gentile christian versus book cults

Among holy book cults I count Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Southern Baptist among others. I do not count the Roman Catholics nor the Anglicans, although for different reasons.

Now I will demonstrate this approach with regard to a Jehovah’s Witness and then eventually seek to generalize.

On Converting Jehovah’s Witnesses

When I read the bible with you, looking here and there for the will of God for me, I suddenly stumble upon this assertion: all things are lawful even if they are not expedient. And when I look about to examine the validity and meaning of this assertion, I come upon the following logic in that very bible:

1. Jesus had all authority
2. Jesus conveyed this to his disciples
3. His disciples declared the gentile Christian free of law
4. I am a gentile Christian
5. I am free of law.

Now this means that all that Paul said in his writings are not laws at all, but are to be interpreted as his application of the three great loves (the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit) in a given setting, the three great loves being: love of God absolutely, love of neighbor as self, and love of fellow Christian more than self. When Paul spoke out against long hair on men, for example, he spoke expediently from the three great loves in a given context of his writing. Evidently long hair on men was considered a sign of a rebellious type, i.e., unnatural and hence spiteful, and the church wanted to appear to the world as loving and level headed, and so it follows that for the sake of the appearance of the church you would not wear long hair or do anything unnatural and indecent in the eyes of the beholder now present at any given time.

But he did give binding advice based on the three great loves. Since the greatest sign of the validity of any religion is its unity, it follows that people would not display their freedom from all law except by supporting what leads to unity in Christ, e.g., an orderly society or moral acceptance in the eyes of the people of a book such as the Jews (and the Muslims, he might say today). And so you and I are to be identified in terms of our pursuit of the way of the Lord Jesus and we are on two different ways to one and the same Lord, you are on a right hand way and I am on a left hand way, and while you obey your many laws, I declare my independence and appeal to Christ alone in faith in the name of Paul and the Council of Jerusalem as recorded in his holy scripture. Romans 14 prohibits you from judging me in this. If you have voluntarily surrendered your birthright as a Christian, that is your business; but you have no right to ask me to do the same thing.

And so you follow the bible immediately, and I shall follow the Holy Spirit immediately.

But the Trinity is not a difficult point at all for those who live and breathe in three dimensional space. The whole matter revolves around this, how 1+1+1 = 1. I approach this subject so. It is just as illogical to state that 1+1=1, and yet I shall show that such a state of affairs does in fact exist, as illogical as it must remain. I refer to a left and right hand which (I say for the sake of argument) are clones and where it is even impossible to tell which is first and which is the clone--they are clones of each other. Therefore they both equally represent and identify and exemplify God’s idea of a hand in a three dimensional space, and yet they are different, and if God had first created only a single hand, it would be necessarily either left or right, and so a second creation would be necessary in order for the opposite hand to exist, and yet both would be created from the identical, single concept of hand. And so here in fact two absolutely identical things (two hands) are different (one left the other right) and so sometimes 1+1=1 and so there is no reason to think that 1+1+1 cannot also be 1.

I am now seeking the more general case of dealing with book people in general, e.g., including Jews and Muslims. The Muslim is more interesting to me just now. Here I note merely the obvious. Mohammed was acquainted with sheer bickering between the Christians and Jews and between the Christians and between the Jews. The notion of the gentile Christian had vanished under the onslaught of a state with a religion at hand as another device of political control. Otherwise Mohammed would have seen perfect clarity, namely the freedom of the gentile Christian in possession of a Holy Spirit alone and no bickering about what is right and wrong and what God might have meant or might not have meant and all the confusion and bickering and wondering that comes from a book which is to be viewed (erroneously) as a law book, but is in a confused state. Mohammed is to be commended for his effort to produce an orderly society with protection for the poor and it could have worked except that the human is rebellious of any law, no matter from where and no matter its purpose, and he corrupts the intent of any law by his incessant deviousness and this is due to a corrupted heart. Mohammed did not realize this because he did not have the example of the second Adam in the flesh before his eyes, Paul’s gentile Christian as a fact, the man driven by spirit alone and hence himself a legislator. As an historical figure Mohammed always saw Jesus as another of the prophets, one belonging to the Jews, he was unable to conceive of a Holy Ghost (probably put off by the illogic of the Holy Trinity). And we could even say that God inspired him with beauty of language to put together his own law for the sake of his people, for even though the people of the Koran followed the gentile Christian historically, they preceded him spiritually and psychologically and needed to be prepared and kept in safety until the appearing of Christ in the depiction by Paul in the gentile Christian. [An outstanding example of Wesleyan prevenient grace.] We have Mohammed’s laws in the very voice of God to the Arabs. In the same way that we have Moses’ laws in the very voice of God to the Jews. And nothing (it is said) is more beautiful than the mohammedian poetry. It should always be honored by singing it to suggest its beauty. It was given in utter sincerity of purpose, to save the people.

As I said this is all rather preliminary and needs much thought and editing. But the overall approach is getting very clear: establish the validity of the gentile Christian and all confusion fades into the background noise of the legalists, those who think they have God over a barrel (due to his promises) in a contract, when actually the free gift of gentile Christianity is worth far more than the object of the contract, e.g., supremacy over the earth, for the gift is heaven and the unimaginable world of spirit. Always remember the left and right hands in three dimensional space--this is a key to the Holy Trinity and a key to the Jewish and Gentile Congregations of One Holy, Apostolic Catholic Church.