THE EIGHT BEATITUDES OF JESUS

Jesus gave us the eight Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, recorded for all posterity in the Gospel of Matthew, the first Book of the New Testament. Jesus offers us a way of life that promises eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Ten Commandments, given to Moses on Mount Sinai in the Old Testament Book of Exodus, relates a series of "Thou shalt nots," evils one must avoid in daily life on earth.

In contrast, Jesus presents the Beatitudes in a positive sense, virtues in life which will ultimately lead to reward. All of the Beatitudes have a profound meaning, that is, they promise us salvation - not in this world, but in the next. The Beatitudes initiate one of the main themes of Matthew's Gospel, which is the Kingdom so long awaited in the Old Testament is not of this world, but of the next, the Kingdom of Heaven.

One of the first contemplations on the Beatitudes came from St. Gregory of Nyssa, a mystic who lived in Cappadocia around 380 AD. He described the Beatitudes this way:

Beatitude is a possession of all things held to be good, from which nothing is absent that a good desire may want.

Perhaps the meaning of beatitude may become clearer to us if it is compared with its opposite.

Now the opposite of beatitude is misery.

Misery means being afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.

THE EIGHT BEATITUDES OF JESUS

• "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
• Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
• Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
• Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
• Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
• Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Gospel of Matthew 5:3-10

ON THE BEATITUDES

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

"Poor in spirit" means to be humble. Humility is the realization that all your gifts and blessings come from the grace of God. To have poverty of spirit means to be completely empty and open to the Word of God. When we are an empty cup and devoid of pride, we are humble. Humility brings openness and an inner peace, allowing one to do the will of God.

It is pride, the opposite of humility, that brings misery. For pride brings anger and the seeking of revenge, especially when one is offended. If every man were humble and poor in spirit, there would be no war!

"Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

Gregory of Nyssa taught that the Beatitudes built one upon another. Thus if we are humble and appreciate that all of our gifts and blessings come from God, we grow in love and gratitude for Jesus Christ our Savior. But this can only produce mourning and regret over our own sins and the sins of this world, for we have hurt the one who has been so good to us.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

A person who is meek is gentle and kind, and exhibits a docility of spirit. Obedience and submission to the will of God are certainly not in vogue these days, but they will bring one peace in this world and in the next.

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

A continuous desire for justice and moral perfection will lead one to a fulfillment of that desire - a transition and conversion to holiness.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

Love, compassion, and forgiveness towards one's neighbor will bring peace in your relationships. And your Heavenly Father will be merciful with you! Jesus reminds us that whatever "you did to the least of my brethren, you did it to me [Matthew 25:31-46]." Here are the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy:

The Corporal Works of Mercy

1. Feed the Hungry
2. Give drink to the thirsty
3. Clothe the naked
4. Shelter the homeless
5. Comfort the imprisoned
6. Visit the sick
7. Bury the dead

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

1. Admonish sinners
2. Instruct the uninformed
3. Counsel the doubtful
4. Comfort the sorrowful
5. Be patient with those in error
6. Forgive offenses
7. Pray for the living and the dead

"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."

To be pure of heart means to be free of all selfish intentions and self-seeking desires. What a beautiful goal! How many times have any of us performed an act perfectly free of any personal gain? But an act of pure and selfless giving brings happiness to all.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God."

Peacemakers not only live peaceful lives but also try to bring peace and friendship to others, and to preserve peace between God and man. Gregory of Nyssa pointed out that by imitating God's love of man, the peacemakers become children of God.

"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

Jesus said many times that those who follow Him will be persecuted. "If they persecute me, they will persecute you [John 15:20-21]." But the Lord promises his disciples that their reward will be the Kingdom of Heaven!

Some may wish to download a more manageable version of the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer, Click here.

INTRODUCTION

To focus on the simple yet profound truths of the teachings of Jesus as central to the Christian religion is ingenuous. Jesus was not a Christian nor did he act like one.

There is a theological, cultural, and social structure to the Christian churches that is very complicated. That complexity is apparent when one tries to envision the more than 22,000 separate churches, sects, and denominations that make up the Christian faith tradition today. To project these separate bodies against the background of their development in the nations of the world is to consider a diversity that is bewildering. How could these humans reconcile their adherence to one tradition in their prayer life, cathedral-building, their quiet worship, with their strenuous violent efforts to change the world through crusades, conquests and aggressive, even death dealing, missionary work?

It is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said and thereby to be empowered to follow. Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor knew this when he reproached Jesus for puzzling men with his "exceptional, vague, enigmatic" conduct. Consider, for example: Would you want a statue of Jesus in an angry state of wrath as portrayed by words of the New Testament? The Jesus of the Gospels is scandalous.

Thomas Jefferson, in his own imagination, found Jesus to be sublime. To "find" his Jesus, Jefferson used a razor to excise the "dung" to keep the "diamonds." He cleaned out all the miracles, wrestling with demons, and other strange acts, to preserve a tale of a good man, a very good man who would not pretend to such pretentious acts. Jefferson's Jesus is no longer a man of paradoxes and he is left preaching his beatitudes and calling for the Lord's Prayer.

One can not take the Gospels literally to find the truth about this man who was more than an ordinary man. One should keep in mind that none of those who wrote down the Gospels were at the scene. They did not hear or see, including Paul, who saw no more than his own vision. But that does not deny the sincerity of the Gospel writers as they sought to be faithful to what they believed was true. This is not to say that the Gospels are literally true. What then shall you believe, my friend?

It appears Jesus was more than a prophet. Unfortunately, you will find that you can not go to church to find the truth about Jesus. Reading this essay may help you to see that like other extraordinary "break through" humans such as Zoroaster, Lao Tze, the Buddha, Gandhi, Mohammad, and others, there is too much myth and legend. Still you have ears to hear and eyes to see! Find your own path as Jesus wanted of you.

Christianity as a major religion is derived from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus said to be of Nazareth in Israel who lived in the early part of 1st century CE (AD). It has become the largest of the world's religions. Christians have never agreed on faith and practice. Major divisions have appeared. Western Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy. Western Christianity then subdivided into Protestant and Roman Catholic. Monastic orders have concentrated on prayer. The Command of Jesus to have a commitment to care for the poor has brought education and healthcare to others throughout the world. This health-giving is a response to the words of Jesus:

"Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of one of these, you have done it for me." (Matthew 25:40)

Geographically it is the most widely diffused of all faiths. It claims a constituency of some 2 billion believers. There is much rivalry and disputation among the many sects which claim to be the true faith, unique, among the others. The largest groups: are the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Protestant churches of Europe and North America. In addition to these churches there are several independent churches of Eastern Christianity as well as numerous sects throughout Asia, Africa, and South America. All of these sects are committed to - The Greatest Story Ever Told. It is a tale, hard for some to believe.It is a tale told by Christians to proselytize others with great success. It promises immortality, for those who believe it and are converted to the Christian faith. 

No effort will be made to depict the elaborate complexity of what its followers assert is the one true faith. This extended overview first considers the nature and development of the Christian religion, its ideas, and its institutions. We then examine several intellectual manifestations of Christianity. We will try to consider the position of Christianity in the world, its missionary outreach, and its relations with other world religions. In doing so, we will consider topics from biblical literature, doctrine and dogma, Jesus Christ, sacred worship, prayer, creed, sacrament, religious dress, monasticism, and priesthoods. Given such complexity through the ages both those within the tradition and those affected by its milieu have made attempts at simplification.

As an introduction we will try to concentrate on the "essence" of the Christian faith thereby to show the ideas that are integral to it. We will seek the "identity" of the Christian tradition, and thus set some boundaries on our discussion.

Obviously, we must do so with humility and a sense of realization that our review will be merely rudimentary. The many discoveries by cultural anthropologists, biblical scholars, and others, causes us to try to separate the Jesus known as the Messiah or The Anointed Son of God to believers, from the Historical Jesus, and also from the colloquy among the modern Christian Churches

THE ESSENCE AND IDENTITY OF CHRISTIANITY

Christianity for many millions of believers is a faith-tradition that focuses on the figure of Jesus Christ. Faith refers both to the believers' act of trust and to the content of that faith. These traditions, viewed as a system of belief and behavior, lead most humans to see Christianity as one of the world religions, alongside >Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and others.

As a tradition, Christianity is more than a system of religious belief. The religion has generated a culture, a set of ideas, a way of life, practices, and artifacts passed down from generation to generation through the 20 centuries since Jesus first became the object of faith. The Churches act as agents of Christianity in their various forms. The true church is the community of people who make up the body of believers. Christianity may incorporate, along with such believers, their doctrines, customs, and historical episodes as their story. To say that Christians "focus" on Jesus Christ is to say they believe that transactions with the divine do not occur in the realm of timeless abstract ideas but among ordinary humans through the ages. The vast majority of Christians focus their faith in Jesus Christ as with someone who is also a present reality.

These Christians of faith would not want to be nor would they be called Christian if they did not bring their eyes and attentions first and last to Jesus Christ. Still they locate the focus of their faith tradition in the context of the historical figure of Jesus Christ against the background of monotheism. They seek to remain faithful to the experience of one God. The religion has consistently rejected both polytheism, which allows for many gods, and atheism. They reject attempts to make Jesus a purely human figure without divine or transcendent reference. This has caused a continuing dispute and schisms within the religion over the nature and quality of the divinity of Jesus.

To monotheism, as an element of the faith tradition of Christianity, one may add that, with rare exceptions, Christianity refers to a plan of salvation or redemption. The believers within the church see themselves as originally born into a state of sin from which they need rescue. For whatever reason, according to their textual sources they have been distanced from their source-God. They need to be saved. Christianity is based on a particular experience such as baptism, an epiphany, or following a scheme that directs each to the act of being saved or redeemed. These creatures of God must be gathered up and taken back to the source of their inspiration which is God. The agent of that redemption is Jesus Christ not the Church administrations or priests.

Of course, through the centuries the vast majority of ordinary believers have not used the term "essence" to describe the central focus of their faith. The search for an essence may be more urgent for philosophers and theologians (who interpret the language of the believing community), or historians, than it is for the regular believers who do not share the worrisome burden of scholars. Essence, refers to those qualities that give something its identity and are at the center of what makes that thing different from everything else Thus Jesus Christ belongs to the essential character of Christianity and gives it identity in the same way that Gautama Buddha does for Buddhism. Though the mass of people do not have the scholar's problems, still, they must come to terms with what the word essence implies. Whether they are engaged in being saved or redeemed, on the one hand, or thinking and speaking about that redemption by its agent, and its meaning, on the other, they are concentrating on the essence for their experience. That is why the essence of a historical tradition refers to how its ideal qualities have been discussed through the ages.

HISTORICAL VIEWS OF THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

Early Perceptions

At the start, the earliest members of the Christian faith tradition were Jews, as was Jesus himself. They stood in the faith tradition inherited by Hebrew people within Israel (and lands to which they had been taken as captives in exile). They were monotheists, devoted to the God of Israel. But when the new disciples and their converts achieved salvation they made claims that Jesus is divine.

At first, it was part of their task to make their witness in ways that would not challenge the monotheism of the people of Israel. We observe that in Matthew Chapter 10 the words of Jesus read,

". . . And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease . . . . These twelve Jesus then sent forth and commanded them, saying, "Go not into the way of Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: "But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.." (King James Version).

Therefore, from the earliest of time it is clear that Jesus' Himself limited the disciples quests toward Hebrews. This clear directive was not followed by Paul. Clearly, Paul, who was not one of the twelve disciples, believed one of his main missions was to go against this limiting instruction and radiate his own words of praise of Jesus to one and all who could hear. Thus we encounter one of the earliest instances of the major differences between the teachings of the historical Jesus and the wonderful myths of Paul and those who believe "The Greatest Story Ever Told" as it has been constructed over time by the Christian religion. Thus it was that Jesus preached his profound message of love of God and thy neighbor to Jews. Nevertheless, Paul and those who followed, as they began to separate or be separated from Judaism, broadened the base because many Jews did not accept Jesus as the messiah, Christ.

These earliest Christians not only experienced salvation but also expressed certain ideas about the One on whom their faith focused that required those converted to accept Jesus as the Messiah who had come to Earth. As with other religions, believers became convinced as they zealously searched for truth and preached it to others.

It was clear to them that God, in the very nature of things, was necessarily the final Truth. But, the believing Christians elevated to truth an early reference, preserved in the Gospel According to John, wherein the writer declared that Jesus referred to himself not only as "the way" and "the light", but also as "the Truth." Roughly, this meant "all the reality there is." It was a reference to Jesus' participation in the reality of the one God. Since there were other interpretations that could be derived from the canonical gospels of the New Testament, and other so-called gospels written at the same time, controversy and disputation followed, necessarily, among the early Christians.

From the beginning, there were Christians who may not have seen Jesus as the bearer of divine Truth, or, as a unique participant in the reality of God. Through the centuries there have been "humanist" devotees of Jesus. Today, modernist adapters of the truth about the Christ Jesus, even while they are in the act of adapting him to humanist concepts, have contributed to the debate about the essence of Christianity and brought the essence of the story back to the issues of monotheism and a way of salvation.

Some believers, and some who are also scholars, have always determined that the best way to preserve the essence of Christianity is to look at the highly selective documents that have been preserved by the believers which are the four so-called canonical) Gospels along with the letters that make up much of the New Testament.

On the whole, these chosen sources tell us, today,  whatever it is the self-appointed church leaders believed to be correct about what was known by an early group of Christians who remembered, taught, or believed about Jesus Christ as they saw him. For those who do not wish to be troubled by scholarship, nor wish to carefully examine their own faith, it is presumed that "the simple Jesus" and the "primitive faith" that emerges from these documents is the core of the essence. It is the truth as they want to see it.

Other believers and other scholars, however, have been disturbed by this simple notion of finding the essence by going back to what history has proven are carefully selective beginnings of only a few of the contending documents and sects among the early churches.

Still, these writings that make up the New Testament articulate Jewish and Greek ways of thinking about Jesus and God. Jesus is seen through the experience of different personalities, such as the Apostle Paul, from the first century, and nameless composers of documents that were later edited in the second and third centuries to be the Gospels. It is for that reason that some bible scholars call what emerged as Pauline Christianity.  

The Bishop of Lyon in France, Irenaeus, was a relentless campaigner for his idea of choosing certain gospel documents and suppressing and rejecting others. It was Irenaeus, a forceful propagandist, who made it a part of his fervent campaign to defame the character of those who disagreed with him. Simply put the others wereworse than wrong. They were sinful heretics for so believing! Thus, we have inherited the Canonical Gospels.

However, there were outsiders such as the very devout Christians who followed Valentinius who believed in Jesus teachings but not his divinity. To Irenaeus and his adherents who worked to exalt the Canonical Gospels and other chapters of the New Testament. Overtime, they made these fateful choices.

Valentinius was among others who promoted the sublime teachings of Jesus but did not believe he was in some way divine. Indeed, there were, at the time, a number of diverse ways of worship, of polity and of governance in the Christian community. The behavior pictured or prescribed in the New Testament was the heart of only one of the Christian faiths that were competing for converts to salvation.

Most modern day believers see these diversities as complementing each other and gather them under the umbrella of what they call the "early church". Others are taught and believe that those like Valentinius were blasphemers. Though they want to leave to scholars the arguments that the primal documents may compete with and contradict each other, the Believers of Faith (not Reason) who have chosen to elevate themselves encourage the faithful to believe that there is a mythical core of ideas that all New Testament scholars and believers would agree are central to ancient Christian beliefs. This myth has been refuted by modern scholarly research.

It is very important to say our historical analysis does NOT say that the messages of the teachings of Jesus have been refuted. The authentic words of Jesus are still the basis of profoundly important beliefs about love and compassion. But there is a split among those who are believers in the words of Jesus over his divinity. Those who are convinced of the divinity of Jesus speak an adroit and lovable falsehood when they say that all agree that "the Risen Jesus is the Ascended Lord." Of course, these current believers would not have their own faith-tradition and there would be no canonical gospels if the scriptures they prefer had not been selected by the early believers that thought Jesus was "Risen," raised from the dead, and "Ascended," - somehow above the ordinary plane of mortal and temporal experience. They have faith that they have found the one truth.

But, they conceal an awful truth which was that those early believers who agree with them did all they could to destroy any gospels that disagreed or amplified on their own story. From their own simple but profound assertion these early Christians began to complicate the search for the essence by denying the early controversies.

There were others who had written differing views of the meaning of Jesus and what Jesus meant. They had gone a different way. For examples: Thomas (the Gospel of Thomas) and Mary Magdalene (The Gospel of Mary), Phillip (The Gospel of Phillip), and others.

(These gospels spoke of very different exciting truths about Jesus and his message. (We will discuss some of these ideas later.) Suffice it to say for now that they were suppressed by what later became the Roman Catholic Church, especially as led by Emperor Constantine. Sinister efforts were made to destroy the documents thus not only to suppress them but to cause them to vanish. It was done by the zealots who believed the idea that the canonical gospels and letters of the New Testament were the only source not simply one of the primary sources. The truth was hard to hide. (The discovery of the Gospel of Mary, in 1896, and the Nag Hammadi library, in 1945, exposed this long hidden chicanery.)

In spite of the effort to label disagreements as heresy, the schismatic and bitter debate continued. A pressing question was how to combine the essential focus on Jesus with the essential monotheism as seen by the growing group of the faithful. Some of the writers of the New Testament who are as reflected on the meaning of this faith - saw Jesus as the "pre-existent Logos." That is, before there was a historical Jesus born of Mary and accessible to the sight and touch of Jews and others. In his own day, there was a Logos, a principle of reason, an element of ordering, a "Word",that participated in the Godhead. Thus, according to this esoteric thinking, there existed as the "incarnate" Logos, the Word that took on flesh and humanity (John 1:1 :14), it was Jesus, the Christ, incarnate.

In searching for an essence of truth and the way of salvation, some primitive Jewish Christian groups, spoke in terms of what might be called a metaphor of adoption. These ingenious theologians found their source in certain biblical passages (e.g., Acts 2:22), much as an earthly parent might adopt a child, so (God) the divine parent had adopted Jesus who called Him Abba (Aramaic: "daddy or father"). God had adopted him. God had taken him into the heart of the nature of what it is to be God. These clever interpretations provided some sense of the ways the early Apologists carried out their task of contributing to the definition of the essence of a Jesus-focused yet monotheistic faith.

Those who early expressed a "blind" faith, were from the beginning believers in the divinity of Jesus.  They insisted that they were,or were intended to be, or were commanded to be and were striving to be united in their devotion to the essence of their faith tradition. The faith was of the essence of their tradition to reject other gods and other ways, because to them the most defining of essence and identity had in fact occurred. Thus, so far as one set of Christians was concerned they must hold to this truth - lest others might deviate from what they saw as the essential faith. To these converts there could not have been many final truths. Nor could there be many legitimate ways of salvation. As they saw it, while Jesus was present among his disciples there were those who ignored or rejected him. Therefore, to make him the focus of their faith was an exalting way to dispose of one type of issue.

To these believers, after the "Risen Jesus" had become the "Ascended Lord" and was no longer a visible physical presence, a different problem arose those for those at the head of the new tradition. Jesus still remained, as was said -He was a present reality to them, so when they gathered to worship they believed that he was "in the midst of them." He was present in their minds and hearts, in the spoken word that testified to him, and also was present in some form when they had their sacred meal and ingested bread and wine as his "body and blood." They created a reality around the experience the eucharistic meal, what was once a new Judaism was  now "Christianism," or Christianity, the story became a part of "the greatest story ever told." The search for the essence of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world necessarily led people to concentrate on ideas. This focus on Jesus narrowed to ideas, to "beliefs about" and not only "belief in," and to doctrines of the same kind.

The essence, therefore, began to be cognitive, referring to what was known, or substantive. This was most pronounced when people in the idea-centered Greek culture had to find a way to grasp, through their mind (more so than their feelings) the reality of someone who was not a visible presence.

As the debates over the cognitive or substantive aspects of Jesus' participation in and with God became both intense and more refined, the pursuit of essences became a continuing matter of competition among the minds of the Apologists who were formulating doctrines during the 3rd through the 6th centuries. The claimed essence was used in conflict and rivalry with others. Christian Apologists began to speak, both to the Jews and to other kinds of believers in the Greco-Roman world such as Gnostics, especially with those who used terms that unfavorably compared their religions to Christianity. The essence also came to be a competitive definer of who had the best credentials and was most faithful. Following the leadership of capable thinkers such as Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon who was a very aggressive apologist, they mounted inflammatory attacks on those who opposed their world view.

These zealots claimed that they and their sycophants had discerned the essence of Christianity.  They sought to root out those who disagreed with them about the teachings of Jesus and the meaning of His life and death. There was bitter debate with the so-called faithless, the apostates, and the heretics such as the Gnostics.

Arius of Alexandria was among the dissenters who was a vocal and able leader. Arius was asking vital questions about the nature of God and Jesus. Arius put Jesus in the real world - a man. Arius wanted Christians to be clear that:

"God is the only unbegotten, the only eternal, the only one without beginning, the only true, the only one who has immortality, the only wise, the only the only good, the only potentate who is the unique God."

Arius used a key passage from Proverbs (8:22) which explicitly stated that God had created Wisdom at the very beginning. At the beginning of St. John's Gospel the Word had been with God, "Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him." The very fact that Jesus had called God his"Father" implied this distinction.

Arius had no intention to denigrate Jesus, as his adversaries claimed. To Arius, and those who believed as he did:

Christians had been saved and made divine, sharers in the nature of God. This was because Jesus had blazed a trail for them. Jesus had lived a perfect human life. He had obeyed God. If Jesus had not been a human being there would be no hope for us. There would be nothing meritorious in his life, as lived, if he had been God. There would be nothing for us to imitate. Instead, by studying the life of Jesus, the perfectly obedient son and following the example Christians could become divine themselves. By imitating Christ, the perfect human creature, they too could become "unalterably and unchangeably perfect creatures of God."

This was a quest for a higher self for Christians. Those who wanted to build priesthoods and start a church, as an institution, found Arianism deeply disturbing.

Athanasius and some of his sycophantic Bishops had a less optimistic view of the human capacity to live in accord with the example of Jesus without the guidance of priests. They felt we had come from nothing and had fallen back to the nothingness of sinners. Only by the Logos, the Word, as personified in Jesus, could we get a share of God's immortality. Since only God, who had created the world, could save us, it meant that Christ had been made flesh, of the same nature as the Father. As Athanasius said, "The Word became man in order that we could become divine."

It was clear that to Arius, and a few others, the correct Way was for each human to follow the example of Jesus and live their life according to his teachings and find their own way to God. (Later Pelagius was to take up this debate, again, in opposition to Augustine's original sin concept.) On the other side of this historic debate was the Athanasian cohort who did not consider it possible for mere mortals to ascend to God by their natural powers. They needed the guidance of the bishops and their partisans within the church. These dogmatic issues seemed irresolvable. To resolve this debate, a synod of Christian leaders was called by the self-crowned Emperor of the Roman Empire. Constantine's sword was being used to settle disputes among the church leaders, for better or for worse.

THE COUNCIL OF NICAE 325 CE GATHERED BY THE SWORD OF CONSTANTINE

The bitterness of the debate persuaded Constantine, the self-appointed new Roman Emperor (circa 312-314 CE) to demand that the Christian Bishops assemble at the Council of Nicaea -325 CE to find clarity of dogma and theology. Make no mistake, it was the sword of Constantine that drove the herd of Bishops to assemble. He demanded that a list of 159 so-called heresies be drawn up for debate. This was to be followed by up-and-down votes on acceptance or rejection of these so-called heresies once and for all. Anyone who supported any of the heresies after the Council adjourned, would be excommunicated from the Christian Church that Constantine would support.

Athanasius of Alexandria, though not well loved, managed to impose much of his theology on the delegates. Irenaeus ghost (130- 200CE) must have breathed a sigh of relief and smiled when the Council of Nicaea created from nothing, for the first time, an official Christian doctrine.

Here is the Chosen Doctrine:

Christ was no mere human creature: The Creator (God) and the Redeemer (Jesus) were One. The Nicene Creed turned magical belief into divine dogma. This show of agreement, pleased Constantine. The Emperor then deployed the wealth of the Empire to remodel and build new churches for the friendly bishops around the Mediterranean Sea. Constantine withdrew support from those churches that did not swear to the new creed. Arius and two of his colleagues refused to sign the creed. To be crass, in political terms, the shiny new creed was a loyalty oath. If one swore allegiance to it you could get a new church built.

The Arian crisis took over sixty years to vanish because many of those who saw themselves as Christians were not comfortable with this idea of the unique divinity of Jesus Christ. Athanasius had his own troubles over the same period as the debate boiled down to the new essence. It did not stamp out Arianism.

The spiritual but not religious of today have little need to choose from among the various groups such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Samaritans, etc. Their modern day importance is historical as is the sect called the Essenes, a quasi-monastic dissident group that probably included the sect that preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls. This Essene sect did not participate in the Temple worship at Jerusalem and observed a different religious calendar. At their desert retreat, they awaited divine intervention and searched prophetic writings for signs indicating the consummation. Most recent research, indicates that a high majority of the Jews of Israel had little interest in the actual practice of religion. What relation the followers of Jesus had to some of these groups such as the Essenes is not clear. In the canonical gospels the Essenes are never mentioned. Simon, one of Jesus' 12 disciples, was or had once been among the Zealot-Essenes. Jesus background probably was closer to the Pharisees, although the mysterious influences of the missing years should not be discounted.

Under the social and political conditions of the time, there could be no long future either for the Sadducees or for the Zealots,whose attempts to make apocalyptic dreams effective led to the destruction of Judaea after the two major Jewish revolts of 67CE and 321CE against the Romans. The choice for many Jews during the Diaspora probably lay between the Pharisees and Christianity. The former dedicated to the meticulous preservation of the Mosaic Law and the latter, to the universal propagation of a new version of biblical faith as a religion for all mankind. On the other hand, Pharisea was as enshrined in the Mishna (Oral Law) and the Talmud (commentary on and addition to the Oral Law). The world view of the Pharisees became normative Judaism by looking toward the Gentile (non-Jewish) world and carefully dissociating itself from the Zealot revolutionaries.

Christianity made it possible for those who had the desire to proselytize for their ideal of a world religion to do it. However, this was at the price of sacrificing their Jewish particularity and exclusiveness. The fact that Christianity has never succeeded in gaining the open allegiance of more than a minority of Jews-Known as Messianiic Jews- arose in part from the faithfuls perception of a bloody crucifixion of Christ which was falsely blamed on the Jewish population.

This monstrous lie was the seed for the Roman Catholic Church's long history of virulent and vicious anti-Semitism. Obviously, it was the Roman army that killed Jesus consistent with their brutal way of maintaining order through such hideous examples. [Note: It is said there were about 2000 3000 crucifixions by the Romans in the year of the death of Jesus of Nazareth.] In effect, it was merely a common action of martial rule that devout Chritians have raised to a theological act by historians of the Roman Catholic Church. Not  even the leaadership of the puppet state of Hebrews had the [power to command Pontius Pilate. The modern Roman Catholic Church, under Pope John Paul has made its public apology to the Jews as the Christians start on their new path of atonement for this fraud that has been a great sin against mankind.

The Relationship of the Early Church to the Career and Intentions of Jesus

The prime sources for knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth are the four canonical Gospels in the New Testament. Only a few probably authentic sayings of Jesus became preserved in oral traditions that were independent of these documents, though many sayings came to be put into his mouth by zealots for a viewpoint.These non-canonical sayings are called agrapha (not in Scripture) by those who are loyal to the singularity of such as the only reliable source. The Gospel of Thomas which was found about 1945 in Egypt preserved in a Coptic Gnostic library (Nag Hammadi), contains several such Thomistic sayings, along with some independent versions of canonical sayings. Here and there, the Gospel tradition finds independent confirmation in the letters of the Apostle Paul. The allusions to Jesus in non-Christian sources (the Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and Talmudic texts) are nearly negligible.  But they do help to refute the unsubstantiated notion that Jesus might never have existed. The first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, have a literary relation to one another and are hence called Synoptic. Mark was probably used by Matthew and Luke. John, differing in both pattern and content, appears richer in theological interpretation but its detail may preserve less good historical information.

