From: Teresa Gardiner, Vancouver, British Columbia
Several years ago, I had a vision to help the Doukhobor youth not just to understand the spiritual underpinnings of their culture, but to know how to live from the heart. I've been working on how to present this, ever since. I think The Doukhobor Book of Life (Zhivotnaya Kniga Dukhobortsev) is a good place to start, since it is one of the seminal documents of our people.
I was going to email you this morning to ask you about a couple of the Myths you've written about.
The first is myth #5. I grew up hearing the explanation you give about Jesus just being a man who did good deeds. However, in examining the psalms in the Book of Life, I'm not so sure that this is true. Many of the psalms are very biblical in nature and Jesus is referred to as God, certainly as part of the trinity. Where did your explanation come from?
Answer
From: Popular Myths and Fallacies About the Doukhobors, in Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living (2002), pages 379-384.
Myth #5 appears often in Doukhobor conversation. It needs to be evaluated and corrected so as to arrive at a new understanding that describes the Movement more accurately.
Myth No. 5: Doukhobors are Christians and believe in the Bible (as the supernatural, "holy" creation representing God) and Jesus Christ (who is said to have died for our sins and was born from a virgin). For most Doukhobors, these notions are parables of an earlier form of Biblical Christianity. Three hundred years ago many Russian peasants rejected the Church as being exploitative of innocent peoples throughout the mechanism of fear. Instead, they chose the "voice of God within" as being accessible to all and central to their way of thinking. They consider the Bible as a good book. But as with any good book, they say, it must be approached with discretion, judgment, and common sense, not just swallowed whole in an act of blind faith. In fact, most Doukhobors read the Bible as a form of literature, not a sacred script. Jesus Christ is considered to be a good man, a human being who performed good acts. Sin and "salvation through the blood of Christ" are notions foreign to them. Doing good, according to the Doukhobors, is the way of being good, rather than speaking about it. There is an old saying, Bog da Bog, da Bog, no ti ne budi plokh [You may speak of God all you like, but behave yourself.]. Good behaviour is of central importance to the meaning of being Doukhobor.
For a more complete look at the wider meaning of the Doukhobor Movement, see pages 375 - 377 on the explanation of The Spirit Within. Herein, I show how Doukhobor beliefs can be distilled into seven propositions. These seven gems are the result of over 55 years of research and observation. Below I cite the first sentence of each proposition (go to the original source to see the full text).
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Several years ago, I had a vision to help the Doukhobor youth not just to understand the spiritual underpinnings of their culture, but to know how to live from the heart. I've been working on how to present this, ever since. I think The Doukhobor Book of Life (Zhivotnaya Kniga Dukhobortsev) is a good place to start, since it is one of the seminal documents of our people.
I was going to email you this morning to ask you about a couple of the Myths you've written about.
The first is myth #5. I grew up hearing the explanation you give about Jesus just being a man who did good deeds. However, in examining the psalms in the Book of Life, I'm not so sure that this is true. Many of the psalms are very biblical in nature and Jesus is referred to as God, certainly as part of the trinity. Where did your explanation come from?
Answer
From: Popular Myths and Fallacies About the Doukhobors, in Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living (2002), pages 379-384.
Myth #5 appears often in Doukhobor conversation. It needs to be evaluated and corrected so as to arrive at a new understanding that describes the Movement more accurately.
Myth No. 5: Doukhobors are Christians and believe in the Bible (as the supernatural, "holy" creation representing God) and Jesus Christ (who is said to have died for our sins and was born from a virgin). For most Doukhobors, these notions are parables of an earlier form of Biblical Christianity. Three hundred years ago many Russian peasants rejected the Church as being exploitative of innocent peoples throughout the mechanism of fear. Instead, they chose the "voice of God within" as being accessible to all and central to their way of thinking. They consider the Bible as a good book. But as with any good book, they say, it must be approached with discretion, judgment, and common sense, not just swallowed whole in an act of blind faith. In fact, most Doukhobors read the Bible as a form of literature, not a sacred script. Jesus Christ is considered to be a good man, a human being who performed good acts. Sin and "salvation through the blood of Christ" are notions foreign to them. Doing good, according to the Doukhobors, is the way of being good, rather than speaking about it. There is an old saying, Bog da Bog, da Bog, no ti ne budi plokh [You may speak of God all you like, but behave yourself.]. Good behaviour is of central importance to the meaning of being Doukhobor.
For a more complete look at the wider meaning of the Doukhobor Movement, see pages 375 - 377 on the explanation of The Spirit Within. Herein, I show how Doukhobor beliefs can be distilled into seven propositions. These seven gems are the result of over 55 years of research and observation. Below I cite the first sentence of each proposition (go to the original source to see the full text).
- Because we all have the abode of God within us, it is wrong to kill another human being....
- The Bible's many sacred narratives are simple moral allegories....
- There are no corporate creeds to adopt except the principle of hard work, kindness towards others and hospitality....
- Doukhobors do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ....
- Heaven for Doukhobors is synonymous with virtue, while hell is a metaphor for bad deeds....
- They do not believe in the existence of a personal self-sustaining supernatural God in heaven....
- When applied to individual behaviour, a case can be made that Doukhobor is a humanistic religion....
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