Christian Catechism

What does it mean to be a Christian? A Christian, in the most primitive, practical sense, means someone who seeks to be like Jesus.

What was Jesus like? Jesus loved all people by his very nature, and did his best to help them in whatever way they would permit. He appeared in the context of the Jewish people and, doing his best, he was a perfect Jew.

Can one then ever become a Christian? Yes, by faith.

What does this mean? Jesus was the Son of God and thus had the authority to fashion both a heaven and an earth. He promised all people that if they would merely try to love as he loved, they would be successful.

How do we know that he promised all people? Because he gave his life for the worst of Jews, the criminal Barabbas, and redeemed him from the hands of the gentile enemies and occupiers. If he did this for the worst, he is proving to us that he is doing it then for all.

How do we know that we will be successful in loving by nature? Because he was resurrected by virtue of the faith he possessed when he proclaimed his death and resurrection to be facts waiting merely for a time. Thus he has proven himself master also of death. And therefore he is able to turn your flesh from the dead called self interest into a new nature identical to his.

And so it is then that we trust in him and his promises and since the inevitable result of this faith will be success and since that is merely a matter of time, the Moral Judge of all people declares us to be righteous immediately, for this Moral Judge is not concerned at all with time.

Why should anyone want to become like Jesus? For self interest. Jesus taught a moral physics, which is sometimes called karma. Accordingly everyone ends up spending eternity in the company of people who are all alike morally. Now there are only two realms, that of the self above all, and that of the community above self. In both cases the self interest is served, for while the self is absolutely important in the first realm, the self is no less important in the second realm, only its importance is derived from the law of the community, namely: all people are important absolutely.

The first realm is called hell, and is ruled by the most powerful among those kindred of heart, and that is Satan, invincible as an angel of God. The second realm is called heaven and it is rule by everyone giving his own law, just as in the first realm, but here everyone has the same spirit as that of Jesus, and so everyone produces the same law which are known as the three great loves of the Christian faith: love God absolutely, love neighbor as self, love Christian more than self.

But doesn’t this mean that my motives are self interest, and isn’t that then precisely what I am to be seeking to rid myself of? Exactly, and so the Christian faith is eminently moral, for while it is self interest above all that brings someone into the faith in order to escape hell, the very purpose of the Christian is to lose this same allegiance to self interest, and come to love self equally with neighbor. This is also known as the Christian Paradox.*

[* Note: this can be a powerful notion when evangelizing among Buddhists.]

What is expected of a Christian? Certainly not perfection, but merely the best that he can, such that he is content in his conscience. Nothing more. The promise of Jesus is that if one does this, one will in fact become perfect, even if it is at the moment of death. And so in a sense perfection is expected of the Christian, but not by result of his own efforts, but is provided to the Christian by God in response to that best effort.*

[* Kant put it this way: the hope of the Christian consists in this, that if he will be do is very best, then while this will not be sufficient for the task at hand, nevertheless whatever is missing will be added even though the Christian is not able to fathom how this could be.]

Tell me more specifically about what Jesus was like? What is needed is an understanding of his spirit, and then his actual conduct can be derived from this. He personified the three great loves. He appeared to the world as a Jew and as a result focused his love on the Jews to the neglect of the gentiles unless they were willing to come to him, a Jew. Thus he appeared as the Perfect Jew, and as King of the Jews. In his role of King of the Jews he presumed to derive the law of Moses from conditions existing at that time, and even presumed to rebuke Moses for giving in to the sinful nature of the Jewish people. Consequently he set aside the letter of the law anytime it violated the three loves which were the basis of any law whatsoever, Mosaic or Roman.

Therefore to become like Jesus means that you will seek first of all, before all use, to exemplify a nature attuned above all to the three loves, and only then will you be concerned with other matters such as a law. Jesus exemplified this spirit to a Tee and it is recorded that he broke the law, but it was always for the sake of loving per the three loves. Indeed Jesus realized that the three loves were the basis for all laws in the first place as a well intended person like Moses might deign in faith to issue laws in God’s name (a la Plato) for the sake of providing a sinful and unruly people an orderly existence with a view toward justice and decency. Therefore if you were precisely like Jesus then you would obey all the laws affecting you, religious and secular, except when the letter of those laws violated the spirit of all laws.

Now there are actually two ways of exemplifying Jesus. The first one is as described and might be called the Jewish of Lawful imitation. But there is another imitation, the Greek or Free imitation. And difference is very simple and does not affect essentials.

The Jew seeks to honor God, and thus to love him absolutely, by doing what he said do no matter how arbitrary that might seem. In fact the more arbitrary then the more honor. The Jew is given all these laws whereby to honor God. And so they honor his law in all cases, excepting only when there is a conflict with the law of all laws, the three loves. This was the spirit of Peter and the disciples.

The Greek seeks to honor God, and thus absolutely, by doing what he said. And they have been exempted from adherence to any law at all by the Edict of Gentile Liberty by the Council of Jerusalem. And so the Greek Christian imitates Jesus only in spirit, while the Jewish Christian imitates him also in body, and thus as a law abiding member of Jewish society.