Click here for more details on the early Gospels.

The Encounter with John the Baptist, the ascetic in the Judean Desert who preached repentance and baptism in view of God's coming Kingdom, marked a decisive moment in Jesus' career. Jesus recognized in John the forerunner of the kingdom that his own ministry was inaugurating. The first preaching of Jesus, in his home region of Galilee, took the form of vivid parables and was accompanied by apparently miraculous healings. The Synoptic writers give a single climactic visit of Jesus to Jerusalem at the end of his career, but the Gospel of John may be right (implicitly supported by Luke 13:7) in representing his visits as more frequent and the period of ministry as lasting more than a single year.

Jesus' attitude toward the observance of the Law generated conflict with the Pharisees. Though the people protected him, he also aroused the fear and hostility of the ruling Jewish authorities. A triumphal entry to Jerusalem during Passover time (the period celebrating the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in the 13th century BCE) was the prelude to a final crisis. After a last supper with his disciples he was betrayed by one of them, Judas. Arrest and trial followed, first before the Sanhedrin and then before Pilate, who condemned him to crucifixion. The accusation before Pilate was Sedition. (The modern days Evangelists see a framed charge yet it seems quite plausible that the Romans considered his actions a threat to the imperial peace because of the growing crowds.) It has been a universal Christian belief of the Faithful that three days after his death he was raised from the dead by divine power. "e is risen", is essential part of the greatest story ever told.

Jesus preached the imminent presence of God's Kingdom, in some texts as future consummation, in others as already present. The words and acts of Jesus were believed to be the inauguration of a process that was to culminate in a final triumph of God. His disciples recognized him as the Messiah, the Anointed One. (It is not recorded that Jesus used the word Messiah for himself.) The titles Prophet and Rabbi also were applied to Jesus. His own enigmatic self-designation was "Son of man," sometimes iit was alusion to his suffering, sometimes to his future role as judge. This title is derived from the version of the Book of Daniel (7:13), where "one like a son of man," as contrasted with beast figures, will represent the humiliated people of God, ascending to be vindicated by the divine Judge. This developed a Gospel tradition that resulted in the Revelation theme of the transcendent judge. It seems to be most prominent. as an Apocalyptic hope that could easily merge into messianic zealotry. Moreover, Jesus' teaching was critical of the established order. He encouraged the poor and oppressed, even though his words contained an implicit rejection of revolution. Violence was viewed as incompatible with the ethic of the Kingdom of God. Whatever contacts there may have been with the Zealot movement (as the narrative of feeding 5,000 people in the desert may hint), the Gospels assume the widest distance between Jesus' understanding of his role and the violent Zealots' revolution.

With this distancing from revolutionary idealism goes a somber estimate of human perfectibility. The gospel of repentance presupposes deep defilement among individuals and in society. The sufferings and pains of humanity under the power of evil spirits cry out for compassion and set up an urgent mission. All the acts of a disciple must express love and forgiveness, even to enemies, and also detachment from property and worldly wealth. To Jesus, the outcasts of society (prostitutes, the hated and oppressive tax agents, and others) were objects of special care, and censoriousness was no virtue. Though the state is regarded as a distant entity in certain respects, yet, it has the right to require taxes and civic obligations: Caesar has rights that must be respected and are not incompatible with the fulfillment of God's demands.

Some of the futurist sayings, if taken by themselves, raise the question whether Jesus intended to found a church? A negative answer emerges only if the authentic Jesus is assumed to have expected an immediate catastrophic intervention by God. There is no doubt that he gathered and intended to gather around him a community of followers. This community continued after his time, regarding itself as the specially called congregation of God's people, possessing as a covenant signs of the rites of baptism and the Eucharist (Lord's Supper) with which Jesus was particularly associated. Baptism, too was important, because of his personal example. Eucharist is because the Last Supper on the night before the crucifixion which was marked as a rite in an anticipation of the messianic feast of the coming age.

A closely related question is whether Jesus intended his gospel to be addressed to Jews only or if the Gentiles were also to be included. In the Gospels, Gentiles appear as isolated exceptions, and, the choice of 12 Apostles has an evident symbolic relation to the 12 tribes of Israel. The fact that the extension of Christian preaching to the Gentiles caused intense debate in the 40s of the 1st century CE is decisive proof that Jesus had given no unambiguous directive on the matter. Gospel sayings that make the Jews' refusal to recognize Jesus' authority as the ground for extending the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles must, therefore, have apparaently been added by the early community.

Mission of St. Paul to the Gentiles

Saul, or Paul (as he was later called), was a zealous Pharisee who persecuted the primitive church. Born at Tarsus (Asia Minor), he had come to Jerusalem as a student of the famous Rabbi Gamaliel. He had harried a Christian group called by Luke the "Hellenists," who were led by Stephen (the first Christian martyr). Paul at first regarded Jesus as a spiritual reformer sent to purge the corrupt worship of Jerusalem. While on a mission to  Damascus to persecute the followers of Jesus, it is said that Paul was suddenly converted to faith in Christ and, simultaneously, to a conviction that the Gospel must pass to the non-Jewish world under conditions that dispensed with exclusivity and distinctiveness to the Jewish ceremonies. The main problem with this very important revellatory vision was its only source: Paul.
  

Paul's Gift - Pauline Christianity -Liberation from Mosaic Law
 
Paul was,  more than anyone else, the one who saw clearly and correctly that the universal mission of the church was to all humanity, it was implicit in the coming of the Messiah, or Christ. It did mean a radical break with rabbinical conservatisman.  Unfortunately, Paul was also an obstreperous, obstinate, man who was disapproved by Christian Jews who were of conservative opinions. He remained throughout his career a controversial figure. He gained recognition for his conversions to the Gentile mission by the Christian community in Jerusalem. But his aggressive work was considered an affront to Jewish traditions. His program of being "all things to all men" led to bitter charges that he was an unprincipled trimmer which he may have been. But, owing to the preservation of some of his weighty letters, Paul is the only vivid figure of the apostolic age (1st century AD). Like his elder contemporary Philo of Alexandria, also a Hellenized Jew of the dispersion, Paul interpreted the Old Testament allegorically (symbolically) and affirmed the primacy of spirit over the letter in a manner that was in line with Jesus' freedom with regard to the Sabbath. The crucifixion of Jesus, Paul viewed as the supreme redemptive act and also as the means of expiation for the sin of mankind. Salvation is, in Paul's thought, therefore, not found by a conscientious moralism but rather is a gift of grace. This Pauline doctrine was anticipated by Philo. But Paul linked this doctrine with his theme that the Gospel represents liberation from the Mosaic Law. The latter thesis created difficulties at Jerusalem, where the Christian church was under the presidency of James, the brother of Jesus, and a circle of the intimate disciples of Jesus. James, martyred at Jerusalem in 62 CE, was the primary authority for the Christian Jews, especially those made anxious by Paul. There is a canonical letter ascribed to James that opposes the antinomian (anti-law) interpretations of the doctrine of justification by faith.

Peter - a Man of Faith

A middle position seems to have been taken by Peter. All the Gospels approved by the Roman church record a special commission of Jesus to Peter as the leader among the 12 Apostles. (However, this view ignores that Mary Magdalene was called the Apostle to the Apostles by Jesus). This view ignores Peter's,misogyny which stood in the way of women who would become leaders in the early church. In any event, Peter's biography can only be dimly constructed. It is said, by the Roman Catholic Church that  he died in Rome but there is no support for this legend in the historical record. Furthermore there is no place of burial for him there. The Roman Catholic tradition that the Vatican Church is Rome is based on a foundation built by Peter is a myth without merit in fact.

The Synoptic or Canonical Gospels suggest inspiration, but the Gospel according to John chooses incarnation instead. The tension between these two types of Christology (doctrines of Christ) first became acute in the debate between the schools of Antioch and Alexandria in the late 4th century. These debates were not resolved by the Council of Nicaea.

Women in the Early Church

Perhaps this statement would be more accurately titled - Women in ancient society.  This was because, be it Greek, Roman, or Jewish society, women had a domestic, not a public role. Subordination of the feminine was self-evidently important to the men. The ancient pagan rites high place for women was ignored. To Paul, however, Christian faith transcended barriers to make all free and equal (Galatians 3:28). Of all ancient writers Paul was the most powerful spokesman for equality. Nevertheless, Paul was often contradictory.  For example, just as he refused to harbor a runaway slave, so he also opposed any practice that would identify the church with social radicalism (a principal pagan charge against the early church). Paul did not avoid self-contradiction (1 Corinthians 11:5, 14:3435). It was with ease that he declared a contradictory public liturgical role for women. Unfortunately, this was decisive for subsequent Catholic tradition in the Eastern Rites and in the Roman Catholic West. Still, in the  early Greek churches (though not often in the Latin) women were ordained as deacons. During the 4th century by both in prayer and by the ilaying on of hands by women (who performed the same rite as male deacons,) provided a special responsibility at women's baptism. Widows and orphans were the neediest in antiquity, and the church provided them substantial relief. It also encouraged vows of virginity. By 400 CE, women from wealthy or politically powerful families acquired power as superiors of certain religious communities. It seemed natural to elect as abbess a woman whose family connections might bring benefactions.

The MeetingHouse, here, provides a hyperlink to the extensive exploration of the human problem of what is God.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit of God is one of the most elusive and difficult themes in Christian theology, because it refers to one of the three Persons in the Godhead but does not evoke concrete images the way "Father" or "Creator" and "Son" or "Redeemer."

Reference to the Holy Spirit includes a truly creative element in the life of the church. It works in an apparently contradictory sense: by virtue of its authority, the Holy Spirit establishes law and breaks law, it institutes order and breaks order, and it founds tradition and breaks tradition. It is the conservative as well as the revolutionary principle in church history. It guarantees the continuity of the church and yet it interrupts this continuity ever again through new creations. Both sides of this activity stand in a characteristic relationship of tension to one another. To many, the essence of the expression of the Holy Spirit is free spontaneity. The Spirit blows like the wind, "where it wills," but where it blows, it may establish a firm norm by virtue of its divine authority.

For more detailed discussion click here The Holy Spirit and the Church

Conflict Between Order and Charismatic Freedom

As the fundamentally uncontrollable principle of life in the church, the Holy Spirit was considerably upsetting to Christian congregations from the outset. Paul struggled to restrict the anarchist elements, which are connected with the appearance of free charismata (spiritual phenomena). To achieve a firm order in the church. Paul at times attempted to control and even repress charismatic activities, which he seemed to regard as irrational or pre-rational and thus potentially disruptive of fellowship. Among these were glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, a form of unrepressed speech. Paul preferred rational discourse in sermons (led by him.) . He also felt that spontaneity threatened the focus of worship. This tendency could lead to an emphasis on charisma over ecclesiastical offices with limiting effects on their  authority vis-à-vis the uncontrolled appearance of free charismatic figures.

This difficulty became evident in the Didache, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (early 2nd century). The authority of the Holy Spirit, in whose name the free charismatic figures speak, does not allow its instructions and prophecies to be criticized in terms of contents, its evaluation had to be made dependent upon purely ethical qualifications. This tension ended, in practical terms, with the exclusion of free charismatic figures from the leadership of the church. In a similar way, individual charismatic offices become institutionalized. A lower degree of consecration, a first stage for priestly ordination,still holds for the exorcist, the ritual figure who drives the devil from the possessed, or, those who are to be baptized. The teacher (didaskalos) also became institutionalized. In the Roman Church, only ordained priests are permitted to be church teachers except in emergencies, in contrast to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which until the 20th century did not require ecclesiastical ordination of a professor of theology.

In his work De Trinitate, Augustine, undertook to render the essence of the Trinity understandable in terms of the Trinitarian structure of the human person: the Holy Spirit appears as the Spirit of love, which joins Father and Son and draws people into this communion of love.

In Eastern Orthodox Church theological thought, however, the Holy Spirit and the Son both proceed from the Father. In the West, the divine Trinity is determined more by the idea of an inner Trinitarian life within God, thus, the notion was carried through that the Holy Spirit goes forth from the Father and from the Son. Despite many efforts of theorists a graphic conception of the person of the Holy Spirit was not developed in the consciousness of the church.

The Way of the Holy Spirit

For the Christian faith, the Holy Spirit is clearly recognizable in charismatic figures such as some of the saints in the early churches in whom the gifts of grace (charismata) of the Holy Spirit are expressed in different forms. The prophet, for instance, belongs to these charismatic types. The history of the church has known a continuous series of prophetic types. Prophetic women are especially numerous. In church history they begin with Anna (in Luke 2:36) and the four prophetic daughters of the apostle Philip. Others are: Hildegard von Bingen of Germany, St. Bridget of Sweden, Joan of Arc, and the prophetic women of the Reformation period. In the modern world numbers of pioneers in the "holiness" and Pentecostal traditions were women, and women's gifts of prophecy have sometimes been cherished among Pentecostals while they were overlooked or disdained by much of the rest of Christianity.

A further type of charismatic person is the healer, who functioned in the early church as an exorcist but who also emerged as a charismatic type of healing personalities of more recent church history (e.g., Vincent de Paul in the 17th century). Equally significant is the curer-of-souls type, who exercises the gift of "distinguishing between spirits" in daily association with people. This gift is found especially emphasized among many of the great saints of all times. The charismatic wandering mendicant type, who leads a roving life in imitation of Jesus Christ, who "has nowhere to lay his head," was molded through the ideal of "ascetic homelessness."  The latter drove Scots-Irish monks, for example, not only through all of Europe but also to the remotest islands of the northern seas and as far as Iceland and Newfoundland. This ideal is still alive today in the Eastern Orthodox Church in the form of the strannik ("wanderer"). The "holy fool" type conceals a radical Christianity under the mask of foolishness. They hold the truth of the gospel, in the disguise of folly, "acting-out" before the eyes of highly placed personalities such as the worldly and the princes of the church who do not contenance unmasked truth. This type, which frequently appeared in the Byzantine Church, has only occasionally been represented in Western Christianity.

The charismatic teacher still appears. Filled with the spirit of intelligence or knowledge of the Holy Spirit, he carries out his teaching office, which does not necessarily need to be attached to an academic position. Many Free-Church and ecclesiastical reform movements owe their genesis to such spirit-filled teachers, who are often decried as anomalous. Deacons likewise may originally be the holder of a charismatic office of selfless service. Some of the energies that once went into it are now found in social service outside the church. Many of the agents of such service were originally or still may be inspired by Christian norms and examples in the care of the sick and the socially outcast or overlooked. Important women have appeared as bearers of this charisma (e.g., the English nurse Florence Nightingale and the Salvation Army leader Catherine Booth and Sister Mother Teresa). The Holy Spirit that "blows where it will", has often been recognized as the impulse behind an enlargement of roles for women in the church. However limited, they enlarged upon those roles that Christians inherited from Judaism. Partitions had screened women in a special left-hand section of the synagogue. While the pace of innovation was irregular, in the ecstatic worship services of the Christian congregations, women tended to participate in speaking in tongues, hymns, prayer calls, or even prophecies. Evidently, this innovation was held admissible on the basis of the authority of the Holy Spirit: "Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19). But, the arrogant Paul, acting on any number of personal and social motivations used his power to revert to the synagogal principle. He inhibited the speaking role of women: "the women should keep silence in the churches." (1 Corinthians 14:34). There seems to be no religious basis for this unilateral exercise of power on his part.

Over the centuries because expressions of free charisma were increasingly suppressed in the institutional churches, the emergence of Pentecostal movements outside the institutional churches arose. This movement led to the founding of various Pentecostal Free churches at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th,. Today, it is represented through numerous independent Pentecostal groups, such as the Church of God, and the Assemblies of God. At first scorned by the established churches, and devalued as "demonic," the Pentecostal movement has grown to a world movement with strong missionary activity not only in Africa and South America but also in the European countries. In the United States, a strong influence of the Pentecostal movement,has returned high esteem to the proto-Christian charismata - the speaking in tongues, healing, the handling of poisonous serpents, and exorcism. The vigor of its growth has had its impact on the older Protestant Lutheran, and Anglican churches as well, as the Roman Catholic. This has occurred especially in liturgy and church music. It has also affected preaching style and a return to faith healing. One should not discount the effect of the cinema and other new media on the spread of these more colorful and dramatic ways of evoking the spirit of the Word.

Human Redemption

Sin and the need for redemption likewise renders understandable the specifically Christian understanding of human redemption, namely, the view of Jesus Christ as the historical figure of the Redeemer. It is a specifically Christian view of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. (Although there are some adoration aspects to a few Buddhist sects.)

Sophisticated members of Asian high religions have found it difficult to deduce the fundamental Christian idea of the incarnation. Generally, the religious person of the East is inclined to understand the Christian idea of incarnation as an analogy to the Hindu concept of the avatar (avatar -best rendered as incarnation). The starting point of the avatar is that the divine descends to Earth, ever and again, and is constantly clothed anew in a human figure. In that kind of incarnation the heavenly truth is revealed in every era and to all people in a manner comprehensible to them. Thus, it was natural for them to try to understand the figure of Jesus Christ, also, as such an avatara, in effect, as a form of the descent of the divine to mankind. In the realm of Hinduism ever-new attempts are found to comprehend Christology.  In this sense. it is an immodest mental exercise in Christian exceptionalism to say they are wrong. After all the entire concept may be what Jesus intended, while he walked with God, and preached here on Earth. Jesus never said that no one before him or after him would or could "walk with God" by living a life that followed his teachings.

Still, the Christian Churches understanding of the incarnation is based upon a fundamentally different idea, which is enclosed in the simple saying of the Gospel According to John: "The Word became flesh" (chapter 1, verse 14). Whereas, the avatara concept assumes that the divine appears in the cyclic lapse of time periods, continually occurring, now in this, now in that, earthly veil, the incarnation of the divine Logos in Jesus Christ is, according to the Christian view, a definitively unique happening based, not on fact, but faith. One might say that the Christian church's view of incarnation has an extremely material, as in "to materialize" attribute.

In Christianity, it is not a transcendent, divine being that takes on the appearance of an earthly corporeality, to be manifested through this semblance of a body. Instead it was (is) God himself appearing as human, as a member of a definite people, a definite family, at a certain time who "suffered under Pontius Pilate", who, then, enters into the corporeality, carnality, and materiality of the history of mankind.

Incarnation so constituted did not have the character of veiling God in a human form, which would enable the divine being to reveal a new teaching with human words. Therefore, to Christian believers, this incarnation is not the special instance of a cyclic descent of God always occurring afresh in constantly new veils. Instead, to Christians there was a unique intervention of God in the history of the human world. Sad to say, Christians have used the sword to force this belief on others (just as Islam has done with the spread of the Koran which God inspired through the Prophet Muhammad). The idea is that God took the figure of an historical person into the divine being, suffered through the historical conditions of being, and overcame it in that one person, Jesus Christ. He overcame the root of human corruption,the misuse of freedom. God thereby established the dawn of a transformed, renewed, exalted form of human being and opened a realm in which love of God and of thy neighbor can be tranquilly fulfilled.

Islam makes a similar claim for Muhammad, relegating Jesus to a minor role as an important prophet. Obviously, these two religions have failed to work out the paradox of both asserting they are unique and primary. The world suffers as we await their reconciliation and adjustment. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

The Problem of Suffering

Suffering has a decisive place within Christian anthropology. Christianity's opponents have frequently reproached it with the charge that they are glorifying suffering instead of overcoming it. This reproof seems to many other humans to be justified. There have in fact, been eras in the history of Christian piety in which suffering underwent a frankly ecstatic glorification.

The starting point for the Christian understanding of suffering is the self-understanding of Jesus. He is, himself, portrayed by the inconsistent contradictory gospels. Though it appears clear, that Jesus did not succumb to the temptation to power and self-exaltation - which was expected if He was to fulfill  the Jewish promise of the coming of the Messiah as Son of man. The Gospel According to Matthew described the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness as a temptation to worldly power. Jesus himself deeply disappointed his disciples' notions because they aimed at power and exaltation. But, he taught them, in accordance with Isaiah, chapter 53: "The Son of man will suffer many things."

In Jesus' announcements of suffering, the Christian understanding of suffering is brought clearly to expression: suffering is not the final aim and end in itself, it is a realization of human destiny. However, it is the gateway to resurrection, to rebirth, to new creation. This idea receives its clarification from the Christian understanding of Original Sin. Sin is the misuse of human freedom. It has led humans into total opposition against God, who in return delivers them over to death. Turning to God, can, therefore take place only when the results of this rebellion by humans are overcome in all levels of being human, all the way to physical incorporeality.

Obviously, this concept is subject to abuse by church leaders who may (and some do) use it to control their congregation through threats of damnation for their "sins". Sad to relate many of these so-called sinners are, in fact,  ethical, humble good people who have led respectable lives, loving God and their neighbors. The church leader, nonetheless, lashes them with their guilty conscience brought on by the Augustinian original sin. It is an unhealthy environment.

In the early church, the sign of the cross was not considered a glorification of suffering, but, instead, a "sign of victory" over the sin. An ancient church hymn of the cross spoke of the "cross of the beauty of the Kingdom of God."

It was no accident that Emperor Constantine fastened to the standards of his imperial legions, the cross, which was already considered the victory sign for the community of Christians hitherto persecuted by the Roman Empire. In a masterful stoke of military propaganda he used the cross as a token of a posible military triumph over the legions of his pagan foes because they were assembled under the sign of the old gods. His vision of the golden crossw won the day.

Unlike Buddhism' concept, the Christian understanding of suffering does not appear as suffering simply under the general conditions of human existence in this world. It is, instead, coupled with the specifically Christian idea of the imitation of Christ. Individual Christians are called to become imitators of Christ. Incorporation into the body of Christ is granted to those who subsequently are ready to carry out, within themselves, Christ's destiny of suffering, death, and resurrection. The early church's characterization of the Christian was that of the "bearer of Christ." Suffering was an unalterable principle in their unique drama of freedom which was identical with the drama of redemption.

The Resurrection of the Body

This is the arterial reality, its significance lies in the Christian understanding of the resurrection. To Christians of faith there is a dualistic belief in how to see what it is to be a human who believes as they do. When seen in this way, the essential difference between the spiritual and the material sides of human existence will lead to the idea of immortality of the Christian soul. According to this view, imperishableness belongs to the spiritual. The Christian hope, however, does not merely aim at the immortality of the soul but also at the resurrection of the body. Corporeality is not a quality that is foreign to the spiritual. Everything spiritual presses toward corporealization, the spirit's eternal figure is a corporeal figure. This is the hope expressed by Vladimir Solovyov:

"What help would the highest and greatest moral victory be for man, if the enemy, "death," which lurks in the ultimate depth of man's physical, somatic, material sphere, were not overcome?"

It was this central issue,about belief, that caused schisms in the first two hundred years of the church. Many wanted to emphasize the teachings of Jesus and the spirit of Jesus which did not propose that he would be on Earth after his corporeal death. The more sophisticated among the Gnostics believed this way. Theirs was the idea that the resurrection of the body as set forth in the Nicene Creed could be achieved - the victory would prevail. The goal of redemption is not separation of the spirit from the body, it is rather the new human in the entirety of body, soul, and mind. It is appropriate to say that Christianity had contended for a "holistic" view of the human. The Christian image of the human being has an essentially corporeal aspect that is based in the idea of the incarnation and finds its most palpable expression in the idea of the resurrection.

Those followers of the teachings of Jesus who are spiritual but not religious have split away from the church largely because of this fundamental teaching based on belief but not fact. The MeetingHouse emphasizes that this is not to denigrate those who have faith in resurrection. Their beliefs have the admirable merit that comes from faith and a life well lived. It serves them well in their lives. Death alone will provide the answer to this profound question. he spiritual but not religious find it awe-inspiring that the evangelical Christians can overcome the evidence and use their minds to soar to a lovely faith. They do believe the greatest story ever told. To them, apparently," Jesus saves and Jesus loves them" is not an intellectual abstraction. They love God through Jesus. T

he schismatic tragedy is that they also believe it is blasphemous if others do not believe exactly as they do. They have no basis in fact for making such an unfounded assertion. The fault lies with their church leaders, and the leaders fawning sycophants, who promote the idea that evangelical Christians have an exclusive franchise on the golden arches to the gates of Heaven. Since it is known that God loves all who serve him, the claim is ludicrous in the face of all the great world religions' pathways to the one God. The intolerance of such Christians is a danger in the modern world.

What is The "Reborn Human"?

"Rebirth" is usually identified with a definite, temporally datable form of "conversion." The revivalist type of Christianity (e.g., evangelical Christians) has contributed to certain over-simplifying or "dumbing down" of this transcendental concept.

In the long history of Christian piety, a line of prominent and humble personalities have experienced their rebirth in the form of a moment on a fixed date and also locally ascertainable conversion event.

The idea that there is only a single type of experience is factually not justified. There are numerous other forms of completion of that mysterious event characterized with the expression rebirth that are acceptable to many others. The mode of experience of rebirth itself is as manifold as the individuality of the person concerned, his/her special intellectual or emotional endowment, and his special history. The different forms of rebirth experienced are distinguished not only according to whether the event sets in suddenly- with overwhelming surprise! In an epiphany, as when one is "born again" or "sees the light," or, alterrnatively,  as the result of a slow process, a "growing," a "maturing," and an "evolution." Another distinguishing characteristic is that the psychic capability that is predominant, at the time, thereby takes charge of the human will and intellect (using what is in vogue) to convince the personality they are having a soulful religious experience.

The volunteer's type of rebirth is expressed in a new alignment of the will, in the liberation of new capabilities and powers that were hitherto undeveloped in the person concerned Accordinly, this is the religious experience described by the pragmatic philosopoher William James:

The intellectual type, uses his ratiocination to lead to an activation of the capabilities for understanding the illuminating experience of the breakthrough of a "vision."

Still, others find that it leads to the discovery of an unexpected beauty in the order of nature. - or to the discovery of the mysterious meaning of history.

Some are blessed with a new vision of the moral life and its orders, to a selfless realization of love of neighbor.

To any serious student of the worlds' religions, being born again is simply another way of labeling the "religious experience" that comes to many through, prayer, meditation, self-hypnosis, or possibly some other profoundly affective inspiring experience with God. The possibility of being "born-again" is available to all who can overcome skepticism and achieve the state of mind that is an exalted "oneness" with God. Recently, at Johns Hopkins University it was discovered that sincerely religious people can experience a mind-changing religious conversion by guided use of hallucinogenic drugs (psilocybin). It remains to be seen if a skeptical person who wants to believe could the epiphany through the use of psylocibin as an aid to a breakthrough in belief.

In the experience of Christian rebirth, the hitherto existing old condition of humanity is not simply eliminated so far as the given personality structure is concerned, that is, the structure dependent upon heredity, education, and earlier life experiences is overwhelmed , instead, each person affected perceives his life as filled with the spirit of Jesus the Christ. He or she is "in Christ" at any given time as "newness of life." The redeemed is cleansed of sins, ready to live each day in accordance with the teachings of Jesus, faithful to the Creed that a life well lived will prevail over death for a new life everlasting.

Joy in Human Existence is Available

Friedrich Nietzsche summarized his critique of the Christians of his time in the words of Zarathushtra (Zoroaster): "They would have to sing better songs to me (for me) to believe in their Redeemer: his disciples would have to look more redeemed!" His critique is to the point.

In the New Testament early testimonials of joy appear as the characteristic mark of distinction of the Christian. It is a spontaneous result of being filled with the Holy Spirit and is among the main fruits of the Holy Spirit. Joy was the basic mood of those congregational gatherings and was often expressed in an exuberant jubilation. It seems it has its origin in the recognition that the dominion of evil was already broken through the power of Christ. Death, devil, and demons no longer possess any claim over believers. The forces of forgiveness, reconciliation, resurrection, and transfiguration are already effective in humankind.

