According to Christian dogma and teachings, there are three hundred and one million, six hundred and fifty-five thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two angels. Angels are monolingual, speaking and writing Hebrew only. Angels are immortal, but not eternal, although God had to get rid of some of the earliest angels before he could go on with the creation of humanity. The angels of peace and truth objected to his plan, so he burned them, along with the entire legion of angels under them and then went on to populate the earth, a decision he later regretted according to Genesis 6:6. In another early incident, which to leads me to believe that when God was young, he was a bit immature, impatient, and intolerant, God annihilated a whole globe of angels who failed to sing his praises at the appointed hour.

There are angels of mercy, angels of punishment, angels of death, angels of confusion, and angels of praise. There are seven angels who stand at the throne of God, seventy angels who can be invoked at the time of childbirth, sixty-four angels who guard the seven halls of heaven, and numerous angels who govern each planet, month, day, and hour. There are many levels of angelhood, with the seraphim being the closest to God. Seraphim are the angels of love, light and fire, and endlessly chant, Holy, Holy, Holy. Then we have the cherubim who serve as guardians of the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were cast out, the throne angels who carry out justice, the dominions that manage the daily functions of the universe. The principalities protect religion and give earthly creatures the strength to maintain faith. The virtues are the angels of miracles and encouragement. The powers are the angels who see to it that order is maintained in heaven. And at the bottom of the angel ranks we have the more popular but less powerful archangels and plain angels. Archangels serve as messengers and command the armies of angels who are in constant battle with the powers of evil, while common angels interact with humans on an individual basis, keeping them from harm and offering guidance. And from all these differing ranks, angels have fallen or been cast out because of misdeeds and have formed their own legions, which are held responsible for everything from original sin to the daily corruption of humanity.

From the beginning of recorded thought, angels have been with us. In all cultures and in every religion, angels in one form or another have been seen as significant beings that participate in the earthly realm. In the official teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, angels are considered an undisputed reality, although there are very few references to angels in the Torah, Koran, or New Testament. Other ancient texts contained much detailed information and stories that explained the nature and activities of the angels, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi texts, the Talmudic literature, and in ancient documents of the Zoroastrians. In all three of the main Western religions, angels are believed to have existed before humanity. One of the angels in the rank of the seraphim becomes an adversary of God and a great power struggle ensues. The Hebrew word for adversary is Satan. Angels were forced to swear their allegiance at that point, either to God or to Satan; a decision that was once made could not be changed. All those who sided with Satan were cast out of heaven. One version of this story claims that the angels who could not make up their mind were forced to live on earth, becoming human, and creatures of free will. It was also believed that angels are responsible for bringing knowledge into the world, teaching the first humans what they needed to know to survive on earth.

The most highly-regarded philosophers and religious scholars throughout history have given serious thought to the existence of angels, and most concluded that angels are actual beings that mediate the earthly and spiritual realms. At times their popularity, importance, and predominance in worship have caused concern for religious leaders, fearing that angels were eclipsing the role of God in religious matters, and steps were taken to bring them down a notch. Both Plato and Aristotle specifically state a belief in winged beings that are neither God nor human. Origen, one of the most learned theologians of the early 3rd century and earliest Universalists concluded that even the angels who had been cast out of heaven, including Satan, were redeemable and one day would rejoin the hosts of heaven. St. Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century, Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, Martin Luther in the 16th century, all confirmed a belief in actual angels. Pope John Paul II in 1986, went on record saying angels are, "free and rational purely spiritual beings" and "the truth about angels is inseparable from the central revelation, which is the existence, majesty, and glory of God, that shines over the whole visible and invisible creation." He concluded by stating, "angels are creatures of a spiritual nature, gifted with intellect and free will, superior to man."

