Let me respond to your third paragraph. When you read a book do you take what the book says at face value or do you attempt to critique it from your personal perspective? The four gospel writers, first century disciples of Jesus, and the early adherents and detractors all understood Jesus claim to be God incarnate. You seem to be using a modified version of Freudian language of id, ego, and superego. Where do you get your assertion that “Jesus did not have an ego”? Where do you get the concept of not having a “judging or wanting ego”?

Look forward to furthering the dialog.

of the
You say that ‘Jesus claims that he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace and avoid God’s wrath. This is why Christians practice evangelism. We desire other to see the beauty of the Jesus of Scriptures’. I believe you have totally misinterpreted his message. Jesus is not saying that he, himself, his egoic or personal beliefs is the only way to heaven. For one, Jesus did not have an ego. Jesus was ‘pure light’ or you could say pure presence without a judging or a wanting ego. You are interpreting Jesus as a shallow, egoic person and have missed his true beauty, a man with the blood of all of us flowing through his veins who wants to show us how to shed our ego and get to our intrinsic self which is god. ‘Gods wrath’ in my interpretation is the ego which does bring much suffering hence why it is refered to as a fiery furnace and ‘gods grace’ is mans intrinsic self, beyond the illusory blocking ego. To sum up, jesus did not mean that HE is the ONLY way to find god, he is saying PURE PRESENCE (which is what jesus is) is the only way to god with the loss of the ego (or gods wrath!). I believe that one must look further into the intrinsic heart of things instead of taking that statement ‘he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace’.

I understand I may not be making myself as clear as I would like to be yet as I said, I am young and have yet to further my education and intellect and it is late and I must be off to bed so I didn’t have much time to write! I hope you will ‘get’ what I am trying to convey to you with an open mind (without the ego which clings to things or beliefs in an attempt to uphold identity or a sense of self). Ill stop rambling now and go to bed. I look forward to your reply.
Peace, Ben

However, there are a few statements you have made which I don’t agree with per say. First of all, I think you are complicating things by looking at other religions (or all for that matter) too intellectually. All religions have inherent flaws which of course are brought about by people, not by the divine presence they are worshipping. I don’t think we should judge too harshly other religions and the ones that we choose to follow based on these flaws which I believe are brought about by the misinterpretation of the divine presence or god by ignorant peoples. Sure all religions have internal flaws (created by man) but when the most intrinsic message is taken from the religions it is blatantly evident that all religions are following the same message and ultimately the same god as of course there all gods whether it be the christian god, krishna, nirvana, allah, whatever, they are all one and the same! I acknowledge there are flaws in all religions, however it is essential to see that they are brought about by man and to look beyond to the truth that all relgions have found and the intrinsic divinity they are trying to be at one with.

You say that ‘Jesus claims that he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace and avoid God’s wrath. This is why Christians practice evangelism. We desire other to see the beauty of the Jesus of Scriptures’. I believe you have totally misinterpreted his message. Jesus is not saying that he, himself, his egoic or personal beliefs is the only way to heaven. For one, Jesus did not have an ego. Jesus was ‘pure light’ or you could say pure presence without a judging or a wanting ego. You are interpreting Jesus as a shallow, egoic person and have missed his true beauty, a man with the blood of all of us flowing through his veins who wants to show us how to shed our ego and get to our intrinsic self which is god. ‘Gods wrath’ in my interpretation is the ego which does bring much suffering hence why it is refered to as a fiery furnace and ‘gods grace’ is mans intrinsic self, beyond the illusory blocking ego. To sum up, jesus did not mean that HE is the ONLY way to find god, he is saying PURE PRESENCE (which is what jesus is) is the only way to god with the loss of the ego (or gods wrath!). I believe that one must look further into the intrinsic heart of things instead of taking that statement ‘he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace’.