This principle of the joy of the Christian is most strongly alive in the liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The roots of a specifically Christian sense of humor also lie within this joy. Its peculiarity consists of the fact that in the midst of the conflicts of life, the Christian is capable of regarding all sufferings and afflictions from the perspective of overcoming them in the future, or, from the perspective of victory over them already achieved in Christ. In Christian humor, freedom and joy are combined. The Christian does not let himself be confused and tempted through the cross and the suffering exemplified, but, instead he or she already perceives in the cross and in that suffering a foretaste of the triumph and joy of salvation.

The sardonic humor of the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, is too dialectical and too bitter to exhaust the entire fullness of Christian joy. If its authenticity is open to the skeptical mind they will find it in the "hallelujah" of black spirituals and gospel singing. The charismatic believer in the New Testament, is the Christian depicted as the person who is filled with the powers of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit stands in a direct relationship with the understanding of the human as the image of God. For the believing Christian of the original period of the church, the Holy Spirit was the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is already now made manifest in his body. Throughout the centuries the Holy Spirit has remained a ferment of church history,all great reformations and numerous foundlings of new churches and sects usual stand under the banner of new charismatic breakthroughs.

The Early Christian Church Evolved

The early Christians view of the church was influenced by the concept of that they were the elected people of God of the End Time. At first this was coupled with the expectation of the coming ,very soon, of the Messiah in Judaism. The Greek secular word ekklesia, the term used for the church, means an assembly of people coming together for a meeting. Jesus himself created no firm organization for his community, the expectation of the immediate imminence of the Kingdom of God provided no occasion for this sort of work. In fact, Jesus preached a sort of spontaneous church that urged that here and there meetings in a home would gather where he would be present, as He said:

Matthew 18:20: -"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Nevertheless, the selection of Apostles and the special position of individual Apostles within this circle pointed to the likelihood of such beginnings. But, the End Time failed to occur for his community over time. After the community of disciples had its first meetings after his death, it was constituted, probably by Peter, who started anew because of the impressions made by the appearances of the Resurrected One coupled with Peter's hostile rejections of Mary Magdalene's presentation of Jesus' instructions through her. In spite of Andrew and Levi's protests Peter was opposed to seeing the "Apostle to the Apostles" Mary Magdalene as one of the apostles. As a male, he did not want it. There were a succession of the appearances, some disciples used them to effect certain gradation within the community. Thomas and Mary were, apparently, encouraged to leave and go their own way. Details on Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of May can be found elsewhere here in.

In Peter and Paul's form of Christianity, the concept-  that they were the elected ones -  received a new meaning through its relationship to the person of Jesus Christ as the messianic inaugurator of the Kingdom of God (better said The Reign of God):

1. with Christ, the elected community of the End Time has appeared,
2. the church is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which flows through the life of the church (Acts 2:33),
3. the community of the End Time consists of those who believe in Jesus Christ, both Jews and pagans, the idea of the elected covenanted people (i.e., the Jews) is transferred to the "new Israel",
4. the church forms the body of its Lord, and
5. the church consists of "living stones," from which its house is "built" (1 Peter 2:5).

To the spiritual but not religious of today, given his poor reputation for veracity (e.g. Jesus said, you (Peter) will deny me as the cock will crow three times in the AM!) Peter's self-designation seems to be male-chauvinism, self-promotion of one who believed as much in himself as he believed in the Master-Jesus. The evidence found, outside of the New Testament, for Peter's primary importance to the founding of the Roman Catholic Church is very weak or non-existent. Peter is not buried in Rome. There is virtually no evidence that he preached in Rome or was martyred in or around that area. It is unmistakable, that Peter was a disciple, an apostle of Jesus Christ to many before his death. The New Testament contains the First and Second Epistles of Peter. However, scholars have challenged the attribution of these letters to one and the same Peter. Yet, there is no doubt that Peter, the disciple of Christ, did evangelize, heal, and lead in prayer many converts to his early church. Clearly, he demanded that women be subordinated to men. Though he knew Jesus did not follow these male chauvinist traditions it is certain that he felt strongly they were subordinated by God's law as in traditional Judaism. Perhaps, he was a "dyed in the wool" Jew who never fully accepted Jesus messages in spite of his love for the messiah.

[Since there is clear evidence that Peter's credibility is open to question, we shall turn to the Gospel of Mary Magdalene to look for the source of the enmity of the Roman Catholic Church toward women. [Perhaps, the source of this monstrous lie was Peter who misled would-be Christians on this extremely important issue from the start. Perhaps, Jesus clearly intended that women were to be equals with men in the churches of Christianity.]

The Gospel According to Marry Magdalene

According to the Gospel of John 19:25 three figures stood by Jesus in his last moments on the cross, Mother Mary, John the Apostle, and Mary Magdalene (Mary M). The other disciplines, including Peter, had fled. Having seen where Jesus was buried Mary M. went with two other women in the morning to anoint the corpse. Finding the tomb empty Mary M. ran to the disciples. Peter returned with her but, astonished, he left. It was Mary M. to whom Christ first appeared according to John 20:17. Jesus then instructed Mary M. to tell the Apostles that he was ascending to God. At this point she becomes the "apostle to the apostles". Peter openly demonstrated his jealousy of and was admonished by other disciplines Levi and Andrew. They reminded Peter, especially, and the others, that Jesus loved her the more. He had been seen kissing her on the mouth. Clearly, the Roman Catholic tradition of apostolic succession from Peter to Mother Mary, etc, is wrong. Intentionally wrong. It was Mary Magdalene who had been chosen by Jesus to be first. But the well known tradition of succession related to the other work of the new church, telling the good news, in effect, proselytizing to convince and convert others to the apostolic understanding prevailed.

What is it Mary Magdalene Wanted to Teach?

What is it Mary Magdalene wanted to teach? The idea of proselytizing did not resonate with her because she had had a direct (direct knowing- a gnosis) experience of union with the divine. Mary's path emphasized wisdom - the mystical discovery of the divinity of the senses. Her path is inner preparation, introspection and inner transformation. Her appearances in the New Testament with special oils used to anoint Jesus Christ place her in the ancient traditions of priests and priestesses of Isis, whose unguents were used to achieve the transition over the threshold of death while retaining consciousness. Jesus had accepted and encouraged this anointing saying, ". . . helps prepare me for my burial". How can it be that the Roman Catholic Church has pushed into a dark corner the female minister of the rites of anointing Jesus?

There is some hint in the legends and stories about Mary Magdalene of what she represents to us today. Mary was one who had been cleansed of sin by Jesus (casting out the seven demons). She is the first witness who understands Christ's resurrection. Mary Magdalene was the first human being who was there "open and available" to true "inner knowing" who could see in a deep and clear way the unique spiritual connection between earthly death and the Divine.

The Gospel of Mary from the Berlin Papyrus ,a manuscript found in Cairo, Egypt circa 1895 CE, is likely to have been copied from a manuscript written during the second century CE. Pages are missing. Yet, clearly it is one of the primitive texts of Christianity, the fifth gospel one might say. Since , say, eighteen pages remain of this sacred text, it would be wrong and impossible to summarize them in the space available. The MeetingHouse urges you to see: the book: Lelou, Jean Yves, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Inner Traditions, Rochester Vermont, (translated by Joseph Rowe, 2002,) for a more complete understanding. With apologies, we will excerpt certain passages that seem necessary to this exposition:

From The Gospel of Mary Magdalene page 7 (pages 1-6 are missing):

What is matter? Will it last forever?

The Teacher answered: "All that is born, all that is created all the elements of nature are interwoven and united together. . . All shall decompose…matter returns to its origin as matter. Those who have ears let them hear."

Peter had said to him, ". . . tell us: what is the sin of the world?"

The Teacher answered, there is no sin. It is you who make sin exist, when you act according to the habits of your corrupted nature that is where sin lies. This is why the Good has come into your midst. . . .

[From the passages of page 8] Be in harmony . . .

After saying this, the Blessed One said, "Peace be with you may my Peace arise and be fulfilled within you. Etc.

[From passages of page 9] Other than that which I have witnessed do not add more laws to the Torah lest you become bound by them. . . .

The disciples were in sorrow . . . how are we to go among unbelievers to announce the gospel? ….

Mary arose, embraced them all, and began to speak to her brothers. . "Do not remain in sorrow and doubt, for his Grace will guide you and comfort you. . . .He is calling upon us to become fully human . . . it was thus Mary turned their hearts toward the good.

[Pages 11-14 are missing]

[From the passages of page 15, 16,] - (Note: - We, of the MeetingHouse have decided that we should leave this page to those more skilled in the mystical rites of the astral planes. It appears that Mary was in trance and passing on Jesus' instructions to the disciplines on esoteric knowledge that they should have for their souls to do the Good Work. She was being a conduit for Jesus to free them from their ignorance with a message from Jesus through her to them.)

[From page 17, 18, and 19, the End] Mary having completed the message, received in trance, she said, "I go now into Silence." (It was in Silence that the Teacher had spoken to her)

Then Andrew began to speak and said to his brothers: "Tell me what you think of these things she has been telling us? . . . As for me I do not believe that the Teacher would speak like this. These ideas are too different from those we have known." And Peter added: How is it possible that the Teacher talked in this manner with a woman about secrets of which we ourselves were ignorant? Must we change our customs, and listen to this woman? Did he really choose her, and prefer her to us? "

Then Mary wept, answering him, "My brother Peter, what can you be thinking? Do you believe that this is just my own imagination, that I invented this vision? Or do you believe I would lie about our Teacher?"

At this Levi spoke up, "Peter you have always been hot-tempered, and now we see you repudiating a woman, just as our adversaries do. Yet ,if the Teacher held her worth who are you to reject her? Surely the Teacher knew her very well, for he loved her more than us. Therefore, let us atone, and become fully human so that the teacher can take root in us. Let us grow as he demanded of us, and walk forth to spread the gospel, without trying to lay down any rules and laws other than those he witnessed. "

When Levi had said these words, they all went forth to spread the gospel The Gospel According to Mary.

Mary Magdalene's fate is probably lost to history. Myth and legend has it they she may have been forced out of Israel (perhaps by Peter or Mother Mary) and that she traveled to a safer place. Some say that after going to Ephesus she left by sea to settle in southern France, near the Provence, where she evangelized from a home in some famous caves, there. Others say she died and was buried near modern Seljuk in Turkey. A Mary Magdalene cult flourished in the West because of its mystical Gnostic form of Christianity. There is no doubt that the Roman Catholic Church continued to suppress knowledge of Mary Magdalene and about her. Some urge that the slaughter of the Cathars in southern France was in part motivated by the Pope's aim to kill off Mary Magdalene's supporters who even claimed that the marriage at Cana found in the New Testament was the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, the purified woman. The truth will be very hard to find. Still the suppression of women and their power is coming to an end in these days, it is hoped.

The disciples were to witness to others and to live by the Good News. This was a permanent challenge not be too met by mere faith and proselytizing to others.

According to Mary, Jesus Instructed Us to Seek the Spiritual Life

We who are spiritual but not religious ask how long people can use the word happiness for the vacuous trances of consumer bliss and petty power when they should be trying for the achievement of their higher spiritual human potential.

Among Christian writings, the Gospel of Mary is especially cogent as a reminder of the vastness of the human potential and the meaning, beauty, and demands of a proper human enterprise. Mary Magdalene affirmed that a human being can be fulfilled only by overcoming herself or himself to achieve a spiritual existence. The Gospel of Mary is the missing piece needed to complete the Good News. Epochal change by and among humans is needed by the Earth, now, in this time of great human error- the global warming. What the Teacher speaks of is not a dream or an ideal. It is living in the intensity of a human life that radiates to the world through both intelligence and love. The creative imagination must work within each of us if we are to save the Earth from this incredible rise in population that is overwhelming its capacity to carry us while living on the planet. The mystical way of the Gospel of Mary may be the only way that will work.

There is no excusing the Roman Catholic Church for suppressing the missing Gospels of: Mary, Phillip, Thomas, and the other Apocrypha which contained many truths about the real intent of Jesus. Berating those who live today for the sins of their fathers is useless. We will look to a future time when the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals elects a devout woman to the holy office of the Pope. With a woman as the Pope, perhaps the wounds and scars of desecration and mendacity can be healed over time. We will return our discussion to the early development of the Christian Church as built by males.

There is nothing in the factual record to show that Jesus or Mohammad wanted priesthood and/or a church structure , though Jesus certainly wanted the believers to meet and eat and join in celebrating the word of God.

What Kind of Religion did Jesus Oppose?

Any religion that is proud of its virtue, like the boastful Pharisees. Any that is self-righteous, quick to judge and condemn, ready to impose burdens rather than share or lift them. Any that exalts its own officers, proud of its trappings, building expensive monuments as much to itself as to God. Any that neglects the poor and cultivates the rich, any that scorns outcasts and flatters the rulers of this world.

If that sounds like just about every form of religion we know, then we see with clarity how far away from religions Jesus stood.

(Taken from the recommended reading, What Jesus Meant, by Garry Wills, end note 26, p. 77)

Nonetheless, men are men, as these disciples dispersed, there was still a growing unity of the new church. It was dispersed geographically, was understood from the viewpoint of the Diaspora (James 1:1,the scattered churches of the new Israel represented "the twelve tribes" in the Dispersion). The idea of an early physical location for the church has little support. The Didache, or the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (late 1st century), viewed the church in terms of the bread of the Eucharist, whose wheat grains "are gathered from the mountains." The idea extant, instead, was of the preexistence of the divine Logos brought into existence. The view was that the world was created for the sake of the church. The earthly churches were thus merely the representatives of the heavenly church and no more.

Exclusion of women was probably brought into the dogma of the church by Peter and those who agreed with his view of women. They were to be the founders of the so called "Christian priesthood" along with the revival of holiness codes and celibacy. (Remember how Jesus, Mary and Levi had warned Peter not to make more rules?) We find that it was the Church blessing consecrated altars and consecrating and ordaining men with "consecrating fingers", and exclusion of the laity, especially women from altars.  The secret conclaves of bishops, male decision-making resulting from priestly controls of the collections of money from the believers. The priests returned women to their "unclean" status. Even the altar cloths had to be carried out to the nuns who washed them. For these subordinated groups the new Temple had been re-cleansed in an unkind manner against the wishes of God. Jesus had cleaned the Temple of the priesthoods ways in vain. As Zoroaster had warned it would be, and still is, difficult to separate the truthful from the liars. Child molesters of young men and women who use their "consecrated fingers" for their evil ends are still in the midst of us. Some wear the garb of priestly men and women.

Early Christian Authorities Promoted Intolerance and Active Hostility Toward Dissenters

From its beginning the churches of Paul and Peter tended toward intolerance that was rooted in its religious self-conscious exceptionalism. Though it is clear that Philip, Mary Magdalene, Thomas, and others, disagreed with Peter and his ilk on very important interpretations of Jesus teachings, nevertheless, the Christianity we know today understands itself as the repository of the revelation of the divine truth that became human in Jesus Christ himself. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). To be a Christian is to "follow the truth" (3 John), the Christian proclamation is "the way of truth" (2 Peter 2:2).

Those who do not acknowledge their truth are enemies "of the cross of Christ" (Philippians 3:18) who have "exchanged the truth about God for a lie" (Romans 1:25) and made themselves the advocates and confederates of the "adversary, the devil," who "prowls around like a roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8). Thus, one cannot make a deal with the devil and his party,and in this lies the basis for some of the intolerance in Christianity. This form of Christianity is dangerous to itself and to others. Nevertheless, sthere are some who are spiritual who are Christians of a different kind. There are among the spiritual but not religious millions who know Jesus as the master teacher who brought love of God and love of thy neighbor as a way to peace and non-violence.  But, we can not argue with long history. Peter and Paul, and their followers, fought the battle like Christian soldiers going as to war to make their version of the truth official. Therefore, when we use he word Christianity we do not mean the teachings of Jesus, instead, it means the Christian church and its dogma and liturgy. It is for that reason we say that Jesus was not a Christian.   

Christianity consistently practiced an intolerant attitude in its approach to Judaism and paganism as well as heresy in its own ranks. By practicing their intolerance borne of self-righteousness vis-à-vis the Roman emperor cult, it thereby forced the Roman state, for its part, to become intolerant. Rome had been tolerant of diverse Gods and worldviews. By its customs and traditions it was not adapted to the treatment of the Christian religion that negated all its multifarious religious foundations, as Christians rose to dominance the Roman tolerance was seen as an inadequacy so that later Chrtianity became dominant and intoleerant which influenced the breakdown and decline of paganism.

Early Christians Destroyed Pagan Temples and Their Order of Life

Early Christianity aimed at the elimination of paganism,the destruction of its institutions, temples, tradition, and the order of life based upon it. After Christianity's victory over Greco-Roman religions, it left only the ruins of paganism. Often the Christian missions of later centuries used the ruins at Pagan sites as the place for the foundation of their new church building. Christians constantly aimed at the destruction of indigenous religions, everywhere, including their cultic places and traditions (e.g., as in their missions to the Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Slavs, American Indians, and others. ). This objective was not realized in mission areas in which Christian political powers did not succeed in conquests,e.g., China and Japan, but in Indian, Goa, for example, the temples and customs of all indigenous religions were eliminated by the Portuguese conquerors.

The Coming of Islam Brought On the Battle of the Titans of Intolerance

The Christian attitude of intolerance was reinforced and became defensive when Islam confronted Christianity from the 7th century onward with a mirror of intolerance that was equally violent and hostile.

Islam understood itself as the conclusion and fulfillment of the Old and New Testament revelation through God's inspiration of Muhammad, the one and only true prophet. Though it was, and is, an Ibrahamic religion, Jesus was to them a minor prophet of good words and works who led to God's words through Muhammad. The result was a dangerous confrontation that has yet to see the final resolution of their age-old dispute.

This was because according to the Christian view of Islam, Christian church leaders saw Islam as the religion of the "false prophets," or, as the religion of the Antichrist. The aggression of Christianity, against Islam on the Iberian Peninsula, in Palestine, and in the entire eastern Mediterranean area during the Crusades,was carried out under this fundamentally hostile attitude of intolerance. Intolerance of indigenous religions is also manifested in Roman Catholic missions in the New World. These missions transferred the methods of the struggle against Islam to the treatment of the Native Americans throughout the Western Hemisphere, destroying their cults and cultic places. Among Protestants, the Reformation displayed the same kind of intolerance and was largely equated with the struggle against the Turks. In 2005 CE the newly invested Pope, Benedict, announced his opposition to Turkey's membership in the European Union because they are a Muslim nation. The confrontation of these two different world views is dangerous to themselves as well as to others. Christians should ponder upon the willingness to use force to carryout their mission. They already have the black-mark of thousands of wrongful deaths due to the militant Christian soldiers who marched as to war in the Crusades.

From the origin of the Catholic Church forward, for many centuries, the idea of tolerance was not dominant but prevalent. The virtue of Tolerance first arose during a series of historical catastrophes that forced some Christians into self-reflection. For example, the devastating slaughter, at the direction of the Pope, in military actions of Roman Catholic troops against the heretical Cathari, Albigenses, and Waldenses during the Middle Ages were woefully discouraging to those who believed in love and compassion. Intolerance won out. The psychological effect of the permanent inquisitional terror, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, the fratricidal struggle among the churches that arose during the Reformation, and the battles of the Protestant territorial churches against the sectarian and Free Church groups in their midst continued the powerful if not dominating current of the river of intolerance against universal love. Still, As early as 1401-64 CE, Nicholas of Cusa, after the conquest of Constantinople, took the occasion to demand, for the first time, the mutual toleration of Christianity and Islam on the presupposition that others wanted religious peace. He failed.

When the Reformation churches asserted the exclusive claim of possessing Christian truth, they tried to carry it out with the help of the political and military power at their disposal. In the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Christian intolerance developed into an internal fratricidal struggle in which each side sought to annihilate the other, partyl in the name of truth. Only the fact that such attempts did not succeed led to new reflections upon the relative justification of one's own exclusive claim to absolute righteousness.

Speaking Up for Tolerance by Baptists and Spiritualists

Among those who first spoke up consistently for tolerance were the Baptists and Spiritualists of the Reformation period. Their most important contribution consisted in that they stood up for their constantly reiterated demand for tolerance not only through their preaching but also through their courageous suffering. Tolerance contributed especially to the recognition of the evident contradiction between the theological self-conception of Christianity as a religion of love of God-and-neighbor against the inhumanity practiced by the churches in the persecution of dissenters. Recognition of this contradiction even provoked criticism of the Christian truths of faith among themselves as monuments to hypocrisy.

The Roman Catholic Church, in the past, has consistently opposed the development of religious toleration. Its claim to absolute power within a state is still practiced in the 20th century in some Catholic countries, such as Spain and Colombia, and, in their handling of church/state relationships toward Protestant minorities. Since Pope John XXIII and the second Vatican Council (1962 to 65), however, a more tolerant attitude of the Roman Catholic Church has been demanded because of the ecumenical spirit of Christendom in the latter part of the 20th century. The record of his personal character causes one to to be alerted by restrictions on the Christian faith by the new Pope Benedict. His edicts will bear close watching because as a cardinal he gave little support to ecumenism.

This Pope Benedict seems to think that the Mass of the Eucharist is not a meal but a sacrifice to be made by a priest. Pope Benedict is returning to that religion Jesus renounced, with all the paraphernalia of male priesthood along with separation from the laity. He urges consecration of place and things, distancing from unclean life, and from those not privileged by consecration. Organized religion is still trying to kill Jesus. Way. The differences of the traditional creeds and adherence to their dogmas is still clearly noticeable in spite of the ecumenical movement toward tolerance of the 20th century.

In the 20th century, church discipline, in the original spiritual sense of voluntary self-control, is practiced only in the smaller communities of the evangelical Christians. Therein, the ideal of holiness of the community is still maintained and encouraged by the mutual, personal, bond of the congregational members in the spirit of Christian fellowship, while still allowing a meaningful realization of church discipline. This community of the holy is also practiced in churches in developing nations. In these churches the practice of church discipline still appears as a vitally necessary center for the credible self-representation of the Christian community. Characteristically, therefore, these churches' main criticism of the old institutional churches has been directed against the cessation of church discipline toward a more spiritual life among their members.

The papacy, with its all encompassing authority, was an insidious threat to Jesus objectives. The popes forget that Jesus was harshest on his first followers when they aspired to authority over others (as Peter did) wanting to be first when they should be last, putting on airs as though they had the authority of Pharisees.

Jesus called for an authentic religion of the heart and spirit with inner unity. He wanted them to share the union with the Father that he had achieved.

"When you pray be not like pretenders, who prefer to pray in synagogues and in public squares, in the sight of others. In truth, I tell you that is all the profit they will have. But, when you pray go into your inner chamber and locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father, and, your Father who sees you in hiding (private) will reward you. And when you pray do not babble on as the pagans do, who think to win a hearing by the number of their words. Your father knows what you need before you ask him. (Mt 6:5-8)

The early church functioned without priests. Paul never called himself a priest. The closest he comes to that is the use "minister." Nowhere is it indicated in the Bible that there was an official provider at the Christian meal (Agape). It is a mark of the gospels' fidelity to the followers that not one of the gospels mentions a Christian priest or priesthood.

Perhaps, the obvious urging by Jesus that gatherings remain small, as in home-based worship, was to avoid the authoritarian controls of self-promoting men claiming to be intercessors, asserting they were acting in his place.

We return again to one of the favorite quotations of those who are spiritual but not religious:

"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." Mt 18:20

This is the paradigm that remains the Christian ideal - to promote worship by individuals.

Among the conservative and often spontaneous evangelical Protestant churches, diverse forms of polity have developed. They have all been founded with an appeal to the Holy Scriptures. Their prototypes can, in fact, be identified in the multi-formity of congregational policies in the first three centuries before the victory of the insidious monarchical Episcopal office. The large Baptist movement stayed away from centralized power preferring a democratic forum for governance and doctrine. Yet, recently, Baptist laity (see also Jimmy Carter) has been deeply discomfited by the abuse of power of monarchical church leaders who have gathered around themselves the imperial robes of power to order their congregations to believe as they do and to do as the leaders say they should. This recent change in the Baptist form of Christianity is anti-democratic and threatens the separation of church and state in the USA.

LITURGY

In the early church, the liturgy was the Eucharist. The Christian community interpreted it as a fellowship meal with the resurrected Christ. Judaism at the time of Christ was dominated by what turned out to be a too intense expectation of the Kingdom of God, which would be inaugurated by the Messiah-Son of man. The early Christian Church appropriated this Judaic expectation, which revolved around the image of the messianic meal in which the faithful would "sit at table" (Luke 13:29) with the coming Messiah-Son of man. At least in Luke 13:29, the center of Jesus' preaching on the Kingdom of God is the promise that the blessed would "eat bread" with the exalted Messiah-Son of man (Luke 13:29). The Lord himself would serve the chosen community of the Kingdom at the messianic meal (Luke 12:37 ff.) which seems similar to the features of a wedding banquet. The basic mood in the community gathered about him is one of nuptial joy over the inauguration of the promised end time. The supper that Jesus celebrated with his disciples "on the night when he was betrayed" (1 Corinthians 11:23) inaugurated the heavenly meal that will be continued in the Kingdom of God.

Decisive for understanding the original meaning of the Eucharist are the words of Jesus in Matthew, chapter 26, verse 29: "I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." The appearances of the Resurrected One, beginning with Easter's mythical morning, confirmed their expectations about the messianic Kingdom. These appearances influenced the expectations about the messianic meal and the continuation of fellowship with the exalted Son of man within the meal. Faith in the Resurrection and an expectation of the continuation of the fellowship meal with the exalted Son of man are two basic elements of the Eucharistic liturgy from the beginnings of the church.

The Eucharistic mystery developed from a simple form, as depicted in the 1st-century Didache, to the fully developed liturgies of the 5th and 6th centuries in both the East and the West. The diversity that was demonstrated in the liturgies of the early churches is still preserved in the Clementine liturgy (Antioch), the Syrian liturgy, the Liturgy of St. James of the church of Jerusalem, the Nestorian liturgy in Iran, the Liturgy of St. Mark in Egypt, the Roman mass, the Gallic liturgies, and the Ambrosian (Milanese), Mozarabic (Spanish), and Scottish-Irish (Celtic) liturgies.

New Liturgical Forms and Anti- liturgical Attitudes

Characteristically, all reformation eras in the history of Christianity, during which new charismatic impulses arise in the areas of piety and theology, are also periods of new liturgical creations. Thus, in the late 16th-century Reformation a great diversity of new liturgical forms emerged. Luther in Germany restricted himself to a reformatory alteration of the Roman Catholic liturgy of the mass, whereas Zwingli in Switzerland attempted to create a completely new evangelical liturgy of the Eucharist based upon a New Testament foundation. Methodism, influenced by the Moravian spiritual songs and melodies, also produced new liturgical impulses, especially through its creation of new hymns and songs and its joyousness in singing. The mood of charismatic, liturgical new creations has also been preserved in the Baptist churches of American blacks, whose spirituals are the most impressive sign of a free and spontaneous liturgy.

The Pentecostal churches of the 20th century quite consciously attempt to protect themselves against liturgical formalism. The free, often spontaneously improvised liturgy of the Pentecostal tent missions was transformed into patterns that became familiar to a wider audience through televised evangelism, which was often of a Pentecostal nature. Often ecstatic, strongly rhytmized, music endeavors to retain certain features of the charismatic spontaneity of the early Christian worship to this day.

The Society of Friends radically eliminated the liturgy and replaced it with mutual silence, expecting the spontaneous activity of the Holy Spirit to spring from within.

Though definite and obligatory liturgies have been established as normative, the forms of the liturgy continue to develop and change. The impulse toward variations in worship services has been especially noticeable in the latter part of the 20th century. In the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, in the Roman Catholic mass and breviary, and in Anglican and Lutheran liturgies, there are both fixed and changing sections.

