Category Archives: Christianity’s failure to deliver

Seek and Ye Shall Find

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Thanks to all the Christians who responded to my questions last week. Here’s the answers (in red) they helped me reach.

I asked –

1. What happens to you, as a Christian, when you die:

a) You go immediately to heaven (The Bible says this precisely nowhere)

b) You go into suspended animation until Christ’s coming and the final judgement (Paul implies this is the case in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. You have to ask yourself how he knew this)

c) You cease to exist (Yup, this is it. So, as Dolly says, better get to livin’)

2. According to the first three gospels, how long was Jesus in the grave?

a) About 36 hours (Friday tea-time till just before sunrise on Sunday. You do the Math)

b) 3 whole days (see above. Despite saying in Matthew 12:40 that this is how long he’d be dead, he fell way short. The fourth gospel, on the other hand, alters the timeline to make things fit)

c) He wasn’t: he went down to hell (according to 1 Peter 4:6 and the so-called Apostles’ Creed this is exactly what he did. Some people are daft enough to believe it)

3. Which of the following does Paul refer to in his letters?

a) Jesus’ miraculous birth (he mentions this zero times)

b) Jesus’ parables, teaching and miracles (likewise; not a single mention)

c) The Empty Tomb (nor this. Don’t you think that’s strange?)

4. How often did Paul refer to Jesus’ second coming?

a) In all of his letters (Nope)

b) 2 or 3 times (Nope)

c) Never (That’s it: not once. Paul looks forward to Jesus coming soon, as if it’ll be his first visit: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 again. Don’t you think that’s significant?)

5. How often did Jesus refer to his second coming?

a) Once or twice (No)

b) Frequently (Again, no)

c) Never (Yes, never. The fictional Jesus of the gospels says someone called ‘the Son of Man’ would be arriving real soon: Mark 14:62. Occasionally Jesus’ creators suggest he and the Son of Man are one and the same, which they are in that both are fictional)

6. When did Paul say the Messiah would be coming to the Earth?

a) Thousands of years in the future (To hear modern Christians talk you’d think this was it, but no: Paul never said this.)

b) While he himself was still alive (He says clearly that he expected he’d still be alive when Jesus came down from heaven: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. How many more times?)

c) He didn’t say (course he did: see above)

8. According to the gospels, when did Jesus say the Son of Man would be coming to the Earth?

a) He didn’t (he did)

b) Thousands of years in the future (Nope)

c) While those he was talking to were still alive (Yes: in Mark 9:1; 13:26 and 14:62)

8. What, according to the Bible, is the Word of God?

a) The Bible itself (‘Fraid not)

b) The Church (No)

c) Jesus (Yes, but not as often as you might think: only in John 1:1-3)

9. Which was written first?

a) Mark’s gospel (made up about 70CE)

b) Paul’s letters (the earliest, in the 50s)

c) Acts of Apostles (invented circa 80-90CE)

10. When the New Testament mentions ‘the Scriptures’, what is it referring to?

a) Ancient Jewish writings (exclusively so)

b) The whole of the Bible as we now know it (the Bible as such probably didn’t exist until the 4th century)

c) The New Testament (there was no New Testament when the writers who would later be included in it were writing. So, no)

11. How did the New Testament writers ‘prove’ Jesus was the Messiah?

a) By claiming the scriptures predicted he would be (Exclusively so)

b) By pointing to his miracles (Never)

c) By quoting things he said (Never)

Now isn’t that odd.

12. According to the Bible, how did Jesus want his followers to spend their time?

a) By witnessing to atheists on the internet (You think?)

b) By worshipping him (Never)

c) By feeding the hungry, healing the sick and helping the weak (This. See Matthew 25:31-46. So why you spending your days and nights harassing non-believers on the Net?)

Actually, no Christian helped out with this. The answers are those that scholars (and I, in my own humble little way) have arrived by actually reading the friggin’ Bible. 

Where are those stories?

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Those opposed to the idea that Jesus was only ever a mythical figure are generally dismissive of those who point to the evidence of the New Testament that this is precisely how the earliest Christians saw him. These critics lambast as ‘amateurs’, ‘pseudo-historians’ and ‘fringe’ enthusiasts those who don’t see any evidence for an historical Jesus. But such ad hominems are not arguments and they’re certainly not evidence that a human Jesus existed. When the books of the New Testament are arranged in chronological order, the very earliest writing about Jesus – Paul in the 50s and the creed of 1 Corinthians 15 – appear to view him only as a scripture-fulfilling spiritual manifestation.

