Bruce Charlton's Notions

The story of the prodigal son and his father is about Man and God. No matter what mess, what depths of depravity he falls into by his choices, the son will always be welcomed home and taken-in by his father.

Our situation is the same... and yet we don't ask for that help which would so freely and lovingly be given. Because to do so would mean admitting that we had been wrong; and an explicit admission of error and sin is the one thing that modern Man refuses to do (even unto death).

(This shows why pride is the core sin.)


No matter how far we have fallen, no matter how terrible our situation actually is - we are never left bereft by Jesus: always he is there and ready to lead us to life eternal; but we must acknowledge his reality, ask for his help. Jesus helps by consent and desire; he cannot help those who turn from him, hate him, deny him. 


Modern Man is too proud to allow himself to be the prodigal son. No matter what depths of misery he sinks-to by his own choice, he will not turn-to God - just as he will not turn-to his family. The two refusals are related.

I often read biographies (and I have know the same in real life); and it is striking how often modern people leave home, fall into sin and find themselves in a situation of - by their own accounts - extreme poverty, violence, loneliness, misery, depression and despair... such that they consider suicide (either actual suicide; or the covert suicide of alcohol, drugs or repeated patterns of reckless courting of violence and disease). They are - by their own accounts - actually living in a verson of hell.

Yet, it often emerges that the whole time he was in this (self-described) hell; there was a family back home who would have wanted nothing more than to welcome and take-in the prodigal, feed and shelter him, love him.


In few things is the evil of modern mainstream official (mass media-bureaucratic) life so clear; as the fact that this refusal to acknowledge error and sin and seek help with 'the father' (and mother) is regarded as admirable, a strength to be emulated.

The idea propagated is that it is better to die alone, in misery and despair, by slow- or fast-suicide; than to acknowledge the error of an hedonic, responsibility-avoidant lifestyle (sex, drugs, violence, rock and roll - or whatever).

This is how we have come to the point of officially-funded, propagandised and (increasingly) mandatory celebrations of unrepentant prodigal status - the many demonic festivals of Pride. That these festivals are celebrated by self-styled 'Christian' churches, tells us all we need to know about such churches.


The parable of the prodigal son is also a picture of how and why people choose hell and reject Heaven; because Heaven and hell are a choice, rather than a judicial judgement.

Another (spiritually lethal) deficit of modern people is that they affect not to understand why anybody would choose hell, knowing the nature of Heaven; and yet here we have it, in our daily lives!

Even in this mortal life we see people choose a version of hell - despair, nihilism, spiritual death; when all the time an actual living, loving family (an imperfect Heaven, but the closest picture we know) is ready to welcome them.


Note: Nowadays, the prodigal 'son' is perhaps most-often a daughter. 

My current understanding is that we have three main type of divine guidance available. 

They are not, I believe, identical in nature - but they are (always and necessarily) in profound and ultimate harmony; because of their shared committment to the goals of creation as motivated by love.

Actually to gain access to these forms of divine guidance (here, now, 2020) requires that we each make conscious decisions, and are spiritually active. 

...Because, while children and Men in the past (and perhaps other cultures still) may passively and unconsciously be guided (manipulated) by the divine; in our situation we need to to be conscious and active in our choosing our path through life. 

And, as the flip-side, if we are Not conscious and active in our spiritual choices; then (here, now, 2020) our committment to the divine will decline, and we will (sooner or later) almost certainly be induced to join the side of God's enemies. 

Such are these times.  

 

1. God - the creator

I think that the guidance of God the creator comes to us mainly via ongoing creation. In other words, God influences our lives by influencing the situation we inhabit, our circumstances, our environment. 

If we want to follow God's influence, we must therefore regard our world as a creation of God, and as having meaning and purpose for us as individuals - as continually being-arranged for our ultimate (eternal) benefit, by a loving and personal God. 

 

2. Jesus Christ - the Holy Ghost

My understanding of the Fourth Gospel is that it tells us explicitly that the Holy Ghost is the spirit of the ascended Jesus; by which he is avialble to all the people of the world for 'comfort' and guidance.

For this to happen, we need to be aware of the wise and loving continual presence of the Holy Ghost; and to open our minds to him, so that the Holy Ghost's thinking will arise in the stream of our thinking.  

 

3. God - within us

We are children of God, in the literal sense of being divinely-procreated by God (our Heavenly Parents) and of the being capable of developing and growing to be like God; of like 'kind', as was Jesus Christ. 

