Letting Go of Old, Toxic Beliefs
Part Five: Moving from Toxic Beliefs to Transforming Ones
I begin again with the reminder that the participants in ICN cover a wide range of beliefs and non-beliefs about Christianity. While we have some understandings central to ICN, we have no official statement of beliefs, and no particular ones are required to be a part of ICN.
Growing Up
Integral philosophy postulates that we Grow Up evolutionarily through a series of stages, both as cultures and as individuals. Like various grade levels, grade 12 is no better than grade 5. We can’t even get to grade 12 without going through grade 5. Everything in grade 5 is true. However, grade 12 is more true, complex, and inclusive than grade 5. Since it is more grown up, it does not connect as well to younger children who belong in grade 5.
Here’s the point: If you are in grade five, there’s nothing wrong with a grade five understanding of the Bible and Christianity. However, if you are in grade 12 with a grade 5 understanding of the Bible and Christianity, you are more likely to dump the Bible and Christianity because they seem unsuitable for your world.
In addition, some live in grade 12 with grade 5 Christianity and may long for a deeper and more sustainable understanding and practice of Christianity. We hope to offer that at ICN.
I believe integral Christianity is more and more a path for a growing number of those who want to remain followers of Jesus in the modern world. Once you enter a stable integral stage of spiritual growth and development, you can access the qualities of that stage. This includes a belief system geared to Jesus’ life and teaching. It produces greater selflessness, integration, and social responsibility. Also, new consciousness, deeper spiritual knowing, and more comprehensive and profound ways of connecting to God and others — virtually any time you want!
Growing up in this way will also change the way you think about things. It can be difficult to let go of beliefs that have been so important to us in the past. But the past in not the direction we’re going! This article and the next two will explore some beliefs that I have let go of, traded in, and find as my new foundational Christian beliefs.
Three Conventional Religious Doctrines to Consider Letting Go
I embrace an integral version of what is often called Progressive Christianity to differentiate it from traditional Christianity. By calling myself a progressive integral Christian, I believe in some of what the creeds and traditional Christianity affirm, often in another form. As I have indicated previously, I also do not hold some of what conventional Christianity asserts as true.
Here are a few traditional beliefs that more and more folks are releasing because they may be toxic to their faith. When I say toxic to their faith, this only applies to those moving out of the traditional faith. For those in the traditional worldview, the beliefs I label as toxic do not appear that way to them. Rather, they are comforting, familiar, and stabilizing for their way of viewing the world.
When one is ready to move into more complex and loving stages, it is only then that what I call toxic and limiting beliefs show their destructiveness to love and a more inclusive worldview.
1. Letting go believing everything in the Bible is true for this day and age.
Rather, the Bible records the story of the evolution of the ancient Hebrew tribe from tribal to warrior and to traditional law and order stages. Naturally, the stories at each stage reflect their worldview, which would be different from our modern, postmodern, and integral worldviews. Today’s traditional religious wordview, of course, finds many similarities.
This frees me to mine the Bible for its transforming, deep spiritual wisdom while recognizing when it is culture-bound and limited.
In reading biblical stories, whether historical or mythical, it is best, if possible, to focus on uncovering the transcendent truths they are trying to relay to us. It is not necessary to get bogged down with literal interpretations and historical facts or fallacies in the stories. It is the nature of authentic transcendent truths to remain unaffected by time or culture in that they are always relevant and living in the deeper psyche of humankind.
As I’ve evolved through life, my beliefs have changed a lot. I worry less about what others say and believe about what my religion teaches. I go with what makes sense to me and feels right. My intuition leads me more than most other sources. I recommend the same for you. If anything I offer makes sense to you and feels right, then use it. If not, go with what feels right to you.
Yesterday I was asking Jesus how to go into higher and deeper realms of consciousness than I have experienced. I was expecting a new practice or profound words. Instead, I immediately heard, “Be yourself.” Ah, that was a profound word for someone like me who is so familiar with the learned opinions of others and much repressed in my own feelings.
2. Letting go of belief in a literal hell.
Early on, I found that eternal hell was a highly toxic belief. I do not believe God punishes and banishes anyone to any kind of torment or separation. (For extensive study on this, see my booklet Hell? No!)
I believe the thirty-three passages in the New Testament that speak of universal salvation and not the few that appear to talk of a supposed eternal hell.
Here are a few of those “all” verses (italics mine):
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. . . . (John 1:4-5).
