CHRISTIANITY'S INSTITUTIONAL SCLEROSIS

ECCLESIAL HEMORRHAGING

Christian churches, particularly, throughout Europe and North America, are hemorrhaging members where Christianity has dominated the religious landscape for centuries.  It is not the case that Christians are simply moving to different denominations within Christianity or being converted to other religions.  It is a growing phenomenon amongst the religious of all faiths to see an increase in their adherents to forego religion altogether and become what is known in the United States as a "None."

The question being addressed in this post is why this phenomenon is taking place within Christianity.  In my previous post on "Christianity -  A Hybrid Religion" in which Judaism and the polytheistic religion of the Roman Empire were blended to create a palatable narrative about about Jesus Christ in order to make Christianity more palatable to a broader gentile audience within the Roman Empire.  It is my premise for this post that what once attracted people within the Roman Empire to become a Christian, today, has become a distraction as historical and scientific discoveries challenge the credibility of entrenched Christian dogma that is foundational to the existence of Christianity.

INSTITUTIONAL SCLEROSIS

Christianity, throughout its various denominations, share common problems.   The longer a denomination or a church organization exists, it will eventually develop a form of institutional sclerosis; that is, long-held concretized of beliefs held by its members who are resistant to change.   Institutional sclerosis in the Church takes the forms of strict adherence to tradition, dogma, and the unquestionable authority of scripture. 

Some may question this assessment and point to a number of changes that have been embraced in recent years by some denominations; such as, the acceptance of women in the clergy, openly and active gay clergy, same sex marriage, updated liturgies ministries which address environmental and socials conditions beyond a church's wall.  Surely a more openminded Church should be an attraction, but the reality is they don't.

Some might point out that the few churches which are growing are doing so because they have "stuck to their dogmatic guns" and have "doubled down " on their long-held views; that a woman's place is in the home and should remain silent in the church, that homosexuality is not only a sin but an abomination, that social welfare makes people lazy (they that don't work, shouldn't eat 2 Thessalonians 3:10), and that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of God.  

Still others of the mega-church moment might point to the success of a cafeteria style type of Christianity that caters to a variety of ecclesial preferences, traditional, evangelical, fundamental, progressive and conservative.  Who will point out that their appeal is to meeting the spiritual needs of their member but their social needs, and in some their economic needs.  Mega churches are generally found in larger urban areas and, for a lack of a better way to say this, run what is almost a Christian one stop shopping center.  

This is not to say that they don't engage in meaningful outreach, but their primary goal in outreach is to enlarge their consumer or congregational base.  They are often headed by a charismatic preacher who exudes a sense of personal confidence and success by being a part of a large and success-driven congregation.    While such mega-churches appear to argue against the notion of an overall hemorrhage of church membership, they are known to quickly fall apart when some sort of scandal in the institution  involve its charismatic leader.  The church of personality invariably stands on shaky ground.  

TRADITION 

Any group of humans who gather over a long period of time will develop traditions.  Just as individuals develop habits, groups develop traditions.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with traditions.  What makes traditions so appealing to the institution of the Church is that they are not only intoxicating but also indoctrinating.  Indoctrination is where things become problematic. 

On Instagram, the Roman Catholic Church has reels that promotes their liturgical traditions as being aesthetically appealing.  In those reels there is no mention of what they teach.  It is the aesthetic aspect of worship and ritual that is offered as an intoxicant to the viewer.  Traditions are intoxicating in that they offer a person a sense of belonging, comfort, and familiarity.  

Evangelicals are known to eschew the notion of traditional liturgical worship.  They promote the ideal of worship as something spontaneous and freeform.  Having experienced such settings, one can identify the idea of spontaneity as a tradition regarding how worship is conducted. Ironically, there is a tradition of  of how freeform worship is conducted; how prayers are said, how members are to vocally or physically respond to sermons and hymns; particularly, in Pentecostal churches.  Physical responses to worship is a form of indoctrination.  People know when to say, "Amen" "Praise God,"  "Say it preacher."  Such responses reinforce teaching and accomplish indoctrination. 

Praise music, in particular, is an intoxicant within an evangelical setting, which has now spread to many mainline churches.  As an organist, I am undoubtedly biased about praise band music, but I am just as leery of many traditional hymns that have been around for centuries.  Martin Luther is a prime example of a theologian who used hymns as a teaching tool to indoctrinate the uneducated.  Hymns are powerful reinforces of dogma.

