Rauschenbusch writings were the spark that Lit Martin Luther King jr. It is always a great and wonderful thing when a young spirit enters into voluntary obedience to God and feels the higher freedom with which Christ makes us free.

Even more than Tolstoy, in this book and in Christianity and the social crisis he lays bare the 2,000 years of Destruction that the church has waged on the teachings, the gospels, of Jesus. It is the history of the church that I have my whole life. How useful. But as a young person my soul knew that something was horribly horribly wrong. My religion is expressed quite well in all but a few sentences of the gospel and distorted by most of the rest of the Bible and virtually all of the church..

 And yet he works within the church. Is it inslavement ment? Is it lack of courage? Probably it is strategic in the same way that Tolstoy uses the word Christianity. Both of them saw service to humanity by utilizing the deadly monster that is the Christian church For good by moving it for good. 

It is the view of James that this has always been a deadly mistake. History kind of proves it. The founder or rather the rock to which the church at least points never did this period it replaced Judaism it did not seek to reform it or improve it. The church is a commercialization for personal and private gain of empires of individuals of church hierarchy. It is an incredible abomination and may single handedly have destroyed the human species and the planet by robbing it of the only medicine that might have saved it, the pure morality distilled in the teachings and life example of the man Jesus

"If sin is selfishness, salvation must be a change which turns a man from self to God and humanity. His sinfulness consisted in a selfish attitude, in which he was at the centre of the universe, and God and all his fellowmen were means to serve his pleasures, increase his 98 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL wealth, and set off his egotisms. Complete salvation, therefore, would consist in an attitude of love in which he would freely co-ordinate his life with the life of his fellows in obedience to the loving impulses of the spirit of God, thus taking his part in a divine organism of mutual service. When a man is in a state of sin, he may be willing to harm the life and lower the self-respect of a woman for the sake of his desires; he may be willing to take some of the mental and spiritual values out of the life of a thousand families, and lower the human level of a whole mill-town in order to increase his own dividends or maintain his autocratic sense of power. If this man came under the influence of the mind of Christ, he would see men and women as children of God with divine worth and beauty, and this realization would cool his lust or covetousness. Living now in the consciousness of the pervading spiritual life of God, he would realize that all his gifts and resources are a loan of God for higher ends, and would do his work with greater simplicity of mind and brotherliness. Of course in actual life there is no case of complete Christian transformation. It takes an awakened and regenerated mind a long time to find itself intellectually and discover what life henceforth is to mean to him, and his capacity for putting into practice what he knows he wants to do, will be something like the capacity of an untrained hand to express artistic imaginations. But in some germinal and rudimentary form salvation must turn us from a life centred on ourselves toward a life going out toward God and men. God is the all-embracing source and exponent of the common life and good of PERSONAL SALVATION 99 mankind. When we submit to God, we submit to the supremacy of the common good. Salvation is the voluntary socializing of the soul. Conversion has usually been conceived as a break with our own sinful past. But in many cases it is also a break with the sinful past of a social g... 

"Jesus in his teachings alluded with surprising frequency to the use and abuse of intrusted wealth and power. In the...

Jesus in his teachings alluded with surprising frequency to the use and abuse of intrusted wealth and power. In the.... WHAT TO DO 381 parables of the talents and pounds ^ he evidently meant to stewardship V define all human ability and opportunity as a trust. His sWp.°^"^^" description of the head servant who is made confident by the continued absence of his master, tyrannizes over his subordinates, and fattens his paunch on his master's property, is meant to show the temptation which besets all in authority to forget the responsibility that goes with power.^ His portrayal of the tricky steward who is to be dismissed for dishonesty, but manages to make one more grand coup before his authority ends, not only shows the keen insight of Jesus into the ways of the grafter, but also shows that he regarded all men of wealth as stewards of the property they hold.' The parable of the peasants who jointly rent a vineyard and then try to do their absent owner not only out of his rent, but out of the property itself, was meant by Jesus to condense and dramatize the whole history of the ruling class in Israel.* The illustration of the fig tree which has had all possible advantages of soil and care without returning fruit, and which merely gets a year's reprieve through the hopeful pleading of the gardener, expresses the indignation of Jesus against the waste of intrusted opportunity.^ The terrible invective against the scribes and Pharisees is directed against teachers who had misused their influence to darken truth and leaders who had treated their leadership as a chance to get profit and honor for themselves.® The fact that Jesus in his diagnosis of wrong moral relations so often puts his finger on trust abused and betrayed, is proof of his penetrating social insight. Nearly all powers * Matthew 25. 14-30; Luke 19. n-27. * Matthew 21. 33-46. ' Matthew 25. 45-51. * Luke 13. 6-9. * Luke 16. 1-15. ' Matthew 23. 382 CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL CRISIS in society are essentially delegated powers. The more complex society becomes, the less will it be possible for the individual to attend to all his needs himself, and the more will he have to intrust others with specialized functions and powers. When

