A Pastor Shells Soapbox Sermon by Rev Shelley Griffiths
26th June 2024
Despite the fact that the Eden Movement (www.newedenism.org) is non-religious and philosophical in nature I think it's important to acknowledge the lessons we can learn from the many religions that preach love and compassion. Nearly all religions begin with the premise that there was some kind of fall from Grace, or separation from God, or our higher consciousness, and that our sole life purpose is to find our way back to it, or Him, or whatever vocabulary suits you to understand that a form of mass spiritual amnesia has become our undoing as a species.
I personally have some issues with the idea that our ‘creator’ has a gender, but I also understand that thousands of years have conditioned us to see ‘Him’ as a personification in the form of a father. It would suit me better to consider the possibility that our heavenly counterpart is female, or our mother and is intrinsically nurturing, compassionate and kind, but it matters not to me what vocabulary or gender you ascribe to the act of achieving higher consciousness. In the Christian church, one might call it the Holy Spirit, but again, if this is triggering vocabulary for you then just use a different word because the time has come to stop arguing about what everything means on a cognitive level and instead to embrace it on a deeper spiritual level so we can truly find our way home.
People are often dismissive of the learning that can be obtained from ancient scripts and wise elders because they have been claimed by organised religions - I would liken this to those that refuse to see the moral of the story in an Aesop’s fable because ‘everyone knows that hares and tortoises can’t speak and would never have a race’.
Using this Aesop’s fable analogy of this psychological block to understanding, one can also take this to the other end of the spectrum and see that resonating so deeply with the moral of the story could lead people to start to believing hares and tortoises can actually speak. Having met people who believe the Bible entirely literally so that when asked why they believe something, they will say ‘because the Bible tells me so’ is just this form of extremism that is no longer serving us well as a collective that seems to be growing ever more violent and lacking in empathy.
These polar extremes of either dismissing it all, or taking it to a literal level both miss the point which is to deepen our understanding of our own psychological issues and increase our self-awareness; to finally grasp the problems associated with the human condition. A quest to find the truth has turned into an argument over semantics, translations and interpretations. It’s okay to question narratives and compare notes but not at the expense of opening our hearts to a transformative new paradigm that could shift human consciousness into the next step of evolution. I find it egotistical and rather arrogant to think that we can fully understand on a cognitive level what we literally cannot see. We just need enough understanding to act as a key that will unlock our hardened and traumatised hearts and souls and thus return us to that metaphorical garden of Eden, where we can live in harmony with each other and nature, regardless of species or gender or race.
When it comes to Christian doctrine, it's all too easy to metaphorically throw the baby out with the bath water, because so much of it seems to be nonsensical and implausible, but we are doing ourselves a great disservice to what our souls are yearning for because it doesn’t fit neatly into our understanding of the world and our human and non-human counterparts. Even scientific breakthroughs challenge our ability to comprehend and so all too often, we stop trying to understand.
We now know that particles and waves can be the same thing, and it's so mind blowing that it just becomes easier to dismiss it, but when one accepts that we cannot possibly understand everything on a cognitive level, it opens a doorway to understanding things on a deeper spiritual level. Understanding that surpasses the ego is how we will save ourselves.
When one starts to see things as metaphors and we can stop arguing over whether events actually happened in the literal sense, only then can we receive the lesson that will lead to freedom from the mass psychosis our species is obviously suffering from on a global scale.
For example, when you look at the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden as a metaphor for the struggle that followed ‘eating from the tree of knowledge’, you can start to understand why we lost our way.
What if we strip it away to the basic fact that we were given a garden of Eden with everything we needed, but were also given free will to choose, we can begin to understand that we made some pretty poor choices and it took us to a dark place. Jeremy Griffith in his book on Freedom explains that instead of it being a literal fall from grace, it’s an essential part of our journey to finding our way back to a nonviolent, peaceful existence, where we understand the human condition rather than battling with it. Richard Heinberg’s ‘Memories and Visions from Paradise’ has a similar theme as well as Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s ‘A Sense of Life’ where he shares his fear that we are moving towards the darkest era our world has ever known.