One book I found, "From the Ashes of Angels" written by Andrew Collins in 1996, put forth an interesting explanation of how angels came into our early mythologies and religious literature. By studying and cross-referencing the ancient texts of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, along with Zoroastrianism and other religions dating back to 1000 BCE, which all hold very similar accounts and stories, Collins concludes that the earliest references to angels are references to a human race. Angels gain their name from the Greek word angelos, which actually means messenger and was not used originally to denote heavenly beings. Beings who are now considered angels were also referred to in ancient texts by the Greek word grigori, which literally translates as watchers. Even the biblical accounts of these beings and their interactions with humans, seem to be speaking of other human beings. They needed to rest and shared meals with other humans, as in the case of the visitors to Lot's home in Sodom before the city's destruction. In some Old Testament accounts of angels, they appear human in all ways and must identify themselves as angels to those they visit. Wings and halos became associated with angels beginning in 200 AD, and it is believed that this description was added to New Testament accounts of angels at that time.

These Messengers and Watchers appear to be of different races in non-biblical texts. And it is the Watchers that are credited with having superior knowledge in medicine, architecture, and metallurgy, which they shared with the early people of Israel and Persia. Collins is most interested in the Watchers, tracing their origin all the way back to Ancient Egypt. He suggests that they were responsible for building the Sphinx and the other megalithic monuments before leaving the region because of climatic changes due to the last Ice Age. These people then migrated to what is now Eastern Turkey where they lived in the mountains in isolation before gradually establishing contact with the civilizations in the plains below. Because of their unusual appearance and customs, and their superior knowledge, they were viewed as superior beings. This mythology was handed down and became enmeshed in the earliest religious teachings. Eventually the Watchers became known as something other than human, which in the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, meant they must be agents of God.

It was not until the late 1800's, with the rise of science, that the concrete reality of angels was questioned, along with other religious beliefs. In the first half of the 20th century, Carl Jung suggested that mythology and religion were the result of age-old human questing for meaning and yearnings, expressed through archetypal images. With this approach, angels were generally acknowledged as personifications of the unconscious rather than as literal beings.

However, in the last twenty-five years, angels have made a comeback. The belief in angels as actual beings has gained popularity in two distinct subcultures, modern Evangelical Protestantism and the contemporary metaphysical New Age movement. Within Evangelicalism, renewed interest was stimulated by a book written by Billy Graham in 1975, titled "Angels", which investigates the nature and purpose of angels, supported with biblical references and stories of personal experiences of angelic intervention. This was the beginning of the revival of the traditional heavenly angels of God. The focus here seems to be on the battle between good and evil, and the need for angels in good standing to counter the declining morality of humanity and lead us in the right direction.

Increased acceptance of angels in the New Age movement also began in the mid 70's when New Age periodicals ran stories on the Findhorn community of Scotland. This community boasted of a very successful vegetable garden and claimed to be engaged in a unique cooperative arrangement with agricultural devas. The term devas, in New Age usage, comes out of a late 19th century movement in America called Theosophy. The Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1875. The theosophists had a complex view of the universe and the origin and ultimate destiny of humanity. They also believed in numerous spiritual entities, including devas, which is a Sanskrit term for the demi-gods of Hinduism. Within Theosophy, devas are the equivalent of angels, but they have many more functions than the Christian angels, including overseeing the forces of nature. Dorothy Maclean, a member of the Findhorn community was reported to have communicated directly with the devas. She and other members of the community after having been instructed to create a garden, posed specific gardening questions to the devas and received answers that they utilized and credit for the inexplicably abundant produce of the Findhorn Garden.

Today angels are everywhere. Regardless of your personal take on the existence of angels, you cannot deny their popularity in mainstream America. You can find angel jewelry, angel books, angel newsletters, specialized angel stores. Time magazine carried an angel cover story in the mid 90's. Movies with angels as the lead characters have become very popular such as "Michael" with John Travolta playing a grungy, chain-smoking womanizing angel who has returned to earth for his final mission, to restore love in a man's heart. And more recently the movie "Dogma" starred Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as two angels who had been cast out of heaven. After spending a few millennia in Wisconsin they discover a loophole in the rules that will allow them to return to heaven, but in the process will prove the fallibility of God and destroy the Universe. A mixture of angels and mythological entities from heaven and hell are dispatched to prevent them from accomplishing their goal. In the end, God, played by Alanis Morrisette, makes a personal appearance and saves the world.