So, was Jesus actually an itinerant preacher who traipsed the Earth in the 30s before rapidly evolving into Paul’s mythical Christ or was he a mythical being to begin with, only later to be cast as an historical figure?

It has to be one or the other. 

Within twenty years of his supposed death, Paul and others had experienced dreams, visions and hallucinations (Acts 2:17) that convinced them Jesus was a supernatural being in heaven. This doesn’t of course rule out that a human Jesus had actually existed, but it makes it unnecessary for him to have done so. Paul and almost all the creators of the New Testament books treat his earthly existence as irrelevant. Even when ‘proving’ their celestial Superman is the promised Messiah, they refer not to his activities on Earth, but appeal exclusively to what they believed Jewish scripture revealed about the Messiah.

According to these men, this is how they knew the Jesus of their dreams was truly the Saviour: the ancient scriptures. Not a single one of them says, ‘I refer you to Jesus’ miraculous birth in Bethlehem; I remind you that he changed water into wine, controlled the elements and miraculously multiplied food.’ Not one of them references his many healings, exorcisms and raising of people from the dead. Not one mentions the historical details surrounding his crucifixion, the empty tomb or the women who first saw him alive again. Not one relates a single resurrection appearance (beyond their own visions) nor do they mention the ascension or a looked for ‘second’ coming. Why not? Surely these would be the definitive indicators that Jesus was the Messiah, instead of, or at least alongside, the so-called prophecies of ancient scriptures.

The ‘why not?’ is because these stories – the birth, the miracles, the healings, the empty tomb, the bodily resurrection, the ascension and the rest – had, at the time Paul was writing, not yet been created. Consequently, they couldn’t be passed on to Paul when he met Cephas and James. There was no much-vaunted ‘oral tradition’ for him to call upon to fill in the gaps in his knowledge about an Earthly Jesus. There was no oral tradition because there was no Earthly Jesus to relate stories about when Paul was active in the 50s. This version of Jesus, created from Jewish scripture, Paul’s teaching and cult rules, didn’t appear until the early 70s. Even after Mark’s gospel and its copycat sequels, most of the writers of later New Testament continued to believe in and refer only to a heavenly saviour verified by ancient Jewish scripture.

But, apologists say today, no-one at the time would be taken in by talk of a Messiah who existed only in the heavenly realm. And that’s true; despite the Bible’s claims to the contrary, very few people were persuaded. But some bought into it, just as others at the time bought into Mithras. Mithraism was, for a while, more successful than the fledgling Christian cult. Yet its adherents knew Mithras himself manifested only in the heavenly plane. This didn’t stop multitudes of military men from joining the cult to worship him. It was the same for the other deities of the day. They too didn’t exist even if stories about their adventures on the Earth were widely circulated and, in all probability, believed by the gullible.

If, however, Jesus’ life on Earth had happened in the early part of the first century, how was it that 20 years after his death he had already become an angelic being without a past? Why had Paul, the writer of Hebrews, the pseudo-Pauls, James and John of Patmos never heard any of the stories about him, or didn’t care about them or felt they weren’t really evidence of Jesus’ Messiahship? Where are those stories? Outside the later gospels they don’t exist. It’s as if, when Elvis Presley died, no one cared any more about all the hit records he’d made and were instead only interested in his post-mortem sightings in laundromats and shopping malls. The process just doesn’t happen this way round.

No, it is far more likely that Jesus went from being a celestial saviour to having stories written about him, stories that are based on prophecies in Jewish scripture and Paul’s ‘revelations’. They are allegorical and metaphorical, wholly made up as the writer of Mark 4:11-12 tells us with the equivalent of a Clark Kent wink:

The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’

 

Later ‘evidence’

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The Didache is an early Christian manual discussing ethical behaviour and outlining liturgical practice. Scholars disagree about when it was created, most opting for a date around 100CE. Despite referring to itself as ‘The Teaching of the Lord Through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles’ in the only extant complete copy, the Didache doesn’t mention Jesus by name nor refer to any of the historical details of the kind provided in the gospels. Instead, it refers to ‘the Lord’ or ‘the Messiah’, the same terms Paul uses for his angelic Christ, and makes use of ‘teaching’ similar to that in the (invented) gospels, from which it almost certainly draws.

