Christians vs. Christians

Organized religion today is predominated by Christianity, that’s why for most, when a person tells something about religion and god, Christianity automatically enters ones mind. I myself was a follower of this religion. I was baptized to the Roman Catholic Church and raised a Christian. My parents were church goers. But since tradition dictates that every so-called modern Filipino was made a Christian, I have no choice. But when I was a Catholic…well let us just says that god is just a weekend affair. I only know God every time I recite the Lord’s Prayer on Sunday Mass.

It changes when I entered my high-school years. I was introduce to the idea that the Roman Catholic Church was not Christians after all. Here are my soul-searching days. “Born-Again” Christian sects have a very convincing ways to gather new sheep. I was a very zealot Christian. Nothing entered my mind but reading the Bible and doing God’s work. I firmly believe that God commissioned me to spread the Gospel of his Son to all man kind. That every one was deceived except me and my church. But a trip in a local library change all that. I sometimes tired to think…What made me renounce the Christian faith? Well, giving up the faith is not really that hard. The key is just being open-minded and a little investigation.

Bertrard Russell once wrote, “When Christ told men that they should love each other, he produced such fury that the mob shouted, “” Crucify Him!” “Crucify Him!” Christians ever since have followed the mob rather than the Founder of their Religion.” Today, Christianity as taught by the Church has become a highly negative religion. Rather than to teach love, Christianity have been busy ensuring discipline and strife among its adherents and protecting its teaching against other Christians.

History has seen the growing intolerance by Christians against other Christian teachings. In 325 CE. The newly converted Emperor Constantine called The Council of Nicaea to set a core belief among Christians to abide by. Some authors say that the Council of Nicaea was the Hellenization of the Church and it was Constantine’s tool to use it as his political agenda. Constantine was never really converted as Christian defenders say; in fact Constantine was a ruthless opportunist. He still presides pagan festivities (like our modern day Christmas and Easter celebration), and commissioned Churches to display pagan works. Even after his so-called “conversion” he has his wife, Fausta and his eldest son Crispus put to death. His has forces his “will” upon the Nicaea council, dictating the wording of its creed and directing the doctrinal course of the Christian Church. It was in the Council of Nicaea that Constantine’s sun gods were synthesized under the figure of the Trinity and he (Constantine) declared himself as the temporal representative of this new deity.

First to be persecuted were Arianism who thought that only God the Father was God. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandra, ruthlessly and tenaciously opposed Arius, the presbyter in Alexandria, to stop the spread of Arianism. After the Council of Nicaea, many of those Christians who have a different belief were tagged as heretics. Well here are some samples: The Gnostics believe that the divine Christ will never touch anything that is evil, including human flesh and that Christ left Jesus before the Crucifixion. The Gnostics were persecuted until by 500 CE Gnosticism completely disappeared. Beliefs like that of the Pelagianism also were wronged. Pelagius, an Irish monk held that humans can live sinless lives. This was not possible according to St. Augustine who believes that everyone, including babies, was tainted by “Original Sin” that was handed down by Adam. However, this becomes a problem with Christian theologians who in 1954 officially declared the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary - making Mary sinless.

Other ideas that were branded as heretics were: Apollinarians: Jesus in not equally human and divine but one person and one nature. Modalist (Sabellians): God changes with his role or “modes of being” so there is no permanent distinction between the trinity. Ebionites: Jesus is just a prophet (Same as the Iglesia Ni Cristo today). Adoptionist: Jesus becomes God after the baptism. God adopted the human Jesus and gave him an extra measure of divine powers. Monophysites: Jesus cannot have 2 natures. Nestorians: The divine Christ and the human Christ lived together in Jesus.

By 392 CE, Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire. In 397 the Emperor Theodosius threw his weight behind the new orthodoxy and the Catholic triumph was complete.

Today, the Christian church is in constant war with each other. Followers are now suffering from neurosis on deciding who is the true Christian church. Their founders are busy in mud slinging and challenging other Christian organizers on useless debate on who’s more correct in “interpreting” the Bible to collect the booty – more members.

Next: On Tollerance.