What Would Jesus Think?
When I was 17, my boyfriend and I convinced our parents to let us take a train trip to New Orleans from Montreal, Canada, which is where we lived. To this day, I marvel that our parents gave their permission. Our train tickets took us through New York City to Washington, DC where we spent the afternoon. From there we took another train and traveled through several states to New Orleans. After a few days in New Orleans, we decided that it would be fun to see some of the Gulf coast. Instead of retracing our steps inland by train, we decided to hitchhike east along the coast and take the train from Jacksonville, FL to New York City, and from there, home to Montreal.
We must have been picked up at least half a dozen times on the 550 miles from New Orleans to Jacksonville, but one ride stands out in particular. The driver who stopped to give us a ride was a middle-aged man in a pickup truck. There were a couple of rifles in the back of his truck, but we weren’t too choosy about rides. My boyfriend, always more of a talker than me, gave some appropriate answers to questions about where we were from and what we thought about guns. Then after maybe an hour or so, the man pulled over to the side of the road and told us to come to the back of the truck. As you can imagine, this felt to us like it might be our last moments before we became one of the cautionary tales told to children about hitchhiking. Not knowing what else to do on that deserted stretch of highway, we got out of the truck and walked towards our driver. He reached inside the bed of his truck. Thankfully, instead of pulling out a rifle, he took out a thermos and two plastic cups. He poured hot coffee into the cups and handed them to us. Then he looked at us solemnly and said, “Have the two of you taken Jesus into your hearts?”
Those familiar with the southeastern United States may have heard it referred to as “the Bible Belt.” This is a part of the country in which Christianity plays an important role in society and even in politics. In southeastern American states like Mississippi and Alabama, more people attend church regularly than in other parts of the country. This part of the United States is also known for evangelism, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as, “The spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness.” In asking us whether we had taken Jesus into our hearts, our driver was looking out for our immortal souls from the standpoint of Christian theology, at least as taught in many Christian denominations. Based on the idea of original sin, namely that Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s commandment in the Garden of Eden not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, all of us descendants of Adam and Eve need to be redeemed. Having died on the cross for all of humanity, those who take Jesus into their hearts and follow his teachings can hope for God’s forgiveness and be saved from the stain of sin. Since my boyfriend and I had both been raised Catholic, we were able to say some words to the effect that we valued Jesus and understood his importance. This seemed to satisfy the man enough that we all finished our coffees, got back into his truck, and continued on our way.
At the time of that hitchhiked ride, I wasn’t on such good terms with Jesus, having parted ways with Christianity a year or so earlier. But over the years, I did make my way back to Jesus. The Jesus I have a relationship with is the same Jesus that communicated to Helen Schucman back in the late 1960s, when through “a kind of rapid, inner dictation” (Preface) she “heard” in her mind the words, “This is a course in miracles.” Although Helen found this experience very uncomfortable, she accepted her role as scribe of the words the Voice conveyed. She faithfully wrote down the words, and together with her friend and colleague, William Thetford, edited the writing. Helen and William were later joined in their editing of the Course by Kenneth Wapnick, who went on to become a devoted and brilliant teacher of A Course in Miracles. The three books of A Course in Miracles were eventually published by the Foundation for Inner Peace in 1976, the publisher which Helen chose. The most recent edition was published in 2007, and this is the version of A Course in Miracles quoted in this blog. It is “scribe approved”!
Over the past year, I have trodden lightly on the Christian aspects of A Course in Miracles in my posts, but the fact is that the Voice of the Course identifies as Jesus in many places. The Jesus of A Course in Miracles, though, is no different from any other enlightened master we could name. In the Clarification of Terms, the Course explains:
Is he God’s only Helper? ²No, indeed. ³For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized. (C-5.6:1-3)
What enlightenment means is recognizing and remembering that we are all “a Oneness joined as One” (T-25.I.7:1). There is no differentiation in Oneness and no exclusion. As my previous post explained, any of us can call on any ascended Teacher, whether we use the name “Jesus” or any other Teacher’s name.
There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you have never left. ²But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs of your Identity, which God alone established in reality. ³Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar they are one. ⁴Beyond each one there is a Thought of God, and this will never change. ⁵But they have names which differ for a time, for time needs symbols, being itself unreal. ⁶Their names are legion… (C-5.1:1-6)
Because we each believe we are tiny, differentiated individuals, living in a vast universe of space and time, it can be enormously helpful and even comforting to cultivate a relationship with an ascended Teacher who can guide us in our own enlightenment journey. Because we have forgotten our oneness with God, we need symbols to help us to remember:
The name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol. ²But it stands for love that is not of this world. (M-23.4:1-3)
Whichever symbol we choose, including the symbol, “Holy Spirit,” let it be one that speaks to us of love and peace beyond this world.
There are many paths that lead back to the awareness of being “at home in God” (T-10.I.2:1). A Course in Miracles uses Christian language and references Christian concepts because it is a path that intentionally speaks to those familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition. Understanding the identity of the Voice of the Course, we can think of A Course in Miracles as training its students to think as Jesus thinks. Instead of the familiar meme, “What would Jesus do?,” with its emphasis on behavior, the Course would instead ask, “What would Jesus think?” Jesus would always think that no matter who appears to be doing no matter what, that person is our brother in Christ:
The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. ²So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God. (C-5.2:1-2)
Today, if someone were to ask me that same question that I was asked on the side of a southeastern US highway all those years ago, I could honestly answer without any hesitation that, yes, I have taken Jesus into my heart. Jesus has saved me, not because his body died on the cross, but because he helped me to understand that the body isn’t our home at all. He has saved me, not because he took away the stain of original sin, but because he taught me that sin isn’t real to begin with. And he also saves me every single day by teaching me to remember that, as it was for him, so it is for me, and for everyone. We are, at this very moment, “at one with God” (C-5.2:2), if we but choose to remember. In the meantime, on the Course’s path of remembering, we practice thinking as Jesus would think. We practice seeing our brothers as completely innocent, looking past appearance and behavior to the face of Christ shining from every single one of them. This lights our way Home.
The Oxford English Dictionary definition of “evangelism” can be found at: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/evangelism
A Course in Miracles is published by The Foundation for Inner Peace. All the books comprising the Course, along with the supplemental pamphlets, are now found online:
https://acim.org/acim/en
All quotations of A Course in Miracles in this blog post are drawn from this version of the Course.