We’re now heading into a period when the gospels were in wider circulation and any reference to Jesus cannot be regarded as independent from them. We need, consequently, to be suspicious of any ‘evidence’ that appears to affirm his historical existence. Documents that appear after the gospels is unlikely to be from independent sources (not that they always reference their sources) but are merely relying on gospel data as filtered through contemporary Christian believers. Hence the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote in his Annals circa 115CE:

Nero fastened the guilt (for the fire in Rome in 64CE) and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Chrestians by the populace. Chrestus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

Chrestians? Chrestus?

Pilate as procurator instead of prefect? Christianity as a ‘mischievous superstition’?

Actually, this last I can see. The other peculiarities are a problem for those who claim this is evidence for an historical Jesus. Written some 85 years after Jesus was supposedly active, this first extra-biblical reference to something approaching an historical figure is simply too late. Likewise everything after it.

We’ve exhausted the paltry references to ‘the Christ’ or ‘the Lord’ that exist prior to and just after the gospels. An historical Jesus there is not, in any of them. What does this all mean? 

The Origins of Evil

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Where does evil come from? The Billy Graham Organisation knows:

…the Bible does reveal two important truths about where evil comes from. First… evil comes from the Evil One — that is, from Satan… Satan is a powerful spiritual being who is absolutely opposed to God, and is far stronger than most of us realize. He isn’t equal with God, but is totally evil, and repeatedly works against God. Jesus called him “a murderer from the beginning…. a liar and the father of lies”.

No, not really. Evil is not a supernatural being cavorting around an unseen, undetectable spiritual realm while inflicting havoc on our reality (see here). Satan is not the embodiment of all evil for the simple expedient he and his minions do not exist.

What else does the Bible have to say about the origin of evil? Fake Paul in 1 Timothy 6: 9-10 claims that ‘…the love of money is the root of all evil’. He goes on to say, ’while some coveted after (money), they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows,’ which sounds suspiciously like a snipe at early Christians who refused to hand over their worldly goods to the cult.

Now, while greed and avarice can undoubtedly lead to wickedness, the love of money is not the root of all evil. Vindictiveness, spite, fear, ignorance, stupidity, hatred, lust for power, sexual lust, jealousy, coveting another’s property or territory, religious beliefs and deceit (take note, fake Paul): all can, and do, lead to evil.

Let’s give the Bible one last chance.

The author of Mark’s gospel has Jesus say:

What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man (Mark 7:20-23 NKJV).

While ‘Mark’ is talking about ritual purity in this bizarre mix of low-level immorality, religious offences and actual wickedness, he nails it as far as the source of evil is concerned. It emanates from human beings, most often, from men. While women are also capable of committing evil acts, and children too sometimes, most are perpetrated by men. 

It’s not easy finding evidence for this online, where misogynistic, religionist have taken over, claiming women are more evil than men on account of Eve eating the forbidden fruit. They also argue that women are more evil because they ‘hold a grudge longer’. However, a little digging dispels this ridiculous notion. Consider:

Are most dictators men or women? (Men, almost exclusively);

Are most genocidal acts initiated and carried out by men or women? (Men, almost exclusively)

Are most murderers men or women? (Men: 98% of murder convictions are of men);

Are most rapists men or women? (Men; 99% of convictions are of men);

Are rape gang members men or women? (Men, almost exclusively);

Are most child abusers men or women? (Men make up 88% of perpetrators);

Are most school shootings carried out by males or females? (Males, on a ratio of 145:4);

Are most terrorists men or women? (Men, on a ratio of 5:1);

Are most crime lords, drug barons and death-cult leaders men or women? (You already know the answer…)

Are most victims of sexual abuse male or female? (Female: 1 in 5 compared with 1 in 7 males)

Almost all malicious and unnecessary infliction of harm on others, nearly every evil act ever committed has been and is committed primarily by men. Only a small number are carried out by women. However, just because most evil is committed by men, not all men are evil. More than this, most human beings don’t commit ‘evil’. Neither do most Christians, though there does seem to be an inordinate number who are prepared to sexually abuse others. Nonetheless, many are happy to blame Satan for what evil there is, including their own. Attributing human evil to a malevolent fantasy figure is a duplicitous attempt to evade both responsibility and culpability.

