Translation or interpretation?

I recently had reason to compare some texts from the CEV alongside the KJV, and think about them from the knowledge I have of both evangelical interpretations of Scripture, and Christian Science.

Excerpts from Colossians, chapter 3:

CEV:  Christ gives meaning to your life, and when he appears, you will also appear with him in glory.

KJV:  When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

I see a big difference between "gives meaning to," and "is."

[Insert standard joke about the meaning of the word, "is"...]

CEV:  ...you have given up your old way of life with its habits.

KJV:  ...ye have put off the old man with his deeds.

Mary Baker Eddy's discovery was built on the consistent support she found for the understanding of life as eternal and spiritual, rather than finite and material.  In Christian Science, the "old man" is mortal, not spiritual.  One's lifestyle does tend to improve as one's comprehension of spiritual reality grows deeper, but to put off the old man is different from merely giving up a previous way of life, no?

CEV:  Each of you is a new person.  You are becoming more and more like your Creator, and you will undertand him better.

KJV:  ...and have put on that new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

There is a wide gulf between the meaning of these two renderings.  The CEV version sees one as an individual who is becoming more and more like the Creator.  It ends with a weak, "you will understand him better."  Gee.  That's nice.  I could use salvation, redemption, healing... but I guess if I understand him better, that will have to do.

Come on.  No man can understand God. 

The KJV is the underpinning of Christian Science thought:  the new man, renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.  The new man is spiritual, not material.  Knowledge is gained by observation, study, and deep thought.  The image of God is what man is.  There is no understanding of God to be found in that verse.  The knowledge is that you are the reflection of God, your Creator.

CEV:  God loves you and has chosen you as his own special people.  So be gentle, kind, humble, meek and patient.

KJV:  Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;...

To tell someone to be gentle and kind is pointless if they don't know what "gentle" and "kind" are like.  And how can they understand the "God loves you" thing if they've never encountered love in their lives?  Sadly, there are more of those every day as families disintegrate and toxic behaviors are taught as the norm.

And it is tiresome to be told to do it all oneself. 

The KJV version is the transformative step after putting off the old man.  We leave behind materiality and a sense of our limited mortal selves, until our very bowels are understood to be spiritual, not material... until we realize that the material world is transitory, and unreal, and only God is eternal and real.  Our role is to reflect God.  He does the rest. 

CEV:  Love is more important than anything else.  It is what ties everything completely together.

KJV:  And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

In today's English, the word "love" is meaningless because it is used promiscuously.  Charity is more specific, still understood as giving to others who need what we can give.  The bond of perfectness can be understood in the sense of a bond guaranteeing performance, as a bail bond, where the bondsman promises to bring the bailed one to court, or a school bond, where the issuing authority promises to pay back the bondholders.  Jesus told us that we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.  That seems impossible... and it is, if we are trying to be perfect from a material, limited standpoint, doing it all ourselves.  Instead, our charity is our bond - our proof that we are becoming a clearer reflection of God.  This verse is an answer to the controversy in evangelical circles about the Epistle of James, in which he seems to advocate "works."  He is saying what Paul said, here.  We say, "his word is his bond," and know what it means.  This means, "his charity is his bond," and that is clear.

In contrast, the CEV's version seems like mere platitudes.

While not a member of the Christian Science church, I would venture to say that the CEV is not the best version to use when helping others grow in their understanding of Mrs. Eddy's discovery.

The Pill is bad for your sex life

Or so says this article.

Of late it has been fashionable to deprecate men and pretend they're worthless.  I wonder how many of the women who find men "useless" have had their perceptions altered by the very drug they're taking to liberate their sex lives?

We have the right to see ourselves and others in the best light possible.  For me, that light comes from the Creator of light itself.

A comforting thought

Sometimes a citation in the Christian Science Bible Lesson will prove to be one which stays in my thought for days.  This week it was the very first one:

The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me:... (from Psalm 138:8)

As I read this on Monday morning, it was just what I needed for this week.  A work assignment the previous week required me to release a software update that was guaranteed to pose challenges, no matter how must testing could be performed.  Worse yet, I had scheduled a trip out of town on the day of release, and would not be back until Monday.

