Review

Bibles! Although I had let go my early orthodox religious training in my late teens I still considered the Bible hallowed in some way. I would buy every new version that would come out hoping the new one would be easier to understand than the last but the obvious inconsistencies remained, no matter how it was interpreted, frustrating all attempts at understanding. Every Christian religion had its own individual and different interpretation compounding the difficulty even further.

In more illiterate times when only the clergy could read, it was left to them to interpret the gospels for the masses and little was challenged. As scholars started to examine the Bible in depth they found endless inconsistencies and conflicting messages. Most clergy and lay people could not handle the thought that the Bible was not the unquestioned word of God and merely put the inconsistencies down to the human being's inability to understand the workings of God's Mind. Others aware of the obvious flaws but unable to accept that the Bible was not 'God's Book' book looked a formula to make it more understandable. There have been books written in more recent years purporting to give the secrets to the Bible finally unlocking its mysteries. Books titles like "The Key to the Scriptures", Hidden Mysteries of the Bible etc etc. It reminded me of stories of ancient "Mystery Schools" where God's 'secrets were known to only a chosen few.

Although I could never understand a schizophrenic god who loved us one minute and punished us the next, I always had in the back of my mind that the writings if not directly written by God, were at least inspired by Him in the form of a revelation and it must be me who was getting it wrong. Eventually I gave up hope of ever understanding the Bible and became interested in other pathways from both West and East but I kept the Bibles in the house, just in case. I remember being horrified when Pam once suggested we throw some of them out making me aware of how much I considered these book to be Holy. To throw them out would have to be some kind of a sin deserving punishment and I didn't want to offend anybody, least of all God. I was not alone in my awe of the Bible. It has been so revered for centuries it was a common practice in most western countries to hold one hand on the Bible while swearing to tell the truth in Courts of Law and oaths of allegiance

When I finally came across A Course in Miracles(r) I was presented with a totally different God to the Biblical version: One who loved me completely without exception. My interest in the Bible waned still further and I rarely opened it again except for reference purposes

About 18 months after intently studying A Course in Miracles(r) I first heard Ken Wapnick's tape Christian Psychology and felt he accelerated my learning of the Course by years as he clarified many of the difficult aspects of this pathway I loved. His devotion to the Course and Jesus were undeniable. His first hardcovers book "The Glossary Index" not only offered indexes and descriptions of Course terminology but also cross-referenced passages in the Course to similar passages in the Bible. While even he would probably not bother doing that now, it probably was what was wanted then, to validate the Course for many during those early days. Over time, the Course's teaching became recognised as truth in its own right for many of its students and the more we understood it the more removed it seemed from the teachings of the Bible. No longer was there a need for the Course to be consistent with the Bible at all. In fact A Course in Miracles(r) became to us what the Bible should have been.

In his earlier workshops Ken explained in detail the workings of the ego and how we needed to look at the ploys adopted to distract us from becoming aware of love's presence. Over the years Ken spent less time going over the basics of the Course's processes and began presenting an increasingly more abstract message, concentrating on the final hurdle to overcome: our reluctance to give up our specialness and return 'Home' to the Heart of God. References and comparisons to the Bible once frequently quoted had become somewhat rarer in his more recent workshops.

Watching this trend it was surprising to see Ken and Gloria choosing a specific subject like the Bible as the focus of this recent workshop.

Long gone are the days of finding common ground with the Course. The gloves were off as Ken and Gloria proceeded to demolish the entire Biblical thought system, pointing out in great detail the many inconsistencies in both the old and new testaments. They concluded in this workshop that the Course and the Bible are really mutually exclusive pathways with no common meeting ground and totally different objectives. According to Ken, the Bible is a total ego document where the ego version of God is presented to legitimise and reinforce the entire ego thought system whereas the Course's aim is to show us the insanity of the ego's thought system and to help us escape from its hold on us.

To be fair, Gloria did point out that other so called Holy books held dearly by other religions have exactly the same source. They likened the love of God in the Bible to special relationships of a parent to a child, whereby the parent expresses overwhelming love for the child at times and doles out punishment at other times when the child does not do what the parent wants. There is no doubt about the lovely passages abounding in the bible which have comforted many for centuries but the duality of the worlds thought system ensures there are at least as many frightening examples of God's vengeance meted out if we displease Him. We can be forgiven by Him if we punish ourselves or suffer in some way to pay penance. The Wapnicks stress how the God of the Bible can be bargained with and how reverently the world considers sacrifice necessary for the atonement of our apparent sins. They see the Bible as a book of sacrifice and crucifixion, quoting the many examples of blood sacrifices required of animals and first born children to appease God in the Old Testament and compare these to God's sacrifice of His 'only Son' in the New Testament

Ken and Gloria spend a good deal of time airing their very considerable knowledge of the bible and historical evidence refuting the truth of events reported in the Bible. I felt such evidence unnecessary but many wanting proof of the unreliability of the Bible would no doubt find this very interesting.

Discussion became very lively at times but both Ken and Gloria were unflinching in their correction of the many misconceptions workshop participants had about the Course's thought system. They have always felt that as teachers they owe it to Jesus and his course never to compromise the true message as they see it.

Each time I think I have a grasp on the material Ken seems to have the incredible knack of stretching my mind a little further each time and this latest workshop was no exception. Understanding the Bible from a Course perspective, one can more easily understand the ego's thought system of duality, maintaining the idea of good and evil. Since none of us can be 'good' all the time we consequently all carry a certain amount of guilt resulting in fear of God's inevitable punishment. The dualistic God in this 'holy' book sets out the rules for behaviour and metes out punishment due to the perpetrators of sins against Him. He has human traits like jealousy and revenge demanding that we be 'God fearing' and tremble as we grovel before Him declaring our total allegiance lest we will be forbidden to enter heaven.

The God of the Course loves us completely and unconditionally as His Beloved Son still with Him in Heaven from which we never left. He knows nothing of the individual identity we have made up and our activities in the dream are of no importance whatsoever.

To sum up: This is not a workshop about understanding the Bible as the word of God and if you still gain spiritual nourishment from reading its pages, these tapes may be disturbing and are not for you. If on the other hand, you are a Course student who wants a greater understanding of the ego's plan for keeping us here forever, I recommend you listen to this very interesting set of tapes.

Bill McDonald