Newer Higher Religion #407Z, or Christianity, covering Jesus Christ, Judaism, Christianity, Philosophy and the History of the Church and God in Western Civilization by artist Stephen F. Condren. United States Navy Veteran, BFA-SAIC, of Condren Galleries, a Fine Arts Gallery. This article is dedicated to Gerd Ludemann.
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Ethereal Deity
It is my task here to write a short Theology on Christian Theology. I do not mean for this to be a vast and comprehensive Systematic Theology, rather it is my task to look at a few of the key traditions of the Church and also the Bible to make sense of it for people of today.
God is ethereal. I do not hold to any tenet that Deifies an entity of material substance.
In in topic you have to take into account your approach to it. My approach to the topic of God and religion is that of a Humanist and Artist. Further, I adhere as much as can be to a rationalist approach to the subject. I know that it is not humanly possible to be objective and rational, but it is best to try as much as possible because it will keep your paths straight. The moment that you wonder off into the realm of the mystical you are headed for trouble. The mere fact that I am using words here to discuss the subject is a rational approach, for all forms of communications are attempts at the rational.
Dualism
Christianity is a religion with a deep rooted dualism imbedded into it, due to it’s association with:
- Jesus
- Christ
The man Jesus further adds complication to the religion because he is Jewish, almost making it a triplette, but His Judaism, though profound, does work in the context of the man Jesus. Jesus was a Jew and an ardent one, that along with John the Baptist and a host of other unknowns formed a marginal sect in league with the Essenes. I am quite sure that there are sundry small groups and parties that were all clamoring for attention to rally for the cause against the great oppressor Rome. Masada, of course comes to mind, however, there are no documents available at this time for me or anyone to support this.
It is my perspective to read the texts that are handed down to us as rational tools, and thus have to be approached in a rational manner. That means we have to employ what we have learned of History and Science from then to the present to get a clear a proper perspective of the subject. For example, since the advent of modern Science, we now know that Adam & Eve were an impossibility, and when we encounter them and topics related to them we have to take into account what modern Science has taught us on this subject.
Baptism
Stemming from the Jewish ritual of Tevilah, this early grass-roots community cashed in on a stable rite that everyone knew and trusted, much like the average citizen today bringing their family to a stable and trusted Church where their children are “brought up right”, and not subjected to an “off beat”, “strange”, and “foreign” religion.
However, the cleansing of baptism was about washing the yoke of filthy, vile, Rome from the pure and pristine bodies of Jews. Thus, the heralding in of the masses to the river to rid yourself of the stench of the Roman pigs, and return to the House of David, and free ourselves once and for all from these infidels. Baptism has nothing to do with repentance, it is all about cleansing. Repentance is atoned for at the temple on the altar with the paschal lamb, do not be confused. See my article on Paul Tillich and his Systematic Theology. The editorial committees of the Gospels and other early Church editors “fixed” the originals to read “Repent and be baptized for the Kingdom of God is at hand”, or words to that effect.
Christian Apologetics
Tragically, I can only quote Paul Tillich to address those that take the Bible literally as the inerrant word of God.
“Apologetic theology is “answering theology.” It answers the questions implied in the “situation” in the power of the eternal message and with the means provided by the situation whose questions it answers.
The term “apologetic,” which had such a high standing in the early church, has fallen into disrepute because of the methods employed in the abortive attempts to defend Christianity against attacks from modern humanism, naturalism, and historism. An especially weak and disgusting form of apologetics used the argumentum ex ignorantia; that is, it tried to discover gaps in our scientific and historical knowledge in order to find a place for God and his actions within an otherwise completely calculable and “immanent” world. Whenever our knowledge advanced, another defense position had to be given up; but eager apologetes were not dissuaded by this continuous retreat from finding in the most recent developments of physics and historiography new occasions to establish God’s activity in new gaps of scientific knowledge. This undignified procedure has discredited everything which is called “apologetics.”
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, University of Chicago Press, page 6.
