When I was creating “The Seven Seals” and other associated projects like “Faith Restored” I wanted to explore this line between fact and fiction when it comes to faith. If we read the Bible and other religious texts in a critical way we can start to see that it is not always what so many claims it to be. As a writer I can see that many of the stories (or factual accounts, depending on who you speak to) in the Bible are written from perspectives that no individual person could have witnessed. So we either have God Himself (or Themselves, again depending on who you speak to) writing these passages or we have the writers themselves adding some fictional flourishes to ‘fill in the gaps’.
This may not be such a bad thing. I mean, most of human culture is built upon our stories, and what grander example of a story (fact or fiction) does the Earth boast if it isn’t the Bible? I always like to view religion (Christianity in particular) as a book club that only reads one book and has grown a little obsessive as a result. Let’s look at one of the core foundations of “Abrahamic religion” (Judaism, Christianity and Islam – all cite the patriarch Abraham as a key founder and servant of God.
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
Genesis 22:2
In the biblical version this is one of those passages that were either written directly by Abraham, was written by a writer hearing the story from Abraham (or someone that knew him) or it’s complete fiction. If it is fiction then it is just a moral tale, telling believers to have faith in God no matter what. The reality is (if Abraham was real as Judaism, Christianity and Islam contest) that this is actually the story of a seriously mentally ill man living in a primitive tribal society who almost murdered his son in a fit of madness.
If it is simply madness, then I feel it would explain a lot of things about Abrahamic religions in particular and many of their practices. To further add to the evidence that Abraham may not have been particularly well is his decision to force every male around him to cut off the tops of their penises. As if God will check these things, as if human beings were some kind of cattle to be branded this way.
Whatever the truth is in terms of these many stories, we can still maintain faith by keeping true to the spirit of the works presented to us from history. Most of the prophets of Bible (Jesus included) had such an impact because they were essentially, ‘bestsellers’ from antiquity. Or at least their message was, and having had my own experiences with “the spirit” my personal inclination is that there is a singular driving force behind the passions of these men and women who serve an unseen God.
However, my logic also tells me that if such an omnipotent Heavenly Father does exist, then He would prize wisdom above all other things. So when we read our religious works we must do so with both our hearts and minds in full operation.
Just because something is written down does not make it true. Just as not having something recorded for the historical record does not make an event or person untrue. I can, as a writer and practitioner in ‘the spirit’ only speak of my own experiences. As I will be writing in I Wear White, I have been shown things before they happen, without any way of me knowing of such events.
Whether this comes from God, or some kind of deep physics built into the structure of the Universe we do not yet understand as a species I do not rightly know. All I know is, God wanted me to warn about the coming of Covid-19 (though I had no name for it) and my faith demanded that I be true to myself. Me warning people about it made no difference of course, but it did provide me with confirmation of my faith and confirmation of a Heavenly Father.
Again, I have to state for this project that this is not a religious project. I have spent 20 years being “crazy” yet, in the end, being proved right. So I hope that by writing earnestly like this, especially about faith, that you may strengthen or renew your own faith in life, love, family, and maybe even God.