Admirers of nailed-down definitions and tidy categories may not like to hear it, but all writers and readers are full-time imaginers, all prose is imaginative, and fiction and nonfiction are just two anarchic shades of ink swirling around the same mysterious well.  – David James Duncan

The essay is distinguished from the short story, not by the presence or absence of literary devices, not by tone or theme or subject, but by the writer’s stance toward the material. – Scott Russell Sanders

Your Jesus is constructed from your interpretations of Bible passages about Jesus, your imaginative appropriation of Jesus, and your experiences related to an intentional focus on Jesus. In other words, you cannot escape your own subjectivity in your beliefs about Jesus, no matter what label you attach to those beliefs. When you look for Jesus, you find a single image from overlays of your interpretations and your imagination and your experiences. Maybe the outcome of these overlays provides some accuracy. I’m not sure anyone can overcome some degree of fiction in his beliefs — about anything, including Jesus. I’m not sure which one becomes the greater source of fiction, the imaginative appropriation or the experiences related to intentional focus. Then again, even the wildest, imaginative fiction has a root in the world as it is commonly experienced. Furthermore, common source materials make for similarities between different overlapping points of view. How does one evaluate the source materials, like the Bible passages? That I won’t attempt to answer here.

To turn this same central point in another direction: An individual becomes who she is by believing what she needs to believe. As she grows spiritually, she might choose to believe new things and to discard old beliefs. What she needs to believe now might not be what she needed to believe in a previous time.

But do humans get clearer perspectives and perceptions as they grow? These days I’m doubting it. For one thing, is it possible to refine a point of view without reading and studying its opponents? Probably not, and few really do. Furthermore, what passes for aged wisdom within one worldview is folly within another worldview. But then the need to believe a particular belief is based in a subjective need, not  in an unattainable, objective view of truth.

All this has nothing to do with the question of God’s existence.

“[Psychologist Heinz] Kohut studied a difficult class of disturbed patients with what is known as narcissistic disorders. As he studied them, he noticed similarities between them and charismatic leaders. Kohut spoke of charismatic personalities rather than leaders because most of his patients were not leaders — indeed, some were barely able to function — but they possessed many of the traits of charismatic leaders.

“What was it among his narcissistic patients that made Kohut think of charismatic leaders? He initially noticed that when they presented for therapy, they showed grandiose self-confidence and — unlike most patients — an extraordinary lack of self-doubt. Often they would be quite clear-headed and perceptive; Kohut recounts how one such patient accurately diagnosed his (Kohut’s) shortcomings while in therapy. In addition, they could be very persuasive and accusative. These obvious strengths made them quite distinctive as a group; they did not present in the demoralized, anxious manner of most patients.

“….To add to [Max] Weber and Kohut, Erich Fromm distinguishes between two kinds of narcissism — benign and malign. In the benign form — corresponding to Weber’s ethical prophet and Kohut’s messianic personality — the goal of the leader’s efforts is something he produces, achieves, or does; that is, it is something external to himself. For the messianic prophet this includes doing God’s will by saving souls, building up the church, serving others, preaching the gospel, or whatever. Consequently this form of narcissism is self-checking. To do God’s work, the prophet must be related to reality; this constantly curbs his narcissism and keeps it within bounds (Fromm 1964, 77). In contrast, the goal of malignant narcissism — corresponding to Weber’s exemplary prophet and Kohut’s charismatic personality — is not something the prophet does or produces, but something he has or is. He draws closer to God not because of something he achieves but because of some inner quality. In maintaining his belief he does not need to be related to anyone or anything. Such figures may remove themselves more and more from reality and inflate their delusions to huge proportions in order to avoid discovering that their divinity is merely a product of their imagination. Thus malignant narcissism lacks the corrective element that is present in the benign form. It is not self-limiting but is crudely solipsistic and xenophobic (Fromm 1964, 77).” — Len Oakes, in his book Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities (Syracuse University Press, 1997)

And I’m continuing to file a weekly column, called Strange Days. This week’s dispatch is “Shop or your neighbors will lose their jobs” — call it a strange look at our economic situation.