Inspiration
I hold completely to what Dr. Tillich has to say to the above, and I cannot add anything further to it. First and foremost it must be understood that inspired does not mean that a beam of light shined down from Heaven upon an early follower of Jesus and dictated to him in a majestic voice the events of the day, verbatim, from the very mouth of God. That notion or idea is just a theory on the part of people that do not have a firm understanding of Historical Science and the History of the development of the Bible. Further, people that hold to this theory have no facts whatsoever to support their claim, so until further notice their speculations are void.
Evangelical Theologians
I will never forget as long as I live, in my class at Trinity Seminary, Deerfield, Illinois. The class was called “New Testament Criticism and Theology” taught by Scott McKnight. He read out loud to the class, with enthusiasm, the passage of Jesus being crushed by the “Wheel of History” from the text of Albert Schweitzer’s famous book “Quest of the Historical Jesus”, pages 370 & 37, Collier Books (which he is all about and loves). He then went on about Demythologization, Form Criticism, Redaction Criticism, and Rudolph Bultmann, and those wonderful German Theologians, boasting to us that he read them in the original German, after which he told us not to share with members of your church, because they do not want to hear this kind of thing, it will upset them, and it won’t go over well” or words to that effect. I should have stood up and left the classroom, for I was there to learn, and to learn the truth, and now I should hide it, and pull the wool over the eyes of others? If I cannot share what I am learning in Seminary then what good is it? Further, should the seminary be in a position to teach things that “Won’t go over well”? That means I am to go up to the sweet old ladies at church and just pacify them, and let them go on believing what they are being told, because I do not want to rock their boat? Rubbish, the truth is the truth, I would never teach anything that I could post all over the Internet, and I am a Certified Public School Teacher, and Administrator, Type #75. This article is posted on the Internet for all to read, if someone does not like what I say then please let me know. But I am not going to hide it. If this is not the definition of a swindler what is?
This is the same kind of thing that you have in Evangelical groups lead by Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and Josh McDowell. Books like the “Lake Great Planet Earth”, and “Evidence That Demands A Verdict” are received like Divine writings and even have films made from them!
Worse yet, you actually have educated “intelligent” Evangelical Theologians cementing this gibber together with Epistemology, and Ontology, and sugar coating it with totally insane Logic, like William Lane Craig. It is so easy to swindle the uneducated masses, and that is what John the Baptist, and Jesus did. The real tragedy here is that these people are cheating themselves, and are living in denial all the while, because they will not risk putting their “clear”, “orderly”, and “completely logical” world up for grabs, to be shattered by earnest people that are asking honest questions, and seeking the truth. Rather, to satisfy their pompous egos, they are eager, and ready, like Pit bulls, to tear up, and shatter your world with their trickery, deceptive talk, Philosophical jargon, and smoke & mirrors, offering nothing of substance. That is a swindler!
Let me tell you, as I attended seminary, and I know for a fact that none of what any of the most learned Theologians or Academicians says about Jesus Christ or the Bible is iron clad. All of their work is based on speculations, and distant documents far from the source. There are no original manuscripts, letters, Gospels, or writings extant. All that we have are copies of copies based on word of mouth and oral traditions. It is like writing about the Civil War starting now!
“There is no scholarly consensus on the date of composition of the latest New Testament texts. Conservative scholars John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD.[3] But most scholars date some New Testament texts much later than this. For example, Richard Pervo dates Luke-Acts to c. AD 115,[4] and David Trobisch places Acts in the mid- to late second century, contemporaneous with the publication of the first New Testament canon.[5][note 1]“. Wikipedia, New Testament.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament
Even when you have the original documents firmly in your hand, they are subject to interpretation, and juxtaposition to events, and places. Now compare that to copies of old documents over a century after the event? Further, back in antiquity they did not have the Internet, scans, FedEx, and photocopiers! Their cell phones were running on fossil fuel. Bottom line, this is all very speculative, and it should be explicated as such.
