“Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”
Luke 17:37
The greater majority in the Christian Church believes in two heresies: either in Rapture, the belief that, at a certain point in history, God fetches his people to directly fly to heaven, wherever they are. This is mostly a Southern Baptist notion, based on Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, and the “Left Behind” Series. Or, a close cousin, is the almost universal belief that believers go to heaven upon death, forever leaving that wicked earth. Both cater more to Greek Paganism than Christianity. No wonder that the late Dr. Harold Bloom, a secular Jew, called America a “religion-soaked country that has ceased to be Christian”.
Jesus: listen to him!
Jesus disputes this notion repeatedly, pointing to Sodom and Gomorra, where Lot and his family were saved, and the sinners destroyed, or, in Matthew 24, mentioning the Flood, the sinners were drowned and the Noah clan survived. Nevertheless, the HEAVEN HERESY remains deeply ingrained in the Christian Religion. This antibiblical stance, allows Trump to follow his flagrant Anti-Christ = Anti-Creation policies, the complete opposite of the Cosmos-loving stance of God’s Son.
Why then have I singled out this gruesome text, a repeat of Matthew 24: 28, where the footnote says: “The coming of Christ will be as obvious as the presence of vultures around a dead body”. Why does Christ use this example?
As is often the case when Jesus speaks, the Kingdom, God’s precious cosmos, is on Jesus’ mind. His plaintive cry, ‘Will I find faith on earth when I return” – Luke 18: 8 – bears that out. Jesus always gives priority to the Kingdom, always, always, no exception. This also applies to the text quoted as my topic. A church without Kingdom ‘faith’ is dead: dead like a corps, dead as a carcass, dead as in devoid of all life, while its officials benefit from its organization and structure, like vultures devouring a corps.
This is totally in line with Matthew 23, where Jesus vehemently agitates against the then church officials, the scribes and Pharisees.
Why is this heresy so universal?
It is so much easier to go to heaven, and leave the earth behind, with its mandate to ‘love’ all that God has created. I know, I know: in almost every one of my blogs, I quote John 3: 16: “God so loved this cosmos”, and by loving it we get eternal life there. Where? Here, here, here.
The anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by Hitler’s henchmen shortly before his concentration camp was liberated, often said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Bonhoeffer calls this cosmos-despising stance: Pious Secularism.
I believe that the dead body in this text is the church, and the vultures are its office bearers, the paid staff, the legions of clergies in all denominations, about which James 3 warns: “They who teach will be judged more strictly”.
Fortunately, there still are churches proclaiming “LIFE”, and that to the full – Jesus’ message – John 10: 10.
And the deceived?
And the deceived are the widows with their penny donations, the innocent mass, who are still among the faithful, who want to be told the truth, and long to hear it. They would gladly accept it, but the Truth is not being told, and that Truth is the Good News of the Kingdom, is the New Earth to come.
The author of ‘Against the Machine’, Paul Kingsnorth, was interviewed by Don Douthat in the NYT, confessing that he was a Christian, but failed to spell it out in Kingdom terms, and there too is where the entire church is failing miserably, in the process becoming a dead body.
And I am still a member of this body, am still supporting it with my presence and money. Well, that’s life, but not the life Jesus wants us to live. So, life goes on, while awaiting LIFE in capital letters.
How then do I see Christianity?
Christianity is not a religion. Religion excludes – it did Jesus! Christianity includes: Christianity is a way of LIFE. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. That line concludes Psalm 139.
Christianity is the continuous struggle to live in the way everlasting on God’s Holy Earth.That is our future. Live it today and every day.
Since today ‘living without polluting God’s beloved earth’ has virtually become impossible, is the reason why the Parousia, Christ’s return, is imminent.