Author: M.S.N. Menon
Publication: Christianaggression.org
Date: October 4, 2005
URL: http://www.christianaggression.org/item_display.php?id=1128441626&type=articles
Christianity is dying in the West. But it
is springtime for Christianity in Asia and elsewhere. A Paradox? No. The Pope
himself says so.
According to Pope Benedict, "there is
no longer evidence in the western world for a need of God, even less of Christ."
Dear Hindu reader, are you listening? Do you
know the implications of what he says? Perhaps not. But you should know-Christianity
is in decline in the West because the West is ashamed of the Christian God
Yahweh, who used to drink human blood, and it is flourishing in Asia because
Asians are still under the spell of religion.
But how is one to account for the loss of
faith in Jesus Christ? Because there is increasing evidence that he never
existed, because it is now discovered that the life of Jesus was built on
lies by St. Paul.
What is more, Yahweh has remained a jealous
God, a God who rewarded and punished. And he was too closely associated with
the Jewish race to become a God of mankind.
Today we have about 100,000 monographs on
Jesus Christ. But we know almost nothing about the man! His life was deliberately
kept a secret by the church. And St. Paul created a Jesus to suit his own
objectives.
But are there other records to go by? Very
few. Most were destroyed by the church. Pliny, the younger, mentions a sect
called Christians, but never of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not even appear in
the book of the Jewish historian Josephus, called Jewish Antiquities (published
in 93 a.d.). The Jewish writer Justus lived in Tiberias, where Jesus was supposed
to have lived often. But, he, too, never mentions the name of Jesus. Philo
of Alexandria, another contemporary of Jesus, was a specialist on Jewish sects.
But he too never mentions the name of Jesus. It is clear from all these that
perhaps Jesus never lived, and if he lived at all, he was an insignificant
person. It was St. Paul who built up the Christ figure. But today very few
are willing to accept the Jesus Christ of St. Paul.
It is this lack of proper evidence of his
life and work, which made Ian Wilson, author of Jesus: The Evidence conclude:
"There is scarcely a crumb of information to compel a belief in Jesus'
existence." Rudolf Bultmann, the greatest New Testament theologian of
the 20th century, almost said the same thing. Ernest Kasemann, a specialist
on the New Testament at the Tubingen University, says of the research on the
life of Jesus: "One is overwhelmed by how little of the accounts about
Jesus in the New Testament can be called authentic!
So, what passes for "Christianity "is
the work of St. Paul. William Nestle, a Church historian, writes: " Christianity
is the religion founded by St. Paul. It replaced Christ's gospel with a gospel
about Christ."
Modern theologians and researchers in religious
history believe that the Central tenet of salvation through the death and
suffering of Jesus has been a deliberate misinterpretation by Paul. He is
also the author of anti-feminism in Christianity. He says:" It is good
for a man not to touch a woman." Which is why Mary Magdalene was made
into a prostitute. Paul is also the author of the concepts of Original sin
and Trinity. In short, Paul produced a totally distorted message of Jesus.
The trouble with the Bible, says Professor, Whitehead, "has been its
interpreters, who whittled down that sense of infinitude into finitude...and
the first interpreter of the New Testament was the worst-Paul. True, Paul
put Jesus on a pedestal and saved Christianity from being branded a minor
Jewish sect.
If one is not sure about the existence of
Jesus, what about the various claims made by the church on behalf of Christ?
There is no evidence that Jesus died on the cross. A commission of Bishops
(of York and Canterbury), after 16 years of research, declared that the Bible
story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ was incorrect.
Similarly, a book based on a study by seven
of Britain's foremost theologians said that Christ was neither divine nor
an incarnate. Among the distinguished theologians, who authored the book was
Prof. Canon Maurice Wiles, Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.
They said; "The historical Jesus never presented himself as incarnate."
Then, what is left of Christ and Christianity?
Very little. Which is why the West is in no need of Christ. What is more,
Darwin had already demolished the foundation of the Biblical story of Adam
and Eve (Genesis).
The entire edifice of Christianity had thus
fallen. But the empire of the church and its vested interests are so powerful
they can withstand any adversity. "Pesudo-Christianity," says George
Bernard Shaw, "was and will be fact-proof."
If Christianity is thus dying in the West,
it cannot live and flourish in the East. Can it? It is for you Hindus to decide.
