LESSON 10: Transcendence of the Religion of Jesus

“The religion of Jesus transcends all our former concepts of the idea of worship in that he not
 only portrays his Father as the ideal of infinite reality but positively declares that this divine
 source of values and the eternal center of the universe is truly and personally attainable by every
 mortal creature who chooses to enter the kingdom of heaven on earth, thereby acknowledging
 the acceptance of sonship with God and brotherhood with man. That, I submit, is the highest
 concept of religion the world has ever known, and I pronounce that there can never be a higher
 since this gospel embraces the infinity of realities, the divinity of values, and the eternity of
 universal attainments. Such a concept constitutes the achievement of the experience of the
 idealism of the supreme and the ultimate.” (1781.3) 160:5.7

THE RELIGION OF THE SPIRIT

The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress. The religion of the mind—the theology of authority—requires little or none of these exertions from its formal believers. Tradition is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fearful and halfhearted souls who instinctively shun the spirit struggles and mental uncertainties associated with those faith voyages of daring adventure out upon the high seas of unexplored truth in search for the farther shores of spiritual realities as they may be discovered by the progressive human mind and experienced by the evolving human soul. 155:5.11