http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/link.htm
This page is still under construction, we have so many interesting and useful websites that the process may take some time! Please also note that inclusion in this list does not mean Peace Movement Aotearoa necessarily endorses these sites in any way.
If you know of any good sites which would fit into one of the categories below, please send us the URL.
General Peace and Social Justice sites
Peaceful resolution of conflict
Women's Peace Actions
Indigenous Peoples' Concerns
East Timor
Pacific Issues
Stop killing the people of Iraq
NATO bombing / Yugoslavia
Depleted Uranium weapons
Spies, Space and Star Wars
Globalisation/Multinationals
Nuclear Weapons/Non-violent Direct Action
Human rights
Environmental sites
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General Peace and Social Justice sites
Peace Directory of groups in Aotearoa / New Zealand who are working for peace. The Peace Directory includes groups who do not have an Internet presence.
National Consultative Committee on Disarmament Bringing together New Zealand organisations keen to encourage disarmament at home and abroad. Includes resources on disarmament.
Campaign against Landmines (New Zealand) - everything you ever wanted to know about landmine eradication.
Committee for the Establishment of Civilisation - a Wellington-based anarchist group working towards a peaceful society free of hierarchy and all forms of oppression.
Caritas is the Catholic agency for Justice, Peace and Development - their site includes publications, resources, a schools page, and information on topical issues in NZ and overseas.
The Dunedin Methodist web site aka the 'Practical Dreamers Drop-in Centre' (9K) - while bible-focused, it also includes many thought provoking articles for the non-Christian thinker, see if you can find 'Take an inventory of homophobic attitudes' and 'Is God a man ?'. Has good justice and lesbian & gay sections. Well presented, easy to navigate.
The Hikoi of Hope A march in September 1998 to tell the people and goverment of Aotearoa/New Zealand that the level of poverty in our country is intolerable. Enough is enough! There has to be a better way, so we walk for a change. Peace needs social justice!
Joint Methodist-Presbyterian Public Questions Committee includes submissions, petitions, publications, and a topics section which includes peace and social justice issues.
Just Peace - an international conference in peace making and conflict resolution/transformation is planned for April 2000; it will be held at Massey University (Auckland, New Zealand).
Latin Report, brought to you by the Latin America Committee - the first place to go when you want information on Latine American countries.
Le Mouvement de la Paix works for peace and social justice in France. Mainly in French.
New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act
Operation Peace Through Unity Operation Peace Through Unity is a communicating link between "we, the peoples" of all nations, creeds, races, and ideologies. This site includes the text of Operation Peace Through Unity's magazine Many To Many.
Peace Council (Aotearoa /NZ) - a concise and useful developing website, with Peace Council Alerts, 'Peace Digest' archive and more !
Physicians for Social Responsibility works to protect people from environmental health hazards and reduce military spending, working towards a world free from violence.
The Water Pressure Group opposes the commercialisation of the water supply by Auckland company Metrowater Ltd. Lots of information including practical tips on ensuring your water supply.
Peaceful resolution of conflict
Declaration of Human Responsibilities - an idea from Richard Bryant-Jefferies to get human responsibilities on to the personal and global agenda to ensure a sustainable future.
Cool Schools Peer Mediation Programme developed to help teachers initiate peer mediation programmes in schools.
EPOCH NZ - EPOCH's aims are to end the physical punishment of children, promote alternative non-violent ways of helping children behave, and to educate parents on these matters.
Violence Free Schools
Conflict Resolution Network (6K). This comprehensive site takes a broad view of conflict reslution and is packed with news and resources.
International Affairs Network, Peace and Conflict Resolution listings - a list of links to international organisations concerned with the peaceful resolution of conflict.
Women's Peace Actions
Grandmothers for Peace The website of Grandmothers for Peace, a non-profit organization, which was formed in May of 1982 at the height of the Cold War. Contains Action Alerts, photographs and useful links.
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Aotearoa) - WILPF women are opposed to militarism, violence, injustice, and oppression all around the world. This is the site of the WILPF section in Aotearoa / New Zealand, and outlines their work and contact details.
WILPF International - everything you ever wanted to know about women and peace ! plus more...
WILPF (USA) - includes information about WILPF's campaigns in the United States, and UN, also international work and actions women can take.
Women Insist on Nuclear Disarmament! An initiative of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Reaching Critical Will - a new disarmament initiative that seeks, through education and imagination, to broaden the debate on the abolition of nuclear weapons.
WoMenwith Hill Women's Peace Camp - the women's campaign to close Menwith Hill Spy Base (England), includes information on their court cases, The Amaz(on)ing Herstory of the Legendary Flossie Mintballs, and links to other related sites and more!
WAND - Women's Action for New Directions Aims to empower women to act politically, to reduce militarism and violence, and to redirect excessive military resources toward human and environmental needs.
Indigenous Peoples' Concerns
Criminalise Biopiracy ! The Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB)'s website is an amazing resource with a focus on biotechnology, genetic research and what you can do about it all. The site is well laid out and absolutely full of excellent information.
Tino Rangatiratanga - the site which focuses on the ongoing struggle for Tino Rangatiratanga and the people who continue to resist the pressures of colonisation and cultural and economic genocide. Loads of useful and thought provoking information and links.
From Hawaiki to Hawaiki: the Mäori people of Aotearoa / New Zealand, includes 'the magic of being Mäori'; an excellent research sources section and much more.
Maori 2000.com - web building and web design, online web design workshop for beginners, also includes Consultus Pasifque Ltd - a community development and Mäori development consultancy.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi - the text of the Treaty in Mäori and English.
Draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is the latest draft of the Indigenous Rights document which has been the subject of much negotiation for some years. The negotiations continue.
Fourth World Documentation Project Indigenous Peoples' Information for the Online Community
Indigenous Environmental Network is an alliance of grassroots indigenous peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth from contamination and exploitation by strengthening, maintaining and respecting the traditional teachings and natural laws.
Online comment on Draft Document for Reconciliation - information on 'Finding Common Ground', on the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and the Draft Document for Reconciliation, available for viewing and comment.
Mining the Lands of Native Peoples - from the Tundra and Rainforest. Drawn from a constantly updated and extensive database on the impact of mining and indigenous people gathered over 23 years of research.
Native Environmental Coalition of Native Americans aims to educate about the health dangers of radioactivity, to network with Indian and Non-Indian environmentalists to build a grassroots counter-movement to the nuclear industry, and to declare tribal Nuclear-Free Zones across the nation. Lots of information here.
Shundahai Network This was set up at the request of the Western Shoshone to bridge the gap between environmental, peace, justice and indigenous land rights communities.
1999 World Indigenous Peoples' Conference on Education
East Timor
East Timor index page on PMA's website - news and views
East Timor Action network (US) for all the latest news and alerts
International Federation for East Timor IFET's East Timor Observer Project involves international NGO's monitoring the situation in East Timor in the run-up to the autonomy ballot, including information since the ballot.
Free East Timor (FRET) - the coalition of groups working on East Timor here in Aotearoa / New Zealand, very useful background information, well laid out and easy to read.
UNAMET - UN Mission in East Timor all the latest information directly from UNAMET people in East Timor.
Pacific Issues
Australian Anti-Militarism Web Site Peace news, groups and campaigns in Australia.
The Development Resource Centre spreads information about the developing world and development issues. This site incorporates the Pacific Development Directory.
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS) aims to develop greater coherence between local community-based and national, regional, and global paradigms of change.
Gundjehmi Corporation - the site of the Mirrar people. This site has a particular focus on the full-on efforts to stop the opening of Jabiluka (new uranium mine) in Kakadu National Park.
Pacific Action This is an invaluable site for Pacific information, with comprehensive coverage of a wide range of topics, and also lots of things to do!
Pacific Institute of Resource Management This site features a selection of writings on the theme of how to move towards a just, sustainable, and democratic global society, living in harmony with the natural world.
Pacific Concerns Resource Centre - home to the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement secretariat, a concise and easily navigated website.
Pacific Islands report Excellent up to the minute information on Pacific concerns, news and views.
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation Includes information on Pacific peoples.
Stop killing the people of Iraq
'Stop killing the people of Iraq' - PMA's index page on Iraq.
ISMAG - Iraq Sanctions Medical Alert Group objectives are (a) to get the sanctions against the people of Iraq lifted immediately to bring an end to the appalling public health diasaster the sanctions have caused (b) to raise funds to send medicine and humanitarian supplies to the people of Iraq and (c) to increase public awareness. This site includes photographs and FAQ.
New Zealand Anti-Gulf War Website includes PMA Action Alerts on the Anti-Gulf War Website, containing archived information from the period Nov. 1997 - Feb 1998. This website was developed by Kyle Matthews of Web Services New Zealand during the crisis in February 1998 when the US government was planning a further military attack. Web Services New Zealand provided this as part of its committment to providing an accessible internet presence for community and non-profit organisations.
International Action Centre The IAC was initiated in 1992 by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and many antiwar activists to expose the US bombing of innocent Iraqi civilians and the massive destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure. This site contains invaluable material on the use and effects of Depleted Uranium Weapons and much more....
Iraq Program - of the American Friends Service Committee. This is an excellent resource, full of information and things to do (although the latter are US focussed, some of the ideas can be modified for elsewhere). Links to the main AFSC site which is a truly comprehensive peace and social justice resource.
Voices in the Wilderness - one of the Iraq sanctions busting groups who are campaigning to end the economic sanctions, VitW take medical and other supplies direct to the people of Iraq. Loads of info and ideas on this site.
National Committee for Missing & POW's Affairs : Kuwait - page on Kuwaiti POWs held in Iraq.
Nato bombing / Yugoslavia
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and its aftermath - PMA index page.
Ecological catastrophe & health hazards of the NATO bombings: an annotated url referenced list of internet articles, news, press releases.
Anglo-Yugoslav Medical Aid - they provide medical supplies for the treatment of all 24 ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, via the Red Cross, their website has much useful information.
Yugoslav community in Wellington website - Information from people of Yugoslavian descent living in Aotearoa /NZ
Radio B92 website - for alternative news direct
NGO Media - news from independent NGOs
Human Rights Watch You may wish to refer to their Focus on Kosovo pages, which have a particularly useful links section - http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/index.htm
Words from women in Former Yugoslavia - news, views and photos from women journalists, and women opposing militarism and violence in the region
Depleted Uranium weapons
Depleted uranium weapons : this detailed brochure, written in preparation for the Hague Appeal for Peace conference, has everything you could ever wish to know about DU and DU weapons ... see also the International Action Centre.
Spies, Space and Star Wars
Spies, secret services... - PMA index page.
Star Wars/Weapons in Space - PMA index page
Security & Intelligence in Aotearoa New Zealand: featured in the May 2000 'Te Putatara' is an in-depth analysis of all the organs of the state that conduct security and intelligence operations against the citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand, and against foreigners, including the SIS, GCSB, EAB, CIS, UCMe, ICU, ABC, XYZ and many others. And an invitation to join the Maori Intelligence Service (MIS) in the Dungeon Bar.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website on Echelon - the global electronic surveillance system. This site encourages public discussion of the potential threat that Echelon poses to civil liberties, and allows visitors to fax free letters to Congress, urging their support for a congressional inquiry into the Echelon project. It also provides a collection of research documents on Echelon.
Canadian article on Echelon - a new report on the Echelon spy network (which includes Waihopai).
Cyber-Rights and Cyber-Liberties (UK), a non-profit civil liberties organisation - this site has everything you could ever possibly wish to know about the interception of electronic messages, spies, the policing of cyberspace and much more !
Campaign to Close Menwith Hill Spy Base (England) - includes the story of Menwith and opposition to it (especially the WoMenwith Hill Women's Peace Camp and related court cases), report on the recent Colorado Conference of the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, links through to the pages of those who wish to wage war in space and much much more ...
Pine Gap (Australia) - information about the SIGINT gathering station near Alice Springs, one of the largest and most secretive spy bases in the world.
Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space -this site has all you could ever want to know about the militarisation and nuclearisation of space.
Globalisation/Multinationals
Resist WTO, APEC, economic globalisation - PMA's index page.
http://www.economic-myth-busters.org.nz/ - lots of information showing how the New Zealand experiment over the last 15 years has proved that "neo liberal - free market" theory doesn't work in practice.
POCLAD - Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy : a thought provoking collection of articles designed to engage you ! US focussed, but universally useful.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa opposes foreign control, and the exploitation of Aotearoa's people and resources by foreign companies and any foreign military or intelligence activities in Aotearoa. The site lists Overseas Investment Commission decisions
End the Arms Race have a study of the MAI: Protecting War: Militarism and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which you can read at this site.
Its' Not Worth It - The Aotearoa / NZ Monitoring Group website was the official virtual site of opposition to APEC 99. All your questions about APEC 99 answered, and more ...
Multinational Monitor - this online journal tracks corporate activity, especially in the Third World, focusing on the export of hazardous substances, worker health, and safety, labour union issues and the environment.
MAI - The Multilateral Agreement on Investment, aka how to bypass democracy and the people in the interests of corporations and profits for the rich. Global opposition to this can be found at this site.
MAI - the Aotearoa/NZ perspective
A Short History of Neo-liberalism - twenty years of elite economics and emerging opportunities for structural change, by Susan George. Your (relatively) simple guide to how neo-liberalism came to take over the world ...
Nuclear Weapons/Non-violent direct action
Trident Ploughshares 2000 Trident Ploughshares 2000 is a mass nuclear ploughshares action at Faslane in Scotland, which started in May 1998, citizens endeavouring to peacefully disarm the British Nuclear Trident submarine system by 1st January 2000.
View the Abolition 2000 statement
Participants in the Abolition 2000 network - as of July 10, 1998: 1,089 organizations in 76 countries.
Human rights
Amnesty International's site includes campaigns, links, news and access to a library of human rights related documents.
Human Rights Action Group is part of the community of university students committed to peace and human rights activities around the world.
Latin America Committee exists to spread information about development issues and current events in Latin America. Includes the full text of Latin America Report.
Tibet Awareness Site includes information on Tibet's political situation and history.
Environmental sites
Environmental and health issues - PMA's index page.
NLP (Wessex) Campaign to Ban Genetically Engineered Food contains an excellent collection of information on GE food.
Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki Inc. is campaigning against mining of the land and coast of Coromandel. Includes press clippings, information on mining pollution, aerial photos of landslide and scientific reports.
Christchurch Environment Centre - contact details and mission statement
Earth Charter website Provides a comprehensive picture of Earth Charter activity around the world, and acts as a gateway to independent sites created by national Earth Charter committees.
Ecological catastrophe & health hazards of the NATO bombings: an annotated url referenced list of internet articles, news, press releases.
Greenpeace New Zealand . This site contains information about current campaigns of Greenpeace and tips for action, along with lots of graphics.
Native Forest Action is dedicated to halting the logging of publicly-owned native forests by the SOE Timberlands. This site contains lots of background information and contact information.
Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics - small but focused website containing lots of useful information and links about genetic engineering.
Revolt Against Genetic Engineering website : RAGE in your community ! Everything you ever wanted to know about genetically modified foods, crops and more ...
SAFE - Save Animals From Exploitation - an excellent website with lots of helpful information on 'affirmative living' and being a 'caring consumer'. If you are want to live in a way which does not harm animals, or find out about protesting against animal exploitation, then this is the site for you !
Rainbow Linx Search site and directory for Aotearoa/NZ environmental activities. Also has international links. Very high graphics content.
New Zealand Vegetarian Society, Wellington Branch provides information useful to vegetarians and vegans
Action Alerts PMA's newsletter What's on where Peace links Help PMA grow How PMA can help you Petition Forms Site Map
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
~Herm Albright~
"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."
Geometrically Ordered Divinity (G.O.D.)
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Jesus Was Not A Jew
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jesusjew.htm
JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
Benjamin H. Freedman, Jewish Historian - Researcher - Scholar.
From "Common Sense", p. 2-1-53 and 5-1-59
"Christians have been duped by the unholiest hoax in all history, by so-called Jews. This is considered their most effective weapon."
"This 'big lie' technique is brainwashing United States Christians into believing that Jesus Christ was "King of the Jews", in the sense that so-called 'Jews' today call themselves 'Jews'. This reference was first made in English translations of the Old and New Testaments, centuries before the so-called Jews highjacked the word 'Jew' in the 18th century A.D. to palm themselves off on the Christian world as having a kinship with Jesus Christ. This alleged kinship comes from the myth of their common ancestry with the so-called 'Jews' of the Holy Land in the Old Testament history, a fiction based on fable."
"American Christians little suspect they are being brainwashed twenty-four hours of every day over television and radio, by newspapers and magazines, by motion pictures and plays, by books, by political leaders in office and seeking office, by religious leaders in their pulpits and outside their churches, by leaders in the field of education inside and outside their curricular activities, and by all leaders in business, professions and finance, whose economic security demands that they curry the favor of so-called "Jews" of historic Khazar ancestry. Unsuspecting Christians are subjected to this barrage from sources they have little reason to suspect. Incontestable facts supply the unchallengeable proof of the historic accuracy that so-called "Jews" throughout the world today of eastern European origin are unquestionably the historic descendants of the Khazars, a pagan Turko-Finn ancient Mongoloid nation deep in the heart of Asia, according to history, who battled their way in bloody wars about the 1st century B.C. into eastern Europe where they set up their Khazar kingdom. For some mysterious reason the history of the Khazar kingdom is conspicuous by its absence from history courses in the schools and colleges.
"The historic existence of the Khazar kingdom of so-called "Jews", their rise and fall, the permanent disappearance of the Khazar kingdom as a nation from the map of Europe, and how King Bulan and the Khazar nation in about 740 A.D. became so-called "Jews" by conversion, were concealed from American Christians by censorship imposed by so-called "Jews", of historic Khazar ancestry, upon all U.S.A. media of mass communications directed by them. Then in 1945 this author gave nation-wide publicity to his many years intensive research into the "facts of life" concerning Khazars. The disclosures were sensational and very effective but apparently angered so-called "Jews" who have continued to vent their spleen upon this author since then solely for that reason. Since 1946 they have conducted a vicious smear campaign against him, seeking thus to further conceal these facts, for obvious reasons. What have they to fear from the truth?
"In an original 1903 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia in New York's Public Library, and in the Library of Congress, Volume IV, pages 1 to 5 inclusive, appears a most comprehensive history of the Khazars. Also in the New York Public Library are 327 books by the world's greatest historians and other sources of reference, in addition to the Jewish Encyclopedia, dealing with Khazar history, and written between the 3rd A.D. and 20th centuries by contemporaries of the Khazars and by modern historians on that subject."
Jesus was a 'Judean', not a Jew.
During His lifetime, no persons were described as "Jews" anywhere. That fact is supported by theology, history and science. When Jesus was in Judea, it was not the "homeland" of the ancestors of those who today style themselves "Jews". Their ancestors never set a foot in Judea. They existed at that time in Asia, their "homeland", and were known as Khazars. In none of the manuscripts of the original Old or New Testament was Jesus described or referred to as a "Jew". The term originated in the late eighteenth century as an abbreviation of the term Judean and refers to a resident of Judea without regard to race or religion, just as the term "Texan" signifies a person living in Texas.
