CESNUR - Centro Studi sulle Nuove Religioni diretto da Massimo Introvigne
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londonThe 2008 International Conference
Twenty Years and More: Research into Minority Religions, New Religious Movements and 'the New Spirituality'

An International Conference organized by INFORM and CESNUR in association with ISORECEA at the London School of Economics, 16-20th April 2008

Salvation and the Descendants of Abraham, a New Paradigm for Faithful and Unfaithful

by Olivier de Lagausie

A paper presented at the 2008 International Conference, London, UK. Preliminary version. Please do not reproduce or quote without the consent of the author.

 

When I die...what is there behind the door? THE big question, for believers and non believers, a question of faith, question of intuition, of genetics, but mostly of prophetism.  I say “non believers” because we all know that come an age when any certainties bacome less sure..... Please be sure that I have the same love and utmost respect for believers of all religions and NRM than of non believers.
We will not talk here about Resurrection, the Day of Resurrection, but just about life after death, the dead waiting for the Day of Resurrection.
“It is a quite ambitious project isn’t it?” a researcher was telling me recently... : Yes it is too ambitious  all the more as I am neither an historian of religions, nor a sociologist, I am just a free believer, deeply interested in spirituality, salvation, and happiness for the world, justice for the despoiled of the earth.  As I wrote to INFORM when I was asked who I was, I am a brother among brothers, a free believer, i.e. believing in the God of Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Isaiah,  Elijah, Jesus, Muhammad, and brother Michel.
Brother Michel?  This is the name of a prophet, and I assume that you will want to know more. I invite you on the website http://www.freespirituality.net
Then I would start by asking: What would Jesus say if he was to come back to speak to humanity as he did 2000 years ago in Palestine? Well Jesus came back and spoke to humanity in the south west of France in 1974 to this man, brother Michel.
Then let’s ask: What would God tell humanity if he was to come back and speak like He spoke such a longtime ago, to Abraham or Moses?  Well, God spoke in 1977 in the south west of France to this man called brother Michel.
Jesus in 1974 and God in 1977, spoke about salvation. And this issue is precisely a major example of the renewal of spiritual life thanks to this message in two distinct parts, the Revelation of Ares.

The Scriptures
In the Scriptures, the Bible, Old and New Testament, and the Koran, and after that we will see how it was transmited in the religions based on these Words.

In the Bible, in its non controversial parts God warns constantly his people against evildoings and  bad behaviours were they could loose lives and happyness. In the Old Testament from Abraham to Malachi, all the prophets, surrounded by unfaithfull mobs shout in the desert “Enough of holocausts and presents: Listen to Me, be good!” In Isaiah 3/10-11-12: ”Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for the rewards of his hands shall be given him”
So in the Old Testament, salvation is clearly linked with behaviors and goodness, righteousness.

In the Gospel, Luke recounts the story of Lazarus and the rich man, which shows people  waiting the resurrection either in comfort or torment.  No doubt in the words of Jesus, given through Marc, Matthew and Luke, on the link between salvation and goodness, mercy and fruitfull life.
1400 years after Jesus, arises a new Revelation, the Koran. The Angel Gabriel gives to Muhamad and through him to humanity, a Revelation with many references to salvation and chastisement: of course the Koran brings us back to the heart of spiritual life and makes cristalclear the errors of the past. In the Sura 103 “I swear by the declining day that perdition shall be the lot of man, except those who have faith and do good works and exhort each other to justice and fortitude” Again and again, God states (Sura 2:62):  « Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life,  will receive their recompense from the Lord.  They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve. »
All the Koran shows the link between goodness and salvation, and between evildoing and chastisement. Not one word will promiss salvation to evildoers.

The religions
The interesting point to emphasize here is the more or less quick historical shift from “salvation due to goodness” to “salvation due to beliefs”. I should study here the Council of Nicée, the writings of Calvin  and many other interpretations of Bible and Gospal, I should study also the splits between followers of Ali and Followers of Abu Bakr in the first century of Islam.. I won’t...

Let’s here go through examples from the main religions of the Book, the religions of the descendants of Abraham.   If you talk around you on such an issue, few people have the idea of what their own religion  says about salvation and it is fairly difficult to find clear explanation...But discussions about salvation are often rather difficult, since you find nice people who are ill at ease to tell you your disgrace not to belongong to their group.

