My dog and I love taking brisk, late night walks together through our neighborhood. Under the clear desert skies of winter, sparking displays of "falling stars" greet us along the way. Our attention is captured as they enter the atmosphere and burn brilliantly into green, orange and amber hues. Looking up, I see the constellations set against a vast canopy of stars. I reflect how they are one among a multitude of designs found in nature, from the orbiting of an electron inside of an atom to that of the planets in our solar system.

By observing these designs, I can infer the existence of a Designer who has been known to most people throughout history as "God." This belief about the existence of God is based on reason, observation and experience alone. It does not require any validation whatsoever from divine revelation or a holy text. God was never under any obligation to create the universe; therefore, it seems reasonable to believe that he did so out of his great love for us and for our good pleasure.

The name "Deism" comes from the Latin word "Deus" which means "God." If you believe in God and your belief arises from your God-given ability to reason, then consider yourself a Deist!

I call myself a "Christian Deist" because I believe in the authentic gospel ("good news") message of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught that love for God and love for others are the two natural laws inherent in human nature. Just as we can confirm the natural effects of gravity, we can confirm by our own experience the naturalness of Jesus's teachings. Unfortunately, this "natural religion" of Jesus has been buried underneath centuries of theology about Jesus.

Christian Deism is a personal religion. It has no churches, no clergy, no creed, no statement of faith, no membership, and no doctrinal positions on scripture. As fellow Christian Deist John Lindell writes, "According to Jesus, true worship takes place only in 'spirit and truth.' The word "spirit" refers to the inner self of a person. It refers to a person's attitude and thoughts."

This Lens is a starting point for exploring both Deism and Christian Deism. May it guide you as your form your own personal religion: the beliefs by which you live your everyday life. Thanks for visiting!

Consider the ocean, filled with an almost unending supply of sea water and evolving life forms. It covers most of the Earth's surface but is one small expression of God's abundance. Nothing can diminish the tide of Divine Abundance as it flows throughout Creation. In our own lives, we experience it personally whenever we share freely with others, show gratitude for our many blessings, and make the most of our God-given potential.

Dear God,

Where others see lack, help us to help them see your abundance everywhere.

Amen

From the essay Christian Deism as a Personal Religion, by John Lindell

1. God is our Creator.

2. God intends for us to love God and to love each other.

3. We should repent of "sin," which is any failure to love.

4. God forgives us if we repent of our sins and we forgive others who repent of their sins against us.

5. The "gospel" (good news) is that the kingdom of God is a reality on earth now for those who are committed to following God's laws of love.

6. The life we have received from God must be returned to God eventually. If we try to live now as God intends for us to live, we can trust God to take care of the future.

These are some of the basic beliefs in Christian deism, as I see them. Each Christian deist can apply these beliefs in the ways that seem reasonable to the individual. The practice of Christian deism is an individual matter and no one is limited to my understanding of what it means to be a Christian deist. Christian deists believe that God gave us the ability to reason (think logically), and no person is required to believe anything that seems unreasonable to that individual.

"The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible." - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) in "Toward the Mystery"

Thomas Jefferson, a Christian Deist and one of history's most brilliant thinkers, wrestled all of his life to make sense out of the life of Jesus. Known today as The Jefferson Bible, his famous redaction of the four Gospels was a "cut and paste" way for him to reclaim the authentic Jesus from what he called "the corruptions of Christianity." It contains no references to the virgin birth, Christ's ascension and resurrection or any other supernatural mysteries. Instead, Jefferson was most impressed by the simple and eloquent teachings of Jesus, what he called "the most perfect and sublime that [have] ever been taught by man." In fact, his entire interest in the Bible was restricted to the life and teachings of Jesus.

As he selected only those passages that made sense to him, Jefferson formed his own personal religion: the beliefs by which he lived his life. For him, religion was always an intensely personal and private matter. Following the death of his good friend Benjamin Rush, Jefferson wrote to Rush's son Richard that "I have considered it [religion] as a matter between every man and his maker in which no other, and far less the public had a right to meddle." My favorite Jefferson quote is a famous passage from one of his letters: "It is in our lives and not in our words that our religion must be read."

Christian Deism is highly compatible with Jefferson's Bible and his beliefs that guided its composition:

1. The focus of Christian Deism is on the teachings of Jesus found in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

2. Christian Deists believe that Jesus was a human like ourselves.

3. Christian Deists believe that reason is a gift given graciously to us from God, and that He wants us to make use of it in our daily lives.

4. Christian Deists believe that God wants us to study the Bible in light of reason.

5. Christian Deists reject any idea in the Bible that doesn't seem reasonable or make sense to them.

6. Christian Deists reject "the corruptions of Christianity" that have come from the apostle Paul, church councils and other ecclesiastical authorities.

7. Christian Deists believe that the worship of God is a private matter.

When I first heard the term Deism, I was taking a European History course that was taught in a dense-packed university lecture hall filled with about 800 students. Our class was learning about the Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century, and how their desires for new knowledge and wisdom brought about profound changes to Western society. One of these changes was a dramatic shift in long-established ideas about the nature and existence of God.

Deists infer the existence of God from observation, experience and reason, not from the sacred texts, miracles and divine revelations that form the foundation of "revealed" religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. As a young college student, I had trouble embracing the Deistic idea of the "Watchmaker" God who created the universe, set it in motion by way of natural laws, and then withdrew from His creation. According to this view, God does not actively intervene in individual human lives or the natural world. To borrow an idea from Voltaire's Candide, God created the garden and the things that inhabit it, and then he left humans responsible for cultivating it according to reason, morality and individual conscience.

Fifteen years later, this view of a mechanistic, impersonal and supremely rational deity still leaves me cold. I agree that one can observe the many designs found in the natural world and from them, infer the existence of a Designer commonly known as "God." I agree that one does not need any special text or divine revelation to know that God exists. It is also likely that God does not intervene in elements of the natural world, such as the ocean tides and weather. But it seems unreasonable to me that God would create beings as diverse and complex as humans, only to leave them without any guidance beyond what reason allows them to comprehend for themselves!

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From The Age of Reason (1794) by Thomas Paine:

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.

I read an interesting article about holiday and seasonal-related depression, and how the media aggravate the problem by setting unrealistic expectations of how people should live their lives during "the most wonderful time of the year," also known as the period from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day. About 12 years ago, I suffered from severe holiday and seasonal depression and am now suffering alongside a relative who has fallen into deep despair over a recent divorce. Reading this article, I began thinking about the religious community's response to what the medical profession has called "the common cold of mental illnesses."

The article mentions a pastor who counsels people with feelings of depression; one of his recommendations is to help others less fortunate. Many, if not most, depressed people would benefit from this advice, but I know from personal experience that my feelings of depression actually increased when I took the time to help others less fortunate. I saw how deprived they were and how much more I had in comparison. In my mind, I mercilessly berated myself for being so "selfish." But at that moment, how was I to effectively help others when I desperately needed help as well?

I have seen how depressed people become even more depressed when they allow others to think and make decisions for them. The worst of the bunch are the "holy men" who tell their depressed brethren that they lack faith, or that God is punishing them for their sins, or that they can heal themselves by prayer alone, or that Christians ought to be happy, and so forth. I wonder how many people suffering from depression have gotten much worse--or even taken their own lives--when they were unable to live up to the expectations of their "divinely appointed" leaders.

Even severely depressed people can make informed decisions about their mental health care. Gradually, their minds, bodies and spirits will heal until they leave the darkness behind. As Jesus taught, the rest of us can be a comfort and a guide for them so that they may see the light of love and hope that comes from God!