In spite of the powerful propaganda effort of the so-called "Jews", they have been unable to prove in recorded history that there is one record, prior to that period, of a race religion or nationality, referred to as "Jew". The religious sect in Judea, in the time of Jesus, to which self-styled "Jews" today refer to as "Jews", were known as "Pharisees". "Judaism" today and "Pharisaism" in the time of Jesus are the same.
Jesus abhorred and denounced "Pharisaism"; hence the words, "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites, Ye Serpents, Ye Generation of Vipers".
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JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
by Jason Collett
Many denominational Christians and even church leaders are under the mistaken belief that Jesus was a Jew. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Judea and Galilee were two separate states and political entities, as illustrated on the map of Palestine in the time of our Saviour in your Bible. Jesus Himself was not a Jew (Judean) or resident of Judea, He was a Galilean or resident of Galilee (Matthew 26:69; John 7:41), and a Judahite or descendent of the Tribe of Judah. The Judeans of prominence were not of the Tribe of Judah, but of Edomites. Pilate was being ironic when he wrote the sign "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Judeans" for the Cross (John 19:19). That is, "the Galilean who was King of the Judeans," as in "Queen Victoria of England, Empress of India." Jesus grew up in Nazareth in Galilee. His disciples were fishermen from the Sea of Galilee. And although He visited Jerusalem, he spent most of His life in his home country of Galilee. John 7:1, "After this Jesus stayed in Galilee; for He could not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him." His followers were constrained "for fear of the Jews" (John 7:13, 19:38, 20:19).
Why was this?
Psalm 83:3 says God's elect are "hidden" or protected ones, and that they are under attack from a coalition of evil groups led by Edom. Who was Edom?
Esau, the brother of the patriarch Jacob, became the ancestor of the people called Edom, or Idumea. The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, XIII ix 1; XV vii 9 instructs us: John Hyrcanus forcibly assimilated the Edomites as a national group and they became "Jews" in about 120BC. The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived just after the time of Christ, wrote, "They [Edom] were hereafter no other than Jews'. The Jewish scholar Cecil Roth in his Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (1980) says on page 154, "John Hyrcanus forcibly converted [Edom] to Judaism. From then on they were part of the Jewish people. In the Talmud the name of Edom was applied to Christian Rome, and was then used for Christianity in general".
Terrible judgements against Edom are made in most of the prophecies of the Old Testament. For instance, Isaiah 34, 63, Jeremiah 49, and the entire book of Obadiah.
Isaiah 63:1-6, "Who is this coming from Edom . . . in garments stained with crimson? It is I [the Lord] who speak in righteousness and am mighty to save."
"Why are your garments red, as if you had trodden the winepress?"
"I have trodden the winepress alone: and of the people there was none to help Me. In My anger I trod them down, trampled them in My wrath. Their blood splattered My garments, and all My clothes are stained. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. . . I will tread down the people in My anger, and bring their blood upon the ground".
These verses refer to Revelations chapter 19:11-21, when the Word of God destroys His enemies: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse: and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. . . His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns, and He had a Name written that no man knew but Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God. . . and He trod the winepress of God’s fierce anger".
Jehovah of the Old Testament "hated Esau (Edom), against whom He has indignation forever" (Malachi 1:2-4). If Jesus will destroy Edom when He returns, then Edom is present today, and obviously evil, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic.
The Edomite, Antipater, became the Procurator of Judea in 47BC. Ten years later his son Herod actually became "king of the Jews," initiating the Edomite dynasty which ruled Palestine under Roman authority for over a hundred years. The Edomite assimilation opened the way for the virtual takeover along the lines predicted by Ezekiel and stimulus for an influx of population from the arid country of Edom into the more hospitable environment of Judea, an influx obviously encouraged for political reasons by the ruling Herodian dynasty. Edomites would have been appointed to the most influential positions, in order to extend and consolidate Edomite authority over the land and its people. Herod became notorious for his massacre of infant boys two years old and undger," a supernaturally inspired attempt on the life of Christ (Matthew 2:16). Herod's son Herod Antipas, continuing the work, and was responsible for the gruesome murder of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:6-12).
Christ demonstrated a very real antipathy towards the people called Jews, in Bibles published after about 1776, but who would be more accurately described as Judeans, or residents of the Edomite-dominated territory of Judea. Jesus said to the Jews "You do not believe because you are not of My sheep" (John 10:24-27). "I was only sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). In fact, Christ referred to "those Jews (or residents of Judea regardless of religion, race or color) who believed on him," as "of their father the devil" for although they were children of Abraham, they were not children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and heirs of the blessing of Abraham, nor did they have the faith of Abraham, and were in all probability descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Esau (John 8: 31,44). In contrast, Jesus instructed His disciples - who were from Galilee of the Gentiles, not Judea (Acts 1:11; 2:7) - to pray to And in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, Jesus speaks of "those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan".
The Jews shouted "Crucify Him!" (John 19:15); "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25). In an appropriate turn about, when Jesus returns, their blood will stain His own garments. The spiritual leaders of the Jews were the Pharisees, who not surprisingly were associated with the (Edomite) Herodians (Matthew 22:15-16; Mark 3:6; 12:13). Jesus repeatedly condemned the Pharisees as "hypocrites" (Matthew 15:7; 22:18; 23:13,15,23,25,27-27). He also called them "serpents, the offspring of vipers" (Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33).
"Jesus spoke to the crowds only in parables" (Matthew 13:10-17). Why was this? Many nominal churches and Sunday schools teach that Jesus used parables to make His teachings clearer. But all four Gospels say the opposite. When Jesus was asked why He spoke to them in parables, He replied "Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given" (Matthew 13:10-11; Mark 4:11-12; Luke 8:9-10; John 12:37-44). Brother Branham simply said, Jesus spoke in parables to thin down the crowds.
Jesus told "those Jews who believed in Him . . . You are of your father the devil, and lust for what is forbidden. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him . . . as he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:31-44). This characteristic is confirmed by the dictionary definition of the verb jew .
But do Jews ever come up with such brazenly audacious lies, lies so enormous in scope and implication as to qualify as "chutzpah," so admired by Jews?
Norman G. Finkelstein of the City University of New York says:
"The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world’s most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a ‘victim’ state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood – in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified" (Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (2000) published by Verso, p. 3).
In other words, Finkelstein exposes the HYPOCRISY.
Some further quotes:
"In an authoritative study, Leonard Dinnerstein reported: Sixty thousand Jews . . . walked out of the concentration camps. Within a week more than 20,000 of them had died." But ‘As it entered into negotiations with Germany [just two years ago, in 1999], the Holocaust industry demanded compensation for 135,000 still living former (camp inmates).’
On page 83 he notes that ‘The Israeli Prime Minister’s office recently put the number of "living Holocaust survivors" at nearly a million.’ Finkelstein exposes the LIES.
On page 127 he further notes ‘If 135,000 former Jewish slave laborers are still alive today, some 600,000 must have survived the war. That’s at least a half-million more than standard estimates. . . If Jews only constituted 20% of the surviving camp population and, as the Holocaust industry implies, 600,000 Jewish inmates survived the war, then fully 3 million inmates in total must have survived. By the Holocaust industry’s reckoning, concentration camp conditions couldn’t have been that harsh at all; in fact, one must suppose a remarkably high fertility and remarkably low mortality rate. . . If, as the Holocaust industry suggests, many hundreds of thousands of Jews survived, the Final Solution couldn’t have been so efficient after all – exactly what Holocaust deniers argue" (pp. 127-8).
"Both my father and my mother were survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. . . One of my father’s lifelong friends was a former inmate with him in Auschwitz, a seemingly incorruptible left-wing idealist who on principle refused German compensation after the war. Eventually he became a director of the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. Reluctantly and with genuine disappointment, my father finally admitted that even this man had been corrupted by the Holocaust industry, tailoring his beliefs for power and profit. As the rendering of the Holocaust assumed ever more absurd forms, my mother liked to quote (with intentional irony) Henry Ford: "History is bunk." (ibid. p. 7).
"The Holocaust proved to be the perfect weapon for deflecting criticism of Israel" (ibid p. 30).
"Much of the literature on Hitler’s Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud." (p. 55).
"Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics". (p. 68).
"Annual Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust are a national event. All 50 states sponsor commemorations, often in state legislative chambers. . . Seven major Holocaust museums dot the American landscape. The centerpiece of this memorialization is the United States Holocaust museum in Washington. . . [This] museum’s annual budget is $50 million, of which $30 million is federally subsidized." (p. 72). (This is in spite of the fact that, as he points out on page 32, per capita Jewish income in the US is almost double that of non-Jews).
"With a reelection campaign looming, Jimmy Carter initiated the [US Holocaust Museum] project to placate Jewish contributors and voters, galled by the president’s recognition of the "legitimate rights" of Palestinians.’ (p. 73).
Finkelstein exposes the SWINDLE, a word formerly most often associated with Jews.
"The Holocaust" is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality. The Holocaust is not an arbitrary, but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests." (p. 3). And:
"The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the "greatest robbery in the history of mankind". . . The Holocaust industry has clearly gone berserk." (p. 138-9).
Is this evaluation fair?
Have a look at a typical account by one of the seemingly endless number of survivors: Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys: a woman survivor’s true story of Auschwitz (Granada/Ziff-Davis, 1947, 1972).
The blurb on the cover of the book quotes the New York Herald-Tribune: "Passionate, tormenting". Albert Einstein, the promoter of the US construction of the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is quoted as offering "You have done a real service by letting the ones who are now silent and most forgotten (sic) speak."
Lengyel says:
"After June, 1943, the gas chamber was reserved exclusively for Jews and Gypsies. . . Three hundred and sixty corpses every half-hour, which was all the time it took to reduce human flesh to ashes, made 720 per hour, or 17,280 corpses per twenty-four hour shift. And the ovens, with murderous efficiency, functioned day and night. However, one must also reckon the death pits, which could destroy another 8,000 cadavers a day. In round numbers, about 24,000 corpses were handled each day. An admirable production record, one that speaks well for German industry." (Paperback edition, pp. 80-81). [No trace of any remains of or in ‘death pits’ has been found.]
This implies almost 100,000 corpses per four working days, or a million in 40 days, or six million in 240 days (eight months).
Could this claim be a misprint?
Kitty Hart, in spite of her name, a Jewish survivor born in Poland, fully confirms these figures:
"Working around the clock, the four units together could dispose of about 18,000 bodies every twenty-four hours, while the open pits coped with a further 8,000 in the same period." (p. 118; Return to Auschwitz - paperback edition by Granada (1981, 1983).
According to the cover blurb, "The subject of the award-winning Yorkshire television documentary of the same name." "Both engaging and harrowing . . . an important addition to the growing holocaust literature, very little of which conveys so courageously both the daily torment and the will to survive" – Martin Gilbert, The Times.
Martin Gilbert, indefatigable Jewish campaigner on behalf of the ‘Holocaust’ and biographer of Winston Churchill, adds to the rich flavour and makes his own numerical claims, certainly not without chutzpah:
In his book Auschwitz and the Allies (1981) he states:
"The deliberate attempt to destroy systematically all of Europe’s Jews was unsuspected in the spring and early summer of 1942: the very period during which it was at its most intense, and during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed every day at Belzec, Chelmo, Sobibor and Treblinka." (p. 26).
If we assume a minimum figure of 200,000 per day, this amounts to say one million over a five-day working week, or 6 million in six weeks, and this does not include the truly awe-inspiring claims for Auschwitz put forward by Hart and Lengyel with Gilbert’s blessing.
A detailed forensic examination of the site of the wartime Treblinka camp, using sophisticated electronic ground penetrating radar, has found no evidence of mass graves there.
For six days in October 1999, an Australian team headed by Richard Krege, a qualified electronics engineer, carried out an examination of the soil at the site of the former Treblinka II camp in Poland, where, Holocaust historians say, more than half a million Jews were put to death in gas chambers and then buried in mass graves.
According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1997), for example, "a total of 870,000 people" were killed and buried at Treblinka between July 1942 and April 1943. Then, between April and July 1943, the hundreds of thousands of corpses were allegedly dug up and burned in batches of 2,000 or 2,500 on large grids made of railway ties.
Krege's team used an $80,000 Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) device, which sends out vertical radar signals that are visible on a computer monitor. GPR detects any large-scale disturbances in the soil structure to a normal effective depth of four or five meters, and sometimes up to ten meters. (GPR devices are routinely used around the world by geologists, archeologists, and police.) In its Treblinka investigation, Krege's team also carried out visual soil inspections, and used an auger to take numerous soil core samples.
The team carefully examined the entire Treblinka II site, especially the alleged "mass graves" portion, and carried out control examinations of the surrounding area. They found no soil disturbance consistent with the burial of hundreds of thousands of bodies, or even evidence that the ground had ever been disturbed. In addition, Krege and his team found no evidence of individual graves, bone remains, human ashes, or wood ashes.
"From these scans we could clearly identify the largely undisturbed horizontal stratigraphic layering, better known as horizons, of the soil under the camp site," says the 30-year old Krege, who lives in Canberra. "We know from scans of grave sites, and other sites with known soil disturbances, such as quarries, when this natural layering is massively disrupted or missing altogether." Because normal geological processes are very slow acting, disruption of the soil structure would have been detectable even after 60 years, Krege noted.
While his initial investigation suggests that there were never any mass graves at the Treblinka camp site, Krege believes that further work is still called for.
"Historians say that the bodies were exhumed and cremated toward the end of the Treblinka camp's use in 1943, but we found no indication that any mass graves ever existed," he says. "Personally, I don't think there was a mass extermination camp there at all."
Krege prepared a detailed report on his Treblinka investigation. He says that he would welcome the formation, possibly under United Nations auspices, of an international team of neutral, qualified specialists, to carry out similar investigations at the sites of all the wartime German camps.
(Sources: "'Vernichtungslager' Treblinka: archaelogisch betrachtet," by Ing. Richard Krege, in Vierteljarhreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, June 2000 [4. Jg., Heft 1], pp. 62-64; "'No Jewish mass grave' in Poland," The Canberra Times, January 24, 2000, p. 6; "Poland's Jews 'not buried at Treblinka'," The Examiner [Australia], Jan. 24, 2000. Information provided by Richard Krege; M. Weber and A. Allen, "Treblinka," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1992, pp. 133-158; Y. Arad, "Treblinka," in I. Gutman, ed., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust [New York: 1997], pp. 1481-1488.)
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Who was the First Jew?
John Standring
We know that Saul was the first king of Israel and that John was the first man called Baptist, but who was the first Jew? Neither Adam, Seth or Noah are called Jew. Nor were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Moses was not called a Jew and neither were Saul, David or Solomon called Jew. In fact you will not find the word Jew in the first eleven books of the Bible. The first time Jews are mentioned in the Bible, is in II Kings 16:6 (and then only in translations revised in the eighteenth century) where we find Israel was at war with the Jews and drave the Jews from Elath. Isn't it interesting that we can read over five hundred pages of the Bible before we find a Jew anywhere, yet those who call themselves Jew today claim the first five books of the bible and call it their Torah. Do you not find it rather strange that those who claim to have written the first five books of the Bible and call themselves Jew, can't find the word Jew written anywhere in the book they call their own bible, and claim to have written? Jesus Christ tells John in Revelation 2:9 "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN". We know that God changed the name of Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17:5, and that He changed the name of Jacob to Israel in Genesis 32:28, but nowhere in the Bible do we find where God changed the name of Israel to Jew! There is therefore no authority by which those who say they are Jews can claim to be Israel!
By the time of Jesus the word Edom or Edomite had been translated by Greek and Latin into Ioudaios and Iudaeus meaning a Judean or person living in Judea. The original King James version of the Bible, 1611, translated Idumaean-Judean into Iewes. It wasn't until the revised editions of the King James Bible, that the word Jew appeared. The word Jew does not mean Israel or Israelite! We must conclude therefore that the first "Jews" were Canaanite-Edomite-Hittite. It is certain, according to the Bible, that Jews are not Israel. jesusjew.htm
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http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
~Herm Albright~
"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."
Geometrically Ordered Divinity (G.O.D.)
JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
Benjamin H. Freedman, Jewish Historian - Researcher - Scholar.
From "Common Sense", p. 2-1-53 and 5-1-59
"Christians have been duped by the unholiest hoax in all history, by so-called Jews. This is considered their most effective weapon."
"This 'big lie' technique is brainwashing United States Christians into believing that Jesus Christ was "King of the Jews", in the sense that so-called 'Jews' today call themselves 'Jews'. This reference was first made in English translations of the Old and New Testaments, centuries before the so-called Jews highjacked the word 'Jew' in the 18th century A.D. to palm themselves off on the Christian world as having a kinship with Jesus Christ. This alleged kinship comes from the myth of their common ancestry with the so-called 'Jews' of the Holy Land in the Old Testament history, a fiction based on fable."
"American Christians little suspect they are being brainwashed twenty-four hours of every day over television and radio, by newspapers and magazines, by motion pictures and plays, by books, by political leaders in office and seeking office, by religious leaders in their pulpits and outside their churches, by leaders in the field of education inside and outside their curricular activities, and by all leaders in business, professions and finance, whose economic security demands that they curry the favor of so-called "Jews" of historic Khazar ancestry. Unsuspecting Christians are subjected to this barrage from sources they have little reason to suspect. Incontestable facts supply the unchallengeable proof of the historic accuracy that so-called "Jews" throughout the world today of eastern European origin are unquestionably the historic descendants of the Khazars, a pagan Turko-Finn ancient Mongoloid nation deep in the heart of Asia, according to history, who battled their way in bloody wars about the 1st century B.C. into eastern Europe where they set up their Khazar kingdom. For some mysterious reason the history of the Khazar kingdom is conspicuous by its absence from history courses in the schools and colleges.
"The historic existence of the Khazar kingdom of so-called "Jews", their rise and fall, the permanent disappearance of the Khazar kingdom as a nation from the map of Europe, and how King Bulan and the Khazar nation in about 740 A.D. became so-called "Jews" by conversion, were concealed from American Christians by censorship imposed by so-called "Jews", of historic Khazar ancestry, upon all U.S.A. media of mass communications directed by them. Then in 1945 this author gave nation-wide publicity to his many years intensive research into the "facts of life" concerning Khazars. The disclosures were sensational and very effective but apparently angered so-called "Jews" who have continued to vent their spleen upon this author since then solely for that reason. Since 1946 they have conducted a vicious smear campaign against him, seeking thus to further conceal these facts, for obvious reasons. What have they to fear from the truth?
"In an original 1903 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia in New York's Public Library, and in the Library of Congress, Volume IV, pages 1 to 5 inclusive, appears a most comprehensive history of the Khazars. Also in the New York Public Library are 327 books by the world's greatest historians and other sources of reference, in addition to the Jewish Encyclopedia, dealing with Khazar history, and written between the 3rd A.D. and 20th centuries by contemporaries of the Khazars and by modern historians on that subject."
Jesus was a 'Judean', not a Jew.