What can we say about the official wording of religiona as institutions?
The Judaism turned with ages into rabbinic judaism, with diferent interpretations coming from Talmud  with its diferent branches, Mechnah and Gemara, which states  :  « Every Jew has a share in the world to come  (the afterlife) »  (TB Sanhedrin 90a) and also:  « The righteous people of other (non-Jewish) nations... those who follow the elementary morals embodied  in the Seven NoahideLaws,  ...have a share in the world to come »   (Tos. Sanhedrin 13, TB ibid. 105a).
Any non-Jew who lives according to these laws is regarded as one of "the righteous among the gentiles" We then  understand “salvation for the jews, and possible salvation for the others”. That is a rather opened position. I won’t go further here, I won’t watch the diferent shades of conservative, orthodox or liberal judaism.

We know that the history of catholic religion is a long debate through Councils and reorganisation, schisms due to distinct  interpretations of the Gospel.
Historians  know that from the very beginning there were some followers like Paul, who understood  that salvation would come through faith in Jesus. Reading catholic cathechism today, you see how the situation for Roman Catholicism is extremely complicated, when it comes to salvation and afterlife :  Catholicism states  that “It was for our salvation that "God loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins; the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world, and he was revealed to take away sins." "By his death (Jesus, the Son of God) has conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men." But then we read that ,  "They could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it, or to remain in it » .
So no salvation but through Jesus, sacraments and the church. More recently in august 2000, the text “Dominus Jesus » from Joseph Card. Ratzinger , reassured catholicism as  « the unic and true religion », path to salvation.  Of course it brought great concern among other Christian religions.
Protestantism is an enourmous and diversified family of faith, Baptists, Methodists, Presbytarians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Disciples of Christ, Anglicans, etc. but to my undrestanding, on salvation the interpretation is rather similar among this family. The standard Protestant notion is that human beings are lost in sin but can be redeemed because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, offered himself as the atoning sacrifice. Broadly speaking, protestants declare salvation to be by faith alone, through Grace alone, in Christ alone. The problem of the influence of works on salvation exists more or less , being always secondary.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in the Grace of God and that one does not earn salvation by their works. But salvation requires that one accept Bible doctrines as interpreted by the Governing Body, be baptized as a Jehovah's Witness and follow the program of works as laid out by the Governing Body, Watchtower Organization. Why do I speak about this rather small family of protrestantism, maybe because I meet these brave apostles every morning on my way to work, at my train station....
Same thing for the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I meet them in France, since with my wife we receive once in a while mormon missionnaries to teach them some french. These young prople are very nice and well-educated people. Joseph F. Smith presents a vision of the Afterlife where before resurrection, there is a spirit World, which is double : spirit prison on one side and paradise on the other; Christ shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name. There is a  bridge beetween the two.
They believe that Christ visited spirit prison (1 Peter 3:18-20) and opened the gate for those who repent to cross over to Paradise. They also believe that the specters  from paradise help the specters in spirit prison, to come to faith in Jesus and be saved.
Islam is also a huge family, and vision of salvation is diverse. We know that traditional Islam have added faith into the haddiths of the prophet but also texts from diverse reference doctors like At Tabari, beyond the Koran. Then in the wider traditional muslim religion, salvation is consequence of conforming with the five pilars of Islam:

Moreover, according to traditional schools of jurisprudence, faith ensures salvation. There are even traditions in which Muhammad stated that "No one shall enter hell who has an atom of faith in his heart".  We finaly know that some doctors have promoted interpretations up to see salvation as a reward for those who will sacrifice in the name of God. Words as “Fortunate be the believer who is killed in the path of God” will be then interpreted as  “fortunate be the believer killing unfaithful”. This extreme or fanatical interpretation is absolute minority.

My general conclusion on religions: history has shown a very progressive shift from “salvation through active goodness” to “salvation through self-enlightning beliefs and comunity belonging” “I am saved (partly, mostly... totally) because I belong to my religion ! or because I submit to doctors or authorities  interpretations”. That is what would think honest believers of all religions of the Book.
It see also that these strong and closed beliefs are loosening even in the dogma and in the institution, because of the revelation of Ares, and the best exemple is the catholic  bishops cateschism of 1991.

Revelation of Ares or the renewed salvation.
What does the Revelation of Ares say on this precise issue? Not much and we still know little about salvation, but we know all that is necessary in order not to fall any more into teachings or interpretations that would harm our afterlife.
To start with, a few worlds from the Revelation of Ares about salvation:
- (...) “but what matters chiefly is that the ones (whom you will report them to), attain salvation in fear when they cannot attain it  in joy” (17/6)
- (...) Do not incline those who persist in impenitence to believe that they are saved. ( 27/2)
- Man Michel, man of My design, from My High Abode I  have called upon you to tell men where I am, where I am not, tell that the one who shouts to Me “Lord!” will not be saved if he remains deaf to My Word, and the one who have forgotten Me will be warmed up in the blaze of My Glory if he follows My Word. (28/27)

