Next to warfare, religion has been the area where I did my most nonfiction reading as a young man. Currently, as I wade into the masculinity versus emasculation debate that seems to be the central focus of my nonfiction work—for the violence and aggression patterns I study are deeply linked with these—the question of religion rears its many heads.
This site draws readers with Christian, Pagan, Heathen, Hebrew, Agnostic, Gnostic and Atheistic views. The only one of these views I am hostile towards is atheism as I see it as the umbrella religion that justifies the emasculating ideologies of communism, capitalism, fascism, libertarianism and the other infectious psychological constructs which shackle us to an evil will via material means.
My father was an agnostic and my mother is still a practicing catholic, which puts my influence somewhere between Christian, Pagan and Gnostic, which is were my father's agnosticism led him in the end.
I have noticed that one point which neo-pagan, Heathen, Gnostic and Atheist thinkers are critical of Christians on is the role of Saul or Paul in the formation of Christianity. In a recent comment thread on one of Ron West's pieces, it was mentioned that it is a common misconception of non-Christians that Paul essentially hijacked Jesus' message to make it palatable for members of the Roman slave state. This point is made by numerous historians, including Grant and the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The accusation is fairly damning [along with Paul's acceptance of slavery, which I merely see as an aspect of Jesus' acceptance of Caesar] and I understand Christians taking such offense to it, just as much as I can understand non-Christians arriving at this conclusion.
As a heathen who is a Christian-sympathizer, I offer as a discussion point a pamphlet from Calvary Baptist Church, 7321 Manchester Road, Dundalk, MD 21222, published by Pastor Shiflett, who begins the brochure with What is Your Life's Road? a brief piece written by Mel Forsythe, a recently deceased member of the congregation.
The biblical passages quoted my Mel, in the order they appear in the text are:
Romans 6:23
John 3:36
Romans 3:23
John 1:12
Revelation 21:8
John 14:6
Romans 10: 9, 10
Romans 10:13
Romans 6:23
The result is 3 quotes from Jesus' ministry, 5 from Paulls mission and 1 from the one New Testament author guaranteed to strike secular folks or people of other faiths as insane, John of Patmos.
To further confuse the issue as to whether or not post-Paul Christianity is more reflective of the will of Jesus or of Paul, Pastor Shiflett, pictured on the front stairs with an intact Caucasian family complete with wife, two girls and three boys [hello, you sterile Heathens!] he cites the following passages under the title God's Simple Plan for You:
Romans 3:23
First Corinthians 15:3-4
Romans 10: 9, 10
The non-initiated may well observe such pamphlets and brochures, designed with the best intentions of appealing to non-Christians, or more importantly diverging nominal Christians and ask themselves, "Where is Jesus—all I see is Paul and at best, Jesus through Paul's prism."
As a third party, unrepentantly beyond the reach of the Christian witness, but a writer of some persuasiveness, I would suggest an introduction to your faith with a lot less of Paul and a lot more Jesus.
In the science-fiction book linked below, I postulated a future ice age in which a small number of Caucasian Americans managed to hold out in the more inhospitable regions by adopting Neo-Nordic/Amerindian beliefs and lifeways in rejection of the Christianized Hispanic and African-American masses that dominate the warm Gulf Coast. I will be writing a sequel to Reverent Chandler with Lynn L., titled Night Song of the Nords.
Reverent Chandler: The Saga of Fend
A lot less Paul and a lot more Jesus is going to get you pretty much to Judaism (if you want to understand what Jesus was talking about rather than just cherry picking here and there.)
“Hence it comes that all armed prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli
James you’ve just identified the principle challenge facing Christianity for the past two millennia: Jesus DID NOT leave behind any kind of diary or manifesto telling Christians what he really thought about things or really intended to have done in his name. He left us with a bunch of general policy statements, much like Donald Trump has, but the Devil is the details as they say. Especially when you move to implement those policy statements. What we DO have are the Gospels (Old English for “good news”) which are compilations of first, second and even third-hand accounts of events in the life and ministry of Jesus. As such the Gospels read like the narrative in a police report: Jesus said this and Jesus did that. Thus many of the things that Jesus is reported to have said and done beg for clarification. But we get none from Jesus himself. Rather Jesus left the explaining of his words and deeds to his apostles Peter, Paul, John and his brother James (who never cut his hair or bathed) in the various epistles (letters) they all wrote to instruct the Christian faithful. And then the Gospels themselves were written 40 to 90 years after Jesus’ death and Resurrection by people who are largely unknown to us. There are many more Gospels out there, but the ones written by Mark, Matthew, Luke and John (the Four Evangelists - Greek for good news spreaders) were deemed to be the most “authentic” back in the day. Luke is believed to have written the Acts of the Apostles. Nobody is quite sure who this guy John of Patmos who wrote the Book of Revelations (“Apocalypse” in Greek) was.
