1.  What do you believe?

Personally, I prefer to use the word “perspectives” instead of “beliefs.”  It feels to me as if the word is more fluid and open to change while the word “belief” feels rigid, superior, and resistant to change.  I make it my practice to be open to everything and attached to nothing.  A belief is an assumption you make about life. It’s an idea, a doctrine, or a structure of thought that helps you articulate your human experience. But, this is all that a belief is. Therefore, no belief is infallible or superior to the beliefs of others. This is why I prefer to call my beliefs, perspectives.  A perspective is dynamic, ever-expanding, respective of others, and open to all.

2.  Do you believe in God?

Yes. But, can I prove he exists? No. Can anyone prove she does not? No, again.  While I call God, God, I hesitate to say much more than this. Anything more I might say, no matter how accurate it is, seems too definitive and limiting, as if to place boundaries around the Divine or to squeeze God into some conceptual box.  How do you define what is indefinable, limit what is limitless, or explain what is inexplicable?

3.  What do you believe about Jesus?

Jesus was a human being and just as much flesh and blood, mind and emotions as anyone else.  What distinguished Jesus from virtually everyone else is that he lived at perhaps the highest possible level of Divine consciousness.  That is to say, he lived most fully a God-realized life, a life of oneness with the Divine. In fact, he did so to such an amazing degree that many people regarded him as Divine, even God-Incarnate.  I do as well, but not in any sense that Jesus—and only Jesus—was capable of divinity, oneness with, or inseparability from God. I am too. So are you.  Why else would Jesus say, “The things you have seen me do, greater things you will do…” (John 14:12).  For years, I mistakenly believed that, when Saint John said, “…God gave his only begotten Son…” (John 3:16) that he meant that Jesus was God’s one-and-only Son.  Now, my perspective is slightly different.  Instead of translating the Greek word “begotten” as “one and only,” which, of course, many Christians have, I understand John to mean “unique.”  Jesus was indeed unique.  Given his impact on human history, no intelligent person would argue that. But, does that mean he was some kind of “Superman” in human flesh? I think not.  I regard Jesus as God’s Son, indeed unique in how he lived, the way he died, the example he left for his followers, and the intimacy he enjoyed with the Creator herself.  But I regard myself, just as I do you, to be children of God, too.  By following Jesus, and so living as he lived, I, and you, too, may know the same intimacy with God and so live and die in the joyful Presence of knowing, as Saint Paul so eloquently put it, “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:31).  When you know this truth, instead of trying to explain it or defend a position, belief, or idea taught you by your religious tradition, then, and only then, are you truly free to enjoy the indecipherable richness that being one of God’s sons or daughters implies.

4.  Do you believe everyone can know God as Jesus knew God?

Yes. Why else would Jesus say over and over again, “Follow me?” It is in following Jesus you make the wonderful discovery of God’s indescribable Presence in your life.  You become God-aware.  As you practice following the sacred path of Jesus, you grow in Divine awareness.  It is important to remember that following Jesus is infinitely more than simply believing in Jesus.  When Saint John said, “…whoever believes in him (Jesus)…shall have eternal life” (John 3:16), what does he mean by “believe”?  What is there to believe?  That Jesus lived and died? No one denies this.  That Jesus is the Divine Savior?  Many believe this but they continue to live in darkness and do not pattern their lives after Jesus.  In truth, real faith in Jesus is actually the opposite of belief in Jesus.  Faith is a way of life. Since we have no verb in the English language for “faith,” we are forced to substitute in our translations of the Bible the word, “believe.”  This oddity in our language has been the source of much confusion.  People have confused “faithing” or “believing” with beliefs, but believing has little do to with content. It has infinitely more to do with conduct, though not in some morally superior way.  It’s not what you know that produces an inner transformation.  It’s Who you know and, as a consequence, how you go about living your life and patterning it after that of Jesus himself that produces inner change in your thoughts and attitudes and outer change in your conduct in the world.  Again, the real followers of Jesus are those who pattern their life after his. When you make it your daily spiritual practice to think as he may have thought, to live as he lived, and to practice showing compassion to yourself, to others, and toward God, then you ARE a follower of Jesus.

5.  Do you believe Jesus is the only way to God?

Jesus is my way to God. To be a “disciple” of Jesus means to be a learner of his way of thinking, living, and behaving.  It is to follow his path, one that inevitably leads those who do into a life-changing awareness of the Divine presence.  There may be other pathways of knowing Universal Intelligence, however. Practitioners of the Baha’i faith, for example, speak of “One Light, Many Lamps.”  God is the Light of all and gives light to all. It seems most probable, as well as logical, that God may be seen and known through the light of many different lamps.  It would be arrogant of me to either presume or to assert that God can only be known in one way.  Besides, how could I ever be sure of such a presumptuous assumption?

