camosynopsis

This page is designed to help you navigate through The Camerado Chronicles, which are admittedly a bit cumbersome when looked at as a
whole. Some chapters contribute very little to the development of the concept of Christotheism and Metatheology, while others are absolutely
essential. For the reader who wants to skim the Chronicles and follow this development in a condensed format, I have used various colors to
highlight important material (salmon, red and green, roughly in order of priority) as well as boldface.I have also rated each of these chapters
regarding their importance to the discussion (not on quality of content), with 5 being the most essential.

For the benefit of readers who would like to dive more deeply into the subject matter, I've included with each
synopsis a list of links created on the pages of the Chronicles to Wikipedia, a tremendous online encyclopedia
that is written and edited by its users. Oftentimes when I want to find top-quality information about precise
subject matter online, I skip the search engines and go straight to Wikipedia. In addition to informative articles,
each entry usually includes a thorough list of external links to sites covering each subject. It's truly an amazing
resource and I can't endorse it strongly enough.

All readers would be best served by starting with the Prologue, followed by the Introduction. The latter was an email
I sent to friends and family about a week after I started writing to announce my idea of e-mailing the Chronicles as
they were typed (which often was well behind the hand-written production); I think it sets the context that this was
basically an on-the-fly road journal rather than a carefully deliberated series of essays.

I hope you enjoy this little slice of road life and amateur theology...and even more so, I hope it encourages you to look further. There are no
limits to where the free mind and free spirit can go in exploration of the Divine One...
--Hermit Crab

Chapter 2: Christotheism and Biblianty
+ + + + + This chapter attempts to delineate the difference between the mainstream Christianity of the "Western Orthodox Church" (based
upon a literal or conservative interpretation of the Bible) and the possibility of a Christianity rooted in the direct experience of and communion
with Christ. It suggests that the "unprogrammed" tradition of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) already seeks this experience. It falls
short of acknowledging that this direct experience (what I later call "the Word of God") is what Biblians seek via the Bible, instead focusing on
the difficulty of reaching a non-verbal Truth through verbal means.
Wikipedia links: Quakers, Logos, the Trinity

Chapter 5: Good News and Baseball
+ More or less took a break from the heavy stuff in writing this chapter, where I visit a Charismatic church and catch a minor league baseball
game in Iowa. Does mention one of my most highly recommended book sources for the study of Metatheology: Alan Watts' The Supreme
Identity. Also briefly tries to disassociate Christotheism from "New Age" spirituality, a common pigeonhole for anything unorthodox.
Wikipedia links: Calvary Chapel, Charismatic, pantheism, Alan Watts, New Age

Chapter 6: The Dawn of the Spiritually Dead
+ + + + This chapter was written as a reaction to a sermon tape I listened to in the truck, a message that struck me as dangerously off-target
as a reflection on Christian belief. (No different than many I'd heard before, but the fact that it was my own pastor from ACF, the man who
baptized me, probably fueled by bitter reaction.) Discussion turns to Mahatma Gandhi in search of a sound, principled universalist
counterpoint to the partisanship of the sermon.
Wikipedia links: Rev. Fred Phelps, Matthew Shepard, Crusades, Inquisition, Mohandas Gandhi,
Vedanta, Upanishads

Chapter 7: De-formation/Missouri's War on Porn
+ + + + 1/2 The first part of the chapter is a vital mission statement, comparing the role Christotheism could play for Biblianty to what the
Reformation did to a Christianity dominated by the spiritual empire of the Vatican --only by de-forming instead of reforming. Mysticism, by its
very nature, tends to "de-form" our man-made institutions, and here is the beginning of our look at why this is a positive thing rather than the
negative our churches would have us believe. The rest is a snipet of thought on pornography that came up while driving through Missouri.
Wikipedia links: Reformation

Chapter 8: The Way of the Loyal Heretic
+ + + + + Sort of a continuation of the discussion started in the De-formation section of Chapter 7, but with a very personal assessment of the
qualifications needed for the job of developing new ideas from old religious traditions. Perhaps the best description to date of how I see all of
the world's religions working in accord to liberate us from our dualistic worldview --and how the orthodox faiths simultaneously promote and
prevent this liberation. Very important material.
Wikipedia links: Sunni and Shi'a Islam, Mahayana Buddhism, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Tao Te
Ching, Sufism, Qu'ran, Rumi, Hafez, Martin Luther, Second Vatican Council

Chapter 9: Harold and Nate/The Mobius Strip
+ + + + Harold and Nate is a brief slice-of-roadlife description of another baseball game, which I enjoyed in the company of some cute kids.
The "unity in diveristy" discussion then continues through a discussion of the Mobius strip, the one-sided oddity that for some has come to
represent the non-dual perspective we seek through eclectic spirituality.
Wikipedia links: the Mobius strip

Chapter 10: Jesus Had A Penis/Beginning of "The Talk"
+ + + 1/2 The provocative title refers to the primary thrust of the chapter: a discussion about spiritual writing that veers into Nikos Kazantzakis'
The Last Temptation of Christ, the novel that spawned the movie most mainstream Christians love to hate. It's not absolutely essential to the
Christo-Metatheism theme, but it does provide some background for important later chapters that draw on material from the novel. "The Talk"
segment is about personal business pertaining to my marriage --important material only if one if following the Chronicles as life-narrative piece.
Wikipedia links: Thich Naht Hanh, D.T. Suzuki, Max Lucado, Judas Iscariot

