Christianity for the Next 1000 Years: Spiritual Psychology

Thanks for your return.  I hope my next entry makes you smile and wile away the hours pondering your own spiritual personality.  

Meta-cognition happens when you step away from yourself and think about how you are thinking, praying, listening, reading, and other psychological activities.  It is a very sophisticated way of looking into your own mirror.  

Technically, for a Baptist, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.  Everything is acceptable in Christ Jesus.  Unfortunately, if you are in Christ Jesus, that is, if you are being like Jesus, then Jesus whose spirit has possessed your soul, does not want to do anything that is “sinful” so he will rid you of the desire to make a fool of yourself.  Once the desire is gone, the sin will not be committed.  So goes the theory. 

An aside:  Buddhism speaks of the eradication of desire as the way to Nirvana.  Buddhist writings are filled with spiritual techniques designed to eradicate desire.  What do we make of that?  

Of course, it assumes that Jesus in his spiritual state is a holy stick in the mud.  In the Baptist world, what we do for fun is highly suspect.  We divide fun into two categories:  good, clean fun and not good, clean fun.

Here is some Baptist psychology.  If you are smoking a cigarette and liking it, you are not in Christ Jesus as soon as you start liking it.  So guilt arises only when a Baptist starts having fun, unlike Jewish and Catholic people whose guilt is a birthright.  For all of us, guilt is the gift that keeps on giving, bequeathed by those who taught us scripture and morality when we were children.

Think about this too.  When I was involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, I learned a technique called Spiritual Breathing.  It was very simple. 

I sin. 

I confess my sin to God (exhaling). 

I ask the Holy Spirit to fill me again (inhaling). 

My grandfather and I argued over this.  We argued much longer than we argued about the validity of my fiance's baptism.  Campus Crusade for Christ literature said that when we confessed our sins, we never have to ask for forgiveness since our sins have been forgiven already by Jesus's death on the cross.  

My grandfather insisted that everyone should ask for forgiveness each and every time they sin.  God should be given the opportunity to say, “No.”

Of course, like all things theological, the language of spiritual breathing was problematic.  Theologically, the Holy Spirit filled me always, like an empty glass. 

However, Campus Crusade for Christ literature said that “being filled with the Holy Spirit” was all about control, not about volume.  

Jesus was controlling me.

I sinned.  

Jesus stopped controlling me.

I exhaled (confessed my sin).

I inhaled (asked the Holy Spirit to fill me).

Jesus was controlling me again via the Holy Spirit.  

Campus Crusade for Christ literature and staff members loved to weigh in on what needed to be exhaled.  Right thinking figured prominently in their literature.  Jesus lost all control once anyone questioned their theology. 

I loved spiritual breathing.  It was what I needed in my youth for my soul felt tossed by many gales.  This technique called me and calmed me.

It’s like calling your best friend a jerk, seeing the pained look on his face, and feeling bad about it.  You admit you were being the jerk.  He says, “Okay,” and you forget about it.  That is very liberating.

Now, I assume there really is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.  God just wants us to be good.  God does not beat us down when we are bad just as I do not beat my children down when they disobey or disappoint.  I look more to love than to transgression.

Thank you for your time.  Next time, I want to write about God at Gettysburg.  

I hope to see you here.  Blessings...