Roman Catholic &, Eastern Orthodox Eucharistic Liturgy

For the Eastern Orthodox rites the Eucharistic liturgy consists of two parts: the Liturgy of the Catechumens and the Liturgy of the Faithful. This basic liturgical structure goes back to a time in which the church was a missionary church that grew for the most part through conversion of adults. The latter were first introduced to the Christian mysteries as catechumens through instruction in religious doctrine. They also received permission to take part in the first part of the worship service (which was instructional), but they had to leave the service before the Eucharistic mystery was celebrated.

The first part of the Orthodox worship service still ends with a threefold exclamation, reminiscent of pre-Christian, Hellenistic mystery formulas: "You catechumens go forth! None of the catechumens (may remain here)!" The Eucharistic liturgy of the Orthodox Church is a kind of mystery drama in which the advent of the Lord is mystically consummated and the entire history of salvation, the incarnation, death, and Resurrection, of Christ the Logos, up to the outpouring of the Holy Sprit, is recapitulated. The Orthodox Church ttaches greatest value to the fact that within the Eucharistic mystery an actual transformation of the Eucharistic elements in bread and wine takes place. This is not the same as the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, which teaches that the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ, though the properties of the elements remain the same, when the priest consecrates the bread and wine.

According to some Orthodox authorities, the Orthodox view is similar to the Lutheran doctrine of the Real Presence. The essential and central happening in the Orthodox liturgy, however, is the descent of the resurrected Lord himself, who enters the community as "the King of the universe, borne along invisibly above spears by the angelic hosts." The transformation of the elements is, therefore, the immediate emanation of this personal presence. Thus, the Orthodox Church does not preserve and display the consecrated host after and outside the Eucharistic liturgy, as in the Roman Catholic Church, because the consecrated offerings are mystically apprehended and actualized only during the Eucharistic meal.

In the Roman Catholic mass, the sacrificial character of the Eucharist is strongly emphasized, but it is less so in the Orthodox liturgy. This is because in the Orthodox liturgy the Eucharist is not only a representation of the crucifixion sacrifice (as in the Roman mass) but also of the entire history of salvation, in which the entire congregation, priest and laity, participates.

Thus, the Orthodox Church has also held fast to the original form of Holy Communion in both kinds. The Orthodox Church still preserves the liturgical gestures of the early church. Though in many Protestant churches parishioners sit while praying, the Orthodox worshiper prays while standing (because he stands throughout the service), with arms hanging down, crossing himself at the beginning and ending of the prayer.

The Prayerful Hands Gesture &, Dancing

The prayerful gesture of folded hands among Protestant churches derives from an old Germanic tradition of holding the sword hand with the left hand, which symbolizes one's giving himself over to the protection of God because he is now defenseless. The prayerful gesture of hands pressed flat against one another with the fingertips pointed upward,the symbol of the flame,is practiced among Roman Catholics as well as Hindus and Buddhists. Other liturgical gestures found in many Christian churches are crossing oneself, genuflecting, beating oneself on the chest, and kneeling during prayer or when receiving the Eucharistic elements.

Among some Holiness or Pentecostal churches spontaneous hand-clapping and rhythmic movements of the body have been stylized as gestures in the worship services. These gestures are often familiar features of worship in churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Liturgical dancing, widely diffused in pagan cults, was not practiced in the early church. Vestigial remnants of this ancient practice, however, have been admitted to liturgical processionals. In the latter part of the 20th century. Liturgical dances have been re-introduced in some churches but only in a limited fashion. Among the many other gestures of devotion and veneration practiced in the liturgically oriented churches such as the Roman Catholic Church, the High Church Anglican churches, and the Orthodox Church, are the kissing of the altar, the gospel, the cross, and the holy icons.

Liturgical Vestments of the Priests

Liturgical vestments have developed in a variety of fashions, some of which have become very ornate. The liturgical vestments all have symbolic meaning. In the Orthodox Church the liturgical vestments symbolize the wedding garments that enable the liturgists to share in the heavenly wedding feast, the Eucharist. The epitrachelion, which is worn around the neck and corresponds to the Roman stole, represents the flowing downward of the Holy Spirit.

Click here to read "An Explanation of Apostolic Teachings - The Significance Oral Transmissions to the Written.

Reformation Attitudes Toward Traditions of the Roman Catholic Church

The Reformation of the 16th century exhibited various degrees of positions toward tradition. All of the Reformers broke with the institution of monasticism, the liturgical and sacramental tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, and certain elements of doctrinal tradition. The new churches that arose from the Reformation, however, soon created their own new traditions. This was made necessary by the predominance of both the didactic, doctrinaire principle, and, the founding of one's own church upon one's own "confessional writings." Practical manifestations against the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church also had public effects,e.g., the eating of sausage on fast days in Zürich at the start of Zwingli's reformation or the provocative marriages of monks and nuns.

Veneration of Places, Objects, and People

In addition to the tradition of the Holy Scriptures and its interpretation, traditions centering on holy places also developed. The veneration of holy places is the oldest expression of Christian piety for the populace.

The Christian Church adopted the idea and practice of venerating holy places from Judaism. In post-exilic Judaism (i.e., after the 5th century BC), Jerusalem became the sanctuary and the center of the Jews in Palestine as well as the goal of the pilgrimages of Jews of the Diaspora. After the destruction in of Jerusalem 70 CE , which was the holy city for the early church, For Christians, it remained the site of the suffering and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and as the place of his return in glory. Jerusalem was and is a holy city and a goal of pilgrimages. Such early bishops as Melito of Sardis and Alexander of Jerusalem and such theologians as Origen embarked on pilgrimages to Jerusalem. When the Christian Church became the state church in the 4th century, pilgrimages to the holy places in Palestine became a popular form of tourism and an important source of revenue for the Roman Catholic Church.

During one of the greatest coup's of propaganda, the well planned and pre-emptive journey of the empress mother, Helena, to the Holy Land, circa 330 CE, inaugurated the cult of relics through her royal edicts by which she proclaimed her discovery of, first, the holy cross, later the place of birth and the tomb of Jesus. Like a good son, Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (335CE) and the Church of the Nativity, over the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The numerous other biblical commemorative places of the Old and New Testament history soon followed. Keep in mind that humans have a strong need to go to such places to venerate their memories.

(Famous people have tried to discourage this powerful primitive force. For example, in order to avoid the development of a holy place at his grave and a reliquary and saintly cult around his person, Calvin arranged by will that his body be buried at an unknown spot. The erection of the giant monument to the Reformer at the supposed place of his burial shows the futility of his effort and the strength of the Christian consciousness of tradition. Graceland at Memphis, Tennessee, commemorates Elvis Presley for reasons known to the pilgrims. It is a foolish intellectual exercise to deride what seems natural to humans. Sometimes we don't even need a body. Witness: Mount Rushmore carvings for Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, and, nearby Crazy Horse. All these are holy places of a sort among many thousands and more.)

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MONASTICISM

Monasticism is an old human institution that is a part of many of the world religions. In Christianity, it is based on the Christian ideal of perfection and has its roots in New Testament Christianity, in which the baptized were designated as the "perfect ones." In the early church, monasticism equated perfection with world-denying asceticism, along with the view that perfect Christianity centered its way of life on the maximum love of God and neighbor.

For more details about Monastic Discipline click here.

It was out of the desire for still further advanced isolation that ascetics moved from areas in proximity to inhabited places and established themselves in tombs, certain abandoned and half-deteriorated human settlements, caves, and, finally, into the wilderness areas of the deserts. The main task of the ascetics - struggle with the demons (i.e. of the mind) ,thereby underwent a heightened intensification. The desert was considered the abode of the demons, the place of refuge of the pagan gods as they retreated before a victorious Christianity. Hence, the expansion of Christianity in the cities of Egypt and the rise of Egyptian desert monasticism in the 4th century occurred both because the masses streamed into the churches as a result of the official imperial supportive policies and because ascetics striving for perfection left the cities and moved into the desert in significant numbers for their practicum.

Basil the Great's Rule Combining Mysticism with Ascetics for the Orthodox Rites

The Eastern Orthodox Church was blessed by the work of Basil the Great, one of the three Cappadocian Fathers from the 4th century CE. He definitively shaped monastic community life in the Byzantine Church.

His ascetic writings furnished the theological and instructional foundation for the "common life" (coenobitism) of monks. He became the creator of a monastic rule that, through constant variations and modifications, became authoritative for later Orthodox monasticism. The Rule of Basil has preserved the Orthodox combination of asceticism and mysticism into the 20th century. Basil the Great, however, by means of a special vow and a special ceremony, enabled monks to cease being merely laymen and to attain a position between that of the clergy and the laity. Even in the 20th century, monks of the Orthodox Church are, for the most part, lay monks, only a few fathers (abbots) of each cloister are ordained priests (hieromonachoi), who are thus empowered to administer the sacraments.

Western monasticism, founded by Benedict of Nursia (Italy) in the 6th century, had gone through a double form of special development vis-à-vis early church monasticism. The first, consists of its clericalization. Within modern Roman Catholic cloisters, monks are, except for the serving brothers (fraters), ordained priests. Thereby they are drawn in a direct way into the ecclesiastical tasks of the Roman Church. Originally, however, monks were laymen. Pachomius had explicitly forbidden monks to become priests on the ground that "it is good not to covet power and glory."

The second special development in Roman Catholicism consists of the functional characteristics of its many orders. The individual orders aid the church in its various areas of activity. In effect, their missions which may be: education, care for the sick and needy, and the combat against heresy. Developing a wide-ranging diversification in its structure and sociological interests, Roman Catholic monasticism has extended all the way from the knightly orders to orders of mendicant friars, Iit has included orders of decidedly feudal and aristocratic characteristics. These separate orders are alongside orders of purely bourgeois characteristics. To the degree that special missionary, pedagogical, scholarly-theological, and ecclesiastically political tasks of the orders increased in the West, the character of the more ancient monasticism,originally focused completely on prayer, meditation, and contemplation, receded more and more in importance. Few monastic orders are so focused. The Benedictines and the Carmelites are notable exceptions because they still attempt to preserve the ancient character and purposes of monasticism in the Roman Catholicism of the 21st century.

The monasteries of the lands of the Celts, were of great importance in preserving much of the knowledge during the time the Vandals and Visigoths terrorized much of the main land of Western Europe. Still later, during the time of Henry the VIII who was the absolute monarch of England (with pretensions to rule Scotland, Wales, and Ireland,) the monasteries had succeeded all too well in the opinion of many English. While the winds of change were blowing strong in the Reformation on the main land, the corrupt Roman Catholic Church of England was feeding too well off the work of the devout masses. Many monks and some Nuns, lived lavishly in very large edifices that had been built over the years to house the many Monks. They did little to serve God by utilitarian measures. In fact, they did little if anything but pray and prey on the populace. Though it is true that Henry the VIII's monarchy sorely needed a male heir, (or so he believed), and the crown was virtually bankrupt, there were very good reasons for his extraordinary acts designed to empty the monasteries of the idle monks who were leaching off of England's strength. As said, the monks only product was meaningful prayer. Since the English believed in the power of their own prayers, they did not need or want such intercession. In spite of the Pope's outrage, Henry moved in a quick and merciful manner to relieve England of this parasitic burden. He pensioned off most of the monks with monies received by selling off the beautiful monastic edifices, which Henry the VIII had confiscated. He sold them to newly created Earls, Barons, and Counts, an aristocracy that swore allegiance to his new Anglican Church, rather than Rome. Certainly, some of the money went to pay the debts of the Crown.

England became a healthier country by way of this broad-scale attack. This show of power by the secular monarchial government of England was deeply unsettling to the Roman Catholic Church because it was also facing the Reformation by Luther, Calvin, etc. Clearly, there were cracks developing in the monolith of the Roman Catholic Church. True, its power came from the devout, but, what it took to be devout and seek salvation was now open to debate. What was the saintly life became debatable.

England became one of the nurturing grounds of freedom and liberty for individuals. Some used their freedom to live a saintly life thereby to challenge the virtue of ordinary secular men and women.

Click here for more details on The Saintly Life.

UnderPope Paul VI, the Roman Catholic Church attempted to reduce the significance of the veneration of saints,and thereby emphasize the idea of them as exemplars, but, deletion of some saints (e.g. St. Christopher) from the calendar has had little success in changing popular piety. Pope John Paul II, fully respectful of the directions of the second Vatican Council, did, however, pay renewed respect to some of the pre-council forms of devotion which the reformers had tried to displace. A belief in the need of special protection by saints is the basis of the system of patron saints. Most Roman Catholic churches have a saint as their patron, whose presence in the church is represented by a relic of that particular saint. Saints, however, became patrons not only of churches but also of cities, regions, vocational groups, or classes. Saints also won a special significance as patrons of names: in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches a Christian generally received the name of the saint on whose holiday (day of death) he is baptized. The believer is thus joined for life with the patron of his name,, through the name and the name day, which, as the day of rebirth (i.e., baptism), which is seen to be of much greater significance than the natural birthday.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, relics of saints appear less frequently, but icons of saints appear in greater numbers. Though cultic veneration of saints as patrons, tutelary saints, and helpers in need has increased through the centuries, the view that the saints are examples of the Christian life of sanctification has been preserved. The Roman Catholic Church, through its use of the canonization of saints, has constantly established new models for practical religiosity and morality to meet contemporary needs, raising  personages to the position of sainthood all the way from the holy king to the holy servant girl-flagellant, to exorcists.

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ART AND ICONOGRAPHY

Christian art is an essential element of the Christian religion. Until the 17th century , the history of Western art was largely identical with the history of Western ecclesiastical and religious art.

During the first three centuries of the Christian Church, however, there was no Christian art, and the church showed great resistance. Clement of Alexandria, for example, criticized religious (pagan) art in that it encouraged people to worship that which is created rather than the Creator. About the mid-3rd century, local pictorial art began to be used and slowly accepted in the Christian Church with fervent opposition in some congregations. Only when the Christian Church became the Roman imperial church, under Emperor Constantine, in the early 4th century were pictures used in the churches. Art began to put down roots in Christian popular religiosity. Later, as pictorial art was publicly placed in the service of the church there were warnings voiced by leading theologians.

The church historian Eusebius, the most diligent glorifier of Constantine, characterized the use of images of the Apostles Paul and Peter as well as of Christ himself as a pagan custom. Christian art developed at such a late stage because of its origins in Judaism, as well.

The church's opposition to paganism and the Roman Emperor's cults were major barriers. In addition to a faith in God the Father, Creator of heaven and Earth, and faith in the uniqueness and holiness of God. Christianity also received from its Jewish origins a prohibition against the use of images to depict the sacred or holy. This included humans, who were created in "the image of God." Art was discouraged. The early Christian Church was deeply involved in a struggle against paganism, To the Christian observer, it was viewed as pagan idolatry in that its many gods were represented in various pictorial and statuary forms. In early Christian missionary preaching, the Old Testament kinds of attacks upon pagan veneration of images were transferred directly to pagan image veneration of the first three centuries CE. The struggle against images was conducted as a battle against "idols" with all the intensity of faith in the oneness and exclusiveness of the imageless biblical God.

Abhorrence of images also was furthered because the emperor's cult was so despised by Christians. Early Christians were compelled, through anti-Christian legislation, to venerate the imperial images by offering sacrifices to them. Refusal to make the sacrifice was the chief cause of martyrdom. Characteristically for humans, the Christian Church's reaction, after its public recognition, was expressed in the riotous destruction of the pagan divine images. These public demonstrations did not stamp out veneration of kitchen, garden, highway, and other kinds of gods, goddesses and shrines. A vigilant eye can see their persistence to this day.

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MISSIONS

The outreach of missionaries and their missions forced the expansion of Christianity into areas that were already religious but not Christian. It was a most unusual historical occurrence. Though other world religions, Buddhism and Islam, raised a claim to universal validity, it was only Christianity that succeeded in realizing this claim. This is because of aggrtessive missionary expansion over the entire world. Of course, Islam first experienced rapid expansion by the sword. More recently,  Islam is growing fast by means of less persuasive non-violent tactics.

The unique global expansion of Christianity is directly related to its unflagging belief in the greatest story ever told with its expectation of the end time, coupled with the promise of the imminent expectation of the return of Christ. This is surprising because it has been promised over and over by church leaders but it has yet to come after the passge of over 2000 years. Perhaps, the global warming, caused by human sin, will hasten the arrival of end time? The Christian expectation of the end time is not a passive yearning for the coming Kingdom of God. It is grasped by faith in its impending arrival. It is peculiar, that some Christians identify their own impending death as the coming of end time which holds true, at least for them, This state of being, awaiting the rapture, transformed itself into a pressing duty: to "prepare the way of the Lord" (Matthew 3:3) and to remove all resistance to the establishment of the Kingdom on Earth even through violent means.

Columbus, while crossing the ocean in a westerly direction in the 15th century, believed that Satan had settled in India, thereby disrupting the extension of the gospel and delaying the return of Christ. According to his calculations, the time for the return of Christ was nearly at hand. India had to be reached by the shortest way possible so that the last bulwark of Satan might be removed through Christian missions. The same expectation, founded on nothing but faith, drove the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier to India and Japan in the 16th century.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

The tangible, real and universal church represented a new phenomenon in the history of religions that persisted for some time. This diffusion was the fruit of mission which went beyond a state of mind and extended to actual mission work.

The ground for missions appeared early in the Old Testament in God's concern for all nations (Genesis, chapters 10 and 11) and the calling of Abraham, implicitly of Israel (Genesis 12:13). The Jews acknowledged God's sovereignty over all the world's peoples, but They believed God had chosen Israel to be the sign to all nations of the divine Will and Purpose (compare the "Covenant on Sinai," Exodus 19:56). Echoing throughout the Old Testament, this theme found its clearest voice in Isaiah:

"I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations" (42:6), and in God's universal task for Israel as servant to the nations: "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth" (49:6).

Though Jesus Christ, professed to his followers the role of Messiah,.  It was as the suffering servant presented in Isaiah (52:1353:12). His assertion found widespread rejection among his own people, the Jews. Still, those Jews from Israel who confessed faith in him as the Messiah, and Lord, saw in Christ's incarnation, death, and Resurrection, God's decisive entry into history.  Still, it was an act in continuity with God's incursions in Israel's past. To them, the church was born and grew as the covenanted instrument of and witness to God's mission (mission Dei). Jesus was the human agency of God's outreach to all the peoples of the world as the messiah of the old testament. The early Church of James, the brother of Jesus, was well grounded in the messianic jews in Jerusalem.

Eastern and Nestorian Missions

Removal of the empire's capital from Rome to Constantinople, by means of Constantine's sword in 330CE, greatly strengthened the temporal power of the bishop of Rome.

For a time, the Byzantine Empire, the sole patriarchate of Constantinople, remained under the political control of the Christian emperor. Therefore, cultural, political, philosophical, and theological differences strained relations between the two cities. Rome demanded Latin as the one ecclesiastical language. But, Constantinople encouraged national languages for the liturgy and emphasized translation of the Scriptures.

In 1054 CE, leaders of the two bodies ex-communicated each other. Sort of a Mexican stand-off. This lack of respect and tolerance for the different ways humans worship God permeates the history of Christianity. Some attribute this too frequent schismatic behavior to the very human tendency of church leaders to use the Church to build their own careers with the help of their sycophants and toadies. One reflection of the growing difficulties lay in the fractiuos counterclaims to pursue mission in, and, to hold the allegiance of border areas between the two jurisdictions. This has continued for centuries.

The Orthodox Church of Constantinople's greatest mission outreach was to areas that later became Russia and the independent soviet republics. This centering of power was consolidated, as Russians used the church as a means through which they could express national unity. They moved the Metropolitanate from Kiev in the Ukraine to Moscow, Russia. Their church became and remained the largest of the Orthodox bodies, protector and leader for the others. In 1453CE, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. Moscow became "the third Rome" and accepted for itself the mystique, dynamism, and messianic destiny of the first Rome. This reality is essential to understanding Russian Orthodoxy and the difficulties of achieivng ecumenism because of cultural-centric nationalism.

At first, American Protestant missions centered on the new immigrants and those following the westward-moving frontier. But from 1890CE, hence, they turned their attention to areas abroad. In 20th-century "overseas" missions, English-speaking participants have represented from 80 to 89 percent, while North Americans about 67 percent of all Protestant missionaries wherever they are found. Women have not only provided the major support for missions in the modern era. but also early on recognized the need to found their own societies and send their own missionaries. In much of the world, because of local customs, women missionaries could perform services for other women and for children, especially in medicine and education that men could not undertake. Their greatest impact was in the production of vast corps of able and educated women, especially in Asia, who have played major roles in the professions and also in church leadership.

In a barbaric action ,which stained Christianity, British and American military used gunboat diplomacy to force upon China a monopoly power to market opium to the Chinese. Without modern fire power in their hands, the Chinese were brave but lost. Following the Opium War treaties of 1842 to 1844CE, and, 1858-1860,CE China was forced to open to Westerners by way of the the Opium Trade. Appropriately, the Chinese viewed Christianity as entering their homeland at gunpoint. The so-called Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1900CE, brought death to thousands of Chinese Christians and several hundred missionaries in retaliation for the Christians silence and hypocritically implicit support of the sinister and destructive opium trade. It is not surprising that educated Chinese perceived of Christianity as a religion that was diffused in China by barbarians.

With the fall of the Ch'ing, or Manchu, dynasty in 1911, Sun Yat-sen, a Christian who favored parliamentary government, became the provisional president. The Christian influence in China, particularly in education, was significant. In 1949, the remnants of that segment of Chinese society led by Chiang Kai Shek retreated to Taiwan. They established a strong Christian-influenced society, there, under the protection of the USA and Britain.

In 1949CE, when the People's Republic of China was formed, Christians represented only 1.0 percent of the Chinese population, but they exercised an influence out of all proportion to their size. [Of course, Westerers should consider that an estimatad 1.0 percent of China's population would be about ten to twenty million Christians] The Chinese government expelled all missionaries in 1950- 1951CE, confiscated churches, and brought pressure on Christians to cease and desist their out-reach work. (Though it is not well documented, there is evidence that millions of Christians (both Chinese and white) were slaughtered during this confiscation. Also, it is believed that the number of Christians who died is far in excess of those who died at the hands of the Nazis in the shameful terror of the Holocaust.) Genocide and ethnic cleansing is an unforgivable flaw of humans as they use scapegoating to excuse their own imperfections.

During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976CE) no churches or other religious bodies could operate. Christians continued to exist in China, but they suffered grievously. From 1976 forward, as the government allowed some churches to open, Christians re-emerged throughout the country. Roman Catholic and Protestant churches were filled, and in varied ways the "silent" house-churches testified that the underground church had been dynamically growing. Today, the status of churches in China, despite persecution, is considerably larger and stronger than it had been in 1949.

Koreans, baptized as Roman Catholics in China, returned ito their homeland in 1784 but remained underground when their faith was soon proscribed. A handful of American Presbyterians and Methodists entered Korea in 1884, and the faith they planted flourished though the 20th century, despite Korea's long wartime devastation. Evangelistic and self-supporting Korean churches were known throughout Asia for their effective promotion of Bible study. Helen Kim, a Korean graduate of Elwha College, built it into the world's largest women's university. Unlike other Asian countries, Korea did not experience Christianity's arrival with Western imperialism.  Instead, Christianity was seen as reinforcing Korean nationalism against Japanese imperialism from 1910 to 1945. Korean evangelicals enabled the church to grow in less than a century to about one-third of the population in South Korea. In the late 20th century, strong annual compounding growth continues, a situation unique among the Asian nations. Christian Koreans have a strong presence in a few metropolitan areas in the USA such as Atlanta, Ga.

Protestant world missions were influenced by the same expectation of the end time (e.g., the missions of the German Lutherans in India in the early 18th century and the missions of the Puritans among the Indians in Massachusetts in the late 17th century). The first seal of Massachusetts displayed an Indian with a beckoning hand and the inscription "Come over and help us", (Thesew were words of the Macedonian who appeared to the Apostle Paul in a night vision (Acts 16:9). [We observe that on his numerous missionary journeys, the Apostle Paul showed a greater accomplishment in distances traveled than any known general of the Roman army, official of the Roman Empire, or known trader of his time.] The founder of the World's Student Christian Federation was the most widely traveled man of the first half of the 20th century. The catchphrase coined by him, "Jesus Christ to the nations in this generation," has been the basic principle of all the great and small missionary impulses that have contributed to the worldwide expansion of Christianity.

This aspect of Christian missions has continued through the 20th century, especially among Pentecostals and Adventists. The missionary institutions of these churches come from the tradition of the conservative evangelical churches, which maintain a strong inclination toward an imminent expectation of the end time. Still these evangelical Christian missions and others have done excellent work in education, health services, etc., in the poverty stricken nations of the world.

Centuries ago, in imitation of the homeless Christ, who "has nowhere to lay his head" (Matthew 8:20), the early medieval Scots-Irish monks, as radical Christian ascetics, demanded the renunciation of that which is dearest to humans: one's own home. "For the sake of Christ" they assumed ascetic homelessness by leaving their cloisters,often in groups of 12 under the leadership of a 13th.

An example of a modern ascetic missionary is the French nobleman Charles-Eugene de Foucauld (1858-1916), who became a martyred anchorite missionary among the Bedouin of the Sahara. Another tragic example, is the murder of a recently ordained, retired lawyer and his wife who were slain as they tried to set up a mission in Tennessee, USA in the late 1990s.

Tragically, many evangelicals condone despicable behavior in the name of Christ. Eric Rudolph represents a kind of evangelical killer. He planted bombs to kill the innicents. He was a dangerous felon at large for years. Though the non-violent faithful should have disowned this man and turned him in to the police rather than protect him instead, they aided him. He was finally captured while dumpster-diving for supplies. As right will have it, Rudolph was sentenced to two terms of life in prison because of the deadly bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic and one in suburban Atlanta, GA. He admitted other attacks which he believed were justified by his militant faith. For this kind of faithful Chritians,  as with those of the early church, the central content of their faith and their hope was and is the coming Kingdom of God. They believe that the promises of the Old Testament about the coming of salvation will be fulfilled by Jesus Christ, but that the fulfillment is not yet complete. They await Christ's Second Coming, which they believe is imminent. This promise ought to be worn thin by the passage of thousands of years but it is not worn out. The faithful still believe it though it is faith not reason in the future Kingdom. Much of this faith is derived from the Pauline-Christianity of the Early Church.

For more details on the Early Church's Kingdom of God click here.

St. Augustine saw the dangers of taking Revelations literally. The theology of Augustine sought to bring some reason to the magic of the Kingdom of the somewhat discredited Revelations. (The inclusion of Revelations in the New Testament has always been disputed. Its origins are grounded in some legends of ancient occult religions of the Middle East and not to Jesus and his teachings). Augustine de-emphasized the original imminent expectation by declaring that the Kingdom of God has already begun in this world with the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. To Augustine, and devote Catholics, the church is the historical representative of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

The first resurrection, according to Augustine, occurs constantly within the church in the form of the sacrament of baptism, through which the faithful are introduced into the Kingdom of God. The expectation of the coming Kingdom of God, the resurrection of the faithful, and the Last Judgment have in actuality finally become a church doctrine of the "last things" because the gifts of salvation of the coming Kingdom of God are interpreted as being already present in the sacraments of the church.