6.  Do not the perspectives you hold undermine the uniqueness of Jesus and the authority of the Bible?

They do not for me.  Do they for you?  If so, then you will likely disagree with my perspective(s), cling to some other perspective, and perhaps feel the need to vigorously defend it.  But, this is not necessary unless your sense of self is attached to your beliefs or perspectives. In that case, you will react to not only my perspectives but to any different perspective as if it were a personal attack against you.  Attachment to anything, including a belief system, will cause you to suffer, or so instructed the Buddha.  For me, I have found it much more liberating to “be open to everything and attached to nothing.”  Only when you feel the need to insist your perspective is “right” and other perspectives are wrong that you create an “us” and “them” world, which is the principle cause of virtually all conflicts.  This may be a small planet but it is large enough to sustain a variety of perspectives, provided humans are mature enough to tolerate polarity, ambiguity, even contradiction.  Branches on a tree don’t have to all look alike to draw nourishment from the same vine.  Native Americans say, “No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves.”  My perspective is to stay open, be reflective, and keep seeking.  Or, as the philosopher Andre’ Gide put it, “Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who have found it.”  Jesus said, “Seek and you will find…” (Matt. 7:7) and, in another place, he said, “You will know the truth and it will make you free” (John 8:32).

7.  What do you believe about the Bible?

The Bible is my primary source of Divine inspiration, spiritual insight, and practical wisdom.  It is not a book of magic, however.  It didn’t fall out of the sky bound in leather and in the language of King James.  Instead, it is a collection of sacred stories and spiritual teachings that span several hundred centuries of Jewish and Christian history.  As a consequence, no passage could possibly contain absolute truth.  Rather, each must be read and understood in its cultural context and social milieu.  For example, Leviticus says that adulterers should be stoned to death.  It’s a good thing that’s no longer practiced or about half of any congregation would have to kill the other half (probably an exaggeration, but you get the point).  The psalmist spoke of the four corners of the earth (Psalm 78:5).  Until well after the Middle Ages, most people mistakenly believed the world was flat with four corners. Of course, we know better today.  The Bible is the story of the Jewish/Christian quest to know God. It isn’t the only sacred record of the human quest for the Divine. Other peoples and cultures have their own sacred writings.  All of these sacred texts, however, point toward the same spiritual quest. Virtually every branch of the Christian church has debated, disagreed, and eventually divided over what it was going to “say” about the Bible.  Most conflicts have swirled around such words and concepts as “authoritative,” “inerrant,” “infallible,” and so forth.  But, my own perspective is this: the Bible is infinitely more than anything I, or anyone else, could ever say about it? In fact, if what I “say” about the Bible is more important than what the Bible says to me, what could be more insane than this?

8.  What denomination are you?

I grew up a Baptist and, more specifically, a Southern Baptist.  I didn’t know it at the time but there are as many Baptists as there are flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream.  Today, I regard myself as the product of many Christian traditions, as well as many non-Christian ones, too.  For example, I recently joined the Roman Catholic Church. I did not, however, abandon my Baptist faith or my membership in a local Baptist church. So, today, I hold membership in two churches. Someone said to me, “But, you can’t?” Says who?  I have.  Who knows, perhaps before I leave this planet, I may just join the Methodists, too, as well as the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the Unity Church, and the Snake-Handling Pentecostals in the hills of eastern Kentucky.  I’m drawn to the Buddhist teachings, too, as well as the meditative practices within Hinduism.  Having consulted with virtually every branch of the Christian church, I have come to find much affinity in all of them.  What’s infinitely more important is that I am a follower of Christ. But, I have no interest in debating the supremacy of my faith tradition over another.  My choice to be a Christ-follower has been shaped by my background, as well as my ever-expanding perspectives. So, when I am asked, I tell people I’m a Christ-follower by choice, a multi-denominationalist with ties even to Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, as well as Sufism within the Muslim tradition. As a Christ-follower, I’m a Baptist by heritage and a Roman Catholic by choice. But, I also love the Methodist for their emphasis on the sacredness of our religious traditions, the Episcopalians for their emphasis on the equality of all persons and for the few Episcopalians who actually practice acceptance of alternative lifestyles, the Presbyterians for their emphasis on Divine providence, the Pentecostals for their emphasis on joy in the Spirit, and the Evangelicals for having broken out of the box and who practice “doing” church and worship in alternative ways.  Frankly, however, labels mean little to me.  My desire is to simply walk with God…to master this sacred art that was once described by the ancient Catholic mystic, Brother Lawrence, as “the practice of the presence of God.”  In the final analysis, isn’t walking with God, like Enoch did in the Old Testament, really all that matters?  What could be more important than this?