When I checked my email on Friday afternoon, the reports were disheartening.  However, the team rallied and did a great job of logging reports of issues, finding and applying fixes.  The verse above reassured me that, no matter what the appearance, God's goodness cannot be eclipsed by a few software bugs.  I went into my day in peace instead of in the anxiety which has plagued me of late.  And so it proved:  relationships with co-workers were normal.

In my life I've had many examples of the Lord perfecting the situations that concern me.  The word "concern" in that sentence could mean one of two things:  about me, or worry me.  In either case, God's care has been evident during difficult times.

As one formed in the image or likeness of God, I can be sure of approaching perfection only when I faithfully and consistently reflect God.  When I'm distracted or deluded by not-God thoughts, the reflection becomes blurry at best, and I'm subject to the consequences of those mistakes:  pain, sorrow, or confusion.  It is a great comfort to know that the Lord will perfect all that I know so long as I keep my gaze on Him, looking for His reflection in all that I encounter.

This week has provent to be markedly better than those before it.  It's the Lord's week, and He is perfecting it and allowing me to reflect His love and care and intelligence along the way.

This week's favourite thoughts

From the Bible:

For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.

There is much in this verse to bring comfort.  I love the idea that the Lord takes pleasure in His people... in us... in me.  God is my Father, so I'm glad I please Him.  My earthly father was of the type to help me look away from earth toward God.

"He will beautify the meek with salvation."  This thought has great value, I think.  An article entitled "Growing new, not old," published in the Christian Science Sentinel for May 22, 1989, started with this encouraging thought:

Many people these days seem caught up in an effort to avoid growing old.  We're offered products to make us look younger, products to make us feel younger.  We're even encouraged to act younger.  The underlying message is "Growing old is bad, so do everything you can to stay young." That message, thought, unthinkingly assumes that the opposite of "old" has to be "young." In fact, there's another way to look at it.  The opposite of "old" can also be "new." Pursuing this line of thought, we can do a great deal in the right direction and get beyond just trying to hang on to an elusive thing called "youth."

Salvation is here and now as we open our hearts to God's way and will, and quit making it up for ourselves as we go along.  As one woman wrote, drily, "The wisdom of man is not sufficient to warrant him in advising God."  (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 3)  Part of the "newness" we must strive for daily is the new sense of ourselves as God's dearly-loved ideas, His reflection.  It is a worthwhile project, and it makes us beautiful to the degree it results in us being as loving to others as our Father is to us.


From Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 506:

The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace.  Thus the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each successive stage of progress.

This was of great comfort to me this week.  An event in a grown child's life opened my unguarded thought to the memory of the same kind of milestone in my life over 30 years ago.  Her experience was (thankfully) different from mine.  She had a party and spent a happy evening with the family and friends who had supported her throughout her extended quest for a college degree.  Mine was so different that, for the first time, I realized how humanly sad my experience was compared to the normal ways one marks such an event.  As the feelings threatened to overwhelm me, I reached for the Bible Lesson, and found the thought quoted above.

Calm and exalted thought is that which has lifted its perception up from earthly seeming to spiritual truth.  Ideas dawn in their order, unfolding as they are needed or we are ready.  When one's thought is attentively fixed on God, His ideas can be absorbed, and progress immediately ensues.  In meditating on that idea, I realized that my experience so many years ago was valid, and that it had led to this moment when I was ready to see it and counter its mortal effects with "spiritual apprehension" of divine Love.  The emotional sadness I felt was keen, but temporary.  God was right there, comforting me and lifting me up to see that the unhappy experience which was not what I would have humanly wanted  never really happened to my true self, which reflects God and His love.  The truth is, I did graduate, with honors, and my family was proud of me.  My education has served me well in the intervening years, giving me the ability to work and earn money, as well as to learn and comprehend more than I might have without the education.  There were experiences I never had, but God was not missing from my life, even so.  As I learned to sit at His feet and listen, I have known more love and more hope than I ever could have gleaned from even the best of my family and friends.  And, today, I can celebrate with this adult child, who is not mine but who is just as dear to me as if she was.  My sadness is healed as I become absorbed in God, divine Love.

