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jmcrae
Guest
Okay, I’ll bite. What was “the religion of Jesus,” and where do we find it in the world today?
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adrift
Guest
So you get it. Good. You use RCC as if that name existed at the time of Constatine which it didn’t. Remember I am responding to your challange that the Chruch was named Catholic. My response is exactly what you said about Abraham not being called a Jew. The Church existed BEFORE Constatine. He did not begin the Church. He stopped persecuting the Church.
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Publisher
Guest
From the NT gospels we find the “remembered” teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Love your enemies, do good to those that hatefully use you. Pray for your persecutors. Turn the other cheek. He was understood through Paul’s letters to be the “enfoldment of God’s revelation among us”…If we wanted to know what God was like…we looked to Jesus…God is Father. God seeks to save that which is lost. He fulfilled all ritual requirements of the Law and we are free from such requirements. The impediment between humanity and God is now removed. Each of us now has direct and unrestricted access to this experience with God.Okay, I’ll bite. What was “the religion of Jesus,” and where do we find it in the world today?
By the 2nd century… Christianity had changed from how we are to live with one another…how we are to treat the unfortuneate in our midst…“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and love your neighbor as yourself”…became in the 2nd century more about “organization”…“correct belief” instead of “correct behavior”…“correct statements” instead of “truthful living”…each sect began vying for domination over the other…claiming “authority” and “apostolic sucession” and the beginning of “creeds” to separate the “correct belief” from “false belief”…the focus of Christianity beginning in the 2nd century changed from the first group of believers.
By the 2nd century monastic communities began to spring up…separating the “secular” from the “religious” life…when in the 1st century all those who followed Him were expected to live exemplary lives…not just monastics. With the rise of monastic living the daily holiness of living began being “relegated” to cloistered communities and a withdrawl from the world…by the 4th century through the various persecutions and struggles…the dominant form of Christianity had aligned itself with the secular powers and compromised their simple message of peace and love and mercy to ritual and rites being performed as means of grace…the “heroic living” of those first Christians became only a “calling” of a chosen few instead of a universal call to holiness.
I realize this is dismissed out of hand by those who believe Jesus began an organizational institutional “church” instead of a New Way to relate to God and one another without hierarchies and priesthoods.
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JHow
Guest
Question for you Publisher: In the above are you using ironical quotation marks (scare quotes) or are you quoting something or someone? It is sometimes hard to follow posts and whether one is referencing a previous post or emphasizing two sides of a debate by use of quotation marks?
I ask, because didn’t Paul have a lot to say about what could be termed “correct teaching” (ortho-doxy)? But you seem to have included him in your “religion of Jesus” category?
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Publisher
Guest
I tend to accept the “scholarly consensus” that Paul is the true architect of the Christianity that has survived…he was at odds with the Jerusalem communtiy from some of the “hints” we read in Acts.
Paul was the dominant figure that spurred Christianity from being just another Jewish sect to become a separate religous movement.
I use the “quotes” as I am not the originator of such thoughts…but I have come to believe in much of the “biblical criticism” and “historical criticism” in the last century ro so that has shed new light on Christian beginnings…they make much more sense to me than the “conservative/religious history” that has been accepted in the previous centuries.
I finished recently “The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus.” by John Dominic Crossan. “Lost Christianities” by Bart Erhman and “The Gnostic Gospels” are some of the more informative books I have read…I know…you do not accept them as historically accurate…but to me they are more credible than the history “conservative” Christianity has provided for itself.
“Who Wrote the New Testament” by Burton Mack is also a good read…as well as “The Reluctant Parting” by Julie Galambush.
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jmcrae
Guest
Ohhh-kay, I was wondering why it seemed familiar. I’ve never been a fan of his, simply because he rejects the Bible as it is written, or as it has come to us, and reinvents it based on what he thinks it should have said.
The congregation out of which I came was heavily into his stuff at the time of my leaving, and since then, they have become an “affirming community” (they do “marriage” ceremonies for homosexuals) and its pastor describes Christianity as “a useful myth.” Their main source of income at the moment is rock concerts, and that’s only because they have had the sense to retain their traditional architecture, although nothing else - the building has fantastic acoustics.
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Publisher
Guest
While I’m not a fan of his writing style…I much prefer Marcus Borg or Bart Erhman…it was informative. Burton Mack also is a bit “gruff”…but I enjoyed a few of his books just the same.
I took the “extension course” of “Lost Christianities” via workbook, DVD’s and on-line as I couldn’t get across the US to take Bart Erhman’s live class.
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jmcrae
Guest
Aieee! - the whole Jesus Seminar! My eyes - I’m going blind!
(Just kidding)
I think you need to be told that the Jesus Seminar is just a think-tank where these men get together and brainstorm ideas. There isn’t any actual research going on - they aren’t “scholars” in the normal sense of the word. They freely admit that - I’m not telling tales out of school, here.
