Latest / Spiritual Hot Sauce / "Why Gandhi Took Jesus and Left Christianity Behind (Lessons from John Frum)” Ep#54

Transcript

"Why Gandhi Took Jesus and Left Christianity Behind (Lessons from John Frum)” Ep#54 · Spiritual Hot Sauce

• 0:00
  Chris Jones: There's a religion called John From.
• 0:01
  Chris Jones: And if you haven't heard about it, it's very revealing about all religions.
• 0:06
  Chris Jones: What makes it so special is it's less than a hundred years old.
• 0:10
  Chris Jones: It's practiced in only one place in the world, and we know how it started.
• 0:14
  Chris Jones: And then in isolation, it evolved, and we came back and observed firsthand what came out of that.
• 0:22
  Chris Jones: What I'm about to share with you should challenge us all.
• 0:25
  Chris Jones: Are we getting it right?
• 0:27
  Chris Jones: Welcome.
• 0:28
  Chris Jones: I'm Chris Jones, and this is Spiritual Hot Sauce.
• 0:35
  Chris Jones: There's a chain of volcanic islands in the South Pacific known today as the Viniwatu.
• 0:41
  Chris Jones: One of these islands, the island of Tana, was home to a native population of roughly 5,800 Tannese people when all this started.
• 0:49
  Chris Jones: Now the Tannese lived a largely traditional self-sustaining life because they were so far off the beaten path.
• 0:56
  Chris Jones: Shipping lanes and air traffic didn't pass anywhere near the small island.
• 1:00
  Chris Jones: Tana had to be your specific destination in order to go there.
• 1:04
  Chris Jones: So visitors were practically nonexistent up until World War II.
• 1:10
  Chris Jones: It was during this time in the mid-1940s that the United States put two major air bases on islands just north of Tana.
• 1:19
  Chris Jones: Now, from the perspective of the Tanneese, Tana was an island where time had virtually stood still.
• 1:25
  Chris Jones: For generations, the loudest sound anyone had ever heard was the deep constant rumble of Mount Yasur, the island's active volcano.
• 1:34
  Chris Jones: And now their blue skies were littered with these roaring metal machines, breaking the centuries old silence, louder even than the volcano.
• 1:45
  Chris Jones: They were literally shaken into a new unknown world.
• 1:49
  Chris Jones: Now it's during this time, we don't know if it was one pilot or multiple pilots, but we do know at least one pilot begins to fly to Tana and visit with the Tannees.
• 1:59
  Chris Jones: Now it's during these visits that we know the pilot or pilots bring them Red Cross care packages, food, and gifts, just basically come to be good to them.
• 2:10
  Chris Jones: The Tannees absolutely love their time with the pilot or pilots and really looked forward to them coming to visit.
• 2:17
  Chris Jones: But it would be just a few years later that the visits would stop when the war ended, and the United States withdrew both air bases.
• 2:26
  Chris Jones: Now again, remember, because it's so far off the beaten path, for roughly 30 years the outside world largely moved on.
• 2:33
  Chris Jones: But when journalists and researchers finally went back, what they discovered was astonishing.
• 2:39
  Chris Jones: They found that the Tannees were building planes out of sticks, twigs, and thatch.
• 2:44
  Chris Jones: It was a part of their religion they called John From.
• 2:47
  Chris Jones: Now the population had grown since the 1940s up to probably 10 to 12,000, and it's believed that about 10 to 20% of that population was practicing this religion.
• 2:58
  Chris Jones: Now it's while they are talking to these practitioners they start to realize where the name came from.
• 3:05
  Chris Jones: That John From is actually hi, I'm John from the United States.
• 3:12
  Chris Jones: The Tannees took John and From and combined them into a name, John From.
• 3:18
  Chris Jones: Now, in addition to building these planes, they would congregate weekly in what we would think of as like churches or synagogues or temples.
• 3:26
  Chris Jones: And they would come together and sing praises to John From and give messages of encouragement that John From's coming back, because they believed he was coming back on February the 15th.
• 3:38
  Chris Jones: They just don't know the year.