Where wander the sheep?

Shepherd, show me how to go
O'er the hillside steep,
How to gather, how to sow,--
How to feed Thy sheep...

This is the first stanza of a poem by Mary Baker Eddy, "Feed My Sheep," part of Miscellaneous Writings, page 397.

I'm not a Christian Scientist.  I was brought up in its philosophy, and learned about it only in my 20s, when the church I'd entered some years previously had been transformed into something entirely different from what I thought I was signing up for.  One of the main attractions for me with Christian Science was that it had not changed.  Its services were the same, it used the same textbook, it even continued to rely on the beautiful King James Bible.

However, with the Internet, it becomes clear that today's Christian Scientists are sometimes of a type Mary Baker Eddy would certainly rebuke, if indeed she understood Christian Science to define man as spiritual, not sensual.

When we identify ourselves by any term which can refer only to a characteristic of material selfhood, and specifically to a term used equally to describe a way of life and sensual behavior, and then say we are Christian Scientists, it shows we need more study and prayer to find our true identity.

There may be a time in our lives when, as we are beginning to understand Christian Science, we still self-identify as the child of an alcoholic, an epileptic, an overeater or an addict.  As we progress in the understanding of our true state as a child of God, reflecting His perfection, we can let go of the labels and just be what we are, Christian Scientists, and God's men (and women).

Let us beware of labeling ourselves in ways which not only limit our thinking, but lead others to focus on our material limitations and practices instead of the spiritual truth that man is not material, but spiritual.  Those who are our "shepherds" need to be loving, but firm in their encouragement to aspire and strive to reflect God.  In our practice of the last tenet, let us solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.

The Mythology of Science-Based Medicine

This is a year-old article which I just found linked here.

If a pill or surgery won't do the trick, most patients are sent home to await their fate. There is an implied faith here that if a new drug manufacturer has paid for the research for FDA approval, then it is scientifically proven to be effective. As it turns out, this belief is by no means fully justified.

One might think this article was written by Christian Scientists.  Actually, it wasn't.  It was attributed to Dr. Larry Dossey, Deeprak Chopra, and Dr. Rustum Roy, and it was posted at the Huffington Post.

The article cites The British Medical Journal:

Of 2,500 treatments,

• 13 percent were found to be beneficial
• 23 percent were likely to be beneficial
• Eight percent were as likely to be harmful as beneficial
• Six percent were unlikely to be beneficial
• Four percent were likely to be harmful or ineffective.

So 46 percent, the largest category, has unknown effectiveness. A hospitalized person has only a 36 percent chance of receiving a treatment scientifically demonstrated to be beneficial (or likely to be!).

At another point, the authors write,

We all marvel at the technological advances in materials and techniques that allow doctors to perform quadruple bypass surgeries and angioplasties without marveling that recent studies indicate that coronary bypass surgery will extend life expectancy in only about three percent of cases. For angioplasty that figure sinks to zero percent. Those numbers might be close to what you could expect from a witch doctor, one difference being that witch doctors don't submit bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.

My father was rushed into a heart bypass operation.  He contracted a serious infection which lasted the better part of a year.  Following that, he developed pulmonary fibrosis.  He and I were estranged, but I wouldn't wish his death, by slow, inevitable suffocation, on a dog.

The medical industry does seem to take itself very seriously.  It is based mainly on fear.  It touts horrific treatments which may or may not work, and for which enormous bills are submitted.

The health care reform law - "Obamacare" - might just be a good thing, after all.  It will jack up premiums, so fewer people can afford insurance, medicine, or treatment.  It employs "death panels," so people will rightfully avoid depending on it.

Are there any options?  Certainly.  Christian Science is one.

No, it isn't an oxymoron.  Scientific Christianity is a system of understanding the Scriptures which often results in healing.  The work which reveals Christian Science is Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy.  It is one of those books that everyone should read, if only to know about it.  It's a unique work which has comforted and helped millions of people.  Read the first page of the first chapter ("Prayer"), and see what you think.