Bible Canon
Another very big can of worms that can now be opened is the canon of the Bible. That is, what books are included in the New Testament and what are left out. There are many books that at one time where part of the Bible but then later removed at various Church Councils and finally codified in around 325 AD, by St. Athanasius, who was just a man, a bishop, and not appointed by God to do the listing. There are volumes of books that have been the source of the New Testament. Please see the Wikipedia link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers_(book)
If I want to read the Gospel of Nicodemus who is to stop me? If I want to make reference to the Gospel of Thomas who will say no? The more your start to research the more you realize how very uncertain all of it is. I compare it to learning the galaxy, for the more that you learn, the more that you realize how little you know.
The Gospels
Ironically most of Bible Scholarship hovers around the Gospels, and specifically, the words of Jesus. However, this is all a waste of time, for the words, and deeds of Jesus are worthless, and offer nothing. For the task of Jesus was to get Rome out of Israel, a topic of no concern to people outside of Israel, and certainly of no interest to people of today. Any serious study of the words, and deeds of Jesus is foolhardy. The only thing that you need to know about Him is that He was Jewish, that is the only thing that matters, and makes the storyline work. If Jesus were not Jewish there would be no Christianity.
Zombie Of Easter
The Gospels are of course, totally doctored up documents that are tooled, and designed as the foundation for the edifice of the Church. Centuries of “back writing”, and editing have made these documents what they are today. They are nothing whatsoever like the original documents, and even more removed from the oral stories, and traditions that the documents come from. It is paramount that you completely remove the man Jesus from the image of Jesus in the Gospels. These are two different people. When the traitor Jesus died on the cross that was it. There was no resurrection. The only thing that was alive was the memory of Jesus in the minds of His followers. It was His followers that conjured up the Zombie of Easter Sunday to keep the grass-roots cause alive and thriving, and nothing more. There was never any attempt to start any kind of religion, save souls, or offer eternal life. It was the Judaizers that later incorporated the Zombie of Easter, and formulate a new religion, but the core of all is secular. It took the Hellenistic Jews to put life into the Zombie of Easter, and this is the progression to the creation of Jesus Christ, and Christianity. See my article “Zombie Of Easter Sunday”.
I have no doubts that Jesus was real, and lived, and was a man. I have all doubts that He was honest, caring, and concerned about the poor, and the outcast, while preaching the Sermon on the Mount. This is all fiction, and needs to be put in proper light. That is: The Jesus of History was a radical, power hungry rebel wanting to take control, and get the Romans out at all cost, even up to his life. All of the gatherings were rallies to gather support for His cause.
Major Division
Essentially there are three major divisions in the Synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of John is a worthless Gnostic publication out of Alexandria, not suitable for research.
- Genealogy of Jesus.
- Teachings of Jesus.
- The Passion.
The genealogy of Jesus is the absolute core of everything, it is the sub-basement if you will. It puts King David firmly in place that will later sanctify Jesus. Without this you have nothing but prattle. King David is clout. This is where the dualism starts. For Jesus, John the Baptist, and the rest needed King David to garner support to their grass-roots movement. Then later after the crisis, the death of Jesus, the Judaizers cashed in on the King David clout, and worked it into the authentication of His mission. Then they espoused the oral genealogy, which then became codified.
The teachings, reported miracles, wonders, and good deeds, were added by the Church later down the road after the dust had settled. As the letters, theories, and confessions of the Church grew, the Church, in order to make sense of it, and to avoid chaos, and breakdown, established creeds to smooth things out. Further, all of the words of Jesus can be fit on a 3″ x 5″ index card, for the rest that is attributed to Him is all later Church addition. See Norman Perrin.
The crucifixion was too big and ugly to rub-out and had to be addressed. So the entire story surrounding it is a fabrication nicely summed up in the Stations of the Cross. The only truth in the Passion is the crucifixion. There is no Resurrection.
Honest Theologians
At the front rank of current Theologians that are to be respected, because they are honest in all their work are, Gerd Ludeman, Bishop Robert Barron, and David Tracy. You may not agree with them, you may be disappointed in them, but all of what they write is good, to the point, and above all honest. There is no guile, or swindle in them.