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Christian Concepts of Life &, Death Related to Immortality

The Christian end-time expectation is directed not only at the future of the church but also at the future of the individual believer. This end-view of mortal-death includes definite conceptions of the personal continuance of life after death. Many baptized early Christians were convinced they would not die at all but would experience the advent of Christ in their lifetimes and would go directly into the Kingdom of God without death. Others were convinced they would go through - Rapture -in the air to meet Christ returning upon the clouds of the sky:

"Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

An expectation that one enters into bliss, or perdition, immediately after death is also found in the words of Jesus on the cross: "Today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). In the Nicene Creed the life of the Christian is characterized as "eternal life." Unfortunately, the idea of re-incarnation was anathematized by the Council of Nicaea. In the Gospels and in the apostolic letters, "eternal" is ,first of all, a temporal designation.  It is in contrast to life of this world, eternal life has a deathless duration. In its essence, however, it is life according to God's kind of eternity, i.e., perfect, sharing in his glory and bliss (Romans 2:7, 10). Thus, "Eternal life",, in the Christian sense, is not identical with "immortality of the soul", rather, it is only to be understood in connection with the expectation of the resurrection. "Continuance" is neutral, vis-à-vis, the opposition of salvation and disaster, but the raising from the dead leads to judgment. Its decision can also mean eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46). The antithesis to eternal life is not earthly life but eternal death. Those living do not know, perhaps, it is the dreamless sleep?

Eternal life is personal life, and precisely fulfills the essence of man who is created according to the image of God. Within eternal life there are differences just as in the present life there are variations in talent, duty, responsibility, and breadth and height during life. Thus there are also distinctions in "wages" according to the measure of the occupation, the sacrifice of suffering, and the trial (1 Corinthians 3:8). Correspondingly, the resurrected are also distinguished in eternal life according to their "glory":

"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead." (1 Corinthians 15:4142).

Some Christians hold a belief in purgatory (an interim state in which a correction of a dead person's evil condition is still possible). The Roman Catholic Church gives the deceased opportunities for repentance, and penance, to ameliorate their situation. The presupposition of the doctrine of purgatory is that there is a special judgment for each individual at once after death. Hence, the logical conclusion is that purgatory ceases with the Last Judgment. The stay in purgatory can be shortened through intercession, alms, indulgences, and benefits of the sacrifice of the mass. All these elaborations seem to serve another ulterior motive- the objective of tightening the Church's firm grasp on its parishioners.

The Eastern Orthodox Church has no doctrine of purgatory. Still, it does practice an intercession for the dead. It assumes that, on the basis of the connection between the church of the living and that of the dead, an exertion of influence upon the fate of the dead through intercession is possible before the time of the Last Judgment.

In the modern world, those among the spiritual but not religious who are followers of Jesus teachings find the idea of the Last Judgment incredible and incomprehensible. Their world view is in contrast to that of evangelical Christians in our time.

Most of the evangelicals are still open to the concept of judgment by God (at End Time) - of the guilt or innocence of the individual. All of humanity is as one person in the way they use and or abuse freedom. Humans sin with one another, and their evil is connected together in the "realm of sin" in manifold ways that may be unrecognizable in the individual. Each person is responsible for the other and is guilty with the other in some ways. God's judgment upon each person, therefore, concerns all. Unlike the evangelicals for the most part, the churches of recent time no longer find credible the Christian teaching of life after death. Many modern Christian churches have long neglected teachings about the entire area of "the last things." For this reason, since the period of Romanticism and Idealism, ideas of the transmigration of souls and reincarnation have been transferred to Christian consciousness from Hinduism and Buddhism. Karma and reincarnation have gained footings in Christian views of the individual's end-time expectation.

Some important impulses toward a new understanding of how to view life after death are found in Christian theosophy, such as the idea of a further development of the human personality upon other celestial bodies after death.

This conflict of views by the spiritual but not religious on the one hand, and the faith-filled believers in the End Time Judgment Day are in need of either resolution or a willingness to accept the differences of opinion among the religious.

The finger-pointing and posturing and words about blasphemy are disturbing to the peace of the USA, The spiritual but not religious are becoming better informed about the gullibility of evangelical Christians when it comes to John's Revelation.

The theology of Augustine emphasized the original imminent expectation by declaring that the Kingdom of God has already begun in this world with the institution of the church. To the devotees of this view, the church is the historical representative of the Kingdom of God on Earth. The first resurrection, according to Augustine, occurs constantly within the church in the form of the sacrament of baptism, through which the faithful are re-introduced into the Kingdom of God. The expectation of the coming Kingdom of God, the resurrection of the faithful, and the Last Judgment have in actuality finally become a doctrine of the "last things" because the gifts of salvation of the coming Kingdom of God are interpreted as being already present in the sacraments of the church.

Still this dramatic idea- the End Time - remains alive. Luther's Reformation was sustained by an imminent expectation. For the Reformers, the starting point for their interpretation of contemporary history was that the earthly "internal Antichrist," the pope, had established himself in the temple at the Holy Place. Worse, his persecution of the sinners was at the same time as the "external Antichrist," the Turk. Therefore, it appeared that the church had entered into the travails of the end time. Furthermore, the Reformation churches soon became institutional territorial churches compounding the wrongful thinking by way of the shrinking of the territory of the be-leaguered Church. Confusing as it was these events in turn repressed the end-time expectation, and thus doctrine of the "last things" became a mere appendix to dogmatics.

The emigration movement toward the Americas also was influenced by beliefs in after-death-end-time. Puritans who traveled to America in the 17th century and Quakers, Baptists, and Methodists in the 18th century believed that America was "The Wilderness" promised in the Revelation to John. William Penn gave the name Philadelphia to the capital of the woodland areas ceded to him (1681) because he took up the idea of establishing the true church of the end time, represented by the Philadelphia community of the Revelation to John. A great number of the attempts undertaken to found radical Christian communities in North America may be viewed as anticipations of the coming Jerusalem. The same holds true for the emigration of German revivalists of the 18th and early 19th centuries to Russia and Palestine The transition from the end-time expectation to the social utopias, however, had already been achieved in writings from the 16th and early 17th centuries,e.g., the English humanist and saint Thomas More.

Modern planning and projection of alternative futures is a secularization of the now ancient end-time expectations previously envisioned in Christian terms. The future is thus chronically manipulated through planning (i.e., "horizontal eschatology") in place of eschatological "hoping" and "waiting for" fulfillment. "Horizontal eschatology" is thus taken out of the sphere of the unexpected and numinous (spiritual). It is made the subject not only of a detailed prognosis based upon statistics but also of a detailed programming undertaken on the basis of this prognosis. This idea of a remainder for life on earth is found only in an ideological image of man not reality. Programming and planning for the future are based therefore on ideology rather than using science and ethics to improve the good Earth. Looking for a "place to go" for humans before the end comes is a way scientists have of avoiding responsibility for Earth's social ills such as grinding poverty of some of their fellow humans. Perhaps, to scientists, a trip to Saturn will be a way to continue to to avoid contact with the poor as they do today. 

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THE CORE OF INSTITUTIONAL CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Christianity, the religion, has borrowed heavily from schools of philosophy. A prime example is the influence of Neo-Platonism on Christian thought. One of the greatest of the early Christian thinkers, St. Augustine (354-430CE), provided a response to the perennially challenging question of: How it is that evil exists in a world created by an all-good and all-powerful God.

His response was neo-platonic and creative. Augustine's answer (which, as refined by later thinkers, remained the standard Christian answer until modern times) includes both theological aspects (the ideas of the fall of angels and then of humans, of the redemption of some by the cross of Christ, and of the ultimate disposal of souls in eternities of bliss and torment) and philosophical aspects.

Augustine's basic philosophical theme, again, drawn directly from Neo-Platonism, is one called the principle of plenitude. This idea is that the best possible universe does not consist only of the highest kind of creature, the archangels. It also contains a maximum richness of variety of modes of being, thus realizing every possible kind of existence from the highest to the lowest. The result is a hierarchy of degrees both of being and of goodness,.  The idea of the identity of being and goodness was an idea received by Augustine from Neo-Platonism and in particular from Plotinus (205-270BCE). Given Augustine's reputationa as a shceemer perhaps, it is no accident that most would have to study like a novice-priest at a seminary to understand it.

According to Augustine, and the Roman Catholic Church, God, as absolute being of goodness, stands at the summit. The "great chain of being" descends through the many forms of spiritual, animal, and plant life down to lifeless matter. This conception explains why there are lower forms of existence,dogs, snakes, insects, viruses,as well as higher. (But, not why they run rampant at times: eth plague of locusts, bubonic plague, and AIDS are examples.)

Each form of existence embodies being and is therefore good on its own level. Together they constitute a universe whose rich variety is beautiful in the sight of God. Evil only comes about when creatures at any level forfeit the distinctive goodness with which the Creator had endowed them. Evil is thus negative. It is a lack of proper good rather than anything having substance in its own right. This, too, was a theme that had been taken over from Neo-Platonism by a number of earlier Christian writers. If evil is not an entity, or substance, it follows that it was not a part of God's original creation. It consists instead in "going wrong" of something that was in itself good, though (because made out of nothing) also mutable. Augustine locates the origin of this going-wrong in the sinful misuse of freedom by some of the angels and then by the first humans. His theology is thus a blend of Neoplatonic and biblical themes and shows clearly the immense influence of Neo-Platonism upon Christian thought during its early formative period.

The Creation From Ex niihilo (nothing) to the Universe Created by God

However, in any case, Augustine and other Christian thinkers departed from Neo-Platonism at one crucial point. Neo-Platonism saw the world as continuous in being with the ultimate divine reality, the One. The One, in its limitless plenitude of being, overflows into the surrounding void, and the descending and attenuating degrees of being constitute the many-leveled universe. In contrast, Augustine held that the universe is a created realm, brought into existence by God out of nothing (ex nihilo). It has no independent power of being but is through and through contingent, absolutely dependent upon the creative divine power. Further, Augustine was clear that the ‘nihil' out of which God created was not any kind of preexistent matter or chaos, but that "out of nothing" simply means "not out of anything" (De natura boni). This understanding of creation, entailing the universe's total emptiness of independent self-existence and yet its ultimate goodness as the free expression of God's creative love, is perhaps the most distinctively Christian contribution to metaphysical thought. It goes beyond the earlier Hebraic understanding in making explicit the ex nihilo character of creation in contrast to the emanations of the Neoplatonic thought-world.

Modern Christian treatments of the idea of creation ex nihilo have detached it from a literal use of the Genesis creation myth. The idea of the total dependence of the universe upon God is neutral as to whether it had a temporal beginning, nor does it in any way preclude the development of the universe in its present phase from the "big bang" onward, including the evolution of the forms of life on Earth. Although creation ex nihilo (a term apparently first introduced into Christian discourse by Irenaeus in the 2nd century) remains the general Christian conception of the relation between God and the physical universe.

Some recent Christian thinkers have substituted the view that God, instead of being its transcendent Creator, is an aspect of the universe itself, being either the inherent creativity, by virtue of which it is a living process, or a deity who seeks to lure the universe into ever more valuable better forms. (Sounds like it is intelligent design that prefers the way of Evolution.)

Other Philosophical Influences - Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and Others

As said, Neo-Platonism was a major philosophical influence on Christian thought. This was, in part because in the earliest days Aristotle was known only as a logician. However, in the 12th and 13th centuries his writings in Latin, translated either from the Greek from Arabic sources became very influential.

Thomas Aquinas circa 1240CE took the Aristotelian theme that knowledge is not innate but is gained from the reports of the senses and from logical inference from self-evident truths. (Thomas, however, added his own divinely revealed propositions to self-evident truths in forming the Christological basis for inference.) Thomas Aquinas also received from Aristotle the conception of metaphysics as the science of being. Furthermore, he was inspired by Aristotle, as to his distinctions between act and potency, essence and existence, substance and accidents, and the active and passive intellect and his view of the soul as the "form" of the body. Clearly, Thomas Aquinas' system was by no means simply Aristotle Christianized. Whereas, Aristotle's concern had been to understand how the world functions, Thomas was concerned even more fundamentally. He sought to explain why it exists. In modern times the rigorous arguments of Thomas Aquinas are still in vogue among the Scholastic doctrinaires. To them his hidden assumptions are not troubling because they simply arise from his act of faithin the truth.

The French thinker René Descartes (15961650) is generally regarded as one of the fathers of modern philosophy which became a critical probing of presuppositions, categories of thought, and modes of reasoning. He led the inquiry into what it is to know, how knowledge and belief are arrived at in different arenas of thinking. Thus modern Christianity, having inherited a body of doctrines developed in the framework of ancient worldviews that are now defunct, lacked any unique philosophy of comparable status. Today, modern philosophers, without denigrating Descartes' "I think, therefore I am! Modify it in keeping with the effects of modern physics by changing it to concede the possibility that existence is itself an illusory construct, now they say, "I think, I think, therefore I am!" There seems to be a place for chaos theory, here.

Indeed, the earlier existentialists, such as the Danish philosopher Siren Kierkegaard (181355), vehemently rejected the idea of a metaphysical system. Instead, we have their stress upon human freedom and choice and the centrality of decision, and hence a view by them that religion is an ultimate individual commitment, a preference for paradox rather than rational explanation, along with the highlighting of certain special modes of experience that cut across ordinary consciousness. In Kierkegaard's case, in particular, there is a generalized anxiety or dread and the haunting awareness of mortality. Benjamin Franklin seems to have found an ameliorative balance. Descartes belief that "I think therefore I am" came to him during the Newtonian world where humans had an absolute belief that God had designed the order of the universe. Today we have discovered that CHAOS theory may help us to understand the so-called orderly world. Consider the Butter Fly Effect, most humans can relate to the idea that the flutter of a butterfly's wings can cause movement at the other side of the Earth. Chaos theory is no longer ignored by traditional science. The scientific revolution brought on by Newton's understanding of gravity and calculus must open its view of reality to accept more uncertainty. The great French mathematician, Poincare led the way into the uncertainty of making unpredictability part of the way we look at the Universe. There is an ancient Chinese saying about planning,"Doing nothing is a plan." Chaos is a plan. We are reconsidering the nature of Reality. We are learning that there is an amazing order inherent in chaos. During the 1980s the experiments on such disparate systems as swirling fluids, electronic circuits, and oscillating chemical reactions seemed to confirm predictions made by chaos theory.

There appears to be a future role for chaos theory among the unsolved issues facing science and religion. Such fundamental issues about consciousness, cancer, the origins of life, the versatility of AIDS, involve fundamentally non-linear systems. Eastern religions and oriental scientists are much more comfortable with such thinking than the minds of those steeped in the traditions of the Western world. Clearly, humans must change their understanding of: space, time, gravity, and the Cosmology of the Universe. We know that there is Universal Light and Dark Stars and Black Holes. Perhaps, religionists must come to the reality that God wants us to understand and accept this change in how we view Reality.

(Click to Navigation Pane Spirituality Humans, then, to The Eight Stages of Human Life then click on Benjamin Franklin.)

Other Christian Philosophers Are Innovating

Some of the liberation theologians of today, wrote in highly pragmatic and political terms. For example, feminist theologians, who wrote in terms of the newly awakened self-consciousness of women and the awareness of a distorting patriarchal influence on all past forms of Christian thought (e.g., Rosemary Reuther, Elizabeth Fiorenza). Most Christian theologians, however, have continued to accept the well-worn traditional structure of Christian beliefs.

The factors forming the intellectual environment of Christian thought in the modern period, which have been most powerful, are from the physical and human sciences. Astronomy has undermined the assumption of the centrality of the Earth in the universe and laid open the question of the location of heaven and God's place in the Universe. Geological evidence concerning Earth's age has rendered implausible the biblical chronology. Biology located humanity within the larger evolution of the forms of life on Earth.  Biochemistry has demonstrated the commonality of living things, matter, and energy.

The human sciences of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and historical research have suggested possible naturalistic explanations for religion. Naturalistic interpretations of religion, together with the ever-widening scientific understanding of the physical universe have provided a new platform for thought. This has prompted some Christian philosophers to think of the religious ambiguity of the universe as a totality that can, from the human standpoint within it, be interpreted in both naturalistic and religious ways, thus providing scope for the exercise of faith as a free response to the mystery of existence.

The rear guard actions of the creationists, who have desperately tinkered by designing a pseudo-science to defend their sophistries arises from a forced defense of their historic Biblical calendars concern past errors in thinking about creation and the perfectibility of humans. Though it is clear from the fossil and archaeological evidence that humans have existed in their present form for more than 200, 0000 years, these story tellers continue to hold forth in mega-churches, books, etc with their fanciful tales. None of this pseudo-science has been accepted by the vast majority of those who are spiritual but not religious who by their nature have carefully examined the roots of their faith. It is estimated that there are over 31,000,000 spiritual but not religious who are being attacked by charges of blasphemy which are based on the idea that the Earth is a mere 6000 years old. In the USA, this serious controversy has given rise to a Constitutional crisis of significance. The defenders of the fundamentalist Pentecostal attitudes use political power to try and hold back the tide of truth and force their world view on others.

Bishop Spong and others who are spiritual but not religious feel that the fervent believers who are defending the outmoded religious understanding can not escape the reality. Their world view is doomed to die, no matter how frantically or hysterically such believers seek to defend it. The 6000 year old Earth and the blood drenched cross will not survive the close scrutiny of honorable debate under the rules of fair play. For the countless numbers who live in the Christian world, the old world view ceased long ago to be compelling. Bishop Spong has written for those who are disturbed by the aggressive even violent tone by those who claim to be the faithful. They assert that there is only one true interpretation of why Jesus Christ lived and died. Spong calls for those who are spiritual but not religious to respond to his call. They must not remain in exile from the ancient understandings of Jesus teachings. The well grounded faith of the spiritual but not religious shows the good news of these new possibilities. If one can hear the call, respond to it, claim it anew, and walk as a believer beyond the exile. Seek a friendly confrontation with those who claim a monopoly on the truth. Base your discussion on love and reason rather than hate.

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FAITH AND REASON

Today, we are facing great crises among world religions because different conceptions of faith cohere to different views of its relation to reason or rationality.

The classic medieval understanding of faith, set forth by Thomas Aquinas, saw it as the belief in revealed truths on the authority of God as their ultimate source and guarantor. Thus, though the ultimate object of faith is God, their revealer, and its immediate object is the body of propositions articulating the basic Roman Catholic dogmas. Such faith ought to be distinguished from rational knowledge.

In the 21st century, whereas the propositions that are the objects of science, or, knowledge, compel belief by means of their self-evidence or their demonstrability from self-evident premises, the propositions accepted by faith do not thus compel assent but, instead, require a voluntary act of trusting acceptance like Islam's surrender to Allah.

Such profound acceptance of faith, is an unforced belief. Such faith is "an act of the intellect assenting to a truth at the command of the will" (Summa theologiae, II/II, Q. 4, art. 5). It is allied with virtue because this is a free and responsible act of faith. It follows that one cannot have knowledge (wisdom) and faith at the same time in relation to the same proposition if the facts produce a self-evident truth. Faith ought to arise only in the absence of knowledge. The madrasahs of Islam blur this important distinction as do the unaccredited colleges of the evangelicals in the USA.

Faith also differs from mere opinion, which is inherently changeable. Opinions are not matters of absolute commitment but allow in principle for the possibility of doubt and change. Faith is the wholehearted acceptance of revealed truth and it excludes doubt. Those who are spiritual but not religious respect the faith of those who believe in the ancient perceptions of the greatest story ever told embodied in the Nicene Creed though we know that belief is not based on factual evidence.

In the wider context of his philosophy Thomas Aquinas held that human reason, without supernatural aid, can establish the possible existence of God and the immortality of the soul, though these are ultimately revealed for acceptance by faith. This is a good, for the benefit of those who cannot or do not engage in such strenuous intellectual activity. Faith, however, extends beyond the findings of reason in accepting such further truths as the triune nature of God and the divinity of Christ. St. Thomas thus supported the Roman Catholic Christian (though not a universal view) world -view that revelation supplements, rather than cancels or replaces, the findings of sound philosophy. Islam is absolute in the singularity of its monotheistic God (Allah).

It should be obvious from the point of view of a skeptic who does not acknowledge divine revelation, that this Thomistic conception amounts to faith as belief that is not evidenced, or, that stronger evidence is warranted. The gap being filled by the believer's own will to believe is the act of faith. As such it is afflicted with the charge that belief upon insufficient evidence is rationally always wrong, or at best not proven. Still, it should be gain said that modern psychology would add that the jury is still out because science is not absolute and the definitive proof is still awaited. In effect, God's non-existence is not proven, either.

In response to the frontal kind of attack mounted by those who prize pure reason as the only way, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal (162362) proposed a voluntaristic defense of faith based on a rational wager. Pascal assumed, in disagreement with Thomas Aquinas,, but in agreement with much modern thinking of the day, that divine existence can neither be proved nor disproved. Pascal then reasoned that if one decides to believe in God and to act on this basis, one gains eternal life if right but loses little if wrong, Whereas if one decides not to believe, one gains little if right but may lose eternal life if wrong. In these circumstances, he concluded, the rational course is to believe. (Obviously, Pascal did not address the question of why a non-believer who has led a good and virtuous life must be denied immortality because he was wrong in his reasoning.)

Pascal's argument has been criticized theologically for presupposing an unacceptable image of God as rewarding only such calculating worship, and, also on the philosophical ground that it is too permissive in that it could be used to justify belief in fantastic claims of any person or group who threatened non-believers with damnation or other dangerous consequences if they did not accept the fantastic proposition.

The American philosopher William James (1842-1910CE) refined this approach by limiting it, to debate about matters that cannot be determined by proof or evidence. To James it would seem that belief-options that one has real inclination or desire to accept may carry momentous implications. Therefore, a failure to choose constitutes a negative choice. Theistic belief for many people is such an option. Therefore, James argued that they have the right to make the positive decision "to believe" to proceed in their lives on that basis. Either choice involves unavoidable risks. On the one hand, the risk of being deluded by assuming the universality of logic, or, on the other the risk of missing out on a limitless valuable truth. According to James, in this situation each individual is entitled to decide which risk to take.

This argument has also been criticized as being too permissive and as constituting in effect a license for wishful believing, but its basic principle can, perhaps, be valid in the different context of opting to base beliefs upon one's religious experience such as the exaltation of the epiphany of "being born-again." Some Scientists may scorn such reasoning but the fault is in their belief is that scientific methods are a complete system that covers all conditions of risk in the Universe.

Kierkegaard in his idea of the "leap of faith" believed that without risk there is no faith, and that the greater the risk the greater the faith. The element of risk in faith as a free cognitive choice is, by him emphasized, to the exclusion of all else. Faith is thus a passionate human commitment, not based upon reason but inwardly necessitated because such a truth can be grasped in no other way. Many who are spiritual but not religious find this idea of the leap of faith as powerfully explanatory, while they are mystified by those who believe in blind faith by simply following the authoritative guidance of their church fathers. In effect: How can a human soul arrive at such a commitment without, first, carefully examining what is known and not known and can be understood by that human?

As we go forward into the 21st century, faith with or without reasons benefits from the account of faith based upon Ludwig Wittgenstein's (1953). It was his concept of "seeing-as", which is "the same thing according to evidence seen as two different things." Wittgenstein pointed to the significance of puzzle pictures, such as the ambiguous duck-rabbit that can be seen either as a duck's head facing one way or a rabbit's head facing another way. From this human perception we have the enlarged concept of "experiencing-as" which refers to the way in which an object, event, or situation is experienced as having a particular character or meaning to enable us to experience it in a manner that involves being in a decisional state to behave in relation to the object or event. All conscious experience is in this sense ‘experiencing-as.'

The application of this idea to religion suggests that the total environment is religiously ambiguous, capable of being experienced in both religious and naturalistic ways. Religious faith is the element of uncompelled interpretation within the distinctively religious ways of experiencing. For those who are religious - experiencing world events in history or in one's own life - is affected by the presence and activity of God. In such cases religion does not replace secular experiencing - but, instead, it supervenes upon it, thereby it affects the experience by revealing a further order of meaning in the events of the world. The foreknowledge that one will be welcomed to paradise if one does a certain act may be an unconscious cognitive choice whereby someone experiences it religiously. According to this view, it is nevertheless faith at work that alters the secular experience in its most basic sense.

For the volunteer/existentialist experiential conceptions of faith do not take the place of reason within religion. Although important, faith is secondary if seeking truth is an ultimate objective. Reason cannot directly establish the truth of religious propositions. Its function is rather to defend the rational propriety of trusting one's deeper intuitions, one's religious experience, in effect, choosing to base one's beliefs and life upon them. (Note: Surely, the thinking of a killer of abortion-doctors (and those who condone such behavior is flawed or incomplete under this proposition because the justification is not proven.)

These schools of thought assume that the philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God are inconclusive. The universe is capable of being consistently thought of and experienced in both religious and naturalistic ways. Much religious controversy today grounds itself in the thorny thicket of this discussion because it runs counter to the long tradition of natural theology. The failure of Christian and Islamist fundamentalists to rigorously and vigorously debate the limits of faith and of reason is a source of much tragic conduct today. Christian and Islamic philosophy as natural theology is in that sense incomplete. Mysticism's increasing popularity may in small part be a way for good and virtuous humans to find their way to God without the obstruction of formalistic faith/reason requirements.

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CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM

Mysticism, herein, is the practice of mindful, meditational prayer. It begins with humankind's first desire to commune with, or receive the light of, Deity. It is known to have existed in Sumeria, and, in fact, existed throughout the pagan world. Clear mention is made of it in one late pagan text, Allogenes, based on practices of many centuries standing: "There was a stillness of silence within me, and I heard the blessedness whereby I knew myself as "I am." A direct mention of it is made in many ancient texts.

Mysticism refers to the human being's direct experience or consciousness of ultimate reality. For Christian mystics it is understood as God - within the context of Christian faith. The essence of mysticism is the sense of some form of contact with the divine or transcendent. For Christians and other religious humans, in its higher forms it involves union with God. Mysticism has played an important role in the history of Christian religion and other major world religions. It is once again becoming a stronger force influencing modern times.

Messianic Secrets and the Mysteries of Salvation

New Testament references to the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (for example, Matthew 13:11, Mark 4:11, Luke 8:10) generated myth and legend. The New Testament emphasis on secrecy and on the mysteries of salvation became fertile ground for the efflorescence of myth and legend. Things hidden from the beginning of the world now blossomed in the signs of the new messianic age. The truths now came to light! They should be proclaimed to the whole world. Christians transmitted and explored, with the full force of their imaginations the wonders revealed by Christ and the secrets of his salvation.

The Gospel of Thomas, Secret Gospel of Mark, and Gospel of Philip preserve some legends and myths descending from the early Christian centers of Edessa, Alexandria, and Asia Minor. Some of the narratives describe the "hidden life" of Jesus in the 30 years before his public ministry began. After Irenaeus and others joined in a successful trashing of the reputation of their other Christian theologians, they defined orthodoxies in terms of Greek philosophy or Roman juridical code. Henceforth the mythic themes appeared clumsy or tasteless and retrospectively were found to be attainted with heresy. The inventive Irenaeus found particularly powerful the use of vicious invective toward the troublesome religious views of what were called the Gnostics. He generated his own myths which are still found in standard dictionaries definition of Gnosticism. In truth, major branches of Gnosticism did not focus only on death or evil as Irenaeus falsely represented.

Groups of Gnostics based their ideas on alternative mythologies of the economy of Christian salvation furnished with some other Christian myths, legends, and practices. And the realm of the spirit created by a good God (revealed in the New Testament) was irreconcilably pitted against false knowledge purveyed by liars. (One hears the echoes of Zoroastrianism in many of these Gnostic sects.Among them the Valentinians, led by Valentinus who lived in Rome and Alexandria in the mid-2nd century.

The legend of the Magi-Kings was embellished in some apocryphal books and Christian folklore. The Proto -gospel of James describe the birth of the Savior, Jesus. Like the god Mithra of Zoroastrianism,the divine child is co-substantial with celestial light and was born in a mountain cave on December 25. (Note for obscure reasons the religion of Mithra became popular among Roman soldiers hence the unknown date of Jesus birth was connected with the birth date of Mithra. So it goes, in the world of myths and legends.) The away in the manger imagery of the Nativity of Christ and the symbolism of the royal visitors may have descended through folklore from Iranian accounts of the birth of the cosmic savior. Iranian theologies of light Mazda appear to have been recast in Christian terms. This Opus relates that Magi-Kings who lived near the Mountain of Victories hoped to find the messiah in a cave on the mountaintop. Eventually the Magi, sons of kings, entered the cave to find a star of unspeakable brightness, glowing more than many suns together. The star and its bright light led them to the Holy Child, the son of the Light, who redeems the world. For the Christian myths in our modern world.