We are therefore immature gods/ godlings/ mini-gods now, already - and contain that-within-us which is in harmony with God's creation and purposes; albeit this guidance is only intermittently and incompletely effective (since it is not fully-developed). 

God-within-us is the reality behind the concept of conscience; and we know it by intuition - by 'introspection' (looking within' to our deepest nature (below or within the social conditioning and natural instincts); and this may occur in some kinds of prayer and meditation. 

 

All forms of divine guidance will agree each with the others; but not all may be discerned, or may be incompletely or distortedly discernible - so they may superficially appear to differ. 

But if deeper and more solid knowledge of individual kinds of guidance can be attained, then the unity of 'what to do' will emerge. 

We should recall and have trust in God that we are 'never left bereft' by God, Jesus, The Holy Ghost. That is - no matter what our situation - those who ask for help (spiritually) will always be given help, and a way-out.   

(The only truly-damned by circumstances, are those who will not ask for help.)

At this time, looking around, we can see a rapid and catastrophic failure of even the most devout Christians.

The mainstream churches are essentially dead - because watching stuff online is just more TV; online groups are just social media. Social-distancing destroys society. Any church that states health is their priority, is no longer a church.


What is worse, extremely few (ex?) Christians acknowledge this catastrophic failure. In reality, what has been revealed about Christianity in the past half-year, by the response to the birdemic, is a really Big Thing in the history of the world: and especially the past 2000 years.

We are living through a transition of comparable significance with any in world history: comparable to the invention of agriculture or the industrial revolution - and happening must faster than either. 


Sudden and very complete collapse has affected the traditionalist and conservative and patriarchal churches, as well as the liberals and sexual-revolutionary radicals. Therefore, it really is no use to be harking back, and to pointing at the old ways.

External sources of tradition are broken; the old ways have failed.


Christians are now mostly isolated or in small groups. 'Fighting' rhetoric is nonsense in this context, because we are massively outnumbered and out-powered, and even the law is against us.

The strength must thus be inner - or it will be absent; the fight is spiritual - or else the outcome will be surrender.

Even merely to stay a Christian is very difficult (and clearly too difficult for most 'devout' churchgoers) - but mere stasis is not an option, growth is needed for survival.

Therefore, each Christian requires new (previous untapped - or hardly used) sources of strength, motivation, conviction. Christians must Think and to Be in unprecedented ways - and ways that are qualitatively different from the mainstream of impulse gratification and totalitarian bureaucracy.

We can't get this secondhand, so every serious Christian needs to be actively working on this - every day. The problem is of absolute urgency - it brooks no delay. Once active and faithful Christians are falling-away daily, hourly.

You may be next; and by that time you won't even care; because if the Holy Ghost has been known and then rejected, the route back is notoriously uncertain.


Unlikely as it sounds, Christians can have absolutely solid faith that it can be done.

We are never left bereft; since God is both our loving father and the creator; so there are innumerable ways we can be (and are being) helped; if only we recognise them, and meet them halfway. Thanks to Jesus Christ: the Holy Ghost is ever present, and bottomless well of guidance and encouragement.

Properly considered, the Christian situation is really not too difficult for anybody, and anybody who wants to be Christian can have it and hold it.

But we will not find help and strength if we keep looking in a place where Christianity has departed, if we keep depending on authorities that have abandoned the faith, and who address the body instead of the soul.

We must look in the proper place: the true and indestructible House of God.

British institutions are all too-big, waaay too big (except when they are collapsing - and begging to be taken-over by the state management).

This has happened especially over the past couple of decades. All UK universities have quadrupled in size or more - and the teaching classes within them have trebled (more buildings of all types - except for teaching facilities!). Hospitals likewise; schools, and pretty much everything. Professions (law, medicine, academics, scientists, bishops!...) have trebled or more, with massive decline in motivation and vocation and ability; and become permeated with part-timers who regard themselves primarily as for-hire functionaries.

Too may people indifferent, alienated, uninvolved. 

The world is vast and mediocre - and always the shadow reality of bureaucracy.

Well, on the other side the previous state of affairs was far from perfect, and could never be really satisfactory; people could never really be satisfied by life as part of an institution - even a small, self-governing and elite.

Smaller is indeed more-beautiful; but a small village, college, school, factory, nation... is not really beautiful in any unqualified fashion.

Still all that has gone and we are left bereft - we are on-our-own now (most of us); life is a matter of gigantic bureaucracies (wo-)manned by mediocre drones and our-selves.

So be it; this is the hand we have been dealt; this is the world we must live-in like it or not.

