{"id":2533,"date":"2023-02-17T12:01:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T12:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2023-02-17T12:06:53","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T12:06:53","slug":"whose-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/whose-christianity\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose Christianity?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"2533\" class=\"elementor elementor-2533\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-32446a1 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"32446a1\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-f9f2724\" data-id=\"f9f2724\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-9541c30 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"9541c30\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.10.1 - 17-01-2023 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#818a91;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#818a91;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>I paused to watch a darting speck<br \/>That flickered in the yellow breeze<br \/>And came to taste my daisy bed<br \/>And touched with gold my lazy trees<br \/>And blessed all I had done.<\/strong><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>And though I had to turn my head,<br \/>I watched it as it fluttered by.<br \/>And though I had to work instead,<br \/>I ached to be a butterfly<br \/>And frolic in the sun.<br \/><\/strong>\u2013 Roberta Grimes, from \u201cButterfly\u201d (1962, 2012)<br \/><br \/><\/p><p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2535\" src=\"http:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/vecteezy_yellow-swallowtail-butterfly-perched-on-purple-flower-of-butterfly-bush_2600393-300x200-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>Christianity is dying now in much the way that a serpent might die, writhing and churning as it seeks to maintain its hold on teachings that have nothing to do with Jesus.\u00a0<\/strong>That image of Christianity as a dying serpent came to mind as I read a diatribe against what someone called \u201cthe heresy of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/chorusinthechaos\/the-heresy-of-universalism-an-open-plea-to-daily-reformation\/?utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&amp;utm_content=57&amp;lctg=333440&amp;rsid=Legacy&amp;recipId=333440&amp;siteId=7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360\">universalism.<\/a>\u201d And what is this monstrous heresy, you might ask? What could be the worst heresy of them all? Why, it is the awful notion, so ghastly even to contemplate, that\u00a0<em>everyone<\/em>\u00a0might be going to heaven, even those who never have claimed the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior. But I can tell you now with certainty, after having spent more than fifty years studying the genuine afterlife, that universalism is no heresy at all.\u00a0<strong><em>It is instead an absolute fact.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0The true God is a far greater God than any petty Christian ever has imagined, so everyone does indeed go to the self-same afterlife together, no matter what they believed in life.\u00a0<em><strong>But tragically, it is this very sadistic pettiness of Roman Christianity that is the only thing that lies behind the whole concept of the Christian belief in a fiery hell.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0Someone recently wrote a tongue-in-cheek\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/allsetfree\/2022\/01\/christians-relieved-to-find-out-hell-is-real\/?utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&amp;utm_content=57&amp;lctg=333440&amp;rsid=Legacy&amp;recipId=333440&amp;siteId=7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360\">pos<\/a>t for Patheos, the Christian blogging website, about how relieved an imagined group of mean and petty Christians are to learn that hell is real after all, so some of the people those Christians thought ought to by rights be condemned to burn in hell are indeed roasting in hell right now.\u00a0<em><strong>But in fact, of course, there is no hell, and the concept of hell has caused so many millions tremendous emotional pain.<br \/><br \/><\/strong><\/em><\/p><p><strong>Christianity has never\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/notthebee.com\/article\/the-covid-lockdowns-decimated-church-attendance-however-affiliation-with-religion-remains-unchanged\">recovered<\/a>\u00a0from the Covid closures.<\/strong>\u00a0And traditional Christian practice \u2013 at least in the United States \u2013 has become a partially online activity, while it seems at the same time to have entered a more rapid stage of its writhing decline. I watch all this happen, and I feel as miserable about it as if I am the cause of it all.\u00a0<strong><em>I apologize for having left off last week\u2019s post with a set of enigmatic ellipses<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0But Christianity is dying fast, and I feel as if I am its executioner. I have loved Christianity since I was a child, and ever since my childhood experience of light I had assumed that I was eventually going to become a minister. And now, as I have been working on teachingsbyjesus.com, and feeling deeply called to do it, and even feeling called to do it\u00a0<em>by<\/em>\u00a0<em>Jesus<\/em>, even though the purpose of the website itself is the further destruction of the Christianity that I love, I had begun to hear faint whispers in my mind from someone saying,\u00a0<em>\u201cChristian, love me more.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0For days I tried to ignore that whisper.\u00a0<em>This is just what feeling guilty does to you,\u00a0<\/em>I thought. I kept telling myself that actually losing your mind is a conscious choice, so I could choose not to do it.\u00a0<em>\u201cChristian, love me more.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0But could feeling so guilty make you lose your mind? Was that a real possibility? That whisper would not stop, so then I Googled the phrase and it came right up. There it was: an old hymn from my childhood.\u00a0<strong><em>It was the perfect theme for this whole series, so Thomas and I used it as our frame-verse last week. