Folks all have a different read on this. In most churches, they have fixed doctrines. Most of the doctrines were made as reactions against issues of that period. What we have today is the total sum of those reactions, cast into beliefs….
Preachers don’t teach this, and so their audience doesn’t know it nor teach it either. If churches taught the History of Christianity, people could make up their own minds about what they believe. Right now, it is “this is our dogma, put up or shut up” (binder binblacklisted yupdundat)
Churches have barriers set up against people who have varying thinking. They make their members scared to think for themselves (except inside fixed parameters)
This is to protect the dogma, keeping the rules of the club clear and solid.
The common belief is that Jesus came to counteract the fall of man… the doctrine of Original Sin… “Adam sinned and due to this, Adams sin was visited on all mankind….mankind lost the ability to communicate with God.:”
So a redeemer was necessary to be a mediator between God and disconnected man. If the narrative is read this way, God sent Jesus to redeem humankind back to himself. The story goes that Jesus necessarily voluntarily gave up his life and redeemed all of humankind. The narrative found in the Bible was the first attempt to cast this in stone.
This narrative interpretation requires several things:
God not being able to be in contact with evil
A “Fall of humankind” from relationship with God
A redeemer willing to pay the price (a sacrificial sheep) to bridge the chasm between God and fallen humankind.
If a fallen human accepts Jesus as his redeemer, he is saved from eternal damnation.
BUT
This is not the only possible interpretation: that Jesus purpose was to be a saviour and redeem the world. But it is THIS translation of what happened, which fixates North American Evangelical Christianity and creates barriers between itself and science, and any other set of beliefs.
Now, believing that Jesus came as saviour of the world requires much superstitious thinking, and one of the main tenets is that “There is a separation between Creator and created. This is a separation (chasm) between spirit and the physical world.”
But science is showing that what underlies the physical world, is a deeper connected world. So there is a very different narrative which begins to appear. It shows that what was once considered “spirit” could actually be the unseen, deeper nature of everything that exists. This closes the chasm between a creator and his creation…. a potter and his pot….
The story becomes one of Deep Nature – (or the Ocean of awareness) forming the universe of “Their” own substance. (No english pronoun is proper for the Creator “superpersonhood”.
There are many of Jesus sayings… if we accept that some of what he said has come down to us in the biblical scriptures, that speaks to this interpretation>
But having to work within the limited understanding of his time, Jesus talked in parables and metaphors. If he WAS able to see the universe as we see it today, he would have necessarily keep that to himself….
As is the case with many stories at and before the time of Jesus, the heroes were “Deified” by their followers. Stories were built around them to turn them into Gods. i do not believe that Jesus ever made himself out to be “God”, and that these beliefs are manmade. There are other interpretations of what the “Proof Texts” which Christians use, to prove that Jesus was God.
The doctrines built over the centuries have been built to support and protect the beliefs about this deification and redeemer story They are iron clad. THey have had 2000 years to build their case. So, no good Christian will agree with what i am saying:
Jesus was a human being, who taught us a “next step” for humanity.
There are many of his teachings that speak to our interconnectedness with his “Father” the Creator. The teachings are about the ethical nature of our inner voice, and that we either listen to our inner voice, or we choose to ignore it.
translated: Our first birth is physical , and our second birth awakens (reunites) us to inner voice which is the voice of the Creator inside us.
The parable of the Prodigal Son tells what i sense Jesus was trying to convey”
- We all are born as legitimate children of the universe.
- At some point, we decide that we know better, and head out on our own
- After many ups and downs, we realize it was a mistake.
- We return home. We reignite our relationship with the Father – The Creator.
So, in my humble opinion:
There was no fall of man.
There is no need for a redeemer.
Man is just as he was created. a perfect human being.
We each one have the responsibility to listen to the inner voice: the Creator within us.
We choose to live an ethical life, listening to that voice (2nd birth), or we choose to simply be human animals.
Did anyone reach the end of this Sunday morning “discourse”?
If so, thanks for listening.
(My father was an evangelical pastor who found the way)
Lets be kind, accepting and understanding of each other. The world can be a better place?ï¿°
Reality is Dharma 