Muhammed, on the other hand, DID leave his followers with a manifesto, called the Quran (The Recitations), a compilation of all the sermons and revelations Allah delivered to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The Quran is illuminated by the Hadiths (the Habit or Example of the Prophet), which like the Christian Gospels are narratives based on eyewitness accounts of events in the life of the Prophet. Finally there are the biographies of the Prophet, as well as Sharia Law, which all combine to give the Ummah (Muslim faithful) the Sunna (The Path) of the Prophet. So Muslims even know which direction they should face when they take a shit, whereas Christians have to figure such details out for themselves.
What we Faithful want to know from you James LaFond, amateur theologian and Master of Disaster, is what kind of sword would Jesus use? In Luke 22:36-38 Jesus instructs his disciples to acquire swords: “He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.” The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.” “That’s enough!” he replied” (NIV). Now clearly Jesus was planning on resisting arrest rather than submit to torture and execution. Later he relented after praying in the garden, putting Mission Accomplishment before personal safety and comfort. Leading some to believe Jesus was an Airborne Ranger (you’ll be one too!). We eagerly await your findings James!
What kind of sword would Jesus use?
I trust that it would be straight, and since he was a speaker rather than a fighter we want ease of handling, so I would go with the Aor, broad at the base and tapering to a needle point. Everyone knew you didn't last long slashing at Romans—you had to stab those suckers.
Thanks, Jeremy, for this informative message.
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” - Mathew 10:34-36 (NIV)
“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.” – Luke 11:21 (NIV).
An Aor? The sword of Apollo and Odysseus? Hmmm…makes sense. I would have guessed a Xiphos or a Kopis maybe. Both are solid generic Greek designs. Also considering that Jesus’ disciples were buying off the shelf and First Century Judea was fairly “Hellenized” by then. Meaning it had been exposed to Greek culture and commerce for some centuries. But that doesn’t mean that if Jesus had his druthers he wouldn’t have gone for an Aor. What did King Herod's army use? Again, Jesus didn’t leave behind any kind of diary, journal or manifesto. As far as we know He didn’t even write any letters home telling Joseph and Mary how he was doing or asking his (half) brother James for money or anything like that. So we are left to make guesses based on extremely meager evidence about what his weapons preferences might be. Especially when we attempt to extrapolate this to the modern era and ask ourselves what kind of GUN would Jesus use? So the question of Jesus sword might be impossible to resolve logically and conclusively, like the question of whether salvation comes from faith alone or faith and good works (there are plenty of passages in the New Testament to support both points of view). We’ll just have to take it as a matter of personal faith.
If you can find anything about Celtic Christianity, you might find some interesting things there. When the Romans withdrew from what is the Modern United Kingdom, they left The Christianity behind and, for 300 years, the Celts were left to interpret The Word with no influence from Rome. It would be interesting to contrast whatever remains of their views with that of Rome.
Someone said once that the Muslim faith was invented by the Jews to challenge Christianity and got away from them. It would also explain why Saudi Arabia always attacks other Muslims but never the Jews. Best evidence is too see what people do not what they say. It would not surprise me in the least if all it were true.
Israel made Hamas to counter the Palestinian authority. West Ukraine to counter the Eastern pro-Russia side and to possibly have a back up site if Israel falls. 9-11 to get the US to attack the Middle East.
Can you all explain where Paul and Jesus disagree?
I do not know that they did and am certainly not the man to answer this question.
Jeremy,
The Qur'an and Gospels were not transmitted much differently. Your prophet Muhammad gave the Qur'an verbally to the Qurra who were the people in Muhammad's inner circle who memorized his sayings. After Muhammad died, many of the Qurra started dying in wars Muhammad started so Abu Bakr ordered that an official Qur'an be compiled and the disagreeing copies burned.