That self needs to be found, sustained, strengthened; and not by institutional means by by direct contact with the divine - that's what we must do if we want anything other than a life dedicated to obliterative hedonism and distraction.

And, come to think on it; that it very likely what we ought to be doing anyway!

Not that this life is or ought to be solitary - but that 'soceity' is not going to support, but rather to subvert and corrupt, anything Good and creative that we are trying to do.

The mind is free: thinking is free - so long as it is our real and divine mind; and that mind is intrinsically creative; and we need to revel-in and explore that freedom, and be our own judges and enjoyers of the genuine creativity which eventuates from such living.

In this instance (and not by accident) what we must do and what we need to do are coincident.      

In response to some e-mail communications from Alan Roebuck (of The Orthosphere blog) I will here try to provide a concise summary of my core reason for being a Romantic Christian; and, in the process (and speaking for myself), an attempted definition of what Romantic Christianity might be. 

My underpinning conviction is that God is the creator of reality, and is loving of each and every man and woman in the same qualitative way as the most ideal parents in an ideal family. 

(i.e. God the creator is our Loving Father and Mother.)

The purpose behind creation is that Men be given the chance to become as God in divine stature (i.e. in love and creative power). The hope that as many as possible mortal Men will choose to become resurrected and immortal Men, and choose to dwell with God in Heaven as a loving divine family; working with God on eternal his divine creating. 

Romantic Christianity is based on the conviction that such a God would never leave any of his children bereft of sufficient guidance and motivation for them to make that choice of resurrected life eternal and to live on earth such as to become more divine in that eternal life.

This principle of "None Left Bereft" implies, negatively, that sufficient guidance would not be allowed to depend on a particular child-of-God's access to a particular church, a particular book (The Bible), particular traditions, or any other of the specifics of human mortal life. 

All of these sources of guidance are too uncertain, not universally available; and too open to both corruption, distortion and misunderstanding. Therefore: God would not rely-upon such mechanisms. 

Positively; it therefore seems certain to me that God has created this world and our lives such that we all have direct access to the knowledge - the guidance and motivation - which we need for salvation and theosis.  

Direct access means direct divine guidance from God ('direct' meaning 'mind to mind', not depending on language; that guidance will 'appear in our thinking' -i.e. 'intuition'); and this external guidance is in addition to the fact that - as sons and daughters of God - we all have a divine self; a core divine nature that enables us to receive and understand this directly-transmitted guidance. 

My understanding of Romantic Christianity is that it is based on a conviction that this direct divine guidance (supplemented by that which is divine in each Man) ought-to-be the basis of every Man's Christianity as of 2021 (although this was not always true in the past, in some places). 

I could continue explaining - but I shall keep it brief; and I think there is probably enough there. 

If people are left bereft by the closure of churches, withdrawal of sacraments, withdrawal of fellowship etc. etc. - they will feel themselves to have been spiritually betrayed; and will never again trust their Church.

But if people adjust-to the coercively-imposed unilateral-withdrawal of their Church; and manage their spiritual lives satisfactorily, well, or better than when they attended Church - these people will realise that they do not need the Church.

It is Catch 22.

Either way - Churches are finished. By which I mean that, even if they survive in some form as institutional structures; for serious Christians, Church will never again be the origin and focus of their Christian life.

There are several pieces of traditional Christian good advice, which Christians feel 'safe' in swapping. These vary between denominations; but would include attending church to gather for worship (especially - for Roman and Anglo Catholics - participating in the Mass/ Holy Communion), reading and studying scripture, praying, reciting the Jesus Prayer. 

But after 2020, and the vast failure of Christian discernment in relation to the birdemic (now continuing with the peck) - with Christian support for almost universal closure of churches, suspension of sacraments, an end to gathering - even ceasing ministering to the sick and dying etc - we can easily think of many examples of people who followed all the good advice to-the-letter and lived fully in accordance with sound practice... yet failed in discernment and have still not repented. 

To be more explicit - there were Protestants who had been reading the Bible daily and meeting in scripture study for year; there were Roman Catholics who fasted and attended mass daily; active Mormons who participated in Temple activities; Eastern Orthodox who recited the Jesus prayer... 

Yet the leadership all these (and the other) major Christian churches supported the closure of their churches and the 100% priority of materialistic birdemic imperatives. And the church members abandoned en masse the core activities of Christianity as they themselves defined it (Catholics stopped Mass, Mormons closed Temples etc.). 

In doing so they revealed that - as a matter of fact - these Christians believed the government and mass media more than they believe the scriptures. They believed their leadership whatever the leadership said (however illogical and incoherent, however servile to the evil fashions of secular politics). They jettisoned centuries of tradition - and adopted whatever the daily news dictated. 

