured and rejected by all. I assure you of the continuation of conscious life, and that this earth sojourn is just one kind of spiritual experience.