Eileen Fleming & IPMN: forgetting the redemptive work of Jesus

The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) evidently likes Eileen Fleming who holds some rather strange religious views but is also an anti-Semite. She not only writes for the anti-Semitic Veterans Today, she is also a staff member of Salem-news.com a sister site of Veterans Today. IPMN of (PCUSA) on Tweeter connected to her article, “Christ Was Never A Christian But He Was Tortured By Occupying Forces. that is posted at CounterCurrents.org. Of course she makes connections to the cross of Christ and the Palestinians. But most of her comments are, well, not really Christian:

"Jesus was never a Christian, for that term was not even coined until the days of Paul, about 3 decades after Jesus walked the earth a man.

Jesus was a social justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up and challenged the job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were: sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation."

Something happened to the redemptive purposes of Jesus here. In fact, something happened to the understanding that Jesus is the great sacrificial Lamb of God. And there is a reason that in Fleming’s writings this should be so.

In an article on Veterans Today, “The Stages of the Soul and How Religiosity-Fundamentalism is Holding up Evolution,” Fleming proves her decidedly unchristian perspective. She reaches into the world of Theosophy and the idea that humanity is developing into higher spiritual beings. This also means that different souls have reached different stages. Fleming writes:

"Stage two souls have not yet been set fully free and prefer the security of a higher human authority than themselves for guidance. They submit to institutions, scripture, dogma, ritual, ministers, or gurus. This is the most appropriate stage for older children and most adults who live busy lives just trying to keep bread on the table and a dry roof above.

The difference between a stage one and stage two soul, is that a one wouldn’t even notice a neighbor in need, while the two has awoken to the fact that we are to be our neighbor’s keepers and they will respond to a friend-and like the good Samaritan, even to a total stranger in need."

Most theologians would agree that the opposite of faith is not disbelief: the opposite of faith is fear. Stage three souls have not just fearlessly awoken, they have evolved! This evolution has led them to the realization of what Christ was really talking about in the Sermon of the Mount AKA: The Beatitudes which sound like crazy promises, but are all about waking people up to The Divine within themselves and all others!"

Now the combination of theosophical ideas and anti-Semitism is not at all unusual. In fact, historian George L. Mosse in several of his books on racism and anti-Semitism list theosophy as one of the contributing factors, not in its original form, but as it developed and merged with other ideas. (The Jews were holding the evolution back.) But an important point here is that heretical ideas about the Jewish people and about who Jesus Christ is have historically traveled together.

In this latter essay Fleming believes it is Christians who hold to dogmas and creeds that are holding the evolution of humanity back. She does not understand it is a Jewish man, fully human, fully God, who died on the cross that truly matters. No he was not called a Christian, but a King. He was the Christ, the unique begotten Son of the Father. He was God from God, Light from Light. Only in his resurrection are we made new creatures.