9.  Then, what do you believe?

Not much, I suppose.  For example, when someone says, “I believe in God,” I wonder what they mean by that.  Does it mean they believe in the existence of God?  Well, so do I and, if surveys are accurate, so do most Americans.  But, I feel no need to try to “prove” God exists.  It can’t be done anyway.  I find it far more fulfilling to spend my time getting to know this God whom I to exist.   I have long suspected that the real reason religious people try to “prove” God exists is because they’re secretly afraid she doesn’t.  You only ever “believe” or “defend” those things about which you are uncertain.  If you knew God, what would there be to either prove or defend?  I wish only to cultivate God’s ineffable presence within my consciousness and so remain in that Presence continually.  It is there I am at peace.  It is there I experience the joy that is, as Saint Paul put it, “unspeakable.” It is there I find my thinking changes, my living takes on meaning, and my fear of death dissolves.  If this is not what the New Testament mean by “salvation,” and what the Easterners mean “enlightenment,” then what is it?

10.  What do you mean by the words “post-Christian world?”

When I was young, all of my neighbors were Christian. Even those who were not regular churchgoers regarded themselves as Christian nonetheless.  Furthermore, virtually everyone thought of America as a “Christian” nation.  Today, however, the little world in which I grew up has changed.  Your neighbor now might just as likely be a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or even an atheist.  Near our house in Louisville, Kentucky, for example, there is a service station where I regularly fill my car with gasoline.  Recently, I made a stop there and discovered there were new owners, an Indian man and his daughter.  As we got acquainted, I observed the tilaka on his forehead, the round, red dot that symbolizes the “third eye,” associated with meditation and enlightenment. I asked if they were Hindu.  “He is,” answered his daughter, as she gestured toward him.  “But, I’m a Muslim.” I remember thinking to myself, “This is the world in which we live.”  If humanity is to survive, religious people must actually start practicing the very things their faith professes – love, peace, and acceptance of all, those like you, those different from you, and even your enemies.  While virtually every conflict throughout history, down to and including the present, has been religiously inspired, this insanity must end if humanity is to survive.  In this regard, the Dalai Lama was right when he said, “When there’s peace among the religions, there will be peace in the world.”

11.  What do you believe is wrong with Christianity?

G. K. Chesterton purportedly said, “There’s nothing wrong with Christianity; there’s everything wrong with Christians.”  It is the Christians within Christianity who have been the source of much human division, destruction, and human and planetary suffering. Throughout history, for example, Christians have repeatedly labeled, judged, and sought to destroy their perceived enemies.  Furthermore, they have even acted this way toward those within their own faith tradition.  It is insanity and it must end.  There is room enough for everyone on this planet.  But, until Christians actually live as Jesus lived, treat others, but especially their enemies with openness and respect, and make room even for those who choose to have no religious affiliation, the conflict will not only continue, it will escalate.  All labeling and judging must stop. All this nonsense of believing, “We’re right, others are wrong!” “We’re God’s chosen, others are not!” must cease.  There will always be many different religions, even many subsets within the same religion.  Or, to put it another way, there will never be just one way of understanding or knowing Eternal Truth I call God. If the present divisions within Christianity alone have not made it abundantly clear to you that humans are incapable of subscribing to the same religion, even to the same beliefs within the same religion, then there isn’t much I, or anyone else, could teach you.  So, there’s nothing wrong with Christianity.  There’s everything wrong with those of us who call ourselves Christians.  We must change but change can only occur within.  And no inner change will ever take place until each Christian makes the decision to “follow” Christ—really follow Christ.  Make this your ambition.  Not only will you change, but your world will change, too.

I wasn’t expecting much.  I got to the first scene, however–the one where the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, cries out to God in prayer–and I was hooked. In a marriage that isn’t working, Gilbert is an emotional train wreck waiting to happen. Since her life makes no sense to her whatsoever, she does what many of us have done when we can’t think of what else to do–she prays.

“Hello, God.  How are you? I’m Liz. It’s nice to meet you…I’m sorry to bother you so late at night…but I’m in serious trouble…I’m not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me?…I don’t know what to do. Please tell me what to do.”

Who hasn’t prayed this prayer?

It’s appeal is in its familiarity. But, what hooked me most is the fact that this first prayer, or cry, to God, isn’t Gilbert’s last, as it is with many in circumstances equally as troubling. Rather, it is the first of many prayers she offers to God–prayers that evolve into an on-going conversation in a year-long journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia.  Each prayer is but the next step she takes in the search for herself and a life that matters.  As she journeys and converses, the consequence is self-discovery, self-acceptance, and an awareness of the Sacred presence.

Not a bad spiritual practice, if you ask me.

If a spiritual life is really about learning to accept yourself, learning to live compassionately, and becoming so aware of the Sacred presence within you that you converse with this Presence the way two friends would sharing a fine wine in a corner cafe, then Eat, Pray, Love could be a guide to any seeker after a sacred life.

Gilbert prays the way Jesus prayed.  The Buddha, too.

So, what kind of praying is this?