I am not a member of the Christian Science church, but I study Christian Science.  I'm a student of Christian religion and thought.  I see tendrils of Christian Science thought throughout many writings of saints ("The science of love! Ah! sweet is the echo of that word to the ear of my soul! I desire no other science than that.") and wise preachers. ("When we touch the cosmic force apart from the “blinkers” of intellect, there is a wild problem in it. Nature is wild not tame. Modern science would have us believe it is tame, that we can harness the sea and the air. Quite true, if we only read scientific manuals, and deal with successful experiments; but after a while we discover that there are elements which knock men’s calculations on the head and prove that the universe is wild and unmanageable and yet God in the beginning created man to have dominion over it! The reason he cannot is because he has twisted the order and become master of himself, instead of recognising God’s dominion over him.") [emphasis added in both quotes]

Christian Science is the science of Love.  God is love, St. John assures us.  What does that mean to daily life?  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Christian Science textbook, is a good place to start.

Forbes columnist identifies a need for new ideas

On the Forbes website yesterday, Melik Kaylan posted an article entitled, "What Decade Are They Living In?" Due to Forbes' stringent copyright rules, I cannot give you so much as a few of his words, so I will have to merely describe the gist of his post.

He seems to be reeling from the plethora of theories, economic and social, which have been tried over the last century and a half, and finds them all to be lacking. There seems to be a regrettable reluctance to really research among the journalist ranks these days, not even to do a couple of quick Google searches. Mr. Kaylan duly repeats some of the basic types of suggested correction (taxation, regulation increases or controls, for example), then asks (rhetorically?), which group of theorists foresaw the collapse of the financial markets.

Actually, Mr. Kaylan, there was a significant number of thoughtful individuals who saw it coming. To put it simply, if you borrow money, you have to pay it back. If you borrow more than you can pay back, you will encounter difficulties. If you leverage your debt on an asset which might depreciate, you are assuming risk. If your potential risk outweighs the likely reward, you are headed for trouble. This rule applies to individuals, families, and governments.

If Mr. Kaylan was hoping for a pinpoint timing of the collapse, well... there are many factors which affect the timing. Whether or not it would happen was never in doubt among those who foresaw it.

The interesting part of the article, for me, came at the very end, when Mr. Kaylan expressed the opinion that we need an entirely new way to think about the world.

Hmm. I wonder what that "new" way might be? How about let's start by accepting God as infinite, and Love, and go on from there?

Thoughts on reality

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen... through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (The Epistle to the Hebrews, 11:1, 3.)

The objects cognized by the physical senses have not the reality of substance. They are only what mortal belief calls them. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, 311:26-28.)

Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, when does a quantum system stop existing as a mixture of states and become one or the other? (More technically, when does the actual quantum state stop being a linear combination of states, each of which resembles different classical states, and instead begins to have a unique classical description?) If the cat survives, it remembers only being alive. But explanations of the EPR experiments that are consistent with standard microscopic quantum mechanics require that macroscopic objects, such as cats and notebooks, do not always have unique classical descriptions. The purpose of the thought experiment is to illustrate this apparent paradox. Our intuition says that no observer can be in a mixture of states; yet the cat, it seems from the thought experiment, can be such a mixture. Is the cat required to be an observer, or does its existence in a single well-defined classical state require another external observer? Each alternative seemed absurd to Albert Einstein, who was impressed by the ability of the thought experiment to highlight these issues. In a letter to Schrödinger dated 1950, he wrote:

You are the only contemporary physicist, besides Laue, who sees that one cannot get around the assumption of reality, if only one is honest. Most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with reality—-reality as something independent of what is experimentally established. Their interpretation is, however, refuted most elegantly by your system of radioactive atom + amplifier + charge of gunpowder + cat in a box, in which the psi-function of the system contains both the cat alive and blown to bits. Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation.[5]

Another thinker writes:

Experimental Psychology has traditionally been partitioned into separate subdisciplines, with surprisingly little communication across the boundaries. Cognition has traditionally occupied one subdiscipline with perception and action occupying another subdiscipline. As a result, theories of cognition have typically neglected the perception and action side of our everyday experience. However, it is possible-even likely-that cognition is constrained by human perceptual-motor capabilities. Furthermore, it is likely that perception and action are constrained by cognition. If such constraints exist, then by ignoring them, cognition researchers have been negligent in their pursuit of a complete picture of human cognition. (The Atomic Components of Thought, abstract of Chapter 6, Action and Perception.)