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world (John 1: 9).
As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:2 2).
He has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph 1:9-10).
But didn’t Jesus say the fire of hell never goes out?
Yes, he did. The real question is “What did he mean?” He said, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out” (Mark 9:43).
The word Jesus used, which is translated as “hell,” is the word “Gehenna.” It is the name for the Valley of Hinnom, located just south of Jerusalem. Gehenna had an ugly history. Two of Israel’s most evil kings offered their sons there to the god, Moloch. Other victims were sacrificed there also. It was the most detestable place in all of Israel.
For hundreds of years it was the town garbage dump and that’s what it was in Jesus’ day. The fires were kept going there to consume the garbage. Literally, the worms didn’t die, and the fires kept going for centuries to destroy the garbage and impurities.
However, Jesus is not talking about believing in him and any kind of belief system. The context of this passage is what today we call social justice. Jesus says that the one who mistreats these “little ones” (the vulnerable) and “causes them to stumble” will be thrown into hell. One of the most vulnerable groups in Jesus’ day was children. Jesus was, of course, saying that we are not to mistreat children. But children here also represent all of those who are powerless and vulnerable. God is especially concerned about how those with more power treat those with less power. This was Jesus’ graphic image of what mistreating the weak and oppressed does to us. Simply put, it is flaming, maggoty, refuse-filled garbage dump living.
The misunderstanding of hell offered by traditional Christianity has distorted the message of compassion and justice towards the vulnerable, the outcast, and the powerless. Jesus was pointing out the absence of economic, social, and human rights!
The traditional doctrine of hell has made it into a spiritually abusive lie about the supposed fate of eternal torment of those who are not Christians.
We have changed Jesus’ eternal words about oppression into oppressive words about eternity!
Belief in hell is in itself a garbage dump belief that fosters oppression, authoritarian religion, Christians who think they are superior to others, and other such garbage.
Belief in the ultimate reconciliation of all things does not preclude time spent in learning the ways of love, even if it is by way of the garbage dump existence Jesus called Gehenna.
Gehenna today is a lovely park. That is what happened to “the fire never goes out!”
Gehenna — Hell today —
a beautiful park just outside Jerusalem.
3. Letting go believing Jesus died for our sins
I no longer hold to atonement theologies that come from versions of Christianity preoccupied with sin.
Except for progressive and integral Christians, along with the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the dominant theory among Christians today of why Jesus died on the cross goes something like this: All people are separated from God because of both original sin and our own sin. Because of this, we are destined for eternal punishment. However, Jesus came to provide a way out of this destiny by taking our place and dying on the cross to satisfy God’s wrath for our sins. Jesus was punished in our place so God could forgive our sins. Those who accept Jesus as their Savior are no longer separated from God and are destined for heaven.
This is a serious and devastating misunderstanding of Jesus, God, and our relationship to God. It is based on several interpretations that reflect previous stages of spiritual evolutionary understanding.
Atonement theories ignore Jesus’ teaching about God
Trying to make sense of a seemingly senseless crucifixion, Paul writes, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (I Cor. 15:3). By Scriptures, he means the collection of writings the Jewish people considered part of their sacred books which we now call the Old Testament. These pointed to a suffering Messiah, and Paul applied that to Jesus.
However, Jesus deconstructed his bible, the Torah. Like a good postmodern of today, but far ahead of his time, Jesus rejected all the angry warrior God parts of his scriptures.
He revealed that the character of God is everlasting love, mercy, grace, and compassion. Following Jesus’ example, we must deconstruct our Bible, including those parts of the New Testament that continue to reflect the vengeful tribal God of the past.
Jesus lived a life of selflessness, and integration, while subversively challenging the oppressive systems of his day. His consciousness of loving and living as he did is a path to the many challenges of our world today.
I have traded in “Jesus died for our sins” for “Jesus died because he stood up to the religious, social, and political oppression of his day.” That system conspired to get rid of him, not God. However, they didn’t get rid of him. He just came back, no longer limited by a physical body, and is available now for everyone everywhere. Jesus left physically, so we could know him spiritually. (Click here for more on why Jesus did not die for our sins)
For those of our friends who continue to embrace the doctrine of atonement, please remember I am sharing my beliefs, not those of ICN which does not have doctrinal requirements of any kind.
These are three common, harmful doctrines I no longer believe. The effect has been quite freeing and brought me closer to Jesus. What beliefs are you ready to let go of?