While preparing for this sermon, I decided to do an internet search for articles on angels. There were literally hundreds of thousands of websites devoted to angels. And of the few I looked at, most contained personal stories of what people believed to be actual encounters with angels. Angels had given people comfort when they were sick, helped them battle forces of evil; angels had forewarned people of misfortune that was then averted. It was difficult to determine if these were angels of the New Age variety or out of the Christian tradition, but it was clear that many people fully embrace the belief that angels continue to participate in the earthly realm. A Gallup survey from 1992 reports that 76% of people polled indicated a belief in angels, up from 64% in 1978, which is interesting considering that participation in religion in America has been on the decline since the 1960's. I was also intrigued to discover that America is the most religious country in the world, with 96% stating a belief in God in a 1994 Gallup survey, and yet we're among the most highly advanced in technology and the sciences. These statistics were reported in an article in "Free Inquiry", a journal published by the Council for Secular Humanism. The article went on to express surprise that increased scientific knowledge had not significantly decreased beliefs in God, heaven, or an afterlife in the last fifty years.

I wondered if the people who indicated a belief in angels were expressing a belief in the actual existence of angels, or as Carl Jung suggested, expressing a subconscious yearning for protection and guidance that is growing in response to what many consider is an increasingly difficult world to live in. Angels could be hope personified. If this is the case, I can understand why more and more people are turning to the angels. Humans don't seem to be doing a very good job of taking care of each other or the planet we live upon.

A couple of days after September 11, a song I had never heard before was playing on the public access radio station out of Bridgeport. I liked the song so much that I emailed the radio station, hoping to find out the name and artist of the song. Ruth Eddy, who has a weekly program at the station and had played the song, emailed me back that the name of the song was "Calling All Angels" by Elyza Gilkyson, on her CD "Pilgrims". I was able to track down a copy of the CD and I would like to share the lyrics of this song with you.

"Calling all angels, put down your disguise, unveil your hearts, wipe the sleep from your eyes. We are falling, lost in the garden. Calling all angels, this is starseed command, we misused our freewill and messed up the plan. We are falling, lost in the garden. Falling like gold leaves in autumn. Falling with hardly a sound. Sorrow and sickness are upon us and the darkness is pulling us down. Calling all angels, we're sad and alone. We wandered too far, now its time to come home. We are falling, lost in the garden. Separation has bonded me with gravity. Hesitation has robbed me of my throne. Liberation is my soul's sweetest destiny. My heart wants to fly away home. I want to play through the ages, make the changes, like the angels. Calling all angels, if you're out on patrol, we're armed and we're dangerous, spinning out of control. We are falling, lost in the gardens, lost in the heavens. Calling all angels."

This song has become a prayer for me, an expression of my deep concern for the condition of the world today. Like no other time in my life, I fear that the leaders of our nations are making decisions that will have global lasting devastating consequences, environmentally, economically, and especially in humanitarian concerns. Thousands are still starving in Afghanistan. Pakistan and India can't seem to find a way to put their guns down and step back from the brink of war. The cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine has escalated to unbelievable levels, with no end in sight. Extremists on both sides ravaged by their desire for revenge are sacrificing the lives of the majority of Palestinians and Israelis who desperately want peace. Our nation's leaders, with the reported support of the majority of Americans, are planning to conduct military attacks on other countries, if they can only agree on which one should be our next target. I keep waiting for someone to call for a global time out, a chance for people to pause and think through this mess we have created. We are armed and we're dangerous, spinning out of control.

So I have been calling all angels. We need the Messengers and Watchers of ancient times, humans with greater wisdom than what seems to be available in the world today. Our nations need help in finding their way back to paths of peace. We need leaders who act out of compassion and not a need to prove supremacy. We need angels that can help us begin to heal the deep wounds that are festering in the hearts of people subjected to violence and prolonged oppression that lead to hatred and hostility. We need the angels of justice to inspire new visions and different approaches in our social activism so that individuals feel empowered to demand that their governments make decisions that reflect their deepest held values.