In any case, according to true believers Satan’s main occupation is sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of Christians, in an attempt to lead them away from Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:30). Satan is, when all is said and done, a pretty hopeless prop, not ‘a powerful spiritual being’ but an enfeebled metaphor for the evil that some humans engender.

Afterthought:

Where does goodness come from? That too is human. All compassion, kindness, consideration, empathy, helpfulness, love, joy and peace come from us.

Or not, as the case may be.

Revealing the Truth of John’s Revelation

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The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw – that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near… “Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”
So shall it be! Amen…

On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.” I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands…

So begins the Book of Revelation, written by a fanatic identifying as John (think Steven Anderson) who finds himself on the island of Patmos ‘because of the gospel’, with an account of the imminent end of the world (1:3 ‘the time is near’ and 1:7 ‘even those who pierced him’ will see him.)

What follows is a disturbing and disturbed account of what the Earth could soon expect when Jesus descended from the heavens to wreak vengeance on sinful human kind.

John claims the scenario he’s about to describe was given to him by an angel who got it from the Lord Jesus Christ, who in turn received it from God himself (1:1). Or perhaps the angel and Jesus Christ are one and the same. Did John regard Jesus Christ as an angel, the ‘messenger’ of God (the literal translation of the Greek angelos)?

I’ve often wondered about this ’revealed’ business. Paul too talks about having Jesus ‘revealed’ in him (Galatians 1:16). What exactly are Paul and John talking about? John says he ‘saw’ (1:2) all that he’s about to describe in the next twenty-two tedious chapters, as if this ‘revealing’ is some sort of vision or hallucination. Given the complexity of what he then describes, this seems to me highly unlikely. He ‘sees’ in his mind’s eye god’s throne, attendant angels, the four horsemen, the opening of seven seals, the destruction of the world, the annihilation of most of mankind, the descent from heaven of the holy city, the intricate details of the construction of this city… read the book for yourself for even more. Even dreams are not this detailed or vivid.

I’m not convinced Paul saw the resurrected Jesus as a figure in front of him (or as a bright light or some other quasi-physical manifestation.) What Paul and John did when ecstatic with religious fervour – what John describes as being ‘in the Spirit’ – was concoct an explanation for the way they were feeling; Paul persuaded himself he’d seen a resurrected God-man and worked out over time what this might mean. He then attributed this thinking to his God and his divine influence. John under persecution (it’s generally accepted his being on Patmos ‘because of the gospel’ (1:9) was as punishment for being a public nuisance) fomented a doomsday scenario for those who persecuted him and the divine elevation of those who believed like he did, and attributed this to spiritual beings. The scenario was not revealed instantaneously to him by a supernatural agent; again, it was something developed over time – hence the quotations from other sources (1:7) – in an aggrieved fanatic’s head.

Revelation is a calculated literary construct, like the gospels themselves, devised and refined over time. John ‘saw’ none of it, nor did he ‘hear’ an actual disembodied voice telling him about living room furniture (1:12’s lampstands). No higher power ‘revealed’ any of it to him. On the contrary, he devised it himself, working out every aspect in his head. Either he was deluded enough to think he was actually being fed revenge-porn by an angelic Jesus or he cynically, deliberately attributed it to him.

There was not then, as there is not now, a heavenly Jesus who spoke to susceptible mortals here on Earth. The savage, avenging Jesus that John of Patmos creates from his own anger, bitterness and sense of persecution bears little relation to the other versions of the character in Paul and in the gospels (as Ehrman demonstrates in Armageddon). Revelation’s savage, slaughtering Jesus is at least the sixth manifestation of the character proffered in the New Testament. John demonstrates just how easy it was, and is, to invent one’s own version of a supposedly unchanging character (Hebrews 13:8; Revelation 1:8) and make him do, at least in your imagination, just what you want him to do.