Silence. Stillness. Some call it meditation — the kind of praying Jesus instructed his followers to practice (Matt. 6:6).  It’s also the only kind of praying we ever see Jesus doing (Matt. 14:23; 26:36ff).  Yet, strangely, go into almost any church, synagogue, or temple today and you’ll hear plenty of public prayers (in spite of Jesus’ discouragement against it – Matt. 5:5); but, little or no provision for silence, stillness, or meditation. Most worship is distinguished by its chaos — loud music, continuous chatter, lots of substance but little sustenance.

With very few exceptions, religious leaders almost universally overlook this kind of prayer and it is likely because they know little about it themselves. It is this kind of praying, however–and perhaps only this kind of praying–that results in self-awareness and Divine consciousness. The Buddha said, “He who meditates attentively will attain abundant joy.”

Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Lk.10:27). If that’s true, then to know yourself, as well as to know God, you must make it your spiritual practice to go within. The rabbis say, “God has but one tabernacle–the heart.” It is there, in the secret place (what Jesus likened to a “room” – Matt. 6:6) that you practice slowing down the mind, (that virtual stream of thought-making) and to relax and rest in the Sacred presence.  The psalmist put it like this, “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

“Is it easy to learn to pray this way?”

Ask Liz. If you make this your spiritual practice however, the discoveries will mirror those made by Elizabeth Gilbert and will be equally remarkable.

Then, if you ever visit Italy, India, or Indonesia, you’ll do so for different reasons.

Dr. Steve McSwain is the author of The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God (2010, Smyth & Hewlys). For more information, please visit www.stevemcswain.com.

For an interview or to receive a review copy, contact Tolly Moseley at Tolly@prbythebook.com or (512) 501-4399 x708. Visit us at www.prbythebook.com or www.twitter.com/prbythebook

You’d have thought I just made off with the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

I promised to protect it, to handle it with as much care as a paleographer would an ancient text—no bending of the edges, no underlining, circling, or writing in the margins—things I typically do with my own books.

Negotiations failed, however. “Put it back,” she ordered, “and get your own.”

So, I did. Wasn’t expecting much, either. “What could Eat, Pray, Love contain,” I asked myself, “that would cause her to guard it like it was the Holy Grail?”

I barely arrived at the first scene, however–the one where Gilbert is sleepless, sprawled across a cold bathroom floor at 2AM–and I was hooked. In a failed marriage, she cries out to God, the first of many conversations the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, has with God.  From there, she acts as a guide on a journey the two of you take through Italy, then India and Indonesia, in search of her soul, in search of a life that matters. There’s no pretense with Gilbert, which is why I like her. You’re invited to peer into her soul, and your own as well.

Sitting in a corner cafe; sipping the finest wine made of the Sangiovese grape; sharing secrets and disappointments, readers feel like they’re best friends with Gilbert. That’s because it’s easy to believe in her. When she describes her marital failings, not those of her spouse, she’s brutally transparent. When she talks about her love affair with David, even before her own divorce is final, she hides nothing. It is this honesty that makes what she says about faith, about God, just as believable.

In an era of religious dishonesty, corruption, and cover-up, where the morning news is as likely to reveal the latest religious scandal as it does the political or economic ones, it is understandable why westerners are weary of the dishonesty in much of organized religion today.

Weary enough to leave, that is. According to the American Religious Survey, thirty-four million Americans  want nothing to do with religion, a system that has repeatedly demonstrated a far greater interest in saving itself than in saving the world.

Still, there are many spiritual seekers. All they really want is an uncomplicated relationship with Transcendence. What you call God is irrelevant to them. So are the doctrines and distinctions that divide instead of unite people.

What’s most amazing is that religious leaders still don’t get it. Instead of softening their rhetoric, their endless dogmas, doctrines, and distinctions, they become more fixed, rigid, separated and exclusivist. Meanwhile, scores are leaving this insanity, perhaps to protect what little remains.  In exchange, they read Eat, Pray, Love, where insanity meets Sanity, where respect and inclusiveness are actually practiced, where they can relax, take off their shoes, enjoy themselves, others, and God.

That’s why this book, now a major motion picture, is so popular. In the end, it matters not whose religion is right, especially if it doesn’t guide you to live in this world, or with yourself, or help you to get along with others.

It is away from this kind of religious madness that seekers of the Sacred are walking.  Today, their paths are taking them toward something real, toward that which connects them to others and to God, and away from the labels and differences that have divided people for eons.  To many, Gilbert and writers like her have become unique spiritual gurus on this path toward what I think of as “the sacred art of knowing God.”

Jesus said, “The way to life is narrow…and few there will be who find it.” If that’s true, Eat, Pray, Love is the quintessential promise that seekers of the Sacred will find the narrow way–even though it’s off the beaten path.

How else would you explain the phenomenal success of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love (soon a major motion picture), or the writings of the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, or others like them? Just because people are fed up with organized religion doesn’t mean their appetite for spiritual things has been swallowed up, too.

I know because I was one of these millions who dropped out of active involvement in organized religion.  But, unlike the majority of the other 33,999,999 dropouts, I was a religious leader when I did.

