In order to ascertain the nature of Christianity today, it is necessary to bear in mind the distinction between knowledge which is formed through observation and deduction, and knowledge which is revealed to man through no power of his own. Since deductive knowledge is ever-changing (due to fresh observations and new and different experiences), it therefore lacks certainty. Revealed knowledge, however, is from God; one who is fully aware of all things.
In every revealed message from God, there is a metaphysical aspect and a physical. The metaphysical teaches the nature of the Divine Unity (tawheed). The physical aspect provides a code of behavior (akhlaaq). Revealed knowledge has always been brought by a messenger (such as Muhammad or Jesus (peace be upon them both)) who embodied it. To behave as the messenger did is to have knowledge of the message, and in this knowledge is certainty.
Christianity today is said to be based on revealed knowledge, but none of the Bible contains the message of Jesus (peace be upon him) as it is to be; intact, and exactly as it was revealed to him with certainty. In the Bible, we find that there is hardly any record of his code of behavior, furthermore, the books in the New Testament do not even contain eye-witness accounts of his sayings and actions. They were written by people who derived their knowledge second-hand. These records are not comprehensive for everything which Jesus (peace be upon him) said and did, has not been recorded and has most likely been lost forever.
Those who seek to verify what is in the New Testament claim that even if by no means comprehensive, it is at least accurate. However, such a claim may not be considered factual in light of the fact that the oldest surviving complete manuscripts of the New Testament, from which most present day translations of the Bible derive, were written after the Council of Nicea.
As a result of the Council of Nicea, nearly three hundred other accounts of the life of Christ (peace be upon him), many of them eye-witness accounts, were systematically destroyed. Clearly, the manuscripts of the New Testament which were written after the Council of Nicea are different from the manuscripts which existed before the Council.
The unreliability of the gospels appears to be admitted by the Church itself: The metaphysics of Christianity today are not even based on what is in the gospels. Rather, the established church is founded on the doctrine of original sin, of atonement and redemption, of the divinity of Jesus and of the divinity of the Holy Ghost and of Trinity. None of these doctrines are to be found explicitly within the gospels. They were not taught by Jesus, instead, they were the fruits of Paul's innovations and the influence of Greek culture and philosophy. Paul never experienced the company nor the direct transmission of knowledge from Jesus. Before his 'conversion', he enthusiastically persecuted the followers of Jesus, and after it he was largely responsible for abandoning Jesus' code of behaviour when he took "Christianity" to the non-Jews of Greece and beyond. The figure of "Christ" whom he claimed taught him his new doctrine is pure imagination. His teachings are based on an event which never took place; the supposed death and resurrection of Jesus.
Despite their doubtful origins, these previously-mentioned doctrines form an integral part of the kind of conditioning one would receive after gaining a 'Christian education'. Although many have rejected some or all of the doctrines, the 'magic' they exercise is such that those who give them credibility are lead by their logic to believe that outside the Church, there is no salvation at all. The Church's metaphysical construct entails belief in the doctrine of atonement and redemption (which says that Christ who was of God took on human form and became Jesus, who then died for mankind to atone for their sins). It is through this belief, the Church guarantees forgiveness of sins and salvation on the Day of Judgment, for any man who believes in Christ and who follows the guidance of the church.
Followers of Christianity hold that the aforementioned contract is available to all people until the end of the world. The natural consequences of these beliefs are that man is not responsible for his actions and that he will not be held to account for them after his death; for regardless of what he does he will be redeemed by Christ's supposed ever-lasting sacrifice.
The Christian belief in the doctrine of original sin, which states that because of the fall of Adam, all men are born sinful, means that while he is alive, his condition is one of unworthiness and incompleteness. This depressing view of life is reflected in the following statement of J. G. Vas, a Christian, in which he compares Islam and Christianity: "There is nothing in Islam to lead a man to say, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" or "I know that in me; that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." A religion with reasonable attainable objectives ... does not give the sinner the anguish of a guilty conscience nor the frustration of trying without success to attain in practical living the requirements of an absolute moral standard. In brief, Islam makes a man feel good, while Christianity necessarily first, and often thereafter, makes a man feel bad. The religion of the broken heart is Christianity, not Islam." [1]
Belief in the doctrine of atonement and redemption leads to confusion when a Christian attempts to reconcile other divinely revealed teachings with his own belief; for it implies that Christ's sacrifice and message are unique and final, and he therefore cannot accept the teachings of other prophets. At the same time, he cannot deny the truth he finds in them.
