Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Christmas 2014

The Coming of the Quantum Christ: The Shroud of Turin and the Apocalypse of Selfishness is now available in a Kindle and Nook editions. Kindle is linked here: KINDLE Nook is linked here: NOOK

Usually, at Christmas time I refer friends to a passage in Doctor Zhivago, where Zhivago contemplates his wife pregnancy and relates it to Mary carrying Jesus in her womb:

 "He is her glory. Any woman could say it. For every one of them, God is in her child. Mothers of great men must have been familiar with this feeling, but then, all women are mothers of great men - it isn't their fault if life disappoints them later."

However, now that Quantum Christ is out there, in writing it I included in Chapter Two (with her permission) a long quote from Elaine Pagel's "The Gnostic Gospels." It is like the Zhivago a hymn to the Incarnation we celebrate on Christmas. Because God was made human, every  act of our life can partake of the divine.

Orthodox Christianity teaches that the tree of faith was enriched by the blood of the martyrs. Elaine Pagels, hardly a Vatican favorite, concluded that the example set by the Christian martyrs was in fact a key to orthodox Christianity’s ascendancy over its gnostic competitors.

“No doubt the persecutions terrified many into avoiding contact with Christians, but Justin and Tertullian both say that the sight of martyrs aroused the wonder and admiration that impelled them to investigate the movement, and then to join it. And both attest that this happened to many others. (As Justin remarked: “The more such things happen, the more do others, in larger numbers, become believers.”) Tertullian writes in defiance to Scapula, the proconsul of Carthage: ‘Your cruelty is our glory … All who witness the noble patience of [the martyrs], are struck with misgivings, are inflamed with desire to examine the situation … and as soon as they come to know the truth, they immediately enroll themselves as its disciples.’[i]

Pagels then puts martyrdom in the context of Christ’s life in words that echo Pasternak:

“In its portrait of Christ’s life and his passion, orthodox teaching offered a means of interpreting fundamental elements of human experience. Rejecting the gnostic view that Jesus was a spiritual being, the orthodox insisted that he, like the rest of humanity, was born, lived in a family, became hungry and tired, ate and drank wine, suffered and died. They even went so far as to insist that he rose bodily from the dead. Here again, as we have seen, orthodox tradition implicitly affirms bodily experience as the central fact of human life. What one does physically—one eats and drinks, engages in sexual life or avoids it, saves one’s life or gives it up—all are vital elements in one’s religious development. But those gnostics who regarded the essential part of every person as the “inner spirit” dismissed such physical experience, pleasurable or painful, as a distraction from spiritual reality—indeed, as an illusion. No wonder, then, that far more people identified with the orthodox portrait than with the “bodiless spirit” of gnostic tradition. Not only the martyrs, but all Christians who have suffered for 2,000 years, who have feared and faced death, have found their experience validated in the story of the human Jesus.”[ii]

Merry Christmas.




[i] Pagels, Elaine (2004-06-29). The Gnostic Gospels (p. 98). Random House. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Pagels, Elaine (2004-06-29). The Gnostic Gospels (p. 99). Random House. Kindle Edition.





Sunday, October 5, 2014

The Coming of the Quantum Christ

The Coming of the Quantum Christ: The Shroud of Turin and the Apocalypse of Selfishness is now available in a Kindle and Nook editions.

Kindle is linked here: KINDLE


Nook is linked here: NOOK


What they say:

Barrie Schwortz 
Editor, shroud.com 
Documenting Photographer, 1978 Scientific Examination of the Shroud "Meticulously researched, thoughtfully written and handcrafted with love and respect for the subject matter, this book is a must read for anyone fascinated by the Shroud of Turin 
and what it might mean to the world." 

Daniel Porter, 
Editor, shroudstory.com 
"It is the best book ever written about the Shroud. Actually, it is not just about the Shroud. The Coming of the Quantum Christ is about what the Shroud is about. It is about the confluence of streams of human understanding that meet in the study of the Shroud. Religion converging with science is one. Our history meeting our future is another. This book makes us think. " 

David Rolfe, Independent Movie Producer 
Winner, BAFTA Award for The Silent Witness 
"John Klotz brings a lawyer's mind to an analysis of the Shroud and what, if genuine, it might mean for us. His assembly of the evidence for authenticity is meticulous and he relays it in an unfolding chronicle which also reveals the twists, turns and human frailties that have bedeviled the Shroud’s reputation and left it in limbo to anyone who has never taken the time and trouble to dig a little deeper. It is far reaching in its scope and conclusions. Hold on to your hats.”

Joseph Marino 
Author, Wrapped-up in the Shroud 
"John Klotz has made a most impressive case for the argument that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth of Jesus. He thoroughly summarizes the history of the Shroud, including the politics involved in the controversial 1988 C-14 dating, as well as the scientific evidence that has been gathered since the late 19th century, including how the latest cutting-edge theory of quantum mechanics applies to the cloth. Heavily footnoted and lavishly illustrated with both color and black & white photos, this book should be in the collection of anyone interested in the Shroud, whether a novice or a trained scientist." 

Annette Cloutier, 
Author, Praey to God: A Tasteful Trip Through Faith 
"Rarely does a book centered on one specific subject, in this case the Shroud of Turin, mirror a true integration of life. John Klotz’s genius in writing The Coming of the Quantum Christ is that he carefully and freely managed to integrate the whole of our current society and wrap it around the Shroud of Turin. The result of which The Coming of the Quantum Christ is the most exhilarating book ever written thus far on the investigations and the implications of the Shroud of Turin vis à vis the human condition. It is a clear and concise literary masterpiece, a must read for everyone interested or even just curious about the Shroud of Turin, Christ, and Life itself." 

Thursday, June 26, 2014

The Apocalypse of Selfishness and The Shroud of Turin





 “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and lowering.' You know then how to discern the face of the sky, and can you not know the signs of the times?”

Matthew 16:2-4

It is my premise  that the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, called Christ, and that it offers evidence that supports the claim of his resurrection within three days of his crucifixion. The scientific examination of the Shroud began with the Secondo Pia photographs in 1898. Until then,  the facts concerning the death and purported Resurrection were essentially matters of faith drawing on the four Gospels accounts, the Epistles of Christ’s apostles and oral traditions of cloudy provenance. There were even those who claimed that Christ never existed at all. Science has now provided a rock of fact to which believers may cling. But so what?
Here’s what: Humanity now faces an apocalyptical extinction as a species. Revelations and other apocalyptical writings have been until now mystical allegories and metaphors. But science is not prophesying in metaphors or allegories ‑ its prophecies of doom are based on hard facts.

The Apocalypse that threatens us is an apocalypse of selfishness. The heedless exploitation of our environment has resulted in multiple crises that demand immediate, concerted international cooperation and action, but the very apostles of selfishness that are driving humanity to the brink of extinction bar our way.

For prophecy of an apocalypse, let us turn to the current Roman Catholic Pope.

Small yet strong in the love of God, like Saint Francis of Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its peoples.

Pope Francis
¶216 Evangelii Gaudium


Despite some criticisms from conservative elements in the Church, Francis has not retreated from his elevation of the environment to a religious issue. On May 21, 2014, Pope Francis told an audience; “If we destroy creation, creation will destroy us.”

Is Francis right? Was his statement hyperbole or prophecy? Creation destroying us! Is he prophesying an Apocalypse?