Rev. E.J. Niles, BA, MSSM
ABOUT OUR FOUNDER
Hello! I'm Rev. E.J. Niles, Founder of Spiral Pathways, an alternative ministry of Unity Worldwide Ministries.
For years I had read the Bible, beginning with my pre-teen years when I lived in a small town where there were at least five different churches where I could attend Sunday school. I visited the Christian church, the Baptist church, the Assembly of God church and by my teen years a Community church affiliated with the Presbyterian Church.
After graduating from high school, I spent my next two years in a Mennonite Brethren Bible Institute, which was called Pacific Bible Institute, but is now Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, CA.
Hello! I'm Rev. E.J. Niles, Founder of Spiral Pathways, an alternative ministry of Unity Worldwide Ministries.
For years I had read the Bible, beginning with my pre-teen years when I lived in a small town where there were at least five different churches where I could attend Sunday school. I visited the Christian church, the Baptist church, the Assembly of God church and by my teen years a Community church affiliated with the Presbyterian Church.
After graduating from high school, I spent my next two years in a Mennonite Brethren Bible Institute, which was called Pacific Bible Institute, but is now Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, CA.
I read the Bible through more than once at the urging of my Sunday school teachers and youth leaders. I competed in speech contests for Christian Endeavor and was involved with a teen group called the “Fountain of Youth Fellowship." I traveled in the summertime with a couple of ministers associated with the American Sunday School Union (which is now InFaith), travelling to small areas where there was no church to teach Sunday school classes.
I continued to read the Bible and find inspirational passages, overlooking the passages that were not so inspirational and never questioning because I was told this was the word of God and not subject to question. I learned later how it is possible, and not uncommon , to have areas of your brain partitioned off. Even people who are very intelligent in most areas of their life find ways to create and to select places in their thinking where reason is not allowed to enter.
During my early twenties I attended a “Boot Camp" for people who wanted to become missionaries. It was called “New Tribes Mission" and was located in the Mendocino National Forest in California It was there that I began to doubt all that I had been told and to see that my life experience did not fit in with what I had been told about the Bible. The other insight I was beginning to see was that my heart and my head were not in agreement with all that I had been told and what I had been teaching.
I spent a few years trying to sort it all out and found one day that I was ready to reject everything I had been told about the Bible!! I stopped going to any church. I stopped even trying to read the Bible. I found inspiration in other spiritual writings.
Along the way I discovered New Thought Christian teachers and the concept that the Bible can only be understood if viewed metaphorically or metaphysically. Thus my interest in the Bible was renewed, and I enthusiastically began to see that a metaphysical perspective made a real difference in looking at the Bible. Soon, I entered Unity School of Christianity's ministerial program (now Unity Institute) and renewed my Bible studies in earnest.
One of the things the New Thought teachers told me was that the Bible is a way to look at our individual spiritual evolution. That made sense to me. I had discovered the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the idea of an evolutionary spiritual journey. I knew too much about the Bible, however, and realized that it was a long stretch to see spiritual evolution in the Bible in its current structure. I experimented with this idea and was again beginning to doubt.
As I became more aware of the differences in Bible scholarship, I started exploring the work of scholars who had been doing extensive research on what the Bible actually is, instead of what of many of us had been told it is.
One of the most interesting things I learned was that the Bible was written by many authors over a long period of time; but the writings were put together as if they all came from the same source at the same time. I began to have the idea that if we could look at the separate writings in light of when they were written, we could see change and evolution in the Bible.
After eight years of church ministry (3 years as Senior Minister at Unity of Bandon, OR, and 5 years as Senior Minister at Unity of Fairfax, VA), I created an alternative ministry with the purpose of researching and teaching the Bible based on the idea of spiritual evolution. In 2000, I began reading about a historical, psychological and spiritual development model called Spiral Dynamics. I was amazed and delighted to find that it could be a very valuable tool in my research and teaching. I contacted the primary leader and teacher of Spiral Dynamics, Dr. Don Beck , who had co-authored the book called Spiral Dynamics, Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. He became a mentor.
This website is one of the results of my journey with Unity, the Bible and Spiral Dynamics. I trust that you will find it enlightening and that it will provide a way for you to see the Bible in a new light, one that will light your own spiritual journey.
Rev. Evelyn J. Niles (E.J.)
I continued to read the Bible and find inspirational passages, overlooking the passages that were not so inspirational and never questioning because I was told this was the word of God and not subject to question. I learned later how it is possible, and not uncommon , to have areas of your brain partitioned off. Even people who are very intelligent in most areas of their life find ways to create and to select places in their thinking where reason is not allowed to enter.
During my early twenties I attended a “Boot Camp" for people who wanted to become missionaries. It was called “New Tribes Mission" and was located in the Mendocino National Forest in California It was there that I began to doubt all that I had been told and to see that my life experience did not fit in with what I had been told about the Bible. The other insight I was beginning to see was that my heart and my head were not in agreement with all that I had been told and what I had been teaching.
I spent a few years trying to sort it all out and found one day that I was ready to reject everything I had been told about the Bible!! I stopped going to any church. I stopped even trying to read the Bible. I found inspiration in other spiritual writings.
Along the way I discovered New Thought Christian teachers and the concept that the Bible can only be understood if viewed metaphorically or metaphysically. Thus my interest in the Bible was renewed, and I enthusiastically began to see that a metaphysical perspective made a real difference in looking at the Bible. Soon, I entered Unity School of Christianity's ministerial program (now Unity Institute) and renewed my Bible studies in earnest.
One of the things the New Thought teachers told me was that the Bible is a way to look at our individual spiritual evolution. That made sense to me. I had discovered the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the idea of an evolutionary spiritual journey. I knew too much about the Bible, however, and realized that it was a long stretch to see spiritual evolution in the Bible in its current structure. I experimented with this idea and was again beginning to doubt.
As I became more aware of the differences in Bible scholarship, I started exploring the work of scholars who had been doing extensive research on what the Bible actually is, instead of what of many of us had been told it is.
One of the most interesting things I learned was that the Bible was written by many authors over a long period of time; but the writings were put together as if they all came from the same source at the same time. I began to have the idea that if we could look at the separate writings in light of when they were written, we could see change and evolution in the Bible.
After eight years of church ministry (3 years as Senior Minister at Unity of Bandon, OR, and 5 years as Senior Minister at Unity of Fairfax, VA), I created an alternative ministry with the purpose of researching and teaching the Bible based on the idea of spiritual evolution. In 2000, I began reading about a historical, psychological and spiritual development model called Spiral Dynamics. I was amazed and delighted to find that it could be a very valuable tool in my research and teaching. I contacted the primary leader and teacher of Spiral Dynamics, Dr. Don Beck , who had co-authored the book called Spiral Dynamics, Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. He became a mentor.
This website is one of the results of my journey with Unity, the Bible and Spiral Dynamics. I trust that you will find it enlightening and that it will provide a way for you to see the Bible in a new light, one that will light your own spiritual journey.
Rev. Evelyn J. Niles (E.J.)