The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind--A New Perspective on Christ and His Message
The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind--A New Perspective on Christ and His Message
byCynthia Bourgeault
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starling
3.0 out of 5 stars ultimately weak
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2015
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Started well with new understanding of Jesus' teachings which I found excellent, but then she lost her nerve and regressed to unclear understanding of birth, crucifixion and resurrection stories, so following the old and surely outdated accounts of magical beginnings of a new god, no explanation of the later added idea of atonement - how can a loving god even demand that? - and then the magical rise to heaven. She even suggests that certain adepts in other traditions can do this - well, their followers may believe it. Did they rise with their clothes on too?
A great pity not to have re-examined Jesus' life in the way she began, as an outstanding teacher in a well-developed cultural tradition of wisdom teachers, linked to others in distant parts of the world probably through the silk road and other trading, finally over-taken largely by politically or magically motivated followers, trying to get more power by more members in a way the original teacher most certainly did not imagine.
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Johnny
2.0 out of 5 stars Fell short of expectations
Reviewed in the United States on 23 October 2018
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"Wisdom Jesus" is a three-part book. In Part I, Cynthia Bourgeault presents Jesus as a radical teacher, and not as a savior or as the Messiah. According to her, Jesus was nothing like how he is presented by the traditional church. He was an enlightened person whose only purpose was to reprogram or upgrade human consciousness from the innate dualistic "operating system" to a non-dualistic one. That Jesus was much more like a Zen master than a Jewish rabbi or priest. Bourgeault's analysis resonated completely with my own conclusions about Christianity, namely that traditional or orthodox beliefs are really much more about the person of Jesus and who he was rather than his message. In its current form, Christian teachings ares based more on those of Saul of Tarsus than those of Jesus of Nazareth – traditional Christianity should really be called Paulism in my opinion. The church hierarchy is modeled after the imperial Roman government, where it became its enforcement arm. In contrast to western/Roman style version, introduced some of the so-called heretical texts, such as The Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of Mary Magdalene to illustrate the fact that some early Christians believed in a very different Jesus and a very different message compared to what is currently taught in Sunday schools. So far so good. I really enjoyed Part I.
Then came Part II. Here the author revealed herself as an Episcopalian priest and a professional director of medieval passion plays, contradicting virtually everything she said in Part I. In Part II, she took us back to Sunday school all over again, quoting chapter and verse from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John about Jesus's life, his ministry, his crucifixion, burial, resurrection and bodily ascension into Heaven. In these accounts, she takes everything stated in the four Gospels as literally true and historically accurate. She also presents us with her own non-biblical account of Jesus' descent into Hell, which occurred prior to his resurrection, and how the components of the trinity fit together and complement each other.
Part III delves into Christian meditation techniques, which aren't as much about quieting the mind as much as expressing the intent to upgrade the mind to a non-dualistic operating system. This upgrade is accomplished primarily by "letting go" with Jesus as the facilitator.
I must say that I was very disappointed in this book. It started off very well, but inexplicably devolved into orthodox Christian dogma, which cannot be be validated by evidence or reason, but must simply be believed as it was written in the Bible. The author does not explain why the writings in the Nag Hammadi scrolls were not included in the Bible if they were in fact closer to revealing the true message of Jesus than the four Gospels. Nothing in Parts II or III resembles any of the teachings of Nag Hammadi or the other Gnostic texts.
I didn't find the Christian Wisdom Practices in Part III of the book to be much different than yoga, transcendental meditation, or Buddhist mediation. The Centering Prayer seems a bit like the mantra technique, except that it includes an "intent" to become one with God. Some meditation experts say that stating such an intent takes you in the opposite direction because it implies there is still a gulf that needs to be crossed to get there, whereas as Jesus stated, the Kingdom of Heaven is already at hand.