Thus, a Christian rejects Judaism, yet accepts the Old Testament, which is derived from the teachings which Moses (peace be upon him) brought to the Jews. He puts himself in the impossible position of having to accept two contradictory beliefs simultaneously: "There are elements of relative good in the non-Christian faiths. While the call for separation from false religions is certainly Biblical, and the demonic character of pagan religions is taught in Scripture, still it is also true that elements of limited relative good exist in these religions. While it is true that they are demonic in character, it is also true (and Scriptural) that they are products of man's distorted interpretation of God's revelation in nature. Even though they may be works of the devil, still they are not simply works of the devil, but partly products of God's common grace and partly products of sinful man's abuse of God's revelation in nature." [2]
It is significant that Vos does not mention all the distortions the Bible has undergone. Attempts to avoid the dilemma of simultaneous acceptance and rejection of non-Christian faiths has been made by arguing that some Christians discern in them the influence of the 'cosmic Christ' who, as the eternal Logos or revealer of the Godhead, is the 'light that enlightens every man. This view was summed up by William Temple when he wrote: "By the word of God - that is to say, Jesus Christ - Isaiah and Plato, Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius uttered and wrote such truths as they declared. There is only one Divine Light, and every man in his own measure is enlightened by it." [3]
The reasoning in this passage relies on the assumption that the "one Divine Light" and "Christ" are the same. The dilemma found in the passage may only be avoided by resorting to George Orwell's 'doublethink'. He defined it thus: "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The intellectual part knows that he is playing tricks with reality, but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated." [4]
Doublethink lies at the root of a Christian's basic assumption that Christ is God. It is around this assumption that the controversy of the two natures of Jesus has raged; one moment he is human, the next moment he is divine. It is only via doublethink that these two contradictory beliefs may be held simultaneously. It is only by the exercise of doublethink that belief in the doctrine of Trinity can be maintained.
Article VII of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England begins: "The Old Testament is not contrary to the New..." As Milton has so clearly shown, the Old Testament is full of passages affirming the Oneness of God. There is not one passage which describes the Divine Reality in the terms of the doctrine of Trinity. The act of affirming what is in the Old Testament, and the gospels for that matter, and at the same time affirming belief in the doctrine of Trinity, is perhaps the greatest illustration of the exercise of doublethink within Christianity today. Thus the logic of the established Church's metaphysic (based on doctrines which were not taught by Jesus) obscures not only the nature of Jesus, but also the Divine Unity. The metaphysic of Christianity today is totally opposed to the metaphysic which Jesus brought.
The most fundamental act of Jesus (peace be upon him) was that of worship of the Creator - the whole purpose for which man was created. Yet it is evident that no Christian today makes the same acts of worship which Jesus made. Jesus usually prayed in the synagogue and prayed at appointed times each day, in the morning, at mid-day, and in the evening. The exact form of his prayer is no longer extant, but it is known that it was based on the prayer which Moses was given. Jesus said that he had come to uphold the law and not to destroy it.
The services now held in today's churches were developed long after Jesus was no longer present. Many of were adopted directly from the pagan Greco-Roman mythological rites. The prayers they use are not the prayers which Jesus made. The hymns they sing are not the praises which Jesus made. Due to the innovations of Paul and his followers, there is not even any instruction left as to what to eat and what not to eat, for such teachings are deemed to be abolished.
A follower of Christianity today eats what he feels like. Jesus, however, and his true followers only ate kosher meat and refrained from eating pig's flesh as it was made forbidden for them. The last meal Jesus is known to have eaten before his disappearance was the Passover meal. No Christian today celebrates this longstanding Jewish tradition to which Jesus so meticulously held, for it too is regarded as abolished. It is no longer known in what manner Jesus ate and drank, who he would eat with and who he would not eat with, where he would eat and where he would not eat, when he would eat and when he would not eat.
