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Perhaps Brad has gone to far with his Christian bashing?

Every now and then I create a bit of furor among my brothers and sisters who refer to themselves as “Evangelicals.” I readily admit it and that I do it with malice and forethought – a journalistic legal term for those who slant news articles in an intentionally slanderous manner. Yeah, I beat up on Christians only because I love them. Our Commander-in-Chief did, after all, say love your enemies – and I don’t think any group is a greater enemy of the “cause of Christ” than Christians!

After that shameless admission of guilt, this time I want to protest: I didn’t do it, Ryan did it! All I do is write articles; Ryan’s the one who puts up the pictures …yes the one with the little kid peeing on the “Holy” (no less) Bible …was all the doing of Mr. Bruce. Yeah, well, okay, I did laugh like crazy when I first saw it and I most certainly didn’t lodge a protest with the publisher for that outlandish picture.

They caught up with Ryan Bruce and hanged him for his offenses.

This from a woman, who generally writes favorably about my writing …well, generally is a bit overstated I think she’s written three times in the past two years:

Hello Brad: Just a note to say that my husband and I have been Brad Cullen fans for 12 years. We followed the underground stuff about you while you were in Africa after your website was pulled – and Gary Sigler and Sunny Coffman (sigler ministries.org and lighthouse library, int’l respectively) kept your “light” shining.

Darin and I are writing this together. Treasure Chest changed our lives and there were two things about that little book that were magical. That book made Jesus magical for us and it also made the Bible magical. It is our hope that you don’t go too far off the edge and lose the magic. We love you still.

Darin and Amber G.

(Fredericton, N.B., Canada)

I wrote back thanking them for their love and loyalty and my agreement that we had to do something to stop Ryan Bruce from his nasty picture posting. Just kidding, about stopping Ryan, of course, nothing will stop that guy!

Now I feel the need to tell the whole story which brought about Ryan’s latest illustrating bombshell, that is, again, the little kid peeing on the “good” book. What follows is magic indeed!

The story of ASK

I had been hired to coordinate an advertising program for a company in the Pacific Northwestern U.S. that specialized in producing a variety of live motivational and training seminars for the sales personnel of client companies.

Larry Allen (name changed), the president, of that company wanted to showcase one of his top seminar performers in some T.V. spots, billboards and a direct mail campaign aimed at businesses as a way of bringing to them the impressive statistics proving business gains for companies that had employed Larry’s company’s services.

Buddy Grabel (name changed) was the top guy among about twenty platform performers working for Larry and the first thing he wanted to have happen was for me to watch Buddy in action to see what ideas it might engender in me for the campaign.

Buddy had been a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church pastor for over twenty years. The Missouri Synod is considered to be one of the more “conservative and    evangelical,” of the various Lutheran denominations in America with a strong doctrine regarding the “inerrancy” of the Christian Bible.

Buddy was of medium height and build, full head of hair, dressed well, but conservatively; he carried himself with utmost confidence yet presented an almost aura of sincere humility.

Watching him work with a group of about forty salespeople was fascinating. He had the ability to draw out and make comfortable the most introverted people in the group and to help them absorb and demonstrate the “win/win” sales techniques the company was promoting as a way to increase sales and achieve personal success.

Afterward, I went up to introduce myself and to explain that Larry had contracted with my company to produce a publicity campaign featuring Buddy.

“That’s pretty flattering for a defrocked preacher,” he said disarmingly.

That was about 4:30 p.m. …and I asked him if he’d like to tell me about it.

Ten hours later, 2:30 a.m., after drinks and dinner, Buddy and I were still talking excitedly; now at his apartment – fast friends for life! (well, with a slight interruption – more about that in a moment).

Buddy had been the pastor of a large (by Missouri Synod standards) church in East Texas; his wife, who was the church pianist, ran off with the music director …a close friend from early childhood. Buddy subsequently got involved with the music director’s wife – end of a very successful church ministry, marriage, friendship, etc.

