October 7 2023.
Do we need another ‘religious’ revolution?
Some 3200 years ago, a mere 120 generations, the first God/Creator-monotheistic revolutionary religion was born, when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. 600 years later, Zarathustra, on whom Nietzsche later based his hero, became the founder of Zoroastrianism. In that same period Confucius (551-479) appeared in China, and Buddha (563-483) in India.
Then, in the first century, Jesus was born, and I presume you know the rest of that revolution, still playing out, somehow. In the Seventh Century came the revolutionary Mohammed (570-632), founder of Islam, who died almost exactly six hundred years after Jesus.
Guess work.
So far, so good. What about the lack of new religious development in the 13th and 14thCentury? Blame it on the disastrous Black Plague, which set back development in Europe for centuries – half the population died! – so, I skip aheaf to the Reformation, which started with Luther in 1517. Luther’s revolutionary act, released a plethora of innovations and artistic expressions, as well as religious strife of immense cruelty.
Also, during that period, America was discovered, at a time when Europe became too crowded, and wood fuel was running out.
Now another 600 years have elapsed: does this signal another major change?
Is a new religious revolution at hand? Are the current systems really in line with God’s intent? Would Jesus approve of an organizational clerical system that resembles the Old Testament setup? Wasn’t Jesus’ most vehement critique directed toward the church leaders of his day? Isn’t it plain that Christianity in its present form, is a failing enterprise?
Yes, all denominations are in trouble.
In the Catholic Church Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, has accused the pope of undermining the Catholic Faith, has suggested that other Vatican officials have veered so far from church teaching that they are no longer Catholic, and has warned that a landmark global gathering that opens this week at the Vatican could threaten “basic truths” of Catholic doctrine.
The Protestant wing is no better off. It is also deeply divided over sexual orientation, while, in religion-soaked USA, a large segment of the church has become Nationalistic rather than Christian, seeing Trump as a Christ-like figure, unjustly suffering. The famous Dr. Harold Bloom in his The American Religion wrote that The American Religion masks itself as Protestant Christianity yet has ceased to be Christian.
Yes, the church in general has become purely Gnostic, separating body from soul. Dr. C. A. van Peursen, professor at the Netherlands’ most prestigious University, Leiden, in his Body, Soul, Spirit, writes that “the soul is a presence which makes the body what it is.” However, religion has seen the body as being on an inferior plane, influenced by Descartes separating soul from body, even regarding body as evil, while Plato’s priority of soul over body, proclaiming death as a happy escape from the body, has also deeply influenced the Christian religion.
The church resembles Greek pagan thinking, I need of a final revolution.
In my opinion, the Christian Church has inadvertently adopted the pagan Greek philosophy of Plato and Socrates, evident in the ‘heaven heresy’, separating soul from body. This teaching has given ‘the world’ the go-ahead to see creation as evil, exploiting her natural resources to the point where now all of life is imperiled, the very LIFE Jesus lived (John 10:10), by becoming himself fully human.
J.H. Bavinck and Bonhoeffer, both highly respected Biblical scholars, have, indeed, revolutionary views. Dr. Bavinck, in his, Between the Beginning and the End, a radical Kingdom vision, makes the astonishing statement: “There is no such thing as individual salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal”, which means that salvation of the person and salvation of creation go hand in hand: you can’t have one without the other.
That puts a stop to most church preaching, and calls for a life fully integrated with God’s Holy Creation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his essay, Your Kingdom Come, writes: We have fallen into secularism, and by secularism, I mean pious Christian, secularism. Not the godliness of atheism or cultural bolshevism, but the Christian renunciation of God as the Lord of the earth. The function of the church is to witness to the resurrection of Christ from the dead… and to the power of God in the new creation.
Do we need another ‘religious’ revolution?
Yes, a revolution that is no longer religious: a revolution that implements LIFE, and that to the full, that prepares for eternal life here, where we now love and move and have our being: All our actions, thoughts and desires must be geared toward that purpose.
However, beware, and be ready, for “the day of the Lord will come like a thief”. (2 Peter 3: 10)