The Man Jesus
I hold that Jesus was a real flesh and blood human being like the rest of us. I do not hold to the tenets that Jesus is the savior of the world, or the Son of God, or the Son of Man, or to any other celestial designation. Jesus like John the Baptist and other persons of that time that are unknown to history were part of a grass-roots movement to band the people of Israel together under a new kind of “Kingdom of David” and rise up and expel the Romans from the area completely. Jesus is not God, was not God, and never will be God until proven so.
The grass-roots movement or more aptly the Judaizers movement was doomed to failure from the beginning, because nobody knew Jesus better than they did. The Judaizers lived, worked, and grew up with Jesus, and his family, so we are not dealing with strangers here. So they knew that Jesus died, and they saw him die on the cross. This was a very real and ugly event in there lives and the lives of the locals, for it was a rare thing for a Jew to ever be crucified, for by their code of ethic, they are a quiet and peaceful people. Jews, are not, and never have been known for being warriors, and a military minded people. The Jews are people that use their talent and their brains, and that is why they were so successful in Egypt, and in Germany. It was a combination of fear and jealousy that turned the Egyptians against the Jews. For the Jews had acquired great wealth and learning over time in Egypt, and the same holds true in Germany, and here in the United States.
However, they took on a seed of hope at the death of Jesus, that he would return and fulfill the dream that He offered to them. It is the seed of this hope that was the seed that gave the birth to Christianity.
Failed Mission
The mission was a dream of the peasants, and marginal groups that did not have a full grasp of politics, military tactics, and Roman Civil Law. Like the Evangelical Bible totters of today, they too had the same myopic and dim vision of an earthy rise of the house of King David with nothing substantive to support their views. It was all dreams, but like the televangelists of today, they went out and preached “the word” and swindled the blind, and the ignorant into following their fold.
John the Baptist was surely a key exponent of this movement, for to even have his name mentioned in the Gospels give high status to that. However, Herod would have none of it and had him done away with. The scene of the jail and beheading are completely fiction, whereas the strip-tease dance of Salome was added as quasi-erotic reading material to keep up interest in the story line, much like the Song of Songs.
At this point, Jesus, the second-in-command, stepped in to the keep the grass-roots movement going, and He did a good job of it. The mere mention of the feeding of the 5,000 bespeaks of the vast outreach he was ushering in, much like a Billy Graham Crusade. He was not going to have a repeat of what happened to John the Baptist, so Jesus pushed the pedal to the floor.
With the massive campaigns that Jesus had mustered together from his highly successful visits to the local synagogues, and rural people, offering them a better life for them when the yoke of the swine Romans are gone. So the movement grew rapidly, so much so, that it got out of the hands of Herod and onto the ear of Pontius Pilate. Now you have trouble, for just like our Federal Government of today, you are dealing with a titanic, organized, and powerful entity, and one that these rural people did not have a firm understanding of. To make a long story short, Rome put a quick and final end to the problem that finally ended with the destruction of the Temple, all due to the campaigns of John the Baptist, and Jesus. Most assuredly because of them this great Temple, this edifice, is gone forever, again the price that we must pay for the vainglory of others.
All the oral stories of Jesus being connected to the House of King David, to the baptism, and even the Passover Meal (there was no Last Supper, sorry Leonardo), were all designed to authenticate the truth of the grass-roots message. However, the party was over, and like John the Baptist, Jesus was executed, but by crucifixion. If there was ever a trial is a mute point, for justice has been done, and the traitors were purged, leaving the grass-roots community in a perilous void until the advent of St. Stephen.