Click here to read more on Christian Myths in the Modern World.

It is clear that unlike the orthodox canon of the Christian gospels which were inscribed and closed during the first three centuries, authentic Christian myths and legends have arisen anew over time during the many centuries of the Christian era. The historical course of Christian myth and legend can be traced through the whole of Christian annals. Though conventional church history offers a record of the spread of Christianity,through the Mediterranean, eastern and western Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas,it often hides the highlights of the diversity of cultural responses to the impact of the greatest story every told - the Christian message of salvation. The diverse local cultures' religious hopes, heroes, and rites of these cultures continued to shape and reinterpret the life of Christ and his saintly followers. Legend and myth constitute a record of critical reflection on Christian reality in all its dimensions. The folk lore of rural populations and urban ghettos ,social, political, economic, doctrinal, and scriptural were modified by Christianity but the message of Christianity was modified as well. Clearly, no social class or geographic region can lay exclusive claim to Christian myth and legend.

Poets' visions of utopian philosophers and the general populations' storytelling have preserved many ideals widely held about the workings of salvation, though in a vague way they are derived from legendary episodes, some may seem to follow along biblical text themes. Through myth and legend, diverse local communities around the emerging global civilization are continuously and creatively absorbing into the indigenous (local) rich religious histories the message of Christian salvation. Through the same fabulous means, they have evaluated the impact of Christian temporal power on their world. Today, it is being re-shaped by electronic communications such as the internet.

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THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITYAND THE WORLD

The Christian community is always one part of the world in which it exists. Thus, the church has served the typical religious function of legitimating social systems and values and of creating holy structures of meaning, plausibility, and compensation for society as it faces loss and death.

Tragically, the Christian community has sometimes exercised this religious function in collusion with blood-thirsty tribalistic nationalisms (e.g., the shame of the "German Christians" and Nazism by their sins of omission and commission which disregarded well known traditional church tenets.) However, when the Christian community has held fast to its teachings and opposed wrong-headed social systems and values it has been a powerful moral force for doing right.

A recent example was the rise to the higher duty by some white Christian church leaders in the South when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave them a call to god To do What Jesus Would Do" - circa 1964.

Given the inherent fragility of human culture and society, religion in general, and the Christian community, in particular, frequently finds that the church is dominated by the conservative forces of hypocrisy within the church.

As Jesus would do, these stultifying forces must be opposed and overturned. History reports that the sincere Christian community is not always a conservative force as the congregation tries to liberate. Christianity's ability to criticize the world's status quo was bitterly acknowledged by those Romans who attributed the fall of their empire to the Christian undermining of their tolerant "civil religion." Because Christian martyrs died rather than acknowledge the ‘Gods' of others.

Contemporary Christian theology of blacks and Latin-American liberation theology share the conviction that God takes the side of the oppressed against the world's injustices. From the perspective of theology or faith, the criticism of the world of which the Christian community itself is a part is the exercise of its commitment to Jesus Christ. For the Christian community, the death and Resurrection of Jesus call into question all structures, systems, and values of the world that claim be the righteous ultimacy, here and now, in the face of the legitimacy of God's reign as they await the end time to come. The relationship of the Christian community to the world may be seen differently depending upon one's historical, sociological, and theological perspectives because the Christian community is both a creation in and of the world and an influence upon it.

Church, Sect, and Mystical Movement

Recently, powerful opposition to the idea that there is a universal message from Jesus has developed in evangelical Christian sects. In the past they were comparatively smaller groups that strove for subjective, unmediated salvation. The result was that these evangelical churches related indifferently or antagonistically to the world. The exclusivity and historical discontinuity of their exclusionary sects is signified by adherence to a calling - that they imitate what their community believes is the New Testament early Christian community. They are proud of their intolerance and enjoy broadcasting their belief that most other believers are blasphemers because they do not believe as they, the evangelical Christians believe. To their congregations, they know they are right and others are wrong.

Recently, there are mystical movements that express a radical religious individualism that strives to interiorize and live out the personal example of Jesus. They are not interested in creating a community. Instead they strive toward universal tolerance, by way of a universal fellowship of spiritual religion that is beyond creeds and dogmas. They include some charismatic communities.

There is a long held dogma that Opposes the secular world. It is exemplified by Tertullian's question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem." Although frequently associated with the medieval efforts to construct a Christian commonwealth. This anti-secular type is present wherever national, social, political, and economic programs are "baptized" as Christian. Thus, its historical expressions may be as diverse as the Jeffersonian farmer ideal in the United States, and, Hitler's National Socialism in Nazi Germany.

Though the American Constitution has for long been a bulwark against the sharing of power by a state with officially recognized churches that it considers friendly, Recently, that clear separation that protected religious minorities has been abridged by so-called faith-based initiatives that shower government gold and silver into the collection plates of those churches that vow to re-elect the current powers who control the state. The danger to the USA's constitutional state is too obvious.

An earlier well-known expression of this position is Martin Luther's law/gospel dialectic, He distinguished how the Christian community is to live in the secular world that is both sinful and righteous at the same time. There was an implicit conviction that the world may be transformed and regenerated by Christianity ("Christ the transformer of culture") such ideas have been attributed to those expressions with theocratic tendencies. It is an illusion to urge that the Christian community is monolithic, homogeneous, or static. The reality of "many-sidedness" can be seen in the Christian community's relationships to the state, society, education, the arts, social welfare, and family and personal life.

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CHURCH AND STATE

The relationship of Christians to Christian institutions and to secular forms of the political order has shown an extraordinary diversity during church historical developments. For a few examples, there have been: divinely founded monarchies, democracies, and communist community orders. However, in various periods of political revolution, based on theological assertions that it was necessary to eliminate older "Christianized" state forms there haves also been dynamic radical changes that were a part of this diversity.

Church-driven aspirations for the Kingdom of God on Earth have stimulated political and social strivings for realization of the Kingdom, here, on Earth, they include struggles for exclusive power and dominion. The political power of the Christian proclamation of the coming sovereignty of God resided in the promise of Jesus to both establish God's reign of peace and the eventual execution of judgment day. The confusion in the minds of Christians (which persists) is as to whether this was to take place in the "here after" or, here, on Earth. Power-mongering church leaders have promoted this confusion for self-aggrandizement. Church leaders, being human, like the state politicians, are continuously exposed to the temptation of power. The attempt to establish the so-called "kingdom of peace" has resulted in the transformation of the church into the ecclesiastical state that prevailed in Europe for centuries. The remnants of that "state" remain at Vatican City in Rome, Italy. The Roman Catholic Church still asserts a claim of rightful dominion over the entire world by way of its mythical divine commission through Peter which has no basis in history except for self-serving propaganda. The church-state partnership that prevailed for so long in South America is a product of modifying this so-called rightful dominion of the church to extend its realm to include the upper-class power-elite in an iron-fisted partnership. The liberation theology of frustrated lower-class priests in the face of this partnership has been an attempt to bring to bear on the everyday world the teachings of Jesus.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

The separation of church and state was made a part of the USA Constitution which barred the establishment of any church by the state. This was done when the US Congress passed the Bill of Rights in the early 1790s. It was a post-haste act, after the founding fathers had neglected the issues of constitutional protection of human rights. At the same time (1989), during the French Revolution, there was a declaration of the separation of church-and-state while religious freedom was to be protected by the new republic of France. This separation of powers was the result of the Reformation's strivings toward a guarantee for the freedom of the church and the natural-law ideas of the Enlightenment. It was aggravated by the anti-clerical criticism against the wealthy ecclesiastical hierarchy.

The separation of church and state achieved during and after the American Revolution resulted from ideas arising from the struggle of the Puritans against the English Anglican Church's Episcopal-bishop system which is still conjoined with the English throne. Deadly religious prosecutions in England and Europe had placed the American revolutionaries on notice that self-aggrandizing church leaders would strive to use their toadies to seize powers of the state to persecute their opponents. Many of the American colonists were immigrants who had fled such deadly persecution in England and Europe.

The new state in France undertook the task of creating its own political, revolutionary substitute-religion in the form of the "cult of reason," which foreshadowed Rousseau's discourse on "la religion civile." It was an uneasy wary type of separation of church and state. The French state took over education and other hitherto churchly functions which became civic in nature and execution.

Ongoing from the late 18th century, two fundamental attitudes developed in the matters that related to the separation of church and state in these Christian dominated nations. The first, as implied in the Constitution of the United States, was to support the idea that the secular state should leave the churches alone, set free from state supervision, the churches should maximize freedom in the realization of its spiritual, moral, and educational tasks. In the United States, for example, comprehensive church-school and educational system were created by the churches based on this freedom. Numerous universities have been founded by churches.

However, the separation of church-and-state by the French Revolution and later in the Soviet Union and those countries under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence there was a violation of the concept of separate by way of an attempt to totally exterminate the church and to replace it with nationalism. It should be acknowledged that this resulted, in part, from a history of frequent extreme abuses of power by concordats between church and secular powers ranging over time and place in European and South American history.

In contrast to this, National Socialism in Germany under Hitler showed paradoxical contradictions. On the one hand, Nazi propaganda openly pursued a policy of consciously anti-Christian polemics against the church. It used state power to arrest those clergy who openly opposed the Nazi world view and policies. On the other hand, Hitler placed great value upon concluding with the Vatican in 1934 a concordat that granted the Roman Catholic Church even more special rights in the German Reich than had been granted in any earlier concordat. The concordat with the Vatican represented the first recognition of the Hitler regime by a European government and was viewed by Hitler as a method of entrance into the circle of internationally recognized political powers. How it was viewed by the Vatican's negotiator the Papal Nuncio, Pacelli, who was next elevated to be Pope Pius, to serve during WWII is not known. This is strange, because he was the one who negotiated for it. The concordat remains secretive. Some say that Pacelli walked with Hitler to try to stop the world dominance by Godless Communism. Still, it is to the never-ending shame of the Roman Catholic Church that Hitler has never been excommunicated for his horrible anti-Semitism, nor, did Pope Pius make any significant effort to halt the Nazi march toward the Final Solution of the Holocaust for the Jews, gypsies, and the political prisoners. These tragic historical records speak loudly for preservation of a virtual chasm of separation of the church from the state.

The record of human history has made clear that human imperfections make any partnership between the church and the state a potential hothouse for nurturing the growth of power for the hungry church leaders along with their toadies and sycophants within the secular governments who will then use their misbegotten power and state monies for their own ends in the name of the captive church. Jesus understood this problem and showed his wrath by throwing the money changers out of the Temple. Keep in mind the money-changers were useful. They served the Pharisees by making it easier for the devout to buy animals for sacrifice. It was a hidden tax collector's function for the Pharisees.

In Germany the old state-church traditions had already been eliminated in the revolution of 1918. By abolishing the monarchical system of government, the revolution also deprived the territorial churches of their supreme Protestant Episcopal heads. Thus, under Hitler through new state agreements with the Nazis, definite special rights, primarily in the areas of taxes and education, were granted to both the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical (Lutheran-Reformed) churches of the individual German states.

In 2008, the USA is threatened with such church favoritism by the administration of so-called federally subsidized faith-based programs that are discriminating against diverse church minorities.

Historically, in the United States, though the old state-church system was overcome during the American Revolution it still produces after-effects. There are significant tax privileges for IRS-selected churches (the IRS recognizes exemption from income taxes for those so acknowledged). There is the exemption of the clergy from military service, and the financial furtherance of confessional school and educational systems through the state. These privileges have been questioned and even attacked by certain segments of the American public with very limited success because of the majoritarians' abuses of power to favor those who are in power. (The spiritual but not religious often leave the churches of their youth because of such abuses.)

Amazing as it may seem, slavery is today at its acme on Earth. According to recent studies more people are enslaved (usually by families) than at any time in history. Slavery is a great stain on, not only Christians, but all humans who claim to love and serve God who do nothing.

Click here to read more on the problem of slavery and persecution. Christian Theological and Humanitarian Motivations

Decisive impulses for achieving changes in the social realm arise from Jesus teachings. In this sense Christian ethics are initiated by those men and women who are in the grasp of a deep personal Christian experience of faith. Within the ecumenical movement and especially among Christian world missions modern economic and other forms of aid to developing countries have amplified the Social Gospel. This includes significant ecumenical contributions from the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and the Roman Catholic Church. There are excellent outreach missions of the evangelical Christians to Africa, South American and Asia which affirm that their religious fervor is producing some of "God's good works." More and more the Christian community is showing that their beliefs extend to faithful responsibility in and to the world that require political, economic, and social assistance to oppressed peoples with the goal of liberation to a fuller human life. the Dalai lama has expressed constructive criticism of modern Buddhism for failing to provide social services to the less fortunate.

Christian Churches and the Meaning of Education - Intellectualism Versus Anti-Intellectualism

Because humans have been endowed with reason some have an urge to express their experience of faith intellectually. Many want to translate the contents of faith into concepts, and to formulate beliefs in a systematic understanding of the correlation between God, humankind, and creation. There are some who believe that many Christians of the 1st century came from the upper levels of society and were acquainted with the philosophy and natural science of their time. However, it seems more likely that Paul and other church leaders looked for sincerity and the light of belief in the greatest story every told than for the ability to rhyme and reason. Still the Logos (Word) as in the term of the opening chapter of the Gospel According to John is the point of connection to literacy for the intellectual history of salvation. The light of the Logos (a Greek word meaning "word" or "reason," was joined with the sense of divine or universal reason thereby permeating the intelligible world. The ancient light was made manifest in a number of sparks and seeds in human history even before its incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ. Moses with the tablets at Mt. Sinai is an early example.

However, there are two contrasting opinions about the importance of written discourse as compared with oral expressions. These stand for a permanent tension with one another. In Aquinas' Scholasticism, the elevation of Christian belief to the status of scientific universal knowledge was a dominating force. Theology at one time was the instructor for advancement of the different sciences, organized according to the traditional classification of the tritium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) and quadrivium (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy). Thus the system of education was a "servants of theology." This system of education became part of the structure of the universities that were founded in the 13th century. The different sciences very slowly gained a degree of intellectual independence over the centuries. Open conflict between science and theology occurred only when the traditional biblical view of the world was seriously questioned, as in the case of the Italian astronomer Galileo (1633). Galileo's experiences are a testimony about the difficulties.

With the Reformation there was widespread concern for spreading education because the Reformers wanted everyone to be able to read the Bible. Their concern was the beginning of universal, public education. Luther also argued that it was necessary for society that its youth be educated. He held that it was the duty of civil authorities to compel their subjects to keep their children in school so "that there will always be preachers, jurists, pastors, writers, physicians, schoolmasters, and the like, for we cannot do without them." Positive tendencies concerning education and science have always been dominant in the history of Christianity.

The struggle concerning the theory of evolution (e.g., the Scopes Trial in Tennessee in 1925 and Darby Township in 2005) has reared its backside toward science in an emotional evangelical Christian response. This is a fight to protect fables, myths and legends from the inroads of scientific reality. Tragically, the powerful church leaders of evangelical Christians are encouraging their captive parents to send their children to schools that censor text materials to prevent exposure to the evidence of science concerning the origins of the Universe and Humankind. These rear-guard actions are estranging fundamentalist theology and natural science in the modern period. Generally, the church leaders are consciously anti-intellectual and intentionally estrange their congregations from interaction with other devout Christian believers who do not agree with their world view of a planet Earth that is 6000 year old. These dangerous anti-intellectuals do not want their children to be aware of carbon-dating and fossil evidence. Reason and facts have become, in their mind, enemies of their fundamentalist devotion to faith. Scholars are being forced to withdraw from friendly debate that could be a search for truth and a common ground. This is because the evangelical church authorities are unwilling to subject themselves to critical reason and experience. There was a time that the rationalism of the Enlightenment appeared to be the answer by science to the claim by churches that they were the only forum for true faith. Though many of the leaders of the evangelical fundamentalist churches have become untrustworthy because their hostile religious wars-of-words use fraud to misrepresent evolution and the tolerance of most scientists, their influence should not be underestimated or ignored.

The crisis state of the Christian religion in the USA calls for the spiritual but not religious to defend tolerance against the spurious claims of the fundamentalist Christian leaders who misrepresent to others their falsified portrayal of the meaning Jesus' message as the only truth.

All earthly societies have currently unidentifiable elements of heaven's reign within them. Still, none of them not state, not church, not voluntary organization, can be equated with heaven's reign. Claims to a "faith-based politics" or to a perfectly right church-substitute to provide a religion that equates with heaven's reign is a form of idolatry.

Christian Education By Church Institutions.

Meantime, the anti-intellectual fundamentalists are seizing the high ground and are now falsely claiming that they are under attack for their beliefs. It is not their beliefs which are under attack but their own intolerance of other Christians who have strongly held beliefs that differs from the fundamentalists. Obviously, strong efforts ought to be made to find a common ground to restart the dialogue that once flowed within the Christian faith.

With the separation of church and state, both secular and religious institutions have entered into tense, manifold, relationships. France maintains public school systems basically free of religion and leaves religious instruction to the private undertakings of the different churches. In the American Revolution the concept of the separation of state and church was a lofty goal that was supposed to free the church from all patronization by the state and to make possible a maximum of free activity, particularly in the area of education.

Church and Social Welfare, Healing and Caring for the Sick

The Christian Church has administered its concern for the sick in a twofold manner: both by healing the sick and by expressing concern and caring for them. The practice of healing has retreated into the background in modern times, but healing played a decisive role in the success of the early church and was important to missionary work. In the Gospels, Jesus appears as a healer of body and soul. The title "Christ the Physician" was the most popular name for the Lord in missionary preaching of the first centuries. The Apostles were characterized as healers. The Fathers of the early centuries interpreted the entire sphere of charismatic life from the basic concepts that Christ is the physician, the church the hospital, the sacraments, the medications, and orthodox theology was the medicine chest against heresy. Ignatius of Antioch called the Eucharist the "medication that produces immortality." The history of charismatic healing has hardly been explored. Miracles of healing remain a characteristic attribute of the great Christian charismatics of the Roman Catholic Church as well as of the Eastern Orthodox.

The early basis for the practice of healing was generally a demonological interpretation of sickness: healing was often carried out as an exorcism,that is, a ceremonial liturgical adjuration of the demon that supposedly caused the illness and to expel it from the sick person. The development of exorcism was slowed in that it was a characteristic that the office of the exorcist eventually became one of the lower levels of the ordination that led to the priesthood. Traditionally, exorcisms were connected to many liturgical formulas for cases of demoniacal possession. Because Reason dominated over faith during the Enlightenment in the 18th century there was a suppression of the practice of exorcisms within the Roman Catholic Church although exorcism still occurs under wraps of secrecy.

In the churches of the Reformation, exorcism never completely vanished, in Pietistic circles several exorcists turned exorcism into an influential resource for international missionary work. In sympathy with working-class needs, different groups of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements have re-accepted the use of exorcistic rituals with great emphasis and,pointing to the power of the Holy Spirit. They usually claim the charisma of healing as one of the spiritual gifts granted to the believing Christian. This was after the basic connection between healing of the body and healing of the soul, and the psychogenic origin of many illnesses was acknowledged theologically and medically. Different older churches, such as the Protestant Episcopal Church and even the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, have reinstituted healing services. The cross-cultural influences of Chinese Taoist and Indian Aryuvedic healing practices have encouraged this recent wider acceptance.

In terms of spiritual healing, one church has stood out in this respect in North America. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), the founder of Christian Science, referred particularly to healing through the Spirit as her special mission. Based on her experience of a successful healing from a serious illness she wrote her work Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and founded the Church of Christ, Scientist. In accordance with the instructions of its founder, Christian Science today carries out a practice of "spiritual healing" throughout the world.

Care for the Sick

From the beginning, in addition to healing, was care for the sick. It was an element of the earliest commandments of Christian ethics. It is believed that at the Last Judgment, Christ the Judge will say to the chosen ones on his right hand (the sheep): "I was sick and you visited me," and to the condemned (the goats) on his left hand: "I was sick and you did not visit me." To the surprise of the condemned who might question when they saw Christ sick and did not visit him, they will receive the answer: "As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me."

Jesus instruction is clear. Yet, in the year 2003 the least generous of all working-age Americans were the young and prosperous that is, the taxpayers age 35 and under who made more than $10 million and the 18,600 taxpayers who make between $500,000 and $1 million dollars.  They  gave little to charity and the church. These are conservative Americans who are not the charity-givers of the USA. Those who had incomes under $100,000. gave at a rate six times that of their wealthier peers. The charitable spirit is weak among the rich as Jesus observed centuries ago. Still, the USA has been blessed by a history of philanthropy among some of the super-rich such as: Carnegie, Rockefeller, Hughes, Lehman, Ford, Buffet, and Gates. There is reason to hope that more of the rich will discover a generous heart and soul within themselves.

Click here to read more on the care of the Sick,Widows and Orphans

In the realm of Protestantism, the first Protestant hospital in Kaiserswerth in 1836 created at the same time the female diaconate, an order of nurses that soon found worldwide membership and recognition. Florence Nightingale received training at Kaiserswerth, which was an important model for modern nursing schools. Church hospitals and ecclesiastical nursing care still maintain a leading and exemplary role in the 21st century. The most impressive example of the universal spread of care for the sick was the founding of the Red Cross. After difficult negotiations with representatives of numerous states,the "Geneva convention regarding the care and treatment in wartime of the wounded military personnel began an attempt to civilize the conduct of war. In the 21st century the activity of the Red Cross has embraced not only the victims of military actions but also peace activity, which includes aid for the sick, for the handicapped, for the elderly and children, and for the victims of all types of disasters everywhere in the world.

Property, Poverty, and the Poor

The Christian community's relation to the issues of property, poverty, and the poor may be presented from four major perspectives:

The first perspective, both chronologically and in continuing popularity, is personal charity. This was the predominant form of the church's relationship to the poor from the 1st to the 16th century.

The second perspective, supplements the remedial work of charity by efforts for preventive welfare through the promotion of structural changes in the society of the poor. In the year 2008 there is an international non-sectarian effort to encourage the wealthy nations to adopt a five (5) year program to use their economic forces to end the worst kinds of poverty in the world now. This follows a study by an academic scholar (Jeffrey Sacks) who demonstrated that it was not a dream but in fact it could be done with international cooperation.

(Note: it is hoped that the effort will be coupled with provisions for family planning devices to be used, voluntarily,  by the poor families, as well. Otherwise, the effort will be overwhelmed by population increases which will eat up what could have been improvements.)

The concern is to remove causes of poverty. It was clearly expressed centuries ago during the Reformation. But it been ignored by the capitalistic markets.

The third perspective, is a retreat into the charity models of the earlier Christian community. This is because of the overwhelming effects of secularization and the human misery caused by industrialization.

The fourth perspective, presented in churches of the modern period, envisions systemic social change to facilitate equitable redistribution of the world's wealth. Personal charity is not neglected, but the major goal is to change the unjust world society through a wide spread acceptance of the idea of a minimal platform for health and human services.

At one time, during the early Christian community's teachings about property and poverty there was a marked tension between Christian expectations and the failure of support from the wealthy. This was because of biblically rooted criticism of "wealth without a conscience" by Jesus. The solution is to place rich and poor in a symbiotic relationship oriented toward salvation. The idea is that the rich supply the needs of the poor from their surplus while the poor in turn provide the rich with beneficial work.  Thus, there is the opportunity for good works by the wealthy and prayers by the poor of appreciation for the salvation of their benefactors. This is the idea that altruism can be self-enhancing, However, it has fallen by the wayside as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and the Bush family have encouraged the "me" generation to take care of themselves and family first, as though these families were automatically doing enough for others. The IRS study shows that they are not. Perhaps, that is what the well-to-do mean by the words family values?  It appears that social responsibility has been actively discouraged by the conservative movement which encourages instead selfish, family-centered concerns.

Asoka, an American non-profit has given funding, advice, and support to 1,400 charitable social entrepreneurs in about 46 countries since the 189s0s. They help those in poverty find a way to use venture capital to produce a business that will generate income to overcome poverty.

Augustine's doctrine of charity was at one time the heart of Christian thought and practice. Augustine portrayed the Christian as on a pilgrimage toward the heavenly city, by analogy charity is the traveler's journey home. Augustine's city of God, humankind's true home, is characterized by the love of God even to the contempt of self, whereas the earthly city, it was said, is characterized by the love of self even to the contempt of God. Therefore, it is the goal, not the journey, that is ultimately important. The world and its goods must be used for the journey, but if they are enjoyed, excessively, they direct the traveler away from God to the earth. This imagery incorporates into the heart of Christian theology the great medieval themes of pilgrimage, renunciation, alienation, and asceticism, and the biblical, early Christian, suspicion of riches. All this is received systematic theological articulation. Pride and covetousness are the major vices, humility and alms giving are the major virtues, and pietistic poverty is endorsed as the favored status for the Christian life. Little effort has been made to update these images in modern times. This view did not, however, lead to a rejection of property and its importance for society. Respect for private property was maintained as integral to a comprehensive ethic. It was clear that without property Christians could not care for the needy. The abolition of private property would not cure sin. Still, property and wealth should be shared, not relinquished. Yet the paradox of 2 Corinthians 6:10 remained: "Under God, How could it be that many Christian were poor, yet, God would make many rich who have no altruism yet possess everything?"

The answers supplied were ideas of communal property, and charity to the needy, avoidance of avarice, and concentration upon heavenly treasures. In this way the early Christian community achieved an aristocratic attitude toward riches. These solutions resulted in institutionalizing poverty in priesthood and monasticism, while rationalizing poverty as poverty of the spirit and material wealth as God's provision for ministry. This was the platform for the medieval care of the poor. The medieval Christian community promoted almsgiving within a theological framework. Charity was oriented to the future salvation of the individual. Although this framework was a stimulus to insightful and humane laws and actions, it could not cope with major changes. The church failed to formulate policies to deal with the major social and economic changes that accompanied the late-medieval shift from rural-agricultural society to urban-commercial society.Nor, in modern times, is the church dealing successfully with AIDS, regional genocides, and gross malnutrition of third country poor.

There are other global problems that cry out for Christian charity today. The natural law of common use supposedly protected every person's access to earthly goods and required responsibility by everyone to provide for the needs of others. Private property, on the other hand, is rooted in positive law through human reason. In history, theoretical reason leads to the conclusion that the common good is served if everyone has disposition of his own property. Thereby there is more incentive to work, goods are more carefully used, and peace is better preserved when all have the real possibility of satisfying their own needs. Private property exists to serve the common good, thus, superfluous property ought to be subjected to philanthropy and self-ordered re-distributed to those in serious need for the necessaries of life. Thus the use of logic and reason ignores social statistics and the great gap between the wealth of the rich and the very poor because those who ‘have' do not feel a charitable spirit to help the ‘have-nots'.

Some parishioners chose political solutions because the church fathers lived in an abstract world where God and the poor-box were all that was needed to fulfill the mission of the church. To this day, the Judeo-Christian conscience is not being well served by the guidance and example of the church.

Christians Join the Organized Citizenry of the Cities

The other major effort by Christians to deal with property and poverty in the Middle Ages was through rational direction and administration of their resources. As cities developed into political corporations, a new element entered welfare work: an organizing of the citizenry.

For more details on this movement click here.

Yet most Christians had no social concern and were hardly aware of dire poverty and public health conditions. They rarely attempted to expose the root origins of the social ills that their peers strove to remedy. Poverty is social, not natural, but most Christians' orientation, like that of others, has been toward renewing society through evangelizing. This attitude, that society is changed by changing the hearts of individuals,is still prevalent even though it has not worked for centuries. American conservatives have promoted the idea that the market will solve all social problems by trickling down sustenance for the poor. Market failures are ignored because they are not a part of their free-market intellectualizing.

