Before we get started with our main thesis let's just say that President Trump back-tracked in a major way in a mid day press conference. Clearly he's doing massive damage control and he was probably taken aside by his handler and told "You have to do something major quick". In another news item Thom Hartman was just talking about all of the rigged voting machines in recent elections. It's easy to do with most programs, I'm told. I would be happy if Trump would address THIS problem also, but we all know he won't. We'll see if Trump's remarks of today are remembered a week from now or whether we'll go back to "revamping our foreign policy turning our backs on NATO and embracing Russia and the other dictators.
That which the gods can digest will not sour in the belly of a slave
-Charlton Heston
"So lean upon Him gently, and don't call on Him to save"
-Ian Anderson
"That which is born of the Spirit is spirit; that which is born of the flesh is flesh"
-The Bible
In our quest to unearth how the Christian church got started it would seem the Bible is our best source. But the question is what was the ministry of Jesus? The answer is "To be a better Jew"and we could add, "To follow the Law more perfectly". If Jesus has come to abolish the Law as Paul says in the book of Galations certainly we should hear remarks at his resurrection such as "I came to abolish the law and I'm announcing that from this point on the Torah as we have known it is null and void". Instead Jesus amplified on the law. He said whoever is angry with your neighbor is guilty of hell fire. He said whoever marries a divorced woman is guilty of adultry. He said that if you lust after a woman you are guilty of adultry. And contrary to what people think Jesus never said "I am against the stoning of women convicted of adultry". Jesus also never criticized the Priesthood or the Sanhedren. He only criticized the pharicees. Jesus never broke the sabbath. It says in Jewish tradition that if something is needed to sustain life then the sabbath may be voided this time. So you can perform surgery on the sabbath or circumcise on the sabbath. Hell. You can even go to war on the sabbath. Jesus was not above insulting people, like the host of a party he attended. I would ask myself though "How would you like to be treated the way you treated that host". Many would say that Christianity is the Law of Love and that Love conquers all. That would be nice. Marcion seemed to lean in that direction. Some would tell me that there is a difference between St Paul and Marcion though. Paul said the law was bad and "a curse". Marcion said that the God who brought the law into existance was bad. Is this not a distinction? Not if you believe in the law of genetive causality, which I believe the Greeks believed in. This is that something that reproduces can never be better than the original item, or if the item, like the Law is evil, then it can never be more evil than the original item. Following this Greek law of the Genitive then if the Law is bad, then Jehovah, by logical inference has to be just as bad, if not worse. "So lean upon him gently, and don't call on him to Save". The idea of being Born "In Christ" is something Jesus never talked about. Instead of being born "Into the law" we'd be born "Into the body of Jesus". Many epistles of Paul get metaphorical like this. But I doubt the original Jewish Christians, who supposedly hung around the temple were like this. I've been wondering what these first Christians were like. They believe Jesus rose from the dead but appear to believe in little else uniquely Christians. They believed in a general resurrection at the "end of days" like the book of Daniel taught. It was nothing special.
Paul in the book of Galations calls them "bewitched" because they "went tack" to believing in and following the Torah just as their fathers had done. This brings us to my other point. What would happen if we did away with the Law entirely. People who believe in Universal Salvation seem to believe this. It's better than walking around in a glass house all the time afraid you're going to break something or in this case, "offend somebody". What if You were the best judge of what you yourself did? It says somewhere in the Bible "What is born of the spirit is spirit and what is born of the flesh is flesh". Therefore the flesh can go on sinning so it will parish anyhow at the end of your natural life and you will be "Born Again" in the spirit on the other side of the veil of death. Sounds good to me. "That which the gods can digest till not sour in the belly of a slave" when they raided the Temple grainaries. Marcion was not a libertine like this but Gnostics through the ages have been accused of being libertines like this. Paul and others have spoken of having the "Liberty which is in Christ". If nothing else this shows the Jewish roots of Christianity even in foreign countries. There is certainly enough out of wedlock sex to go round even with our President. Extra marital sex would never be on the Republican platform as things to ban.
You wonder where the Catholic church first got its power. One of the earliest historical reference is that Marcion was ex-communicated in the year 144 AD by the Bishop of Rome alias the Pope. We seem never to hear about Marcion from anybody BEFORE he was ex-communicated and when he was still accepted by the Catholic Church. I don't know. What kind of a gospel did he preach? Or more to the point- - did he "blend in" with the pervailing message of the Church at that time. Did Marcion change or did the Church change. We know the Church got into acquiring power over people and acquiring great posessions and wealth. I don't fault them for that. It's their business how they want to live their lives. I don't believe you should make a habit of stealing from someone else who has what you want. This would violate the golden rule. I do make a distinction however when it's the government institutionalizing this "wealthy caste" at the expense of the rest of us, because history shows that once such inequity is government sanctioned by many laws- - it's impossible to undo it short of a Revolution by the masses. And it goes without saying that most of "The masses" who follow Christianity- - don't endorse Trump's political platform.
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