Back Exposition - June 4006

CHRISTODINISM

We believe there is one Universal Reality (Arta), but that there are many ways to seek to live in accord with the Ultimate Reality. - i.e. many Christs - and that each nation or culture should have its own form of Christ.

Christ can have many personalities - but for us Woden is the chief personality (sometimes spelt as 'Odin') - and represents our form of Christ as a whole - hence 'Christ-Odin-ism'.

Christodinism seeks to find accommodation between the heathen pursuit of 'self-strength' and the Jesuist Christian emphasis on self- denial.

This can be done by recognising the two important phases of human life - the organic phase when we grow - and the instrumental phase when we take action.

In the instrumental phase we must practice self-denial in order to take perfectly moral action - but in the organic phase we are justified in looking at life just from our own standpoint so that we may develop naturally.

The term Self-Strength covers not just individual strength, but the strength (i.e. the health) of our community and nation.

Christodinism also emphasizes that Love on its own is not enough, but that we need to couple it also with Wisdom. Of course Wisdom on its own is not enough either - but must always be coupled with Love. (These two are championed by the Christ-personalities of Woden and Balder respectively).

We also promote the Christ-personalities of Tew (concerned with Good Order) - Frigga (concerned with Community Building) and Thor (who takes practical action) among others.

We also encourage the study of 'Energy-Craft' which is knowledge of the different energies at work in the world and how to influence them.

Our morality is based on what effect our actions have on others.


Morality in CHRISTODINISM

We can imagine the universe is made of many kinds of vibrating 'threads' or 'strings'. We can imagine there are two inter- linked types of fabric - space fabric and soul fabric.

The threads of Soul fabric can vibrate with many different kinds of energy. It is good for the fabric of the soul to be vibrating with energy in harmony, and bad when it vibrates discordantly. (We feel this subjectively as pleasure and joy, or else as distress and pain).

Space fabric is the medium in which souls are embodied and can communicate with each other.

Soul-Space fabric is being woven from one moment to another - its nature dependent on the preceding actions of the embodied souls.

ANIMALS & HUMANS

Animals are embodied souls which respond instinctively to the world that they see subjectively - from their own point of view. They cannot do otherwise and thus they are not considered moral beings.

Humans however have the ability to see outside of themselves and consider the point of view of the 'whole-life' - i.e. the common good of the group. Thus they have to choose whether to act naturally or else instead to act in the best interests of the whole. This consideration we call morality.

Christodinism is an orthodox monotheist religion and imagines a single GOD (Christodin) who is concerned for the common good of the whole-life.

We don't believe that there is any other basis for morality other than the service of the common good - i.e. there is only ONE basis of morality and thus we worship only ONE GOD who is imagined to be judging us by this morality.

We can imagine this GOD to be keeping track of our actions and the consequences they have - whether for the good of the whole or for the worse. Perhaps He keeps a 'Book of Worth' - where against each person is recorded the cumulative impact they have and thus their WORTH to the common good.

We believe that Reality is Universal - i.e. there is such a thing as Universal Truth independent of our culture or our knowledge of it

We believe in ONE GOD who is TRANSCENDENT - (i.e. who stands for something which is outside of our individual selves)

We believe that all creatures have a 'soul' of some kind and thus have value to God.

We believe that people need to grow organically in order to gain the Self-Strength to take action, but yet at other times they must seek to override their natural instincts and base their instrumental actions on pure thoughts and feelings.


We believe that WISDOM and LOVE are the highest virtues - and that the two should be inseparable.

While GOD represents the claims of Absolute Reality - GOD does not speak his WORD clearly to each one of us. Instead his WORD is revealed a little at a time to us - and we have to piece together the picture from our own discoveries and from the revelations to others which have become known to us.

Somebody to whom much is revealed is known as a PROPHET. We recognise the Old Testament prophets, and Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet, and also Mohammed, and also other great religious teachers. However we do not consider that the words of these prophets are complete. Instead they give a partial picture relevant to the times in which they were spoken. They do not tell us all we need to know in the present day. Thus we recognise the Bible as an inspired book - but not as a complete book.


Because the Ulimate Reality (Arta) is not immediately apparent to us we need some help in showing us the best way to live. This is what we call CHRIST.

CHRIST is the BRIDGE between subjective human experience ('Sight') and the needs of Ultimate Reality ('Arta').

Each culture - and to some extent each person - has their own Christ. For each person starts from a different position and will need to do something different to others to serve the Whole-Life (Holos) to the best.

Christ can be seen as showing us a WAY (Darma) to act well which may be expounded writings. Christ can also be seen as a PERSON WHO GUIDES us in the WAY to God. By extension the Body of Christ are all those who are properly following a True Way to God. The Body of Christ means the same as the People of God (or in Hebraic language the 'People of Israel'.)

Christodinists recognise that people find their way to God through many traditions - and we don't demand that everybody uses the Christodinic tradition. Nevertheless some traditions provide more help than others and make people susceptible to error in particular ways. Within a tradition we recognise that there will be people making use of that tradition in different ways - which may be more or less Godly.

Christodinists are RATIONALIST. This means that they use their REASON to the full when seeking matters of factual TRUTH. Generally this means that they don't require of their adherents any particular belief in matters of history. In principle they should be able to explain the important tenets of their religion in a way that can be understood by those without pre-existing faith.

Perhaps a point should be made that Rationalist religions are not by definition better than non-rationalist religions - indeed firm belief in something that is not literally true may be emotionally satisfying and help you to do the right thing. However Christodinism puts WISDOM and thus PURSUIT of TRUTH as its highest virtue - and thus cannot tolerate firm intellectual belief in something that conflicts with reason.

Original June 4006 (updated July 4006)


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