Bourgeault suggests performing the Lactio Divina (sacred reading) method, which involves reading scripture "between the lines." This may be a good starting point for seekers, but it won't take them very far. For one thing, the scriptures have been edited and mistranslated into various languages, plus the meanings of words change over the years, so it's very easy to be misled by the words. One example of this is this famous quote, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." This metaphor doesn't really make sense, but some "experts" insist that Jesus was talking about a small gateway into Jerusalem called the "eye of the needle" which a camel could barely pass through. Actually, the saying probably stems from an obvious typographical error: "gamlo" in Aramaic, which means rope, was transcribed as "gamla" meaning camel. Interestingly, the Greek word for rope is also very similar to the Greek word for camel (kamilos vs kamilon) and this verse eventually came down to us from Greek through Latin (where camel = cameli and rope = funem). It would have made a lot more sense to compare something very difficult to a rope passing through the eye of a needle instead of a camel, but biblical scholars refuse to make the correction of "camel" to "rope" because they would be admitting the Bible contains errors. Ruminating scripture filled with errors and improperly translated into modern languages isn't the best way to get to the truth.
The "wisdom practice" of chanting and psalmody described in Part III is similar to Buddhist and Hare Krishna chanting. The wisdom practice the author refers to as "welcoming" recapitulates "letting go" she discussed earlier in the book, and Part III finishes off with the practice of celebrating the Eucharist, a full-on Christian ritual that never really made any sense to me. There was nothing new to report in Part III.
I gave Part I four stars and only one star each for Parts II and III, which averages out to two stars overall.
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Charlie
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but not earth shaking.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 January 2013
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Firstly I think it should be made clearer how far from the orthodox this book is. The author presents the Gospel of Thomas as if it was unknown before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scrolls. However there have been a number of orthodox Christian commentaries on this text in existence for centuries before. The author also contends that that Gospel of Thomas is not gnostic yet the whole tenor of her book is gnostic to a degree presenting salvation as something that is available only to those who have studied and understood the text. This is the antithesis of the message of Christianity as I understand.it,that is salvation open to all whether learned or not. The book is interesting but the Christian reader should be aware of what exactly they are purchasing.
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PK
1.0 out of 5 stars False Christ
Reviewed in the United States on 29 September 2018
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Cynthia Bourgeault’s book is pure heresy and the fact that she remains a priest in the Episcopal Church speaks volumes regarding the tragic depths to which the Anglican Church has fallen. She would no doubt dismiss such a judgment as proof of her thesis that western Christianity has too long been under the sway of a false binary (i.e. – either/or, right/wrong) way of thinking which places logic over the intuition of the heart. She evidently does not see the irony that in arguing against the binary way of thinking she is using it: claiming that since her unitive, nondual way of thinking is right then my binary thinking must be wrong! She appears to be oblivious to this massive contradiction that pervades the book from cover to cover, but if logic is thrown out the window then I suppose it doesn’t matter whether one’s thinking is fuzzy or not.
It is not surprising then that the Jesus that emerges from this nonsense is a very different Jesus than the one revealed in the canonical gospels. The biblical Jesus in very binary fashion claims to be the “light of the world” (John 8:12) and stood in judgment of men who “loved darkness instead of light for their deeds were evil.” (Jn. 3:19) Bourgeault’s ‘wisdom’ Jesus avoids the “fatal trap in the ‘God is light’ roadmap” opting instead for an ultimate reality that holds the darkness together with the light “not judging, not fixing, just letting it be in love (p. 123).