In recent years, however, the Christian community, especially in its ecumenical organizations, has begun to analyze the social problems of property and poverty from the standpoint of justice and the perspectives of the poor and oppressed. This focus was endorsed at the 1975 WCC Assembly at Nairobi, Kenya, as "a liberating process aimed at justice, self-reliance and economic growth." The present WCC paradigm for this mission is the church in solidarity with the poor.

Pastoral Care

Pastoral care has always been of special importance to Christians. The biographies of the great charismatic ministers, beginning with the Fathers of the Eastern Church and the Western Church, testify to surprising variations of this positive spirit for pastoral care. The principal interest of pastoral care,whether exercised by clergy or laity,is the personal welfare of persons who are hurt, troubled, alienated, or confused within the context of ultimate concerns and meanings. These concerns may be described in terms of the anxieties of death (early church), guilt (Middle Ages), and meaninglessness (the anomie of the modern period). Luther responded to the conscience tortured-by-guilt and uncertainty by proclaiming the free forgiveness of sin by grace alone, apart from human accomplishment. The modern Christian community has utilized the insights of psychology and psychiatry in developing pastoral counseling and therapy responsive to modern anxieties. Fundamentally, however, pastoral care has always attempted to respond to the totality of human needs in every age as urged to do by the words of Jesus Christ:

"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me" (Matthew 25:3536).

Pastoral Care has Long Been a Charitable Duty of Christians

The first influential contribution to pastoral care after the New Testament was by Pope Gregory I, the Great. He encouraged the medieval episcopate to emphasize the role of the pastor as a shepherd of souls. This in turn led to the Reformers' emphasis upon lay as well as clerical responsibility for pastoral care as expressed in their teaching of "the priesthood of all believers." However, the Reformation attitude insisted upon salvation by faith with grace alone. This peculiar limitation, hardly in keeping with the words of Jesus, shifted the burden of proof for salvation from human accomplishment to divine promise. By "letting God be God."

The Reformers claimed that persons were free to be human. This shift of theological focus, from an otherworldly achievement to a this-worldly trust in God, facilitated a renewed holistic awareness of human needs and pointed the way for the Christian communities appreciation of the benefits available in modern medicine and therapy and expanded the desire to spread the good news by way of service to those on need.

The Christian Churches and Minorities

The tendency to develop an identifiable Christian culture is apparent even where Christian minorities live within a non-Christian environment,i.e., in an environment wherein life has been shaped and is characterized by a non-Christian religion. This is the case with most Christian churches in Asia and Africa. In some countries Christian minorities have had to struggle for their very existence and benign recognition. There are cases of persecutions of Christians. On the other hand, in some cases the situation of Christian minorities is ideally suited to demonstrate to outsiders the peculiar style of life of a Christian communal culture helping one another. This is particularly advantageous for the church within a caste state, in which the church itself has developed into a caste, with special extrinsic characteristics in clothing and customs. An example of this phenomenon is the Mar Thoma Church of South India.

A special problem presents itself through the coexistence of racially different Christian cultures in racially mixed states. The influence of the Christian black churches, especially of Methodist and Baptist denominations, has been thoroughly imprinted upon the culture of North American blacks. The churches themselves were founded through the missionary work of white Baptist, and Methodist churches. They have become somewhat independent of their mother churches, or were established as autonomous churches within the framework of the sects A similar situation exists in South Africa, where white congregations and separate black congregations have been established within the white mission churches. Independent messianic black churches have appeared outside the older organized congregations. In the 21st century much tension exists in this area.

On the one hand, the Christian Church has from the beginning urged the overcoming of racism. In the early church, racism was unknown, the Jewish synagogues allowed black proselytes. The first Jewish proselyte mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles was a governmental administrator from Ethiopia, who was baptized by the Apostle Philip. The early Coptic Christian congregations in Alexandria, Egypt, included many Ethiopians and blacks. Among the evangelizing churches, the Portuguese Catholic mission in principle did not recognize differences between races,whoever was baptized became a "human being" and became a member not only of the Christian congregation but also of the Christian society and was allowed to marry another Christian of any race.

In contrast to this practice, the Catholic mission of the Spaniards introduced the separation of races under the term casticismo (purity of the Castilian heritage). In the American mission regions the churches sometimes restricted marriage between Castilian Spanish immigrants and native Christians. Like the Portuguese in Africa and Brazil, the French Catholic mission in Canada and in the regions around the Great Lakes in North America did not prohibit marriage of whites with Indians but tolerated and even encouraged it during the 17th and 18th centuries. Consequently, some of the Christian churches led in seeking racial integration, but other churches maintained racial segregation from the beginning.

On the other hand, an ideologically and politically founded racial theory has recently been introduced into black churches. The demand for a black theology with a black Christ  at its center has been made and, the black churches have theologically and ideologically racial theories as do the whites. Obviously, this aggravates the specifically Christian task of racial integration within the church. Roles of the poor, the oppressed, and women have too often been ignored and suppressed. The 21st century is expected to be a time of change in the relations of race, color, national origin, sex, as Christians try to make the instructive words of Jesus a part of their everyday life.

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THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND FAMILY

The Christian understanding of sexuality, marriage, and family has been strongly influenced by the Old Testament view of marriage as an institution primarily concerned with procreation and the establishment of a family, rather than sustaining the individual happiness of the marriage partners.

This was a transformation to the Judaic patriarchal marital unit, as is evident in the New Testament departure from the Hellenistic understanding of love. The classical understanding of love, expressed in the Platonic concept of Eros, was opposed in the Christian community because of the biblical understanding of asexual love, agape. Although erotic love has too frequently been understood as merely and primarily the expression of animalistic sexual desire and passion, its classical religious and philosophical meaning was the idealistic desire to acquire the highest spiritual and intellectual good between two humans. The early Christian perception does not use the word eros but rather the relatively rare word agape. Agape was at first, translated into Latin as caritas and thus appears in English as "charity" and only later as "love." The Christian concept of love understood human mutuality and reciprocity within the context of God's self-giving love, which creates value in the person loved. For centuries the Christian community had great difficulty accepting the reality that God had created the feelings of lust-filled love among humans. The Christian community understood the faith active in love primarily in terms of voluntary obedience of the wife rather than emotion and applied this understanding to every aspect of life, including sexuality, marriage, and family.

In the 21st century this definition is too simple as based on an outmoded patriarchal breeding unit. At a time of world-wide population pressures it is no longer practical. Furthermore vast numbers are living far beyond the fertility years. For example, elderly couples marry for love and companionship and not for establishing a family by reproducing. Much thought must be given to the objectives and purposes of marriage in a world that would bewilder the original church fathers. The ideas of Leviticus were for a different time and place. The need for family planning throughout the world has become critical if the planet Earth is to survive the impending eco-spasm global warming - brought on by population pressures.

The Christian Tendency to Spiritualize and Individualize Marriage

Marriage is called the most intimate form of human relations in which the fellowship of believers in Christ is realized. In the early church, children were included in this fellowship. They were baptized when their parents were baptized, took part in the worship life of the congregation, and received Holy Communion with their parents.

The Eastern Orthodox Church still practices the idea that as part of the Eucharistic rite Jesus' teaching, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them." During the first decades of the early church, congregational meetings took place in the homes of Christian families. The family became the archetype of the church. Paul called the members of his congregation in Ephesus "members of the household of God." (Ephesians 2:19).

In the early church the Christians marriage was based on the participation of Christians in the body of Christ. This postulated a more generous interpretation of the fellowship of marriage between a Christian and a pagan marriage partner because the pagan one is saved with the Christian one "for the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband." Even the children from a marriage in which at least one partner belongs to the body of Christ "are holy" (1 Corinthians 7:14). If the pagan partner, however, does not want to sustain the marriage relationship with a Christian partner under any circumstances, then, the Christian partner should grant him (or her?) a divorce. The conduct of evangelical Christians today, is a form of spiritual intolerance when compared with this verse from Corinthians. Like Christian Scientists they demand that both spouses declare their belief in the same faith. Respect and tolerance of a spouse's different religion is apparently intolerable.

Jesus himself based his parables of the Reign of God on the idea of love between a bride and groom and frequently used parables of a wedding that describe the messianic meal as a wedding feast. In Revelations, the glorious finale of salvation history is depicted as the wedding of the Lamb with the bride.  It is the beginning of the meal of the chosen ones with the Messiah-Son of man (Revelation 19:9: "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb"). The wedding character of the Eucharistic meal is also expressed in the liturgy of the early church. It is deepened through the specifically Christian belief that understands the word of the creation story in Genesis. " They become one flesh," as indicative of the oneness of Christ, the head of the congregation provides his body. With this in mind the Christian demand of monogamy becomes understandable. It remains unclear how one is to treat widows, widowers, the barren, and impotent, elderly couples, etc.

In the so-called ethical lists in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians and in 1 Peter, Christian marriage is distinguished from the marriage practices of its pagan environment by its stricter ethical demands. The rules concern the mutual relationship of the marriage partners, fidelity, as well as attitudes toward children and slaves of the house. The subject matter (e.g. slaves) is a clear indication that Christianity had to respond to changes in the economic and social environment. Conservatives who say they take a literal view of the Bible obviously, make their own "pick-and-choose" adjustments.

Christianity Improved the Social Position of Women, But Not Enough

Christianity did not bring a revolutionary social change to the position of women, but it, at first, made possible a new position in the family and congregation. In the world of the early church, women were held in very low esteem. This was the basis for divorce practices that put women practically at men's complete disposal. With the prohibition against divorce, Jesus himself did away with this low estimation of women. The decisive turning point came in connection with the understanding of Christ wth the Holy Spirit. Even the Jewish view of the patriarchal position of man was substituted by Paul with a new spiritual interpretation of marriage, "There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). The Holy Spirit was poured out universally, over the female disciples of Jesus, as well. This created a major change in the position of women in the Christian church's congregation.

In the synagogue the women were inactive participants in the worship service and sat veiled on the women's side, usually separated from the rest by an opaque lattice. In the Christian congregation, however, women appeared as members with full rights, who used their charismatic gifts within the congregation. In the letters of Paul, women are mentioned as Christians of full value. Paul addresses Price (Priscilla) in Romans 16:3 as his fellow worker. The four daughters of Philip were active as prophets in the congregation. Peter, in a sermon on Pentecost, spoke about men and women as recipients of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (Acts 2:17). A first century fresco in the catacombs of Rome shows St. Priscilla as a woman breaking bread for the Eucharistic meal for six other women at the agape table in the catacombs. As a result, pagan critics of the church, such as Porphyry (c. 234 - 305CE), maintained that the Chritian church was ruled by women. During the periods of Christian persecution, women as well as men showed great courage in their suffering. The fact that they were spontaneously honored as martyrs demonstrates their well-known active roles in the congregations. In this rise to importance of women, the, representatives of patriarchal, rabbinic, and synagogic traditions within the Christian Church saw a danger to how congregations would be constituted.

The only thing consistent about Paul was that he was contradictory. On the one hand, Paul included women in his instruction, "Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19), but, on the other hand, he carried over the rule of the synagogue into the Christian congregation that "women should keep silence in the churches." 1 Corinthians 14:34.

It did not take long for the celibate male chauvinist church leaders to force women into a subordinated role. In the 20th century the Roman Catholic Church still refuses to ordain women as priests. The male priests use the women to do most of the work of the parish, but, still insist upon the superiority of the male sex in the religion.

ASCETICISM AND CELIBACY

There is an ascetic theology within Christianity that demands exclusiveness by the faithful Christians in their devotion to Christ. This mode of devotion is deduced as a demand for celibacy to which some men and women respond. This is found in arguments for the monastic life and in the Roman Catholic view of the priesthood. It is glaringly obvious that the radical-ascetic interpretation stands in constant tension with the positive understanding of Christian marriage. This tension has led to seemingly unsolvable conflicts and to numerous contorted compromises in the history of Christianity.

Without doubt, from the beginning, a strong ascetic tendency was dominant in Christianity. It was emphatically directed against what to some was the over-sexualization of the Hellenistic culture. History does show that the Graeo-Roman culture, in particular the Greek, had experienced a decline in the integrity and fidelity of marital life in the Hellenistic world. There was open acceptance of pederasty and Greek social recognition, even open institutionalization, of cultic and non-cultic prostitution. Hellenistic mores of that day more or less tolerated sodomy for it was excused by pagan mythology. There was an intellectual disconnect by the Christians. The early church leaders adopted Neo-Platonism and other Hellenistic thought while ignoring that they were often adopting the ideas and writings of Hellenistic, active homosexuals.

(Note: In India and Tibet there is a more tolerant attitude toward what the West terms libertine practices. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic Church of Europe has always tolerated covert sex play among priests. For centuries the Church even encouraged the use of castration to produce the sweet-voiced castrati. It remains to be seen what Pope Benedict will do, if anything, about the known sex molesters among the priests who prey upon young men and women and are proud but not boastful about "turning" their converts. For now Pope Benedict is using words of disapproval but little action is taken. )

The Church urges the devout to think about sex as an essentially sinful (bad) practice that must be tolerated because of the need for reproduction. This distortion of God's truth- hierogamos - has damaged the psyche of generations of good Christian men and women by loading them up with the idea that sex was a part of what Augustine called the original sin.

The Book of Revelations, and Paul's speculations are not helpful. Even though Paul is obviously basing his backward ideas on old traditions and not on sweet reason his errors have been multiplied by repetition. Revelations, itself, now known to be a plagiarism taken from the Occult Middle Eastern Rites, finds a receptive audience among those who want an exciting End Time. In the light of the coming Reign of God, marriage was understood as merely an order of the old passing eon, which, of course,  would not exist in the approaching new age. The risen ones will "neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven" (Mark 12:25). Similarly, Paul understood marriage in the light of the coming Reign of God: "The appointed time has grown very short (Editorial Note: He surely missed that prediction.) "from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none . . . for the form of this world is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:2931). This was said in view of the near-time proximity of the Kingdom of God, it was considered not worthwhile to marry. Marriage was seen to involve unnecessary troubles: "I want you to be free from anxieties" (1 Corinthians 7:32). Therefore, the unmarried, the widowers, and widows "do better" if they do not marry, that is if they remain single. Still, according to this point of view marriage was recommended to those who "cannot exercise self-control . . . for it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Corinthians 7:9).

A close reading of Paul's writings reveal a man deeply conflicted over sex and its effects on God's children. With the waning of the expectation that formed the original context for the Pauline views on marriage, his writings were re-interpreted as meant to be an exercise in abstraction which is very unlikely. Over the course of church history, these texts have been used and abused by representing them as God's final word on the subject. In truth, they do not stand alone in the New Testament. There are other portrayals of marriage feasts as joyous occasions and sexual intercourse between spouses as good and holy (Ephesians 5:2533).

Though the Gospel of Mary presented heterosexual relations as healthy and good, among those Gnostics of the Magdalene persuasion, Pauline-style demonizing of sex, in general, occurred in some of the other Gnostic movements. This was particularly apparent in the dualistic ascetic branches of Gnosticism and especially in Manichaeism (an Iranian dualistic religion) that emanated from Persia. Unfortunately, the conscious renunciation by Christians of the customs of their over-sexualized pagan environment supported these unhealthy tendencies to make sex-play sinful. The peculiar justification seems to be an effort to remain clean in the spirit and body for being unclean was obviously not good.

The Single, Celibate, Lovers of the Priesthood of the Roman Catholic Did Not Place as High a Value on Marriage as on Their Own Relationship to the Church and Other Celibates.

Within the Roman Catholic Church the tension between the Christian high esteem for marriage and the ascetic devaluation of marriage led to a constant challenge to find a compromise. Since the God-given sex-drive was such a natural and powerful drive, there was an acceptance of sex within marriage while celibacy was demanded not only of ascetics and monks but also more and more of members of the clergy as a duty of their office. Unfortunately this unhealthy compromise elevated the status of the celibates over the married spouses, especially the women. However, given St. Augustine's strangely sophomoric "fraternity-brother" attitude, toward heterosexual play, we can see that the essayists who spoke loud and clear for the higher status of celibacy ruled the Church and its parishioners.

Augustine denigrated women, in particular. For only one of a number of examples, Augustine wrote to a friend, "What difference is there in a wife or a mother. It is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman." To him woman's only function was child-bearing which, as a product of intercourse, passed the contagious Original Sin on to the next generation like a venereal disease.

The Protestant Reformation Viewed Sex in Marriage as Part of the Divine Order

The Protestant Reformation rejected clerical celibacy because it removed men and women from service to and for the neighbor, saying that celibacy contravened the divine order of marriage and the family, and denied the goodness of sexuality.

Luther (1530 CE) viewed marriage as not merely the legitimating of sexual fulfillment but as,, above al,l the context for creating a new awareness of human community through the mutuality and companionship of spouses and family.

From the start, the demand of the Roman Catholic Church that priests and monks observe celibacy was not fully accepted in the East. The early church, followed by the Eastern Orthodox Church, decided on a compromise at the Council of Nicaea (325): the lower clergy, including the archimandrite, would be allowed to enter matrimony before receiving the higher degrees of ordination of the higher clergy, i.e., bishops, among whom celibacy would be demanded. This solution saved the Eastern Orthodox from a permanent fight for the demand of celibacy for all clergymen. But it has resulted in a grave separation of the clergy into a white (celibate) and a black (married) clergy, which has led to severe disagreements in times of crisis within Orthodoxy.

Birth Controls Were First Adopted to Curb Sexual Exploitation and Minimize Infanticide

The early Christian community's attitude toward birth control was formed partly in reaction against secular attitudes of indifference to sexual exploitation and infanticide. Another influence was Dualist-Gnostics' denigration of the material world and their consequent hostility to procreation. In upholding the early Christian church's faith in the goodness of creation, sexuality, marriage, and family, the early church was also influenced by the prevalent Stoic philosophy, which emphasized that procreation is the rational purpose in marriage.

Technological Improvements Brought a New Phase to Birth Control

The question of birth control entered a new phase through the invention and mass distribution of technical contraceptive devices, on the one hand, and through the appearance of a new attitude toward sexual questions on the other. In this changed situation an obvious disagreement of interpretation of God's meaning developed within Christianity. With a few exceptions,e.g., the Mormons,the Protestant churches accepted birth control in terms of it being a good Christian social ethic. In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church, in the encyclical of Pius XI Caste Connubii (1930) and in the encyclical of Paul VI Humanae Vitae (1968), completely rejected any kind of contraception. The Pope's high-risk rhythm method is not disapproved. Modern economic and population concerns in connection with improved medical care and social and technological progress have had no influence on the Roman Catholic leadership (The priestly leadership ignores the glaring contradiction of encouraging vast expenditures on sanitary sewage while at the same time encouraging the increase of human waste through increase in the number of humans who must defecate to live.) The Roman Catholic and Mormon position in the face of out-of-control social and political problems arising from the pressure of population increase is selfish and unworkable. God would not approve if he were consulted. The parishioners of these churches are forced to be disobedient if they do any family planning by using birth control devices. There is a rising trend of sterilization for both males and females. Although men are a much lower percentage of those who make this sensitive choice for a variety of reasons. The MeetingHouse knows of loving men who have chosen a Church disapproved vasectomy, instead of suicide, because their fecund wives insisted on the exclusive right to have pregnancy after pregnancy, after pregnancy in spite of the male spouse's objections. Divorce was not seen as an available option to these devout Roman Catholics.

CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND THE INDIVIDUAL

Love as the Basis for Christian Ethics

Christianity received the main commandment of its ethics from the Old Testament: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You shall love the Lord thy God with all your might." (Leviticus 19:18).

Still, Jesus expanded this commandment with a new, twofold meaning:

First, he closely connected the commandment "love your neighbor" with the commandment to love God. In the dispute with the scribes described in Matthew, chapter 22, he quoted the commandment of Deuteronomy 6:5:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."

He spoke of the commandment of love for neighbor, however, as being equal to it. With that he lifted it to the same level as the highest and greatest commandment, the commandment to love God.

In the gospel according to Luke, both commandments have grown together into one single pronouncement, with the addition: "Do this, and you will live." Second, the commandment received a new content in view of God and in view of the neighbor through the relationship of the believer with Christ. Love of God and love of the neighbor is possible because the Son proclaims the Gospel of the Father and brings to it reality and credibility through his life, death, and resurrection.

Based on this vital connection of the Christian commandment of love with the understanding of Christ's person and work, the demand of love for the neighbor appears as a new commandment:

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you also love one another" (John 13:34). The love for each other is supposed to characterize the disciples: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

This ethic does not base its norms on social, biologic, psychological, physiological, intellectual, or educational norms but the understanding that human beings are created in the image of God. Furthermore, the moral imperative is more than an ideal with humanity in the abstract but with the actual neighbor. The Christian ethic expects the individual always to act as though the neighbor is in Christ. The new element of this Christian ethic is the founding of the individual ethic in a neighborly corporate ethic. The individual believer is not a separate individual who has found a new spiritual and moral relationship with God but as a "living stone" (1 Peter 2:4), as a living cell in the body of Christ in which cell the powers of the Kingdom (Reign) of God are already working.

The realization of Christian love enables the individual, through personal sacrifice and suffering to contribute to the development of the whole. This basic idea of the fellowship of believers as part of the body of Christ informs all ecclesiastical, political, and social communities of Christianity. It also influences numerous secularized forms of Christian society, indeed, it is so believed that even among those that have forgotten or denied their Christian origins.

This commandment contains a certain tension concerning the answer to the following question: Does it refer only to "disciples" such as fellow Christians, or to "all"? The practice of love of neighbor within the inner circle of the disciples was a conspicuous characteristic of the young church. Pagans said: "Look, how they love each other" (Justin). Christian congregations, even the small fellowships and sects have stood out throughout the centuries because of the fact that within their communities the love of the neighbor is highly developed in personal pastoral care, social welfare, and help in all situations of life among them.

But, the Christian commandment of love has never been limited to fellow Christians. On the contrary, the new factor in the Christian ethic was that it crossed all social and religious barriers and saw a neighbor in every suffering human being. That principle is promulgated for all time in the Jesus parable about the Good Samaritan. Yes, Jesus himself explicated this clear command as to its practical implications of the commandment of love in the parable of the Good Samaritan, a non-Jew who followed the commandment of love and helped a person in need whom the believing wanderers,a priest and a Levite,had chosen to ignore (Luke 10:2937).

Later, a demand in the Letter of James, that the "royal law" of neighborly love has to be fulfilled without "partiality" (James 2:9), points to its universal validity. The universality of the command of Jesus "to love" is most strongly expressed in its demand to love one's enemies. Jesus himself emphasized this with these words:

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:4445).

According to this understanding, love of the enemy is the immediate spontaneous response by God of His love, for it includes God's friends and God's enemies.

As we go forth in the 21st century, the spiritual but not religious understand this as of the highest importance, and expect it from others. They are disturbed by the extremely narrow interpretation and application of this command to love others by leading religious Christians such as Anne Coulter. She recently re-affirmed her hate saying that Muslims should meet a violent death. Some Muslims, going against Jesus, a minor prophet of theirs, re-affirm that Muslims who convert to Christianity should be put to death. These so called followers of Jesus with-hold respect and do not tolerate those who do not practice God's love in the same way that they do. In many cases, they label others as blasphemers simply because they do not agree with their own very narrow interpretations of the Nicene Creed. Or in the case of the Muslims their misreading of the Koran. The world is in crisis because of their attitudes.

In effect, it's not enough for the evangelicals to find error in the thinking of those who love Jesus as: "A man who walked with God" but they must heap the curses of anathema upon those who disagree with them to save their own grace. The USA and other nations have a great need for the radical religious right to learn respect and tolerance for those who love God but do so in a different way. We must call on the religious leaders of Islam to speak more clearly about the love for one's neighbor found in the Koran.

To the over 31,000,000 Americans who are spiritual but not religious it is obvious that the USA's conservative Christians have great power and influence in the USA. Yet, strange as it may seem, many evangelicals consider themselves as a persecuted religious majority, hounded by "secular fundamentalists" who are intent on driving religion from public life. Their political opponents find this view baffling. It appears that evangelicals consider themselves oppressed only because some Americans disagree with them. They want more. It is not enough that they have mega-church buildings, and billions flowing from the taxpayers issued to them from the faith-based Whitehouse Executive. They want more, to be culturally dominant. They feel they have a right to denigrate the religion of others and will label as blasphemers those who question the ground of their evangelical beliefs (e.g. Creationism). Evangelical Christians are becoming hostile to dissenters. Worse, some of their broadcasters intentionally misrepresent the secular American Constitution concerning the right to practice one's religion, and encourage the feelings of paranoia to feed the fears of their listeners. Evangelicals conceive themselves as especially powerless in America because the majority of citizens (who may or may not vote) tolerate behavioral patterns that these evangelicals feel are sinful and wrong. Behind this conflict about religion in the public (secular) life is debate over how the Bible should be interpreted in the light of today's knowledge.

The spiritual but not religious are particularly offended by the "pick and choose" manner in which evangelical Christians interpret the Old Testament instructions in Leviticus and other books of the Bible. Obviously, God would expect believers to hear and be heard in the context in which they live as one enlightened evangelical said, "We have got to find ways for being heard but we should not feel persecuted, get angry, or try to reclaim the past."

Since the discovery of the Gospels of Mary and Thomas, and other suppressed writings of the first and second century, enlightened Christians hold that we have a new perception for the early followers of Jesus. Their home-based worship, teachings of hospitality, forgiveness, and non-violence should be revived as contrasted with the institutional based post-Constantine, authoritarian rule of the large churches.

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FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

In the face of the Roman Catholic Church which was selling salvation and dispensations for pecuniary benefits to the church, the Reformation revitalized a personal sense of Christian responsibility by anchoring it in the free forgiveness of sins.

The Reformation's Luther summarized this sense of personal responsibility in his "The Freedom of a Christian Man" (1520):
"A Christian man is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. (Note: We regret the omission of women from this historic statement.)

The second sentence expressed the theme of Christian vocation developed by the genius of great mensuch as: Luther, Calvin, and Locke. While the Roman Catholic medieval church understood vocation in terms of the specific religious calling of priesthood and monastery only, and not for the parishioners. The Reformers expanded the concept of vocation to all Christians and to everyday responsibility for the neighbor and for the world. The Reformers emphasized that Christian service is not limited to a narrow religious sphere of a life of faith but finds meaning in helping others in the everyday relationships of family, marriage, work, and politics. By the weight of this reasoning, the 21st century spiritual but not religious are among those who are faithful to God by serving God by helping others.

Protestantism encouraged the social and communal orientation of the Reformers toward a more individualistic orientation. In the nineteenth century, this rose to the level of an energetic attack on the apathetic aristocratic status quo. The leaders were from the circles of the free churches (e.g., Baptists and Methodists) that supported the social task of Christian ethic. They attempted to change social institutions and bring about a society like unto the Kingdom of God. This spirit spread through the whole church, penetrating the area of Christian mission. Its surge was a major driving force behind the abolition of slavery in England and humane work practice rules such as controls over child-labor. Love rooted in faithful service has continued to play an important role in the continuing struggle between the Christianity of Jesus and our human created social institutions that try to use words of love to abuse freedom including freedom of religion.

The Struggle of Humans For Self- Controlled Freedom

All ideologies, both religious and secular are ways to abuse freedom by using the social institutions such as the church and state, which, in part, grow and form so their leaders can gain control over individual conduct. The MeetingHouse websites concern the major world religions. But, all religious institutions exist in a milieu of some sort of state (secular) control. For examples, the secular political ideologies, such as fascism, communism, libertarianism jingoistic nationalists, theocratic regimes, democracy, democratic-socialism, and any other religious and secular institutions formed to control humans in their responsible exercise of freedom such as Scientology.