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/><br \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2536\" src=\"http:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/vecteezy_a-butterfly-is-a-mainly-day-flying-insect-of-the-order-lepidoptera-which-includes-the-butterflies-and-moths_1329267-300x200-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><strong>And then, as I was working on this post in the middle of last Tuesday night, I drifted into a catnap.\u00a0<\/strong>And I had a vision of the pink child\u2019s bookcase that was in my bedroom when I had my\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/robertagrimes.com\/afterlife-research\/sharing-with-you-my-formative-night\">experience<\/a>\u00a0of light; but it was standing out at the curb with the trash, and oddly it was covered in moss. This was a vision and not a dream, since it has stayed with me ever since. When I asked my Thomas what the heck was going on, he told me that Jesus is dredging up these old memories for me. The hymn. The bookcase.\u00a0<strong><em>He wants me to more intensely recall the Christianity of my childhood days so I can now more properly throw it all away.<br \/><br \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p><p><strong>What is astonishing is that even now, there are people who confidently believe that the Catholic Church carries a permanent\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/henrykarlson\/2023\/01\/the-church-of-christ-and-its-historical-institution\/?utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&amp;utm_content=57&amp;lctg=333440&amp;rsid=Legacy&amp;recipId=333440&amp;siteId=7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360\">franchise<\/a>\u00a0granted to it by Jesus.<\/strong>\u00a0They say it smugly, as if just saying it with enough certainty might put more people back in those pews. Or Protestants in evangelical churches try to mix organ music with praise bands, in something they are calling the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/ponderanew\/2022\/01\/09\/have-church-your-way-the-high-cost-of-the-worship-wars-2\/?utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&amp;utm_content=57&amp;lctg=333440&amp;rsid=Legacy&amp;recipId=333440&amp;siteId=7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360\">worship<\/a>\u00a0wars. Or then there is the megachurch theory, to overwhelm people with the smell of success. Or then, even possibly, what just might work is a return to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/ponderanew\/2022\/01\/05\/want-people-back-in-the-pews-try-transcendence-over-relevance\/?utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&amp;utm_content=57&amp;lctg=333440&amp;rsid=Legacy&amp;recipId=333440&amp;siteId=7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360\">solidity<\/a>\u00a0of old-fashioned ways.\u00a0<em>Anything<\/em>\u00a0to put people back in those pews!\u00a0<em><strong>But the plain fact is that the Roman Emperor Constantine\u2019s idea for a religion that he could use as a weapon of mass control is just not working anymore, and it never is going to work again, no matter what we try.\u00a0<br \/><br \/><\/strong><\/em><\/p><p><strong>Seventeen hundred years ago, the Romans under Constantine seized and destroyed a spiritual movement that was then three hundred years old and thriving.<\/strong>\u00a0Had they simply left that movement alone, it might have gradually overspread the world and made the universal love that Jesus taught the\u00a0<em>lingua franca\u00a0<\/em>of humankind. But emperors bent on conquest have no interest in teaching the world how to love. So the Romans cut down and reshaped the Jesus movement into a religion that they thought they could use as a more effective means of control, and they destroyed all its love-based variations<em>.<\/em><strong><em>\u00a0For how long did the Christianity of Jesus survive?<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>Just to give you some idea, three hundred years ago was the year 1723, and Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743, so more than the lifetime of the United States until now was the lifetime of Jesus\u2019s spiritual movement. And in those three hundred years after Jesus\u2019s ascension, the movement that He and His followers had begun had already grown to millions of people when Constantine co-opted it. The Roman armies massacred whole villages of those first followers of Jesus, and they hung them on crosses or fed them to lions in coliseums in the process of creating their own new religion.\u00a0<strong><em>Because the thing about organized religions that so often makes them evil is that they cannot tolerate competing ideas.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0But the Jesus Movement \u2013 which is what Jesus\u2019s movement actually seems to have been calling itself in various languages by the time it was destroyed \u2013 had tolerated a host of widely varying beliefs.\u00a0<strong><em>There was that one belief, though, that tickled Constantine\u2019s fancy.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0He loved the idea that Jesus had been crucified for our sins, and that Jesus then had risen from the dead. It was not the central teaching of the Jesus Movement, but it ended up being the primary fear-based dogma of Constantine\u2019s new Roman Christian religion.\u00a0<em><strong>That was something the Romans knew they really could use!<br \/><br \/><\/strong><\/em><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2276\" src=\"http:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/vecteezy_common-tiger-butterfly-looking-for-nectar-from-flowers_1373252-300x199-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><strong>So the Romans killed the Jesus Movement, but they did keep the figurehead of Jesus.\u00a0<\/strong>Then Constantine presided over the First Nicaean Council in the year 325. It was the first in a series of seven Roman Christian Councils, and there they set about creating the Roman version of Christianity that is practiced worldwide today. In the Bible that the Councilors put together, we do have preserved the core of the teachings of Jesus, and a record of the start of the Jesus Movement.\u00a0<strong><em>But the dogmas of Roman Christianity have nothing to do with what Jesus taught.