Her Jesus is very different from the Scriptural one in another way as well. The Jesus found in the pages of the Bible is presented as the eternal God and Lord of all, the Maker of heaven and earth. Bourgeault’s Jesus is far more pedestrian: a very wise man to be sure but “typical of the wisdom tradition from which he comes,” (p. 62) an “enlightened master” in the mold of many great wisdom teachers of the past such as Buddha, other eastern mystics and Moslem sufi wise men: indeed he is presented as another “Tantric Master” (ch. 7). He is not uniquely different from us, just further along the path of nondual consciousness. She specifically asserts that she intends to present a “sophiological Christianity” that emphasizes “how Jesus is like us, how what he did in himself is something we are also called to do in ourselves…” as opposed to a soteriological Christianity that “tends to emphasize how Jesus is different from us… uniquely positioned as our mediator.” (p. 21) If this Jesus is ‘god’ at all he is so only in the pantheistic sense. Indeed, God is not to be viewed as “an object in the first place, a ‘someone’ or ‘something…’” (p. 87) Such a Jesus fits in nicely with the intellectual fads of our culture but is not even remotely credible from an historical perspective. Bourgeault asks us to believe that Jesus, who was steeped in the monotheistic and very binary thinking of the Torah and Jewish prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah was somehow actually a pantheistic eastern guru.
But then, Bourgeault’s understanding of Jesus is not derived from the Bible as most of us know it. She must pay lip service to it since she claims to stand in the Christian tradition, but she uses it sparingly and only when it suits her purpose – which is quite rare. Nor is she afraid to dismiss Scripture when it fails to conform to her theories. Thus Paul’s kenotic hymn in Philippians 2 is accepted but not his “long lists of rules and moral proscriptions that dominate his epistles.” (p. 70) In other words, she cherry picks whatever in Scripture suits her thesis and discards the rest. Furthermore, she not only ignores Scripture that don’t fit her thesis, she eagerly accepts the non-canonical Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene as better sources for our knowledge of Christ. Never mind that these “gospels” were written long after Christ lived by those who were trying to achieve the impossible: to syncretize Christian faith with Greek philosophy and eastern thinking.
Indeed, in typical Gnostic fashion, her ultimate source of knowledge is not any external book or gospel but the internal and subjective witness of one’s heart – something she refers to as “our own power of inner recognition” (p. 3) or one’s “own direct knowingness.” (p. 7) According to Bourgeault, knowing about Jesus actually gets in the way of this inner subjective process. This intuitive knowledge clearly trumps Scripture or any other sacred writing – which at best can only confirm or obscure “one’s own inner authority.” (p. 7) Here is Bourgeault’s ultimate authority, not Scripture but her heart. The problem is that the Bible specifically warns us that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” (Jer. 17:9) Rather than a source of truth or wisdom, the inner human consciousness tends to be corrupt and self-serving.
It is not surprising then that all of this leads to a massive reinterpretation of the gospel. There is no place for sin or guilt in Bourgeault’s system of thought. Sin is replaced in her theology with what she calls an “egoic operating system” (I kid you not) which those of us unenlightened souls still stuck in the binary way of thinking have not yet evolved beyond. Indeed the idea that Christ died for your sins as it is normally understood is described as “bad, manipulative, guilt-inducing theology.” Contrary to Scripture God is not angry over our sin (ctr. Rom. 1:18) and Christ’s death was not an atoning sacrifice (ctr. Rom. 4:25). Rather, salvation is “a sacred mystery… to create empowerment….” It is “deepening your personal capacity to make the passage into unitive life” (p. 106) whatever that means. No longer is salvation obtained by faith in an objective Savior and Mediator. It is achieved through techniques of meditation that are intended to connect us to our subjective inner nondual awareness and higher consciousness – techniques that she describes in some detail towards the end of the book. Once again, whether we like it or not we are faced with a very binary choice: salvation by grace through faith in God’s atoning sacrifice or self-salvation by meditative techniques.
In the end Bourgeault devotes an entire book to tearing down binary thinking all the while arguing in very binary fashion that we must choose between binary alternatives: either the eastern guru wisdom Jesus or the divine Savior of the world; either mystical enlightenment by meditative technique or salvation from sin by faith in the One who died and rose again; either human effort or divine grace. It would be humorous if it were not so sadly momentous, for whether she likes it or not, a very binary fate – either heaven or hell - hangs in the balance. My fear is that Bourgeault’s Christian credentials and reinterpretation of Christ will deceive many who were raised in a nominal Christianity but whose faith is not well grounded. Wise seekers will avoid the Bourgeault’s “wisdom Jesus” and trust in the real Savior found in the pages of the Bible instead.
