[Unknown Binding]

I wrote in a review of "Friendship With God" that there was a time in my life when I could not have accepted Neale's teaching and would have considered him an "Apostle of Satan." On looking back, I realize that I was actually an "Apostle" of "Pharisees" and could not open my mind to consider anything other than the traditions I had been taught. My most earth-shattering revelation came from God himself--not from Neale--the fact that every word in the Bible is not the divinely inspired word of God. I was having these thoughts during my prayers (without any books or anything to influence me in that direction)because I was honestly seeking truth and questioning God and desiring to understand. It began to occur to me that the God presented in the Old Testament seemed very similar to the mythological gods dreamed up by the Greeks and Romans and given their own human characteristics--a jealous, demanding, partial God who said, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" but seemed to have no qualms about ordering the Israelites to go out and slaughter entire tribes of people because they were an inferior, pagan race of people. (I believe we are all familiar with a man in our own history who did the same thing).

There is the story of Job, who is supposed to inspire us all to an unrelenting faith--a man who was true and faithful to God, and because of that very devotion, is permitted by God to have everything in his life destroyed, his children killed, his body ravaged with disease. (Seems to me ol' Job might have done better to have remained in another camp). But, in the end, because of His faith, Job is given a whole new set of children, along with 10 million dollars and lives happily ever after! ( And this should be a lesson in faith for all of us.) It was a lesson for me. God is not concerned that Job has lost all of his children and will most likely be a broken man for the rest of his life. He has received ample reward for his trials & tribulations, and if we are truly devoted to God, like Job, we might anticipate having our lives broken & ruined so that God can settle a personal score with Satan. (No, I do not believe this story was inspired by God).

Jealousy is presented as a deep sin in the New Testament by the apostles, but Christians have no problem accepting a "jealous God" (which is also a clear Bible teaching). Although, it makes no sense to any of us, it's simply because God is so far above our understanding that we can't hope to make sense of it. As far as "hell." We all know that not even a human being (except perhaps the most base) would ever throw his own child into an eternal hell for any reason, but we are perfectly willing to believe that a loving, omnipotent God would have no problem with this. (It's disturbing, of course, but again, God is so far above us that we can't understand Him or His motives). One of the things that God spoke to me in this was, "Why would I even have a need for hell?"

No, I don't believe that God tossed down one Holy Book with the entire truth for one group of people, and those who are unfortunate enough not to come in contact with or embrace that truth are condemned forever. Those who choose that "camp" I believe are truly "Children of a Lesser God"--however, there is no condemnation in this statement. We are all in a different place, and there are many paths to God.

Many readers have been incensed that Neale claims there is no devil. I have an even more heretical theory to enrage everyone (something that I truly suspect may be true). It's obvious that good and evil exist in this world and serve their own purposes. Neale has put forth the theory that joy and sadness are actually the same emotion in varying degrees. We know that everything is God and comes from God. I know Neale says there is no devil, but sometimes I wonder if Satan does exist to serve his own purpose in this world and if God and Satan are not actually the same person in differing degrees. This should have the entire fundamentalist world on their knees praying for my poor "misenlightened" soul. Who knows. Maybe it's true. Unless it's not!