4.40 Correspondence with Steve Welch (4)

7. Mail (from Steve Welch)

Me. Preuss,

Thank you for your continued guidance in these matters. I have continued to greatly struggle with reconciling the message of A Course in Miracles with the other texts. I am wondering if it is possible that I am reading the material in the wrong way. For instance if the work is more metaphorical than literal. I do not see the gospel presented in Schucman's work. Rather, I see the message being that we are a part of God who fell asleep after an error in judgement and are currently under an illusion that we are separate distinct creatures. I do not see Christ being presented as God incarnate and instead as just a more enlightened human. I do not see the message of repentance of sin being presented. There also seems to be a denial of the literal personified existence of Lucifer. As I understand it, Dr. Schucman actually received the dictation through her thoughts and not through the heart as the Inner Word has always presented with others. I do not mean to just throw criticism after criticism at A Course in Miracles but this inability to reconcile the message with other revealed texts has caused me much spiritual distress and I truly wish to know the truth.

Yours in Christ,
Steve

8. Mail (to Steve Welch)

Dear Mr Welch,

After reading your mail, my thoughts turned to a passage from an announcement coming to us from Bertha Dudde: "Do not believe such messages, where the redemption work of Jesus Christ is not placed in front, because they are mistaken, even so they contain part-truths, B.D. NR. 9013."

So I think you are quite justified using this concept of assessing messages from the other side by having a look at this aspect of the content.

Later I tried to find out what "A Course in Miracles" contains about this and it occurred to me that the subject of "Atonement" is actually a central subject of that work.

Already in the Contents the word "Atonement" appears several times.

I then looked up the word "Atonement" and found this definition: expiation of mankind’s sin by Christ.

So at the moment I feel that one can apply the above way of checking to "A Course in Miracles" and that the result of such a check is positive.

While looking at "A Course in Miracles" I found this statement on the first page:

Helen, the one who received the material, describes herself: Psychologist, educator, conservative in theory and atheistic in belief, I was working in a prestigious and highly academic setting.

So you mentioning her being an atheist is quite correct.

The way she received the material she mentions on the next page and there speaks of the Voice and inner dictation.

Regarding the attitude of a prophet I had to think about Jonah and how he ran away from the Lord and tried to drown himself. And then Jonah was angry with God because of the Lord’s compassion.

So obvious shortcomings of a prophet need not really affect the message of a prophet.

Some of the most beautiful prophecies in the Old Testament are from Balaam and he is described by the Bible of doing evil things.

You repeatedly mention things like "I have continued to greatly struggle with reconciling" and "I am wondering if it is possible that I am reading the material in the wrong way" and "this inability to reconcile the message with other revealed texts has caused me much spiritual distress". These statements of yours cause me to ask you a question: to what church do you belong?

So I think our continual discussion of spiritual things is good for both of us.

May God continue to bless you.

Frank

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