John Calvin has been known to get a bit technical at times. So as a counterweight, and to put our own times into some sort of context, I thought we might consider the religious speculations of a seriously disheveled mind.

Committing his doctrine to the internet, the pastor without raiment seeks to offer solace and enlightenment to the modern pilgrim:

...I have many friends who have left the church altogether because they've changed their minds and no longer feel like they could stay and keep their intellectual integrity.

Luckily for us, intellectual integrity is exactly what David Hayward brings to the table. (Or perhaps I should say it is what he brings to the high-chair that someone else pushes up to the table.)

As an introductory summary: "God" does not exist, and this is his choice. "Jesus" is the history of a suffering humanity longing and striving for truth, justice and love. The "Spirit" is the united community of people, the fullest and final incarnation.

So this god does not quite exist, but he exists just enough to choose not to exist. Think of a lighthouse that was never built but which nevertheless blinks in and out of existence on a distant shore.

The second person of the trinity was misnamed at an early age. He is not a person at all, he is the history of a collective longing; not the longing, mind you, the history of a longing. Kind of like a memory of a longing but with footnotes and important dates to memorize.

And the third person of the trinity—also misnamed—is really a community of people doing the longing and making the history of doing the longing. Apparently the second non-person of the trinity proceeds from the third non-person of the trinity, which may seem counterintuitive, but don't worry about it. This is not science, this is theology.

You must bear in mind that this is just a summary; of course there is much more to be unknown about this intermittent god. For instance, we now have a pretty good idea where he is not:

God does not exist. God is above and beyond. Evidence can be mounted and presented, but that's all it is: evidence.

Evidence can be mounted and ignored because, obviously, it is merely evidence of his existence in the above-and-beyond. So god is not, but he can be located in the above-and-beyond, and at one time he was, but he became manifested as something else: the human drama. As to whether this was by choice we are not told. Maybe like Humpty-Dumpty he fell off the above-and-beyond and broke apart into five acts.

So the ultimate and final work of the divine is in the unity and community of all people... a reality that awaits manifestation in our history as we work toward it.

So we see that this non-existent god actually does some work. We don't know to whom the paychecks are made out or if they are ever cashed, but the manifestation of the work of this non-existing god who exists in the above-and-beyond will be realized as we work toward it, as we become the Spirit, who is also not god but who is in the here and now working to manifest a longing for this not-god who chooses to be not-god to become a reality we work toward. And by we I mean the community of all people.

But I know I don't have to explain that to you! It's all pretty basic, first-year seminary stuff.

I could go on to develop this theology a good deal further but, as it happens, I'm busy working on another time-consuming theory wherein I become my own grandpa.

First things first.