The End of Days

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A friend of mine was recently given the book The Dragon’s Prophecy: Israel, the Dark Resurrection and the End of Days by Jonathan Cahn. My friend, already concerned about the state of the world, said how much the book had disturbed her. She had become convinced that the time we live in had been predicted in the Bible, in Revelation in particular. ‘It’s all there in the Bible,’ she said to me. ‘It’s all happening just as it says.’

I tried to reassure her that Revelation was written by someone who, 2000 years ago, believed that the situation then couldn’t get any worse, what with the Roman occupation, the destruction of Jerusalem and the persecution of Christians (as the writer saw it.) This, together with his belief that the Lord would soon be coming on the clouds (Revelation 1:7), convinced him he was living in the world’s last days. I told my friend that because of the mess the world is in today (and when is it not a mess?) the book of Revelation resonates with some people; a voice from the past echoing down the ages. In no way, however, was it written about today.

My friend was unconvinced so I took it upon myself to read The Dragon’s Prophecy. Coincidentally, I had just begun to read Bart D. Ehrman’s Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End, dealing with the same concerns. The comparison between the two books couldn’t be more striking.

Ehrman’s is a measured analysis of Revelation and other ‘prophetic’ books of the Bible. He demonstrates from the outset that Revelation was written for believers of the late first/early second century and that its symbolism represents individuals and events of that time. John of Patmos, whoever he may have been (a cult leader, Ehrman suggests) expected, like most early Christians, that the End was going to materialise soon, in the first or early second century, emphatically not in the 21st.

Ehrman warns that ‘professional prophecy writers’ (he doesn’t name Cahn) think ‘the way to use the Bible is to assemble the pieces to reveal the big picture, which until now no one has seen before’ (p17). He’s right. This is precisely what they do. In his book, Cahn promises ‘to put together the pieces of the mystery’ (p11) and claims ‘We (sic) will now begin assembling the pieces of the puzzle’ (p36). He then proceeds to jump around the Bible like a grasshopper on steroids. He’s one of the ‘prophets’ who, as Ehrman puts it, sees the Bible as ‘a great jigsaw puzzle with one piece hidden in this place, one in another and yet a third somewhere else’ (p17).

Cahn opens his argument with a series of bald, unsupported assertions: ‘Behind the perceivable realm lies another, beyond our ability to measure or quantify’ and ‘Behind the history of this world lies another, unrecorded, unrecited (sic), unknown,’ his readers evidently not expected to ask how he knows any of this codswallop. He goes from there to build his argument, such as it is, with a bombardment of ridiculous questions and pseudo-profundities:

What is evil? And how did it come into existence? It is both a mystery and a problem. The mystery is the problem (p9).

Then there are the propositional statements of the ‘If… then we’d expect’ variety. There’s rarely any evidence for the ‘if’ and none at all for the proposed expectation. Here’s the two – rhetorical question and propositional statement – rolled into one: ‘If evil is uncreated, how did it come to exist?’ (p32). Naturally, Cahn is going to answer this question and all the others like it, with a series of unfounded assertions, non-sequiturs and a smattering of unrelated Bible verses.

A central premise of The Dragon’s Prophecy, the dragon being that of Revelation 12:9 and therefore the devil, is ‘the dark resurrection’ of its subtitle. This Cahn explains, pretending the idea comes from the Bible when it doesn’t, is the re-emergence of the Israelites’ old, (extinct) enemies, the Philistines. Like the Israeli nation they too have now been resurrected: as the Palestinians. Under the control of the dragon/devil, they re-enacted on October 7th last year one of the many ancient Philistine attacks recorded in the Bible, only this time with ‘guns and explosives’:

On that October morning, the ancient drama replayed. The resurrected Philistines had again invaded the land, and the resurrected Israelites had again gone into hiding, keeping silent and still in fear of their pursuers (pp99-100).

How do we know this is a replay of an ancient invasion? Because some of those under attack on 7th October went into hiding, just as the Israelites did in 1 Samuel 13:6. As if no other group of besieged civilians hasn’t tried to hide at any other point in history. That and the ‘fact’ there were, according to Cahn, exactly 3,000 invaders on each occasion. Yes, the book really is this bad.

And so, Cahn says, the stage is set for the final battle and the return of Christ who will knock a few heads together, torture and slaughter everyone who isn’t a Christian and set up his faithful followers in a new Jerusalem made of gold and fancy stuff. As Ehrman says, this is indeed what Revelation promises – for the world 2,000 years ago. Ehrman argues that the author of this revenge porn, (he doesn’t use the term: that’s my contribution – you’re welcome) creates a Christ so unlike those of the gospels that he can only be a fiction (aren’t they all?)

