Continuous Revelations

One of the key ideas I am emphasizing is that of continuous spiritual revelation. Thomas McFaul in an article on “Religion in the Future Global Civilization”[1] introduces this concept as a potential approach to bring the Abrahamic religions of the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) to a more productive interaction. Currently, each of these religions practices progressive revelation, where latest one claims to have the more complete, and final story; and earlier ones deny the validity of the later ones. With continuous revelation there is openness to the value of each religion’s revelations. An obvious question (and the proverbial elephant in the living room) is why would it stop with Islam?

Much of American New Thought is built on the foundation of Christianity, with a practice of digging in and finding the deeper spiritual meanings of earlier revelations that have been captured in the Christian bible. An example is Fillmore’s “Metaphysical Bible Dictionary” [2] that explains the deeper, hidden meaning of key biblical words and phrases.

The question that has always bothered me is: why would meaningful revelatory messages have stopped 2,000 (or 1,400) years ago? Obviously they have not. It is just that we don’t have good tools for separating the “wheat from the chaff”. When we attempt to add major new spiritual knowledge and sources to the body of human spirituality, we face the need for a quality screening and control capability. My next blog will sketch out the beginning of a system that could accomplish this.

[1] Thomas R. McFaul, Religion in the Future Global Civilization, The Futurist, September-October (2006).

[2] Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, Unity School of Christianity.