Third Iraq Moritorium Day...

Today is the third organized Friday vigil to end the war in Iraq. It is modeled after the protests that helped end the Viet Nam war. You can get more information and sign up to participate at http://www.iraqmoratorium.org/.

An aquaintance called in to a local community radio program and asked where the churches are on this issue? Why aren't they leading the protests to end the war?

More than 100 years ago Tolstoy answered those questions for most of the Christian churches.

One might sum it up as I do: they refuse to bite the hand that feeds them because they directly profit from it. But here are the words of Tolstot from Pathways of Life, Volume I, False Religions.

"The substance of the teaching of Christ is in his manifestation of that divine perfection towards which men must strive throughout their life. But people who do not desire to follow the teaching of Christ, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unwittingly, understand the doctrine of Christ not as He taught it : as a constant striving after perfection, but as though He had demanded divine perfection of men. And taking this corrupt view of Christ's doctrine, men who do not desire to follow Him have two ways open to them: they very correctly claim that perfection is unattainable, and then reject the entire doctrine as an impractical dream (this is done by worldly people), or they adopt another method the most popular and the most harmful, the practice of the majority of people who call themselves Christians, namely admitting that perfection is unattainable, they correct, that is they corrupt the teaching, and in place of the true Christian teaching consisting of constant striving towards divine perfection, they observe certain so- called Christian rules, which for the most part are directly contrary to Christianity.

The idea of gatherings of Christians being gatherings of the elect, of superior beings, is a non-Christian, a proud and an erroneous idea. Who is better, and who is worse? Peter was better until the cock crew, The robber was worse until he reached the cross. Do we not know in our own self an angel and a devil taking part in our life, there being no creature that has banished the angel completely from his heart, nor one without a devil leering at times from behind the angel. How can we, contradictory beings as we are, compose gatherings of elect and of righteous?"

The Gospel According to Tolstoy...

The "Pathway of Life" was published in two volumes in 1919 - posthumously for Tolstoy.

In their preface the original publishers stated that Tolstoy: "Filled with the yearning to help his fellow man struggling against sin, error, superstition and temptation, the sage labored on this compilation down to his last days, reverting to this labor of love even after the distressing fainting spells that preceded his decease, until, very shortly before his death, in "THE PATHWAY OF LIFE," he succeeded in collating the consensus of human wisdom and genius of all lands and all ages into a modern gospel that bears the self-evident impress of divine truth and immortality. The publishers reverently offer this work of Tolstoy to thinking humanity."

Thinking humanity? Hopefully there are a few of these people left in the world in 2007.

The most recent translation is available in one volume titled "Path of Life". There are 31 chapters in this edition: 1. Belief; 2. Soul; 3. One Soul in All; 4. God; 5. Love; 6. Sins, Temptations, Superstitions; 7. Gluttony; 8. Lust; 9. Sloth; 10. Greed; 11. Anger; 12. Pride; 13. Inequality; 14. Violence; 15. Punishment; 16. Vainglory; 17. “Superstition” of the Nation-State ; 18. Pseudo-Religion; 19. Pseudo-Science; 20. Effort; 21. Living in the Present; 22. Inaction; 23. Words; 24. Thoughts; 25. Self-renunciation; 26. Humility; 27. Truthfulness; 28. Evil; 29. Death; 30. After Death; 31. Life – the Greatest Good.

Tolstoy challenges all conventional thinking - well worth the effort of reading and meditation.

It may look very long but Tolstoy is succinct - here is but one example:

" Without the prohibition of rendering evil for evil, the whole Christian doctrine is empty words."

That's the kind of thing that got him excommunicated.