12 sentences. THIS IS JESUS, the first I've ever seen it spoken, in all my years.

Beyond the question of economic distribution lies the question of moral relations; and beyond the moral relations to men lies the question of the religious communion with that spiritual reality in which we live and move and have our deep- est being — with God, the Father of our spirits. Jesus had V realized the life of God in the soul of man and the life of man > in the love of God. That was the real secret of his life, the well-spring of his purity, his compassion, his unwearied courage, his unquenchable idealism : he knew the Father. But if he had that greatest of all possessions, the real key to the secret of life, it was his highest social duty to share it and help others to gain what he had. He had to teach men to live as children in the presence of their Father, and no longer as slaves cringing before a despot. He had to show them that the ordinary life of selfishness and hate and anxiety and chafing ambition and covetousness is no life at all, and that they must enter into a new world of love and solidarity and inward contentment. There was no service that he could render to men which would equal that. All other help lay in concentric circles about that redemption of the spirit and flowed out from it. No comprehension of Jesus is even approximately true which fails to understand that the heart of his heart was religion. No man is a follower of Jesus in the full sense who has not through him entered into the same life with God. But on the other hand no man shares his life with God whose religion does not flow out, naturally and without ^ effort, into all relations of his life and reconstructs everything — that it touches. Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over THE SOCIAL AIMS OF JESUS 49 the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.

Focused on loving soul for joy all day long. Best day in many many weeks. Lifted almost all other factors. And this makes sense. Soul is the seat of all goodness and attention and learning and acceleration and capacity-building are all the best thing that any of us can do.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a4ugngBwua9S5EAhqWHWIxvLXJq4OeELPACs3wbsTSs/edit?usp=drivesdk

Like all the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind, Jesus realized a profound danger to the better self in the pursuit of wealth. Whoever....

Like all the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind, Jesus realized a profound danger to the better self in the pursuit of wealth. Whoever.... will watch the development of a soul that has bent its energies to the task of

the [Kingdom of God] in the sense in which Jesus and his audiences understood it almost completely passed out of Christian thought as soon as Christianity passed from the Jewish people and found its spiritual home within the great Graeco-Roman w^orld. The historical basis for the idea....

the [Kingdom of God] in the sense in which Jesus and his audiences understood it almost completely passed out of Christian thought as soon as Christianity passed from the Jewish people and found its spiritual home within the great Graeco-Roman w^orld. The historical basis for the idea was wanting there. The phrase was taken along, just as an emigrant will carry a water-jar with him ; but the water from the well of Bethlehem evaporated and it was now used to dip water from the wells of Ephesus or from the Nile and Tiber. The Greek world cherished no such national religious hope as the prophets had ingrained in Jewish thought on the other hand it was intensely interested in the future life for the individual, and in the ascetic triumph over flesh and matter. Thus the idea which had been the centre of Christ's thought was not at all the centre of the Church's thought, and even the comprehension of his meaning was lost and overlaid. Only some remnants of it persisted in the millennial hope and in the organic conception of the Church, The historical study of our own d

Beyond the question of economic distribution lies the question of moral relations; and beyond the moral relations to men lies the question of the religious communion with that spiritual reality in which we live and move and have our deep- est being — with God, the Father of our spirits.

The young Martin Luther King was not going to follow his father into the pulpit. He had little use for the Christian church. Then he read this book.

