Hi

As our lives rush onward at times even far ahead of us, I hope you are healthy in
body and soul, and at peace in your heart and mind. That is very vital, I believe,
to a healthy and happy life. Therefore, my prayer for you is all that with much
love:)
Even before I read your texts the next morning, I realized that I needed to explain
my faith more clearly to you. Im sorry that I lose sight of the difficult spiritual
journey it took me to get to where I find myself. Not that Im in any high
spiritual plane NOT AT ALL! But I realized that so much of what I now
believe has come through many years of personal critical study, a wide range of
ministerial experience, and of course a lot of prayer and thought. A lot of science
has also been a part of this... but its unfair of me to expect you to pick-up on this
stuff in the short time Ive exposed you to it especially in the badly-wordedway Ive done it.
I hope you sense that I wouldnt hurt your personal faith in God or in Christ.
Good and healthy faith is very valuable and very much needed to get us through
this hard-knock life. Even in our pleasant walk in the park yesterday, before we
got into the subject, I kept praying that your faith in God would not be hurt or
damaged by anything I might recklessly say. As a pastor and chaplain, I always
tried to build up peoples faith, not weaken it, or tear it down, or confuse it. But I
admit that Im so at ease with you that I just blurt out whatever, not holding
back at all! I can be open with you without fear of offending with my personal
private thoughts. Even though at times I have offended you and you let me
know it! my approach towards you is still the same: I trust that I can talk to you
about anything without worrying about losing your friendship.
I wont write about everything we spoke on during our nice walk. That would
take too long. For now, Ill just better explain the distinction between spiritual
and religious as Ive come to understand it. Later if you want, Ill get to the other
parts. Anyway, I know that if I wrote down fifteen or so pages, youd never read
it just kidding.
First thing I need to say to you is that Im Christian, and I am a Christian still.
You may wonder about that sometimes. I dont think that I could ever change

my religion probably for the very same reasons you couldnt. My personal faith
remains the same in Faith, Hope and Love to God, even though Ive refined the
content of my faith to more critically honest interpretations. However, so you
wont panic, that change still falls within the Christian Tradition my faith still
embraces Christianity. The place my faith has changed is in the religious part:
That part no longer has the hold on me it once did. Also, I realize the spiritual
part is sufficient, while the religious is needless when it comes to knowing,
loving, and serving God.
The problem, however, comes precisely because people mix up the religious with
the spiritual, and usually consider the religious to be the spiritual. This is not
really their fault. Preachers, Priests, Rabbis, Imams, and most clerics of all major
religions, etc. all teach this mix-up, usually. The Unitarians are an exception, but
not always.
Ill give you an example of this mix-up that will be obvious to you from the
Protestant point of view you were raised in. Roman Catholics are taught to
believe that the Pope is infallible in matters of Faith and Morals. That means he
cannot err in those matters: what he says is considered absolutely true and Truth.
Roman Catholics are not only taught this, but their catechism warns that to deny,
or not accept, this dogma (doctrine) can be detrimental to their salvation. So
according to Roman Catholicism, this dogma is tied to their salvation! Not that a
Roman Catholic needs to accept the Pope into his or her heart to be saved,
putting it in a Protestant phrase. No, a Roman Catholic would never think such a
thing: that would be blasphemous. Rather, they see it from the point of view of a
broader context: Christ rules and guides His Church (the Roman Catholic
Church) through the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit anoints a person (so far, a
white European male) through leaders of the Roman Catholic Church (the
Cardinals). Then this newly elected person (now Pope), through a specialized
power of the Holy Spirit, becomes Christs instrument to rule and guide Christs
Church here on earth as Christs stead. Thus the Popes infallibility in matters of
Faith and Morals is guaranteed. So if a Roman Catholic wants his or her faith
strong and headed in the right direction, then they ought to heed the Popes
dictums, because that is the way Christ is guiding and ruling His Church. This
dogma actually follows Biblical precedent. For example, in the Bible, God always

elects and uses a spiritual leader to get His will done like patriarchs, kings,
prophets and apostles. And this dogma is backed up by certain Biblical verses
that seem to outright say what this dogma says (cf. Matt 16!)
Now you and I know that as neat and logical as all that sounds, its a bunch of
malarkey! No offence! You and all other Protestants will reply that this
doctrine isnt Biblical. But theres the rub! Because this doctrine does have
SOME Biblical backing. If it didnt, then Roman Catholic theologians wouldnt
defend it. It just doesnt have All Biblical backing (actually, no doctrine does, but
were trying to make a point here. So lets not get bogged down in minor, yet all
too annoying, factual, details:). So then, thats where you see all the messy
biblical debating with one person quoting one Bible verse, and another person
answering with another Bible verse ad nauseam until everyone is confused and
exhausted. Knowing this debate dance all too well, I dont dance that way
anymore. Id rather retort that it doesnt sound spiritual and debate from there.
Im only speaking for myself here, but to me, this Pope-Infallibility-jazz doesnt
sound at all spiritual. It rather conspicuously reflects an old historical ancient
custom when kings chosen by God used to rule, and were needed to run a
country else that country would fall into apostasy, anarchy and ruin. Its called a
monarchy, which, here in the USA, we dont have one or need it even in
Europe and Asia where they still recognize kings, queens, princes, etc. these
nobles do not rule the country anymore. Theyre just rich cult figures the people
still get-off on about their countrys history. So to me, the so-called Infallible
Pope dogma resembles that old ancient custom of a God-chosen king, rather
than the truly spiritual idea of a humble apostle of Christ. Dont get me wrong,
that ancient custom used to be practiced in the Bible and beyond, until modern
Democracy came along. And even though this Infallible-Pope-thing has ancient
roots and practice since the Medieval Ages, it was only developed into a dogma
in the Roman Catholic Church not too long ago in the First Vatican Council in
1869 -1870.
ANY Protestant can clearly see that this dogma is religious and man-made. It is
not spiritual, because it does not reflect the whole reality of the spiritual life. It
only mirrors a minor cultural and historical picture of it. It is a human, cultural,
development that came from the minds of well-meaning religious men when that