All liturgical and freeform types of worship have this effect.  Worship is used as teaching tool as much as it is used to glorify God.  Repetition ingrains belief.  Over time, one doesn't need to follow an order of service in the missal, the prayer book, the bulletin or the large screen televisions.  Congregants know what to say,  how to say it, what to sing, and how to sing.  There is a sense of comfort and familiarity in being able to do so.  The problem is when the comfortable and familiar is based on a faulty premise.

 

DOGMA

Dogma is the bedrock of Christianity's theology and traditions.   They define God as a tripartite God of three persons in one Godhead (a perpetually confusing dogma).   God the Father is  the creator of heaven and earth.  The Son, Jesus Christ, was born of virgin and it both "true God" and "true Man  who was crucified (sacrificed) for us to pay the price of our sins.  Last, but not least, is the Holy Spirit, who inspires and reveals truth to us unworthy humans.  

Dogma is the result of trying to figure out who Jesus was and establishing a consistent church doctrine that the both clergy and the emperors of the late Roman and Byzantine Empire could promulgate as the true faith of the church.  Remarkably it continues to enthrall some the faithful to this day, but it is struggling to maintain its hold on people in a fast changing world that eons different from the time when Christian dogma was formulated. 

For centuries dogma has dictated what is moral by elucidating what is specifically immoral.  Throughout the centuries sexual behavior has been rigidly controlled by Church leadership under the ancient religious premise that who controls the bedroom controls the culture.  This has been effective for most of human history.  

It is only recently that this has been in any way been significantly challenged. Nevertheless, the jury of history is still out as there is a re-emergence fostered  by the Roman Church and Evangelical Churches in the United States to once again control the bedroom, deny women control over their bodies and lives, and push homosexuals back into the closet.   

Dogma is entrenched in the minds of Christian as being the result of divine revelation given to the Church, based on a reading of Matthew 16:18-19  where Jesus, after Peter declaring Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God,  says, "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

It is doubtful that Jesus said this about Peter. The Gospels of Mark and Luke tell the same story  Jesus saying he would build his Church on Peter.  Nevertheless all churches from the Church in Rome to the Church of the Latter Day Saints believe they have been given a divine mandate to speak on God's behalf when it comes to matters of faith and morality. 

Overall, Christian dogma is chiefly concerned with defining what is necessary in this life to ensure one's salvation in order to obtain eternal life in heaven.  On the surface that sounds good, but what becomes necessary to obtain salvation in this life is to first and foremost recognize one's unworthiness and inability to ensure salvation on one's own; that one must submit to the order of the Church, which is the Body of Christ on earth, to be constantly repenting if not consistently repentant, to receive the means of grace as offered in the sacrament and lead, to the best of one's inadequate abilities, a humble and blameless life by keeping one's body as temple of God; avoiding sex outside of marriage, gluttony, drunkenness, etc., and caring for one's neighbor, the poor, the homeless, etc..    

While more progressive churches are less concerned about condemning people because of their inadequacies, what is listed in the preceding paragraph is still on the books and in the The Holy Bible.  Forgiveness is very much a part of Jesus' teachings and all denominations recognize this, but given Jesus' comment to Peter in Matthew 16,  the Church (all denominations) believe they hold the keys to the Kingdom and thus forgiveness is contingent on the dictates of the Church (or so Matthew would have it.)  

THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

While Christian dogma is believed, in part, due to revelation by the Holy Spirit.  Such inspiration comes through the inspired scriptures of the Holy Bible.  While a growing number of Christian denominations are stepping away from the idea that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of God, it  remains for most Christian denominations the authoritative Word of God that reveals God's will for humankind.  Even those who consider themselves Progressive Christians refrain from questioning the scriptures from which dogma is derived.

For example, the accounts of virgin birth of Jesus, the purpose of Jesus' crucifixion, and his resurrection in the Gospels are treated as authentic events that give authorization to the dogmas based on them.  Likewise, the Epistles attributed to Paul are also considered authoritative.    

While the Old Testament is considered superseded by the New Testament in Christianity, it remains authoritative; especially, where Jesus is silent on a given subject and gives authority to the teachings of and about Jesus in the New Testament.   The doctrines, dogma and traditions of the Church are deeply rooted in the Holy Bible, which in the current century and the last century is proving to be problematic.  

