What Is Christianity, Anyway?

Keep in mind that this presentation is ONLY of the beliefs of our little Church, and that other Churches may or may not agree with various parts discussed here! However, we feel that these beliefs are extremely logical, where we feel that some Churches have some beliefs that might be open to challenge on a logical basis. It also turns out that many if not most Christian Theologians and scholars firmly believe each of the various aspects of these beliefs which might not seem familiar. In general, even though they believe those things, they tend to stay somewhat silent about promoting them, for fear of upsetting some Christians who might not be able to or want to follow a logical theme because they are totally Devout in their beliefs of whatever they have been told by their Church leaders. That's fine with us, and we would not want any such Christians to have any of their Faith shaken by learning of these aspects which we happen to believe and Teach. But we suspect that there are some people in the modern world who might wish to learn about an extremely logical approach to Christianity, so we have presented this web-page.

• We believe that the (Original) Bible was perfectly and absolutely correct and we believe that modern (English) translations such as the KJAV and NIV are very accurate translations. No, we do not believe they are as Perfect as the Original was, but extremely close. Such different Versions of the Bible occasionally seem to disagree with each other, but that is because of the possibility of different English translations of the very same Original Greek and Ancient Hebrew texts.

• The First Commandment in that Bible makes clear that there is One True God. All Christians are supposed to believe that and we definitely do! But many of the things said by some Church leaders seem to imply that there might be either two or three Gods, such that Jesus can be included!

• Christianity managed to really complicate things and confuse almost everyone by developing a "Trinity concept" around 300 years after Jesus lived. The reason they felt the need to do that is clear. The New Testament includes many references to when Jesus "spoke to the Father" and His many references about "the Father", clearly implying that He was referring to someone different from Himself. Early Christians were extremely confused by this, because nearly any understanding of it either contradicted the First Commandment or it indicated that Jesus could not have been God. Many Heresies developed in early Christianity in the many attempts at finding an explanation for this, and the central Church felt a serious need to provide an acceptable explanation. Unfortunately, the specific Trinity concept they came up with probably has caused more confusion than it resolved! Almost all non-Christians believe that means that Christians believe in three (tri) Gods instead of one, and so they heap enormous criticism on Christianity because of that misunderstanding. THEY know that Moses provided the First Commandment that made clear that there is One True God, and if Christianity seems to believe in more, then Christianity must be wrong! As odd as it sounds, the Trinity concept was developed in order to CONFIRM that there is One True God!

• Since there has always been exactly ONE True God, we humans have managed to confuse ourselves in many ways. We will use the term Lord here for the One True God. He did Creation as described in Genesis 1. For quite a while, humans did not have a Name for Him, and it was considered a sin to even say a Name that was supposed to refer to the Lord. But ancient Jews eventually developed many Names for Him, including YHWH, Jehovah, Adonai, Elohim and dozens of others, all of which are mentioned in the Bible. A thousand years later, some people believed that Jesus Christ was He, the Lord, the One True God, and those people became known as Christians.

• This situation seemed very confusing to many early Christians. The Lord was clearly in Heaven, watching out over the entire Universe. The New Testament even makes clear that Jesus often appeared to rely on that Lord in Heaven, calling Him the Father. So how could someone named Jesus who was walking around like a man be the One True Lord of the Universe? Christians believe that the Lord is TOTALLY powerful and capable of everything. In this case, Christians believe that the Lord simply (for Him) arranged to be in two places at the same time! He remained in Heaven, carefully watching over the entire Universe. But, simultaneously, He was walking the Earth as Jesus. This does NOT mean there is or was more than One True God, but that He chose to appear to be in two places at the same time. Christians do not claim to know how He did that, but that He could, and did.

• The New Testament certainly includes a number of additional complications regarding this. There are a number of times where Jesus appears to directly be talking to "the Father". The obvious question is, if Jesus WAS the Lord, why did He have to ask the Father (Who also was the Same Lord!) or even need to talk to Him at all?

  The premise is this: Since Jesus IS the Lord, then He always HAS BEEN the Lord. Even before Mary! This is called "Pre-Existence of Christ", a Theological concept that is accepted by virtually every Christian Theologian and scholar. The One True Lord therefore performed Creation in Genesis, then entered into a Covenant with Adam and Eve. They broke their word to Him! Later people disobeyed the Lord and the Flood was necessary. Later still, the Lord Gave Moses the Ten Commandments, (Mosaic Covenant) but people immediately and afterword broke those Laws. The Old Testament of the Bible contains many more examples of where human (Jews) failed to follow what the Lord asked and expected of them. It must have seemed to the Lord that we humans just could not be trusted to keep our word to Him!

