Unconditional is offensive to a good moral person’s sense of right and wrong and the felt need to properly deal with such things in terms of reward and punishment. This is so ingrained in public consciousness. That is why there was such a surprised reaction when Bob threw out the term scandalous generosity with some background thought. That term kind of expressed the sense of liberation most of us were feeling over the emerging nature of this wonder of unconditional.

It is hard to find any Christian explanation of unconditional not tied to prerequisite sacrifice and Pauline justice. This has to be the epitome of oxymoronic contradiction.

What did Jesus actually mean when he pointed to unconditional in the scandalous manner that he did? Bob has done a lot of groundbreaking work on this in his later essays on Joshua Ben Adam. This is critical stuff to get clear if we are really going to apprehend the core of a new narrative of true liberation and full release of human potential. This is the only way to take evil and death seriously and to respond seriously to such things. 

HENRY ; “That is what authentic unconditional points to. No prerequisite payment of any sort. No condition of any kind. Just forgive. Just love the enemy. Just give generously. Endlessly. Freely. No conditions set to be met first. No debts to be paid first. No apologies or repentance first. This is what the sayings of the historical Jesus point to.”(That’s it, Wendell!)  

“Hard stuff but a brilliant new advance in human insight and consciousness of what it means to be truly human.” 

(Not so hard actually. Not any more. Not after realizing that “unconditional” really does mean  that the Father accepts YOU as you are! I don’t cuss out drivers that cut me off anymore either.  The other day, after dogging my bumper for a while, a young man pulled up along side of me at a stop sign, rolled down his window and yelled, “You drive like a senior citizen!” I just smiled and said, “And that’s one reason why I’m still alive. Think about it.”  Of course I have never faced death for believing what I do. Probably a lot harder to smile then,)  

Wendell - That is what I should have pointed out the other day in that article I posted where the fellow asked questions about Christian sacrifice. At one point he asked quite bluntly, why does God need a sacrifice? Why can’t he just forgive? Exactly. What a great question. That is what authentic unconditional points to. No prerequisite payment of any sort. No condition of any kind. Just forgive. Just love the enemy. Just give generously. Endlessly. Freely. No conditions set to be met first. No debts to be paid first. No apologies or repentance first. This is what the sayings of the  historical Jesus point to. Hard stuff but a brilliant new advance in human insight and consciousness of what it means to be truly human. 

One of the Christian writers noted that the concept of unconditional love is used too freely in Christian circles. And he was shocked that preachers did not clarify that this could be dangerous as you first needed to set it in a  proper moral context. That you  could not just pass over evil or wrong. You first had to deal properly with sin and an offended and angry God. Well, you  are then no longer talking about  unconditional. 

Unconditional love may be the most central and potent insight offered by the historical Jesus. It gives his insights a unique flavour found nowhere as clearly anywhere else in the public marketplace of human insight over history. It takes human consciousness to an entirely new level of advance. And this unconditional element is very much present in NDE accounts which give some real sense of what it actually means (e.g. life reviews and the intense emotional effect of this as felt from the Light). 

Unconditional. What a concept. What a clarifying insight into what forgiveness and love really means. This gets to the essence of what being authentically human actually entails. Hard stuff to live by but what a powerful source of liberation in so many ways. It is the key source of liberation from the old animal inheritance and the burdensome enslavement to that payback oriented lifestyle.

BobThis is why Jesus said that this yoke is easy and this burden is light. Religion loads people up with heavy burden's too.  We too load ourselves up with heavy burdens. Read Isaiah 40:  "They shall run and not be weary:  they shall walk and not faint..."However, no love is cheap and it guarantees suffering. Love is patient, longsuffering and kind. It accepts blame rather than projects it. 

Here is a little game that lovers should learn to play - because the temptation when irritation arises (as it surely will) is to blame the other for the irritation.

There are two little sayings I became familiar with as a child (although I did not learn how to profit by them until much later) 

The first is, "I beg your pardon Mrs(Mr, Master, Miss) Harden, there is a pig in your garden."

The second is, "Excuse a pig without a tail (tale)"  - which has several interesting meanings, one of which is "I am acting like a pig without an excuse."  

Here's how you play the game:When one party oversteps  with any suggestion of blame, the one on the receiving end says playfully, "I beg your pardon Mr. Harden.... (once the game is understood, the rest does not need to be stated).  Immediately, the other replies, "Excuse a pig without a tail (tale)." 

If you play by the rules of this game, it will defuse an argument before it escalates. Its a curcuit breaker to start you laughing together.

These are all good points your raise, Herb. Suppose someone you have no regard for abuses you and calls you all sorts of names, then it might give you more pleasure than a string of compliments. right?  But supposing it was your own son who said these things to your face, then it is going to hurt you real bad. All human experience and history demonstrates that whilst love is free and unconditional, it is not cheap because it brings all the more suffering. In some ways the Christian message comes very close to this and almost carries through with it, but then at a very crucial point, it drops the ball and goes off in a different tangent that winds up misrepresenting the free and unconditional nature of God's love. 