The Holy Bible is an amazing collection of writings that reflect an evolving understanding of God against the background of human history.  This is particularly true of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures.  As discussed in my previous post, the New Testament, the uniquely Christian Scriptures reflect both a monotheistic and polytheistic understanding of God and Jesus set against the background of the conflict that occurred between Jews and Christians during the time of Paul's ministry, and more importantly the split between Jews and Christians that occurred after the Fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.  The authority of Holy Bible has largely remained unquestioned for eighteen hundred years. 

Christian denominations of every stripe consider the Holy Bible the bedrock of Church doctrine and dogma.  Therein lies the challenge the Christian Church of today is encountering.  Apart from religious institutions, I am not aware of any institution that relies on the absolute authority of documents that are thousands of years old which are not verifiable today.  

BLEEDING OUT

Jesus said,  " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (Matt. 24:35 and Luke 21:33) .   Perhaps Christianity will continue till the end of time, but the hemorrhaging of church membership calls to mind another saying in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1 where we read, 'To everything there is season."  The notion of a Post-Christian world exists.   Religions can die and  Christianity, being a religion can die.  Yes, Jesus' words may not pass away, but the religion that bears his name may very well do so.

Christianity is losing authenticity and credibility among its followers.  The institutional church can no longer whitewash its history or impose unbelievable as fact or truth.  Salvation theology and dogmas based on the doctrine of original sin are not tenable in the nuclear age.  Sacrifice as the means of saving people from their unavoidable sins is wrongheaded.  It is no longer tenable to require belief in the virgin birth of Jesus, his sacrificial death on a cross, his resurrection and ascension as historical facts which have only served to occlude the message of Jesus' teachings (his sermons and parables).  

There is a deep vein of hypocrisy associated with the institution Church.  Being reliant on scriptures that are two to three thousand years old has turned theology into a navel gazing activity.  The polarity of differing perspectives of Christianity by differing Christian denominations cannot stand, as Jesus himself remarked, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." (See Matt. 12:25, Mark 3:25, and Luke 11:17).   

Christianity needs to stop insisting on believing the unbelievable as sign of faith.   This is not to say the the Bible should be ignored, but rather that it should be understood as work of human ingenuity.  Christianity has done little to advance an appropriate understand of its scriptures in the light of today's world.  Christianity struggles with this because so many Christians are convinced that belief in the unbelievable is necessary in order to have eternal life.  This is not something Jesus, as a Jew, would have taught.  In this regard the New Testament is proving to be harder to believe than the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament.  

At the present time, a number of Christian denominations are doubling down on their traditions, dogma, and the inerrancy of the Holy Bible.  They seem to be winning in the United States with overturning Roe V. Wade, and rolling back protection on LGBTQ rights and the rise of White Christian Nationalism being serious contender in U.S. politics.  Winning in these areas is not helping Christianity as a whole.  They have become a reason for disengagement for many one time Christians and is and will continue to cause Christianity to hemorrhage members along with insisting on belief in the unbelievable.

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Next post: Recalibrating Christianity. 

Norm 

CHRISTIANITY - A HYBRID RELIGION

In this post, I will attempt to gather my thoughts (some of which I have already expressed in past posts) on Christianity as a hybrid religion.  To anyone who has followed my posts, it should be clear that my views on Christianity are changing.  Naturally, I am influenced by what I read.  All of which contributes to my evolving understanding of Christianity.   

THE WAY

Christianity began as a sect of Jewish followers of Jesus who identified themselves as "The Way."  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his informative book on Jewish life, "A Letter in a Scroll,"  explained that the term, "the way," was an ancient Jewish term regarding the study of Torah as journey of faith throughout one's life.  Rabbi Sack's definition of "the way" gives us some insight on how the earliest followers might have perceived Jesus' teachings.  "The Way" originally could have meant for the earliest followers of Jesus, what Rabbi Sacks says it means for all Jews, the study of the Torah, albeit for Jesus' earliest followers, in the light of Jesus' teachings about the Torah.  

As I have mentioned in other posts, Jesus' teaching were nothing new to his Jewish audience; in that, they are rooted in the Torah and the writings of the prophets.  What was new was how Jesus taught and applied them through his sermons (his collected sayings) and his parables. According to the Gospels, his manner of teaching was, to some of the rabbinical scholars of Jesus' day, a new teaching, which Christians have misinterpreted as something entirely new, but as Rabbi Sacks suggests, a "new teaching" was a term of interest in that it introduced a new interpretation of scripture, which rabbinical scholars would have been interested in and would have debated - something which most Christians are not use to when it comes to their understanding how the scriptures should be treated.   