During His lifetime, no persons were described as "Jews" anywhere. That fact is supported by theology, history and science. When Jesus was in Judea, it was not the "homeland" of the ancestors of those who today style themselves "Jews". Their ancestors never set a foot in Judea. They existed at that time in Asia, their "homeland", and were known as Khazars. In none of the manuscripts of the original Old or New Testament was Jesus described or referred to as a "Jew". The term originated in the late eighteenth century as an abbreviation of the term Judean and refers to a resident of Judea without regard to race or religion, just as the term "Texan" signifies a person living in Texas.
In spite of the powerful propaganda effort of the so-called "Jews", they have been unable to prove in recorded history that there is one record, prior to that period, of a race religion or nationality, referred to as "Jew". The religious sect in Judea, in the time of Jesus, to which self-styled "Jews" today refer to as "Jews", were known as "Pharisees". "Judaism" today and "Pharisaism" in the time of Jesus are the same.
Jesus abhorred and denounced "Pharisaism"; hence the words, "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites, Ye Serpents, Ye Generation of Vipers".
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JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
by Jason Collett
Many denominational Christians and even church leaders are under the mistaken belief that Jesus was a Jew. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Judea and Galilee were two separate states and political entities, as illustrated on the map of Palestine in the time of our Saviour in your Bible. Jesus Himself was not a Jew (Judean) or resident of Judea, He was a Galilean or resident of Galilee (Matthew 26:69; John 7:41), and a Judahite or descendent of the Tribe of Judah. The Judeans of prominence were not of the Tribe of Judah, but of Edomites. Pilate was being ironic when he wrote the sign "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Judeans" for the Cross (John 19:19). That is, "the Galilean who was King of the Judeans," as in "Queen Victoria of England, Empress of India." Jesus grew up in Nazareth in Galilee. His disciples were fishermen from the Sea of Galilee. And although He visited Jerusalem, he spent most of His life in his home country of Galilee. John 7:1, "After this Jesus stayed in Galilee; for He could not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him." His followers were constrained "for fear of the Jews" (John 7:13, 19:38, 20:19).
Why was this?
Psalm 83:3 says God's elect are "hidden" or protected ones, and that they are under attack from a coalition of evil groups led by Edom. Who was Edom?
Esau, the brother of the patriarch Jacob, became the ancestor of the people called Edom, or Idumea. The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, XIII ix 1; XV vii 9 instructs us: John Hyrcanus forcibly assimilated the Edomites as a national group and they became "Jews" in about 120BC. The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived just after the time of Christ, wrote, "They [Edom] were hereafter no other than Jews'. The Jewish scholar Cecil Roth in his Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (1980) says on page 154, "John Hyrcanus forcibly converted [Edom] to Judaism. From then on they were part of the Jewish people. In the Talmud the name of Edom was applied to Christian Rome, and was then used for Christianity in general".
Terrible judgements against Edom are made in most of the prophecies of the Old Testament. For instance, Isaiah 34, 63, Jeremiah 49, and the entire book of Obadiah.
Isaiah 63:1-6, "Who is this coming from Edom . . . in garments stained with crimson? It is I [the Lord] who speak in righteousness and am mighty to save."
"Why are your garments red, as if you had trodden the winepress?"
"I have trodden the winepress alone: and of the people there was none to help Me. In My anger I trod them down, trampled them in My wrath. Their blood splattered My garments, and all My clothes are stained. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. . . I will tread down the people in My anger, and bring their blood upon the ground".
These verses refer to Revelations chapter 19:11-21, when the Word of God destroys His enemies: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse: and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. . . His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns, and He had a Name written that no man knew but Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God. . . and He trod the winepress of God’s fierce anger".
Jehovah of the Old Testament "hated Esau (Edom), against whom He has indignation forever" (Malachi 1:2-4). If Jesus will destroy Edom when He returns, then Edom is present today, and obviously evil, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic.
The Edomite, Antipater, became the Procurator of Judea in 47BC. Ten years later his son Herod actually became "king of the Jews," initiating the Edomite dynasty which ruled Palestine under Roman authority for over a hundred years. The Edomite assimilation opened the way for the virtual takeover along the lines predicted by Ezekiel and stimulus for an influx of population from the arid country of Edom into the more hospitable environment of Judea, an influx obviously encouraged for political reasons by the ruling Herodian dynasty. Edomites would have been appointed to the most influential positions, in order to extend and consolidate Edomite authority over the land and its people. Herod became notorious for his massacre of infant boys two years old and undger," a supernaturally inspired attempt on the life of Christ (Matthew 2:16). Herod's son Herod Antipas, continuing the work, and was responsible for the gruesome murder of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:6-12).
Christ demonstrated a very real antipathy towards the people called Jews, in Bibles published after about 1776, but who would be more accurately described as Judeans, or residents of the Edomite-dominated territory of Judea. Jesus said to the Jews "You do not believe because you are not of My sheep" (John 10:24-27). "I was only sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). In fact, Christ referred to "those Jews (or residents of Judea regardless of religion, race or color) who believed on him," as "of their father the devil" for although they were children of Abraham, they were not children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and heirs of the blessing of Abraham, nor did they have the faith of Abraham, and were in all probability descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Esau (John 8: 31,44). In contrast, Jesus instructed His disciples - who were from Galilee of the Gentiles, not Judea (Acts 1:11; 2:7) - to pray to And in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, Jesus speaks of "those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan".
The Jews shouted "Crucify Him!" (John 19:15); "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25). In an appropriate turn about, when Jesus returns, their blood will stain His own garments. The spiritual leaders of the Jews were the Pharisees, who not surprisingly were associated with the (Edomite) Herodians (Matthew 22:15-16; Mark 3:6; 12:13). Jesus repeatedly condemned the Pharisees as "hypocrites" (Matthew 15:7; 22:18; 23:13,15,23,25,27-27). He also called them "serpents, the offspring of vipers" (Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33).
"Jesus spoke to the crowds only in parables" (Matthew 13:10-17). Why was this? Many nominal churches and Sunday schools teach that Jesus used parables to make His teachings clearer. But all four Gospels say the opposite. When Jesus was asked why He spoke to them in parables, He replied "Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given" (Matthew 13:10-11; Mark 4:11-12; Luke 8:9-10; John 12:37-44). Brother Branham simply said, Jesus spoke in parables to thin down the crowds.
Jesus told "those Jews who believed in Him . . . You are of your father the devil, and lust for what is forbidden. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him . . . as he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:31-44). This characteristic is confirmed by the dictionary definition of the verb jew .
But do Jews ever come up with such brazenly audacious lies, lies so enormous in scope and implication as to qualify as "chutzpah," so admired by Jews?
Norman G. Finkelstein of the City University of New York says:
"The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world’s most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a ‘victim’ state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood – in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified" (Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (2000) published by Verso, p. 3).
In other words, Finkelstein exposes the HYPOCRISY.
Some further quotes:
"In an authoritative study, Leonard Dinnerstein reported: Sixty thousand Jews . . . walked out of the concentration camps. Within a week more than 20,000 of them had died." But ‘As it entered into negotiations with Germany [just two years ago, in 1999], the Holocaust industry demanded compensation for 135,000 still living former (camp inmates).’
On page 83 he notes that ‘The Israeli Prime Minister’s office recently put the number of "living Holocaust survivors" at nearly a million.’ Finkelstein exposes the LIES.
On page 127 he further notes ‘If 135,000 former Jewish slave laborers are still alive today, some 600,000 must have survived the war. That’s at least a half-million more than standard estimates. . . If Jews only constituted 20% of the surviving camp population and, as the Holocaust industry implies, 600,000 Jewish inmates survived the war, then fully 3 million inmates in total must have survived. By the Holocaust industry’s reckoning, concentration camp conditions couldn’t have been that harsh at all; in fact, one must suppose a remarkably high fertility and remarkably low mortality rate. . . If, as the Holocaust industry suggests, many hundreds of thousands of Jews survived, the Final Solution couldn’t have been so efficient after all – exactly what Holocaust deniers argue" (pp. 127-8).
"Both my father and my mother were survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. . . One of my father’s lifelong friends was a former inmate with him in Auschwitz, a seemingly incorruptible left-wing idealist who on principle refused German compensation after the war. Eventually he became a director of the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. Reluctantly and with genuine disappointment, my father finally admitted that even this man had been corrupted by the Holocaust industry, tailoring his beliefs for power and profit. As the rendering of the Holocaust assumed ever more absurd forms, my mother liked to quote (with intentional irony) Henry Ford: "History is bunk." (ibid. p. 7).
"The Holocaust proved to be the perfect weapon for deflecting criticism of Israel" (ibid p. 30).
"Much of the literature on Hitler’s Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud." (p. 55).
"Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics". (p. 68).
"Annual Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust are a national event. All 50 states sponsor commemorations, often in state legislative chambers. . . Seven major Holocaust museums dot the American landscape. The centerpiece of this memorialization is the United States Holocaust museum in Washington. . . [This] museum’s annual budget is $50 million, of which $30 million is federally subsidized." (p. 72). (This is in spite of the fact that, as he points out on page 32, per capita Jewish income in the US is almost double that of non-Jews).
"With a reelection campaign looming, Jimmy Carter initiated the [US Holocaust Museum] project to placate Jewish contributors and voters, galled by the president’s recognition of the "legitimate rights" of Palestinians.’ (p. 73).
Finkelstein exposes the SWINDLE, a word formerly most often associated with Jews.
"The Holocaust" is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality. The Holocaust is not an arbitrary, but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests." (p. 3). And:
"The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the "greatest robbery in the history of mankind". . . The Holocaust industry has clearly gone berserk." (p. 138-9).
Is this evaluation fair?
Have a look at a typical account by one of the seemingly endless number of survivors: Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys: a woman survivor’s true story of Auschwitz (Granada/Ziff-Davis, 1947, 1972).
The blurb on the cover of the book quotes the New York Herald-Tribune: "Passionate, tormenting". Albert Einstein, the promoter of the US construction of the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is quoted as offering "You have done a real service by letting the ones who are now silent and most forgotten (sic) speak."
Lengyel says:
"After June, 1943, the gas chamber was reserved exclusively for Jews and Gypsies. . . Three hundred and sixty corpses every half-hour, which was all the time it took to reduce human flesh to ashes, made 720 per hour, or 17,280 corpses per twenty-four hour shift. And the ovens, with murderous efficiency, functioned day and night. However, one must also reckon the death pits, which could destroy another 8,000 cadavers a day. In round numbers, about 24,000 corpses were handled each day. An admirable production record, one that speaks well for German industry." (Paperback edition, pp. 80-81). [No trace of any remains of or in ‘death pits’ has been found.]
This implies almost 100,000 corpses per four working days, or a million in 40 days, or six million in 240 days (eight months).
Could this claim be a misprint?
Kitty Hart, in spite of her name, a Jewish survivor born in Poland, fully confirms these figures:
"Working around the clock, the four units together could dispose of about 18,000 bodies every twenty-four hours, while the open pits coped with a further 8,000 in the same period." (p. 118; Return to Auschwitz - paperback edition by Granada (1981, 1983).
According to the cover blurb, "The subject of the award-winning Yorkshire television documentary of the same name." "Both engaging and harrowing . . . an important addition to the growing holocaust literature, very little of which conveys so courageously both the daily torment and the will to survive" – Martin Gilbert, The Times.
Martin Gilbert, indefatigable Jewish campaigner on behalf of the ‘Holocaust’ and biographer of Winston Churchill, adds to the rich flavour and makes his own numerical claims, certainly not without chutzpah:
In his book Auschwitz and the Allies (1981) he states:
"The deliberate attempt to destroy systematically all of Europe’s Jews was unsuspected in the spring and early summer of 1942: the very period during which it was at its most intense, and during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed every day at Belzec, Chelmo, Sobibor and Treblinka." (p. 26).
If we assume a minimum figure of 200,000 per day, this amounts to say one million over a five-day working week, or 6 million in six weeks, and this does not include the truly awe-inspiring claims for Auschwitz put forward by Hart and Lengyel with Gilbert’s blessing.
A detailed forensic examination of the site of the wartime Treblinka camp, using sophisticated electronic ground penetrating radar, has found no evidence of mass graves there.
For six days in October 1999, an Australian team headed by Richard Krege, a qualified electronics engineer, carried out an examination of the soil at the site of the former Treblinka II camp in Poland, where, Holocaust historians say, more than half a million Jews were put to death in gas chambers and then buried in mass graves.
According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1997), for example, "a total of 870,000 people" were killed and buried at Treblinka between July 1942 and April 1943. Then, between April and July 1943, the hundreds of thousands of corpses were allegedly dug up and burned in batches of 2,000 or 2,500 on large grids made of railway ties.
Krege's team used an $80,000 Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) device, which sends out vertical radar signals that are visible on a computer monitor. GPR detects any large-scale disturbances in the soil structure to a normal effective depth of four or five meters, and sometimes up to ten meters. (GPR devices are routinely used around the world by geologists, archeologists, and police.) In its Treblinka investigation, Krege's team also carried out visual soil inspections, and used an auger to take numerous soil core samples.
The team carefully examined the entire Treblinka II site, especially the alleged "mass graves" portion, and carried out control examinations of the surrounding area. They found no soil disturbance consistent with the burial of hundreds of thousands of bodies, or even evidence that the ground had ever been disturbed. In addition, Krege and his team found no evidence of individual graves, bone remains, human ashes, or wood ashes.
"From these scans we could clearly identify the largely undisturbed horizontal stratigraphic layering, better known as horizons, of the soil under the camp site," says the 30-year old Krege, who lives in Canberra. "We know from scans of grave sites, and other sites with known soil disturbances, such as quarries, when this natural layering is massively disrupted or missing altogether." Because normal geological processes are very slow acting, disruption of the soil structure would have been detectable even after 60 years, Krege noted.
While his initial investigation suggests that there were never any mass graves at the Treblinka camp site, Krege believes that further work is still called for.
"Historians say that the bodies were exhumed and cremated toward the end of the Treblinka camp's use in 1943, but we found no indication that any mass graves ever existed," he says. "Personally, I don't think there was a mass extermination camp there at all."
Krege prepared a detailed report on his Treblinka investigation. He says that he would welcome the formation, possibly under United Nations auspices, of an international team of neutral, qualified specialists, to carry out similar investigations at the sites of all the wartime German camps.
(Sources: "'Vernichtungslager' Treblinka: archaelogisch betrachtet," by Ing. Richard Krege, in Vierteljarhreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, June 2000 [4. Jg., Heft 1], pp. 62-64; "'No Jewish mass grave' in Poland," The Canberra Times, January 24, 2000, p. 6; "Poland's Jews 'not buried at Treblinka'," The Examiner [Australia], Jan. 24, 2000. Information provided by Richard Krege; M. Weber and A. Allen, "Treblinka," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1992, pp. 133-158; Y. Arad, "Treblinka," in I. Gutman, ed., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust [New York: 1997], pp. 1481-1488.)
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Who was the First Jew?
John Standring
We know that Saul was the first king of Israel and that John was the first man called Baptist, but who was the first Jew? Neither Adam, Seth or Noah are called Jew. Nor were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Moses was not called a Jew and neither were Saul, David or Solomon called Jew. In fact you will not find the word Jew in the first eleven books of the Bible. The first time Jews are mentioned in the Bible, is in II Kings 16:6 (and then only in translations revised in the eighteenth century) where we find Israel was at war with the Jews and drave the Jews from Elath. Isn't it interesting that we can read over five hundred pages of the Bible before we find a Jew anywhere, yet those who call themselves Jew today claim the first five books of the bible and call it their Torah. Do you not find it rather strange that those who claim to have written the first five books of the Bible and call themselves Jew, can't find the word Jew written anywhere in the book they call their own bible, and claim to have written? Jesus Christ tells John in Revelation 2:9 "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN". We know that God changed the name of Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17:5, and that He changed the name of Jacob to Israel in Genesis 32:28, but nowhere in the Bible do we find where God changed the name of Israel to Jew! There is therefore no authority by which those who say they are Jews can claim to be Israel!
By the time of Jesus the word Edom or Edomite had been translated by Greek and Latin into Ioudaios and Iudaeus meaning a Judean or person living in Judea. The original King James version of the Bible, 1611, translated Idumaean-Judean into Iewes. It wasn't until the revised editions of the King James Bible, that the word Jew appeared. The word Jew does not mean Israel or Israelite! We must conclude therefore that the first "Jews" were Canaanite-Edomite-Hittite. It is certain, according to the Bible, that Jews are not Israel. jesusjew.htm
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http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
~Herm Albright~
"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."
Geometrically Ordered Divinity (G.O.D.)
Jesus Was Not A Jew
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jesusjew.htm
JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
Benjamin H. Freedman, Jewish Historian - Researcher - Scholar.
From "Common Sense", p. 2-1-53 and 5-1-59
"Christians have been duped by the unholiest hoax in all history, by so-called Jews. This is considered their most effective weapon."
"This 'big lie' technique is brainwashing United States Christians into believing that Jesus Christ was "King of the Jews", in the sense that so-called 'Jews' today call themselves 'Jews'. This reference was first made in English translations of the Old and New Testaments, centuries before the so-called Jews highjacked the word 'Jew' in the 18th century A.D. to palm themselves off on the Christian world as having a kinship with Jesus Christ. This alleged kinship comes from the myth of their common ancestry with the so-called 'Jews' of the Holy Land in the Old Testament history, a fiction based on fable."
"American Christians little suspect they are being brainwashed twenty-four hours of every day over television and radio, by newspapers and magazines, by motion pictures and plays, by books, by political leaders in office and seeking office, by religious leaders in their pulpits and outside their churches, by leaders in the field of education inside and outside their curricular activities, and by all leaders in business, professions and finance, whose economic security demands that they curry the favor of so-called "Jews" of historic Khazar ancestry. Unsuspecting Christians are subjected to this barrage from sources they have little reason to suspect. Incontestable facts supply the unchallengeable proof of the historic accuracy that so-called "Jews" throughout the world today of eastern European origin are unquestionably the historic descendants of the Khazars, a pagan Turko-Finn ancient Mongoloid nation deep in the heart of Asia, according to history, who battled their way in bloody wars about the 1st century B.C. into eastern Europe where they set up their Khazar kingdom. For some mysterious reason the history of the Khazar kingdom is conspicuous by its absence from history courses in the schools and colleges.
"The historic existence of the Khazar kingdom of so-called "Jews", their rise and fall, the permanent disappearance of the Khazar kingdom as a nation from the map of Europe, and how King Bulan and the Khazar nation in about 740 A.D. became so-called "Jews" by conversion, were concealed from American Christians by censorship imposed by so-called "Jews", of historic Khazar ancestry, upon all U.S.A. media of mass communications directed by them. Then in 1945 this author gave nation-wide publicity to his many years intensive research into the "facts of life" concerning Khazars. The disclosures were sensational and very effective but apparently angered so-called "Jews" who have continued to vent their spleen upon this author since then solely for that reason. Since 1946 they have conducted a vicious smear campaign against him, seeking thus to further conceal these facts, for obvious reasons. What have they to fear from the truth?
"In an original 1903 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia in New York's Public Library, and in the Library of Congress, Volume IV, pages 1 to 5 inclusive, appears a most comprehensive history of the Khazars. Also in the New York Public Library are 327 books by the world's greatest historians and other sources of reference, in addition to the Jewish Encyclopedia, dealing with Khazar history, and written between the 3rd A.D. and 20th centuries by contemporaries of the Khazars and by modern historians on that subject."
