Like a Dental Cleaning That Never Ends

I’m not quite ready to get moving today, so here I am, procrastinating.

I’m still slogging through Augustine’s Confessions. Some of it is fairly good. Most of it is tedious.

I’m somewhere around page 150, and Augustine has finally gotten to the point where he appears to be about to convert. He tells the story of a pagan sage named Victorinus. This man came around after talking to Ambrose the bishop or whatever of Milan. He then decided to proclaim his conversion publicly. Ambrose offered him the option of proclaiming it privately, which seems a little stupid. Victorinus declined.

Back in Augustine’s day, proclaiming yourself a Christian could have repercussions. It seems that Christians were tolerated fairly well when Victorinus came out, but the church still permitted former pagans to announce their conversions privately, so clearly, there were dangers. Call me crazy, but if you come out in a locked room in front of a few old men, I believe you’ve done pretty much the opposite of coming out. Victorinus seems to have agreed.

Augustine felt like a coward, because he didn’t have the guts to convert. At the point where I stopped reading today, he said he was trying to man up and join the church, but he was having trouble making himself do it.

He says: “The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.”

Here is his problem: he believes willpower is the answer. That’s pride. No one but God has ever done the right thing consistently with willpower. That’s not how Christianity works. If you could make yourself do right without God’s help, you would have the right to stand in front of God and tell him you didn’t need him.

Old-school Christians adore pride. They can’t get enough of self-righteousness. Work hard! Struggle! Don’t ask God to do what you should do for yourself! It’s all lies and poison, but we swallow it because we know we’re bad, and we want to turn around and do things for God.

The Bible makes it clear that we are not required to be strong without help. One of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is self-control. If it’s a fruit of the Holy Spirit, why would you expect to manifest it without him?

The more you pray in tongues, the more faith and authority you’ll have. Sooner or later, you will start to develop the ability to command your flesh and your mind. Jesus even commanded his spirit. He sent it to God when he died: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

I have found this ability rising up in me, and it’s a wonderful thing. I find I can command my mind to stop thinking about things I don’t want to think about. This is impossible for people who don’t have God’s help. If you don’t believe me, take the challenge Dostoevsky use to give people: sit still and try not to think of a big white bear.

One of the big problems with lust is that once thoughts of sex get into a man’s mind, they stick around until he obeys. When you develop the ability to command your mind, that problem goes away. You can command your mind to stop thinking about sex. You can command it not to be angry. You can command it not to worry.

Augustine didn’t know this, because by the time he was born, the church had already abandoned the Holy Spirit. They had given up the powerful knowledge that gave the apostles victory, so they were about like the Jews who lived between the prophets and Jesus.

The human body is a house, and even if you don’t choose a side, spirits will fill it. You will be led by spirits. If you’re not led by the Holy Spirit, you will be led by other spirits. They will sit on little thrones you gave them and rule you. The purpose of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is to deport these illegal aliens and put God back on the throne.

The keys to all power lie in the supernatural realm. If you keep relying on your natural strength, you will never find the control panel that gives you power over your life.

The devil hates salvation, but he really REALLY hates the truth I’m sharing with you. Most Christians who are saved have virtually no authority or victory in this life. They’re like soldiers without radios, who carry whistles instead of guns. Spirits that oppose God walk through them unseen and unhindered, just as Jesus walked through the crowd of Nazarenes who wanted to murder him.

They say a pistol is just a weapon you use to fight your way to a rifle; a rifle is a much more effective weapon. The strength you have in your own right is a tool you use to get to the power of the Holy Spirit. Most Christians don’t realize this, so they receive salvation and then live in weakness and defeat.

The gospel of pride sounds righteous. That’s why it’s so easy to fool people with it. What sounds better? Lying back and letting God do things for you, or getting up and working your rear end off to prove you’re grateful? To most people, the second option is clearly the righteous choice, but it’s the opposite of what the New Testament teaches.

In the Revelation, John saw the elders in heaven throwing their crowns at the feet of Jesus. Why? Because he was the one who had earned the crowns. They were just his heirs. They received what he built.

The Catholic church has always been very big on pride. Catholics have beaten themselves with clubs. They have made pilgrimages over stones on their knees. One “saint” cut her own eyes out. Catholics have always given clerics fancy costumes and big hats. They worship people they call “saints.” The rest of us…we are lesser beings. It’s okay if we never dedicate ourselves to God, because we’re just riff-raff. We will sit in the cheap seats in heaven.

The Baptists are the same way. So are most churches. “If you’re not willing to earn God’s help, get out of the church!” “God helps those who help themselves!” It’s completely perverse. God is burdened with treasures he wants to give us, and we reject them so we can present him with our mud pies and then demand praise and rewards.

It’s nice to read that ancient Christians shared certain types of experiences with us, but overall, Augustine is a stumbling block. He is stuck in the pride of the mind, just like the Jews who sit around studying the Talmud all day. God is for everyone; not just the brilliant, and not just the strong-willed.

When you try to lift yourself up, you bring strange fire to the altar. God rejects it.

I don’t know when I’m going to be freed from this book, but I look forward to it. I’m glad to know Christians don’t have to make themselves miserable reading stuffy volumes like Confessions in order to get to know God.

I hope Dante’s Inferno is more entertaining. It will be loaded with errors, but maybe there will at least be an amusing story.