THE WAY – The Religion of Jesus Before Christianity

The earliest followers of Jesus used the term “The Way” to characterize the religion that they had learned from Jesus. His was a new revelation, unencumbered by creeds, rituals, and rules of institutional religion. It was a religion for the world, not exclusively for a designated population or religious tradition.

His religion guides each individual to a living spiritual connection with a way that sustains and empowers an entire cosmos, a way compatible with the Tao of the East and the Logos of the West—a way to abundant life, both in this life and the life to follow.

This book retells, in chronological order, the story found in the four New Testament Gospels, sometimes adding content to make fuller sense of those gospel stories. When we listen to Jesus in the four Gospels, we hear him refer to himself as “The Bread of Life,” “The Way the Truth and the Life,” “The Good Shepherd,” “The Resurrection and the Life,” “The True Vine,” and “The Light of the World,” but never as the “Lamb of God”—that was the inference of others.

Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” became a central doctrine of evolutionary Christianity. But that doctrine is inconsistent with his religion, and incompatible with the world-wide religious and philosophical foundation that had been prepared for the reception of his life and message.

About the Author – JG Johnston is an artist, architect, author and entrepreneur. He is passionate about innovation to make the world a better place.

Out of that passion, he created the Gifts Compass Inventory (GCI), an online self-assessment founded in C G Jung's theory of psychological types. It orients people to their best gifts. (Learn more at GiftsCompass.com) His book, Jung's Indispensable Compass: Navigating the Dynamics of Psychological Types, lays out the intellectual foundation for understanding Jung's type model as a compass (Jung himself referred to the type model as a compass and said he "would not for anything dispense with this compass on my psychological voyages of discovery"). He founded the training company, Gifts Compass Inc to train professionals in the use of the GCI and other instruments. The aim of the work is to engage the types, as Jung did, for the development of uniquer personality.

With Joshua, The Light of the World, Johnston returned to the gospel stories of Jesus, before the interpretations of Christianity evolved, to assemble the four gospels as a chronological story of Jesus' life, not as a "lamb of God"––a term Jesus never used--but as the "Light of the World"––a term he frequently used about himself and his mission. His book helps to illuminate the original heartening message of the one who was called "Son of God." (Note: The word "Joshua" would be the direct English translation of Jesus' original name: "Yehoshua." The name "Jesus" is derived from the Latin translation of the Greek translation of the original name.) 

To distill his own personal religion, and to impart a concise message for his progeny, he wrote The Call Within to delineate a way of navigating life in accord with inner spiritual guidance.

Recognizing that few groups function well in creative collaboration, yet also recognizing the importance of collaboration in a "Darwinian economy" where lumbering organizations are often superseded by nimbler ones, he wrote Thriving on Collaborative Genius: The Art of Bringing Organizations to Life. The book is the consolidation of a series of essays written monthly while consulting to organizations on the practice of innovation through his company, Partners for Innovation.

The first chapter of each of the above books can be read at msepress.com, a small publishing company he created to publish his own books and others that are "for the quest" of a well lived life. 

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