Jesus was a 'Judean', not a Jew.
During His lifetime, no persons were described as "Jews" anywhere. That fact is supported by theology, history and science. When Jesus was in Judea, it was not the "homeland" of the ancestors of those who today style themselves "Jews". Their ancestors never set a foot in Judea. They existed at that time in Asia, their "homeland", and were known as Khazars. In none of the manuscripts of the original Old or New Testament was Jesus described or referred to as a "Jew". The term originated in the late eighteenth century as an abbreviation of the term Judean and refers to a resident of Judea without regard to race or religion, just as the term "Texan" signifies a person living in Texas.
In spite of the powerful propaganda effort of the so-called "Jews", they have been unable to prove in recorded history that there is one record, prior to that period, of a race religion or nationality, referred to as "Jew". The religious sect in Judea, in the time of Jesus, to which self-styled "Jews" today refer to as "Jews", were known as "Pharisees". "Judaism" today and "Pharisaism" in the time of Jesus are the same.
Jesus abhorred and denounced "Pharisaism"; hence the words, "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites, Ye Serpents, Ye Generation of Vipers".
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JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
by Jason Collett
Many denominational Christians and even church leaders are under the mistaken belief that Jesus was a Jew. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Judea and Galilee were two separate states and political entities, as illustrated on the map of Palestine in the time of our Saviour in your Bible. Jesus Himself was not a Jew (Judean) or resident of Judea, He was a Galilean or resident of Galilee (Matthew 26:69; John 7:41), and a Judahite or descendent of the Tribe of Judah. The Judeans of prominence were not of the Tribe of Judah, but of Edomites. Pilate was being ironic when he wrote the sign "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Judeans" for the Cross (John 19:19). That is, "the Galilean who was King of the Judeans," as in "Queen Victoria of England, Empress of India." Jesus grew up in Nazareth in Galilee. His disciples were fishermen from the Sea of Galilee. And although He visited Jerusalem, he spent most of His life in his home country of Galilee. John 7:1, "After this Jesus stayed in Galilee; for He could not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him." His followers were constrained "for fear of the Jews" (John 7:13, 19:38, 20:19).
Why was this?
Psalm 83:3 says God's elect are "hidden" or protected ones, and that they are under attack from a coalition of evil groups led by Edom. Who was Edom?
Esau, the brother of the patriarch Jacob, became the ancestor of the people called Edom, or Idumea. The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, XIII ix 1; XV vii 9 instructs us: John Hyrcanus forcibly assimilated the Edomites as a national group and they became "Jews" in about 120BC. The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived just after the time of Christ, wrote, "They [Edom] were hereafter no other than Jews'. The Jewish scholar Cecil Roth in his Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (1980) says on page 154, "John Hyrcanus forcibly converted [Edom] to Judaism. From then on they were part of the Jewish people. In the Talmud the name of Edom was applied to Christian Rome, and was then used for Christianity in general".
Terrible judgements against Edom are made in most of the prophecies of the Old Testament. For instance, Isaiah 34, 63, Jeremiah 49, and the entire book of Obadiah.
Isaiah 63:1-6, "Who is this coming from Edom . . . in garments stained with crimson? It is I [the Lord] who speak in righteousness and am mighty to save."
"Why are your garments red, as if you had trodden the winepress?"
"I have trodden the winepress alone: and of the people there was none to help Me. In My anger I trod them down, trampled them in My wrath. Their blood splattered My garments, and all My clothes are stained. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. . . I will tread down the people in My anger, and bring their blood upon the ground".
These verses refer to Revelations chapter 19:11-21, when the Word of God destroys His enemies: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse: and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. . . His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns, and He had a Name written that no man knew but Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God. . . and He trod the winepress of God’s fierce anger".
Jehovah of the Old Testament "hated Esau (Edom), against whom He has indignation forever" (Malachi 1:2-4). If Jesus will destroy Edom when He returns, then Edom is present today, and obviously evil, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic.
The Edomite, Antipater, became the Procurator of Judea in 47BC. Ten years later his son Herod actually became "king of the Jews," initiating the Edomite dynasty which ruled Palestine under Roman authority for over a hundred years. The Edomite assimilation opened the way for the virtual takeover along the lines predicted by Ezekiel and stimulus for an influx of population from the arid country of Edom into the more hospitable environment of Judea, an influx obviously encouraged for political reasons by the ruling Herodian dynasty. Edomites would have been appointed to the most influential positions, in order to extend and consolidate Edomite authority over the land and its people. Herod became notorious for his massacre of infant boys two years old and undger," a supernaturally inspired attempt on the life of Christ (Matthew 2:16). Herod's son Herod Antipas, continuing the work, and was responsible for the gruesome murder of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:6-12).
Christ demonstrated a very real antipathy towards the people called Jews, in Bibles published after about 1776, but who would be more accurately described as Judeans, or residents of the Edomite-dominated territory of Judea. Jesus said to the Jews "You do not believe because you are not of My sheep" (John 10:24-27). "I was only sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). In fact, Christ referred to "those Jews (or residents of Judea regardless of religion, race or color) who believed on him," as "of their father the devil" for although they were children of Abraham, they were not children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and heirs of the blessing of Abraham, nor did they have the faith of Abraham, and were in all probability descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Esau (John 8: 31,44). In contrast, Jesus instructed His disciples - who were from Galilee of the Gentiles, not Judea (Acts 1:11; 2:7) - to pray to And in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, Jesus speaks of "those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan".
The Jews shouted "Crucify Him!" (John 19:15); "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25). In an appropriate turn about, when Jesus returns, their blood will stain His own garments. The spiritual leaders of the Jews were the Pharisees, who not surprisingly were associated with the (Edomite) Herodians (Matthew 22:15-16; Mark 3:6; 12:13). Jesus repeatedly condemned the Pharisees as "hypocrites" (Matthew 15:7; 22:18; 23:13,15,23,25,27-27). He also called them "serpents, the offspring of vipers" (Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33).
"Jesus spoke to the crowds only in parables" (Matthew 13:10-17). Why was this? Many nominal churches and Sunday schools teach that Jesus used parables to make His teachings clearer. But all four Gospels say the opposite. When Jesus was asked why He spoke to them in parables, He replied "Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given" (Matthew 13:10-11; Mark 4:11-12; Luke 8:9-10; John 12:37-44). Brother Branham simply said, Jesus spoke in parables to thin down the crowds.
Jesus told "those Jews who believed in Him . . . You are of your father the devil, and lust for what is forbidden. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him . . . as he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:31-44). This characteristic is confirmed by the dictionary definition of the verb jew .
But do Jews ever come up with such brazenly audacious lies, lies so enormous in scope and implication as to qualify as "chutzpah," so admired by Jews?
Norman G. Finkelstein of the City University of New York says:
"The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world’s most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a ‘victim’ state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood – in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified" (Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (2000) published by Verso, p. 3).
In other words, Finkelstein exposes the HYPOCRISY.
Some further quotes:
"In an authoritative study, Leonard Dinnerstein reported: Sixty thousand Jews . . . walked out of the concentration camps. Within a week more than 20,000 of them had died." But ‘As it entered into negotiations with Germany [just two years ago, in 1999], the Holocaust industry demanded compensation for 135,000 still living former (camp inmates).’
On page 83 he notes that ‘The Israeli Prime Minister’s office recently put the number of "living Holocaust survivors" at nearly a million.’ Finkelstein exposes the LIES.
On page 127 he further notes ‘If 135,000 former Jewish slave laborers are still alive today, some 600,000 must have survived the war. That’s at least a half-million more than standard estimates. . . If Jews only constituted 20% of the surviving camp population and, as the Holocaust industry implies, 600,000 Jewish inmates survived the war, then fully 3 million inmates in total must have survived. By the Holocaust industry’s reckoning, concentration camp conditions couldn’t have been that harsh at all; in fact, one must suppose a remarkably high fertility and remarkably low mortality rate. . . If, as the Holocaust industry suggests, many hundreds of thousands of Jews survived, the Final Solution couldn’t have been so efficient after all – exactly what Holocaust deniers argue" (pp. 127-8).
"Both my father and my mother were survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. . . One of my father’s lifelong friends was a former inmate with him in Auschwitz, a seemingly incorruptible left-wing idealist who on principle refused German compensation after the war. Eventually he became a director of the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. Reluctantly and with genuine disappointment, my father finally admitted that even this man had been corrupted by the Holocaust industry, tailoring his beliefs for power and profit. As the rendering of the Holocaust assumed ever more absurd forms, my mother liked to quote (with intentional irony) Henry Ford: "History is bunk." (ibid. p. 7).
"The Holocaust proved to be the perfect weapon for deflecting criticism of Israel" (ibid p. 30).
"Much of the literature on Hitler’s Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud." (p. 55).
"Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics". (p. 68).
"Annual Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust are a national event. All 50 states sponsor commemorations, often in state legislative chambers. . . Seven major Holocaust museums dot the American landscape. The centerpiece of this memorialization is the United States Holocaust museum in Washington. . . [This] museum’s annual budget is $50 million, of which $30 million is federally subsidized." (p. 72). (This is in spite of the fact that, as he points out on page 32, per capita Jewish income in the US is almost double that of non-Jews).
"With a reelection campaign looming, Jimmy Carter initiated the [US Holocaust Museum] project to placate Jewish contributors and voters, galled by the president’s recognition of the "legitimate rights" of Palestinians.’ (p. 73).
Finkelstein exposes the SWINDLE, a word formerly most often associated with Jews.
"The Holocaust" is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality. The Holocaust is not an arbitrary, but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests." (p. 3). And:
"The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the "greatest robbery in the history of mankind". . . The Holocaust industry has clearly gone berserk." (p. 138-9).
Is this evaluation fair?
Have a look at a typical account by one of the seemingly endless number of survivors: Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys: a woman survivor’s true story of Auschwitz (Granada/Ziff-Davis, 1947, 1972).
The blurb on the cover of the book quotes the New York Herald-Tribune: "Passionate, tormenting". Albert Einstein, the promoter of the US construction of the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is quoted as offering "You have done a real service by letting the ones who are now silent and most forgotten (sic) speak."
Lengyel says:
"After June, 1943, the gas chamber was reserved exclusively for Jews and Gypsies. . . Three hundred and sixty corpses every half-hour, which was all the time it took to reduce human flesh to ashes, made 720 per hour, or 17,280 corpses per twenty-four hour shift. And the ovens, with murderous efficiency, functioned day and night. However, one must also reckon the death pits, which could destroy another 8,000 cadavers a day. In round numbers, about 24,000 corpses were handled each day. An admirable production record, one that speaks well for German industry." (Paperback edition, pp. 80-81). [No trace of any remains of or in ‘death pits’ has been found.]
This implies almost 100,000 corpses per four working days, or a million in 40 days, or six million in 240 days (eight months).
Could this claim be a misprint?
Kitty Hart, in spite of her name, a Jewish survivor born in Poland, fully confirms these figures:
"Working around the clock, the four units together could dispose of about 18,000 bodies every twenty-four hours, while the open pits coped with a further 8,000 in the same period." (p. 118; Return to Auschwitz - paperback edition by Granada (1981, 1983).
According to the cover blurb, "The subject of the award-winning Yorkshire television documentary of the same name." "Both engaging and harrowing . . . an important addition to the growing holocaust literature, very little of which conveys so courageously both the daily torment and the will to survive" – Martin Gilbert, The Times.
Martin Gilbert, indefatigable Jewish campaigner on behalf of the ‘Holocaust’ and biographer of Winston Churchill, adds to the rich flavour and makes his own numerical claims, certainly not without chutzpah:
In his book Auschwitz and the Allies (1981) he states:
"The deliberate attempt to destroy systematically all of Europe’s Jews was unsuspected in the spring and early summer of 1942: the very period during which it was at its most intense, and during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed every day at Belzec, Chelmo, Sobibor and Treblinka." (p. 26).
If we assume a minimum figure of 200,000 per day, this amounts to say one million over a five-day working week, or 6 million in six weeks, and this does not include the truly awe-inspiring claims for Auschwitz put forward by Hart and Lengyel with Gilbert’s blessing.
A detailed forensic examination of the site of the wartime Treblinka camp, using sophisticated electronic ground penetrating radar, has found no evidence of mass graves there.
For six days in October 1999, an Australian team headed by Richard Krege, a qualified electronics engineer, carried out an examination of the soil at the site of the former Treblinka II camp in Poland, where, Holocaust historians say, more than half a million Jews were put to death in gas chambers and then buried in mass graves.
According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1997), for example, "a total of 870,000 people" were killed and buried at Treblinka between July 1942 and April 1943. Then, between April and July 1943, the hundreds of thousands of corpses were allegedly dug up and burned in batches of 2,000 or 2,500 on large grids made of railway ties.
Krege's team used an $80,000 Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) device, which sends out vertical radar signals that are visible on a computer monitor. GPR detects any large-scale disturbances in the soil structure to a normal effective depth of four or five meters, and sometimes up to ten meters. (GPR devices are routinely used around the world by geologists, archeologists, and police.) In its Treblinka investigation, Krege's team also carried out visual soil inspections, and used an auger to take numerous soil core samples.
The team carefully examined the entire Treblinka II site, especially the alleged "mass graves" portion, and carried out control examinations of the surrounding area. They found no soil disturbance consistent with the burial of hundreds of thousands of bodies, or even evidence that the ground had ever been disturbed. In addition, Krege and his team found no evidence of individual graves, bone remains, human ashes, or wood ashes.
"From these scans we could clearly identify the largely undisturbed horizontal stratigraphic layering, better known as horizons, of the soil under the camp site," says the 30-year old Krege, who lives in Canberra. "We know from scans of grave sites, and other sites with known soil disturbances, such as quarries, when this natural layering is massively disrupted or missing altogether." Because normal geological processes are very slow acting, disruption of the soil structure would have been detectable even after 60 years, Krege noted.
While his initial investigation suggests that there were never any mass graves at the Treblinka camp site, Krege believes that further work is still called for.
"Historians say that the bodies were exhumed and cremated toward the end of the Treblinka camp's use in 1943, but we found no indication that any mass graves ever existed," he says. "Personally, I don't think there was a mass extermination camp there at all."
Krege prepared a detailed report on his Treblinka investigation. He says that he would welcome the formation, possibly under United Nations auspices, of an international team of neutral, qualified specialists, to carry out similar investigations at the sites of all the wartime German camps.
(Sources: "'Vernichtungslager' Treblinka: archaelogisch betrachtet," by Ing. Richard Krege, in Vierteljarhreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, June 2000 [4. Jg., Heft 1], pp. 62-64; "'No Jewish mass grave' in Poland," The Canberra Times, January 24, 2000, p. 6; "Poland's Jews 'not buried at Treblinka'," The Examiner [Australia], Jan. 24, 2000. Information provided by Richard Krege; M. Weber and A. Allen, "Treblinka," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1992, pp. 133-158; Y. Arad, "Treblinka," in I. Gutman, ed., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust [New York: 1997], pp. 1481-1488.)
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Who was the First Jew?
John Standring
We know that Saul was the first king of Israel and that John was the first man called Baptist, but who was the first Jew? Neither Adam, Seth or Noah are called Jew. Nor were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Moses was not called a Jew and neither were Saul, David or Solomon called Jew. In fact you will not find the word Jew in the first eleven books of the Bible. The first time Jews are mentioned in the Bible, is in II Kings 16:6 (and then only in translations revised in the eighteenth century) where we find Israel was at war with the Jews and drave the Jews from Elath. Isn't it interesting that we can read over five hundred pages of the Bible before we find a Jew anywhere, yet those who call themselves Jew today claim the first five books of the bible and call it their Torah. Do you not find it rather strange that those who claim to have written the first five books of the Bible and call themselves Jew, can't find the word Jew written anywhere in the book they call their own bible, and claim to have written? Jesus Christ tells John in Revelation 2:9 "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN". We know that God changed the name of Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17:5, and that He changed the name of Jacob to Israel in Genesis 32:28, but nowhere in the Bible do we find where God changed the name of Israel to Jew! There is therefore no authority by which those who say they are Jews can claim to be Israel!
By the time of Jesus the word Edom or Edomite had been translated by Greek and Latin into Ioudaios and Iudaeus meaning a Judean or person living in Judea. The original King James version of the Bible, 1611, translated Idumaean-Judean into Iewes. It wasn't until the revised editions of the King James Bible, that the word Jew appeared. The word Jew does not mean Israel or Israelite! We must conclude therefore that the first "Jews" were Canaanite-Edomite-Hittite. It is certain, according to the Bible, that Jews are not Israel. jesusjew.htm
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http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
~Herm Albright~
"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."
Geometrically Ordered Divinity (G.O.D.)
JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
Benjamin H. Freedman, Jewish Historian - Researcher - Scholar.
From "Common Sense", p. 2-1-53 and 5-1-59
"Christians have been duped by the unholiest hoax in all history, by so-called Jews. This is considered their most effective weapon."
"This 'big lie' technique is brainwashing United States Christians into believing that Jesus Christ was "King of the Jews", in the sense that so-called 'Jews' today call themselves 'Jews'. This reference was first made in English translations of the Old and New Testaments, centuries before the so-called Jews highjacked the word 'Jew' in the 18th century A.D. to palm themselves off on the Christian world as having a kinship with Jesus Christ. This alleged kinship comes from the myth of their common ancestry with the so-called 'Jews' of the Holy Land in the Old Testament history, a fiction based on fable."
"American Christians little suspect they are being brainwashed twenty-four hours of every day over television and radio, by newspapers and magazines, by motion pictures and plays, by books, by political leaders in office and seeking office, by religious leaders in their pulpits and outside their churches, by leaders in the field of education inside and outside their curricular activities, and by all leaders in business, professions and finance, whose economic security demands that they curry the favor of so-called "Jews" of historic Khazar ancestry. Unsuspecting Christians are subjected to this barrage from sources they have little reason to suspect. Incontestable facts supply the unchallengeable proof of the historic accuracy that so-called "Jews" throughout the world today of eastern European origin are unquestionably the historic descendants of the Khazars, a pagan Turko-Finn ancient Mongoloid nation deep in the heart of Asia, according to history, who battled their way in bloody wars about the 1st century B.C. into eastern Europe where they set up their Khazar kingdom. For some mysterious reason the history of the Khazar kingdom is conspicuous by its absence from history courses in the schools and colleges.
"The historic existence of the Khazar kingdom of so-called "Jews", their rise and fall, the permanent disappearance of the Khazar kingdom as a nation from the map of Europe, and how King Bulan and the Khazar nation in about 740 A.D. became so-called "Jews" by conversion, were concealed from American Christians by censorship imposed by so-called "Jews", of historic Khazar ancestry, upon all U.S.A. media of mass communications directed by them. Then in 1945 this author gave nation-wide publicity to his many years intensive research into the "facts of life" concerning Khazars. The disclosures were sensational and very effective but apparently angered so-called "Jews" who have continued to vent their spleen upon this author since then solely for that reason. Since 1946 they have conducted a vicious smear campaign against him, seeking thus to further conceal these facts, for obvious reasons. What have they to fear from the truth?
