Time to pen some more thoughts following my previous rant here, now some months ago. Current conversations are around less controversial matters, but somewhat related in a base-line sense. How to reconcile what we can know of the historic Jesus through a self-imposed limited reading of the four Gospels with the phenomenon of the Cosmic Christ in the writings of the Apostle Paul.

The visit to this region of Alexander Shaia of Quadratos fame has lit the fire. Progressive thought has put much stake on paring back literary, cultural and historical influences in the writing of the canonical and extra-canonical Gospels to find Jesus the man in his own day-to-day context.

Shaia seeks to reclaim an alternative reading of the Gospels, in part, as an awareness of the influence of Paul’s cosmological understanding of the Christ principle – in that all things were created in, through and for the Christ, the Anointed, the Logos, the Life Principle, the Ground of All Being, the I Am Being Who I Am Being – whatever terms help us get a handle on the dynamic force which moves through all things and establishes a unity out of an incredible diversity of matter, mind and spirit.

Scholarship such as that provided by The Jesus Seminar has served us well in discerning the Jesus of history and providing insights into interpreting the Way by reading the Gospels in the light it has shed.

Shaia’s summons to reclaim Jesus in whom the Christ is proclaimed awakens the voice of the earliest Christians.

Old knowledge or cognitive dissonance for us sophisticated and enlightened pilgrims?

When it comes to living the Way, with its daily pathways of change, pain, union and mature service as taught by Jesus but empowered by the Christ that infuses one’s whole being – how do we sit with that continuous awareness? How am I practising it?

What do you think?