Among the Misfits: He Whose Nature is Love
I am comfortable among the misfits. The unpolished. A grub myself, after the Navy I lived in a pickup truck for two years occasionally studying metaphysics. I was saved among young, tongue-speaking Pentecostal kids in a commune in Hawaii (hello, Rod Wilson) who got me involved in Orthodox-ish Charismatic Christianity. Yet I am more comfortable with the "mad mystic of 48th Street," Neville Goddard.
I need consonance of philosophy and reality. I do not get that with the foundations, institutions, committees, doctrines and dogmas of modern Western Christianity. There is a reality I perceive and experience, and what I have been taught in the Church does not align with it. They are talking about it all right, but they aren't getting it. Victor Alexander's translations and C. F. Rehnborg's comprehension can be mentally aligned with the reality I perceive as "the real thing that is going on." Like Neville, these do not sit well with the orthodox. Rehnborg's and Alexander's books are unpolished, unedited, self-published . . . and worth many times their asking price to those who can read the meanings behind the words.
Reading is wrestling. I have read (and in Neville's case listened to) many things many times, and each time I have discovered something new, something completely missed in previous readings. I read again Alexander's Book of Genesis translated from the Ancient Aramaic and noted the themes of abundance, provision, and satiation in their exalted names. God is saying, "I am that abundance from whence is satiation." "The world is just the appeasement of a hunger," Neville said, and it runs through Genesis like a banner.
What made me then pick Rehnborg's Jesus and the New Age of Faith off the shelf? Its resonance with that banner, that theme, that reality. In chapter 31 specifically, THE NEW AGE OF FAITH, he does more to explain Neville and the God of the Bible than anything else I have ever read. The nature of God is love, provision, abundance. No tricks to perform, no doctrines required to be accepted. Take HIS nature upon YOU, and you're cool.
I can hardly read my study copy of The New Age of Faith for all the notes and underlining. I keep a clean copy for pleasure reading and buy spares whenever I find them to give away. Given the option to give a person a great study Bible like the Companion Bible or Jesus and the New Age of Faith, I give The New Age of Faith. Then they can better understand the Bible (not like Jewish mysticism, though).
I have hundreds and hundreds of Christian books, commentaries, lexicons, collections of sermons, etc. The best books I have are Alexander's translations (especially Genesis) and Rehnborg's Jesus and the New Age of Faith. (It was published privately by the C. F. Rehnborg Literary Foundation, 5600 Beach Boulevard, Buena Park, California 90620, in 1955.)
So what did C. F. Rehnborg teach? As far as I know, he did not teach; he ruminated. From 1917 to 1927 he was a businessman in China, where he was besieged by zealous Christian missionaries. A consummately logical man, he could not accept their irrational religious claims and doctrines. But they got him thinking: they had something; they were wrong about it, but there was something there. He investigated and worked it out. The Age of Faith is his conclusion, the conclusion of a logical mind's ruminations upon the assertions and contradictions regarding this perceived and experienced reality. I am glad he kept notes.
His conclusion (spoiler alert) on pages viii and ix (! I could have stopped reading here!) is that "Jesus also taught success and achievement as attainable individual goals, and he taught the manner of living which produced achievement . . . That what man would have he could have." I.e., that Jesus taught Moses' success manual the way Moses meant it. Man can have success because the universe and its Cause are one, and the laws of the universe are simply the nature of that Cause. The Cause is beneficent in nature, and the laws of that nature are the laws of living: "Finally, Jesus taught that the principles of love and brotherhood were in fact consequences of the nature of the universe. They were natural ideals, not constructed ideals, requiring merely to be discovered as all natural laws are discovered. One did not condescendingly ameliorate the terms of harsh existence for other miserable humans by practicing specious love and brotherhood, for misery itself was unnatural. Instead, not to practice true love and brotherhood was to oppose (impose?) selfish conduct to the operation of a natural beneficence. Men prevented men from attaining happiness. Happiness was a natural consequence of a natural order of things; but men were to attain it by a rational use of their common natures and capabilities, just as they walked by using their legs. The universe was the expression of a God postulated to exist by deduction from the facts, and this God could be comprehended by the image of a Father to men. Man could attune himself to the universe, and the things call nobilities were the acts of attunement. Further, this universal Principle of Love, this Cause and Nature of the Universe, made yet other beneficences follow inevitably as related consequences. The resources of the universe were infinite, and just as a human father made the benefits at his control free for the good of his children, so also the Father of all men made the resources of the universe free mankind his children. Not only happiness but every other desirable thing was free to all men for the asking" (p. 399).