"In an original 1903 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia in New York's Public Library, and in the Library of Congress, Volume IV, pages 1 to 5 inclusive, appears a most comprehensive history of the Khazars. Also in the New York Public Library are 327 books by the world's greatest historians and other sources of reference, in addition to the Jewish Encyclopedia, dealing with Khazar history, and written between the 3rd A.D. and 20th centuries by contemporaries of the Khazars and by modern historians on that subject."
Jesus was a 'Judean', not a Jew.
During His lifetime, no persons were described as "Jews" anywhere. That fact is supported by theology, history and science. When Jesus was in Judea, it was not the "homeland" of the ancestors of those who today style themselves "Jews". Their ancestors never set a foot in Judea. They existed at that time in Asia, their "homeland", and were known as Khazars. In none of the manuscripts of the original Old or New Testament was Jesus described or referred to as a "Jew". The term originated in the late eighteenth century as an abbreviation of the term Judean and refers to a resident of Judea without regard to race or religion, just as the term "Texan" signifies a person living in Texas.
In spite of the powerful propaganda effort of the so-called "Jews", they have been unable to prove in recorded history that there is one record, prior to that period, of a race religion or nationality, referred to as "Jew". The religious sect in Judea, in the time of Jesus, to which self-styled "Jews" today refer to as "Jews", were known as "Pharisees". "Judaism" today and "Pharisaism" in the time of Jesus are the same.
Jesus abhorred and denounced "Pharisaism"; hence the words, "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites, Ye Serpents, Ye Generation of Vipers".
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JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
by Jason Collett
Many denominational Christians and even church leaders are under the mistaken belief that Jesus was a Jew. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Judea and Galilee were two separate states and political entities, as illustrated on the map of Palestine in the time of our Saviour in your Bible. Jesus Himself was not a Jew (Judean) or resident of Judea, He was a Galilean or resident of Galilee (Matthew 26:69; John 7:41), and a Judahite or descendent of the Tribe of Judah. The Judeans of prominence were not of the Tribe of Judah, but of Edomites. Pilate was being ironic when he wrote the sign "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Judeans" for the Cross (John 19:19). That is, "the Galilean who was King of the Judeans," as in "Queen Victoria of England, Empress of India." Jesus grew up in Nazareth in Galilee. His disciples were fishermen from the Sea of Galilee. And although He visited Jerusalem, he spent most of His life in his home country of Galilee. John 7:1, "After this Jesus stayed in Galilee; for He could not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him." His followers were constrained "for fear of the Jews" (John 7:13, 19:38, 20:19).
Why was this?
Psalm 83:3 says God's elect are "hidden" or protected ones, and that they are under attack from a coalition of evil groups led by Edom. Who was Edom?
Esau, the brother of the patriarch Jacob, became the ancestor of the people called Edom, or Idumea. The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, XIII ix 1; XV vii 9 instructs us: John Hyrcanus forcibly assimilated the Edomites as a national group and they became "Jews" in about 120BC. The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived just after the time of Christ, wrote, "They [Edom] were hereafter no other than Jews'. The Jewish scholar Cecil Roth in his Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (1980) says on page 154, "John Hyrcanus forcibly converted [Edom] to Judaism. From then on they were part of the Jewish people. In the Talmud the name of Edom was applied to Christian Rome, and was then used for Christianity in general".
Terrible judgements against Edom are made in most of the prophecies of the Old Testament. For instance, Isaiah 34, 63, Jeremiah 49, and the entire book of Obadiah.
Isaiah 63:1-6, "Who is this coming from Edom . . . in garments stained with crimson? It is I [the Lord] who speak in righteousness and am mighty to save."
"Why are your garments red, as if you had trodden the winepress?"
"I have trodden the winepress alone: and of the people there was none to help Me. In My anger I trod them down, trampled them in My wrath. Their blood splattered My garments, and all My clothes are stained. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. . . I will tread down the people in My anger, and bring their blood upon the ground".
These verses refer to Revelations chapter 19:11-21, when the Word of God destroys His enemies: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse: and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. . . His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns, and He had a Name written that no man knew but Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God. . . and He trod the winepress of God’s fierce anger".
Jehovah of the Old Testament "hated Esau (Edom), against whom He has indignation forever" (Malachi 1:2-4). If Jesus will destroy Edom when He returns, then Edom is present today, and obviously evil, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic.
The Edomite, Antipater, became the Procurator of Judea in 47BC. Ten years later his son Herod actually became "king of the Jews," initiating the Edomite dynasty which ruled Palestine under Roman authority for over a hundred years. The Edomite assimilation opened the way for the virtual takeover along the lines predicted by Ezekiel and stimulus for an influx of population from the arid country of Edom into the more hospitable environment of Judea, an influx obviously encouraged for political reasons by the ruling Herodian dynasty. Edomites would have been appointed to the most influential positions, in order to extend and consolidate Edomite authority over the land and its people. Herod became notorious for his massacre of infant boys two years old and undger," a supernaturally inspired attempt on the life of Christ (Matthew 2:16). Herod's son Herod Antipas, continuing the work, and was responsible for the gruesome murder of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:6-12).
Christ demonstrated a very real antipathy towards the people called Jews, in Bibles published after about 1776, but who would be more accurately described as Judeans, or residents of the Edomite-dominated territory of Judea. Jesus said to the Jews "You do not believe because you are not of My sheep" (John 10:24-27). "I was only sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). In fact, Christ referred to "those Jews (or residents of Judea regardless of religion, race or color) who believed on him," as "of their father the devil" for although they were children of Abraham, they were not children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and heirs of the blessing of Abraham, nor did they have the faith of Abraham, and were in all probability descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Esau (John 8: 31,44). In contrast, Jesus instructed His disciples - who were from Galilee of the Gentiles, not Judea (Acts 1:11; 2:7) - to pray to And in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, Jesus speaks of "those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan".
The Jews shouted "Crucify Him!" (John 19:15); "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25). In an appropriate turn about, when Jesus returns, their blood will stain His own garments. The spiritual leaders of the Jews were the Pharisees, who not surprisingly were associated with the (Edomite) Herodians (Matthew 22:15-16; Mark 3:6; 12:13). Jesus repeatedly condemned the Pharisees as "hypocrites" (Matthew 15:7; 22:18; 23:13,15,23,25,27-27). He also called them "serpents, the offspring of vipers" (Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33).
"Jesus spoke to the crowds only in parables" (Matthew 13:10-17). Why was this? Many nominal churches and Sunday schools teach that Jesus used parables to make His teachings clearer. But all four Gospels say the opposite. When Jesus was asked why He spoke to them in parables, He replied "Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given" (Matthew 13:10-11; Mark 4:11-12; Luke 8:9-10; John 12:37-44). Brother Branham simply said, Jesus spoke in parables to thin down the crowds.
Jesus told "those Jews who believed in Him . . . You are of your father the devil, and lust for what is forbidden. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him . . . as he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:31-44). This characteristic is confirmed by the dictionary definition of the verb jew .
But do Jews ever come up with such brazenly audacious lies, lies so enormous in scope and implication as to qualify as "chutzpah," so admired by Jews?
Norman G. Finkelstein of the City University of New York says:
"The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world’s most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a ‘victim’ state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood – in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified" (Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (2000) published by Verso, p. 3).
In other words, Finkelstein exposes the HYPOCRISY.
Some further quotes:
"In an authoritative study, Leonard Dinnerstein reported: Sixty thousand Jews . . . walked out of the concentration camps. Within a week more than 20,000 of them had died." But ‘As it entered into negotiations with Germany [just two years ago, in 1999], the Holocaust industry demanded compensation for 135,000 still living former (camp inmates).’
On page 83 he notes that ‘The Israeli Prime Minister’s office recently put the number of "living Holocaust survivors" at nearly a million.’ Finkelstein exposes the LIES.
On page 127 he further notes ‘If 135,000 former Jewish slave laborers are still alive today, some 600,000 must have survived the war. That’s at least a half-million more than standard estimates. . . If Jews only constituted 20% of the surviving camp population and, as the Holocaust industry implies, 600,000 Jewish inmates survived the war, then fully 3 million inmates in total must have survived. By the Holocaust industry’s reckoning, concentration camp conditions couldn’t have been that harsh at all; in fact, one must suppose a remarkably high fertility and remarkably low mortality rate. . . If, as the Holocaust industry suggests, many hundreds of thousands of Jews survived, the Final Solution couldn’t have been so efficient after all – exactly what Holocaust deniers argue" (pp. 127-8).
"Both my father and my mother were survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. . . One of my father’s lifelong friends was a former inmate with him in Auschwitz, a seemingly incorruptible left-wing idealist who on principle refused German compensation after the war. Eventually he became a director of the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. Reluctantly and with genuine disappointment, my father finally admitted that even this man had been corrupted by the Holocaust industry, tailoring his beliefs for power and profit. As the rendering of the Holocaust assumed ever more absurd forms, my mother liked to quote (with intentional irony) Henry Ford: "History is bunk." (ibid. p. 7).
"The Holocaust proved to be the perfect weapon for deflecting criticism of Israel" (ibid p. 30).
"Much of the literature on Hitler’s Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud." (p. 55).
"Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics". (p. 68).
"Annual Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust are a national event. All 50 states sponsor commemorations, often in state legislative chambers. . . Seven major Holocaust museums dot the American landscape. The centerpiece of this memorialization is the United States Holocaust museum in Washington. . . [This] museum’s annual budget is $50 million, of which $30 million is federally subsidized." (p. 72). (This is in spite of the fact that, as he points out on page 32, per capita Jewish income in the US is almost double that of non-Jews).
"With a reelection campaign looming, Jimmy Carter initiated the [US Holocaust Museum] project to placate Jewish contributors and voters, galled by the president’s recognition of the "legitimate rights" of Palestinians.’ (p. 73).
Finkelstein exposes the SWINDLE, a word formerly most often associated with Jews.
"The Holocaust" is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality. The Holocaust is not an arbitrary, but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests." (p. 3). And:
"The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the "greatest robbery in the history of mankind". . . The Holocaust industry has clearly gone berserk." (p. 138-9).
Is this evaluation fair?
Have a look at a typical account by one of the seemingly endless number of survivors: Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys: a woman survivor’s true story of Auschwitz (Granada/Ziff-Davis, 1947, 1972).
The blurb on the cover of the book quotes the New York Herald-Tribune: "Passionate, tormenting". Albert Einstein, the promoter of the US construction of the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is quoted as offering "You have done a real service by letting the ones who are now silent and most forgotten (sic) speak."
Lengyel says:
"After June, 1943, the gas chamber was reserved exclusively for Jews and Gypsies. . . Three hundred and sixty corpses every half-hour, which was all the time it took to reduce human flesh to ashes, made 720 per hour, or 17,280 corpses per twenty-four hour shift. And the ovens, with murderous efficiency, functioned day and night. However, one must also reckon the death pits, which could destroy another 8,000 cadavers a day. In round numbers, about 24,000 corpses were handled each day. An admirable production record, one that speaks well for German industry." (Paperback edition, pp. 80-81). [No trace of any remains of or in ‘death pits’ has been found.]
This implies almost 100,000 corpses per four working days, or a million in 40 days, or six million in 240 days (eight months).
Could this claim be a misprint?
Kitty Hart, in spite of her name, a Jewish survivor born in Poland, fully confirms these figures:
"Working around the clock, the four units together could dispose of about 18,000 bodies every twenty-four hours, while the open pits coped with a further 8,000 in the same period." (p. 118; Return to Auschwitz - paperback edition by Granada (1981, 1983).
According to the cover blurb, "The subject of the award-winning Yorkshire television documentary of the same name." "Both engaging and harrowing . . . an important addition to the growing holocaust literature, very little of which conveys so courageously both the daily torment and the will to survive" – Martin Gilbert, The Times.
Martin Gilbert, indefatigable Jewish campaigner on behalf of the ‘Holocaust’ and biographer of Winston Churchill, adds to the rich flavour and makes his own numerical claims, certainly not without chutzpah:
In his book Auschwitz and the Allies (1981) he states:
"The deliberate attempt to destroy systematically all of Europe’s Jews was unsuspected in the spring and early summer of 1942: the very period during which it was at its most intense, and during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed every day at Belzec, Chelmo, Sobibor and Treblinka." (p. 26).
If we assume a minimum figure of 200,000 per day, this amounts to say one million over a five-day working week, or 6 million in six weeks, and this does not include the truly awe-inspiring claims for Auschwitz put forward by Hart and Lengyel with Gilbert’s blessing.
A detailed forensic examination of the site of the wartime Treblinka camp, using sophisticated electronic ground penetrating radar, has found no evidence of mass graves there.
For six days in October 1999, an Australian team headed by Richard Krege, a qualified electronics engineer, carried out an examination of the soil at the site of the former Treblinka II camp in Poland, where, Holocaust historians say, more than half a million Jews were put to death in gas chambers and then buried in mass graves.
According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1997), for example, "a total of 870,000 people" were killed and buried at Treblinka between July 1942 and April 1943. Then, between April and July 1943, the hundreds of thousands of corpses were allegedly dug up and burned in batches of 2,000 or 2,500 on large grids made of railway ties.
Krege's team used an $80,000 Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) device, which sends out vertical radar signals that are visible on a computer monitor. GPR detects any large-scale disturbances in the soil structure to a normal effective depth of four or five meters, and sometimes up to ten meters. (GPR devices are routinely used around the world by geologists, archeologists, and police.) In its Treblinka investigation, Krege's team also carried out visual soil inspections, and used an auger to take numerous soil core samples.
The team carefully examined the entire Treblinka II site, especially the alleged "mass graves" portion, and carried out control examinations of the surrounding area. They found no soil disturbance consistent with the burial of hundreds of thousands of bodies, or even evidence that the ground had ever been disturbed. In addition, Krege and his team found no evidence of individual graves, bone remains, human ashes, or wood ashes.
"From these scans we could clearly identify the largely undisturbed horizontal stratigraphic layering, better known as horizons, of the soil under the camp site," says the 30-year old Krege, who lives in Canberra. "We know from scans of grave sites, and other sites with known soil disturbances, such as quarries, when this natural layering is massively disrupted or missing altogether." Because normal geological processes are very slow acting, disruption of the soil structure would have been detectable even after 60 years, Krege noted.
While his initial investigation suggests that there were never any mass graves at the Treblinka camp site, Krege believes that further work is still called for.
"Historians say that the bodies were exhumed and cremated toward the end of the Treblinka camp's use in 1943, but we found no indication that any mass graves ever existed," he says. "Personally, I don't think there was a mass extermination camp there at all."
Krege prepared a detailed report on his Treblinka investigation. He says that he would welcome the formation, possibly under United Nations auspices, of an international team of neutral, qualified specialists, to carry out similar investigations at the sites of all the wartime German camps.
(Sources: "'Vernichtungslager' Treblinka: archaelogisch betrachtet," by Ing. Richard Krege, in Vierteljarhreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, June 2000 [4. Jg., Heft 1], pp. 62-64; "'No Jewish mass grave' in Poland," The Canberra Times, January 24, 2000, p. 6; "Poland's Jews 'not buried at Treblinka'," The Examiner [Australia], Jan. 24, 2000. Information provided by Richard Krege; M. Weber and A. Allen, "Treblinka," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1992, pp. 133-158; Y. Arad, "Treblinka," in I. Gutman, ed., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust [New York: 1997], pp. 1481-1488.)
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Who was the First Jew?
John Standring
We know that Saul was the first king of Israel and that John was the first man called Baptist, but who was the first Jew? Neither Adam, Seth or Noah are called Jew. Nor were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Moses was not called a Jew and neither were Saul, David or Solomon called Jew. In fact you will not find the word Jew in the first eleven books of the Bible. The first time Jews are mentioned in the Bible, is in II Kings 16:6 (and then only in translations revised in the eighteenth century) where we find Israel was at war with the Jews and drave the Jews from Elath. Isn't it interesting that we can read over five hundred pages of the Bible before we find a Jew anywhere, yet those who call themselves Jew today claim the first five books of the bible and call it their Torah. Do you not find it rather strange that those who claim to have written the first five books of the Bible and call themselves Jew, can't find the word Jew written anywhere in the book they call their own bible, and claim to have written? Jesus Christ tells John in Revelation 2:9 "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN". We know that God changed the name of Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17:5, and that He changed the name of Jacob to Israel in Genesis 32:28, but nowhere in the Bible do we find where God changed the name of Israel to Jew! There is therefore no authority by which those who say they are Jews can claim to be Israel!
By the time of Jesus the word Edom or Edomite had been translated by Greek and Latin into Ioudaios and Iudaeus meaning a Judean or person living in Judea. The original King James version of the Bible, 1611, translated Idumaean-Judean into Iewes. It wasn't until the revised editions of the King James Bible, that the word Jew appeared. The word Jew does not mean Israel or Israelite! We must conclude therefore that the first "Jews" were Canaanite-Edomite-Hittite. It is certain, according to the Bible, that Jews are not Israel. jesusjew.htm
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A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
~Herm Albright~
"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."
Geometrically Ordered Divinity (G.O.D.)
Introduction To A New Beginning Is A Practical Course In Miracles
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/a_new_beginning/introduction_to_a_new_beginning.htm
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Christianity is NOT Religion
May 24, 2009
God's appointed servants
God's appointed servants.... Truth....
Anyone who feels called to work for Me and to work on earth in My name always and forever has to let himself be drawn and guided by Me, he has to let Me speak to Him through the voice of His heart, he has to listen to what this voice tells him and comply with the prompting of his heart. Anyone who feels called has to stay in constant contact with Me, he has to subordinate himself unconditionally and without resistance to My will. Only then can I work through him, only then is he My servant in truth, the labourer, who conscientiously carries out the work for His Lord. However, he will feel his appointment by Me in the desire to proclaim My Word, My will.... he will feel urged to inform people about the meaning and purpose of earthly life, he will feel urged to admonish and warn them since he himself, if he has been appointed by Me to work for My kingdom, knows the pure truth and will also always want to spread it. The appointment by Me is the result of spiritual maturity which enables the human being to accept the pure truth from Me, and thus no person can ever be appointed by Me who was not taught by the spirit within himself first.
Although he is also able to accept knowledge intellectually it does not enable him to spread the truth because he does not completely recognise the truth in the knowledge he received. However, it is necessary to recognise the pure truth first before he can pass it on to his fellow human beings. And this recognition can only be imparted to him by My spirit.... The human being has to be spiritually reborn, only then will he have the right
understanding and recognition for pure truth, only then will he have been taught by Me Myself and will be able to work as My servant on earth. The inner desire to serve Me will also result in his calling by Me, because I will accept everyone who offers himself to work for My kingdom on earth and prepare him in accordance with his spiritual maturity. And if he gives himself to Me entirely he will follow the faintest prompting of his heart and thus always comply with My will when I require him to work for Me. For this reason he has to completely detach himself from the world, he has to look at his contact with Me as utmost bliss and as far as possible ignore all worldliness.
Then he will hear the spirit within himself ever more brightly and clearly and follow this voice ever more gladly, and then he will be a suitable worker for My kingdom on this earth....
Amen
http://www.christinyou.net/pages/Xnotrel.html
Christianity is NOT Religion
The Latin word from which the English word "religion" is derived means "to bind up." Jesus did not come to bind us up in rules and regulations or rituals of devotion, but to set us free to be man as God inended.
