Jesus was Spiritual but Not Religious

Nonduality has more to do with spirituality than religion. Nonduality is represented in the mystical branch of every religious tradition, but it tends to be relegated to the periphery of the religion. It is sometimes branded as heresy and persecuted by the religion’s powerbrokers, especially in Western religions. That was the case in Jesus’ day. He was opposed by both the temple priests and the synagogue leaders of his own faith. 

Jesus was a disrupter of what we would call today organized religion or the institutional church, especially the type that is in bed with worldly powers. Most western Christians do not see this antireligious theme in the ministry of Jesus and Gospel of John because establishment Christianity is still in bed with economic and political authorities. 

In this episode I look at the story of Jesus Cleansing the Temple found in the second chapter of the Gospel of John. In that symbolic act Jesus was not just condemning the corruption of religion. He was attacking transactional religion, whether that be the temple sacrificial system or Christian sacrificial theology. Jesus was symbolically ridding his own religion of such dualistic thinking. In place of temple religion Jesus proclaimed that humans are temples of God. This nondual incarnational spirituality is the gospel of Christ.  John 2:13-25