For the asking. Believing. "Give us THIS day our bread for THIS day" begs the question of what YHWH means by "Behold, I come quickly." It is in response to our asking: "The whole operation of desiring and receiving is achieved within ourselves by an act of alignment of our "selves" with an immutable and unalterable pattern existing outside ourselves -- inflexible and unchangeable because no element of the universal pattern can be varied without inevitably requiring change in every other element of the universal pattern to some corresponding degree; a change not possible because incompatible with natural law and inconceivable without alteration of the universe. Therefore, the change must be made by altering our "selves" to fit the laws" (p. 400).
"To ask for what one desires, as Jesus said we might, does not come about through any violation of the natural order of things. It is part of the natural order: the universe is made that way. If one follows the Law of Love in his dealings with men (or even if he does not), and if one knows what he wants, then inevitably and certainly life orders itself in such a manner that the desired thing simply happens" (p. 401). Rehnborg says there are no conditions except to accept the relationship. No groveling before a judgmental God. "One believes, one desires and is ready to receive and to be thankful."
Interestingly, Rehnborg frequently mentions Gautama (Buddha) for comparison. I have expressed before that I believe the author of the Book of Mark was an Indian Buddhist Therapeut, a missionary to the West of Asia (see Christian Lindtner Theory*). I believe Mark presents a Jesus of REFINED Buddhism after he, Mark, discovered Moses. You take the heart of Moses' Judaism and the heart of Gautama's Buddhism and you have, voila, Christianity as taught by that famous Jewish Buddhist: Jesus Christ. Mark and his Jesus were misfits trying to start a new Age of Faith, too.
*My reason for believing Mark to be an Indian missionary has to do with first language interference in his second language learning. Per Lindtner, he writes Greek as an Indian would, and as an ESL teacher I agree. Mark isn't saying, for instance, that Jesus immediately did this and that; he is using an associate term for the Sanskrit "and then . . ." We all thought Mark just had some quirks, and that Jesus must have visited India in his undocumented youth. No, he didn't go to India; an Indian came to Palestine and wrote the first Gospel!
It makes sense that the Source and Cause of the universe is an expanding, intelligent being. Increase and abundance would thus be Its nature. Asking for and receiving abundant provision would not be an exception but rather the rule in such a being as we are in.
I need consonance of philosophy and reality. I do not get that with the foundations, institutions, committees, doctrines and dogmas of modern Western Christianity. There is a reality I perceive and experience, and what I have been taught in the Church does not align with it. They are talking about it all right, but they aren't getting it. Victor Alexander's translations and C. F. Rehnborg's comprehension can be mentally aligned with the reality I perceive as "the real thing that is going on." Like Neville, these do not sit well with the orthodox. Rehnborg's and Alexander's books are unpolished, unedited, self-published . . . and worth many times their asking price to those who can read the meanings behind the words.
Reading is wrestling. I have read (and in Neville's case listened to) many things many times, and each time I have discovered something new, something completely missed in previous readings. I read again Alexander's Book of Genesis translated from the Ancient Aramaic and noted the themes of abundance, provision, and satiation in their exalted names. God is saying, "I am that abundance from whence is satiation." "The world is just the appeasement of a hunger," Neville said, and it runs through Genesis like a banner.
What made me then pick Rehnborg's Jesus and the New Age of Faith off the shelf? Its resonance with that banner, that theme, that reality. In chapter 31 specifically, THE NEW AGE OF FAITH, he does more to explain Neville and the God of the Bible than anything else I have ever read. The nature of God is love, provision, abundance. No tricks to perform, no doctrines required to be accepted. Take HIS nature upon YOU, and you're cool.
I can hardly read my study copy of The New Age of Faith for all the notes and underlining. I keep a clean copy for pleasure reading and buy spares whenever I find them to give away. Given the option to give a person a great study Bible like the Companion Bible or Jesus and the New Age of Faith, I give The New Age of Faith. Then they can better understand the Bible (not like Jewish mysticism, though).
I have hundreds and hundreds of Christian books, commentaries, lexicons, collections of sermons, etc. The best books I have are Alexander's translations (especially Genesis) and Rehnborg's Jesus and the New Age of Faith. (It was published privately by the C. F. Rehnborg Literary Foundation, 5600 Beach Boulevard, Buena Park, California 90620, in 1955.)