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I have asked a few Christians that I know well enough to actually ask them why Christians don\u2019t, you know, actually\u00a0<em>read<\/em>\u00a0and follow the Gospel teachings of Jesus. Some of them protest that of course they\u00a0<em>do<\/em>. Some admit that they don\u2019t, but say perhaps they should. Although none of them think this is much of a problem. But, good grief!\u00a0<strong><em>When the core of the Roman Christian religion is that Jesus died as a sacrifice to God for our sins, and Jesus tells us right in the Gospel of John that God never judges us for our sins so no sacrifice is needed, then I would say that is a pretty big problem!<br \/><br \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p><p><strong>Christianity as it stands now is built on a lie.<\/strong>\u00a0And it is a gigantic lie. Jesus died for our sins, and unless you claim Him as your personal Savior, you are going to hell? Wow, that lie is epic. And you can sell a lie for only so long before people catch on and your lie falls apart. The Christian Bible, too, is an important book, but it is not the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/allsetfree\/2021\/01\/7-reasons-the-bible-is-not-the-inerrant-word-of-god\/?utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&amp;utm_content=57&amp;lctg=333440&amp;rsid=Legacy&amp;recipId=333440&amp;siteId=7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360\">inerrant<\/a>\u00a0word of God. Sad to say, that is another big lie. So the Christianity that the Roman Emperor Constantine designed as a fear-based weapon to control the masses of his day is being practiced now by more than two billion people, nearly all of whom think that they are following Jesus.\u00a0<strong><em>But none of these people has much idea of what their beloved Jesus actually taught.<br \/><br \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p><p><strong>After Jesus has endured seventeen hundred years of this treatment, I find it hard to even imagine the level of His personal frustration.\u00a0<\/strong>I don\u2019t know how He patiently manages it, but Jesus transforms Himself into church-Jesus repeatedly, something like every hour on the hour if there were hours where He is now, so as not to disappoint all the newly-transitioned people who keep coming to Him to receive His post-death blessing. He helps people on earth, He constantly answers prayers, He is always deep in service. Just a couple of nights ago, Thomas and I met with Jesus briefly, and something in the order of things had broken down so much that I remember that meeting. Which never is supposed to happen, unless there is some reason for me to remember a meeting with Jesus. And He was indeed Jesus. Omigod. I was feeling His overwhelmingly powerful and gorgeously silken personal energy. But He looked like a mix of church-Jesus and Mediterranean Jesus, with olive skin but lighter, longer, and almost-straight hair. He seemed a bit flustered, and He was speaking so rapidly to Thomas that I couldn\u2019t register what He was saying.\u00a0<strong><em>If Jesus is being so driven to distraction now that He can no longer manage smoothly transitioning back and forth between His astral bodies, then we really are in the midst of a crisis.<br \/><br \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2277\" src=\"http:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/vecteezy_flower-butterfly_865856-300x200-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><strong>My dear friends, I wrote the first half of our frame-verse when I was sixteen years old.<\/strong>\u00a0I found it among my mother\u2019s papers after her death, and I actually remember writing that first half, sitting at a picnic table in my family\u2019s backyard on a hot summer day. When I found it, I thought that poem needed a second half, so fifty years later I gave it one.<strong>\u00a0<em>And now modern Christianity, too, is ready for its second half.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>But so much more importantly, Jesus deserves the right to bring to completion what so long ago He so well began. Jesus\u2019s own true Christianity looks nothing like our present Roman Christianity. And His Jesus doesn\u2019t even look like our Jesus! When I first personally met Jesus last April, and I asked Him why He chooses to look as He chooses to look now, He said just that everyone looked that way back then. Well, of course they did.\u00a0<em><strong>To tell you the truth, I am used to it now, but nine months ago His Mediterranean look was a shock.<br \/><br \/><\/strong><\/em><\/p><p><strong>And now, my beloveds, it is long past time for each of us to choose!<\/strong>\u00a0Will we choose Jesus as He wants to look now, with His Bible which contains just His four Gospels and His love-based teachings that can transform the world? Or on the other hand, will we choose to remain with the Roman Emperor Constantine\u2019s fear-based Christianity, and his thicker Bible that the First Nicaean Councilors assembled at Constantine\u2019s command? It must be one or the other.\u00a0<strong><em>So, whose Christianity will you choose?<br \/><br \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Now fifty years have come and gone<\/strong><br \/><strong>Between that butterfly and me.<\/strong><br \/><strong>I\u2019ve done what I set out to do,<\/strong><br \/><strong>But still my fondest memory<\/strong><br \/><strong>Is what I wouldn\u2019t try.<\/strong><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>I\u2019ve had enough of cheap success<\/strong><br \/><strong>And superficial days and hours.<\/strong><br \/><strong>Now what I want is gentleness,<\/strong><br \/><strong>The joy of decorating flowers<\/strong><br \/><strong>And trembling in the sky.<\/strong><br \/>\u2013 Roberta Grimes, from \u201cButterfly\u201d (1962, 2012)<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I paused to watch a darting speck That flickered in the yellow breeze And came to taste my daisy bed And touched with gold my lazy trees And blessed all I had done. And though I had to turn my head, I watched it as it fluttered by. And though I had to work instead,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/whose-christianity\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Whose Christianity?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2543,"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/2543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingsbyjesus.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}