"As a man thinketh..."

TMI for teens, IMO

A recent "news" report tells of a study that teen pregnancies are higher among girls who watch shows which portray sexual conduct. Another recent article describes statistics about teen sexual behavior which are saddening to those who would give young people a chance to learn what love is, before engaging in actions which are appropriate only in the context of marriage. Dr. Elizabeth Schroeder, executive director of Answer, a teen sex education program based at Rutgers University, is quoted as saying,

“This so clearly points to the need for comprehensive sexual education for kids,” Schroeder said. “An adolescent … is supposed to be making poor decisions. Developmentally this is the way they’re supposed to be behaving. They need help ...."

There is another way: spirituality instead of physicality. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "Children should be allowed to remain children in knowledge, and should become men and women only through growth in the understanding of man's higher nature." Jesus was more direct: "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

In the second article linked above, Dr. Schroeder is quoted as saying, “Parents need help talking with their kids about sexuality, and schools need to be talking to kids about sexuality.” While some specific information is of course appropriate as part of a normal education, all of us, whether parents or not, can best support children by living pure and honorable lives ourselves, discerning and demonstrating the difference between affection and mere sensuality, and joyfully reflecting God, good, in every aspect of our lives.

Why I'm against government health care

The Pharisees of old thrust the spiritual idea and the man who lived it out of their synagogues, and retained their materialistic beliefs about god. Jesus' system of healing received no aid nor approval from other sanitary or religious systems, from doctrines of physics or divinity; and it has not yet been generally accepted. To-day, as of yore, unconscious of the reappearing of the spiritual idea, blind belief shuts the door upon it, and condemns the cure of the sick and sinning if it is wrought on any but a material and a doctrinal theory. Anticipating this rejection of idealism, of the true idea of god,--this salvation from all error, physical and mental,--Jesus asked, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (emphasis added)

from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. 132:14 et seq.

We already have so few choices when it comes to health care. Want a natural birth with a midwife? Benefit from chiropractic? Are you a student of Christian Science?

Do you have the right to choose for yourself? Will you have that right if national health care is in place? Or will you have to take what they give you, and pay market rates, without insurance, to get the health care you want to have? If so, is that freedom? Is it good?

Are we really so ignorant and incapable of determining what's best for our families?

Perhaps the health care plan doesn't intend to legislate what kind of care people will have, but, practically speaking, it requires it. Remember that doctors and hospitals now competing in the marketplace will depend upon the government for their funds, requiring them to toe the line to get that money.

I think we need to be very careful about this... and I don't like the idea that my representatives, in this republic of ours (it is not a democracy) may be voting for something they haven't reviewed and don't understand.

Please note I am not condemning or even mistaking the good intentions of those who sincerely believe that legislation is the only way to provide health care for all. However, isn't it reasonable to question the soundness of an industry which thrives by scaring people?

Preserving liberty requires eternal watchfulness.

Enduring wisdom

In recent web-surfing, I found this article by Alfred Farlow, entitled "Christian Science in Business." It is pithy, on-point, and apt - especially at this time in our nation's financial experience.

I found it further comforting to note that it originally appeared in the Christian Science Sentinel on August 26, 1904.

We do not need to scramble around looking for new truths to explain what's happening in our economy. We already have what we need to know... thank God.

Practical Christianity

My motive in setting up this blog is to discuss the journey to peace and wholeness. Each of us must make this journey. Our deepest longings, the most cherished secrets of the heart, point us towards a place of peace and safety.

We can get sidetracked on the way, and sit down, like Pooh, in the prickles. Or we get tired of waiting for the Best, and settle for the Good, or the Will be Good If, or the It's Not So Bad. There's nothing wrong with that, but we risk missing the perfect peace which can be ours if we stay the course and trust.

This blog is about trust.