I had asked Buddy if he realized he produced an almost group magic dynamic. He passed it off as being the result of Larry Allen’s training and program.

I pointed out that if that was the case why had Larry chosen to make him the focal point of the campaign? …then came out of my mouth something that surprised even me. “Buddy,” I said, “you are Jesus Christ incarnate. You demonstrated a genuine love toward those people today that is way beyond anything I have ever seen.”

“Yeah, well God gave me that, and it’s too bad I messed up my life. I didn’t have to let what _____  and _____  (wife and music director) did cause me to go off the deep end, but I did and that’s that, but I guess I haven’t lost my love for people, I just wish it hadn’t stopped what God was doing at the church.”

For the next several hours I picked Buddy’s brain for how he’d like to see the campaign framed. His ideas were brilliant. The next day I met with Buddy and Larry to begin a series of strategy meetings to develop and integrate the different facets of the promotion.

About two weeks later came the “magical” moment. We were in Buddy’s office and I was sharing how much more meaning my spiritual life had become since I had left the organized church.

Somewhat surprisingly, since Buddy hadn’t been in a church for over two years, since the “blow up,” as he referred to it, he began to quote all kinds of stuff almost insisting that without church attendance, there can be no spiritual life.

He took out a Bible and turned to a couple of passages he obviously thought supported that view and asked me what “not forsaking assembling yourselves as is the manner of some” (the favorite of many church pastors who use it to drum up business) meant to me.

The magic begins:

I took the Bible out of his hands and threw it on the floor. “Buddy,” I said, looking right at him, all you need to do to begin doing whatever God has planned for your life, is to take that and throw it out on the parking lot, piss on it and then grind it into the asphalt with your shoes.”

“Man, you’re gonna go to hell for that one, that’s God’s Word you’re talking about!”

“May I show you something, Buddy?” I asked.

“I don’t know, man, you are something else,” shaking his head …in a very much southern drawl preaching tone.

I showed Buddy one passage that proves that what so many preachers think refers to the Bible as “God’s Word” is actually making reference to our SPIRIT-PARENT and it is emphasized three times in two chapters!

“Today if you will hear HIS voice” …Buddy, it doesn’t say if you will read the Bible, it says if you will hear His voice and stop fighting him as the children of Israel did in the rebellion. It is utter blasphemy to make the Bible into some Holy book. That’s the rebellion and I am going to challenge you to do one thing.

“I know I have offended you, but I also know I was led to tell you what I did. Ask, Buddy …forget all that crap you and I learned from seminary …ask what you’re supposed to do with your life and keep asking until you know. The best thing that ever happened to you was to get thrown out of your church. You are already changing people with the love inside you during the seminars …stop stifling it with Bible bullshit!”

It would be a year before the coolness between us thawed. The ad campaign was a huge success and Buddy was more in demand than ever. He called me one night and invited me out to dinner with his fiancé.

“I wanted you to hear something” he began almost as soon as we were seated. Marilyn and I are getting married because of you – a couple of months ago I remembered what you had said to me about asking God instead of reading the Bible.

I finally told God I was tired of running away and wanted direction for my life. Something clicked in me that I was kinda like the prodigal son and was being welcomed home. The next day I walked into a Hallmark shop to get a birthday card for my mom – and I walk up to the counter to pay for it and here’s Marilyn. …and God telling me, This is the one …and I didn’t even know I was looking,”  he said with a grin.

“Wow, what did you think when you first saw Buddy?” I asked her.

“I knew it too …right away. He asked me out and he said he hadn’t asked anyone out ever since his wife left him and I told him that I made it a rule to never respond to anybody asking me out at the store.”

“What a story. Did he tell you about the cooling off of our relationship because I told him to throw away his Bible?” I asked her.

“Oh yes the whole thing,” she giggled meaningfully.

The real magic was that Buddy and Marilyn, shortly after their marriage, started a counseling center in Northern California for people who were divorced and felt estranged from God.

They called it “Ask.”