I grew up in the church, the son of a Southern Baptist minister.  When I graduated from college, I went to seminary and, after several years of study, I began my career as a professional minister.  It wasn’t long however, before I discovered the church was more lost than the world it was trying to save.

Go into many churches today and, instead of finding an institution interested in saving the world, what you may find is an institution vastly more interested in saving itself.  For example, people go to church to find God.  Instead of finding God, however, followers are often saddled with a catalogue of “do’s” and “don’ts” as onerous as the US tax code.  They are told what to think, how to believe, as well as how they’re supposed to live.

In many places, the church is still the most segregated place in America.  Where I grew up, some forty or so years ago, many of my neighbors attended the Baptist church my father served. That is, if they were white Baptists; the black Baptists had a church of their own. Or, they attended one of the other three, mostly segregated churches that occupied one of the four-corners of Main Street.  Today, however, your neighbor is just as likely to be black as white, or Muslim as Christian.  Maybe people are leaving  the church because they’d prefer to live in the real world—the de-segregated one.

Then, there are those church leaders who seem obsessed with having the biggest church, the largest crowds and the most expensive campuses.   While 40,000,000 people died of starvation in the last decade, churches spent $10,000,000,000 (that’s ten billion) on campuses.

Perhaps some churchgoers departed because they’d rather their charity actually make a difference in the world.

If you went to church looking for relief from the stress and burdens of living, you might have found more of the same, only dressed as beliefs and dogmas, rules and expectations  Then, there’s the debating, disagreement, and division that goes on between churches, as well as between people in the same church. I call it the “We’re right! You’re Wrong!” syndrome.  Each group insisting their beliefs are right which, by implication means, everyone else’s beliefs are wrong.  “We’re in; you’re out!” “We’re the chosen ones; you’re not!”  Maybe those who came looking for some sanity in life are leaving the church to preserve what little remains.

What about the seemingly endless clergy scandals? It may be several years yet, before we know the full impact of this demonic debacle.  I suspect scores of people are just plain fed up with an institution that “would condemn gays and lesbians for coming out of their closets,” as someone characterized it, “while hiding clergy pedophiles in its own.”

Some fifteen or so years ago, I, like millions of others, dropped out of active involvement in the church.  Soon thereafter, I began wondering where to go to find God.   For a few years, I went nowhere.  I just wandered around in a kind of spiritual wilderness.  Then, one Sunday afternoon, completely unexpected as well as outside the church, I had a deeply profound spiritual awakening. I even describe it in my book, The Enoch Factor.

Among the many realizations to which I awakened, was this:“You don’t have to go to church to know God.”  For reasons too obvious to mention, this isn’t the kind of message the church, or any religion, wants spread around.  But, it’s true nonetheless.  There is no religion, not even the Christian religion, holding the title deed to God.  God’s grace is not limited to a select few.  The moment any religion believes it is, you can be sure that religion knows nothing of God.

If there is anything Jesus, and the Buddha, made abundantly clear it is that the Wind blows where it wills.  You can hear it, see its effects, as well as feel its power, but you could never contain it.  In other words, the moment I stopped trying to find God, God found me.  I love the way Deepak Chopra once framed it. “God is not difficult to find; God is impossible to ignore.”

Even the title to this article–Finding God after Religion—seems to imply there’s something you must “do” to know God.  But, the real truth is this: there is nothing you need to do to know God. You know God already.  The mistake virtually all religions make, including Christianity, is to confuse beliefs for faith and, as a consequence, condition people to think there are things they must do, duties they must perform, etc., for God to be pleased and her presence to be known.

Finding God after religion? Remember the following:  In eastern thought, there’s something called “the law of least effort,” or “do less and accomplish more.”  If you will give up the “doing,” and, instead, just enjoy “being” I think you’ll make a great discovery.  The psalmist said, “Be still and know…”  In my own experience, I have found when I’m present (and that’s my spiritual practice) I’m immediately in Presence, the real and sacred sanctuary of God.

What more would you want?  What more would religion ever give you?

Out-of-the-blue and instantaneously, something happened to me or, more accurately, in me that literally transformed the way I felt about life, including that of my own and the way I viewed the world and everyone in it.  It changed my view of and experience of the Transcendent, too.

The event was simple and ordinary. I don’t recall having a vision of anything. In fact, I saw nothing at all. Yet, in an instant, I saw everything, too.  I did not see God, but there is a sense in which I did, too. Deep joy was so unmistakably real and near to me.  Instantly I felt in the presence of God and that feeling has been with me ever since.

Today, no matter how out-of-control things may be around me, there is in me a sense of calm, peace, and a feeling that everything is just as it should be.  Peace, contentment, and tranquility are my normal states of consciousness. Joy, too. I know this all sounds like a huge enigma and, in many ways, it is. I cannot explain it otherwise.