So what did C. F. Rehnborg teach? As far as I know, he did not teach; he ruminated. From 1917 to 1927 he was a businessman in China, where he was besieged by zealous Christian missionaries. A consummately logical man, he could not accept their irrational religious claims and doctrines. But they got him thinking: they had something; they were wrong about it, but there was something there. He investigated and worked it out. The Age of Faith is his conclusion, the conclusion of a logical mind's ruminations upon the assertions and contradictions regarding this perceived and experienced reality. I am glad he kept notes.
His conclusion (spoiler alert) on pages viii and ix (! I could have stopped reading here!) is that "Jesus also taught success and achievement as attainable individual goals, and he taught the manner of living which produced achievement . . . That what man would have he could have." I.e., that Jesus taught Moses' success manual the way Moses meant it. Man can have success because the universe and its Cause are one, and the laws of the universe are simply the nature of that Cause. The Cause is beneficent in nature, and the laws of that nature are the laws of living: "Finally, Jesus taught that the principles of love and brotherhood were in fact consequences of the nature of the universe. They were natural ideals, not constructed ideals, requiring merely to be discovered as all natural laws are discovered. One did not condescendingly ameliorate the terms of harsh existence for other miserable humans by practicing specious love and brotherhood, for misery itself was unnatural. Instead, not to practice true love and brotherhood was to oppose (impose?) selfish conduct to the operation of a natural beneficence. Men prevented men from attaining happiness. Happiness was a natural consequence of a natural order of things; but men were to attain it by a rational use of their common natures and capabilities, just as they walked by using their legs. The universe was the expression of a God postulated to exist by deduction from the facts, and this God could be comprehended by the image of a Father to men. Man could attune himself to the universe, and the things call nobilities were the acts of attunement. Further, this universal Principle of Love, this Cause and Nature of the Universe, made yet other beneficences follow inevitably as related consequences. The resources of the universe were infinite, and just as a human father made the benefits at his control free for the good of his children, so also the Father of all men made the resources of the universe free mankind his children. Not only happiness but every other desirable thing was free to all men for the asking" (p. 399).
For the asking. Believing. "Give us THIS day our bread for THIS day" begs the question of what YHWH means by "Behold, I come quickly." It is in response to our asking: "The whole operation of desiring and receiving is achieved within ourselves by an act of alignment of our "selves" with an immutable and unalterable pattern existing outside ourselves -- inflexible and unchangeable because no element of the universal pattern can be varied without inevitably requiring change in every other element of the universal pattern to some corresponding degree; a change not possible because incompatible with natural law and inconceivable without alteration of the universe. Therefore, the change must be made by altering our "selves" to fit the laws" (p. 400).
"To ask for what one desires, as Jesus said we might, does not come about through any violation of the natural order of things. It is part of the natural order: the universe is made that way. If one follows the Law of Love in his dealings with men (or even if he does not), and if one knows what he wants, then inevitably and certainly life orders itself in such a manner that the desired thing simply happens" (p. 401). Rehnborg says there are no conditions except to accept the relationship. No groveling before a judgmental God. "One believes, one desires and is ready to receive and to be thankful."
Interestingly, Rehnborg frequently mentions Gautama (Buddha) for comparison. I have expressed before that I believe the author of the Book of Mark was an Indian Buddhist Therapeut, a missionary to the West of Asia (see Christian Lindtner Theory*). I believe Mark presents a Jesus of REFINED Buddhism after he, Mark, discovered Moses. You take the heart of Moses' Judaism and the heart of Gautama's Buddhism and you have, voila, Christianity as taught by that famous Jewish Buddhist: Jesus Christ. Mark and his Jesus were misfits trying to start a new Age of Faith, too.
*My reason for believing Mark to be an Indian missionary has to do with first language interference in his second language learning. Per Lindtner, he writes Greek as an Indian would, and as an ESL teacher I agree. Mark isn't saying, for instance, that Jesus immediately did this and that; he is using an associate term for the Sanskrit "and then . . ." We all thought Mark just had some quirks, and that Jesus must have visited India in his undocumented youth. No, he didn't go to India; an Indian came to Palestine and wrote the first Gospel!
It makes sense that the Source and Cause of the universe is an expanding, intelligent being. Increase and abundance would thus be Its nature. Asking for and receiving abundant provision would not be an exception but rather the rule in such a being as we are in.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
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