What is the Gospel?

Here is a talk I gave at my church, Watershed Charlotte. The topic was on 'What is the Gospel?' As in, what do I personally understand the Gospel (the good news) to be?

The word ‘Gospel’ first conjures up for me what I consider to be the American evangelical meaning. That being, that the Gospel (the good news) is that Jesus died for you, for your sins, and that if you believe in him, you will have eternal life (which is to say you will earn your heavenly reward). It’s all about that utopia we will reach at the closing of the day - the pie in the sky when you die by and by…

ChristianityLewis Connolly16 March 2023Carl Jung, Parable of the Good Samaritan, Kingdom of GodComment

A Guide to Active Imagination

Active Imagination is a technique that was developed by Carl Jung to access the unconscious in waking life. When we consider engaging the unconscious, most of us think exclusively of dream analysis - the process of taking our dreams and uncovering what they’re trying to teach us, ideally with the assistance of a trained analyst. Jung believed our dreams consisted of the stuff of our unconscious.

You can think of it like this. Your unconscious is like a separate autonomous person who resides within you, who is always listening and observing everything you do and say…

Jungian StudiesLewis Connolly9 December 2021Carl Jung, Active ImaginationComment

Wotan: Dormant in the Wood

My thoughts return time and again to Carl Jung’s 1936 paper ‘Wotan’. This paper stands out to me as being perhaps his most controversial, given its subject matter, the rise of the Third Reich. Jung’s approach towards the Third Reich is critical, to our contemporary sensibilities however it reads as not being nearly critical enough. Much has been written on Jung’s complex relationship to the Third Reich, a relationship I will not dwell on here.

My interest relates to what the paper elucidates concerning the collective unconscious…

The Giving Tree

‘The Giving Tree’, published in 1964, is a minimalist American children’s book by Shel Silverstein, comprising of only 600 odd words, alongside simple black and white images drawn by the author. I was captivated by this book when I first encountered it, and it has continued to occupy my thoughts ever since. The book was the basis of the first service I ever gave here in the Meeting House, and ever since then it has been my intention to return to its pages and consider its rich imagery afresh. The story is written in a parabolic style, and as such it seems reasonable to posit we’re working in an allegorical mode. Whatever this story is about, it’s surely not about a boy and his tree. The trouble is, the author himself always denied this. Shel Silverstein maintained that the book had no message, it was not to be interpreted, and it simply is as it appears, a story ‘about a boy and a tree’. “It’s just a relationship between two people; one gives and the other takes.” Despite the author being so matter of fact about this, I beg to differ.

Lewis Connolly3 June 2018The Giving Tree, Carl Jung

Hogwarts and the Black Madonna

Lewis Connolly12 March 2018Carl Jung, Harry Potter, Alchemy, Mary, Black MadonnaComment

Alchemy of the Soul

I’ll begin this morning by defining what Alchemy is. Alchemy was the ancient practice of combining matter, physical stuff, together, in such a way that you produce something with supernatural power. It was the art of transformation. You can think of the caterpillar – it goes into its cocoon, and therein undergoes a complete transformation. It does not merely modify, or gain extra components, but its whole form breaks down and is reconstituted into the butterfly. So in Alchemy the substances used are broken down into a state of chaos, from which a miraculous physical substance emerges which can produce magical results. Sometimes these magical results in alchemical books are defined, and sometimes, probably most of the time, it is left far more elusive. When they are defined, that’s where we get the famous examples like the philosopher’s stone, capable of turning any ‘base metal’ into a so called ‘noble metal’, such as gold. Or, the elixir of life, or elixir of immortality, which grants eternal life or eternal youth.

Lewis Connolly28 February 2018Carl Jung, AlchemyComment