Beyond the question of economic distribution lies the question of moral relations; and beyond the moral relations to men lies the question of the religious communion with that spiritual reality in which we live and move and have our deep- est being — with God, the Father of our spirits...... . Jesus had V realized the life of God in the soul of man and the life of man > in the love of God. That was the real secret of his life, the well-spring of his purity, his compassion, his unwearied courage, his unquenchable idealism : he knew the Father. But if he had that greatest of all possessions, the real key to the secret of life, it was his highest social duty to share it and help others to gain what he had. He had to teach men to live as children in the presence of their Father, and no longer as slaves cringing before a despot. He had to show them that the ordinary life of selfishness and hate and anxiety and chafing ambition and covetousness is no life at all, and that they must enter into a new world of love and solidarity and inward contentment. There was no service that he could render to men which would equal that. All other help lay in concentric circles about that redemption of the spirit and flowed out from it. No comprehension of Jesus is even approximately true which fails to understand that the heart of his heart was religion. No man is a follower of Jesus in the full sense who has not through him entered into the same life with God. But on the other hand no man shares his life with God whose religion does not flow out, naturally and without ^ effort, into all relations of his life and reconstructs everything — that it touches. Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over THE SOCIAL AIMS OF JESUS 49 the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.

So impoverished, joyless, living life as one's own, instead of belonging to the poorest souls.

I have lived the Paradox that the fewer I am friends with the more I can be friends to, now all creation. Never alone do I feel.

Tolstoy as quoted by Sorokin. "Christ founded no church, established no State, made no laws, imposed no government, or exterior authority; he simply set himself to write the law of God in the hearts of men in...

Christ founded no church, established no State, made no laws, imposed no government, or exterior authority; he simply set himself to write the law of God in the hearts of men in.... order that they might govern themselves. The doctrine of Christ is based on the metaphysical principle of love, the supreme law, that should guide us in our daily life and which admits of no exception. When you can say with entire truth and with a whole heart: “ Lord God, lead me wherever Thou desirest,” then, only, do you deliver yourself from servitude and become really free. Do what you have to do in life according to divine will, and in that way you will improve the lives of everybody.
Sorokin. The ways and Power of Love. Free download archive.org

My Religion? Being loving propagating loving in the world, for Joy. Same as Jesus. Propagating hating is the alternative.

You will be known by your fruits: Loving or Hating

Correction: Loving is not the ultimately rewarding experience. Loving to make the world more loving is.

BTW, the white male supremacist guy that hijacked my name 1700 years ago, is everything I died to save you from.

Commandments I did not give you, but the laws of Joyful lifing I showed you, as Einstein showed you laws of physics.

.. . The Christian right is a “crisis cult.”...

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/onward-christian-fascists/

... These believers find in Donald Trump a reflection of themselves, a champion of the unfettered greed, cult of masculinity, lust for violence, white supremacy, bigotry, American chauvinism, religious intolerance, anger, racism and conspiracy theories that define the central beliefs of the Christian right....

... The greatest moral failing of the liberal Christian church was its refusal, justified in the name of tolerance and dialogue, to denounce the followers of the Christian right as heretics. By tolerating the intolerant it ceded religious legitimacy to an array of con artists, charlatans and demagogues and their cultish supporters. It stood by as the core Gospel message—concern for the poor and the oppressed—was perverted into a magical world where God and Jesus showered believers with material wealth and power....

... Imperialism and war became divine instruments for purging the world of infidels and barbarians, evil itself. Capitalism, because God blessed the righteous with wealth and power and condemned the immoral to poverty and suffering, became shorn of its inherent cruelty and exploitation.

Christlikeness posts.

Living Joy in material hell, that Jesus was dying to solve, is just what we are entering in 2020.

Extremely serious, honest, question: Do you think it coincidence that by following my teachings you would increase the loving, decrease the hating, in the world? Jesus

James here. How is it in the middle of the night last night Awakening to the thought, how is it that after 68 years, most adoring the man Jesus what he stood for and what I thought he taught, how am I just now understanding this? Above? I mean, has it been articulated to me any place? Did Tolstoy say it? Did King and Gandhi say it? Did the gospels say it  clearly? Does any church say it?  Do any Advocates of so-called nonviolent action articulate it, understand it? I am not challenging you. I am feeling challenged. As of this moment James is thinking that if he has helped birth contribution into the the world it is this.

 Turn the other cheek, give your cloak also.... I only Now understand.

Neutral metabolism: Head & Flesh Lust for Pleasure. Soul Loves for Joy.