It sounds religious to say out of the darkness will come light, but if you translate that to saying that out of confusion comes understanding then there is hope for our species which is currently heading towards mass extinction. The idea that we are dooming our species with our choices and not doing everything we can to prevent it can only be a form of madness that we must address with urgency. It doesn’t even need to be a conversation based on spirituality if you do not lean towards that narrative. If it is easier for you to digest, then let us make it a psychological conversation about unhealed trauma, brainwashing and psychosis and get to the nitty gritty of what is blocking us from understanding. To me, true understanding is the same thing as enlightenment or awakening.
I have started to see it as wasting time to argue over semantics when really, we need to break it down into small, practical chunks and start making changes in our lives where we literally look at the consequences of our choices and decide whether they are serving us well anymore. The ‘Evolve’ course I am writing does just that, starting with a chart of daily activities and habits that can be examined and questioned - and ultimately altered to create healthier lifestyles that not only benefit our health, wellbeing and lead to thriving instead of surviving but also help save the planet and all her inhabitants. We can literally go back to the beginning and create that garden of Eden for ourselves if we want it enough. In fact, our giant edible forest project in Wales where we are working together as a community to create food sovereignty and sustainability for future generations is doing just that. All dairy farms could be repurposed and rewilded in the same way so that we can end animal agriculture and endless monocrop farming. It’s a beautiful vision coming to fruition. You can read more about it on our nonprofit website www.edenkind.org
Plato describes there being a time when ‘we held the beautified vision,' and when ‘we were not enshrined in that living tomb we carry about now’. George Bernard Shaw talks of the difficulties of shifting to a new paradigm of thinking. He said "all great truths begin as blasphemies” and learning this has given me the confidence to speak as I see it, even if there are religious extremists that will accuse me of blasphemy. Pointing out hares and tortoises do not speak but that the lessons are still valid should not have me dismissed as heretic. What if it’s time to look at the agenda that Emperor Constantine may have had when selecting which of the holy scrolls to include in what we now refer to as the modern Bible? Let’s investigate how much the church, government and animal agriculture were in bed with with each other 2000 years ago and still are today, and then decide if we need to reevaluate what people are literally taking as gospel truth. Why were Paul’s letters chosen over other scripts, and how comes we can ignore advice on slaves, and multiple wives in the Bible, yet hunters and carnists will still quote scripture to justify killing and eating animals? Why do some sects still condemn homosexuality and yet others embrace it now?
How comes the teachings of Buddha tells us to practice Ahimsa (causing no harm to any being) yet so many Buddhist monks still consume the death and torture of murdered beings claiming the karmic value is low because they did not do the killing themselves? It’s delusional to think paying someone to kill on your behalf does not make you culpable.
I grew up in a patriarchal church that made me fear questioning the Bible and hailed any questioning, or the pointing out of inconsistencies as blasphemy. I grew up fearing the wrath of God and the day of judgement where my obedience to the doctrine would be questioned, but now, at the ripe old age of 55, I realise that we have to ask this crucial question: what if we have been misled and lied to by a government and a church that wishes to control us rather than free us? What if this metaphorical fall from grace is simply a way to make us feel shame and guilt and therefore psychologically block us from experiencing true joy and spiritual liberation?
It sounds terribly cliquey, but I am currently part of the inner circle helping to promote the film Christspiracy which will be streamed online soon. The film contains truths that have caused great upheaval and angry debating from many theologians and leaders of indoctrinated religions, but like the pendulum swing that we are experiencing towards evil (or untruths), we are also on the brink of a huge swing back towards compassion, kindness, and understanding. I’ve talked about this in previous blogs, and if you are waking up yourself, you will feel it too. There are movements happening on a global level towards enlightenment, but the closer we get to it, the more cognitive dissonance, ego and darkness will try to consume us instead. I used to try arguing with those that refused to acknowledge the ‘what ifs’ but now I see it’s far more important to just share the ‘what if’ questions and hope that those that have also started to question our purpose will resonate and join me in a new way of living that welcomes truth over politeness and seeks to break the moulds we have been set into. Forced into.