Easterners often speak of something they call “the law of least effort.”  What they mean by this is, “Do less and accomplish more.”  Now, such a notion is strange to westerners who are taught from the cradle that they must do more and more and still more and then, and only then, should they expect to be duly rewarded for it.

What I’ve learned, however, is that this is not the behavior of grace at all.  When Grace is understood and experienced, and it isn’t understood and hasn’t been experienced by many religious people, grace is really about doing nothing and enjoying everything. I like to tell the story of the poor beggar who was rummaging through a garbage heap looking for his next meal when, suddenly, he finds a discarded lottery ticket. To his chagrin, he discovers it bears the winning numbers to a multi-million dollar jackpot.  Grace. It occurs when you least expect it, and often to those you believe to be the least deserving.

Since that day of awakening, my life has not been some fairytale but I would be dishonest to say anything else but that it has been pretty close.  I once heard a highly regarded spiritual teacher from the east say, “In my world nothing ever goes wrong.”  Everything in me revolted against such an absurd statement prior to my spiritual experience.  Today, however, I cannot say that about my own life, but I understand it much more now.

The best I can say is that, for me, life is no longer the struggle or the burden it used to be. Instead of swimming upstream, one of many metaphors that would aptly describe my life prior to the awakening, I now flow with life.  How could I not be at peace when, instead of resisting what is, I now accept, often forgive, but always flow with life itself?

I’ve called this my “spiritual awakening” because, in many ways, it was as if I woke up and started living.  In eastern religions, it could be called a “satori.”  Satori is a Sanskrit word meaning “sudden insight,” “awareness,” and “consciousness.”  It is often the word used to describe a transformative experience.  What happened to me on that couch may not be filled with a lot of drama, fireworks, lights and sounds, but, whatever it was it changed my life forever.  And, for the better.

Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” In spite of this rather clear clue as to where to look to find God, many mistake their inner feelings of discontent, restlessness, or desire for happiness and fulfillment as an indicator they need to do something.  Our culture’s answer to this inner dilemma is to find the right career. Or, to find and fall in love with the right partner.  But even these events – as meaningful as they may be – fail to grant anything more than a temporary, impermanent peace.

Now, what happens in most religions, Christianity notwithstanding, is that people go to church looking for God, thinking she might be found there.  And, the church perpetrates, as well as perpetuates, the illusion that God can be.  How so?  By suggesting to people, “We have the answer. We alone have the answer. What we believe is right or, at the least, a little more right than anyone else believes.  So, attend our church, believe as we believe, think as we think, do as we do, live as we live and, of course, give us your money, and all will be well with your soul.”

But it isn’t so. Over time, this nonsense has created in people the expectation that, if they’ll do all these things, they’ll find God.  Instead of helping to know God, however, these expectations, rules, dogmas, doctrines, and beliefs have sucked the spiritual life right out of their souls.  The church too frequently confuses beliefs for faith and, in fundamentalist churches, the beliefs are then imposed on believing and unbelieving people alike. In fact, that would be a pretty accurate definition of religious fundamentalism – the confusion of beliefs for faith and imposing those beliefs on others.  That’s what’s happening today in both Islam and in Christianity – the difference is only the degree with which the imposition occurs.

The American Religious Survey tells us that as many as 34 million Americans today have left organized reIigion.  For the majority of these, it is the Christian religion they’re leaving or, more accurately, the church’s dysfunctional version of Christianity that they are leaving.

And, that’s the point.  People can leave the church—they have, they are, and more will, as long as the dysfunction and insanity I’m describing goes on. What people cannot leave, however, is their inner feeling of discontent, emptiness, or the longing to cultivate a deep spiritual union with the Divine.  So, in recent years, as westerners have had greater exposure to eastern religions, many have turned to other religions. What many of these seekers do not know is this:  the dysfunction they met and left in the western church is the same sort of madness they will likely find in many other religions as well.

So, it is important to understand, I did not write this book as a disgruntled former minister looking to attack either Christianity or the church. I wrote this book to tell people what took me half a lifetime to figure out.  There has only ever been one place you will go to find the deepest desires of your heart fulfilled – and that is within yourself.  That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “The kingdom is within you.”   The Buddha said this, too.  Even the Jewish rabbis have a saying that goes, “God has but one synagogue – the human heart.”  I wrote this book, The Enoch Factor to show people where to look—the human heart—to find what they’re looking for.

I don’t think it ever occurred to my parents what impact these experiences would have on me or my brothers.  I visited countries and witnessed cultures where the Christian faith is anything but the primary religious tradition.  For instance, I met scores of people who were devoted practitioners of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.  While most of their spiritual practices were foreign to me, even weird at times, the one question that haunted me on many occasions was this:  If my religion is right—Christianity—and their religion is false or, at best, incomplete or misguided—which is precisely what most Christians still believe today—why has it taken them thousands of years to discover their error?  Furthermore, if their religious practices were not rewarding them with a life-changing experience of the Divine, why would they keep doing them for centuries?  Are they just slow to learn?  What’s the problem here?