Revelation barely made it into the canon and we would all be better off if it hadn’t; certainly my friend would be, and as Ehrman shows, human society and the planet in general would be too. He warns us to read what the Bible actually says, instead of, as Cahn does, forcing it to say what we want it to (to sell books). Irritatingly, Ehrman consistently refers to the Christ’s prophesied appearance on the clouds as his ‘Second Coming’ when the Bible never uses the phrase. Read what it says Bart!

I don’t know whether I’ll finish Dragon’s Prophecy. Its cover blurb boasts that Cahn is a New York Times best seller so clearly there’s an audience for such poorly argued, alarmist nonsense – which is itself alarming. While Bart D. Ehrman has also made the NYT list in the past, Cahn easily outsells him. Nevertheless, I’ve bought my friend a copy of his Armageddon in the hopes it might serve as an antidote to the dire The Dragon’s Prophecy.

The Great Eternal Life Scam

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Heathens like me, and you dear reader, are gambling how we’ll spend eternity by rejecting Jesus. We’re turning down everlasting life to live in the mire of our own sin. Or so we’re told by evangelicals and other religious zealots.

So convinced am I that the claims of Christianity are wrong in every respect that I know I’m not gambling anything. Like everyone else who has ever lived, I will not survive my death. This is the nature of death – extinction, obliteration, oblivion. It is absurd to believe it is anything other when we know it is not.

I would not be averse to existence, particularly my own, continuing after death. I’d definitely go for it if that were available; I like being around, all sentient and self-aware and such. This is the sentiment to which Christianity appeals; most people do not want to think their existence is finite and that this often challenging life is really all there is. But life patently does not continue post mortem, except in works of fiction: fantasy, science fiction, the gospels.

Everlasting life is not the only promise Christianity makes, of course. There’s the whole ‘getting right with God’ shtick, forgiveness of sins and Life in all its fullness. Eternal life is the big one though, Christianity’s most miraculous, death-defying special offer.

Those doing the gambling are not atheists or sceptics. It’s Christians themselves doing that, succumbing to the false, utterly worthless promise of life after death. Those fully committed to Christianity spend their lives enslaved to its cultish demands, desperately trying to convince others they should surrender to its preposterous claims.

I value this life too much to squander any more of it on such nonsense. Yes, I did once, but I saw the light and stepped into it. Life is what you make it and needs to be lived before you die. There is zero chance you’ll be able to once it’s over.

Burst the bubble, those of you trapped within it. Your one and only life awaits you here on Earth. The clock is ticking.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood

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Dennis and I found ourselves in Rome last week, doing what I’m sure native Romans don’t do: the tourist trail. It’s a magnificent city.

As we were passing, we thought we’d call round at Frankie’s little place. We knew he wasn’t in, seeing as he was still on his world tour, just behind The Boss himself. He’s certainly got a great pad – Frankie that is, not Bruce – and after being frisked by hunky security guards we were admitted to St Peter’s Square. We felt moved, in the Pope’s absence, to grant an audience to the fairly thin crowd (it would get bigger later in the morning) and issue the benediction they so evidently craved. ‘Go, get a life,’ we offered from the steps of the Basilica. The faithful remained unmoved by this sage advice.

The Vatican is, I have to say, stunningly beautiful, a monument to human ingenuity and skill. But the cynic in me couldn’t help wonder what the majesty of it all had to do with the (supposed) teaching of Jesus in the Bible. I found myself playing a little game in my head along the lines of ‘how many ways does all of this contravene, contradict or downright ignore the beliefs of the earliest Christians, as expressed in what is now the New Testament?’ (Before any evangelicals tell me this is only to be expected of the Roman Catholic church, let’s not pretend that every other denomination doesn’t do the same thing.)

So, here are my suggestions for the Biblical admonitions that had to be ignored to create a religious monument on the scale of the Vatican. Feel free to make your own suggestions in the comments.