• The Lord, prior to Mary, had then decided to join human society, possibly so He could experience an actual human existence. He was faced with several possibilities on how He could join human society. He could simply Miraculously appear in an impressive way. But then all the humans would immediately know Who He was, and He could not possibly have a chance to live a "normal" human lifetime. People would forever follow Him around wanting Miracles for their own needs.

• Therefore, we believe the Lord chose to be "born" and Mary was chosen. Do you see the situation here? Jesus ALREADY EXISTED as the Lord in Heaven before Mary was ever born. The "Virgin Birth" really did not require Joseph OR Mary (for sperm or eggs) but Mary was necessary such that Jesus could appear to have a conventional birth. In this view, the Virgin Birth was simply the method that the Lord chose to enter human existence without drawing undue attention to Himself by Appearing instantly. This situation then allowed the Baby and Child Jesus to experience a conventional life.

• This could have caused the Baby Jesus or the Child Jesus to do the Miracles that He was certainly capable of (since He was the Lord). If the Child Jesus had just performed a single Miracle, as to entertain other children, then all the other children would want Him to do more, and they would tell their parents. In short order, there would be hundreds or thousands of people following the Child Jesus around, each wanting Miracles done for health or prosperity for themselves or their families or friends. In that case, the Child Jesus could not have experienced a conventional human childhood. Therefore, we believe that, prior to His Public Ministry (begun when He was around 30 years old), Jesus had not performed ANY Miracles. In fact, we believe that He probably did not even realize that He was capable of enabling any Miracles!

• Around 150 years ago, a "Kenotic Theology" was developed that we think fully explains this and much more. Kenosis means "emptying". The reasoning is that, because of the situations mentioned above, Jesus was "emptied" of His knowledge of Who He Was, by the moment of His Birth. Therefore, the Baby Jesus or the Child Jesus did not actually know that He was the One True God!

  Once His Public Ministry began, and He began to realize that He was Divine (the Transfiguration), even He probably still did not realize that He was the One True God. Instead, He came to believe that He was the "Son" of God, as well as the son of Mary (or "son of man"). Therefore, it would make sense for Him to always ASK "His Father" to do certain things, still not realizing that He could do them Himself. Even when He was on the Cross, He cried to His Father, so even then He did not seem to fully realize that He was the One True God.

  Jesus therefore was able to live an entire life, from Birth to Death, experiencing everything that a human would experience, even feeling the same pains, fears and disappointments that we humans are familiar with.

  This really makes great sense. Jesus made clear that He did not intend to CHANGE "the Law", the Old Testament Teachings, but to clarify them. He knew that the First Commandment made very clear that there was One True God. As a human walking the Earth, it seems inconceivable that He would have concluded that that was referring to Him. Therefore, He regularly would have referred to His Father as the One True God in Heaven (which was true).

• For hundreds of years after Jesus, there was great argument over whether He was Divine or human. Church leaders eventually concluded (400 years later) that He was both, a composite of Divine and human, He had "two natures" (Monophysitism). This discussion was important because if Jesus was completely Divine, it seems that He could not have suffered on the Cross. If He was completely human, then the basis of Christianity would be wrong.

  The opinion we have, based on Kenotic Theology, is that Jesus was certainly always Divine but didn't realize it. Therefore, He experienced all the good and bad aspects of human existence, and so felt pain and suffering. Therefore, Jesus was always entirely human during that period of existence on Earth. This is in complete agreement with the notion that He was both Divine and human.

• This means that He fully experienced the suffering of the scourging and the Crucifixion and the Death. The Death on the Cross ended the human existence of Jesus. But the Divine Jesus (Lord) could not actually have been killed, and so He appeared to many people afterward in around a dozen different incidents.

