God's warriors
Out of context: Reply #381
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- TheBlueOne0
blueONe: I have no interest in Christianity as "religion" or a set of traditions. My interest is in the life-transforming power of the person: Jesus Christ. The resurrection life which is the thrust of the New Covenant.
flagellum
(Aug 28 07, 07:45)Flag, I totally agree with your main point - i.e. that the only thing that interests me about Christianity is the person of Jesus and his example. For me - he presented a powerful ethical code and whose words I interpret differently than you do. I am certainly on the "losing" side from the Coucil of Nicea and other "heretics" (see Cathars, etc.). I believe Jesus is no more the "Son of God" than I am and I think his words can be interpreted as such and more powerfully so than thinking he meant that the whole thing was about him rising from the dead. To me that's a pagan tradition that got glossed onto christianity and mystical first century judaism and what makes me think all interpretations of Christ' message to be about "rising form the dead to live in heaven" to actually mean "rising from the dead and going to heaven" is comic book material and creates the set up for the creation of a "christian religion". I find it myopic that Christ' message of empowerment gets transmuted into "follow the priest/pastor/bible and go heaven and be happy with puppies forever." I firmly believe that Christ meant that the Kingdom of God is HERE NOW and can be enterred by changing one's life to live according to the principles he espoused. THAT'S powerful - and consequently whenever anyone tried to do that - himself included - they get waxed by the political power that be. All this mamby pamby christian (small "c") stuff about dieing and going to heaven is BS to control you, and that control has gotten subtler over time. Sure the Catholic Church can't lord it over people and Protestantism keeps getting broken down into smaller and smaller more radical bits just to stay on "comic book message point".
The last real Christian movement I accept was the Liberation Theology movement in Latin America..and what happen to those priests and nuns who extold their followers to live really like Christs example in the really real world? Bullets in the head.
Different century, same outcome.