So, I made it my practice, not only to know the efficacy of my own faith tradition, but to study and know what other religions teach, too.

Here are a couple of conclusions to which I’ve come.  There has only ever been one spiritual truth.  It is known, experienced, and expressed in multiple languages and through a variety of cultures and traditions.

The other is this:  There is far more that all religions share in common than there has ever been that distinguishes or separates them.  The future of humanity is at stake and the Dalai lama is so correct in saying, “Until there is peace among the religions, there will be no peace in the world.”  We are at a crucial time in human history.  Many thinkers and visionaries do not believe humanity will survive if the religions of this world do not share together their similar commitments and work together to bring harmony between people and nations.

What many Christians do not realize is that the world views much of their message as a conflagration of contradiction.  For example, Christians say the gospel they preach is powerful enough to change the world. Yet, in recent years, there’s been an enormous interest among Christians in what they call the Rapture or Return of Jesus Christ.  Many of them are even praying for it.  One of the most popular and money-making fictional series in the history of Christian publishing has been the “Left Behind” series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.  Their entire storyline is based on this hugely complex system of the Rapture—of how the world will come to an end.  What many Christians seem to have forgotten is the one caveat Jesus gave as to when he would NOT return—that’s when everyone was expecting it. Jesus said that his return would be as a thief in the night, when everyone was least expecting it.  Since the majority of Christians are looking for his imminent return, they would do well to recognize they’re just as likely responsible for his delay.

Of course, I say all of this with tongue-in-cheek.  I no longer subscribe to any of these apocalyptic views of the culmination of human history.  Had God wanted us to understand how the world would end, he’d have sobered up Saint John long enough to write something a little more intelligible than the Revelation he gave us.  What Jesus did give us, around which there is no confusion, is the clear admonition, “Take no thought of tomorrow.”  Words do not get much clearer than this. Yet, most Christians seem interested in talking more about tomorrow than in how they’re living today.

Admittedly, there are some dramatic differences.

For the most part, my spiritual life is a whole lot less about beliefs and a whole lot more about faith. There is a canyon of difference between the two.  Like most religious people, I had confused belief for faith for decades. For example, there are many people who believe in Jesus but, in terms of living by the way of Jesus—that is, living by the example and teachings of Jesus—they do not.

Take this one example, although there are really many examples I could give you.  Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”  What that really means is “Have no enemies.”  Yet, many churchgoing people—perhaps even the majority of them—who would vigorously defend the US war in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  There was a time when I could have, too.  Now, however, I find it very difficult to live by Jesus’ teaching and try to justify war, any war, at the same time.  I suspect that’s why most Christians throughout history have looked to St. Augustine and his “Just War Theory” as a way to circumvent the rather clear teaching of Jesus.  For me, now that I regard myself as more Christian than ever before, feel, if I am going to say I’m a follower of Christ, then I must truly follow Christ and his teachings, instead of looking for some clever way to explain away his hard teachings.

For most of my adult life, I thought that being a Christian was about believing certain things about God, Jesus, and the Bible.  That being a Christian was about living a certain way – which usually meant ordering your life around some arbitrary but cultural standards somebody concocted as a definition as to what it meant to be Christian.  For Baptists in the south, where I grew up and with whom I attended church, being a Christian meant you walked a church aisle – hopefully soon after reaching the “age of accountability”—whatever that is, said you believed in Jesus and renounced your terrible sins (which were many at the age of seven when this “salvation” event occurred for me), and then promising you wouldn’t “drink, cuss, smoke, or chew or run with girls who do.”

There were a few other things that defined the “right” or “good” Christian—attend church regularly – the really, really good Christians came on Sunday night, too, and again on Wednesday—be patriotic, salute the flag and don’t cheat Uncle Sam, and, of course, pay your tithes and offerings.  If you did not do that…well…you might not go to hell but you’d smell like you’d been there.

Now, however, I know, as Deepak Chopra once put it, your “beliefs are a cover-up for insecurity. You only ever believe in the things you’re not certain about.”

Faith, on the other hand, is the capacity to live in ambiguity; or, to step confidently in the face of uncertainty.  It is to live with an inner sense of security, knowing that, since nothing could ever surprise the Divine, you can live without fear, without stress, worry, or anxiety.  You can live without religion, too.  That being a person of faith has very little to do with what you believe and a whole lot to do with how you live.  To be a person of faith is to not just to believe in God or Jesus, or even to know a lot about God.  It is, instead, to actually know God for yourself, as yourself, and to walk in the joy of her ineffable Presence.

As an educated scholar, theologian, and religious leader, I knew much about God. I could argue and debate with anybody about what I believed. But, in terms of those beliefs making any real difference in my life…well…I cannot say that those beliefs made any difference.  You can’t argue God’s presence into your life.  Clinging to a set of beliefs, no matter how correct they may be, won’t change the human heart.  Jesus said as much to the religious leaders of his day who, like many today, believed that they had to believe the right beliefs to be right with God.  It was insanity then and it is insane today. You only argue and debate about the things you do not know.  When you really know God, what is there to debate?  Or, to put it another way, when people set out to prove that God exists, it could only ever mean that they do so because they secretly fear she doesn’t.