St. Stephen
The answer to everything about Christianity lies with St. Stephen. It is all too obvious. After the crushing death of Jesus on the cross, and the solid vindication of His death seen by His followers, His family, and His very mother. All of these people knew that Jesus had died, as they were eye witnesses. However, the grass-roots movement was still alive and the pulse of the memory of Jesus was very strong. The local followers could not let it to die, because they had put their whole life into it. However, their backs were to the wall, and they had nowhere to go, and they were crying in the darkness. Because what most historians do not grasp is that not only was Jesus killed on the cross, but the grass-roots movement had now been exposed as a band of traitors that were a menace to Rome and the Sanhedrin. Thus, they had to walk carefully in dark streets having lost their freedom from both Rome, and the Jewish community. It was indeed a very dark, and gloomy time for the grass-roots community. What was to be done? Judaizing! Here enters the story of physical dead body of Jesus rising from the dead, a zombie if you will. It is this zombie that is the starting point, however it fails, and that is why the Judaizers eventually dissipated into oblivion. A corps just does not work, no matter how hard you try to work it. There is no life in a corps, even one with fresh wounds that you can put your finger in. The concept just does not work. But this is the answer that was given to meet the needs of the grass-roots movement, and they ran with it. However, with the advent of St. Stephen, and the Hellenistic Jews the concept of the corps will be transfigured to the more palpable, and ethereal Jesus Christ.
Remember, the first believers were all Jews, not Gentiles. Christianity is essentially a Jewish religion and product that is later formulated to a more ethereal realm that does away with sacrifices, laws, and suffering in place of honor, glory, and eternal life. All of the activity around the early Church was a Jewish phenomenon, a Jewish way of life, they were even called the Way. But suddenly this was all shattered and the world was turned around, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, a group of young Jews, that were most certainly an educated group of young men, were infused with a new hope, a new vision, and a new way of life. Among this group arose St. Stephen as the exponent of the team, for he was full of the Holy Spirit. It was St. Stephen who had the vision that changed the world. These young men were Hellenistic Jews, and they learned and absorbed Greek Philosophy, and language. It was this infusion of Hellenistic & Jewish thought that was the catalyst for the creation of St. Stephen. For in an act of pure genius, these Hellenistic Jews saw the vision of merging the Jewish people with their past and glorious history and infuse it to a new age, with a new vision, and a new hope for life eternal that was in Jesus Christ. The switch had been thrown, and the wheel was now turning, but instead of bearing the mangled body of Jesus, crushing Him as it turned, rather it carried aloft in triumph the Christ, wearing the crown of victory, honor, and glory.
Private Audience
Now it must be understood that St. Stephen, and only St. Stephen ever sees Jesus in Heaven, no one else in the New Testament ever sees Jesus in Heaven. And to further drive the point home, St. Stephen is the only person ever, to see Jesus sitting at the right hand of God! St. Paul never met or even saw Jesus! Whereas St. Stephen had a private audience with Jesus and God, while being full of the Holy Spirit! What greater clout can be had? Also, take note of the lack of angels, trumpets, and fanfare. This was a point of high focus, and it was to be made clear, that Jesus is ethereal. Take note that all of the corporal, or zombie like appearances of Jesus are to Jews, never to gentiles. This is because they were the ones that saw and knew the physical Jesus, so they needed physical proof. The Hellenistic Jews could care less, they knew that they held the trump card, and that Jesus Christ was in their body, which is now the temple of the Holy Spirit. It all fits like a glove.
Thus, faith in the risen Jesus who was seated at the right hand of God was the hope, and the vision made clear by St. Stephen. The history that he told, was to vindicate the truth of what the earthly Jesus stood for, and now, it was the Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, which was not the history, for that was past, but the future, for that is what is to come in all those that follow Jesus Christ. Now, everything is going to be okay, just follow the lead of the Lord. This was Hellenism, and St. Stephen was the exponent of this movement, the beacon that showed the way.
It is important to understand the time and the speed of the movement. For the Judaizers were slow to move and could not understand what the Hellenistic Jews where saying. The Judaizers could only look back to the Jesus that they knew. Whereas Stephen and all the new converts that never met Jesus came with answers to a new life with Jesus. Further, and most importantly, the new Hellenistic Jews shed the laws of the Jews and took on the Philosophy and the ways of the Greeks which offered a myriad of hope, which was far greater than the tears and weeping over the corps of Jesus that was gone forever.
