{"id":278,"date":"2023-12-19T16:44:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T22:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebuildingmyreligion\/?p=278"},"modified":"2023-12-19T16:44:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T22:44:49","slug":"jesus-a-field-manual-is-secretly-about-christian-mysticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebuildingmyreligion\/2023\/12\/jesus-a-field-manual-is-secretly-about-christian-mysticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus: A Field Manual Is Secretly about Christian Mysticism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This year I published my book, <\/span>Jesus: A Field Manual (How to Live the Sermon on the Mount).<\/a> <\/span><\/i>On the surface, the book is all about how to encounter and follow Jesus for yourself, and grow into the enlightened, Christ-like human being he wants you to be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But beneath the surface, <\/span>Jesus: A Field Manual <\/span><\/i>is a first step into Christian mysticism. So don\u2019t read it, and don\u2019t read the rest of this blog, if you\u2019re scared of accidentally becoming a Christian mystic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Christian Mysticism\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n About 8 years ago I started studying and practicing Christian mysticism. Christian mysticism is not \u201cChristianity plus New Age practices,\u201d or \u201cChristianity plus mindfulness meditation.\u201d The Christian mystical tradition has a long history that goes all the way back through the schisms, the early church period, into the New Testament, and right to Jesus.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n I mean, seriously \u2013 what else do you call a man who fasts and prays in the desert for 40 days, beats Satan in a test of wills, heals the sick and casts out demons, teaches in parables, and sees God in everyone and everything? Jesus was a mystic by any definition of the word.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What I love about the Christian mystical tradition is how devoted the mystics have always been to the teaching and the Spirit of Jesus. Most of the early monks, nuns, and hermits were dead-set on aligning their behavior and their interior reality with God\u2019s desires for them. They left the city for the wilderness to focus on obedience to Christ, because they believed that in his commands they would find the path to enlightenment and eternal life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some Old Hermit, wikimedia commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n*** ** ***All this while the institutional church was writing creeds, burning heretics, and invading the Holy Land. The Christian mystical tradition gives followers of Jesus a much-needed alternative model to church-based, authoritarian Christianity, and I love it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Why the Field Manual<\/i> Is Mystical<\/strong><\/h2>\n***** ** As I studied, I realized that the whole mystical tradition, from the church fathers to the Greek fathers to desert mothers and fathers to the Byzantine monastics to the Spanish monks and nuns, had a gold standard for their obedience to Christ \u2013 his commandments in the Sermon on the Mount. The poverty of spirit, the self-control, the love of friend and enemy, the complete trust in God that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount has always been the Christian mystic\u2019s guiding star.<\/span><\/p>\n ** Through the ages, Christian mystics have worked to organize their outward and inward lives to truly embody the Sermon on the Mount \u2013 and some of them actually did it. But I also realized that most Christians know that this is who we\u2019re supposed to be, but very few of us know how to get there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ** I decided to try an experiment in my teaching and discipleship ministry. I wanted to see if it was possible to assemble an entire spirituality, complete with beliefs, goals, disciplines, and a philosophy of life, from the Sermon on the Mount and the old mystics\u2019 attempts to live it. <\/span><\/p>\n ** *****It worked. My ministry with students of all ages and spiritual experience led to the first draft of <\/span>Jesus: A Field Manual.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Jesus: A Field Manual grew out of my discipleship ministry that met around a real campfire | image: Canva license<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhy Jesus: A Field Manual<\/em> Is \u201cSecretly\u201d Mystical<\/strong><\/h2>\n******* ** The first draft of the Field Manual<\/em> wore its mysticism on its sleeve, but I noticed that people were getting stuck on the more technical language, and on the more mystical concepts in general. For better or worse, when you say \u201cmysticism\u201d in 2023, people don\u2019t automatically think of thousands of years of Christians radically committed to being like Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ** So I rewrote the Field Manual<\/em> to be more accessible to a wider range of readers. To do that, I kept the mystical skeleton of the book, but focused it more explicitly on Jesus. I also made it much, much easier to read.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ** This was important, because I believe there is a lot of excellent teaching in the mystical tradition that can greatly help us modern Christians in our spiritual lives. But if explicit mystical language is an obstacle, I felt it was important to reframe the mystical concepts in terms of basic spiritual growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ** So, Jesus: A Field Manual<\/em> starts with a detailed commentary on each section of the Sermon on the Mount, with reflection questions so that the reader can respond personally to Jesus\u2019 teaching. It continues with an outline of the 3 stages of spiritual growth: Contact, Commitment, and Embodiment. It ends with individual and community practices to train our souls for spiritual growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ** *******These are all mystical ideas and practices, but anyone should be able to read this book and grow spiritually without feeling weirded-out by the mystical stuff. Because honestly, the early mystics weren\u2019t that weird. They believed what we believe, they just meant it more, which is why I admire them so much.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n**** Jesus: A Field Manual earned \u201cTop New Release\u201d on launch week, in the Amazon category of \u201cJesus, the Gospels, and Acts\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Jesus: A Field Manual <\/span><\/i><\/a>is available now on Amazon. Based on responses from readers, it\u2019s perfect for someone who\u2019s curious about Jesus and what it means to follow him, but skittish about religion in general. It\u2019s also perfect for people who want to reconnect with God through Jesus after deconstructing their faith, or losing confidence in the Christianity they grew up with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Whoever you are, <\/span>Jesus: A Field Manual<\/span><\/i> will help you encounter Jesus for yourself, understand his message, put his teachings into action, and become like him. And the old mystics will be with you through the whole book \u2013 they\u2019re just keeping it to a whisper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year I published my book, Jesus: A Field Manual (How to Live the Sermon on the Mount). On the surface, the book is all about how to encounter and follow Jesus for yourself, and grow into the enlightened, Christ-like human being he wants you to be.\u00a0 But beneath the surface, Jesus: A Field Manual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5124,"featured_media":290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[86,89,92],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jesus","tag-mysticism","tag-sermon-on-the-mount"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus: A Field Manual Is Secretly about Christian Mysticism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jesus: A Field Manual is a book about discipleship that's really about Christian Mysticism. 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