Let me begin with a quote from Alan Boyd Kuhn, "The historical Jesus as a civiling influence has now been tried for nearly twenty centuries. It well behooves humanity in the West now to try the concept of the indwelling Christ, the hope of our glory." One can go several ways with that statement.
The division of the historical Jesus and the spiritual Christos is no less valid than is the Jesus Christ name.
So much of the world say that they are following "Jesus Christ" which is the first and last name of an historical individual who came from Nazareth and was the Son of God, born of a virgin, and resurrected after his crucifixion. Temples have been built in his name, statutes have been erected, doctrines established, and unfortunately millions killed- in his name!
To say that the historical Jesus has been a "civilizing influence" contradicts reality.
But is it that the Jesus experiment failed or that Christianity made Jesus into something he was not? Could it be that Jesus was has been made in our image and not we in his? Could religion have taken over that which was an interior spiritual experience and made it into an external works endeavor? As I listened for maybe ten minutes, the preacher explained how one could assure themselves a "ticket to heaven".
This was no metaphor, but a literal explanation of the "heavenly process".
There really is no Jesus experiment, there is but a life of learning how to love and to experience surrender. In a religious world where meritocracy is the currency of the realm and dominion over every doctrine that's not ours must prevail, there's really no Jesus experiment. May we stop experimenting and start being! :-)
As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.