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (Exodus 20:40)

The statues of Paul and the apostles atop the buildings, the numerous images and carvings of saints, pious Marys and gruesome blood-spattered Jesuses certainly qualify as exalted images. The prohibition might not be New Testament but it is one of the Big Ten. The Vatican ditches it wholesale.

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)

Like this ever happens!

Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)

And the Pope. And Mary. And the Saints. And the Church. And the Priests.

…the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. (Acts 7:48)

So why build them for him? They may be meant to reflect his power and glory but they really only reflect that of the popes who had them built, plus the gullibility of their followers.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

The Vatican’s tax free wealth, only some of which is on display around St Peter’s Square, is estimated to be between ten and fifteen billion dollars.

As I say, the Vatican is stunningly impressive; my photos don’t do it justice. If Christianity had never existed it would not have been created. But something equally impressive would have been, inspired by different ideals, deities or practicalities. Rome has stunning examples of these kinds of structures too. Nor am I getting at Catholicism per se. But you won’t find in it any expression of the beliefs, apocalyptic expectations and social reversals of the original Christian cult, nor in religion in general. Like all movements the cult had to evolve to survive, to the point it would be unrecognisable to its original quarrelsome adherents. Even if their images do look down on you from the roofs of beautiful buildings.

Oh, the Irony!

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The Pope visited Papua New Guinea earlier this week, where he spoke of the need to –

drive out fear, superstition and magic from people’s hearts, to put an end to destructive behaviors such as violence, infidelity, exploitation, alcohol and drug abuse, evils which imprison and take away the happiness of so many of our brothers and sisters.

You couldn’t make it up. You really couldn’t.

 

Scripture Explained

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In truth, when the Lord said, ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,’ he meant by taking his gospel to them and speaking the truth unto them in love. This, after all, is the highest form of love: sharing the Good News of Jesus. For surely there is no way we can really love someone who opposes us. Therefore this cannot be what the saviour meant when he commanded us to love our enemies. Evidently, he made use of hyperbole to encourage us in our daily journey with him by making salvation known to those whose sin will only lead them unto Hell. There comes a point nonetheless when we must recognise that there are many enemies who will not accept the Word. These we must oppose, denigrate and condemn as the Holy Spirit directs. Does not scripture itself expect as much?   

When the saviour declared that we can’t serve God and money, he again spoke metaphorically. He did not mean the wealthy cannot enter the Kingdom of God. No, what he refers to is priorities. It is perfectly possible to be wealthy and a follower of Jesus so long as we put Jesus first. Where in the world would we be if we had to give away our money and possessions?

When the saviour commanded us to sell all we have to provide for the poor, he did not mean in this world which stands already condemned. Rather, he speaks in metaphor and refers to the emptying of our very selves to better follow him.

When the saviour said we must take up our crosses to follow him even unto death, he likewise spake metaphorically. He loves each according to that which he is able to bear and seeks to bless those who loves him. He speaks here therefore of our dedication to him. He encourages us to ‘die’ to our selves so that we might allow him to transform us into new creations worthy of himself.

When the Scriptures says we become new creations, it does not mean literally nor that it will happen in the twinkling of an eye. No, rather it refers to our being a ‘work in progress’. The Lord of miracle and all creation does not wish to impose on our free will by transforming us instantly. Instead, he seeks to test and purify us in a long almost imperceptible process. Only in heaven will we attain perfection.

When the saviour promised that the End of the Age was nigh for those who stood before him, he did not mean it was nigh for those who stood before him. No, for this was a secret message, a mystery, for those who would worship him in what would be, for those who stood before him, the distant future. What he meant was that when the time was right, when diverse conditions had been met – some of which would only be made known after our Lord’s time on Earth – the Son of Man would descend from the heavens to inaugurate the final judgement and the Kingdom of God.

When the scriptures declare that the Kingdom of God is intended for here on Earth, it speaks only metaphorically, for God promises those who have been saved by the power of Jesus’s blood that they will live forever with him in Heaven itself. This is a mystery known only to those who exegete the Bible correctly and ignore the plain and literal meaning of what it says.

So this, brethren, is how to deal with scripture. You need only apply one simple rule as you read it: if it appears to make demands of you, it is not actually doing so. It is either metaphor, hyperbole or both and must not be taken literally. On the other hand, when scripture is not making demands of you, everything, however unlikely it seems, is real, true and factual.

He who has ears, let him hear.