One thing we can (indeed must) learn from this is that traditional Christian Good Advice, and traditional Christian Practices are not sufficiently powerful for these times. 

They may continue to be helpful to individuals in various ways - but 2020 shows that they are just not strong enough; however it was in the past - nowadays they cannot be relied upon.

Indeed, Christians have shown themselves unable to depend upon any external practices or guidance. None have been able to supply the discernment and courage that everybody in the world needs now.

Yet this is no cause for panic or despair - our God is the creator of this world (and sustains every person's life) and loves us each as his children... Therefore we shall never be left bereft of the guidance and strength that we need for salvation. 

But (having learned the lessons of 2020) Christians now need to learn to look for guidance and strength in places that have - until now - neglected; especially, from within, the intuition of our own true and divine self; and the revelations of the Holy Ghost. 

But if we look - we will find. 

The mainstream orthodox Christian stance of extreme suspicion against anything "spiritual" (what I recently dubbed spiritual scaremongering) is a deadly error - that leads indirectly but almost-inevitably into embracing the "Ahrimanic", bureaucratic totalitarianism of "this world" - but especially The West. 

This is because spiritual scaremongering is a species of materialism/ positivism/ scientism/ reductionism - and that is what has delivered the whole world of global and (almost entirely) national social institutions and public discourse into the rulership of demonic evil. 

As modern Men have become individual consciousnesses (alienated, cut-off - but also more free, potentially spiritual agents), so that we are no longer unconsciously and spontaneously immersed-in the consciousness of each other; so has dwindled to insignificance the ancient and medieval way that an exemplary Christian monarch - and Christian priests, monks and nuns of valid churches - could act for the community in spiritual matters. 

When in the past (and the further past, the more this is so) we all shared in each others consciousness, one (or a small group) could indeed act for all a spiritual community.

So that there was no necessity for all Men to have spiritual contact with the divine or with spiritual Beings; since the spiritual work of a small proportion of selected, trained, supervised persons could do this on behalf of the community - as with the Medieval monastic ideal of intercession. 

No longer. 

We do not feel spontaneously and powerfully participators in, parts of, a spiritual community. 

All such immersive group phenomena have declined, catastrophically - and those who insist upon them, who insist upon obedience to an institution (including a church - those who will not deploy their own spiritual potential... Such persons are either left bereft (by their own choices - not by God); or else have de facto substituted the material for the spiritual. 

...They have, in effect, delivered themselves up to "society" in a world where "society" is net-evil and ruled by evil imperatives.  

Here and now; we cannot rely on other people (past or present) for the benefits of spiritual and divine contact - and if we try to do this, we will merely be "secondhand Christians" - which means (because of the corruption of social discourse and institutions) we will Not Be Christians.  

Spirit is primary - and contains all: The physical realm is indeed always and necessarily spiritual, but the physical is a subset of the spiritual realm. 

And the divine is a subset of the spiritual. 

We ought therefore, I believe, to consider spiritual contact - i.e. contact with the spiritual aspects of this world - as a necessary participation in the whole world. 

Lacking which we have self-excluded from participation in the whole world; and cut-off the possibility of our own escape from the totalitarian evils of The System.

Therefore, spiritual scaremongering is a covert form of materialism; a species of metaphysical self-blinding against the spiritual; hence the divine. 

As I said a few days ago: Demons want all religion to be mediated by human institutions, because demons can (and currently do) control institutions.

In sum: we must take the risks of seeking spiritual contact - we have no alternative if we wish to become and remain Christian in a world where the demons have taken over net-control of social institutions - including the churches (and where this evil corruption is worsening). 

Because we now need to become Christians our-selves, first-hand; therefore rooted in spiritual contacts generally - and divine contacts in particular. 

Note added: The reason for the "hard-line" urgency of this blog post, is that I seem to see far too many serious orthodox and traditionalist Christians who are following their churches away from the warm-hearted, loving, personal nature - of the truth of following Jesus Christ. And instead descending-into the hard-hearted, this-worldly literalism/ legalism/ Pharisee-ism that modern church-based Christianity becomes when its adherents eschews personal responsibility for faith and metaphysical choices. The trajectory leads away from the spirit and into a material world dominated, as never before, by the spirit of Satan. This trajectory is, I think, consequent upon the necessary goal of seeking courage to hold-the-line; but doing so by accusation and doubling-down on obedience to a church as their primary (non-negotiable) virtue.