Talk about magic! It is why Ryan and I ask about every little detail in our lives – asking produces magic. So I don’t mind taking a little heat from Ryan’s impish behavior.

Brad Cullen

A friend in the U.K. wrote this morning asking whether the most recent article of mine that Ryan posted, helped the woman whose e-mail precipitated it.  I answered,

“I don’t know, ____ , but I thought what Dad gave me was powerful and I have a hunch it helped somebody, what do you think?”

He came back with:

I guess I was supposing that, like me, the questioner probably wanted the “lazy/shortcut” answer through Brad who has a “confirmed” connection to the Source (certainly in BC’s view it is “confirmed” and from what I’ve seen, I would agree with that view). Perhaps, like me, they lack the confidence (faith) to seek and know that they are connected and are hoping to get something concrete through you? But your purpose is to point seekers to the Source, not to be Bradapedia, right??

On the road to presumption, watch the signs.

What if what I have is merely presumption? You know, ____, I grew up with this tense argument among fundamentalists that a certain brand of “faith” wasn’t faith at all, but rather “presumption.”

It finally dawned on me that the kind of “faith” Jesus was teaching us is born on the wings of presumption, that is, if we make loud and forceful declarations toward our SPIRIT-PARENT in a continuum, all the while pounding on HER/HIS/ITS door (in the middle of the night was the rounding out of the metaphor), while also maintaining a picture in our minds that we already have what it is we continually declare UNTIL it makes its physical appearance …it will indeed appear on the physical plane.

As I began to practice this and prove to myself the truth of it, I saw the parallels to it in many different arenas including business and sports.

Because I feel that I am called to tell Christians that so many of their practices are at odds with what Jesus taught – I continually quote Jesus, when it would be much easier to point to any number of quite successful mental and spiritual processes that work on the same basis, that is, PRESUMPTION, that things are already ordered and in order for our “better good.”

Brad caught this Kitty praying like a Christian.

I continually beat up on Christians for their neat little pious sounding prayers that begin faithlessly: “Oh Father, if it be thy will, please grant such and such,” and end with, “in the name of Jesus Christ, amen” – and rarely, if ever, do these “prayers” produce any results, because they miss the key ingredient, which is acting on PRESUMPTION, as outlined in the foregoing.

Back to why I call this “prayer” faithless in just a second.

I have repeatedly made my rather crazy sounding remarks that I wish people wouldn’t ask me to pray for them to be healed of some malady or another, because that is not what will bring them into full, vibrant health. Okay then, what will?

There are all kinds of things that tend to align these body bags we occupy with the divine intent of the universe. Wow, Daddy, where did that one just float in from (“the divine intent of the universe” – I rather like it, don’t you?).

I’m thinking of the practice of Yoga, the healing method of Reiki, meditation of any number of varieties, all of which produce amazing results for different people; just plain “good” diet and exercise and a bunch of alternative healing methods as well.

This is on Brad's floor at home.

Meanwhile, Brad Cullen beats on Daddy’s door until the brain of this body bag I occupy finally “gets it” and produces the desired result that our SPIRIT-PARENT had intended for us all along. Is that presumption or is that presumption?

Now then, back to the faithlessness I contend is inherent in the above “prayer.” I was once asked in a small gathering of college students, how my way of praying was any more effective than that of the questioner. I asked silently how I should respond and was scared to death with what I was given, because I knew it would spark some hostility. I wasn’t disappointed.

The answer I gave was, “When I pray, I know that what I’m speaking will come to pass, when you pray you don’t.”

How can I be so sure of the truth of such a bizarre remark? The basics are simple. Other than my sometimes desperate pleas for help, which I always know our SPIRIT-PARENT hears, as well as the “faithless” variety, my “prayers” always bring about the desired result, but let’s look at the challenge that the faithlessness variety presents.

The only reason I know my praying will come to pass and the faithless variety produces nothing is this simple little two-fold secret: First, I don’t engage in what I refer to as “prayer” until I know what our SPIRIT-PARENT’s “will” (desires and purposes) is in any particular situation. Then, once I know, I don’t stop praying UNTIL it comes to pass.

