See Also Religious Terms and Their Non Religious Equivalents

EBooks by Charles Pinkney

      "Paradigm" is word that not everyone may know. We are nevertheless all powerfully affected by our paradigms. There are paradigms which guide our wisdom and understanding throughout art, culture, religion and technology of every age. We become trapped in these understandings which are taught us as laws or "fact" by teachers and leaders. Paradigms are a system that attempt to answer questions about essential facts. We are generally blind to question or to escape from the paradigms that are set in place for us. It takes imagination and even courage to dare to look at paradigms critically. It is outside of the paradigms that discovery occurs. These lead to break throughs in science, art, or religious thought.

• Paradigms: define our understanding. They pre-suppositions of how things are or how things have to be.
  
  
• Paradigms: limit our ability to function outside of that paradigm - or receive understanding outside of the paradigm. They are in a sense glass walls or ceilings in the domain of that paradigm.
  
  
  
• Religion is among the many domains where paradigms exist
  
  
• Paradigm Breakers may be considered radical, even blasphemous or heretical
  
  
• Paradigms of science or cosmology have often been in conflict with religious teaching and dogma. Religious authorities were frequently intolerant of new ways of thinking. Whether about the earth and solar system as envisioned by Copernicus or Newton or teachings that are outside of their own orthodoxy. Old ways of thinking do not receive a new paradigm without resistance and tension.

Examples of religious paradigms

1. The Church is the "house of God"

2. A Church is where you go to worship.

3. All human beings are the children of God

4. Religious (Spiritual) knowledge is the domain of the clergy or priesthood

5. Heaven is the place you go when you die

6. Believers must be properly under the headship (covering) of a church authority or pastor

7. The saints and disciples are Biblical personalities from another by-gone age

8. Signs, wonders and the miraculous have passed away in modern times

9. The new covenant excludes the root and foundation of the covenants of Judaism

Some outside-the-paradigm view points

• 1. The church is comprised of each person who believes and has been born into the kingdom of God, each believer being a living stone that forms the great house of the body of Christ.
  
  
• 2. You do not go to a church rather each believer is a component of the the Church (Christ's body.) You and others are called to come together in Jesus' name. Whenever two or three gather in His name, an assembly of believers, Christ the Messiah is manifested. The Ecclesia.  Ecclesia means those called out. The called out ones. He has called us OUT of darkness into the glorious light of the sons and daughters of God. (See link: Why Should Christians Gather?)
  
  
• 3. The Jews sought to stone Jesus when he made such an inference. There were no such creatures as the children of God until Jesus pronounced this doctrine on our behalf and taught his disciples to pray, " Our Father... " Furthermore, no man comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ, the door. Others in the world are not children of God. Jn 1:12 - for those who believe on His name he gives the power (exousia = authority) to become the sons (children) of god
  
  
• 4. The priest hood is taken away in the new covenant Gospel of the Kingdom. Back in the days of Moses. The people of Israel rejected God's plan - - to become a nation of kings and priests in Exodus 19 and demanded that Moses and Aaron be the intermediaries before God on their behalf. Since the founding of the church (also the day of Pentecost) The fire of God fell on each believer and they received the Power to be witnesses of the wonderful works of God. The priesthood insinuated itself back into the world and held common people in bondage until this time. The ecclesiastical traditions of formal religion dominate the whole world of Christendom today.
  
  
• 5. Heaven. Jesus prayer was about connecting the realm of heaven with this world. Let thy Kingdom come. Let Thy will be done. On earth as in Heaven! We have missed that which is most obvious in our religious experience. (The Lord's prayer or the Disciple's prayer.) Heaven is a continuous reality but on a Spiritual plane. Heaven is accessible and was meant to be accessible. How are heavenly things accessible? Through a life in which the flesh is crucified. Access to heavenly things is a by-product of losing one's self awareness, and losing one's connection to self-identity and self-control. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also. - - To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord - - I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day - - I heard - - and behold - - I see - -. Ultimately, death is the final stage of loss of self control. Carrying the cross is about losing ourselves so that Christ may live within us.
  
  
• 6. The concept of pastoral authority (or covering) is a feature of the anti-Christ institutional church, in which there was a total separation of clergy and laity. Within that system the laity function primarily as its personal support system to the institutional church. (The owning of the flock of God so as to make merchandise of them. - - Nicolaitinism.) The Lord is my shepherd - - My sheep hear my voice - - There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
  
  
• 7. We are called to be Saints, for we are all called to be "in Christ Jesus", seated in heavenly places. We grow up in the knowledge of Him until we reach the fullness of Him. Ephesians 4:13. The only question is how do we grow and how are we discipled? The pastoral discipleship paradigm is only partially effective as it does not prepare all brothers and sisters for leadership and full participation in the things of God. Discipleship is best realized as a product of Koinonia which is mutual participation of the God life in fellowship. (There is no Ecclesia without Koinonia!) Recent publications portray the trend of coming out from institutional religious systems." Mega Shift" by James Rutz and other web published writings which teach the full gospel message free of institutional religious connection: Newbold and Warnock's "Meat in Due Season. Org and My own publications found under the title, " The Gospel Without Religion."
  
  
• 8. Signs and wonders and miracles are either part of your religious doctrine or they are not. I believe that most of you are open to the miracles and supernatural that was part of the Pentecostal movement which began in the recent century. But still experiencing the supernatural seems to be the rare even among the Pentecostal/Charismatic. If your paradigm does not allow for the supernatural you will not see it because you are essentially saying No to the experience. Today more supernatural signs and wonders are in evidence than ever before. Examples:
  
  
• The paradigm of the Old covenant (Judaism) is the root of Christianity. Christianity is actually Messianic Judaism in which we see the wholeness and completeness of God's promise of the One new man, Jew and Gentile joined under the Messiah. It is unfortunate that the terminology of the Messiah was traded in for the Greek term Kristos (the anointed one) as it added to the deception that Judaic foundations were replaced by Christianity. We Gentiles by the grace of God have been grafted into the vine of Israel. To disregard the Heritage of our root and foundations is unbiblical and subject to judgment.