According to the Acts of Apostles, the earliest followers of Jesus lived communally, giving up their personal property and wealth. This was likely based on Jesus' parables like the rich young man in which he was told to sell all of his property and give the proceeds to the poor and then to follow Jesus, when he asked how he may obtain everlasting life.   Following such mandates from Jesus was seen as " the way."  In was in this communal soup of Jesus' earliest  followers, that those who personally knew Jesus, shared their stories and what those stories meant to them.  It was in that community that Jesus was kept alive, was resurrected, if not in body then in spirit, as Paul described the resurrection in his first letter to the Corinthians.  Flavius Josephus, who knew of this community of Jesus' followers commented on how much they loved Jesus, which undergirds the notion that their love of Jesus did not permit him to die.

PAUL

The earliest followers of Jesus continued to worship in the Temple, which is largely ignored by Christian theologians.  It begs the question, did they continue to offer sacrifices or did they merely go there to pray? 

In his letter to the Romans Paul writes this, 

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.  And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.  Romans 5: 8-11

A most telling event regarding whether Jesus' earliest followers continued to participate in offering sacrifices at the Temple is found in the Acts of the Apostles.  

When Paul arrives in Jerusalem, he is brought before the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem and James the brother of Jesus.  There he is questioned about converting gentiles without following the rite of circumcision (to become Jews in order to become Christians) for which Paul and those accompanying him are required to do a form of penance in form of following the Jewish rite of purification.  In Act 21:26 it states, "Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them."  

Obviously, the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem continued to worship and offer sacrifices in the Temple. Paul obviously felt compelled to acquiesce to the the church's leadership, which also raises a question as to whether these earliest followers of "The Way" thought that Jesus death on the cross was a sacrifice for the sins of the world, thus no longer seeing the need for further sacrifices which later Christians.  Obviously the Jewish Church in Jerusalem continued to participate in the rites of Temple worship and maintained their adherence to the Torah, the law, which Paul from time to time repudiated through anxiety ridden, convoluted arguments that the law was fulfilled by Christ's atoning sacrifice and no longer requires strict adherence; that those who follow the law are condemned by it, and those who don't are not (or something to that effect.) 

Paul of Tarsus was a controversial figure in the early church, which is clearly identified in Luke's Acts of the Apostles and in the epistles that Paul wrote.  His an appointment as an apostle to the Jewish communities in Asia Minor and Greece was not without dissension on the part of leadership of the Church in Jerusalem.   While he was sent to spread the Gospel of Jesus to the Jewish communities in the Greek-speaking world of the Roman Empire, it was the Greeks more than the Jews who became attracted to what he said.  While early Christianity identified as a Jewish sect who followed Jesus' way of being Jewish, expansion of Christianity among the  gentiles of Asia Minor and Greece saw Jesus as a liberator from imperial domination and civic duties, which were deemed pagan.  

Since Paul was having better success in converting Greeks than Jews to Jesus' way, he considered circumcision to be an obstacle to conversion and he unilaterally decided it was unnecessary for male gentiles to become Jews before being baptized into the church.  As noted above, this caused great concern amongst the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem.  The foremost of whom was Jesus' disciple, Peter. (See Galatians 2 to read about Paul's view on circumcision.)  While a controversial figure in the early church, Paul becomes a pivotal figure in Christianity becoming a religion in itself.

As I have pointed out in several other posts, the greatest historical event that impacted both Christianity and Judaism was the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD.  As Rabbi Sacks points out, the destruction of the Temple eliminated the Sadducees and destroyed the Church in Jerusalem.  The result was that the Pharisees remained the primary Jewish group whose worship had been primarily centered on the synagogue. With the destruction of the Church in Jerusalem and its leadership, the only authoritative voice that guided the Christianity became the epistles attributed to Paul.  In fact, the Synoptic Gospels were likely written after Paul's time and were greatly influenced by Paul's epistles.  The only other theological work that greatly influenced Christian thought and theology at the start of the 2nd century C.E. was the Gospel of John in which Jesus is raised to being God incarnate through whom all things came into being. (John 1)  

THE HELLENISTIC INFLUENCE

Christianity is largely is formed by and reflects two schools of theology; that of the letters attributed to Paul and the Gospel of John.  The significance of this reflection is that these two schools move Christianity beyond its Jewish roots to a particularly significant Hellenistic influence and dare I say to a polytheistic perspective while casting it in a Jewish hue.  In fact, I would go so far to say that Christianity adopted where it could the polytheism of the Roman Empire of the time while ambiguously retaining the Jewish concept of one God.  As such, Christianity claims to be part of the Abrahamic tradition of monotheism.  The reason for this adoption and adaptation of Hellenistic polytheism is simply to make Christianity more appealing to the people living within the broader Roman Empire.  

