A little background: last year I was trying to establish a new religious "movement". It was basically to allow people to follow Jesus without being part of the corrupt churches, whether Evangelical or other Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox or the sects. I had concluded that the churches were disqualified from calling themselves Jesus-followers because they had done the opposite of the Great Commandments of loving God and neighbour. Christians had been involved in Empire-building, with all its money-worship and violence, since the time of the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine, who had hijacked the Christian faith for his own political purposes. Indeed, there has hardly been a time in history where the faith has NOT been hijacked.
Two notable instances of doing the opposite of Jesus' teaching on love were:
(1) The Genocide of First Nations (indigenous peoples) worldwide since 1492, when Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas. This process has continued with the marginalisation of native peoples wherever Christians go. Even Christian evangelism and charity to the "Indians" is basically a pious form of bullying and arrogance.
(2) The 2003 Iraq War, where most Americans, especially the Evangelicals who supported President George W Bush, to attack and destroy a nation on false pretences. Every day at my work, I meet Iraqi refugees, some of whose relatives and friends have been killed over the past 10+ years in Iraq. Then we hear stories of American soldiers wearing Scripture references on their uniforms, doing their dirty deeds "in the name of Christ", to the point that non-Christian soldiers feel disgusted to be in the same units.
Last year, I wanted to base a movement of Jesus' "Messiah-ness" and call it the "Messianic Liberationists". So I examined all the Scriptures from the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible to highlight how Jesus was the true Jewish Messiah.
After all the initial excitement before and during the start of this Messianic Scripture venture, I ended up disappointed instead. This was because:
- many of the New Testament citations on the Messiah seem to be either misquoting or downright twisting the original meaning. For example, the Messianic verses of Isaiah 9 seem to be pointing out a fallible man, and yet at the same time some sort of god-like hero. Confusing. And the New Testament citation of Isaiah 9 takes the original verses completely out of context.
- many Old Testament Messianic quotes have never come true. Christians excuse this by saying that Jesus will fulfill these during his Second Coming. Hmm, I wonder . . .
- many Messianic verses are, well, rather boring.
The whole Messianic Scripture Project ended up being anti-climactic. However, it wasn't until this year that I started doubting the Bible. It all began when I thought, "Gee, if the Church is not really the 'Chosen People' due to its association with 'Empire' from the time of Constantine until now, then, weren't the 66 books we have in the Christian Bible selected by a committee set up by Emperor Constantine?" Indeed, this selection of the Scriptural "Canon" (or "Standard") that became our Christian Bible was basically a political manoeuvre on the part of Emperor Constantine and the Roman Empire.
So recently I have gone back and re-examined the foundations of the Christian faith, and after much study and thought, have found it wanting.
I'm in the middle of a few interesting books:
- Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It), Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Oregon, USA, 2011. (link)
- Randel Helm's The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself, Millennium Press, Altadena, CA, 2006. (link)
- Bart D. Ehrman's Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them), HarperCollins, New York, 2009. (link)
- Vincent Bugliosi's Divinity of Doubt: The God Question, Vanguard Press, 2011. (link)
- Sam Harris' Letter to A Christian Nation, Random House, New York, 2006. (link)
I watched some interesting films about Jesus:
- Director Ron Howard's "The DaVinci Code" from 2006, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou (link)
- "The God Who Wasn't There", a documentary from 2005 (link)
- Bill Maher's 2008 "Religulous" (link)
- the 2001 film, "The Body" with Antoni Banderas and Olivia Williams (link)
Of course, my Evangelical friends would say to me: "No wonder you're doubting your faith! You're reading all these books from unbelievers!"
The common Evangelical belief is that the world is divided into:
- THE GOOD GUYS, i.e., Christians
- THE BAD GUYS, i.e., everyone else
Thus, Evangelicals are afraid to read the works of "unbelievers" when it comes to matters of religious, philosophy, or metaphysics.
So basically, Evangelicals are stuck in their worldview, with no hope of escaping, unless something earth-shaking happens to them. Otherwise, they will not do their research, except in apologetic sources that confirm their faith.
Of course, the scariest thing to an Evangelical is to lose their faith.
For me, I'm not afraid. I already made up my mind last year that I refuse to go to a Heaven that is primarily populated by Evangelical Christians. Why would I like to share sacred space for all eternity with the same people who supported the destruction of Iraq and other nations, and the ongoing genocide of First Peoples? Why would I want to hang out with people who worship money while pretending to honour the Creator of the Universe? And why would I like to live somewhere where I'd be in constant debate with Christians, because, by and large, they refuse to use their brains?
Well, Jesus himself said that "by their fruits you'll know them", and by God, these Christians are the last people on earth that I'd like to follow. 30 years of being part of their tribe is enough. I'm on to bigger and better things now.
Of course, there are always the nice ones. The truly helpful. The ones who really love their neighbours. So I will eagerly get along with Christians, but please, please, pretty please, don't ask me to re-join. Be content that I keep quoting from the Bible, from which there is still a lot of wisdom that I can apply to life.
Thanks for reading,
Bjarte
Email me at
harvisen AT gmail.com
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