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2.0 out of 5 stars New Age Mish-mash
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 December 2012
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Cynthia Bourgeault seeks to create a "wisdom" Christ according to her own pet theories. Terms like the "egoic operating system","binary mind","energy centres","instantiation", "mythic" consciousness, and vibration, amongst others, reveal ideas not intrinsic to the Gospels but common to New Age thinking.
She wants a Christ who dispenses wisdom to us as individuals. She mentions a Tantric Christ?
However the Gospels give us a clear picture of Christ and his activities which bear little resemblance to the picture invented by Bourgeault. Christ was not some guru who dealt with individuals. In the tradition of his Jewish roots he was concerned with society as a whole. It says very explicitly in the New Testament that he inaugurated a new covenant between man (plural/community) and God. He almost always preached to crowds and groups, not on a one-to-one basis like a guru. He was not a "navel gazer" but a preacher, healer and activist. His audience were first century Jews not twenty-first century intellectuals.
Bourgeault makes much of the Gospel of Thomas with its wisdom sayings. She is completely wrong when she states that it is accepted as containing the words of Jesus. Serious biblical scholars remain unconvinced.
I have no qualms about the section on centering prayer and lectio divina. These are established Christian practices, but you can download them for free off the Internet.
All in all a great disappointment. She follows in a long line of books that cobble together a so-called new understanding of Christ which turn out to be erroneous in the extreme.
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J. Grothues
1.0 out of 5 stars Begins with the Gospel of Thomas
Reviewed in the United States on 12 March 2019
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This is actually a review of just the first sentence of the book. She quoted the second or third verse of the gospel of Thomas then wrote that it is "now largely accepted as an authentic teaching of Jesus." But, it's not. Yes, about half of the verses from Thomas kind of resemble verses from one or more of the canonical Gospels, but this verse is not one of them. So, I read that first sentence and thought, "Gee, if you are going to write a book about Jesus, at least START with the canonical Gospels. It's a pity, too. I really liked the title.
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Michael Lomax
2.0 out of 5 stars Thumbs down
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 February 2013
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It's the old line: that the church was hijacked somewhere in about the 4th century by people who wanted to use the Church for their power - and of course phallocratic - ends. And we, with the help of the Gospel of St Thomas and other documents they did not want us to read, miraculously refound, we have rediscovered the true Christianity. And remake the Church as we want it: of course women priests, pro-gay etc., etc.
This is too simple. In particular there is a glaring absence of knowledge of the ascetic tradition of the church.
This is not just me been bitchy: we read it in our Christian book club (Anglican, Protestant, RC and Orthodox) and all gave it the thumbs down
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pastorchuck
3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Thoughts
Reviewed in the United States on 11 March 2020
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Parts of this book resonated in profound ways, and there were a number of hidden gems along the way. At the same time, there were a number of bold assumptions and some interpretations that fit the author’s agenda, but are highly questionable. I am glad I read it, and I have some wonderful things to reflect upon, but I am not sure I would recommend it as the best work in the mystic, wisdom tradition.
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C. R. Andrews
3.0 out of 5 stars Cynthia writes "It was not love stored up but love poured out that brought the ...
Reviewed in the United States on 5 June 2016
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Cynthia writes "It was not love stored up but love poured out that brought the Kingdom of God to us." Her wisdom is so refreshing & different from most Spititual writers I have read many books where the authors quote her prolifiky I intend now to read of her books ColinAndrews Souyh Africa
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Bonnie Fredensborg
3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult book
Reviewed in the United States on 22 January 2015
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This was an extremely difficult book to understand. Took it as a book study at church twice and still struggled through it.
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Eleanor Stoneham
5.0 out of 5 stars Are we ignoring the real message of Jesus?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 November 2012
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What is wrong with modern Christianity? Did Christianity get off on the wrong foot almost from its inception? That is the thesis of this thought provoking and challenging book, a fascinating new take on the Jesus Christ we thought we were familiar with.