©1998 by James A. Fowler. All rights reserved.
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The need of the hour is to distinguish and differentiate between "religion" and Christianity. Most people in the Western world have so long identified these terms and thought them to be synonymous and equivalent, that it takes a sharp can-opener of rational argument, or the sharper still "word of God" (Heb. 4:12), to reveal the contrasting dichotomy between Christianity and "religion." This attempt to differentiate between the two may indeed be presumptuous, but on the other hand it might be used of God to bring the revelation of spiritual understanding that would allow someone to make the important distinction and enjoy the reality of Jesus' life.
Many erstwhile Christian thinkers have made the distinction between "religion" and Christianity. In confronting the sixteenth century religionism of Roman Catholicism, Martin Luther explained, "I have often said that to speak and judge rightly in this matter we must carefully distinguish between a pious (religious) man and a Christian."1 The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, was exposing the nineteenth century religionism of the state church in Denmark in his work entitled Attack on Christendom, wherein he noted that it is most difficult to explain to someone who thinks that they are a Christian already, what it means to be a Christian.2 German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, stood up to the spineless religionism of the German Lutheran Church during World War II and was killed by the Nazis. In his Letters and Papers from Prison he sets up the antinomy between faith and religion and argues for a "nonreligious" or "religionless Christianity." 3
Far and away the clearest delineation between "religion" and Christianity is drawn by the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, who was without a doubt the greatest theologian of the twentieth century. In his voluminous Church Dogmatics, Barth wrote that
"the revelation of God is the abolition of religion." 4
"It is always the sign of definite misunderstanding when an attempt is made to systematically coordinate revelation and religion...to fix their mutual relationship. 5
"In opposition to all 'religionism' the proclamation of the grace of God is introduced as the truth..." 6
"Religion is unbelief. It is a concern of...godless man." 7
"Religion is clearly seen to be a human attempt to anticipate what God in His revelation wills to do and does do. It is the attempted replacement of the divine work by a human manufacture." 8
"It is a feeble but defiant, an arrogant but hopeless, attempt to create something which man could do. In religion man bolts and bars himself against revelation by providing a substitute, by taking away in advance the very thing which has to be given by God. It is never the truth. It is a complete fiction, which has not only little but no relation to God."9
"What is the purpose of the universal attempt of religions but to anticipate God, to foist a human product into the place of His word, to make our own images of the One who is known only where He gives Himself to be known."10
"The revelation of God denies that any religion is true. No religion can stand before the grace of God as true religion."11
French sociologist, legal scholar and theologian, Jacques Ellul, in like manner affirms that,
"There is no path leading from a little bit of religion (of whatever kind) to a little more and finally to faith. Faith shatters all religion..." 12
"The opposition between religion and revelation can really be understood quite simply. We can reduce it to a maxim: religion goes up, revelation comes down. 13
"The central fact of the revelation of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus Christ, is that God descends to humankind. Never in any way, under any circumstances can we ascend to God, howsoever slightly." 14
The American Episcopalian priest, Robert Capon, has an inimical straight-forward way of explaining the difference between religion and Christianity.
"Almost all people, inside as well as outside the church, find that the notion of grace stands in contradiction to everything they understand by religion."15
"The gospel of grace is the end of religion, the final posting of the CLOSED sign on the sweatshop of the human race's perpetual struggle to think well of itself. For that, at bottom, is what religion is: man's well-meant but dim-witted attempt to approve of his unapprovable condition by doing odd jobs he thinks some important Something will thank him for.
"Religion, therefore, is a loser, a strictly fallen activity. It has a failed past and a bankrupt future. There was no religion in Eden and there won't be any in heaven; and in the meantime Jesus has died and risen to persuade us to knock it all off right now."16
"I want you to set aside the notion of the Christian religion, because it's a contradiction in terms. You won't learn anything positive about religion from Christianity, and if you look for Christianity in religion, you'll never find it. To be sure, Christianity uses the forms of religion, and, to be dismally honest, too many of its adherents act as if it were a religion; but it isn't one, and that's that. The church is not in the religion business; it is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. And the gospel is the good news that all man's fuss and feathers over his relationship with God is unnecessary because God, in the mystery of the Word who is Jesus, has gone and fixed it up Himself. So let that pass."17
Many other statements from Christian writers could be adduced, but these will suffice to represent the awareness of the differentiation between "religion" and Christianity.
Background of the word "religion"
A brief study of the etymology of our English word "religion" will reveal that we might not want to allow the word "religion" to be associated with Christianity. There are several Latin words which may have served as the origin of our English word "religion." The Latin word religo meant "to tie or fasten."18 A similar word, religio, was used to refer to "respect, devotion or superstition."19 Religio was a recognition that men are often tied or bound to God in reverence or devotion. It can also convey the meaning of being bound or tied to a set of rules and regulations, to rituals of devotion, to a creedal belief-system, or to a cause, ideology, or routine. Some have suggested that "religion" may be derived from the Latin word relegere, which refers to re-reading. There is no doubt that "religion" is often associated with repetitious rites of liturgy and litany, and the reproduction of creedal formulas and expressions. Most etymologists, however, regard the English word "religion" to be derived from the Latin word religare which is closely aligned with the root word religo. 20 The prefix re- means "back" or "again," and the word ligare refers to "binding, tying or attaching." Other English words such as "ligature," referring to "something that is used to bind," and "ligament" which "binds things together," evidence the same root in the Latin word ligare. The Latin word religare, from which our English word "religion" is most likely derived, meant "to tie back" or "to bind up."
The purpose of Jesus' coming was not to "bind us" or "tie us" to anything or anyone, though it might be argued that in the reception of Jesus Christ by faith there is a spiritual attachment of our identity with Him. Jesus clearly indicates that He came to set us free free to be functional humanity in the fullest sense, by allowing God to function through us to His glory. To some believing Jews, Jesus explained that "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Further explanation of the personification of that "truth" in Himself was then made when Jesus said, "If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." To the Galatians Paul affirms that, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" by reverting back to the bondage of Jewish religion (Gal. 5:1). "You were called to freedom, brethren" (Gal. 5:13), Paul exclaims. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (II Cor. 3:17).
Jesus did not say, "I came that you might have religion, and practice it more faithfully," or "I came that you might have religion, and adhere to it more commitedly," or "I came that you might have religion, and define it more dogmatically," or "I came that you might have religion, and defend it more vehemently," or "I came that you might have religion, and thus behave more morally." What Jesus said was, "I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). The life that He came to bring and express within us and through us is His life. "I AM the way, the truth and the life," declared Jesus to His disciples (John 14:6). The apostle John wrote that "He that has the Son has life; he that does not have the Son does not have life" (I John 5:12). "Christ is our life," is the phrase Paul uses in writing to the Colossians (Col. 3:4), for Christianity is not "religion," but the life of Jesus Christ expressed in receptive humanity.
Biblical usage of the word "religion"
A closer look at the biblical usage of the word "religion" will demonstrate that the word is seldom used with any positive implication, but generally has a negative connotation.
When Paul traveled to Athens he observed an abundance of idols, even an idol to an "unknown god," lest they might have missed any. Paul stands up and declares, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects" (Acts 17:22). What does Paul mean by referring to their pervasive idolatry as being "religious?" The Greek word that Paul used was deisidaimon, which is derived from two other Greek words: deido, meaning "to fear or respect," and daimon, the word for "demon." What Paul was saying was that he had observed that they had "great fear or respect for demons," and were thus very religious or superstitious. Festus used the same Greek word to pejoratively refer to the Jewish religion, when he explained to King Agrippa that the Jews who brought charges against Paul "had some points of disagreement with him about their own religion" (Acts 25:19).
In his epistle to the Colossians, Paul was confronting the regional religionism of Asia as well as the Judaizing religionism that constantly followed his ministry. He wanted to show the superiority of the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ over all religion. In referring to the moralistic activities that religionists were attempting to impose upon the Christian believers in Colossae, Paul asks, "Why do you submit yourself to decrees, such as 'Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!'? These are matters which have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence" (Col. 2:20-23). The word translated "religion" is the Greek word ethelothreskia, which is a combination of two other Greek words: ethelo meaning "will, desire, delight or pleasure," and threskeia meaning "worship or religion." Paul is describing such moralistic religious actions as "will-worship" of "self-made religion;" activities which man imposes upon himself and others, believing that such willed self-effort serves as a benefit before God in moralistic performance. Paul denies the veracity of such thinking, regarding such as mere "self-made religion," and of no benefit against the selfish patterns of fleshly indulgence.
James explains that, "If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless" (James 1:26,27). The Greek word that he uses is threskeia, meaning "worship or religion." Misrepresentation of the character of God in our behavior often indicates that we are engaging in "worthless religion." James continues, though, to use threskeia in a positive way when he refers to "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:27), wherein the worth-ship of God's character is genuinely expressed in practical ministry to orphans and widows, and in the expression of the purity of God's character. In that case genuine Christian worship transpires as we are receptive to the activity of God and express the worth-ship of His character in our behavior.
In light of the predominantly negative inferences of the word "religion" in the New Testament, we should avoid applying this word to Christianity.
Christianity and "world religions"
Failure to differentiate between Christianity and "religion" has caused many to lump Christianity together as just another "religion" in the study of comparative world religions. Their criteria for the consideration of a "religion" is merely sociological, psychological, creedal, liturgical or organizational, all of which are inadequate to consider the radical uniqueness of Christianity.
The story is told of Guatama Buddha, who lived some four hundred years prior to the birth of Jesus Christ. He was dying. Some of his devotees came to Buddha and asked how they should perpetuate his memory. "How should we share with the world the remembrance of you? How shall we memorialize you?" Buddha responded, "Don't bother! It is not me that matters; it is my teaching that should be propagated and adhered to throughout the world."
Does that seem to be self-effacing? Does that sound like a noble ideal that attempts to avoid ego-centricity? "Don't focus on me, just remember my teaching."
If Jesus had said something like that, it would certainly legitimize much of what we observe all around us today in the so-called "Christian religion." The "Christian religion" that has formed around the teaching of Christianity is involved in the propagation of various understandings of Jesus' teaching as determined by various interpretations of the Bible. Most of those who called themselves "Christians" today seem to think that Jesus advocated the same thing that Buddha is alleged to have uttered. "Don't focus on me, just remember my teaching."
Jesus did not say anything like that! In fact, what Buddha said is contrary to everything Jesus taught, and everything recorded in the New Testament scriptures. Jesus did not say, "Just remember my teaching." Jesus said, "I AM the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). "I AM the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6). He did not say, "I will show you the way; I will teach you the truth; I will give you the life." His own indwelling presence is the only way for man to be man as God intended. The reality of His person is the truth of God. The very personal presence of the risen Lord Jesus is the life of the Living God, the ontological essence of everything He came to bring to this world. In Buddhism the person of Buddha may not be of any importance except for historical observation, but in Christianity the living Person of Jesus Christ is the reality of God's presence restored to mankind.
Another story is told of Sadhu Sundar Singh, a convert from the religion of Sikhism to Christianity, who eventually became one of India's most well-known Christians. A European professor of comparative religions (who was himself an agnostic) interviewed the former Sadhu one day, with the evident intention of showing him his mistake in renouncing another religion for what he perceived to be the "Christian religion."
The professor asked Mr. Singh, "What have you found in the Christian religion that you did not have in your old religion?" Sundar Singh answered, "I have Jesus." "Yes, I know," the professor replied somewhat impatiently, "but what particular principles or doctrines have you found that you did not have before?" Sunday Singh replied, "The particular person I have found is Jesus."
Try as he might, the professor could not budge him from that position. He went away discomfited but thoughtful.
Sundar Singh was right. The religions of the world have some fine teachings, but they lack the person and life of Jesus Christ, the dynamic presence of God in man.
A personal friend of mine, Bill Hekman, was once seated on an airplane and struck up a conversation with the gentleman seated next to him. In their conversation the fellow-passenger explained that he was a professor of Islamic Studies. Bill Hekman indicated that he was a Christian and had been a missionary to Irian Jaya for twenty years, and that he was returning to Indonesia to engage in Christian teaching.
Their conversation eventually included a discussion of the extent to which the peoples of Indonesia had converted from the predominant religion of Islam to Christianity, and a mutual questioning of whether the Indonesian government statistics of the percentages of Muslims and Christians were accurate. Then the professor of Islamic studies said something very surprising. He indicated that he thought that Indonesia would someday be a primarily Christian nation. Bill, though obviously hopeful of such, was taken aback by such a prediction, and asked him why he thought that this would take place. The professor replied, "Because the Christians have Roh Allah." Roh Allah is the Indonesian expression for the "Spirit of God." This professor realized that there was a dynamic and power in the "Spirit of God" that was beyond anything that Islam had in their belief-system that traced back to the teaching of Mohammed. Indeed there is, for the "Spirit of Christ" is the vital dynamic of the living Lord Jesus, who as God comes to live in the Christian and empower him for the outworking of God's character and work. May his surprising prediction prove true!
There are many religions in the world, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Mohammed-anism (Islam), and Judaism. The ideologies of humanism and communism have also been identified as religions, as well as the individualism of "The American religion." 21 The tenets of Christianity can also be incorporated into a religion of "Christianism,"22 or the "Christian religion" as we are referring to this phenomenon within this study.
Christianity cannot legitimately be compared to any of these religions, however. Religion and Christianity are as different as night and day, death and life, fiction and truth. To attempt to include Christianity in a course on "comparative world religions" is to compare that which cannot be compared, like comparing apples with oranges. Christianity is unique. It is one of a kind. It is the singular reality of God's activity to restore mankind from their fallen condition through His Son, Jesus Christ. Christianity is not the propagation of a philosophy. It is not the performance of religious procedures. It is not the perpetuation of an organizational program. Christianity is the reception of a Person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God Himself, into one's being and behavior.
In all of the world's religions, you can take away the founder and still have the religion. You can take Buddha out of Buddhism and still have the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path. You can take Mohammed out of Islam, and still have the Five Pillars of Action and the Six Articles of Belief. And yes, tragically, you can take Christ out of that misnomer of "Christian religion," and still have the doctrines and the programs and the organizational machinery that masquerade as the "church." Liberal theologians within the "Christian religion" have indicated that it does not matter whether there was ever an "historical Jesus," as long as the "religion" benefits a person psychologically and ethically. On that premise of subjective religious impact being the existential essence of the "Christian religion," they go about "demythologizing" the New Testament scriptures to reduce them to psychological and ethical tenets.
The hypothetical question might be asked, "If God could and would die tonight, what would happen to the 'Christian religion' tomorrow?" The answer is "Nothing!" The "Christian religion" would keep right on functioning, because Jesus Christ, as God, is not the essence and the dynamic of what they are doing anyway! If God were to die tonight, it would be "business as usual" for religion tomorrow. It does not require God in Christ for the "Christian religion" to function; just man and money!
Genuine Christianity, on the other hand, requires the presence and function of the life and person of the living Lord Jesus. Christianity is Christ! Jesus Christ is not just the historical founder of a "Christian religion;" rather He is the vital spiritual essence of Christianity which is His dynamic ontological function within receptive humanity.
Another hypothetical question might be asked. "If you could take Christ out of Christianity, what would be left?" Again it is possible to answer, "Nothing!" Or it is possible that we might explain that the resultant spiritual vacuum is what we know as the "Christian religion." It has been suggested that if you take Christ out of Christianity, all you have left is the self-oriented, self-perpetuating religion of "-I-anity."
South African author, Albert Nolan, explains that
"Jesus cannot be fully identified with that great religious phenomenon of the Western world known as Christianity (Christian religion). He was much more than the founder of one of the world's great religions. He stands about Christianity (Christian religion) as the judge of all it has done in His name." 23
The "Christian religion" is a misnomer. Christianity is not religion! It is so radically different from all religion that it cannot properly be compared with the "world religions." All attempts to do so have preemptively reduced Christianity into its bastardized counterfeit of "Christian religion."
Scripture interpretation and "religion"
The new covenant implemented in the Person and work of Jesus Christ was designed to supplant and supersede all of the old forms of religion that had existed since the fall of man. Careful study of the new covenant literature, which we know as the New Testament, evidences the constant exposure of the radical difference between religion and the dynamic life of Jesus Christ in the kingdom of grace.
Beginning in the accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus in the Gospels (cf. Jesus Confronts Religion), it is apparent that Jesus was constantly confronting religion as He proclaimed the kingdom of grace that He came to reveal in Himself. The Pharisees and scribes of Judaism were the religionists who placed themselves in antagonism to all that Jesus did and said. They did not have the spiritual understanding to comprehend what Jesus was proclaiming. Approximately one-third of Jesus' teaching was in parables, which only served to befuddle the religious teachers for they seldom realized that Jesus was comparing their religious modus operandi with the function of the spiritual reign of God that He came to bring in Himself. Eventually the religious leaders realized that the parables were exposing them, and they began to take measures to silence their nemesis by execution.
In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke carefully explains that in the earliest history of the church, the initial Christian leaders were progressively made aware of the radical difference between the Christian gospel and all religion. Christianity had to be unencumbered and unhindered from any identification with Judaic religion. Peter's dream in Joppa, the inclusion of Cornelius and the Gentiles, the antagonism of the Jewish leaders in Judea, all represent pictorial vignettes of the progressive awareness of how Christianity had to break free from all religion.
Paul's epistles bear the repetitive theme of explaining the difference between religion and Christianity. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul explains that righteousness is not in religious rites or the Law, but in Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. In the epistle we know as First Corinthians, Paul counters the religious excesses that were developing in the young church at Corinth. In the epistle we identify as Second Corinthians, Paul carefully differentiates between gospel ministry by the grace of God and the manipulations of religious method being evidenced by the intrusive pretenders. Writing to the Galatians, Paul pits the gospel versus religion (cf. Gospel versus Religion), forcefully denying that there is "another gospel" as inculcated by legalistic religion. In contrast to religious exclusivism, Paul explains to the Ephesians that all men become a new humanity in Jesus Christ. Combating the effects of the regional religionism of Asia, Paul wrote to the Colossians emphasizing the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ, who is our life. In all of Paul's epistles the theme of Christianity as distinct from and confronting religion is to be found.
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews likewise explains how the old and new covenants of God are to be differentiated, and the old tenets of Judaic religion are replaced by the life of Jesus Christ. The epistle of James indicates that merely going through the rituals of religion is vain, but Christian faith is the outworking of the life of Jesus Christ.
The Revelation of Christ as witnessed by John is indeed the climax of the new covenant literature. In pictorial form Jesus reveals that religion will continually attempt to overcome and secularize Christianity as it was doing in the seven churches of Asia. Jesus is the victor over religion (cf. Jesus: Victor Over Religion), though, and will overcome all the onslaughts of conflict that will inevitably come between Christianity and religion.
Throughout the entirety of the New Testament there is a continuous explanation of the difference between Christianity and religion. Why has this not been made more apparent to Christians in order that they might be more discerning and cease to equate the two? Dare we explain that the interpretation of the new covenant scriptures has been done primarily by commentators and theologians who are thoroughly inundated in "Christian religion?" Religious interpreters whose very livelihood is on the line would be hesitant to expose their own religious methods, even if they had the spiritual discernment to recognize that such religious practices were being exposed in the scriptures. We have witnessed a tragic history of misinterpretation of the Bible throughout the history of "Christian religion."