As a whole the canon of the Christian New Testament is overtly geared to an Hellenistic understanding.  Thus we have the virgin birth story of Jesus, the institution of Holy Communion, and the physical resurrection of Jesus.   Given these articles of Christian doctrine, one can trace which school of thought they proceeded from.  The virgin birth story and physical resurrection of Jesus are theologically rooted in the Gospel of John, while Holy Communion and Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world is established in Paul's epistles.

Biblical scholars and theologians will be quick to point out that all of these doctrinal teachings are supported and rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament.  If they are honest, however, they will have to admit that the virgin birth of Jesus and physical resurrection are read back into selected Old Testament scriptures as what those scriptures were foretelling, not necessarily what they mean to the Jews of Jesus day or for Jews today.  

Jews would have been and are extremely skeptical about such a thing as God causing a virgin to become pregnant and thus permit God to become incarnate in a demi-god son, Jesus.  In a like manner, Jews would find the notion of Jesus claiming to offer his flesh and blood in the rite of Holy Communion repulsive as the Gospel of John notes in chapter 6.  There we are told a number of Jesus' disciples no longer followed him when he told them that unless thy eat his flesh and drink his blood they could not have eternal life.  Interestingly, there is no Old Testament scripture that supports what John is saying.  There is, however, a polytheistic connection to Holy Communion.  

The Gospel of John,  in many respects, presents Christianity as mystery religion in which one can enter into eternal communion (life) with God through participation in the mystical body of Jesus. There is an obvious connection with the mystery religions of Ancient Greece.  Most notably what comes to mind is the Eleusinian mysteries which also deal with death and resurrection, in the story of Demeter and Persephone, who annually returns from underworld.  Bread and a wine-based drink would be offered to a successful initiate that would ensure freedom from the fear of death and a beneficial afterlife. 

It is interesting that the oldest mention of the rite of Holy Communion is recorded the 11th chapter of Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthian where Paul states, "I  received from the Lord (Jesus) that on the night he was betrayed he took bread... ."  It seems obvious that writers or later editors of the Synoptic Gospels borrowed and inserted what Paul received into their versions of the Gospel.  The writer or writers of John does it one better, he or they created a Gospel that in essence is all about a journey from Holy Baptism into Holy communion with God through Jesus.   Water, bread and wine play a significant role in this Gospel.  

As one of several mystery religions in the Roman Empire, Christianity would have been appealing to a wider and more diverse audience.  That Christians in Rome had to hide in the catacombs of Rome to escape notice from the Imperial police is, in part, probably true. It is more likely, however, that they met in catacombs as a sort of death and resurrection cult.  It is known that Holy Communion was performed in the the catacombs with libations of bread and win poured into holes drilled into the coffins or sarcophagi of Christians who died.  Such a hole is reported drilled into the tomb of St. Peter under the high altar of the basilica where he is buried for this very purpose for the purpose of such a libation, a noted in "The Immortality Key -The Secret History of a Religion with No Name" by Brian Muraresku).

Like many mystery religions of the past, the early Christian church utilized initiation rituals.  Catechesis (instruction) and baptism, which remains in many mainline churches today, was required for full membership in the body of Christ.  Perhaps the most appealing aspect of Christianity at the time was that it was open for anyone to be initiated, slaves, women, nobles, and eventually Roman soldiers.  Even in the time of Paul, it was noted that members of Caesar's household (most likely trusted imperial slaves or clientele of the imperial family) were baptized.  

THE PAGAN CONTINUATION HYPOTHESIS

"The Immortality Key -The Secret History of a Religion with No Name" by Brian Muraresku, like Jonathan Sack's "A Letter in a Scroll" has led me to reconsider the origins of Christianity.  I highly recommend to my readers that they read both Sacks' and Muraresku's books.  What Brian Muraresku has led me to consider is that Christian theology regarding who Jesus and who God is may be more rooted in the stories and cults of Greek polytheism than in the Hebrew Scriptures.  In the "Immortality Key," the archeologist Kaliiope Papangeli, who continues to work on the archeological site of the Eleusinian Mysteries is quoted, "Whatever they (Christians) cannot extinguish, they keep."  