All these mind-control modes use the powers of mind control techniques for administration over their loyal adherents. They willfully use modern communication techniques to hold power over the ways of others so they will become like "sheep" or a "school of fish" following these elites to do whatever preferred secular conduct may be chosen by the leadership over : the economic livelihood, freedom of speech, liberty of association and assembly and other ways to exercise freedom. The fondest desire of these unbalanced ideologically-centered individuals is that the conduct of the masses be in accord with their unbalanced world view. They are certain they know what is best for others as well as themselves. They seek a world that accommodates only their world view. They use political-media-marketing, or, other modern communication-propaganda techniques.They are used to denigrate any kind of individual action with which the  leaders disagree. If they get control of the (state) taxing power they will use public funds to promote their abuses of freedom such as "faith-based initiatives" that center only on selected religious faiths. On the one hand, they would require capitulation either to an oligarch (chosen few) with whom they are in accord, or on the other hand, under the disguise of "freedom for individuals", these power-oriented elitists would rule everyone by abusing their own freedom through the use of market-dominated mind-control propaganda techniques that persuade the uneducated and/or the unsophisticated that this gadget or that icon (be it of a secular or a religious kind) is what the docile masses must have for their own good. The Ideologues will rule by way of economic control of the tools and means of mass communication.

At this time, the internet and its blogs are a diffused way of using the truth and reason to try to overcome the seductive techniques of mass persuasion. Obviously, the powerful who control other media will try to control freedom for their own personal goals and objectives. It has always been so, today the difference is the concentration of power is in fewer and fewer hands as has is occurred in recent years. It is expected that ideologues of one persuasion or another will find a way to take away the free flow of the internet if they can. The humans subjected to this mind control can still have: prayer, meditation, and self hypnosis with biofeedback as long so they become more adept at using these modes of freedom. God intended that human's minds be free.

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During this transition reaching into the 21st century, Christianity has spread worldwide from its base in Europe and the USA. The coming transition will be when the leaders and the membership come to know in their hearts and spirit that the reality is that more Christians live in Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, and Latin America than in the all of land-areas of the ‘old' Christendom. This shift was a product of the long-term, continuing missionary movements to spread Christianity. The mison work massively increased thei numbers in new areas because of the low birth rates of the vivifying old centers of the faith, coupled with a lack of consistent birth control policies in the growing regions of the so-called third world.

Lack of family planning in many geographical areas has resulted in more poverty-stricken Christians. The growing churches bring a new kind of life and dynamism to the faith and the surrounding communities especially in Africa and South America. The growth of the world Christian community has kept pace with the 20th-century population explosion. In the late 20th on in to 21st century the fastest-growing areas have rates of gowth so that the numbers of new Christians is almost three times greater than the general population increase. The majority of the world's Christians now live in non-Western nations. A larger universal church has come into being by way of baby-lust and the spreading of the idea of the that best way to serve God is through service to others. In this unprecedented transition two issues are especially prominent.

First, the Christian institutions find themselves engaging with those devoted to both traditional and new forms of the religions. Worse, there are those for whom political ideologies have become religions, as well. In that setting the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and Protestants within the World Council of Churches have affirmed evangelization is an essential. But they have not sought an advanced dialogue for clarity, understanding, and basic engagement with other world religions. This unbalanced effort has brought dissent and tension from many.

Second, "Third World theologies" have often brought on angry debate within Christian churches.The underlying questions concerned the identification of what was in reality essentially Western Christianity in contrast with the Third World adaptations. The question is whether Western church institutions and theologies were universal principles and concepts or were they culturally driven. The more sophisticated saw that the most basic question asked how Christians of all races would manifest the unity and obedience for which they prayed to Jesus? Christianity is now being forced to confront the fact that Jesus was not a Christian and his acts were in many ways of a kind that the modern Christian churches do not want to support. But, their followers like and want to follow some of those somewhat revolutionary Jesus teachings. The underlying issue is in what way will the Christian churches be willing to change to retain some of their most devout members who are insisting that the church leaders should be more like Jesus? The imperatives of global warming may be a crucial test.

Another major force is the worldwide growth in the number of Pentecostals and charismatics. They have formed new churches, or more charismatic people are appearing in traditional churches. They are finding an outlet in many nonwhite indigenous bodies. Pentecostals and charismatics are most heavily concentrated in Latin America and Africa. Still, there has been some growth in Asia and in the West. The zeal of the evangelical Pentecostals to do mission-outreach has led to real respect for their good faith and due diligence. It is hoped they will start to do some of that mission work in the poverty stricken areas of the USA such as the Indian reservations rural poverty pockets, and urban poverty neighborhoods.

The call for Christian work such as the above has forced theological reflection,perhaps most advanced  in developmentywith in  Roman Catholics on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and its relationship to authority within the church.

The Second Vatican Council Under Pope John- What is the Fate of Its Changes?

The second Vatican Council (1962-1965) stands as the most important ecclesiological and missiological event arising from Roman Catholics since the 16th century. Theologically it situated itself within the dynamics of the faith's fourth transition that we have been describing. The council's Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity built theologically on the council's foundational document. The "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church" which rooted the church and the mission in the triune Godhead. It insisted upon evangelization but presented a larger understanding of God's grace for those outside the church, and urged missionaries to pursue dialogue. In 1975 Pope Paul VI, responding to the ensuing debate, declared that God can achieve salvation for anyone through God's own ways, but that witnessing to and preaching the Gospel is the regular pattern given to Christians. The Pope also presented a theology of liberation. In many respects his statement refined and replaced "The Church's Missionary Activity." I

In 1968, the Latin American Episcopal Conference worked to apply the insights and intent of Vatican II to Latin America: first, to identify with the aspirations of the masses, and, second, to seek "re-evangelization" and "re-conversion" in Latin America.

. In 1978, it appeared that a new Pope was going to enhance the work of Pope John and make major changes in ancient church doctrines such as birth control and the marriage of priests. IBut. he immediately encountered a severe problem of inside corruption concerning the treasury of the Vatican. He is called the 78-Day Pope because this young healthy, holy man mysteriously and suddenly died. He was replaced by Pope John Paul who was a world traveler and charismatic leader. But, also, was quite conservative, and somewhat retrograde, when it came to carrying out the directives of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council.

There is consternation among many devout Catholics over the uncertain direction of the former Cardinal Ratzinger.  Most are pessimistic that this Pope Benedict will enlarge and enrich on the spirit of ecumenism. There are indications that he will attempt to lead the Roman Catholic Church in a very conservative direction. Considering the difficulties the American Catholic priesthood is having with recruitment and the world-wide issue of mind-boggling population increases many have hoped for major policy changes that would bring the Roman Catholic Church up to date with surrounding realties. For a harmless example, if the Vatican could agree to encourage its members to read the bible for themselves and agree with the other churches on, for example, one English language version, then the Christian Churches could join together in world wide effort to distribute Bibles to the increasing population. The MeetingHouse agrees that intellectuals would find it hard to agree on any one version. Still the Christian churches have already been successful in translating the Bible.

For more details click here to read "The Bible- Scripture Translations for the Masses."

Ecumenism for World Religions

For centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote those councils (e.g., Nicaea, Chalcedon) of bishops whose decisions represented what they asserted was the universally accepted church.  These were in contrast to other church councils that enjoyed only regional or limited reception. We have already discussed how some of these meetings were by order of secular authorities and had aspects of cronyism about them. The Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian creeds, are called ecumenical because they were witness to the officially endorsed universal faith of Christians.

In the 19th and 20th centuries ecumenism denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and mission of Christians and churches of different traditions "so that the world may believe." Ecumenism is now a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the universality of the people of God, which affects the way Christians think about their faith, the church, and the world. Ecumenism, which is a long process, includes Bible study, dialogue, prayer, Eucharistic worship, common witness, diaconal service, and ecclesial unity that draw Christians together, uniting their life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the fulfillment of God's purposes. According to church leaders, to be involved in ecumenism means to participate in those ideas, activities, and institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in their church and the human community. It involves the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies, the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, "something that happens to the soul of Christians." Overtime, it is believed it could promote respect and tolerance of all of God's religions for others.

Any unification worthy of this vision can no longer be identified with political or spiritual coercion such as the Council of Nicaea. Such strategies of dominance or superiority along with calls for "a return to the mother church," or expectations of monolithic uniformity, or, a super-church are counter-productive in the global world of internet communications. When serving the cause of faith in God, the weapons of faith are not those of force or intolerance, neither can divisions be overcome or authentic unity be manifested by some sort of least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism is meant to be an acceptance of the diversity of God's people, given in creation and redemption, and it strives to bring these confessional, cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship of love for God and serving God by serving other humans. Ultimately the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify God and to help churches to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations.

In the last half of the 20th century Christians have learned and confessed new dimensions of this spirited vocation. Many have been re-examining what divides the churches. Progress has been made on historical theological issues that have alienated Christians through the centuries, baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.

But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty, sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of an agenda of ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian unity, social justice and peace among the world religions. The Christian church's unity becomes essential for renewing and amplifying unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign of the first fruits of the promised unity and peace among God's peoples and the nations.

The life-work of the Dalai Lama, and other respectful, tolerant religious leaders who make no claim that they have exclusive rights to the pathways to God will further this objective. It appears clear that very serious outreach work must now be undertaken to work with other active world religions because of the explosive nature of the world wide web and the expanding population. Ecumenism among the world religions may be the key to solving the impending eco-spasm puzzle that is bedeviling mankind. Humans are sorely in need of Plan B for sustainability and don't know it, yet.

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THE BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORD

Jews know in their heart that God established a covenant with the Hebrew people to gather the disparate tribes into one religious nation. Though Israel, took steps to overcome the effects of their conquest of Palestine for Israel the sorrowful alienation of the Palestinians who will not share and have lost their homeland continues to fester. Israel and the world-wide Jews still continue to try to reconcile God's people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the reality of the one people of God.

All Ibrahamic people such as the Palestinians, including those of Islam should still be trying to find that common holy ground rather than a "killing" ground. The unity that is obvious is their mutual expression of the monotheistic faith, the oneness of God (Yahweh -Allah). God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the Creator. Taoist, Hindus, Buddhists would, generally, agree. God's presence acts to bring about human reconciliation. It is the people of the Word- the Bible -who are the source of most of the world's travail over religion. Only they can find reconciliation- wherever it is?

As one of the first steps, because division among Christians and Islam is in theory and practice a denial of Christ and Muhammad, and results iin unthinkable distortions of reality, then therefore, Islam, Judaism and the Christian churches should be attempting to achieve unity amid this diversity.  Their conflict calls upon all to seek some accord. The separated religions of the word: Judaism, Christianity and Islam are of "one accord" in that they visibly share accepting the reality of modern physics, biochemistry, and the critical need to overcome the alarming pressures from population increases and the endangerment of the Earth's environment. They know they can reach out beyond their local situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that holds all humans together. As Paul taught the Ephesians, God's ultimate will and plan is "to unite all things . . . in heaven and things on earth" (chapter 1, verse 10). If Christians can open their eyes to see and ears to hear, it is clear that the other world religions are on pathways to the same universal God. Respect and tolerance for the sincere non-violent religions of others is the key to genuine acceptance of one human for another.

Pan-Ecumenism in the 21st Century

The 21st century is experiencing both a flowering of ecumenism and divisive religious strife over differences, as well. The Dalai Lama, and other world leaders have carefully examined their own faith and understand the pressing need for tolerance. They are respectfully urging that we find a way to unite. The modern ecumenical era began years ago with a worldwide movement of Christian students, who formed national movements in Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Scandinavia, and Asia. Some as advanced church leaders have guided the process of theological consensus-building between Protestants, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics, which led to approval of the historic convergence text on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (1982).

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a privileged instrument of the ecumenical movement. The witness and programs of the WCC include faith and order, mission and evangelism, refugee and relief work, interfaith dialogue, justice and peace, theological education, and solidarity with women and the poor. What distinguishes the WCC constituency is the forceful involvement of Orthodox churches and churches from the Third World. Through their active presence the WCC, and the wider ecumenical movement, has become a genuinely international community.

Roman Catholic ecumenism now awaits the official position of the new Pope Benedict (2005). Topics identified for reconciling discussions include baptism, the Eucharist, episcopacy and papacy, authority in the church, and mixed marriage. Spiritual disciplines play a key role in ecumenism, a movement steeped in prayer for unity. During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated every year (January 18-25), Christians from many traditions engage in prayer, Bible study, worship, and fellowship in anticipation of the unity that Christ wills. All who are spiritual but not religious are looking to the radical right and to the left to open their minds to such ecumenism.

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

A friendly spiritual encounter and discussion of Christianity with other world religions has only just begun. Up until now, Christianity and Islam have been dangerous to themselves, as well as being dangerous to others, because of their aggressive insistence on conversion before conversation. The winds of change are happening in the general religious, political, and economic situation of the world. The global spread of Christianity through the activity of the European and American churches in the 18th and 19th centuries led to Christianity's confrontation with all other existing religions. Slowly, Christians lare losing their arrogance and beginning to learn about the deeply religious spirit in other religions. Until the beginning of the 19th century there were still places on Earth where non-Christian religions never came into contact with Christianity. Since then, Christianity has entered into a direct contact with all living non-Christian religions in the world. The too close connection between Christian world missions and political, economic, technical, and cultural expansion has, at the same time, been loosening. The sensitive climate of change will accelerate as the new electronic world wide communications are pervasive because of the internet, television and telephony.

After World War II, the formerly Christian mission churches were transformed into independent churches in the newly autonomous Asian and African states. The concern for a responsible cooperation of the members of Christian minority churches and the nation's non-Christian fellow citizens became even more urgent with a renaissance of the Asian higher religions in the very populous Asian states. Since World War II Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Islam have been trying to regain their former position of leadership in intellectual and spiritual life. This takes place mainly in the educational systems of their countries in the Asian states and,in the case of Islam,in some African states.

All Asian higher religions have been turning to activities in world missions within the Christian countries of Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Hinduism, for example, has founded numerous Vedanta centers in North America and Europe within the framework of the Ramakrishna and Vivekananda missions. There are South Asian Theravada (Way of the Elders) Buddhist centers.In addition, the Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhism of Japan (mainly Zen Buddhism, an intuitive-meditative sect) has begun world missionary activities under the influence of the growing Buddhist renaissance. This influence has penetrated Europe and North America in the form of a spontaneously received flow of religious ideas and methods of meditation through literature, philosophy, psychology, seminars, and psychotherapy.

As a result, Christianity in the early part of the 21st century finds itself forced to enter into a factual discussion with non-Christian religions. This is in particular because the USA's constitutional privileges once enjoyed by Christian religions have been denied to certain religions by Christians refusing building permits and other rank forms of Christian-led discrimination in most of USA's states. The U S Congress has made clear that this constitutional local discrimination must stop and it is changing to a more welcoming spirit.

Modern study of the history of religions, on the other hand, has caused a general transformation of religious consciousness in the West since the middle of the 19th century. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the knowledge of non-Christian higher religions was still the privilege of a very few specialists. In the meantime, as in a second wave of enlightenment, a wide range of people have been studying the results of research in the form of translations of source materials from the non-Christian religions. The spreading of the religious art of Tibet, India, and the Far East through touring exhibitions and the possibility of direct participation in non-Christian religious ceremonies through radio and television has created a new attitude toward the other religions iwithn the broad public of Europe and North America.

The knowledge of the plurality of the world religions characterizes the religious consciousness of the 20th century in a way that was unknown in former centuries. In recognition of this fact, numerous Christian institutions for the study of non-Christian religions have been founded: e.g., in Bangalore, India, in Rangoon, Burma, in Bangkok, Thailand, in Kyoto, Japan, and in Hong Kong, China. Fortunately, there is a readiness for such encounter or even cooperation with Christianity among the non-Christian religions. It is a welcome phenomenon of modern times, with few precedents in the history of the struggle of Christianity and the non-Christian religions. Until the 18th century, Christianity showed little inclination to engage in a serious study of non-Christian religions.

It was four hundred years after the beginning of the struggle with the Muslims in Spain, almost half a century after the proclamation of the First Crusade against Islam, that the first translation of the Qur?an (the Islamic scriptures) occurred in 1141CE in Toledo, Spain. Christians refused to read it. Four hundred years later, in 1542/43 CE, a theologian and successor of the great Swiss Reformer Zwingli, edited the now old translation of the Qur?an. Again, it was offered to others. The translator was subsequently arrested, and he and his publisher were freed only because of the intervention by Luther.

Knowledge of Hinduism was deliberately delayed by the missionaries. The Lutheran mission in India prevented the publication of a work by one of its missionaries about the religion of a small non-Christian sect, the Malabarese of India. The name Buddha is mentioned for the first time in Christian literature, and there only once,by Clement of Alexandria about 200CE. Then it vanished from Christian literature for a full 1,300 years. Pali, the language of the Buddhist canon, remained unknown in the West until the beginning of the 19th century, when the modern study of Buddhism was started.

The causes for such reticence toward contact with foreign religions were twofold: (1) the ancient church was significantly influenced by the Jewish attitude toward the pagan religions of its environment. Like Judaism, it viewed the pagan gods as "nothings" next to the true God, the Creator of the world and, in the case of the Christians, the Father of Jesus Christ. To those Christians these other religions were off-springs of human error that were considered to be identical with the wooden, stone, or bronze images that were made by humans. (2) In addition, there was the tendency to degrade the pagan gods as demons, evil demonic forces which were engaged in mortal combat with the true God. The misleading impact of Revelation on Christians continues to have its discouraging end time scenario effect on concerns for the goings-on in the world. (Note: The conclusion of the history of salvation, according to the Christian understanding, was to be a final struggle between Christ and his church on the one side and the forces, powers, and thrones of the Antichrist on the other, culminating finally with the victory of Christ.) Rather than learn about these great religions the Christians simply identified the other religions' view of God(s) as loyal to the anti-Christ. The pending Eco-Spasm and exploding growth of world populations calls for one and all to set aside their differences and work to solve this alarming threat.

Conflict Generating Attitudes of Christians Toward Others

As humans exist, so the history of religion continued even after Christ the Messiah appeared. During the 3rd and 4th centuries a new non-Christian world religion appeared in the form of Manichaeism, which countered the Christian Church with new holy books. It was a new institution, and a new universal claim of validity. The Christian Church never acknowledged Manichaeism as a new religion but considered it a Christian heresy and opposed it as such. On the other hand, Manichaeism claimed that it represented the reincarnation of the messiah and called for such recognition.

When Islam was founded in the 7th century as a new higher religion, it considered the revelation as received by the Prophet Muhammad to be superior to the earlier levels of Old and New Testament revelation. Christianity was opposed by Islam as a heresy. This new threat was seen by Christians as the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Apocalypse concerning the coming of the "false prophet" (Revelation to John). The Islamic interpretation was, in effect, reversed by the Christians as they made the apocalyptic interpretation of Islam as the religion of the "false prophet." Christians also forced an archetypal struggle of the Christian Church of the middle Ages against foreign religions in a series of militant crusades. The idea of the Crusades deeply influenced the self-consciousness of Western Christianity even in later centuries. Though any modern day well trained psychiatrist after studying the Crusades would conclude that it was mass hysteria bordering on a mass-psychosis nevertheless it did occur.  Hopefully such will not occur again.

The dialogue of the 15th-century German theologian Nicholas of Cusa on the peace of faith (1453) was a monumental work. He had the extraordinary courage arising from firm conviction that Christians should join with other lovers of God in establishing an eternal peace among world religions. In spite of this, the insane idea of the crusade remained the model for the fulfillment of the new missionary task that arose within the Roman Catholic Church with the discovery and exploration of the American continents by Spain and Portugal.

Only the penetration of the Islamic wall that had successfully separated Europe in a spiritual and economic way from any cultural connection with the empires of the Asian higher religions expedited the gradual extinction of the idea of the crusade that slowed Europe's recovery. Their was a tragic lack of meaningful encounter with these higher religions in such countries as China and Japan. Fortnately, in China and Japan the missionaries saw themselves forced into learned disputation with the indigenous higher religions that could be carried on only with better intellectual weapons.

The old Logos theory was tolerated by the elite of China who quietly listened to this new form founded on natural law, particularly by the Jesuit theologians who worked at the Chinese emperor's court in Peking. Retrospectively it is clear that the masters of Chi Kung and Tai Ching among the Taoist Philosophers were simply being kind to the representatives of the barbarians of the western church. The Roman Catholic Religion, at the time,to the Chinese was still caught up in the veneration of relics. Ecumenism of all religions in a new spirit of tolerance and respect for others is the way that humans must follow.

The philosophy of the Enlightenment in the 18th century spread an acknowledgment of the plurality of higher religions among the educated in Europe.    It was, partly, the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who made a brilliant and immediate connection with the theories of natural law to the news passed on from the Jesuit missionaries about philosophy from China. Leibniz‘s insights pointed to the striking convergence of non-Christian higher religions with Christianity and in that way prepared the way for the development of the comparative study of religion.

Only in the philosophy of the Enlightenment was there a demand for tolerance, which thus far in Christian Europe had been applied solely as a postulate of behavior toward the followers of another Christian denomination. It was anathema to extend tolerance to include the followers of different religions. The spiritual and intellectual arguments with non-Christian higher religions simply did not exist for this simplified fundamental theology of the folkways. In this view there had to be a real encounter of Christianity with non-Christian higher religions, but it did not, on the whole, occur in the 18th and 19th centuries.

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MODERN VIEWS ON CHRISTIANITY'S PLACE

The 20th and 21st century have seen an explosion of publicly available information concerning the wider religious life of humanity. As a result the effects of the older Western arrogant assumptions about the manifest superiority of Western Man and Christianity lost plausibility in many minds in other parts of the Earth. Early 20th-century thinkers who saw religion throughout the world as a response to the Holy Spirit could see that socio-culturally Christianity is simply put - one of a number of comparable traditions. This new found humility opened up new ways of accepting the honorable nature of other major religions without denying the integrity of Christianity.

Given that the central concern of both Christianity and other great world faiths is salvation and peace on Earth, Christians today struggle and suffer with the adaptation of centuries of tradition concerning three main points of view.

One problem is their exclusivism, which holds that there is salvation only for Christians. This theology underlay much of the history outlined above, expressed both in the Roman Catholic dogma - outside the church no salvation - and the assumption of the 18th- and 19th-century Protestant missionary movements that  proclaimed as the Gospel that outside Christinaiity there is no salvation. This exclusivist outlook has been eroded within advanced Roman Catholic thinking in the decades leading up to the second Vatican Council (196265)., It has been abandoned by way of the council's pronouncements. However, within Protestant Christianity there is no comparable central authority. Still, most Protestant theologians take very serious exception to the extreme Fundamentalist constituencies who are struggling and suffering as they try to find a way to see that a devout Hindu, for example, will not burn in Hell as they slowly move away from their exclusivist position which is that they have been anointed with an exclusive franchise to the Golden Arches by which one enters the Pearly Gates of Heaven.

he time is short. The salvation of Planet Earth, our home, depends on a re-examination and revision of this exclusivist notion by Christians and other faths of every kind.

Fortunately, for the Earth, it is soon to be dominated by a global multi-culture. The move among both Roman Catholics and Protestants has been toward an ecumenical spirit of inclusivism. This healthy world view is that, although salvation is by definition Christian salvation and is brought about by the atoning work of Christ, nevertheless that salvation is in principle available to all human beings, whether Christian or not. Roman Catholics express a circumlocutions that modifies the old exclusivist view by saying that good and devout people of other faiths may, even without knowing it, be regarded as "anonymous Christians." The MeetingHouse adds that whether "they" want the honor or not it seems to be a dubious assumption. For example, calling that great Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi a good Christian strains credibility. Others have expressed this idea in different ways. The thought that non-Christians are included within the universal scope of Christ's salvific work and their own well-thought out religions are fulfilling in ways acceptable to both themselves and Christianity seems to be a rapprochement that is more workable.

Another position, to which a number of individual theologians have moved in recent years, is a sort of pluralism. According to this view, the great world faiths, including Christianity, are valid spheres of a salvation that takes characteristically different forms within each. In each case it consists of the transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to a new orientation toward the Divine Inclusive Reality. The other religions are thus not secondary contexts of Christian redemption but independently authentic paths of salvation. Unfortunately, this pluralist position is controversial within Christian theology, and probably Islam, because it affects the ways in which the doctrines of the person of Christ, atonement, and the Trinity are formulated. It appears obvious to those who are spiritual but not religious that the Christians need to re-examine the underpinnings of their faith. Are they being loyal to God or, instead more faithful to human institutions?

More Christians are engaging in a dialogue with the other major religions through the World Council of Churches' sub-unit which is: Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies. With Pope Benedict having been, installed it will be more difficult to continue such a dialogue with the Vatican's Secretariat for Non-Christians because of his rigid doctrinaire positions. He objects to the admission ofd Turkey to the European Union because the majority of Turks are Muslim. Clearly, the Earth sorely needs a multitude of inter-religious encounters taking place throughout the world. Many must be initiated by Christian and others by non-Christian, individuals, and groups.

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CLOSING WORDS

This essay started with saying that Jesus was not a Christian. This was said, to call for self-examination by the reader of the depth of his or her understanding of what Jesus was and what Jesus meant by what he said. We believe that we have shown the reader that the human institutions that call themselves Christian churches have failed to live the life that Jesus projected for believers. Instead, most of them are projections of self-promoting leaders and their sycophants who protect the faithful and the hypocrites from "the world as it could be" if, instead, the words of Jesus guided the congregation. To err is human to forgive is divine.

In the USA about 31,000,000 of the spiritual but not religious have separated themselves from the churches to better follow the example of men and women who "walked with God" such as Jesus, Mohammad, Gautama Buddha, LaoTze, and women such as Bridget von Bingen. But, Jesus spirituality can not be separated from the idea of a new Reign of God. We fervently seek and hope for a good Earth free of greed, narcissism, or violence. The new spiritualism seems to some to be Self-focused. Still, many of them give to charities and give of themselves to others by service. The Jesus solution is to go out and forgive, nurse, heal, teach, and love one another. The spiritual but not religious who have found the way of the web church, the MeetingHouse, need no organization. They may consider going to the MeetingHouse's Blog-Central to get to know each other better. There are many paths to God but there is only one God. The real work to do is to help make a new kind of world where tolerance reigns so each one can start living by the guidance of the inner light from God helping other to work for using the great human potential.

God looks at the intention of your spirit. Stop waiting for the End Time. Salvation can be here now if you serve God today. Don't get "left behind" by reading those best selling books which make no promise but instead sell awful fantasy based on the disreputable book of Revelation which has misled millions over time. If you don't know what to do, start with the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the peacemakers. Carryout those instructions without any qualifying excuses and you will automatically be a spiritual person. Enjoy the smile on your face.

THE END

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The MeetingHouse gratefully acknowledges that this compilation would not have been possible without the underlying work of the Encyclopedia Britannica's article entitled Christianity, 2005. We compiled and rewrote the brilliant work of Lawrence Sullivan, Sidney Spencer, Bernard J. McGinn, Ernst Wilhelm Benz, Carter H. Lindberg, and John Hick, among others. The re-writing is massive. All errors, omissions, and changes are ours. Frequently the words of the Encyclopedia were merely grist for the mill in that we changed the meaning and rewrote to meet the special ecumenical objectives of the MeetingHouse as we sought to encourage Christians to respect and tolerate the religion of others. Our apologies for those who see some similarity but observe the many changes. We seek forgiveness.

Note: Below is a list that includes the references that leads to a study of the life of Jesus Christ.

1. The Holy Bible. Old Testament in the Douay-Challoner Text, New Testament and Psalms in the Confraternity Text. Catholic Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1950.
2. The Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible. Navarre Bible - New Testament. Four Courts Press, Dublin, Ireland, 1988.
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19. O'Collins Gerald. Interpreting Jesus. Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1983.
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21. McDermott, Brian. Word Become Flesh - Dimensions of Christology. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1993.
22. The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II. Edited by WG Bushman. Pauline Books &, Media, Boston, 1999.
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24. Martin, Regis. The Last Things. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1998.
25. Montague, George T. The Apocalypse. Servant Publications, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1992.
26. Wills, Garry, What Jesus Meant,Viking Press, New York New York, 2008.