Evangelism and "religion"
The history of such misinterpretation also serves to explain why the gospel has been received so slowly throughout the world in the last two thousand years. "Christian religion" could only offer their brand of religion which "tied" people to a belief-system and "bound" them to moralistic rules and regulations in "attachment" to the ecclesiastical institution.
Jesus and the early church, on the other hand, proclaimed the gospel by contrasting the grace of God in Jesus Christ with the premises and methodology of religion. They exposed the self-serving practices of religion by manifesting and explaining God's desire to restore all men in Jesus Christ. They confronted the selfish inequities of religion with the love of God in Christ.
Does it not seem self-evident that the ineffectual efforts of evangelism engaged in by "Christian religion" through these many centuries are a result of proclaiming a belief-system to be assented to and advocating a morality to be adhered to, rather than offering the life of Jesus Christ to be received by faith? "Christian religion" usurped the message of Christianity, complete with all the abominable methods that are indicative of all religion, which are antithetical to God's functional intent in Jesus Christ.
"Christian religion" has become so thoroughly religionized that it is unable to perceive the contrast between Christianity and religion. They engage in the religious methodology of recruitment by propaganda in order to "bind, tie and attach" increasing numbers of people to the propositional ideology, the activistic cause, and the sociological organization they represent. Their contemporary marketing procedures of "church growth" reveal that they know nothing of the experience of the dynamic of the grace of God expressed in the living Lord Jesus by His Spirit.
Genuine evangelism is witnessing to the "good news" of the life of Jesus Christ as He comes to indwell us by His Spirit and live out the divine character in our behavior in contrast to the performance of religion. When an individual can see the impotence of religion, having experienced the frustration of religious performance, then the grace of God in Jesus Christ will be "good news" indeed. Such was Paul's testimony in Philippians 3:2-14 when he identified religion as a "total loss" and "nothing but rubbish," but rejoiced in his personal and spiritual identification with the living Lord Jesus.
Understanding the difference between Christianity and religion will make all the difference in the world in the way that we engage in evangelism. Rather than presenting unbelievers with a package of doctrine to believe in, or a codification of behavior to conform to, or a sociological institution to join and be involved in, Christians will allow the living Lord Jesus to "re-present" Himself to His created human beings through them, contrasting what He came to bring in Himself with all religious method as He did during His personal and historical incarnational ministry here on earth.
The abuse of humanity in "religion"
In his Provincial Letters, Blaise Pascal charges the Jesuits with "sporting with religion, in order to gratify the worst passions of man." 24 It is inherent within the methodology of all man-made religion to offer a counterfeit fulfillment to the needs of mankind. Religion sets itself up in a self-deified position to extend a false-fulfillment of man's God-given desires with a "religious" solution. When the basic God-given needs of man are offered false-fulfillment in religious counterfeit, humanity is being used and abused.
Here are some examples of God-given desires being falsely fulfilled by religion. The God-given desire to be loved is offered a cheap imitation of "a thing called love," wherein one might develop a degree of intimacy with others. The desire to be accepted is appeased as religion offers to accept a person "just as they are," until further instructed. Our human desire to belong is offered false-fulfillment in the encouragement to "get involved" in the "fellowship" of our "community." The desire for sociability is stroked when religion invites a person to relate to their group and let them be their "family." Man's desire for security is offered the secure provision of "once saved, always saved." Religion offers uniformity and conformity to satisfy mans need for order. The basic desire to believe and to be correct in that belief is placated with dogmatism, intellectualism, and the absolutism of orthodoxy. Religion offers a raison d'etre and a cause celebre to satisfy our need for meaning. Stimulating emotional "highs" and experiential subjectivism provide for the desire for excitement. The need for uniqueness is provided for in the exclusivism and elitism that posits that "we are the only ones." If it is identity that you need, join with us and you will be "somebody," a socialistic identity by association. Religion offers approval and affirmation, often by affirming "I'm OK; you're OK." The desire to work can be accommodated by religious activism which encourages adherents to "get involved" and "work for Jesus." The desire to possess is titillated by the "health and wealth" gospel that falsely asserts that "God wants you rich." The need to give is a favorite target of religion as they urge people to contribute by tithing ten-percent of their income. Religion promises to fulfill the need for destiny by providing the correct techniques, procedures and formulas whereby a person will be guaranteed a place in heaven.
These religious counterfeits are nothing less that an abuse of humanity. Instead of leading mankind out of the addictive false-fulfillment of their God-given desires, religion offers nothing but another form of addictive dysfunction. Religion is co-dependent to the sins of the people. Religion is an aider and abettor to the sinful dysfunction of humanity, enabling and encouraging mankind to seek their solutions and their "salvation" in religion rather than in Jesus Christ.
The Satanic source of "religion"
Religion is the devil's playground. The diabolic efforts to inhibit and impede the gospel have been ever so subtle, as they turned Christianity into the "Christian religion," continuing to use the same vocabulary, and using the very inspired scriptures which were designed to be the written record of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as the basis of their belief-systems and morality codes.
Major W. Ian Thomas writes,
"It is one of the subtleties of Satan which causes men to flee from God and seek to silence His voice in the very practice of religion. So it is that man, to suit his own convenience, has reduced God to a theological formula, an ethical code, or political program, a theatrical performance in a religious setting, the hero worship of some vivid personality..." 25
In his masterful presentation of diabolic activity, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has the senior devil, Screwtape, say to his nephew, Wormwood, "One of our greatest allies at present is the church itself," 26 i.e. "Christian religion." In another vignette Screwtape explains that "it will be an ill day for us if what most humans mean by 'religion' ever vanishes from the Earth. It can still send us the truly delicious sins. Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps of the altar." 27 Blaise Pascal likewise noted that "men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." 28
To identify religion with the activity of Satan will seem to be blasphemous to those who have not differentiated between Christianity and religion. Once that distinction has been clearly made however, the antithetical alternative to Christianity that takes place in religion will of necessity be identified with the activity of the Evil One.
Norman Olson explains that
"Satan uses religion and the idea of 'doing good' to make people blind to the fact that these have no saving value whatever, to say nothing of spirituality.
"Any system of religion is satanic in nature, no matter how beautiful the package might appear to be. Satan is the author of 'do good'."
"Religion is often portrayed by the devil as a mass solution to man's problem. If he can get everyone into some religion, he knows that he can keep people in some false hope, in some anesthetic, and prevent them from seeing their real need. Nothing that Satan has ever devised has been as successful as religion in blinding men's minds to the truth." 29
In like manner, Dave Hunt has written that,
"Satan's primary tactic in opposing God is not to foster atheism, but religion. A perverted 'Christianity' is Satan's ultimate weapon." 30
If we are to understand religion correctly we must recognize its satanic source and the spiritual conflict that is taking place between God and Satan in Christianity and religion.
The sociological attachment of "religion"
It might be pointed out that mankind has a natural tendency to develop religious practices, and that every known civilization of man has engaged in some form of religion. Indeed it is "natural" for man to form religions, for "the natural man does not understand spiritual things" (I Cor. 2:14). His "natural" wisdom is demonically inspired (James 3:15), for "the prince of the power of the air is the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2).
Sociologists have on occasion argued that religion serves a beneficial social purpose of attaching people together in group unity. Such social bonding ties a group of people together as they set their sights on a "higher" common goal. Religion thus gives a group of people a collective sense of identity, purpose and meaning, and provides for social continuity. When engaged in such a collective mutual pursuit of religious striving, their religion provides a legitimacy and validity to the rules and regulations that are imposed upon them, and when religion wanes the weight and authority of social and moral law diminishes.
It is indeed possible to analyze religion sociologically or psychologically31, but these are just observations of the phenomena of religion. It cannot be concluded from these observations that religion constitutes a social or moral "good," or that religion is the "better" or "highest" feature of the natural world system of man, especially when it is abusing people as previously noted. Religion is, on the contrary, the most subtle and insidious feature of the diabolically inspired world of natural men, and as such it is the most abominable and damnable.
There is nothing "good" about religion. Religion relativizes the goodness that is derived from God alone. Religion engages in the relativistic goodness of the "good and evil" game that has been played by natural man ever since man fell by partaking of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 3).
The world's view of "religion"
Many of those who call themselves "Christians" have been unable to differentiate between Christianity and religion. As they participate in the counterfeit of "Christian religion," they mistakenly think it is Christianity, and are blinded in the belief that religion is an admirable pursuit.
On the other hand, there are many who are not Christians who view the activities of the "Christian religion," and who likewise fail to differentiate between religion and Christianity. They in turn reject Christianity, believing it to be equivalent to the "Christian religion" they have observed.
Many abominable activities have taken place under the guise of "Christian religion." Man-made religion always seeks power and will revert to militaristic warfare to achieve that power. The history of religion, including "Christian religion," is but a succession of religious wars wherein religionists slaughter one another under the flag of "religion," usually with political overtones. The Crusades of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries are but one historical example among many.
Religious bigotry has been evident in every century as religious leaders engage in racial, national, sexual, ideological and denominational exclusion, ostracism and persecution. There are always the religious attempts to purge those who disagree, and to punish those who do not conform to legislated morality. The period of the Inquisition is a sad example in the history of "Christian religion."
People of the world observe the big religious organizations with their huge ecclesiastic superstructures. They are often rich, powerful, tax-evading, and political in nature. They observe the religious fanatics who try to justify any activity from bombing an abortion clinic to murdering a doctor who works therein. Any means seems to be justifiable if it achieves their religiously deified end-cause. They observe the seemingly endless and meaningless religious activities of church services, ceremonies and programs which seem to be just "pomp and circumstance."
Is it any wonder that many of the people of the world speak derisively of religion? They have read their history books and have heard of the atrocities perpetrated in the name of "religion." They hear of the vast gold reserves and corporate holdings of religious conglomerates gained through tax-exemptions and unfair advantage. They can see the exploitation of the populace through superstition and fear. They see through the ecclesiastic politicizing and cultural manipulation. They see the people going through their meaningless motions of religious ritual to try to appease God. Often they have come to the conclusion that they do not want anything to do with "religion," and I, for one, do not blame them! The world has a right, even an intellectual obligation, to reject the religious folderol that is so prevalent, and to demand reality.
Was Marx correct in his appraisal that "religion is the opiate of the people"?
Christianity is not "religion"
Religion emphasizes precepts, propositions, performance, production, programs, promotion, percentages, etc. Christianity emphasizes the Person of Jesus Christ, and His life lived out through the receptive Christian believer.
Religion has to do with form, formalism and formulas; ritual, rules, regulations and rites; legalism, laws and laboring. The "good news" of Christianity is that it is not what we do or perform, but what Jesus has done and is doing in us. Jesus exclaimed from the cross, "It is finished!" (John 19:30). The performance is hereby accomplished! Jesus has done all the doing that needs doing for our regeneration, and continues to do all the doing that God wants to do in us. "God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
Some have tried to explain that "Christianity is not religion; it is a relationship." Such a statement is too ambiguous, for it is possible to have a "relationship" with religious peoples and practices. Although Christianity does involve a personal relationship between an individual and the living Lord Jesus, it must be pointed out that this is effected by the ontological presence of the Spirit of Christ dwelling within the spirit of a Christian who has received Him by faith, and the Spirit of Christ functioning through that Christian's behavior. It is not just a casual relationship of acquaintance with the historical Jesus or with the theological formulations of Jesus' work. Perhaps it would be better to indicate that "Christianity is not religion; it is the reality of Jesus Christ as God coming in the form of His Spirit to indwell man in order to restore him to the functional intent of God whereby the character of God is allowed to be manifested in man's behavior to the glory of God.
Christianity is not religion! Christianity is Christ! Christianity is "Christ-in-you-ity." Jesus Christ did not found a religion to remember and reiterate His teaching. Christianity is the personal, spiritual presence of the risen and living Lord Jesus Christ, manifesting His life and character in Christians, i.e. "Christ-ones." Paul explained, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20).
God's appointed servants
God's appointed servants.... Truth....
Anyone who feels called to work for Me and to work on earth in My name always and forever has to let himself be drawn and guided by Me, he has to let Me speak to Him through the voice of His heart, he has to listen to what this voice tells him and comply with the prompting of his heart. Anyone who feels called has to stay in constant contact with Me, he has to subordinate himself unconditionally and without resistance to My will. Only then can I work through him, only then is he My servant in truth, the labourer, who conscientiously carries out the work for His Lord. However, he will feel his appointment by Me in the desire to proclaim My Word, My will.... he will feel urged to inform people about the meaning and purpose of earthly life, he will feel urged to admonish and warn them since he himself, if he has been appointed by Me to work for My kingdom, knows the pure truth and will also always want to spread it. The appointment by Me is the result of spiritual maturity which enables the human being to accept the pure truth from Me, and thus no person can ever be appointed by Me who was not taught by the spirit within himself first.
Although he is also able to accept knowledge intellectually it does not enable him to spread the truth because he does not completely recognise the truth in the knowledge he received. However, it is necessary to recognise the pure truth first before he can pass it on to his fellow human beings. And this recognition can only be imparted to him by My spirit.... The human being has to be spiritually reborn, only then will he have the right
understanding and recognition for pure truth, only then will he have been taught by Me Myself and will be able to work as My servant on earth. The inner desire to serve Me will also result in his calling by Me, because I will accept everyone who offers himself to work for My kingdom on earth and prepare him in accordance with his spiritual maturity. And if he gives himself to Me entirely he will follow the faintest prompting of his heart and thus always comply with My will when I require him to work for Me. For this reason he has to completely detach himself from the world, he has to look at his contact with Me as utmost bliss and as far as possible ignore all worldliness.
Then he will hear the spirit within himself ever more brightly and clearly and follow this voice ever more gladly, and then he will be a suitable worker for My kingdom on this earth....
Amen
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Christianity is NOT Religion
The Latin word from which the English word "religion" is derived means "to bind up." Jesus did not come to bind us up in rules and regulations or rituals of devotion, but to set us free to be man as God inended.
©1998 by James A. Fowler. All rights reserved.
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The need of the hour is to distinguish and differentiate between "religion" and Christianity. Most people in the Western world have so long identified these terms and thought them to be synonymous and equivalent, that it takes a sharp can-opener of rational argument, or the sharper still "word of God" (Heb. 4:12), to reveal the contrasting dichotomy between Christianity and "religion." This attempt to differentiate between the two may indeed be presumptuous, but on the other hand it might be used of God to bring the revelation of spiritual understanding that would allow someone to make the important distinction and enjoy the reality of Jesus' life.
Many erstwhile Christian thinkers have made the distinction between "religion" and Christianity. In confronting the sixteenth century religionism of Roman Catholicism, Martin Luther explained, "I have often said that to speak and judge rightly in this matter we must carefully distinguish between a pious (religious) man and a Christian."1 The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, was exposing the nineteenth century religionism of the state church in Denmark in his work entitled Attack on Christendom, wherein he noted that it is most difficult to explain to someone who thinks that they are a Christian already, what it means to be a Christian.2 German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, stood up to the spineless religionism of the German Lutheran Church during World War II and was killed by the Nazis. In his Letters and Papers from Prison he sets up the antinomy between faith and religion and argues for a "nonreligious" or "religionless Christianity." 3
Far and away the clearest delineation between "religion" and Christianity is drawn by the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, who was without a doubt the greatest theologian of the twentieth century. In his voluminous Church Dogmatics, Barth wrote that
"the revelation of God is the abolition of religion." 4
"It is always the sign of definite misunderstanding when an attempt is made to systematically coordinate revelation and religion...to fix their mutual relationship. 5
"In opposition to all 'religionism' the proclamation of the grace of God is introduced as the truth..." 6
"Religion is unbelief. It is a concern of...godless man." 7
"Religion is clearly seen to be a human attempt to anticipate what God in His revelation wills to do and does do. It is the attempted replacement of the divine work by a human manufacture." 8
"It is a feeble but defiant, an arrogant but hopeless, attempt to create something which man could do. In religion man bolts and bars himself against revelation by providing a substitute, by taking away in advance the very thing which has to be given by God. It is never the truth. It is a complete fiction, which has not only little but no relation to God."9
"What is the purpose of the universal attempt of religions but to anticipate God, to foist a human product into the place of His word, to make our own images of the One who is known only where He gives Himself to be known."10
"The revelation of God denies that any religion is true. No religion can stand before the grace of God as true religion."11
French sociologist, legal scholar and theologian, Jacques Ellul, in like manner affirms that,
"There is no path leading from a little bit of religion (of whatever kind) to a little more and finally to faith. Faith shatters all religion..." 12
"The opposition between religion and revelation can really be understood quite simply. We can reduce it to a maxim: religion goes up, revelation comes down. 13
"The central fact of the revelation of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus Christ, is that God descends to humankind. Never in any way, under any circumstances can we ascend to God, howsoever slightly." 14
The American Episcopalian priest, Robert Capon, has an inimical straight-forward way of explaining the difference between religion and Christianity.
"Almost all people, inside as well as outside the church, find that the notion of grace stands in contradiction to everything they understand by religion."15
"The gospel of grace is the end of religion, the final posting of the CLOSED sign on the sweatshop of the human race's perpetual struggle to think well of itself. For that, at bottom, is what religion is: man's well-meant but dim-witted attempt to approve of his unapprovable condition by doing odd jobs he thinks some important Something will thank him for.
"Religion, therefore, is a loser, a strictly fallen activity. It has a failed past and a bankrupt future. There was no religion in Eden and there won't be any in heaven; and in the meantime Jesus has died and risen to persuade us to knock it all off right now."16
"I want you to set aside the notion of the Christian religion, because it's a contradiction in terms. You won't learn anything positive about religion from Christianity, and if you look for Christianity in religion, you'll never find it. To be sure, Christianity uses the forms of religion, and, to be dismally honest, too many of its adherents act as if it were a religion; but it isn't one, and that's that. The church is not in the religion business; it is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. And the gospel is the good news that all man's fuss and feathers over his relationship with God is unnecessary because God, in the mystery of the Word who is Jesus, has gone and fixed it up Himself. So let that pass."17
Many other statements from Christian writers could be adduced, but these will suffice to represent the awareness of the differentiation between "religion" and Christianity.
Background of the word "religion"
A brief study of the etymology of our English word "religion" will reveal that we might not want to allow the word "religion" to be associated with Christianity. There are several Latin words which may have served as the origin of our English word "religion." The Latin word religo meant "to tie or fasten."18 A similar word, religio, was used to refer to "respect, devotion or superstition."19 Religio was a recognition that men are often tied or bound to God in reverence or devotion. It can also convey the meaning of being bound or tied to a set of rules and regulations, to rituals of devotion, to a creedal belief-system, or to a cause, ideology, or routine. Some have suggested that "religion" may be derived from the Latin word relegere, which refers to re-reading. There is no doubt that "religion" is often associated with repetitious rites of liturgy and litany, and the reproduction of creedal formulas and expressions. Most etymologists, however, regard the English word "religion" to be derived from the Latin word religare which is closely aligned with the root word religo. 20 The prefix re- means "back" or "again," and the word ligare refers to "binding, tying or attaching." Other English words such as "ligature," referring to "something that is used to bind," and "ligament" which "binds things together," evidence the same root in the Latin word ligare. The Latin word religare, from which our English word "religion" is most likely derived, meant "to tie back" or "to bind up."
