January 31, 2000

To the Christians in Atlanta and scattered about the globe;

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I see that my letter on the Liberty of the Christian Conscience (from institutions and from ancient scriptural laws) was not published as I had thought likely, or as at least possible. I am disappointed, for I thought it provided an excellent tool for dealing with the problems pitting Christians against each other; disappointed but not dismayed, for we are the sheep of His pasture, and for His sake we are slain all the day long.

I think it is worthwhile to note briefly some corollaries that arise from this clarified and clarifying conception of Paul, namely:

1. This (conception) removes all justification for the Islamic conception, for the latter is based entirely on the premise that God's word had been corrupted by humans through deception (the Jews) and confusion (the Christians) and so God, in his beneficence, deigned to speak one final time, without any possibility of error or misunderstanding, and seized the tongue of Mohammed (for all his revelations came in a trance state) and make him speak what God wanted said, and this was all written down and so there can never again be any question regarding the requirements of God.--But now, through this conception of the gentile Christian as subject to the Golden Rule alone, we see that there is no misunderstanding or confusion as to what the Christian is to do, and so therefore no need for the well-intended services of Mohammed who, perhaps in ignorance,* considered his own pronouncements in trance as having been dictated by God. Our total commitment with regard to all practical matters in a world with other humans is to love our neighbor even as we love ourselves. And so, in a paraphrase of Augustine, we are to love our neighbor and do what we wish. And so there is no deficiency which needs to be made up. [Keep it simple and you will win the world!]

[* I suspect that Mohammed was imposed upon by the denigration of the simplicity of the gospel message by the development of the authoritarian church of the 7th century as it sought to institutionalize its exalted position in the Byzantine world, having already earlier taken on the trappings of the Jewish priesthood in order to ease the transfer of allegiance by members of competing, priestly religions.]

2. The homosexual union can now be sanctioned by the church (in its now usual character of Johnny-come-lately) and instead of merely accepting homosexual unions (which would be a marvel on its own), these can be positively and energetically promoted such that two desirable goals attained at once, namely:

A. the homosexual couples or monasteries can adopt "extra" children and raise them in the Christian anschauung or view of reality; and thereby reduce the fear of unwanted children on the part of distraught mothers; and

B. the birth rate can decline (by removing induced adherence to an antiquated notion of righteousness [as being material and not spiritual] so that fewer people are engaged in conceiving and birthing) and the earth can more easily find a population size better suited to its resources and to the Christian ideal with regard to a life worth living.

3. the peace that comes with the Buddhist relinquishment, while perhaps very valid for people of that persuasion, is not the end of the story, for there is the Christian conception of sainthood, namely where God selects certain of the Christians to be blessed and to be elevated spiritually even while being cast down materially, for God chooses to use them in order to teach some lesson and/or to convey some message to people who are still struggling in darkness. For to the peace of the absence of all fear (which the Buddhist claims to possess) is then also added (through the Christian conception) the joy that comes from being used by God for awakening others. The finest example in all history, perhaps, is the decision of the Nagasaki Roman Catholics (with regard to the atomic bomb destruction) to consider their suffering* as needful by God in order that that minimum quantity of pain could be inflicted upon their Emperor so that he would be willing also to lose face and surrender the conception and identity which had led to madness of the Japanese Empire.--But I have only recently begun to muse much about the Buddhists, and so I am not as certain of my thoughts. in any case the conception of Paul turns suffering entirely around and it becomes a blessing, for now, in the conception of Christ, we are coworkers with him in the business of the kingdom. We are like Peter of Tradition who objects to being crucified like Jesus, for he, Peter, were not worthy to example him.]

[* Nagasaki was a second choice for destruction on the fateful day, and rose to the top position due to weather conditions. The bomb exploded almost directly above the Cathedral there, and the devastation to the sizable Catholic population was enormous.]

4. Another corollary was actually presented in the Declaration itself, within square brackets, namely the derivation, from the Golden Rule, of conduct of one Christian vis-à-vis another. And so when the other is a Christian, especially one who is "weak in faith" (in the context of Romans 14) the strong in faith are not to flaunt their freedom from law publicly,

5. The absolute character of the Christian commitment itself comes to play in this conception, e.g., to the exclusion of divorce; and certainly no speech seems so consistently absolute in the words of our Lord and his rejection of divorce. In fact we can easily assume that Matthew's "way out" of this prohibition, i.e., in case of marital infidelity, was given merely to encourage fearful Jews to enter into the new faith, knowing full well that once they did this, they would see of themselves that divorce was incompatible with the doctrine of Christian love and Christian commitment.

6. The conception of the Christian community as an image of the Holy Trinity itself, namely as two or more of equally important sovereigns, each of whom acts in total freedom and at the same time for the good of all. The law of such a realm is the Golden Rule as our Lord indicated very plainly in Matthews 7:12. And thus it is by means of our commitment to this Rule that makes us one with God and Christ through the Holy Spirit, as the manifestation of this Spirit in the flesh in the here and now.

I remain your servant in Christ.

/s/ Philip McPherson Rudisill