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Publisher
Guest
Oh…LOL…I’m aware they are a “think tank”…while the fellows of the Jesus Seminar are not all “scholars”…there is a large group of “scholars” that are indebted to their work.Aieee! - the whole Jesus Seminar! My eyes - I’m going blind!
(Just kidding)
I think you need to be told that the Jesus Seminar is just a think-tank where these men get together and brainstorm ideas. There isn’t any actual research going on - they aren’t “scholars” in the normal sense of the word. They freely admit that - I’m not telling tales out of school, here.
“The Pre-Nicean New Testament” by Robert Price…also a fellow of the Jesus Seminar…is also a good read…and very informative concerning early Christian beginnings.
Hold on to your britches…but I also like the “Five Gospels” by the Jesus Seminar…to help determine the various “layers” of myth and tradition that underly the New Testament gospels.
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jmcrae
Guest
Right - which in the sober light of day, means that they have based their work on fantasy.
Keeping in mind that the whole thing was brainstormed (fantasized) - not discovered. Remember, none of this stuff is based on anything real - it’s all whatever they thought up in the think tank.
More fantasy fiction.
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Publisher
Guest
I find their “fantasy fiction” much more compelling and credible than the “fantasy fiction” of conservative Christianity that has been espoused for the last 1900 years.Right - which in the sober light of day, means that they have based their work on fantasy.
Keeping in mind that the whole thing was brainstormed (fantasized) - not discovered. Remember, none of this stuff is based on anything real - it’s all whatever they thought up in the think tank.
More fantasy fiction.
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jmcrae
Guest
Not trying to be rude, but what makes you think that a few men locked up in a room together with no source material or books have some kind of wisdom that those who’ve been studying the actual documents for the past 1900 to 2000 years haven’t got?I find their “fantasy fiction” much more compelling and credible than the “fantasy fiction” of conservative Christianity that has been espoused for the last 1900 years.
Of what profit would it have been, in the year 150 AD, to set up a Church that had nothing to do with what Christ intended?
Keep in mind, people were still being martyred for being Christian - how does being or having a Bishop add to or subtract from that experience?
It seems to me that if Christianity were intended by Jesus to be a disorganized do-whatever-you-feel-like thing, that during the period of martyrdom, people would have just done that, instead of going out of their way to lead or to be led by members of the clergy - who, in the process of being ordained, basically got targets painted on their foreheads - the temporal power and the nice outfits were more than a century away in the future - and if the Christians of that time had never seen such things before, or if they knew for a fact (as they would, if it were just then being invented) that Jesus never intended a clerical class, then what would have made them venture out from the safety of their homes to seek out the clergy, to receive the Sacraments from them? Surely, the only reason someone would do that, is if receiving the Sacraments from the clergy had benefits worth risking one’s life for.
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Publisher
Guest
We have tools available to us today that those of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries didn’t have. We have the capability to analyize the liguistics and syntax and determine if a writing of Paul is actually by Paul or if it’s a pseudegraphical writing.Not trying to be rude, but what makes you think that a few men locked up in a room together with no source material or books have some kind of wisdom that those who’ve been studying the actual documents for the past 1900 to 2000 years haven’t got?
Of what profit would it have been, in the year 150 AD, to set up a Church that had nothing to do with what Christ intended?
Keep in mind, people were still being martyred for being Christian - how does being or having a Bishop add to or subtract from that experience?
It seems to me that if Christianity were intended by Jesus to be a disorganized do-whatever-you-feel-like thing, that during the period of martyrdom, people would have just done that, instead of going out of their way to lead or to be led by members of the clergy - who, in the process of being ordained, basically got targets painted on their foreheads - the temporal power and the nice outfits were more than a century away in the future - and if the Christians of that time had never seen such things before, or if they knew for a fact (as they would, if it were just then being invented) that Jesus never intended a clerical class, then what would have made them venture out from the safety of their homes to seek out the clergy, to receive the Sacraments from them? Surely, the only reason someone would do that, is if receiving the Sacraments from the clergy had benefits worth risking one’s life for.
With the discovery of Nag Hammadi and Qumran we have documents that point to the diverisity of belief many held in those first centuries. We can see the influence of the Essenes on early Christian thought. There are other archeological finds in the last couple centuries that shed new light upon early Christian origins.
Martyrdom does not prove the “truth” of anything…it proves those who died for their beliefs believed it…but there have been many men and women killed over the centuries for “truth”…Many of the Cathars marched willingly to their deaths than deny “truth”…but I don’t see anyone embracing Cathar belief.
Early Christian beginnings as understood by the “liberals” in no way cause me to “loose faith” in God…they confirm my belief that God is within us and striving to bring us to Himself…I am awed at the way God makes Himself known to humanity…“But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” is one of my favorite passages from Habakkuk.
“The Light that enlightens every man…” from John open up vistas to me that humble before His Presence.