It is all somewhat like the NT insight that God's word is not found in a book, in a ritual, in an institution, in a religious system etc, but God's word is revealed in human flesh. Jesus articulated this when he said, You (plural) are the light of the world, meaning according to the whole context of Matthew 5, by the way you treat even your enemies and those who hate you, by the way you endlesssly forgive and give hoping never to get it back, you reveal just what your Abba Father is like.  And even Paul in 2 Corinthians says that the new testament is not something that can be written with ink in a book but rather, You as a Christian community are God's new testament epistle to be seen and read of all men.  Yes, the NT message comes very close to it - but then it veers right off by turning the religious Iconoclast into the new Icon, makes of him the exclusive word of God, making him out to claim, "I am [the exclusive] light of the world." 

Of course human history and the whole process of the formation of life on this planet has been pretty gory at times - but we believe it is true that God has been intimately involved in this process of suffering, patient love.  If this is true, then God has paid a very heavy price for creative love and that sin and evil really hurt - not that God is saying, Look how much it hurts me, but simply, be human and be aware that evil really hurts people. I know that David prayed, Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and have done this evil [adultery and murder], but I say, David, you are just dead wrong!  You did this evil to Uriah and his wife, you did it to your people. Stop and think of all this wretched hurt you have caused.  How could you be so inhuman to do this to other people! 

ELLEN Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven: I would like to  agree with others of you that the kingdom of heaven of which Jesus spoke is visible here and now on this earth, is "among us" and numbers as its citizens those who truly love. (Truly loving is a whole subject.)

(2)Jesus' statement that we would do greater things than he did is something we witness daily. The other day, I commented on the bandaged leg of a young man waiting in line at the SEASIDE, CA post office. He had just returned from Stanford where a tendon or ligament, (sorry, I don't remember which) having been utterly destroyed in an accident,  had been grown for him by using his own stem cells!!! He said he expected to have full use of his leg, and was especially grateful since he had been an athelete. I was speechless, and now I wish I had gotten his name!

As I recall, Bob once posited that Jesus was the first in the human family to exemplify the intended ideals. That seems a truism to me, and I glance back at his life for direction and with a smile when I witness things like stem cell miracles.

I am one who cannot accept the idea of a bloody God; I think it is we who demanded a sacrifice, not God. For that reason,

I am not comfortable with taking part in the communion service (of bread and wine); it seems a lie if I do. But, it is quite okay with me if others do this, as I have learned that people crumble sometimes if their rituals are disturbed. A single comment is sufficient to open doors to discussion, and we can tell pretty quickly how much can be discussed. (Or not) 

The other thing I wanted clarify, since I said what I did about Paul's experience on the Damascus Road, is that I am intrigued by the NDE experiences,  I do not discount them, and have experienced a dreamlike version of an NDE, myself. (Yah, yah, I know what you're thinking...) Mine came in the form of a dream at night, years before you-know-what, was instructive, and characterized by love like we don't experience here on earth. God was communicating from a pearlized, white light, colored like the inside of an abalone shell. (There was no tunnel, but there was  totally loving information that I was to use...) 

And, I don't discount every claim of intimate communication (of other kinds)with the CREATOR, though I really tend to test it. For example, Handel, when he was writing MESSIAH, burst forth with a joyful exclamation of an encounter with the Divine. Wasn't it Michael Morwood who suggested that we are the means by which God is pleased to act? Or create great music? Or heal those who have destroyed tendons? Sometimes we experience mere insights, I think that are God-breathed. These are all untested thoughts which I put out there with some trembling...Just, Ellen

Bob - Yes, Morwood writes with great clarity and conviction on the point that we are God's hands, voice and the rest because

Wendell

Just something from Van Lommel re this modern practice called mindfulness. He says, “If somebody repeatedly, that is to say with undivided attention, concentrates on an idea or concept, it will bring about a permanent change in brain function. William James called this mindfulness, a holding-attention-in-place action of volition”. 

This relates to  Karen Armstrong’s point that the Buddha became discouraged trying to fight his darker side. He then realized it was more effective to concentrate positively on something like compassion and quit trying to fight negative impulses. He found more success with this positive focus instead of wasting time fighting negative things. 

There is good psychological study to back this and Julia among others has noted this in the recent past. 

Julian Simon found this true in regard to his depression. It lifted when he began to research the long term trends of life which he found were all improving. This changed his perception of the state of the world. He was never depressed again. I can attest to this in this same regard on the state of life on this planet. Changing one’s worldview, one’s focus, one’s orientation to life (the evidence one looks at) can lift any darkness permanently.

Bob

Somewhere the Psalmist talks about not exercising your mind in things that are too high and mighty and beyond our reach - and with the strong suggestion that God is pleased with this kind of earthly attitude. I might put it that we have been put in this historical situation to care for or look out for one another (despite the emphasis given here on self interest being paramount)  Cain knew in his heart that he was his brother's keeper, otherwise he would not have asked such a rhetorical question. According to another OT wisdom saying, Beauty (opportunity, duty, wisdom and whatever you need) is right there in front of your eyes, but the fools eyes keep speculating and straining to see something beyond our present horizons. Jesus of course taught that God is the master of the overwhelming surprise, but I'll leave that to God when that time arrives.