Jesus fasted, but again it is not known how, where and when he fasted. His method of fasting has been lost. There is no record of the food he liked especially, and the food of which he was not particularly fond of. Jesus did not marry while he was on earth, but he did not forbid it. There is no passage in the gospels which states that a follower of Jesus must take a vow of celibacy. Nor is there any authority for the establishment of single-sex communities such as monasteries or convents, although these could owe their origin to communities such as the Essenes. The early followers of Jesus who were married must have followed the code of behavior in marriage which Moses brought. Their example is no longer emulated today.
The records of Jesus' message as revealed to him by God, are incomplete and inaccurate. The doctrines on which Christianity today is based are not to be found within these records. The record of how Jesus acted is almost non-existent, and what little is known is virtually ignored.
The institution of the Church (in whatever form) has always claimed to be the interpreter and guardian of Jesus' message. Such a point is noteworthy due to the fact that the Church was not instituted by Jesus. He did not establish a hierarchy of priests to act as mediators between God and man. It was the established Pauline church, not Christ, that taught Christians from very early on to believe that their salvation was assured if they acted and believed as the Church told them.
This claim for authority, in its most extreme form, is to be found in the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine of papal infallibility. Cardinal Heenan summed it up in these words: "This secret of this wonderful unity of our Church is Christ's promise that the Church will never fail to teach the truth. Once we know what the Church teaches we accept it. For we know it must be true ... All Catholic priests teach the same doctrine because they all obey the Vicar of Christ. The word "vicar" means "one who takes the place of another." The Pope is the Vicar of Christ because he takes the place of Christ as Head of the Church on earth. The Church remains one because all her members believe the same Faith. They believe it because the Church cannot teach what is false. This is what we mean when we say that the Church is infallible. Christ promised to guide his Church. One of the ways Christ chose to guide the Church was by leaving his Vicar on earth to speak for him. That is why we say the Pope is infallible. He is the Head of the infallible Church. God could not allow him to lead it into error." [5]
It is significant that Cardinal Heenan did not refer to the gospels to support his claims. This dogma has often proved awkward; for if all the popes were infallible, why then was Pope Honorius anathematised? Does the recent papal encyclical which states that the Jews were not responsible for the supposed crucifixion of Jesus mean that all the preceding popes were not infallible after all?
Many Roman Catholics today have rejected the validity of "Christ's promise that the Church will never fail to teach the truth" which is not to be found in any of the gospels. Regarding the great gap between church teaching and practice troubles Cincinnati's Archbishop Joseph L. Bernadin who said in an interview in U.S. Catholic: "So many consider themselves good Catholics, even though their beliefs and practices seem to conflict with the official teaching in the Church. This is almost a new concept of what it means to be a Catholic today… Once it became legitimate (in 1966) to eat meat on Friday one could doubt the authority of the Pope, practice birth control, leave the priesthood and get married or indeed do anything else one wanted to."
To emphasize this notion, we may also quote from Doris Grumbach who wrote in the Critic; "Vatican II, (the Second Vatican Council of 1962), amazed me, because it raised the possibility of more answers than one, of gray areas, of a private world of conscience and behavior. But like all places in human experience of rigor and rule, once the window was opened, everything came under question. No constants remained, no absolutes, and the church became for me a debatable question. I still cling to the Gospels, to Christ and some of his followers as central to my life, but the institution no longer seems important to me. I no longer live in it." [6]
The investment of authority in the church, if not its complete infallibility, still remains. It has taken root even within the churches which rejected the authority of the Pope over them. However, the validity of this authority is today being doubted and rejected on a scale that has never been known before. In the words of George Harrison: "When you're young you get taken to church by your parents and you get pushed into religion at school. They're trying to put something into your mind. Obviously because nobody goes to church and nobody believes in God. Why? Because they haven't interpreted the Bible as it was intended. I didn't really believe in God as I'd been taught it. It was just like something out of a science fiction novel. You're taught just to have faith, you don't have to worry about it, just believe what we're telling you." [7]
Between the two opposites, i.e. that of complete acceptance and complete rejection of the established Church's reliability as the guardians of the message of Jesus, there lies every gray shade of opinions as to what it is to be a Christian. Wilfred Cantwell Smith writes: "There is so much diversity and clash, so much chaos, in the Christian Church today that the old ideal of a unified or systematic Christian truth has gone. For this, the ecumenical movement is too late. What has happened is that the Christian world has moved into that situation of open variety, of optional alternatives. It would seem no longer possible for anyone to be told or even to imagine that he can be told, what it means or should mean, formally and generically, to be a Christian. He must decide for himself and only for himself."
