09.21.25 "No Idea of Sin & Sexuality Left Up to the Individual"

With the assassination of Charlie Kirk dominating the news cycle for the past week I have found myself thinking about traditional Christianity, which Charlie Kirk represented, and the teachings of ACIM. Jesus through ACIM presents us with a new form of Christianity which has much in common with the traditional form but also much that is different, importantly no firm belief in sin and sexual expression being left up to the individual.

Also I have seen many of Mr. Kirk's debates with students now, and I have yet to hear him talk about spiritual healing which actually would be something the Course student would have in common with the more traditional Christian, especially Evangelical Christians.

I got to thinking about my own Christian upbringing. I was raised Catholic and went to church every Sunday. I also went to a religious instruction class once a week. While I was taught about Jesus' well known miracles of healing, I don't remember ever being taught that we were all healers too. We prayed for miracles of healing during the Catholic, Sunday church service, but this was conceptualized as a special gift given from God and not as a natural right being claimed. "7. Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first." (Tx.1.7)

As a young man at Cornell University I became aware of the Christian Evangelical movement and these Christians had a much more solid focus on healing as a practice of their faith. That caught my attention and I WAS attracted to that, however the traditional teaching about sexuality and sin still remained and those seemed off to me. I had a fraternity brother who was an Evangelical, and I had a few talks with him, but I never attended any *Campus Crusade for Christ* meetings (they were popular on college campuses at that time) which I see now was a kind of predecessor to Charlie Kirk's *Turning Point USA* organization.

When I opened my first ACIM book in 1981 I read on page 2, "24. Miracles enable man to heal the sick and raise the dead, because he made sickness and death himself and can abolish both. (Tx.1.27). Something clicked within me when I read that and I knew I would thoroughly study this teaching. I was later happy to see that there was no idea of sin in ACIM and sexuality indeed WAS left up to the individual and his connection to the Holy Spirit. Nice.