The question this poses is how much of the polytheism of Greece has made it into Christianity?   I personally have come suspect that the "mythic" beliefs and rites of the ancient Greeks have had a greater impact on the teaching about Jesus found in the Gospels than the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament.  As mentioned above,  the birth of Jesus, his being declared the "Only Begotten Son of God," the Last Supper, the meaning of his crucifixion, and his resurrection and here I would add the doctrine of the Trinity are rooted in polytheism rather than Hebrew Scripture.  

Gods like Zeus having trysts with women they desired often led to demi-god offspring like Hercules and Achilles.  The god, Bacchus, was believed to have been born from the thigh of Zeus.  Jesus, in the Gospel of John 1:18 was born or originated from the "lap" or bosom of God.  Most modern translations gloss the original meaning of the ancient Greek text. The cult of Bacchus or Dionysus places the birthplace of Dionysus in Nysa a city that was part of the ten cities know as the Decapolis in the New Testament. Nysa is approximately 30 miles from Jesus' childhood home of Nazareth.  

As mentioned earlier, rite of Holy Communion which Paul claimed occurred at the Last Supper where Jesus offers bread and wine to be or symbolized his body and blood has no corollary in the Old Testament or Jewish thought. While Christianity has cast this event as being associated with the Jewish Passover and thus remake of the spreading of a lambs blood on the lintels of the Israelites homes in Egypt. The Passover and Holy Communion do not correlate beyond theological speculation.    

Resurrections occur in many polytheistic religions at the time Jesus.  The mythic story of Prometheus comes to mind when it comes to the crucifixion.  Prometheusis literally nailed to the side of a mountain for saving humankind by giving us fire.  In fact, in some myths Prometheus is actually credited with creating humans from the dirt of the earth, something the Olympian God found rather disgusting.  In giving us fire and the knowledge to use it result in Promethus being eternally sacrificed for his sin by daily having his liver eaten by an eagle. 

Persephone comes to mind with regard to the resurrection, that one confined in the realm of the dead is allowed back into the land of the living. Again, her story is entwined with that of her mother, Demeter who pleads with Zeus to have her released from Hades once a year.  One cannot help but see in Demeter the template for Mary the mother of Jesus.  Of course, there are other polytheistic stories that correlate the stories about Jesus found in the canonical Gospels.

The doctrine of the Trinity, although derived from constant references to God as Father, as Holy Spirit, and Jesus as the Son of God. The idea of three persons or personification in and of one God is more polytheistic than monotheistic.  I am skeptical that Jesus of Nazareth, a devote Jew, would have entertained, much less,  approved of such an understanding.  Jesus might have thought himself in terms of being a messiah, although there is considerable evidence in the Synoptic Gospels that he rejected that notion.  That Jesus thought he was God was never expressed in the Synoptic Gospels.  That doctrine is clearly an afterthought and supported by the theological Gospel of John. As I have suggested in other posts, the idea that Jesus being the only begotten Son of God was intended to be a poke in the Imperial eye of the Emperor being the Divine Son of God.  

With regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, the polytheists of the Roman Empire would not have found it scandalous at all.  In fact the Triune God, Jesus as a demi-god, and the concept of saints being intercessors would not have required much of an intellectual leap as it would be for Jews.  Once Christianity was established as the official religion of the Roman Empire and 381 CE, the empire felt secure enough to rid itself of the divine blessings of its ancient gods and goddess and replace them with one religion that had one God in three persons, a new order of priesthood ,and new hierarchal system in which the emperor as the "Pontiff Maximus" became the vicar of Christ which, in essence, made him more divine than any of the past emperors and more godlike than any of the old gods of the Empire.  

THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS

The non-canonical Gospel of Thomas gives further evidence that the canonical Gospels are heavily influenced by the polytheism of the Mediterranean.  The Gospel of Thomas contain only the saying of Jesus.  There is no birth story, no death story, no resurrection story.  Miracles are not mentioned, only his teachings.  Some scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas may, in fact, be one of the earliest Gospels as it shares the same source of the Synoptic Gospels.  In my opinion, that it didn't make it into the canon of the New Testament is simply due to its being void of any mythic qualities that would have appealed to the those living in the first four centuries of the Roman Empire.  In some sense it was probably perceived as being too Jewish to be Roman.