The more I hear carnists and indoctrinated church leaders argue with the ‘what if’ questions that are being presented, the more I see the egocentric narratives and cognitive dissonance preventing our species from evolving. What if this is the judgement day that has been allegorised? Perhaps it is here right now, so I am asking you to consider whether you are are willing to drop your narrative, heal from your trauma and do the work on yourself so that you can achieve true self-awareness.
True self-awareness considers the consequences of how your choices affect not just yourself, but the world around you. The lives you are taking or exploiting. The happiness and freedom of others should not be a price you pay for your own happiness. When we are able to step outside our egos and be willing to become servants to a greater cause, only then can we address the real issues at hand. Time to work on ourselves! Remove the speck from your own eye before attempting to remove the plank from your brothers eye alludes to just this.
I will of course be accused of blasphemy by those that are not ready to question their faith or understanding. I could spend far more of my time jumping in to these arguments and what I call scripture battles and provide more likely translations to Bible stories such as Jesus quoting Jeremiah comparing animal sacrifices in the temples as ‘caves of murderers’ instead of the ‘den of thieves’ I was led to believe he was abhorred by, but the film Christspiracy does this far more adeptly than I ever could, so I urge you to watch it when it goes live online and make your own mind up.
I personally do not need to prove that Jesus was the first animal rights activist, and that he was part of the Nazarean movement (which was vegetarian) to know that eating animals is wrong. I could present you with the evidence that John the Baptist and James the Just abstained from eating flesh to help persuade you to to the same but you do not need to believe in God to have an intrinsic understanding between right and wrong, good and bad, or God and Satan. Once you strip away the conditioning that comes with tradition, unhealthy habits that have been normalised and the idea there is any such thing as overthinking, it becomes remarkably simple. We have separated ourselves from what makes us truly human. And by that I do not mean some caveman excuse that we are programmed to be savage or genetically driven to procreate, but rather that we are programmed on a deeper soul level to live in harmony with each other with compassion and love. Jeremy Griffith describes our current evolutionary predicament as a mass psychosis that can be cured with healing understanding so that we can become sound and sane again. It literally comes down to extending our self awareness to such a deep level that we can see the cause and effect of all our choices. All our choices! Whether that is the choice to eat animals, and how that might be preventing us achieving higher consciousness, or whether to be defensive when someone presents us with an uncomfortable truth about our behaviour, it seems we have become culturally accustomed to avoiding being held accountable and examining the consequences of our choices. It’s time to change that.
I may personally have a faith system that is deeply rooted in my desire to be more Christ-like, but you do not need to have religion to understand on a deep soul level what compassion is. You just have to ask the questions like: what if eating meat has reduced my empathy levels? What if we have been lied to for thousands of years and that the ‘elite’ wish to control us, rather than liberate us from the chains of psychological slavery? What if we reject the conditioning and brainwashing and look within to find the truth ourselves?
I have suggested in my previous soapbox sermons that carnism is devolving us, but I want to now add to that: what if we no longer need definitive answers that satisfy our cognitive curiosity? What if all we need is to let go of our egotistic narratives and allow ourselves to remember our divinity instead? Be willing to be wrong. Be willing to let go of our rigid belief systems and consider the possibility that truths are being gifted to us and the only way to accept them is to let go of the old ones.
When we speak our truths, we may find kindred spirits experiencing what we are going through, so I do not suggest we stop asking each other where we are at, or those crucial ‘what if’ questions but instead we remove the judgemental aspects of looking at others and focus on our own battle with our egos. The more people that overcome the ego, the more the collective awakening will speed up.
Start asking ‘what if’ and I promise it will lead to an increased ability to think critically which then leads to a loss of ego that you think you have all the answers. We don’t need definitive answers for everything, because the more you learn, the more you will realise you don’t know much at all. It’s that level of humbleness that epitomises real wisdom, not this arrogant finger pointing that someone with a different view is wrong. When we start embracing the idea that everyone is on a journey and if they are willing, they will encounter truths themselves, so we can let go of trying to bend them to our will. We do not all need to believe the same thing to live alongside each other with compassion and kindness.
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