The starting point of the book is the Gospel of Thomas, restored to us when it was found among the Nag Hammadi scrolls in the Egyptian desert in 1945. These scrolls date back to early Christianity, being at least as old as the four canonical gospels, now widely regarded as the authentic teachings of Jesus, and give us a radical new take on Jesus and the metaphysics of his teaching.
Referring also to the 1960s Syriac studies, the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, Celtic poetry, Chinese Jesus Sutras, the African desert fathers, and so on, the author convincingly argues that the familiar Christian creeds and doctrines put together in the fourth century get in the way of understanding Jesus as a master in ancient spiritual wisdom, who was teaching the meltdown and recasting, the transformation, of human consciousness. This is the Eastern-like wisdom path of Jesus the life giver, a Jesus who is like us, calling us to put on the mind of Christ, telling us that the Kingdom of Heaven is a metaphor for a state of consciousness, a transformed awareness, a nondual or unitive consciousness, of divine abundance. There is then no separation between God and human, between human and human, all dwelling together in mutual loving reciprocity. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us and at hand, here and now, something we awaken into, not die into. This contrasts with the Pauline image of Jesus as Savior, who died for our sins, who is different from us, and has come to atone for mankind's depravity.
Today in Western Christian tradition we rely too much on logic, and doctrine and dogma. The author challenges these Western assumptions about Christianity and Christ, as she reminds us that whilst Christians take the events surrounding the resurrection as basic to their faith, the apostles who chose to follow Jesus knew nothing of what the future held. They had to see something else in this man, and we are long overdue, she writes, for a re-evaluation of how we understand the Jesus events and our religion based thereon, and of us understanding Christianity as a spiritual contemplative tradition. Indeed we see the first hopeful signs of this transformation.
The author examines our familiar Christian stories in this new light, as radical calls for the transformation of our consciousness; indeed shows how some of them become more readily understood within this new context. Jesus came to transform our brain led egoic operating system into a non-dual unitive system that is led by the heart, an organ of spiritual perception. In this light "repent" means to "go beyond the mind", or "into the larger mind", which is somewhat different from our classic understanding of repentance.
The book's thesis is lucidly explained step by step through Parts 1 and 2, respectively the Teachings of Jesus, and the Mysteries (Incarnation, Passion, Crucifixion, and the Great Easter Fast (not a spelling error!). It concludes in Part Three with core Christian wisdom practices available to us all; Centering Prayer Meditation, Lectio Divina, Chanting and Psalmody, and the Welcoming Prayer, the last being a pathway of vibrant spiritual strength and creativity connecting us to our energetic fields. The author takes us through these practices in detail, step by step. If we are diligent with these practices she tells us that we will find, as Jesus promised for ears who could hear, that the spirit lies within each one if us, connecting with reality and with each other.
The core Christian practice of the Eucharist can then be seen as more than a cultic ritual, experienced within the lower mythic or rational ranges of consciousness (as per Ken Wilber). It can instead be recognized as being at heart a wisdom practice originating from a non dual level of consciousness, when the celebration comes into its own.
I loved this book. I have already read it twice! As a Christian who has thought much and written something myself about the possible interface between new ideas on consciousness and the spirituality within religion, especially Christianity, this book is a breath of fresh air. Mainstream Christianity is losing ground, losing sight of the real gospel message of Jesus, the Jesus who came first and foremost as a teacher of the path of inner transformation, the deep level of consciousness he was trying to tell us about, a spiritual path that is found through self-emptying kenosis.
Christianity is either destined to change and grow into a proper form to match the consciousness of the twenty first century: or it will disappear as an institution and we shall then be left face to face with the naked presence of Christ.
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Mr. M. Donovan
5.0 out of 5 stars Serious Spirituality
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 December 2011
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I have been enormously inspired by this book. It challenges and affirms and sends me out again into a changed world where there is a God - bigger than the one I had previously perceived. Are you serious about knowing God in yourself and in others? Read this.
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