Now since the Greek seeks to exemplify the spirit of Jesus but not in a Jewish body but in a gentile body, he is subject to no law, per the Council, and so he complies with law by personal derivation from the three loves. It goes something like this: I am a world where people can interact safely and orderly and without fear, and since a government aims that that, even if it must use fear to coerce the evil ones, it follows that I would want to support that government. And so while the Greek is free of law, this only means the supremacy of the three loves over any supplied law which is precisely the spirit of Jesus in the body of a Jew.

Hence the paradox. The gentile Christian, while subject to no law, is the model citizen, but not out of fear, but out of conscience.

What if I sin after becoming a Christian? You will sin, and will continue to sin until the day that God makes you perfect in body as you are already perfect, through faith, in spirit.

But mustn’t sin be paid for? Yes indeed. This is the most universal of all the cries of humanity: what is wrong must be punished. A man must get what he deserves. And so when the Christian sins, that sin cannot be dismissed in the human realm of justice, a justice which we also ascribe to God Himself. And it is not dismissed.* The Christian, upon sin, must approach the bench of justice and wait for his punishment. But what happens is this. A payment for this punishment has already been made by Jesus himself who suffered and died in order that we not have to suffer and die. And so the bench of Justice before the repentant, fallen Christian is turned into a banquet table where we sup with Jesus and indeed eat his flesh and blood, all of which was given for us that we, like Barabbas, might have a second chance and can put behind us those things which are past and look forward to the high calling on unity with Christ Jesus in the spirit.

[* This notion will be important when dealing with Hindus.]

Must I join a church? Yes and for a very good reason. When you become a Christian you obligate yourself to do all in your own power to imitate Jesus, either in the flesh, as the Jewish Christians do, or in the spirit alone, as the Greek Christians. Now you live in an evil world where prudence is lauded above all else. The essential prudence is to do as little as is possible in terms of pain and sacrifice in order to obtain a given return such as heaven. But this is the anathema of the spirit of Christ which is to love without any such consideration, i.e., absolutely. And so the world and the spirit of Christ are totally at odds in a very practical way. And since this essential prudence is part of everyone, including the Christian, and since it is exalted in the world, a Christian alone in the world cannot expect to be efficacious in manifesting the spirit of Christ but is always in danger of seduction by the world. Since a person cannot live apart from the world, the Christian draws apart for periods and joins with other Christians in reminding each other of the spirit of Christ and of promoting a love of that spirit. In this way while a Christian is in the world he remains still apart from the world and in this way is able to develop into the expected perfection of Christ even while living and dealing in an evil world.

Am I to be a Jewish/Lawful or Greek/Free Christian? This is a choice that only you can make. If you are a gentile you can simply accept your birthright and become a Free/Greek Christian. But if you are convinced that there are laws binding on a Christian who in turn is then obliged to honor them in order to honor God, then you would be Jewish Christian in spirit and would have to associate with a congregation which had laws. Presumably you would want to be sure that these laws are indeed laws and that they are all of the laws, for if you want to honor God by obeying his law, then you would dishonor him if you failed to honor any of his laws. And since there are many congregations with various laws and various justifications for the selection and interpretation of these laws, you will find that you will have to spend a great deal of time and effort in researching all this.

If you are convinced that there are no such laws, then you are a Greek Christian in spirit and exempt from all this bother and worry.

Both Christians, Jewish/Lawful and Greek/Free, are united by virtue of the supremacy of the three great loves over all law, and indeed the derivation of all binding law from these great loves as applied to the human condition.

What dogma must I assent to? None. Jesus may it clear that his follower is to be counted by what he seeks to do rather than in any dogma. “It is not those saying Lord, Lord who count as my followers, but those doing the will of my father in heaven (the three loves)” In order to be totally integrated into the communion of the local church you will partake of the various rituals, but all of these can be understood as leading to the perfection of the spirit of the three loves within each person. For example, by being a Christian you assume the feasibility of becoming like Christ, and that is expressed formally by a belief in the Resurrection. You assume a personal invitation by virtue of the fact that Jesus died in order to invite all people to his supper table for unfettered sharing. Hence when you assert a belief in the Resurrection and the atoning death you assert your belief in a successful achievement of a nature conducive to the three loves.

What about the Holy Trinity? The Holy Trinity represents the practical expectation of a Christian not only for achieving moral perfection as an individual, but living in a realm of like perfected individuals in a grand communion where there is a single spirit though many, diverse persons. Any trinity is illogical but can still be accepted and ascribed to. Each the left and the right hand can be a perfect exemplification of the idea of a hand, just as Adam and Jesus can both be a perfect exemplification of man, but where as the latter two are interchangeable, e.g., they could conceivably wear the same pants or shirt, the first two are not interchangeable, for they cannot wear the same glove. Two identical things and yet different. And so here we have a 1+1=1, i.e., a left hand = a perfect hand, and a right hand = a perfect hand, but where the addition of this left hand and this right hand do not give us two interchangeable hands, but only a left hand and a right hand, for a left hand and a right hand, each a perfect hand and identical in every respect are still different. Thus we have a mathematical contradiction which is nonetheless true.* And likewise then Father, Son and Holy Spirit are absolutely identical and hence one and the same, and yet are all different and so are also three. As a picture we might say: while they are absolutely identical they cannot wear the same glove.