type of politics was still being practiced. It then became part of the Ecclesiastical
Institution, which has come to be known as the Roman Catholic Church. Im not
making fun of them or making light of an ancient tradition. They did not do this
to be mean or narrow. They did this in defense of their institution when people
attacked that institution. One of their major attackers was Martin Luther.-). To
you, this dogma is a clear example of a religious dogma, and not spirituality
you wouldnt use that word, you would say, its not biblical. But the meaning
would amount to about the same.
The kicker is that for literally millions of Roman Catholics, this religious dogma
is considered spiritual (or to use a more familiar phrase to you, it is considered
Biblical and straight from God!) Many people hang on the Popes every word
and wait to hear mass from him, because of this dogma. Thus, they confuse the
religious for the spiritual.
This in turn creates another religious problem: personalized irreverence or
blasphemy: people getting offended when something they consider sacred is
being attacked. This happens when a persons personal faith is too tied up in a
religious doctrine thanks to religion! If you critique or criticize that doctrine,
they get offended and feel like youre attacking their personal faith. See, personal
faith is very precious. When someone feels their personal faith attacked, they
usually consider you a heretic or an apostate and react! However, its one thing
to attack a religious doctrine you may not agree with (thats healthy), and quite
another thing to attack a persons personal faith (not healthy).
But from where Im standing, its not only the Roman Catholics who fall prey to
this religious for spiritual mix-up, its also all Protestants really, Lutherans,
Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. Not over the same doctrines, of course.
Yet, most of what Protestants consider Biblical doctrines, including doctrines
about the very Bible itself, are really religious and not spiritual. To put it rather
bluntly without meaning to be negative they are man-made doctrines serving
only the religious institution. That is my own opinion, if it will make you feel
better. But I have studied it pretty thoroughly. You should know also that it
hasnt diminished my faith in God, because as I said, the religious is needless
when it comes to loving or serving God. I believe in my heart that personal faith
actually gets stronger when we no longer confuse the religious for the spiritual.

You felt uncomfortable and maybe offended when I spoke of Jesus having issues
about his mom, much the same way I used to feel about the Virgin Mary when a
Protestant would talk about her as if she was just another woman. To me, when
I was a Catholic, Mary was the Queen of heaven! The Virgin Mary is VERY
important and loved by many Roman Catholics. To speak of her in any other
fashion is like blasphemy! You might reply that doctrines of Mary arent in the
Bible, like for instance her Assumption (her bodily ascension into heaven), or her
Coronation (when she came through those pearly gates, everyone, including
angels and Jesus greeted her with a bow and crowned her Queen of heaven, etc.)
But does that really matter? Would you believe it if it did say that about Mary in
the Bible? If the answer is yes, that implies you believe a doctrine about the Bible
that you take to be spiritual, but in reality is religious, because, think of it? Even
if it was in the Bible that a dead woman ascended into heaven before she could
be buried does that sound like something the God of the whole Universe
would do? Does that sound spiritual or religious? Muslims believe that
Muhammad ascended to heaven, though temporarily. Hindus believe that
Yudhisthira ascended into heaven. Even Hercules was said to have ascended to
his heaven, Olympus. And these ascension myths go back even to the first
ancient civilization of Sumer! That right there should tell us something about
such beliefs and how they develop through time, out of real historical human
persons who are loved and revered religiously. Im not here attacking the Bible,
just the religious doctrines that surround it. Dont fall for them.
Ill use an illustration that might be helpful. Lets say the spiritual is like the
American continent. It is one continent, without human boundaries and it really
belongs to God and is for everyone and everything living in it. Religion is like
the human boundaries given to this continent. The boundaries make separations
(countries, states, counties, cities, etc.) and distinctions (North, Central, and
South America) and by those man-made boundaries and distinctions, they
become temporary property of those who made those distinctions and
separations. So even though these boundaries do make things more clear and
defined, they certainly should not be thought of as absolute. S. Dakota and N.
Dakota are in reality one, and a small part of a greater land mass. In the same
way, for instance, Christianity and Judaism are one in a greater (spiritual) reality
in spite of the religious distinctions weve given them throughout the centuries

as weve marked off spiritual land mass. Even St. Paul says that, yet Christians
dont want to see it (cf. Rom 11).
Spirituality is God-given to the whole human race. Spirituality connects all
people to God. We are born with spirituality. We have a spiritual brain. We are
a spiritual species. Im not using the word spiritual like the Bible. The way Im
using the word spirituality means the capacity to know God and godly things.
The capacity to create meaningful faith through our emotions and our rational
mind that God gave us in our limbic system and our neo-cortex.
Well honey, the PC tells me Im over 2000 words and on pg 6! Good night, sleep
well and have a wonderful day tomorrow:)
Julio