A Christian Minister Who Cannot Accept the Inevitable?

      

By Stephen William

A CHRISTIAN MINISTER WHO CANNOT ACCEPT THE INEVITABLE? By Stephen William,  UK based author of: ”Nostradamus His Prophecy Finally Explained.” Available on Amazon Kindle now.     Last month during December , during the season of Advent , the period before Christmas Day , I came across a somewhat sad situation which demonstrates the sadness that those who do not have direct spiritual contact, suffer. My sister who is a conventional regular church goer  attending  an Anglican Christian Church (the US church in the Anglican Communion is the Escopalian Church) helped to  produce a Christmas play for her local church. It was a modern themed Nativity play performed by mainly by adults ,as a humorous   satire on modern attitudes to religion. The  senior minister of the local church was impressed  with the idea and asked if a small part could be written for  her to take part. This was of course done. However, the small part written for her was of a woman scolding her badly behaved dog. The minister owns a dog herself and took offence ,believing it was a satire on her and the behaviour of her dog! Despite being assured it was not meant that way ,she was still angry and the project had to be dropped and a more conventional part (no dog involved!) had to be written at very short notice.  Nonetheless bad feeling still lingered on and my sister was tasked with approaching the minister to tell her that the church goers involved in the project were upset with her attitude and anger, when no offence was intended. The minister on receiving this news became very upset and close to tears and admitted she was very depressed and that she had been unreasonable in her attitude and apologised. Yet what had caused her depression? Apparently she  recently had to conduct a lot of funerals  and the grief of the relatives and friends of the deceased had overwhelmed and upset  her. My sister was sympathetic to her of course , but on reflection afterwards, on telling me of this situation ,we both agreed that conducting funerals is part of the job description for a religious minister! However such people are not made of stone and it must be very upsetting to see people so upset on a near weekly basis. However what I drew from this experience of my sister, that her religious minister who must regularly preach  about  “heavenly reward”, ”the world to come, “the hereafter “etc., that she seems to dread  the natural occurrence of death, which we must all experience at the end of our earthly existence. This is not to say that us mystics or spiritualists, even if we are mediums, do not regret the physical passing of partners, relatives or friends. Yet we know from direct spiritual experience that their existence has not come to an end. We know from communication with them and the messages we receive which display a deep knowledge of our lives and forecasts of events yet to occur which in due course do take place, that there definitely is an Afterlife . Death is not the End. However obviously many conventional religious ministers, whatever religion they are part of, seem to be unsure of this or even dread it and project this dread onto their congregation. Of course some religions preach about eternal tortuous punishment for wrong doers , but from mystic contact we know that if there is punishment , it is not of one of hellfire. Yet even with religions which do preach this form of Afterlife , amongst their clergy there appears to be doubt if any of it is actually true! Also, perhaps there is no spiritual dimension to existence at all.  This appears to be the flaw of all faith only based religions. Even the most faithful and committed  clergy sometimes admit  to having “crisis of faith “ episodes , which would not happen if they had direct spiritual experience . Therefore they honestly  cannot give the bereaved assurance to the continual existence of their loved  departed ones or they end up sharing their grief of the contemplation of nothingness. Perhaps this is what afflicted this minister and caused her to be depressed? It cannot be pleasant to say the least ,to constantly have to console the grief stricken , if you have a doubt whether some of what you are saying has no basis in actual reality. However the Church of England (the main church in the UK of the Anglican Communion) the minister’s own Church , in the mid - 1930s commissioned a report by a committee of twelve  senior people, these  included the Bishop of Bath & Wells and  Britian’s most famous psychiatrist  of the time, to investigate to possible reality of Spiritual Mediumship. The report  was completed and presented to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Cosmo Lang (the Church’s senior bishop) and the other senior bishops in 1939 . However to their shock, by a majority of 9 to 3 ,the originators  of the report decided that the practice of direct spiritual contact was a reality! Even the three who did not vote for its reality , merely reserved their judgement. Sadly the Archbishop did not publish the report, partly because the spiritual contact revealed no hellfire and punishment! This would be contrary to conventional Christian teaching . Sadly, it appears my sister’s minister is unaware of her own Church’s discoveries within living  memory, or perhaps her priestly training has prejudiced her against exploring direct spiritual contact  ? However the contents of the report were verbally leaked  to the Press by an unknown person within the  Church of England ! Many major British newspapers demanded  the Church to publish it in full. But the Church continually refused to! After this continual refusal to publish,  the leading British spiritualist magazine Psychic News, published a pamphlet in 1943 demanding that the Church did so. Yet again the Church refused to do so. Admittedly Britian and its Aliies were fighting Nazi Germany and its allies in the Second World War. Therefore it could be said that having a public discussion about peoples deepest spiritual beliefs could be seen to be couterproducive to the bigger  task of defeating probably the most evil ideaology the world has ever known. Nevertheless, after World War II had  been won and Nazi ideology totally discredited, the successor to Doctor Lang as Archbishop of Canterbury refused to publish the report. THE PAMPHLET PUBLISHED IN 1943 URGING THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO PUBLISH THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND’S REPORT ON THE REALITY OF SPIRITUAL MEDIUMSHIP. In fact the report was not published for another 40 years in the 1980s and seems to be an opportunity missed to modern spiritual understanding. Its delayed publication and the elderly or deceased  status of its compilers counted against it being considered seriously and debated. Also it was clear that the senior hierarchy of the Church of England disapproved still of its contents. Perhaps if the  report had been published back in the 1940s and it recommendations’  implemented  , religions everywhere would have modern proof of the Afterlife and the clergy of those religions would have more confidence in comforting the bereaved? I am currently working on an article about contents of the report and hope to have it completed for next month’s edition of this magazine. As previously written this  is not to say that us mystics and  spiritualists do not mourn those who  physically pass from this incarnation. I still miss my mother and father who have both passed in the past ten years. Those of us still left in our physical incarnation miss their voices ,hugs, encouragements and even foibles ,which cannot be quite replicated by mystical contact. However within a short time of my both my parents passing, I had contact with both via fellow mediums and directly .  The importance of receiving contact via  another medium especially one not known to you previously is important , It ensures that your direct contact is not just wishful thinking , brought on by your sadness of them no longer being still in this incarnation. Both my daughters have had contact from my deceased parents  as I have had also from my  grandparents.  We KNOW that there is an Afterlife because we have had proof , which followers of conventional spirituality, even the ministers of whatever religion it is, do not have. However, spiritualism as well as mysticism generally  is becoming more popular every year , even without approval of conventional faith only religions. We live in a modern world that requires proof of truth before we make any major commitment. For example no sensible person would take a prescription drug without proof of its efficacy? Therefore why spend a large part of your life listening to teachings of an Afterlife, without evidence? A New Year  resolution should be for  all mystical people should step up their efforts to spread the message of the reality of a mystical  dimension to existence. Wider  awareness of its existence is unlikely to happen without our help! Happy New Year to you All!    © Stephen William International Copyright.   My book which covers modern mysticism as well as Nostradamus’s , is available at only US $ 3.45 on Amazon Kindle or FREE TO READ if you are a Kindle Unlimited member. please follow this link https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B098LS5PM7/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_MBDF06G549ZKJ6XFKMCJ