The work of God to bring about His Kingdom amazes me…and He works through very human, finite, flawed people…in one another and our collective search for God…I find an astounding Presence.
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jmcrae
Guest
Which were not being used - the Jesus Seminar was not using tools of any kind, keep in mind.
This is also true - and none of these documents were being used by the Jesus Seminar. It was purely a think-tank. People batting ideas around. No documents. No reading. No tools. Just discussions.
It boggles the mind that people would have invented the idea of having Christian clergy, then suddenly two minutes later, forget that they had done so.
I am not talking about people believing in “the Jesus myth” - I am talking about people leaving their homes to go to Church, and ordaining priests, deacons, and Bishops, without there being any command to do so from Christ or the Apostles - I am saying, if they made up the idea of going to Church, and made up the idea of having priests, deacons and Bishops, what was the profit in it, for them? Why would they do these terribly risky things, if Jesus and the Apostles had never told them to do so? What would be the point of making it up, in 150 AD?
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James_Miller
Guest
Originally Posted by James Miller
Ok people. Here it is again. I only gave options ok. I never said I believe them. Yes one of you are correct it was called the WAY.
Dear Rev Kevin,
Messages posted to threads should be on-topic. If you wish to discuss another topic, start a new thread.
Ok people. Here it is again. I only gave options ok. I never said I believe them. Yes one of you are correct it was called the WAY.
Dear Rev Kevin,
I fear “the Way” is not the name of a person and will not satisfy the OP who asked when.
I know that the WAY was not a name of a person it was what the first Christians called themselves. Besides the WAY part was in responce to adrifts correction of me in post 27.
Dear Rev Kevin: This is against the forum rules. They state you should start your own thread instead.Messages posted to threads should be on-topic. If you wish to discuss another topic, start a new thread.
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James_Miller
Guest
Adrift wrote:I think how many pages depends on how your computer displays. For me there is only one page. The OP last posted four days ago. I think that is to (sic) short of time to say he is no longer posting. Although I can see why you say that and perhaps he will not post again. I believe that at least two weeks should past before you conclude that someone is not posting anymore.
On the other hand he has posted 59 times since he last posted here to other threads he has created. I think he is a troll.
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joe370
Guest
Hey James…
Unable to post as much as I would like to from work anymore. I would simply like someone in one of the many non-Catholic churches, here at CAF to answer the OP.
If they do not answer the question by providing a name of the founder (just as I can provide the name of the person that founded each and every protestant church and when) - that is not Jesus Christ, then I will assume that they believe that Jesus Christ is the founder of the Catholic Church, in union with the Bishop of Rome? It seems pretty logical…Since becoming catholic, not one non-Catholic has definitively identified the historical name of the founder of the CC in union with the Bishop of Rome, all the while telling me that it is not Jesus. 
I just want non-Catholics to back up their claim; that certainly is not asking for too much in my opinion…
Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut James…
Unable to post as much as I would like to from work anymore. I would simply like someone in one of the many non-Catholic churches, here at CAF to answer the OP.
If they do not answer the question by providing a name of the founder (just as I can provide the name of the person that founded each and every protestant church and when) - that is not Jesus Christ, then I will assume that they believe that Jesus Christ is the founder of the Catholic Church, in union with the Bishop of Rome? It seems pretty logical…Since becoming catholic, not one non-Catholic has definitively identified the historical name of the founder of the CC in union with the Bishop of Rome, all the while telling me that it is not Jesus. I just want non-Catholics to back up their claim; that certainly is not asking for too much in my opinion…Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut James…
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joe370
Guest
Hey James…
There is a reason it has been off subject too: Typical red herring to avoid answering the question. The answer to the question is: Jesus Christ, but non–Catholics will deny that but again, not provide me with the name of the man (or men)- that supposedly did establish the CC in union with Rome. I think this is a good thread because the deafening silence speaks volumes.
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joe370
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Exactly jmcrae…Is that asking for too much? I don’t think so…
I don’t think so…No. He wants Protestants to clarify their thinking, unify their voice, and say, "Jesus did not start the Catholic Church in 33 AD. [This person] started the Catholic Church in [this year] and in [this place]. Here’s what happened: [give the history and circumstances of how the Catholic Church started].
If Protestants prove incapable of doing so, then Protestants need to consider that perhaps their version of history is incorrect - that Jesus, indeed, started the Catholic Church, and wants all human beings to be members of it - and to come out of their Protestant churches and join Jesus’ Church, which is the Catholic Church.
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joe370
Guest
James, I was just typing too fast. Most of the time I am posting at work so I have to type fast. You seem a little angry at me, yourself, just as a few non-Catholics have been, as of late due to my many threas…I think, by now, you get the point of the thread. By the way, I AM asking my non-Catholic friends right here at this thread and they just ignore me, which simply reinforces why I became catholic.
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