Roughly summarised it says: “My Personal salvation is not linked with the belonging to a community or with my belief in any dogma, nor to my submission to any authority, but to my personal efforts to change towards real active concrete goodness and bounty in this world  “. That is the strong recall of the Revelation of Ares. Nothing fundamentally new, but a strongest recall. Yes, my salvation depends on my active life, not on my passive beliefs, even if my beliefs may help me for my life:

Coming out of the mother’s womb, the human being has no soul. He has a mind and a body.
But what about his soul? The soul is precisely the «vehicle of salvation».  The soul will be product of existencial goodness that you build during your life. Revelation calls the dynamic change that strenghen the soul “penitence”, which is not suffering but strong and joyfull efforts to change.
Believer or not believer, the man of good, makes his soul in this dynamics of goodness.

Penitence
Every life which stops sinning, which follows the design, whether knowingly or unknowingly, autogenerates or gives itself a soul.  The soul does not depend on faith and piety, if these do not entail a life of active, creative good. Then this soul helps the man to keep on the ascent. As a spiritual stimulant and an elevating force for this very life.”
You may  have no soul or destroy it… the soul can appear or disappear several times during a life time when good and evil alternates.

The death of the sinner (we are all sinners, whatever high image we could want to show around)
Then when you die, it means when the body is dead, the mind of every man becomes a specter, and at the close of a period of happy feeling, accounts for its sins....

The children and the pathological unconscious enjoy the privilege of innocence as they are creature without freedom, and mature consciousness, dependant on parents, educators, external people. The alternative of the Father’s Abode or the frozen darkness doesn’t concern them.

As a conclusion, I could say that salvation is a simple and natural physico-spiritual principle that has hardly nothing to do with intellectual religious dogma, a lot with active goodness that will have nutrished the strengh of your soul. You build your salvation through active goodness and the brotherly help you bring to the salvation of others.

Of course no one knows who is saved or not saved!  No one should The divine wisdom of this advice is once again recalled.  Because “to the one to whom much was given, much will be asked”. May be I will not be saved because maybe I am so far from my maximum that my soul is very weak. Who knows? God knows, I know in the depth of my consciousness if I do my best in moderation, patience and piety (Gospel del. in Ares 39/3), humility, forgiveness, virtue, efforts and heroism. I know I have to keep on the path towards the Saint’s Heights! And look for the ones who will be able and willing to embrace a vision wider and higher than closed ideologies that enslaved humanity.

Each religion may feel an agression when discovering the Revelation of Ares... Of course the Revelation of Ares will give an end to religious myths and dogmas, among which the myth of the redeeming cross, this idea that the Father sacrified Jesus to save the world. No, Jesus was killed by men who wanted to reduce him to silence, as other men were reduced to silence for the same reason. From the Revelation of Ares, we understand that the Father had to rescucitate Jesus because his followers had completely lost their faith and would not have carried on with his mission. About Ares, some religious authorities have tried to say: “watch out! This fake revelation wants to create a new religion, to attract people” when... in fact, this Revelation announces the end of demagogy, deceptive teachings (7/4) and the coming back of  a renewed spiritual dynamic, the real efforts to change the world through personal changes, in direction of freedom, shared happiness and the Day of God.

Whoever you are, wherever you come from, you have the time in your life to build up your soul, vehicle of salvation. But don’t waste your time...Salvation?...  It will not depend on your following or not the Revelation of Ares, It will depend on the effort to put your passes in eternal God’s passes, which means: love, mercy, charity, equity, virtue, active goodness, righteousness. We come back to the heart of the eternal Revelation, adding a few more details, in line with our contemporary world and understanding abilities. I hope I raised your curiosity to go further in the path of the salvation of the world... since behind your door you shall find what you shall have deeply worked for and desired for the others!

We understand that the small remnant are the ones working specifically to the harvest and the change of the world. To finish with, I must add that general salvation will not result from addition of personal salvations. God will interviene when this conscious part of humanity shall have grown and fulfilled itself. Then it  will be the Day of God.  On this day,  (…) everyone then, will see That Which I will do. (Gospel delivered in Ares 31/12). This is a big hope. So you see that when the religions have rejected judgement towards a very distant “judgement day”, the Revelation of Ares gives you strong information: no judgement as such but an auto judgement simply coming from the strengh of your soul and then after, at the Day of God, we will see.  Humanity does not need to know everything to accomplish this part of our story! So let’s not invent what we don’t know , let’s not be false prophets...

I must also add that man was not created for death, but for life! Death is an anomaly that came with sin.  Death will disapear thanks to human penitence (self recreation) and then but only after because of God’s Grace. All bounty in this world is already the dawn of Heaven. Thank you for your attention.

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