FROM THE MANUSCRIPT
In the author’s words
mystery with humility. Sometimes they are using the phrase like a badge of religious ownership. Sometimes they are using it to draw a line between themselves and everyone else. Sometimes they are using it to say, “Our religion has the Son of God, and yours does not, so you are incomplete until you submit to us.” That is where the problem begins. Not with Jesus. Not with reverence for Jesus. Not with believing Jesus has a unique relationship with God. The problem begins when people use Jesus’ sonship to make humanity feel abandoned by God. Because if God is the Source of all life, then no living soul is spiritually disconnected from the mystery that gives it being. If God breathes life into creation, then humanity is not godless by nature. If every human being bears the image, breath, spark, or imprint of the Divine, then Jesus should not be used to erase the sacred depth within the rest of us. Jesus is not special because he makes everyone else spiritually worthless. Jesus is special because he reveals the divine depth most people have forgotten within themselves. That distinction matters. A shallow believer hears “Son of God” and turns it into superiority. A serious seeker hears “Son of God” and asks what kind of relationship with God Jesus was revealing. One uses the title to dominate.
The God They Inherited, manuscript p. 301. Transcribed from the supplied manuscript; line breaks normalized.
The definition above is an editorial summary of this chapter, not a separately named theory or a claim of scientific proof.