Jesus gave his sayings to his disciples and other eyewitnesses. Like Muhammad, he never wrote them down. Papyri were as scarce for Jesus as they were for Muhammad. Most ancient cultures were highly verbal in their transmission of information from generation to generation. As Josh McDowell and others have explained, this does not mean information was transmitted inaccurately. The Gospels were narrated by eyewitnesses of the events and sayings of Jesus' life to authors under (we believe) divine inspiration within a decade or two after Jesus' death. Unlike Abu Bakr, we did not burn all of the manuscripts in existence. You can buy yourself a critical Greek New TEstament and examine all of the textual variants yourself. The textual disagreements between manuscripts are minor/insignificant.
As you can see, the fact that Jesus didn't leave behind a diary is as small of a problem for Christianity as it is for Islam.
Where followers of Muhammad such as yourself go wrong in your comparison of our texts to Islamic texts are that the Hadith and Sunnah were written centuries after Muhammad lived to give context to the Qur'an. The Qur'an has no internal context and is not even organized chronologically. OTOH, the Bible is replete with dates and historical references, eg, "In the year King Uzziah died."
My apologies if you're not actually Muslim. I've noticed non-Muslim opponents of Christianity often attach more credibility to other ancient religious texts while applying easier standards to those texts than they do the Bible.
Please don't die as hopelessly as your moniker.
The gospels always struck me as one-up manship vying for ownership of the narrative with the joke being that they all won a spot in the good book. Four different authors - none who actually witnessed the event, heard it 3rd, 4th or more hand - writing 60 to 100 years after the death of Christ.
“The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.” -Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals” 1971, Tactics p. 128
“Liberals talk about guns like they talk about Christianity, not terribly familiar with either.” -Ann Coulter, April 2013
“I've noticed non-Muslim opponents of Christianity often attach more credibility to other ancient religious texts while applying easier standards to those texts than they do the Bible.” Indeed PR. Western “secular humanists” DO hold Christianity to a higher standard of proof than they do other religions. Which is precisely why the fact that Jesus didn't leave behind a diary or manifesto IS a problem for the contemporary Christian Church. So when secular people with little to no religious upbringing ask a Christian about what Jesus taught they get handed a pamphlet full of references to what Saint Paul wrote. What’s up with that they ask? Didn’t Jesus write anything? No, but the Apostle Paul wrote a lot and we must believe that this is as God intended, that Paul was divinely inspired in his writings, as were all the other contributors to the Holy Bible. But this is not satisfactory to these secularists. Why? As you say, what is the difference between what Paul wrote and what Jesus is quoted as saying in the Gospels? If you go line by line you’ll find there isn’t any real daylight between their points of view. But really these secularists are just being disingenuous with their fault finding of Christianity because they believe ALL religion is nonsense. Leftists have a particular animus torward Christianity because they see it as the religion of rich and privileged white people. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Animism, and all the rest are the religions of poor, oppressed, non-white people (Judaism you can’t talk about either). The Leftists own PC doctrine instructs them to always “punch up”, to criticize and ridicule the privileged, and to never “punch down” against the oppressed. Christians need to point out to these snarky secularists that if they don’t care to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and therefore everything that his Apostles wrote comes from God himself, then none of these teachings are going to work for them. Otherwise if Jesus was just a man, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, he wasn’t some great moral teacher, rather he was either a lunatic or a charlatan of the worst kind! After all he went around telling everyone he was God and that they should eat his flesh and drink his blood! He had people so pissed off with this crazy talk they tried to throw him off a cliff in his own hometown of Nazareth, but “he walked right through the middle of them and went away”, like Steven Segal (hey, wouldn’t that be a great movie?). Clearly though these secularists aren’t willing to accept that Jesus is divine so instead they nitpick about whether Paul or Jesus taught something.
Don’t worry PR, unlike my namesake I have no plans to have my corpse stuffed and mounted and put on public display at a university.
James. much as I like your pick of the Aor as the sword Jesus would have used, on reflection we'll have to give this some further thought. After all, arming Jesus Christ with a style of sword also associated with the god Apollo smacks of "syncretism", the mixing of religious beliefs. That is something the Lord Jehovah has always frowned upon, especially way back in the Old Testament days. It looks like you folks in Harm City are being visited with a holy terror as it is. No sense in compounding the felony then. LOL! We'll just have to explore the subject further.
Jeremy,
Outstanding reply. I obviously agree with everything you said.