The event of St. Stephen from the speech to his vision then death were the mirror acts of Jesus preaching, Transfiguration, and death. Even the very words of forgiveness to his murderers on his lips bear the words of Jesus. Now it was complete and lay at the feet of Saul of Tarsus, preparing for what would change his life, and the life of the Church of Jesus Christ. For like the sudden change that took place with the vision of St. Stephen, so too with the sudden change hit Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and change his course and his vision. All of this now is in the hands of Hellenism. The vision of Christ to St. Paul on the road to Damascus would have no meaning whatsoever without St. Stephen, because it would make no sense.
Acts Of The Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles is about three things:
- The Holy Spirit.
- St. Stephen.
- St. Paul.
Pentecost was nothing more than a recording of chaos. The grass-roots community and been cut to the quick and was in disarray. This is all expressed with the story of the various tongues spoken at the event and during the gift of the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit is eternal.
When the dust of Pentecost settled we have the arrival of St. Stephen. It is St. Stephen that makes sense of Pentecost by taking the dead Jesus and putting life into Him by displaying him as the Christ. It is St. Stephen that is “Full of the Holy Spirit, and for the fist time in history makes manifest the Christ event. See my article on St. Stephen. Like a chicken with it’s head cut off running around the yard, so too was the early grass-roots movement which I will now call the Church. For the Church of Christ begins with St. Stephen, and the grass-roots movement of John the Baptist, the Essenes, and Jesus is dead. The corpse of Jesus is now forever envisioned as the body of Christ. However, this Christ is not a Jew, and the early Church and the Judaizers do not grasp this. Things are different now, for the message of before, hailed aloft by Jesus, and John the Baptist is now crushed, and gone forever. We now have a totally new message, and that message is the salvation of souls from death for all peoples, of all nations with the hope, and glory of eternal life with Christ, and not the emancipation of Israel from Rome.
You will note that St. Stephen sees the ethereal body of Jesus in Heaven and not the anthropomorphic zombie that that the earlier editors and narrators of the Gospels foisted upon the apostles (and us). St. Stephen is not putting his finger into the wounds of Jesus, rather he is experiencing the vision of Christ. The zombie that the Gospel editors conjured up was the best that they could offer to a shaken up and enfeebled Church. They needed something substantive but the editorial committee went too far.
The death (by stoning) of St. Stephen was only to complete the parallel of him with Jesus to then convey the new image of Christ for all of us to glorify. His death had nothing to do with being the first martyr, that was circumstantial and a concept wrongly evolved out of a later tradition which got in the way of the real reason for the epiphany of St. Stephen, which of course was the crown of victory over death, hence stephanos. Please note, that Christ never rose from the dead, no one did. Christ is eternal and most probably the core source of process creation of the Universe explained by A. N. Whitehead, and articulated Christologically by Charles Hartshorne. There was never a Jesus that died on the cross and that rose from the dead in a new body. That is looking at the message of the Bible wrongly.
With the epiphany of Jesus made manifest by St. Stephen there is a need of a messenger, and the messenger is none other than St. Paul, a man that never met Jesus, free, if you will, from the taint, and association with the Judaizers. Thus we now have a newer higher religion, one that answers the needs for all people from all over the world.
Joy
People run with winners, and the Hellenistic New Testament Epistles are the winners. What made Christianity a success were the letters, and not the Gospels. For the letters are filled with joy, comfort, and eternal life. Whereas the Gospels are morbid, depressing, and filled with doom & gloom. There is no joy or delight in the “D Minor” teachings of Jesus. Everything about Jesus is dark, and dismal, for His vile, and treacherous end is known to all. Today Jesus would be rightly counted as a Felon, and a Traitor, which He was, and paid the price for. If you truly follow the teachings of Jesus you will end up like St. Maximilian Kolbe, a person that is funereal, depressed, and the epitome of “Say no to life”. For good reason people do not read the Gospels, rather they pass them over, and read the epistles, because they offer something positive, refreshing, are full of life & hope, and people just love them.
The New Testament epistles are like Felix Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, a work of genius, joyous, and a delight to be shared with everyone.
Condren Galleries is pleased to have been to participate in the execution of Newer Higher Religion #407Z.
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Newer Higher Religion #407Z, or Christianity pen & ink drawing by artist Stephen F. Condren, of Condren Galleries.
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