Harry Baird wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 5:12 pmHowever, when I examine the basis of your disagreement, it seems that we don't really disagree after all, unless I'm missing something. I wrote that we don't really know what Christ's teachings were, and that what we do have in mainstream Christian belief is contradictory and absurd. I was thus in no way endorsing religious fanaticism. So, we're not really in disagreement in that sense.
Christianity is, and this is more close to the truth, a wide assortment of ideas and admonitions and perspectives that come from a wide range of peoples, cultures, and if you will metaphysical perspectives. *Christianity* is really a conglomeration of ideas and perspectives.
It is not because I say this that I make it so, it is in fact that Christianity is a 'confusion of ideas' because there was a 'confusion of peoples' in those early centuries when the religion was, shall I say, accreted together.
I do not think this denies, or subtracts from, the fact that the early Christians were Hebrews and that the Christian idea came out of late-Judean movements:
[From a Jerusalem Post article:] "The Essenes were part of an internal struggle within Jewish society at the end of the Second Temple Period. Their customs and beliefs, their apocalyptic vision and rejection of accepted leadership not only created a rift between them and the rest of Jewish society; they provided elements for the beginning of a new religion.
"Both Christians and Essenes were eschatological communities -- expecting the imminent transformation of the world. Although drawn from Jewish prophetic texts that spoke about the Day of Judgment, the Essenes gave it immediacy; Christianity gave it urgency. The similarity of texts is striking.
"Both communities tended to be dualistic – dividing the world into opposing forces of good and evil, light and darkness. There are references in the New Testament (especially in Paul and John) to this distinction. For example, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness” (John 8:12). And in the scrolls we read, “All the children of righteousness are ruled by the Prince of Light and walk in the ways of light, but all the children of falsehood are ruled by the Angel of Darkness and walk in the ways of darkness.” (Rule of the Community, 3) Even the famous beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12) and in the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-23) have striking parallels in the scrolls and apocryphal literature."
But when the Hebrew Christians amalgamated, philosophically, religiously, with the Greek world, and then later with other cultures and *worlds*, it was through that blending-processes that Christianity came to be.
And it is also necessary to point out that when
that Christianity entered the European arena (Germanic Europe) it also went through significant modification.
I have noted previously that Immanuel Can's manoeuvre is to hop over all of this and, as an ultra-modern, turn back to the Hebrew-Essence version that he names *true Christianity*. He also can as a result declare all other Christianities false and deviant. Ultimatley, he desires (I think) to become a sort of Jewish Christian. And thus
Christian Zionism can be examined from that perspective. The religious Torah Jew is his and their 'elder brother'. It is bizarre and not a little complex.
I think, however, that we legitimately do disagree in the sense that you object to the essentialist definition of Christianity: that Christianity is, in essence, the body of teachings of the man after whom the religion was named. Since you don't even view that man as an authority figure, this is necessarily the case, however, as I pointed out a while back in a post the rhetorical flourishes of which you both admired and found overdone, what you do in that manoeuvre is to gut the religion. Without Christ, there is no Christianity. That seems obvious to me. You, though, seem to seek a Christless Christianity. I find that kind of bizarre.
Christianity is much more -- much much more -- than the body of teachings of the figure Jesus Christ. I know that typical Christians see the figure of Jesus Christ, now returned to a *heaven-existence* (re-merged with God the Father I take it) from which he descended to Earth, as the focal point through which they receive God-influence, but yes, I regard that as 'story'. It is a pictorial representation that is needed so that people can hang 'belief' in such a way that it is believable.
But what happens when you subtract the 'picture'? Do the metaphysical truths just vaporize, as if they had no substantial existence?
I do note that many people do indeed see Jesus of Nazareth as the 'authority figure'. I acknowledge that. And I also notice that they imagine that when they are 'saved' that it is like God inserts into them a metaphysical-spiritual Apple AirTag. This tag then stays with them and 'justifies' them for all time. The Tag send up periodic blips to the Heavenly Divine Server and God sends down rays of help and succor to the soul stranded in a dangerous lower world.
I am not trying to be mocking, I am trying to be accurate. This is, in fact, how many Christians (especially Evangelicals) actually see it. That is, this is the 'picture' they work with.
If you 'believe in Christ' (and I don't think you do so our conversation on this theme has a bit of the absurd in it), I guess that 'without Christ there is no Christianity'. But my assertion is that -- and here I cite Johannine ideas -- the real 'truth' is that what is referred to as Jesus Christ is
an eternal reality that is understood to be infused at a cosmic level into the very creation.
Clearly, I have been influenced by the likes of René Guénon who seeks out the 'background metaphysics'. He can therefore span the Christian tradition as well as the Vedic traditions and discern in them 'core metaphysical truths'. I do not see any way around this and especially for we moderns who are no longer capable of the same ease-of-belief that was possible in former times.