What are the portions in Brad's Formula?

The key to knowing our SPIRIT-PARENT’s desires and purposes is to apply the same formula …keep on demanding to know UNTIL we do. Once we know we don’t say “if it be thy will” we know what it is and can thus speak it into existence with authority (period).

Regarding healing from disease, I know that it is ALWAYS the will of our SPIRIT-PARENT for everyone to be healed. Why then, so many ask, isn’t everyone healed? Because they are in conflict is the oversimplified answer.

I am supposed to close this off with this reminder of the lunacy with which some people approach “God’s will.” Ready?

How on earth can somebody say I don’t know if it is God’s will to heal me and then make an appointment to go to the doctor?

Brad Cullen

Hi Brad—

It seems to me that you dance around some issues and I would really like a straight answer – what do you feel about the necessity to be born again?

Okay, stop the music! What difference does it make what Brad Cullen feels about anything? One of the writers of the Gospels quoted Jesus as saying, “You must be born again.” I say, so what?

Another quote attributed to Jesus is, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

Well, here is the truth,_______, about being “born again,” from my perspective, and it will set you totally free, if you really want to be free.

The only difficulty I have with anyone who wears the label “born again, Christian,” is the true story epitomized by the business guy who said, upon meeting me, “I suppose you are one of these born again Christians”…Peter was a German immigrant in his early fifties.

Did you say we were having Christians for dinner? Not again...yuck

I told him that I disliked the term on the same basis that I dislike so many other religious terms: They mean too many different things to too many different people to communicate anything meaningful.

As soon as I said it, he told me in his thick German accent, the root of his own personal dislike: “Every time I have been screwed in business, it has been by somebody who calls himself a born again Christian.”

He invited me into his private office and fifteen minutes later he was yelling at the top of his lungs: “Jesus, if you are real, take over my life, I need help.”

Okay, ________, you wanted a straight answer and the way you framed the question was “what I felt about the necessity to be born again.” I don’t have a clue what you mean by the term. I’m not too sure I know what Jesus really meant by the term if, in fact, he actually said it and especially since it has become so convoluted by Christian interpretation …and I hope this shocks you: I COULD CARE LESS! Is that answer “straight enough?” …and that is exactly how I feel.

Let me give you some more straight talk. It doesn’t matter what I feel or think. Peter was going through some personal crises including a serious respiratory ailment, a divorce after twenty-five years of marriage and three teen age sons, and a lawsuit at the hands of a born again businessman.

There's Brad, expelling what Spirit put in his mouth. Careful don't get to close.

I never thought about it until this very moment, after asking our SPIRIT-PARENT how I should answer your question, but Peter got through his troubles, including receiving complete healing, and we became close friends and business partners – what just struck me, is that I don’t think either of us ever used the term in reference to anything about being “born again” …we separated amicably after several years in business together and have since lost touch.

I’ve had some rather exciting experiences from telling people whatever our SPIRIT-PARENT put into my mouth at the time …the incident with Peter is just one example.

Another, that is crossing my mind right now, which I’m getting the green light to share, and I have no idea for what purpose or for whom  since I’m going to forward this to Ryan to see if he should post it on the website, but here goes:

Some people take Brad seriously. Why do you, go get your own from Source!

Another business guy, asking me what I thought some passage in the Bible meant. I told him that if he wanted some real answers for life he should take that Bible out to the parking lot and urinate on it, then grind it into the asphalt pavement with his shoes.

Shocking right?

Well, I can tell you that he had a spiritual explosion from it and I don’t take any credit for the utter and complete life change that came about as a result, because I just said what I was led to say.

My straight answers for this little piece are get rid of your Bible and quit using terms like being “born again,” IF that’s what our SPIRIT-PARENT leads you to do. In other words, and again, redirect your question to the ONE who will lead you into all truth.