A Circuitous Route

The Fellowship Quiz

Pickering Affair reveals more about the Fellowship than about adultery

Politician's Scandals elevate the spiritual haven on C Street SE

C Street House Group touts plan for Christian world control.

So you right wingers wonder why we on the left have worried about the current Republican party? Wonder why Obama would be like a breath of fresh air to us? Read a few of those links. Ideally all of them. You know mostly I tend to think that what someone believes is not my business. Does it work for them? Great.

Except can I, not someone who wants to see Christian world dominion, not someone who expects Jesus's return any day, not someone who believes in a fundamentalist god, not someone who thinks that what fundamentalism teaches is good for humans, for life, for quality living, not even for love, how can I not feel threatened by these ideas and those who want to force them on all of us?

If you are a Christian, one of the fundamentalists, then you think what you read in those links above is good and the only hope for the world. To you, it is a spiritual war between good and evil and you are clear as to which is which. If you are not, however, then I'd like to share something with you about a dream of mine.

It was last week and I woke up remembering that I had been making sandwiches, a lot of sandwiches. Sounds mundane, right? The last sandwich was weird as I had made it with all the meat outside of a small piece of bread. Much meat. Little bread. Kind of a messy sandwich with no idea why I would make such a thing. I didn't feel upset at making it but couldn't figure out why.

The first thing I thought when I woke up was that it related to the Bible, to some book in the Letters of the Apostles, and something I had been missing. I had no idea how or even why I would have drawn that connection but I got out one of my many Bibles and began reading.

In the past, using different translations, I have read the Bible through (that means from start to finish) more than 6 times and been heavily involved in Bible studies-- very in depth Bible studies. I thought I knew it pretty well, and I did but what I saw when I went back to it was a new thought to me-- or maybe an old thought that I have come back to seeing.

Lately I have taken to calling many in today's church christianists because I thought they missed the point of the early church. I thought they had gone off on tangents regarding things that don't even appear in the Bible. It took me awhile after reading to realize that these people, like the pastor in California who is proud to say he's praying for Obama's death, like these people trying to take over our country and mandate everyone do what they see as righteous (when they don't even live that way themselves), that they are the Christian Church. Read the vindictiveness of the Apostle Paul's words, right after he has talked about things like love and god, and you see it's nothing new for today.

The bread in my sandwich was what Christ taught and it has been smothered by meat, big gooey, and rich meat that satisfies people but it's not what Christ said he was. If we are going to take the words of Christ to have been his words, debatable since it was the early church that decided what was to be thrown out (yeah, I know after being channeled... channeling which is so evil in anybody else).

That first group of people who named themselves Christians immediately set out to form a set of rules and an organization to fit what Jesus said. It would be a new religion with the power of miracles and the might of God. Jesus never began that religion. He was speaking of relationships but mankind likes religions and this group formed a doozy.

Jesus wasn't named Jesus and whether he said the exact words, well like I said, you have to believe in channeling. Which is evidently okay in someone like Loren Cunningham, who through direct message from god, formed the group linked above. He was given the 7 mountains to conquer as part of taking over the world for Christianity.

Way back, whatever didn't fit the doctrine the Apostle Paul wanted set up was thrown away to reappear centuries later in scrolls that were discovered in caves, the Gnostic Gospels. Keep in mind that Paul, the major founder of the church, wasn't a follower of Christ until after the Crucifixion. He was extremely knowledgeable in the law as he had been a member of the Jewish religious aristocracy. After a supposed godly encounter on the road to Damascus, he turned that knowledge into setting up this new religion.

In his writings, the Apostle Paul often whined and complained, begged others to do his will and threatened consequences to those who failed. He was the real forefather for the church we see today.

The sad thing for me is to wonder what truths might mankind have discovered if Paul hadn't done that? Did he come to build up Jesus's church, something Christ never asked him to do (unless we take his word for it), or did he come to subvert it? The things Jesus talked about like caring for the sick, watching out for greed, charity for the poor, being wary of pride, compassion, caring, love, sharing, those things were the bread that have been swallowed by meat. Men like meat a lot but let's not bother calling it godly.

(Incidentally I am not trying to say that there are not followers of Jesus today who follow the rule of love. Those followers are likely to sound a little like socialists.)