Thomas, a disciple of Jesus, is said to have established Christianity in India around 52 CE  We don't know much about the earliest followers of Jesus other than what can be gathered by legend, which tells that Thomas converted a royal household.  Around 600 C.E. Indian Christianity followed the Syriac Rite and were considered Nestorian. 

The point that I feel is relevant to this discussion is that the Gospel of Thomas, being void of all references to Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection, is probably the most unedited Gospel in existence. It may have originated in India, but it found its way back to Egypt were it was found among the Nag Hammadi scrolls  in 1945.   Even the early Gospel of Mark, which does not include the birth of Jesus was subject to editorialization; such as, its inclusion of Paul's concept of Holy Communion and later additions regarding the resurrection of Jesus at the end of the Gospel.  

With that said, it is time to restore the Gospel of Thomas to a place of prominence in any Christian discussion.

WHAT NEXT?

In my next post, I will explore what all of this means to Christianity today.  

How does Christianity deal with such information?  

Does it ignore it?  Does it embrace it?  

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm 

EPIMENIDES' UNKNOWN GOD

As a way to introduce this post on Epimenides' Unknowable God, I am beginning with a portion of a homily I delivered on May 21, 2017 at Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, South Dakota.  What follows provides the legendary history of Epimenides connection to the altar of the Unknown God, which the apostle Paul obviously knew very well to the point of being able to repeat the same phrases Epimenides used in his poem, "Cretica" and comments Epimenides made about how religious the Athenians were.

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[Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ From Acts 17]

It’s not every Sunday one can give a homily based on Greek legend, Geek mythology, and the New Testament. So I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to do so. 

In order to fully appreciate our first reading from Acts 17, we need to know why Paul addressed the Athenians at the Areopagus and why he cites two poems about the Greek god, Zeus. The author of Acts, Luke, likely assumed that everybody of his day, two thousand years ago, would have known why, but knowledge can get lost in two thousand years.  So let’s take a moment to rewind and review:

The Areopagus is a rock outcropping in Athens that was used in Paul’s time for conducting public trials. Here the Athenians wanted to discern if Paul was introducing a new religion into their city as Paul’s preaching about Jesus and his resurrection seemed to indicate.  Introducing a new religion was considered corruption, a serious crime in ancient Athens; a charge that resulted in the death of Socrates in 399 BCE.  

On his way there, Paul passes an altar to “The Unknown God,” the history of which Paul uses in his effective defense, along with citing two early Greek poems to support the premise that he was not preaching something new. 

The poet cited is Epimenides who wrote a poem called, "Cretica." In "Cretica," Epimenides argues with his fellow Cretans that Zeus was very much alive as evident in our being alive after they had built a symbolic tomb declaring him dead:

They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,

                        Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies. 

                        But you (Zeus) are not dead: you live and abide forever,

                        For in you we live and move and have our being[1]

 As a side note, the line about Cretans being liars is cited, verbatim,  in Paul’s letter to Titus (1:12) and is the basis for Epimenides Paradox which states if being a Cretan himself, Epimenides, in calling Cretans liars is also a liar by telling a truth applicable to himself.

In fact, the altar to The Unknown God has a close connection to Epimenides:

During the time of the great Athenian law giver, Solon, the Athenians suffered a horrendous plague attributed to an act of treachery on people who they granted asylum and then killed. To rid themselves of the resulting plague, they tried appeasing their gods through sacrifice, but nothing was working.  

So they approached the Oracle at Delphi who informed them that there was a god they failed to appease.  When they asked which one, she said she didn’t know but they should send for Epimenides, a prophet in Crete, who would help them.  So they did.

When Epimenides arrives in Athens he comments that they must be very religious because of the many gods and goddesses they have. He told them there is a good and great unknown god who was smiling on their ignorance but was willing to be appeased. When they perform the proper rituals throughout the city, the plague is ended and they erect altars to this unknown god throughout Athens. [2]

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In recent times, Epimenides' definition of Zeus as that "holy and high one" in which "we live and have our being" is becoming popular with Christians as a general definition of God.  I see it as a bridge between God, as understood in religion, and God, as understood in science.   God in religion is largely understood as being primarily concerned with us humans living on this planet. As such, God in religion is portrayed as being concerned with our moral behavior and incentivizing good behavior  by rewarding it and punishing bad behavior.  

