Religion - Christianity | |
R1 | A Backpacker’s Journey Into The Gospels (2nd Edition – Revised and Enlarged) |
R2 | A Critical Examiniation of Three Miracles Performed by Jesus in Three Distinct Regions According to the Gospel of John |
R3 | A Speculative Reflection on the Relationship Between John the Baptist and Jesus |
R4 |
A Backpacker’s Attempt to See Beneath The Tapestry of the Gospel of Mark or
Decoding Four Aspects of the Gospel of Mark |
R5 |
Mysterium and Historia. The Blending of Two Streams in the History of the Early Christian Church
|
Religion - Comparative | |
R6 | The Cosmic Mountain – Its Image in Temple and Palace, Central Java |
R7 | The Cosmic Mountain – Its Image in East Java |
R8 | Images of the Cosmic Mountain – A Selection of Temples in Australia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Myanmar |
See Also my Travel Section for reports on Bali, Japan, Taiwan, Sumatra, Malaysia etc,.
Religion - Christianity
Explanatory Introduction
The religious domain has been my most
enduring concern. I have been an active member of quite a few Christian
churches. I have graduated from naive fundamentalism to a non-practising
modernism. While I am sympathetic to a great deal of Christian teaching, I am a
non-card-carrying member of the faith.
At the age of 18 I began to collect copies
of the major scriptures of world religions. At the age of 28 I convened a
meeting with Donald Miller and John Dunham to discuss the possibility of
developing a religion more suitable to the needs of Australia. This project was
to pre-occupy my thoughts until well into my 70s.
After surveying a myriad of Christian faiths
I turned my thoughts to South-East Asia. I visited temples, mosques, and
meeting places of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoist, Confucian, Tao Dai, Shinto, and Islamic
faiths. They each had appealing aspects but, in most instances, they were too
prescriptive and made little allowance for new ideas.
The Evolution of my thinking on the Origins
of Christianity
My attempts to unravel the secrets of
the origins of Christianity and the claims of the Christian churches are
reflected in the volumes R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5. My years of studying the claims
of the source, form and historical criticism had raised issues that could only
be resolved by abandoning the historicity of Jesus and the understanding of his
life as an allegory. While the teachings of Paul came from an historical
character the representation of Jesus as a new Joshua was a creation of a
Jewish Secret Society.
R1 - A Backpackers Journey into the Gospels
This work examines the difficulties in
harmonizing the synoptic gospels and the synoptic gospels with John's gospel.
R2 -
A Critical Examiniation of Three Miracles Performed by Jesus in Three Distinct Regions According
to the Gospel of John
The
author of John's Gospel has deliberately chosen these three cultures to emphasise
the fact that the new religion of Christianity is not simply a national or
international religion. It is also a cosmic religion. He does this despite the
ethnocentric Jesus portrayed in the Synoptists.
R3 - A Speculative Reflection on the relationship
between Jesus and John the Baptist
This
work explored the awkwardness in assigning greater deference to Jesus than John
the Baptist. Much of this is also recorded in R5.
R4 - A Backpackers
Attempt to see beneath the Tapestry of the Gospel of Mark, or Decoding Four aspects of the Gospel
of Mark
The
four aspects
i. The use of Parables by Jesus
ii. The Messianic Secret
iii. Jesus and Gentiles
iv. The Passion Narrative
R5 - Mysterium and Historia.
The Blending of Two Streams in the History of the Early Christian Church.
This work is an outgrowth of R1, R2, R3 and R4. It begins with the
assumption that Saint Paul was probably the earliest creator of the Christian
church. He taught that Christ was in you. His church was initially a secret
society. In Jerusalem another Secret Society was seeking to ‘groom’ a new
Joshua. This exemplar was later historicised into a real person whom we know as
‘Jesus’.
Religion - Comparative
My onsite investigations in comparative world religions began in
Indonesia (Bali, Java, Sumatra) Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia,
Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Japan, the Philippines, Macau and Hong
Kong.
Indonesia (Java, Bali)
While Indonesia is principally an Islamic country it contains the
majestic ruins of both Hindu and Buddhist temples. Balinese has over 20,000 temples
and a bewildering number of shrines and monuments which are not of Islamic origin.
The Istiqial Mosque in Jakarta is one of the largest mosques in the world. My three
tours to Java were largely directed towards the archaeological remains of Hindu and Buddhist temples and palaces in Central and East Java.
The Cosmic Mountain Motif
R6 - Its
image in Temple and Palace, Central Java
Yogakarta Region
The Keraton
Borobudur
LoroJonggrang
R7 - Its Image in East Java
Mojakerto and the
Majapahit
Major Buddhist and Hindu
sites
R8 - Images of the Cosmic
Mountain
A selection of Temples in Australia,
Bali, Java, Cambodia and Myanmar.