• 3:40
  Chris Jones: So they have these annual parades where they celebrate the return of John From, and they have a holy symbol that represents their religion.
• 3:48
  Chris Jones: It's the Red Cross.
• 3:50
  Chris Jones: And how this spread through the Tannees was people going out proselytizing, setting up these centers where people could come together and sing praises to John From and hear encouragement that he is returning to bring gifts and love.
• 4:05
  Chris Jones: There was even kind of fragments where you might think of it as denominational ideas that people began to practice it a little differently because they felt like it was the proper way.
• 4:17
  Chris Jones: There was even a theology that began to develop that John From was actually from the volcano that just took the form of a pilot.
• 4:25
  Chris Jones: He did this so he could come and be with the Tanees and give them love.
• 4:29
  Chris Jones: Now, all of the things I'm describing to you that happened from this interaction with this pilot or pilots developed from roughly 30 years of evolution of a religion.
• 4:40
  Chris Jones: Think about it like this.
• 4:42
  Chris Jones: Hinduism, if you include the Vedic roots, is 5,000 to 7,000 years old.
• 4:48
  Chris Jones: Judaism is 3 to 3,500 years old.
• 4:52
  Chris Jones: Buddhism is 2,500 years old.
• 4:55
  Chris Jones: Christianity is getting close to 2,000 years old.
• 4:59
  Chris Jones: Islam is the youngest at 1,400 years old.
• 5:03
  Chris Jones: Now I want to qualify with what I'm about to say with this.
• 5:06
  Chris Jones: I think that all of those religions or spiritual philosophies started with something that was extraordinary.
• 5:13
  Chris Jones: In other words, something happened that was so incredible it changed how people saw God, themselves, and one another.
• 5:21
  Chris Jones: However, over time you begin to see how that belief evolves and takes on its own life.
• 5:30
  Chris Jones: I mean, maybe we end up with religions that are formed around these scriptures or these events, the idea, the source, but they never follow what's prescribed by the source.
• 5:44
  Chris Jones: In other words, we pedestal and worship the scriptures or the events themselves in this religion, but we never follow what the scripture or the event says that we should do or become.
• 5:59
  Chris Jones: And I want to be very clear here.
• 6:01
  Chris Jones: I'm not saying that any of these religions are wrong.
• 6:05
  Chris Jones: That's not what I'm saying at all.
• 6:07
  Chris Jones: What I am saying, or at least offering as food for thought, is that how we practice our faith is more important than the religion that we're a part of.
• 6:18
  Chris Jones: And it's possible that many of us never move beyond the religion to become what the original intention was for us to be.
• 6:26
  Chris Jones: It's like the religion of John From.
• 6:28
  Chris Jones: They have these rich traditions of building planes out of sticks, twigs, and thatch in their community coming together to do these things as a religious experience.
• 6:38
  Chris Jones: They come together to sing, praise, and worship and to be encouraged that John Frum's coming back.
• 6:44
  Chris Jones: If the practitioner of John Frum doesn't move beyond the idea of having their handout expecting John Frum to come back and give them gifts and love, then they've never really grown and become, I think, what the religion is actually pointing to, what they should become.
• 7:02
  Chris Jones: If you compare this to Christianity, think of it like this.
• 7:06
  Chris Jones: We get in this religion and it is kind of as far as we go with it in the worship of the deity of Christ, as I call it.
• 7:15
  Chris Jones: But Jesus technically doesn't ask us to go start a religion.
• 7:19
  Chris Jones: What he asks is that we go and become disciples.
• 7:22
  Chris Jones: And he's very specific in what.
• 7:25
  Chris Jones: John 13, 34 and 35, it says, This is my commandment, is that you love one another as I have loved you.
• 7:33
  Chris Jones: By this the world will know you're my disciple.
• 7:36
  Chris Jones: His whole ministry is an example of what that love looks like.
• 7:39
  Chris Jones: So if we look at that compared to John From, we would say the practitioners at some point have to move beyond the idea of waiting for John From with their hand out, expecting more and get up and become like John From.