On the other hand, God in science, if and when the term is used at all, is understood metaphorically to identify the laws that govern the physical universe or the currently nebulous, but hoped for, Theory of Everything.  What God becomes in this sense is the totality of all that is, which relates well with Epimenides' unknown god, the being in whom "we live and have our being" and who "smiles on our ignorance."  God in the scientific use of the term is not concerned with our moral behavior, but rather represents the laws (the forces) of nature which control cause and effect within nature and to that extent explains our life experience as also being a result of causes and effects.  While one might be tempted to claim that such causes and effects belies a universal moral code, the universe does not reward or punish moral behavior.   Behavior is simply behavior.  

There is something personable about a god who "smiles on our ignorance."  This unknown god is not presented as a capricious god, such as the Olympian gods.  This god is approachable at least to the extent that this god wants to be approached.  

Epimenides' unknown god is both nameless and imageless, and yet, to stave off the plague devastating Athens, this nameless and imageless god required recognition through ritual, which the Athenians perform and after which the plague is ended.  In everlasting gratitude, the Athenians built altars to this god, and Paul, like those ancient Athenians is saved by acknowledging this god and equating it as the one god above all others.  Paul goes a step further than Epimenides in attributing a line from Epimenides' poem on Zeus, "For in you we live and have our being" to this unknown God, which Paul claims to have knowledge of as being the one God Paul claimed as a Jew without directly making such a claim.   

* * *

Epimenides' unknown god undoubtedly raises some questions.  Where did Epimenides come up with such a concept?  Was it divine revelation or a theological deduction that such a god existed?  Or was some sort of intuition, some insight into an obvious problem the Athenians were blind to?   Remember the Oracle at Delphi told the Athenians to seek as prophet fro Crete by the name of Epimenides.  If there is one thing we know about prophets, it is that they are good at exposing the ignored obvious. 

What catches one's attention in this legendary story is the observation that Epimenides made regarding how religious the Athenians were because of the the many gods and goddesses they worshiped.   Where there were many gods and goddesses there were undoubtedly many temples.   Temples were and are places where people gather, especially when there is trouble afoot that people do not know how to respond to.  

Given the experience those of us living today have had with the Covid pandemic, we know something about the effect that large gatherings had on spreading the Covid virus.   It is more than likely that the Athenians were filling the temples with the sick, pleading for divine intervention, which ultimately led to more deaths.  This would help explain why they thought they were being punished by the gods.  

It is interesting that when Epimenides told the Athenians about the unknown God who would help them,  he instructed them to go out into the fields and where they found a sheep laying down, that was spot where the Athenian were to offer that unfortunate sheep to the unknown god, as a sacrifice.  In essence, what might have saved the Athenians was getting them out of the Petri dishes that was their temples and into the fresh air. 

Of course this is all speculation on my part.  One can't be certain what went through Epimenides' mind when he was summoned to Athens.  Did he invent the idea of an unknown God or was it an intuitive revelation?  We will never know.  The bottom line in this story is that it worked, whether by getting the Athenians outside of their city and temples or because there is such a god who smiled on their ignorance and saved them.  

* * *

In my opinion the story of the unknown god represents the nexus of the two version of God that I wrote about in previous two posts, God in Religion and God in Science.  In a sense Epimenides' unknown god, led the religious people of Athens out of their temples and their gods to experience god in science, an unknowable god that nevertheless exists in the background of our existence, that embodies us in the parental way that Epimenides spoke of in his poem "Cretica."  Although, Epimenides was speaking of Zeus, he changes Zeus from an immortal god living on Olympus to a universal being that generates and embodies our being. 

 

Most theistic religions get to the point where God becomes a paradox who is both one (the totality of all that is) and a multi-dimensional, who is both intimate with creation and other (holy) than creation.  God is ultimately inscrutable whether in religion or in science.  Perhaps the best understanding of such a god iswhen God in the story of the burning bush explains to Moses, "I am that I am (I will be what I will be)" or when Epimenides described the unknown god as one "who smiles on our ignorance. "

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

[1] Translated by Prof. J. Rendel Harris in a series of articles in the Expositor (Oct. 1906, 305–17; Apr. 1907, 332–37; Apr. 1912, 348–353;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides

[2] “To An Unknown God,” Christians in Crete, Connecting God’s Family http://christiansincrete.org/news/to-an-unknown-god/