You don’t believe in the sun, do you?  You don’t argue and debate whether it really exists.  The notion would be absurd.  What’s there to believe in or to debate about the sun?  You know the sun. You see it hanging in the heavens, feel its warmth by day, and observe its effects on earth.  Similarly, when you know the reality of the Eternal Presence—and that inner knowing could only ever occur when you exchange beliefs about God for faith in God—then you cannot but see God everywhere, in everyone, as well as in everything.  All of life becomes to you the sacred sanctuary of God’s eternal presence.

I realize how absurd this must sound, like something out of the Twilight Zone. And, I suppose, for that very reason, I said nothing about it for years.  But, the presence was so unmistakable that I care no longer what others may think of me when they hear me talk about it.  I must tell this story.  Maya Angelou has this saying, “There’s no greater agony that bearing an untold story inside of you.”  Well, I bore mine for many years.  But, the day finally came when I decided I had to share it.

I first heard of Enoch – this ancient spiritual teacher out of Jewish folklore and mythology – when I was in seminary doing graduate work. I describe all of this in the book so it isn’t necessary to go into the details here.  But, one of my professors, a Jewish scholar himself, spent an entire class period introducing us to Enoch.

Jewish historians remember Enoch in much the same way Easterners remember their spiritual avatars – as one of those rare human souls who attained a spiritual consciousness, or awareness, that seems to escape virtually everyone else.  For example, Enoch is said to have “walked with God.”  Although I cannot be certain of this, I suspect that must mean the same thing as “enlightenment” in Buddhism, what New Agers might describe as the “God-realized life,” or Christians would describe as a person who had experienced an “epiphany.”

I was fascinated by Enoch but, as life does to all of us, I soon laid aside my interest in him and moved on to more pressing matters.  That is, until the day my father died.  Not only did the story of Enoch come back to me, but I felt his presence in the ICU room with me. During that undeniable sensation, all of the pain and sadness I was feeling about my father dying of a stroke lifted.  There, in the presence of death, was this beautiful feeling of stillness…a kind of OK-ness…of peace both in me and around me.

I knew right then and there that one day I would write about this experience.  I did not know when that would be, or what I would say, or even why I would say it.  I only knew I would someday tell the story.  Ten years or so later, I did.  I began writing and, within a span of twenty months, I had given birth to The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God.

For example, what difference do you see between the values on Wall Street and those on Church Street?  There is no difference.  In both, there’s an obsession with money, wealth, and the symbols of power and success – they go by different names, but it’s the same obsessions.

There is a surplus of preachers today defending and preaching a gospel of prosperity. While they live in palaces themselves, their subjects, known as church members and television audiences, make personal sacrifices to enable them to do so.  It is madness but it’s happening in spite of the fact that their spiritual leader said, “Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Explain that anomaly to me. Further, in the last decade alone, churches in America have spent billions and billions on buildings even as 400 million people have starved to death.

And, what of the sex scandals?  Almost daily now, you’ll read or hear about the church condemning gays and lesbians and doing everything within their legal power to drive them back into a closet. And this while hiding clergy pedophiles in their own closets.

But, there’s more. In the last several decades, the church has become insanely obsessed with what I call the “We’re right, you’re wrong” syndrome.  Listen to almost any Christian or church leader and about all you hear anymore is that “We’re different,” by which, they really mean, “We’re right, everyone else is wrong.”   “We’re in, they’re out!”  “We’re God’s chosen ones, they’re not!”

The consequence of this madness has been disagreement, debate, and eventual division. Wouldn’t that describe much of Christian history? Today, for instance, there are more than 20,000 different Christian groups, each obsessed with its version of truth, believing that its beliefs are just a little more “right” than the beliefs of 19,999 others. Tell me this is not madness!

What the church has forgotten is that its purpose is not unlike the purpose in any religion – and, that purpose is to make God known.  That’s it. Nothing more; nothing less. But, instead of staying with this purpose, the history of the church has been to argue, debate, defend, and, until recently when laws were enacted to limit the powers of the church, it was not uncommon for the church to persecute and kill anyone who disagreed with its doctrines, dogmas, and declarations.  In this regard, the history of Christianity is not entirely unlike the radical fundamentalism we encounter in some Islamic groups today.

So, the bottom line is this: Until the church and indeed all religions, return to their central purpose—to make God known, the church will continue to be marginalized and eventually disregarded and ignored altogether.  Many churches have achieved that status already.  And, strangely, the only people who don’t seem to know this are Christians themselves. They think they’re still a vital voice across the cultural landscape. What they do not know is that today, the church is little more than a faint whimper in an urban forest.