• 7:53
  Chris Jones: Not in how he cuts his hair, not in the clothes he wears, not where he lives or what he eats or even being a pilot, but in how he goes out and helps those who need encouragement and comfort, how he gives love through action, just like John From.
• 8:09
  Chris Jones: That's a disciple.
• 8:11
  Chris Jones: I think because we put such a focus on the religion and having to get it right, like if you veer from any one way of thinking, then you risk losing your place in the community and being shunned because you failed to believe and not get it perfectly right in the religion.
• 8:29
  Chris Jones: For me, this is a very challenging idea to accept, and I'll share with you why.
• 8:34
  Chris Jones: If you look at Acts chapter 15, they brought all of the key voices of the movement into one room.
• 8:41
  Chris Jones: And when you look at who is actually sitting in that room, it was incredible.
• 8:46
  Chris Jones: It was a mix of different people and different ideas.
• 8:48
  Chris Jones: You had traditional Jewish believers, you had Pharisees, a strict observant sect of Judaism who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah.
• 8:57
  Chris Jones: And you had Gentiles that Paul was bringing in from the pagan backgrounds, stepping out of their old world, moving towards the central message of Christ.
• 9:06
  Chris Jones: And the big debate in that room was this: do these new believers from different cultures, different religions have to adopt the religious mechanics and legal customs of traditional Judaism in order to follow Jesus?
• 9:21
  Chris Jones: The answer came from Peter, Paul, and James.
• 9:24
  Chris Jones: It was a resounding no.
• 9:27
  Chris Jones: They realized that Jesus didn't come to force everyone into a single cultural or religious mold.
• 9:36
  Chris Jones: The core message of faith and love was designed to fit into any background.
• 9:42
  Chris Jones: And that's not to mention the Zoroastrians that's named in the Bible.
• 9:45
  Chris Jones: King Cyrus is called a Messiah by Isaiah.
• 9:48
  Chris Jones: King Darius, who rebuilds the temple, is given immense honor in the Bible.
• 9:53
  Chris Jones: The wise men that came to visit Jesus was more than likely Zoroastrians.
• 9:58
  Chris Jones: So when you look at it like that, it's hard for me to come away thinking there's only one possible way you can believe that the religion is that important, is how you practice it is everything to God.
• 10:12
  Chris Jones: But yet the disciples themselves, Paul, Peter, and James, all had differing ideas.
• 10:18
  Chris Jones: And the difference seemed to be the culture they were in.
• 10:22
  Chris Jones: I personally don't think Jesus came to start a new social construct or to change one.
• 10:27
  Chris Jones: I think Jesus came to bring us a virtue construct that fits into any society.
• 10:33
  Chris Jones: And to break that down into common terms, it just means a society that has laws and rules, basically establishing his government here.
• 10:42
  Chris Jones: That Jesus wasn't trying to change any of that.
• 10:45
  Chris Jones: What he was trying to do is get us to change and how we treat other people, no matter what the laws or society was like, which I think by design happens through discipleship.
• 10:58
  Chris Jones: Now, let me create a space where we get really awkward and uncomfortable.
• 11:04
  Chris Jones: And this is a good thing.
• 11:06
  Chris Jones: And what I'm about to share with you, I didn't get off the internet because the guy is a lightning rod from politics and all religions and different ideas.
• 11:15
  Chris Jones: It's all misinformation out there, and there's a lot of it.
• 11:19
  Chris Jones: The information I'm about to share with you came from his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth.
• 11:26
  Chris Jones: So you can go look this up and see what I'm telling you is the truth.
• 11:30
  Chris Jones: Now, if you don't know, who I'm talking about is Mahatma Gandhi.
• 11:33
  Chris Jones: Now, Mahatma Gandhi, I think we all know, is a Hindu, but there's more to it than just that.
• 11:39
  Chris Jones: In his autobiography, he explains that when he went to college, he challenged his religious beliefs and his ideology on everything.
• 11:47
  Chris Jones: And I really liked how he did this.
• 11:49
  Chris Jones: What he would do is he would read your complete book of scripture or philosophy of whatever it was from front cover to back cover, then go sit with you and allow you to try to convert him.
