I may be sorely reprimanded by my advisers and friends for the things I am going to say but I have been percolating on these things for a several months now. I have always been talked down from this approach for one reason or another and have retreated inward to define my point, refine my arguments and make sure I wasn’t being “reactionary”.
Matthew chapter 7, versus 16 through 23 sees Yeshua the Messiah in essence talking about the sincere believer as opposed to the insincere or “deceived” believer. He says resoundingly when it comes to determining the insincere versus the righteous, “By their fruits ye shall know them”. He says this twice in the course of the discussion on the righteous versus the insincere, in verse 16 and verse 20. “By your fruits you shall know them”…. meaning by their actions and way of life you will know them.
Is it over simplification to say that you can know a true follower of Christ just by his/or actions? Is it as simple as we read in First John? The one walking in light is not sinning perpetually or intentionally in an egregious fashion to the point where you can doubt his claims of conversion? The believer is striving to develop the fruits of the spirit as named in Galatians 5:22 while having put away the behaviors named in the first few lines of Galatians 5 listed prior to the “fruits of the spirit”?
In a nutshell, no “devout” or truly converted “Christian” has ever murdered, owned slaves, participated in the slave trade, been a racist or endorsed racism as a means of declaring ones National Identity or participated in the whole sale oppression of peoples other than themselves. I have grown quite tired of the countless threads on social media and in society made by “arm chair” researchers and scholars and reactionary individuals at large that name bloodthirsty, satanically inspired imperialist as “Christians” simply because they claimed to be and that the actions of these men were and are supported by the Holy Bible.
Reason….and the desire to reason and research to better understand the world at hand seems to be some type of crime as people go about to subvert others and turn them against Christendom because of some personal grudge or the notion that it is the “Bible inspired religions” that are destroying the earth when it is people, mankind, motivated by hatred, greed, fear and the desire to control, that are destroying the Earth.
I think first things first we start with understanding that the Christianity that came about through in the lands where the Apostles walked, lived and taught IS NOT the same Christianity that flourished from Rome through Europe and into eventually into the “New World” of the Western Hemisphere. The Eastern churches that formed the basis of Orthodoxy in the East and Asia were almost diametrically opposed to the nature of the Western Churches. So much so that what exist in Ethiopia and Egypt and stretches clear through to China IS NOT like anything that largely came to the the Americas. The “Christianity” that was bought to Africa and forced on its inhabitants in the West of the Continent of Africa by European missionaries IS NOT AND IS ALMOST DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO THE FAITH THAT WAS PRACTICED IN EAST AFRICA AND EGYPT as well as in the rest of the Eastern churches in the Middle East and Asia.
Therefore going back to understand statements in John, Galatians and First John, ANY WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE OWNERSHIP AND SALE OF SLAVES, THE MASS MURDER OF FIRST NATION PEOPLES AND THE CONTINUED OPPRESSION OF ANY PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH WERE NOT, ARE NOT AND CANNOT BE CHRISTIAN….ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURE AND YESHUA THE MESSIAH HIMSELF. Just because someone hi-jacks a title and hides behind it doesn’t mean the title defines them. Can we employ reason and objective research? If your atheist or Agnostic fine I am not about converting anyone, but if your going to pick apart a movement understand that there are those who co-opted a faith movement, bleached it, altered it and changed it to make it there own, ignoring the crucial tenants of it and thus, practicing an entirely different religion. Ultimately you hate what you hate and thats your choice but do yourself a favor and increase your knowledge on a subject and defend your position from a place of knowledge and objective research.
Can we begin to really study, really look at this and ask the simple theological questions that the BIBLE empowers us to ask? Isn’t it time we began to really look at this and adjust our beliefs and theology so we can actually have and know truth and operate from a place of knowledge and sincerity? Once here will we not take steps toward living in a better, more educated world? I guess this all hinges on whether one wants to, or if one wants to continue to marinate in a sauce of hatred, ignorance and viscously poor scholarship and personal agenda. if thats your aim….Suite yourself.