I understand I may not be making myself as clear as I would like to be yet as I said, I am young and have yet to further my education and intellect and it is late and I must be off to bed so I didn’t have much time to write! I hope you will ‘get’ what I am trying to convey to you with an open mind (without the ego which clings to things or beliefs in an attempt to uphold identity or a sense of self). Ill stop rambling now and go to bed. I look forward to your reply.
Peace, Ben

Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I hope you keep reading and interacting. Since your post was more than about Ben Harper I will come back to him as the main subject but will briefly tackle a few responses to your thoughts.

As for Jesus, he made historical claims rooted in the Jewish context of strict monotheism. Christianity emerges from that mindset. He was familiar with other religions. Zorastianism, Samaritan, Edomic, Greek, and Roman religions were all in the geographical areas of his ministry. He denied them as false religious traditions. Instead he built upon the Jewish understanding of God. The core of the Jewish mindset is that it is a revealed religion exclusively given by the Creator God who is uniquely singular in being. This God claims stridently to the Jews and humanity that he is indeed the only true god and the only God period. We must deal with Jesus in this historical context in which he interacted and left his views for us if we are to be fair to Him as a person.

As for Scripture, if you read through the Church fathers they interpreted Jesus literally. The Gospels and epistles were taken with literalistic interpretations. They interpreted large parts of the Old Testament allegorically in that they saw the Church in the various places of the Old Testament people. A good book on Patristic hermaneutics (the art of understanding something, in this case the Bible) will show that from the first century onward, Scripture is the primary rule by which God has made himself known. This ideas was renewed in the Reformation is the belief in the truthfulness and fullness of Jesus in the Scripture (and what principles draws forth from them) alone in the principles of the Solas of the faith. If you know of some scholarly work that denies this I would be interested in seeing it.

You presuppose that “religious exclusivity denies many people in the world a full experience of what all the different faiths of the world have to offer.” I do not doubt that other religious ideas have many wonderful cultural benefits in their temporal historical context. I respect that in the Hinduistic faiths there are elements of merging the physical with the metaphysical that has led to ethical restraints in this world. In Islam there is a deep devotion to reverence and beauty of that which is divine which has led to some social justice. In native American religions there are often elements of creation care that have led to balancing care of the natural realm with human necessity for habitats for survival. The problem though with other religions is two fold. First, all these religions miss the most beautiful of all which is from God. Namely the revelation of the fullness of the personhood of God in the person of Jesus. Jesus slowly emerged in the cultural context of the first century Judaism as a Jewish person sent primarily to a Jewish people. The mission expanded only after his resurrection. Second, The Jesus of Scripture is historically bound with objective claims that he made. He states all these other systems are insufficient and false. Jesus claims that he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace and avoid God’s wrath. This is why Christians practice evangelism. We desire other to see the beauty of the Jesus of Scriptures. It is there choice to accept it or reject it. We do not force conversions. Admittedly there are false evangelist and true evangelist that represent Jesus falsely or very badly. Neither of these abuses deny the central claims of who Jesus claimed to be.

You assume I am a “Fundamentalist.” Yet you don’t define what that means. Does it simply mean I believe in the fundamentals of an idea in this case the historical Jesus or does it have a wider negative cultural implication that I am some how maliciously intolerant? Are all fundamentalist equally good or bad in your view? As you read through this blog post (hopefully others as well) you drew certain conclusions about me and my ideas. Drawing conclusions and reacting is the very definition of judgment. So you made a judgment on me but what I said. I have done the same thing with Ben Harper. I would love to sit and chat with Ben. I find him a uniquely interesting entertainer. Yes I have judged his ideas. We do that all the time. We say we like this or that based on our judgements. They may not always be right but they are what we have come to believe in light of the evidence that we have.

I enjoy Ben Harper’s work. That is why I have bought his music and have it on my playlist. That is why I blog about him. He does what he does to express his beliefs and views so people can reflect on them. You affirm that when you speak of his faith, hope, and love. You made a judgement after listening to him and that is your judgment upon his work. Whenever we speak we open ourselves up for judgment of our ideas. I have judged though his work is indeed thought provoking it misses the beauty of the historical Jesus.