• 12:01
  Chris Jones: He said this helped him figure out what he truly believed.
• 12:04
  Chris Jones: It was in that space of uncertainty, is where he found the conviction of his faith.
• 12:09
  Chris Jones: Now, everything that he read, he said he found value in for the most part.
• 12:13
  Chris Jones: Now, when he got to the Bible, he said the Old Testament put him to sleep.
• 12:18
  Chris Jones: But when he got to the New Testament, specifically Sermon on the Mount, he said it was divine and it began to speak to his heart, that Jesus is one of the greatest teachers of all humanity.
• 12:30
  Chris Jones: He was so moved by it and so profoundly changed that he fully intended to go back to the Christians and become a Christian.
• 12:40
  Chris Jones: Go look it up.
• 12:41
  Chris Jones: But he said when he got with the Christians and started hearing how they believed it, that they were not moving towards discipleship and becoming like Jesus and how he loved others, that they wanted to stay in religion and just use Jesus almost as an excuse of not having to change and just becoming more religious.
• 13:03
  Chris Jones: He rejected this and he said he would be a Christian if it wasn't for the Christians, because he could not assimilate to that, that he saw Jesus as what we all should be aspiring to be and his example of love.
• 13:17
  Chris Jones: Now Gandhi left Christianity right where he found it, but he took the Bible and Jesus with him.
• 13:23
  Chris Jones: It was Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount that inspired Gandhi's core philosophy.
• 13:29
  Chris Jones: You overcome hatred by love, untruth by truth, violence by nonviolence.
• 13:35
  Chris Jones: Gandhi took the commandment of Christ and changed the world with it.
• 13:40
  Chris Jones: I mean, think about that.
• 13:43
  Chris Jones: You could say that the religion of Christianity, the organized religion, is trying to get the world to join the religion and help them build planes out of sticks, twigs, and thatch, while Mahatma Gandhi was trying to become like John from he heard and truly believed.
• 14:02
  Chris Jones: What's the answers to all of this?
• 14:05
  Chris Jones: I don't know.
• 14:06
  Chris Jones: I have some of what I believe, but I'm still working that out for myself.
• 14:11
  Chris Jones: And my answer is not going to work for you.
• 14:14
  Chris Jones: You're going to have to figure out how you believe it.
• 14:17
  Chris Jones: The answers that religion gives us may be comforting, but spiritual growth comes from wrestling with these questions and challenging ourselves.
• 14:26
  Chris Jones: It comes with a price.
• 14:27
  Chris Jones: I hope this episode is providing some of that for you to go wrestle with.
• 14:32
  Chris Jones: And as a matter of fact, in the future, I hope to do much tougher episodes than this one that are even more challenging.
• 14:41
  Chris Jones: I want to create that space.
• 14:43
  Chris Jones: It's probably the most important thing I could do with this podcast.
• 14:46
  Chris Jones: And I promise you, I'm just as challenged, maybe even more, than you are.
• 14:50
  Chris Jones: This is hard stuff, but this is the good stuff.
• 14:55
  Chris Jones: If you'd like to hear more about the three wise men, I did an episode called The Three Wise Men, Who Are They?
• 15:02
  Chris Jones: Episode 20, probably one of my favorite episodes.
• 15:04
  Chris Jones: And if you'd like to hear more about Gandhi, I did an episode on him as well.
• 15:09
  Chris Jones: Episode 26, Beyond Believing: The Journey of a Disciple.
• 15:14
  Chris Jones: Now there's some big changes coming here on Spiritual Hot Sauce.
• 15:17
  Chris Jones: We're going to be moving the show to Sundays.
• 15:21
  Chris Jones: Sunday mornings will be new release day.
• 15:24
  Chris Jones: That's not this coming Sunday, but I'm just letting you know in advance it is coming.
• 15:30
  Chris Jones: And we are moving to video format.
• 15:33
  Chris Jones: That will happen at the same time when we move to Sunday.
• 15:37
  Chris Jones: Thanks for sticking with me.
• 15:38
  Chris Jones: Follow, share, but above all, remember when you have the opportunity, throw the rock.