Chapter 12: A House on the Rock vs. A Seed in the Ground
+ + + + + Definitely the most important chapter to this point. Drawing on observations from the previous day's sermon, this chapter starts to
draw out the most basic reasons for my dissatisfaction with the teachings of mainstream Christian churches, and how they fail to represent or
relate the most radical elements of Jesus' call to us as Christians: an answer to some of the questions raised by Philip Yancey in his analysis of
Gandhi in Chapter 6. Though addressed to a Christian audience, this chapter initiates our examination of a very important Metatheistic
concept: that Jesus Himself was one of the great ego-slayers that appears throughout human history to help us learn who we really are.
Wikipedia links: Sermon on the Mount

Chapter 14: Of Cubs and Cardinals/The Christ Within Us All
+ + + + + -> I really can't give this one enough crosses to be fair. After a little bit of baseball talk, this chapter resumes some of the thoughts
from Chapter 6 regarding the spiritual repercussions of the way Christianity views non-Christians, then it applies some of the ideas that grew from
Chapter 12. Whereas the previous chapters leave a lot more open questions than answers, I think this one starts to give the answers that were in
my heart, the ones that compelled me to start the Camerado project. If you read no other chapters in Part One, please lend your eyes to this
one. I defy anyone to come away feeling neutral.
Wikipedia links: Ku Klux Klan, John Birch Society, Martin Luther, pope

Chapter 15: The Christ Within Us All, cont.
+ + + + + -> This is more or less a continuation of Chapter 14, so I have to give it the same utmost endorsement as an essential statement on
Christotheism. Here I broke the discussion down to address what it means to Christians, people of other faiths, and people who consider
themselves non-spiritual or irreligious. Also raises an interesting challenge to mainstream Christians: give me your testimony that the basic
tenets of Christotheism are wrong or non-Christian, but with more than just verses from the Bible.
Wikipedia links: Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley, Khalil Gibran

Chapter 16: "God Loves You...And So Do We"
+ + + I felt like Chapter 15 ended with a much more critical tone than I wanted to communicate, and this chapter mostly addresses why,
aiming to be more balanced in its view of the mainstream church. A beautiful encounter with an elderly Asian woman at a Calvary Chapel
service in California provides the perfect anecdotal accompaniment. "Christ-love is all that matters, not the means we use to bring it out....my job is to
build a new wing on the existing church building, not tear the old building down." Words for a loyal heretic to live by.

Chapter 17: A House Divided Against Itself
+ + + + ...shall not stand, according to the Gospel of Matthew. But the Western Orthodox Church is deeply divided along many fault lines.
This short chapter (I ran out of time heading into Ashland) provides a thumbnail look at how the issue of salvation divides the Church; a crying
shame when by all indications should this be the ultimate unifying factor of not only the Christian Church, not only the family of world religions,
but all of Creation. "We confuse the very real “narrow path” of God’s higher calling for the infinitely wide “path” of living in God’s love, and that,
more than anything else, has caused centuries of needless strife, woe and the deep grief of the Spirit that comes from needing to be right at the
expense of someone else’s wrong."
Wikipedia links: Mormon, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witness, Methodism, Wesleyan

Chapter 18: Of Overness and Being Best Friends
Chapter 19: The Peasant and The King Memorial Highway
Chapter 20: C-Minus One Year
+ I grouped the last three chapters of Part One together in the interest of saving space. Like the section of Chapter 10 called "The Beginning
of 'The Talk,'" this part is devoted to personal matters and would only interest those following the overall narrative --and for that it is very pivotal
and gives a great sense of change and a segue into Part Two. I like how it wrapped up my first "tour of duty" (what I called periods of driving
between going home or to visit folks) and provided a natural narrative frame to Part One, and in that sense it is worth reading, but I didn't try to
tackle any heavy stuff writing-wise.

Appendix A: A Letter to Jesse
Appendix B: A Letter to Ben and Jeff
+ + + + + These were letters a sent to some friends who had provided some of the more insightful feedback to the first part of the Chronicles.
Jesse is a member of ACF, and Ben and Jeff are old East Coast friends were born to Jewish families and raised in mainstream Jewish
congregations. Appendix A provides some greater insight into why I felt it necessary to write the Chronicles and what I hope to accomplish for a
Christian audience (somewhat different than what is written in the Introduction, but similar), while Appendix B addresses my friends' suggestions
that the Chronicles had said little of relevance to a Jewish audience that already has a "viable alternative" in Reconstructionism --it also seeks
to clear up confusion as to the applicability of the "Word of God" concept to non-Christians for whom it is foreign: "in using the concept “Word of
God” in the Chronicles, I am merely illustrating a connection that has already been made between ancient Greek mysticism (Logos), Chinese mysticism (Tao) and the
Christian mystic tradition, which releases the concept of the Word from attachment to the personage of Jesus of Nazareth and frees it to become something more
compatible with the previous concepts.".