• For around 300 years after the Crucifixion, there was great confusion among Christians regarding whether He was actually the Lord, or possibly merely a really good human. A center point of the critics was the various references in the Bible where Jesus spoke to "His Father". Everyone knew that the First Commandment made clear that there was One True God, and if Jesus was speaking to Him, that seemed to imply that Jesus WASN'T the Lord! This reasoning seemed to make a lot of sense, and Christian Church leaders seemed unable to stop an endless list of alternate opinions from being spread. The Church was spending all of its time and efforts in attempting to combat these many challenges (heresies) to whether Jesus was Divine and how that was possible. For this reason, a "Trinity concept" was developed. Its central point is that there is actually One True God as per the First Commandment, but that He had three "Personalities" of Father, Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. So the Trinity was intended to confirm that there is actually One True God. Unfortunately, the logic and reasoning of the Trinity is so complex that many people never get to seeing that. Instead, they tend to see references to "Three Persons" as meaning "three gods", and this (incorrect) conclusion has forever caused great criticism of Christianity.

  Regarding the Trinity concept, we note the following: The ONLY people who directly interacted with "the Father" (or YHWH or Jehovah) were Adam, Eve, Abraham, Moses and a few other very ancient Jews, all prior to 1000 BC. The MANY people who directly interacted with Jesus all did so between 4 BC and 30 AD and the Crucifixion. The millions of Christians who have directly interacted with the Holy Spirit have done so AFTER Pentecost, at least 50 days AFTER the Crucifixion. See the point? We humans have never really directly interacted with more than One True Lord (at any one time). He "seemed different to us" at different times, so we concluded that He represented Three different Persons! The fact that the Bible mentions various times when Jesus "spoke to the Father" seemed to confirm that, and it became embedded within Christianity.

  There does not seem to have ever been any evidence of any "team effort" by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as they interacted with humans at different times in history. The Bible contains the references to Jesus speaking to His Father, and even references to His seeing His Father, but there were no actual human witnesses to such things, and human eyewitnesses confirmed that they in fact saw nothing. Revelations includes some references to seeing the Father and Son on the Throne of God, but Revelation is certainly very symbolic and also describes streets of gold and jewels everywhere, things that Christians should not aspire to anyway. (We note a single apparent exception to this, in Acts 7:55-56. The Greek Original text should be consulted on that.)

• Therefore, we accept that many people see value in the Trinity concept, and we are willing to even Teach it, but we actually believe it to be an unnecessary complication to Christian Theology.

Our One True God fully realizes how weak we each are! Especially after living around 34 years with us! And so He Knows that we will fail to always meet that commitment. He expects each of us to admit (Confess) each of our failings, and to then make a more concerted effort (Sanctification) to avoid repeating such sins.

Once it is clear to others that a person is actually "changed" (spiritually Saved) by their noticeably improved actions and words, a public Baptism is to be performed to acknowledge that the person has been Saved. (A public (water) Baptism is not normally performed immediately after a person makes a request for Jesus to be Personal Savior, but after others notice that it has had effect.) (Our Church feels that a "private" Spirit Baptism actually occurs at the instant of Salvation, well prior to the public water Baptism.) Once a person has been publicly Baptized, they should participate in the Eucharist, where a small piece of bread (either represents or actually is) the Body of Christ and a small sip of wine (either represents or actually is) the Blood of Christ. By partaking of the bread and wine, a more complete personal bond is formed between the Lord and the person.

The Lord made a Covenant (like a Contract) with Adam and Eve. When they broke their end of that Covenant, (what Protestant Christians call Original Sin) the Lord Judged them for their "crime" (regarding the apple). His Sentence was to end their endless lifetimes and their idyllic life in Eden, and that Sentence applied to all their descendants, including all of us today. Therefore, every person that would ever be born would carry that burden of that Sentence due to Original Sin.

It was clear that NO human could ever "earn redemption" or "pay off the Sentence of Original Sin" so all people were forever destined to lead sin-filled lives and never be Saved.

The Lord arranged that He would Walk the Earth as Jesus, and for Jesus to suffer "the ultimate Sacrifice", Death on the Cross, which was the ONLY way that the Sentence of Original Sin could have been "paid off". Jesus' Death on the Cross is said to Atone for the personal Sins of any person who chooses to accept Jesus as Personal Savior. In this way, the Sacrifice of Jesus Atones for Original Sin, for individual humans, and then enables them to be Saved and proceed to Heaven.

Our Church, A Christ Walk Church, has its own web-site that further discusses our "strict, but core-related" Christian beliefs, attitudes and positions.

( http://mb-soft.com/public/index.html )

C Johnson, Pastor
A Christ Walk Church
BELIEVE Religious Information Source web-site http://mb-soft.com/believe/