This implies that there are as many versions of Christianity today as there are Christians, and that the role of the church, as an institution which is the guardian of Jesus' message, has largely ceased to exist. The status of the church, however, remains a central part of Western culture today, and the relationship between the two is an interesting one.
Vast amounts of literature have been written in the West during the last few centuries, in the attempt to understand the nature of existence. They provide a catalogue of all the possible avenues of thought a man's mind will pursue when he does not have the certainty of revealed knowledge to live and understand his life by. Some writers such as Pascal have realized that the mind is a limited tool, and that the heart is the centre of their being, and the container of real knowledge: "The heart has its reasons which are unknown to reason... It is the heart which is aware of God and not reason. This is what faith is: God perceived intuitively by the heart, not by reason." [8]
In an attempt to either shed themselves of the aspects of Christianity which are viewed as dogmatic, and to resist ascribing themselves to some of the more 'difficult' doctrines of Christianity, many have rejected Christianity altogether and have otped, or rather experimented with other means in order find spiritual meaning and purpose. Such spirituality is regarded to be of a mystical nature, unlocked via narcotics. This notion is explained by Chapman: "Mystical experience is said to lead to real knowledge of "the truth" about the universe. This truth is inexpressible in words, but it can be felt. The medium can be music, drugs, meditation..." [9] These alternative approaches to understanding reality have been adapted by people in the West on a vast scale, often in vain as means of self-gratification.
Although the Church has obviously not succumbed to such forms of spirituality, it should still be noted that the Church has greatly accommodated itself to new trends in the culture of the West. In their attempt to keep the churches full, some priests have introduced pop or rock groups and discotheques into their Church in order to attract younger people. These attempts to 'modernize' the church and keep it 'in line with the times' are in keeping with the Pauline church's longstanding tradition of compromise by all means. If it cannot pass on the message of Jesus, it must at least provide a useful social function.
This process of compromise which we have noted and especially that which took place during the last decade, has resulted both in the continued absorption of the Church into the culture, and of the re-absorption of the culture into this changing structure that is the Church. It is a two-way process which has endlessly been alternating since Paul and his followers set it in motion.
Many people have returned to Christianity as a result of their experience with music and their dabbling with drugs and meditation. They tend to either completely reject their past experiences and adopt a puritanical form of Christianity or else to incorporate their new way of life into their own updated version of Christianity. Both these trends cover up the prophethood of Jesus. He is either exalted as God or regarded as a charismatic cult figure that meant well, but was misunderstood by people of his time.
The identification of the Church with the culture of the West is clearly apparent by observing how people live today. With the exception of those who have withdrawn into monasteries and convents to remember God, the lifestyle of those who call themselves Christians closely resembles the lifestyles of those who claim to be agnostics, humanists or even atheists. Their beliefs may be different, but their general behavior is, unfortunately, similar in many ways.
References
[1] A Christian Introduction to the Religions of the World, J.G. Vos, pp. 66-67.
[2] A Christian Introduction to the Religions of the World, J.G. Vos, pp. 27.
[3] The World's Religions, N. Anderson,p. 232.
[4] "1984", G. Orwell, p.220
[5] Christianity on Trial, I, Colin Chapman, pp. 32-33.
[6] Time Magazine, May 24th, 1976, pp. 42-43.
[7] Christianity on Trial, I, Colin Chapman, pp. 37.
[8] Christianity on Trial, I, Colin Chapman, pp. 63.
[9] Christianity on Trial, I, Colin Chapman, pp. 74.
موضوع: Christianity Today 
الإثنين أبريل 22 2013, 18:22