The purpose of Jesus' coming was not to "bind us" or "tie us" to anything or anyone, though it might be argued that in the reception of Jesus Christ by faith there is a spiritual attachment of our identity with Him. Jesus clearly indicates that He came to set us free free to be functional humanity in the fullest sense, by allowing God to function through us to His glory. To some believing Jews, Jesus explained that "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Further explanation of the personification of that "truth" in Himself was then made when Jesus said, "If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." To the Galatians Paul affirms that, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" by reverting back to the bondage of Jewish religion (Gal. 5:1). "You were called to freedom, brethren" (Gal. 5:13), Paul exclaims. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (II Cor. 3:17).
Jesus did not say, "I came that you might have religion, and practice it more faithfully," or "I came that you might have religion, and adhere to it more commitedly," or "I came that you might have religion, and define it more dogmatically," or "I came that you might have religion, and defend it more vehemently," or "I came that you might have religion, and thus behave more morally." What Jesus said was, "I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). The life that He came to bring and express within us and through us is His life. "I AM the way, the truth and the life," declared Jesus to His disciples (John 14:6). The apostle John wrote that "He that has the Son has life; he that does not have the Son does not have life" (I John 5:12). "Christ is our life," is the phrase Paul uses in writing to the Colossians (Col. 3:4), for Christianity is not "religion," but the life of Jesus Christ expressed in receptive humanity.
Biblical usage of the word "religion"
A closer look at the biblical usage of the word "religion" will demonstrate that the word is seldom used with any positive implication, but generally has a negative connotation.
When Paul traveled to Athens he observed an abundance of idols, even an idol to an "unknown god," lest they might have missed any. Paul stands up and declares, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects" (Acts 17:22). What does Paul mean by referring to their pervasive idolatry as being "religious?" The Greek word that Paul used was deisidaimon, which is derived from two other Greek words: deido, meaning "to fear or respect," and daimon, the word for "demon." What Paul was saying was that he had observed that they had "great fear or respect for demons," and were thus very religious or superstitious. Festus used the same Greek word to pejoratively refer to the Jewish religion, when he explained to King Agrippa that the Jews who brought charges against Paul "had some points of disagreement with him about their own religion" (Acts 25:19).
In his epistle to the Colossians, Paul was confronting the regional religionism of Asia as well as the Judaizing religionism that constantly followed his ministry. He wanted to show the superiority of the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ over all religion. In referring to the moralistic activities that religionists were attempting to impose upon the Christian believers in Colossae, Paul asks, "Why do you submit yourself to decrees, such as 'Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!'? These are matters which have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence" (Col. 2:20-23). The word translated "religion" is the Greek word ethelothreskia, which is a combination of two other Greek words: ethelo meaning "will, desire, delight or pleasure," and threskeia meaning "worship or religion." Paul is describing such moralistic religious actions as "will-worship" of "self-made religion;" activities which man imposes upon himself and others, believing that such willed self-effort serves as a benefit before God in moralistic performance. Paul denies the veracity of such thinking, regarding such as mere "self-made religion," and of no benefit against the selfish patterns of fleshly indulgence.
James explains that, "If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless" (James 1:26,27). The Greek word that he uses is threskeia, meaning "worship or religion." Misrepresentation of the character of God in our behavior often indicates that we are engaging in "worthless religion." James continues, though, to use threskeia in a positive way when he refers to "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:27), wherein the worth-ship of God's character is genuinely expressed in practical ministry to orphans and widows, and in the expression of the purity of God's character. In that case genuine Christian worship transpires as we are receptive to the activity of God and express the worth-ship of His character in our behavior.
In light of the predominantly negative inferences of the word "religion" in the New Testament, we should avoid applying this word to Christianity.
Christianity and "world religions"
Failure to differentiate between Christianity and "religion" has caused many to lump Christianity together as just another "religion" in the study of comparative world religions. Their criteria for the consideration of a "religion" is merely sociological, psychological, creedal, liturgical or organizational, all of which are inadequate to consider the radical uniqueness of Christianity.
The story is told of Guatama Buddha, who lived some four hundred years prior to the birth of Jesus Christ. He was dying. Some of his devotees came to Buddha and asked how they should perpetuate his memory. "How should we share with the world the remembrance of you? How shall we memorialize you?" Buddha responded, "Don't bother! It is not me that matters; it is my teaching that should be propagated and adhered to throughout the world."
Does that seem to be self-effacing? Does that sound like a noble ideal that attempts to avoid ego-centricity? "Don't focus on me, just remember my teaching."
If Jesus had said something like that, it would certainly legitimize much of what we observe all around us today in the so-called "Christian religion." The "Christian religion" that has formed around the teaching of Christianity is involved in the propagation of various understandings of Jesus' teaching as determined by various interpretations of the Bible. Most of those who called themselves "Christians" today seem to think that Jesus advocated the same thing that Buddha is alleged to have uttered. "Don't focus on me, just remember my teaching."
Jesus did not say anything like that! In fact, what Buddha said is contrary to everything Jesus taught, and everything recorded in the New Testament scriptures. Jesus did not say, "Just remember my teaching." Jesus said, "I AM the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). "I AM the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6). He did not say, "I will show you the way; I will teach you the truth; I will give you the life." His own indwelling presence is the only way for man to be man as God intended. The reality of His person is the truth of God. The very personal presence of the risen Lord Jesus is the life of the Living God, the ontological essence of everything He came to bring to this world. In Buddhism the person of Buddha may not be of any importance except for historical observation, but in Christianity the living Person of Jesus Christ is the reality of God's presence restored to mankind.
Another story is told of Sadhu Sundar Singh, a convert from the religion of Sikhism to Christianity, who eventually became one of India's most well-known Christians. A European professor of comparative religions (who was himself an agnostic) interviewed the former Sadhu one day, with the evident intention of showing him his mistake in renouncing another religion for what he perceived to be the "Christian religion."
The professor asked Mr. Singh, "What have you found in the Christian religion that you did not have in your old religion?" Sundar Singh answered, "I have Jesus." "Yes, I know," the professor replied somewhat impatiently, "but what particular principles or doctrines have you found that you did not have before?" Sunday Singh replied, "The particular person I have found is Jesus."
Try as he might, the professor could not budge him from that position. He went away discomfited but thoughtful.
Sundar Singh was right. The religions of the world have some fine teachings, but they lack the person and life of Jesus Christ, the dynamic presence of God in man.
A personal friend of mine, Bill Hekman, was once seated on an airplane and struck up a conversation with the gentleman seated next to him. In their conversation the fellow-passenger explained that he was a professor of Islamic Studies. Bill Hekman indicated that he was a Christian and had been a missionary to Irian Jaya for twenty years, and that he was returning to Indonesia to engage in Christian teaching.
Their conversation eventually included a discussion of the extent to which the peoples of Indonesia had converted from the predominant religion of Islam to Christianity, and a mutual questioning of whether the Indonesian government statistics of the percentages of Muslims and Christians were accurate. Then the professor of Islamic studies said something very surprising. He indicated that he thought that Indonesia would someday be a primarily Christian nation. Bill, though obviously hopeful of such, was taken aback by such a prediction, and asked him why he thought that this would take place. The professor replied, "Because the Christians have Roh Allah." Roh Allah is the Indonesian expression for the "Spirit of God." This professor realized that there was a dynamic and power in the "Spirit of God" that was beyond anything that Islam had in their belief-system that traced back to the teaching of Mohammed. Indeed there is, for the "Spirit of Christ" is the vital dynamic of the living Lord Jesus, who as God comes to live in the Christian and empower him for the outworking of God's character and work. May his surprising prediction prove true!
There are many religions in the world, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Mohammed-anism (Islam), and Judaism. The ideologies of humanism and communism have also been identified as religions, as well as the individualism of "The American religion." 21 The tenets of Christianity can also be incorporated into a religion of "Christianism,"22 or the "Christian religion" as we are referring to this phenomenon within this study.
Christianity cannot legitimately be compared to any of these religions, however. Religion and Christianity are as different as night and day, death and life, fiction and truth. To attempt to include Christianity in a course on "comparative world religions" is to compare that which cannot be compared, like comparing apples with oranges. Christianity is unique. It is one of a kind. It is the singular reality of God's activity to restore mankind from their fallen condition through His Son, Jesus Christ. Christianity is not the propagation of a philosophy. It is not the performance of religious procedures. It is not the perpetuation of an organizational program. Christianity is the reception of a Person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God Himself, into one's being and behavior.
In all of the world's religions, you can take away the founder and still have the religion. You can take Buddha out of Buddhism and still have the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path. You can take Mohammed out of Islam, and still have the Five Pillars of Action and the Six Articles of Belief. And yes, tragically, you can take Christ out of that misnomer of "Christian religion," and still have the doctrines and the programs and the organizational machinery that masquerade as the "church." Liberal theologians within the "Christian religion" have indicated that it does not matter whether there was ever an "historical Jesus," as long as the "religion" benefits a person psychologically and ethically. On that premise of subjective religious impact being the existential essence of the "Christian religion," they go about "demythologizing" the New Testament scriptures to reduce them to psychological and ethical tenets.
The hypothetical question might be asked, "If God could and would die tonight, what would happen to the 'Christian religion' tomorrow?" The answer is "Nothing!" The "Christian religion" would keep right on functioning, because Jesus Christ, as God, is not the essence and the dynamic of what they are doing anyway! If God were to die tonight, it would be "business as usual" for religion tomorrow. It does not require God in Christ for the "Christian religion" to function; just man and money!
Genuine Christianity, on the other hand, requires the presence and function of the life and person of the living Lord Jesus. Christianity is Christ! Jesus Christ is not just the historical founder of a "Christian religion;" rather He is the vital spiritual essence of Christianity which is His dynamic ontological function within receptive humanity.
Another hypothetical question might be asked. "If you could take Christ out of Christianity, what would be left?" Again it is possible to answer, "Nothing!" Or it is possible that we might explain that the resultant spiritual vacuum is what we know as the "Christian religion." It has been suggested that if you take Christ out of Christianity, all you have left is the self-oriented, self-perpetuating religion of "-I-anity."
South African author, Albert Nolan, explains that
"Jesus cannot be fully identified with that great religious phenomenon of the Western world known as Christianity (Christian religion). He was much more than the founder of one of the world's great religions. He stands about Christianity (Christian religion) as the judge of all it has done in His name." 23
The "Christian religion" is a misnomer. Christianity is not religion! It is so radically different from all religion that it cannot properly be compared with the "world religions." All attempts to do so have preemptively reduced Christianity into its bastardized counterfeit of "Christian religion."
Scripture interpretation and "religion"
The new covenant implemented in the Person and work of Jesus Christ was designed to supplant and supersede all of the old forms of religion that had existed since the fall of man. Careful study of the new covenant literature, which we know as the New Testament, evidences the constant exposure of the radical difference between religion and the dynamic life of Jesus Christ in the kingdom of grace.
Beginning in the accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus in the Gospels (cf. Jesus Confronts Religion), it is apparent that Jesus was constantly confronting religion as He proclaimed the kingdom of grace that He came to reveal in Himself. The Pharisees and scribes of Judaism were the religionists who placed themselves in antagonism to all that Jesus did and said. They did not have the spiritual understanding to comprehend what Jesus was proclaiming. Approximately one-third of Jesus' teaching was in parables, which only served to befuddle the religious teachers for they seldom realized that Jesus was comparing their religious modus operandi with the function of the spiritual reign of God that He came to bring in Himself. Eventually the religious leaders realized that the parables were exposing them, and they began to take measures to silence their nemesis by execution.
In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke carefully explains that in the earliest history of the church, the initial Christian leaders were progressively made aware of the radical difference between the Christian gospel and all religion. Christianity had to be unencumbered and unhindered from any identification with Judaic religion. Peter's dream in Joppa, the inclusion of Cornelius and the Gentiles, the antagonism of the Jewish leaders in Judea, all represent pictorial vignettes of the progressive awareness of how Christianity had to break free from all religion.
Paul's epistles bear the repetitive theme of explaining the difference between religion and Christianity. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul explains that righteousness is not in religious rites or the Law, but in Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. In the epistle we know as First Corinthians, Paul counters the religious excesses that were developing in the young church at Corinth. In the epistle we identify as Second Corinthians, Paul carefully differentiates between gospel ministry by the grace of God and the manipulations of religious method being evidenced by the intrusive pretenders. Writing to the Galatians, Paul pits the gospel versus religion (cf. Gospel versus Religion), forcefully denying that there is "another gospel" as inculcated by legalistic religion. In contrast to religious exclusivism, Paul explains to the Ephesians that all men become a new humanity in Jesus Christ. Combating the effects of the regional religionism of Asia, Paul wrote to the Colossians emphasizing the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ, who is our life. In all of Paul's epistles the theme of Christianity as distinct from and confronting religion is to be found.
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews likewise explains how the old and new covenants of God are to be differentiated, and the old tenets of Judaic religion are replaced by the life of Jesus Christ. The epistle of James indicates that merely going through the rituals of religion is vain, but Christian faith is the outworking of the life of Jesus Christ.
The Revelation of Christ as witnessed by John is indeed the climax of the new covenant literature. In pictorial form Jesus reveals that religion will continually attempt to overcome and secularize Christianity as it was doing in the seven churches of Asia. Jesus is the victor over religion (cf. Jesus: Victor Over Religion), though, and will overcome all the onslaughts of conflict that will inevitably come between Christianity and religion.
Throughout the entirety of the New Testament there is a continuous explanation of the difference between Christianity and religion. Why has this not been made more apparent to Christians in order that they might be more discerning and cease to equate the two? Dare we explain that the interpretation of the new covenant scriptures has been done primarily by commentators and theologians who are thoroughly inundated in "Christian religion?" Religious interpreters whose very livelihood is on the line would be hesitant to expose their own religious methods, even if they had the spiritual discernment to recognize that such religious practices were being exposed in the scriptures. We have witnessed a tragic history of misinterpretation of the Bible throughout the history of "Christian religion."
Evangelism and "religion"
The history of such misinterpretation also serves to explain why the gospel has been received so slowly throughout the world in the last two thousand years. "Christian religion" could only offer their brand of religion which "tied" people to a belief-system and "bound" them to moralistic rules and regulations in "attachment" to the ecclesiastical institution.
Jesus and the early church, on the other hand, proclaimed the gospel by contrasting the grace of God in Jesus Christ with the premises and methodology of religion. They exposed the self-serving practices of religion by manifesting and explaining God's desire to restore all men in Jesus Christ. They confronted the selfish inequities of religion with the love of God in Christ.
Does it not seem self-evident that the ineffectual efforts of evangelism engaged in by "Christian religion" through these many centuries are a result of proclaiming a belief-system to be assented to and advocating a morality to be adhered to, rather than offering the life of Jesus Christ to be received by faith? "Christian religion" usurped the message of Christianity, complete with all the abominable methods that are indicative of all religion, which are antithetical to God's functional intent in Jesus Christ.
"Christian religion" has become so thoroughly religionized that it is unable to perceive the contrast between Christianity and religion. They engage in the religious methodology of recruitment by propaganda in order to "bind, tie and attach" increasing numbers of people to the propositional ideology, the activistic cause, and the sociological organization they represent. Their contemporary marketing procedures of "church growth" reveal that they know nothing of the experience of the dynamic of the grace of God expressed in the living Lord Jesus by His Spirit.
Genuine evangelism is witnessing to the "good news" of the life of Jesus Christ as He comes to indwell us by His Spirit and live out the divine character in our behavior in contrast to the performance of religion. When an individual can see the impotence of religion, having experienced the frustration of religious performance, then the grace of God in Jesus Christ will be "good news" indeed. Such was Paul's testimony in Philippians 3:2-14 when he identified religion as a "total loss" and "nothing but rubbish," but rejoiced in his personal and spiritual identification with the living Lord Jesus.
Understanding the difference between Christianity and religion will make all the difference in the world in the way that we engage in evangelism. Rather than presenting unbelievers with a package of doctrine to believe in, or a codification of behavior to conform to, or a sociological institution to join and be involved in, Christians will allow the living Lord Jesus to "re-present" Himself to His created human beings through them, contrasting what He came to bring in Himself with all religious method as He did during His personal and historical incarnational ministry here on earth.
The abuse of humanity in "religion"
In his Provincial Letters, Blaise Pascal charges the Jesuits with "sporting with religion, in order to gratify the worst passions of man." 24 It is inherent within the methodology of all man-made religion to offer a counterfeit fulfillment to the needs of mankind. Religion sets itself up in a self-deified position to extend a false-fulfillment of man's God-given desires with a "religious" solution. When the basic God-given needs of man are offered false-fulfillment in religious counterfeit, humanity is being used and abused.
Here are some examples of God-given desires being falsely fulfilled by religion. The God-given desire to be loved is offered a cheap imitation of "a thing called love," wherein one might develop a degree of intimacy with others. The desire to be accepted is appeased as religion offers to accept a person "just as they are," until further instructed. Our human desire to belong is offered false-fulfillment in the encouragement to "get involved" in the "fellowship" of our "community." The desire for sociability is stroked when religion invites a person to relate to their group and let them be their "family." Man's desire for security is offered the secure provision of "once saved, always saved." Religion offers uniformity and conformity to satisfy mans need for order. The basic desire to believe and to be correct in that belief is placated with dogmatism, intellectualism, and the absolutism of orthodoxy. Religion offers a raison d'etre and a cause celebre to satisfy our need for meaning. Stimulating emotional "highs" and experiential subjectivism provide for the desire for excitement. The need for uniqueness is provided for in the exclusivism and elitism that posits that "we are the only ones." If it is identity that you need, join with us and you will be "somebody," a socialistic identity by association. Religion offers approval and affirmation, often by affirming "I'm OK; you're OK." The desire to work can be accommodated by religious activism which encourages adherents to "get involved" and "work for Jesus." The desire to possess is titillated by the "health and wealth" gospel that falsely asserts that "God wants you rich." The need to give is a favorite target of religion as they urge people to contribute by tithing ten-percent of their income. Religion promises to fulfill the need for destiny by providing the correct techniques, procedures and formulas whereby a person will be guaranteed a place in heaven.
These religious counterfeits are nothing less that an abuse of humanity. Instead of leading mankind out of the addictive false-fulfillment of their God-given desires, religion offers nothing but another form of addictive dysfunction. Religion is co-dependent to the sins of the people. Religion is an aider and abettor to the sinful dysfunction of humanity, enabling and encouraging mankind to seek their solutions and their "salvation" in religion rather than in Jesus Christ.
The Satanic source of "religion"
Religion is the devil's playground. The diabolic efforts to inhibit and impede the gospel have been ever so subtle, as they turned Christianity into the "Christian religion," continuing to use the same vocabulary, and using the very inspired scriptures which were designed to be the written record of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as the basis of their belief-systems and morality codes.
Major W. Ian Thomas writes,
"It is one of the subtleties of Satan which causes men to flee from God and seek to silence His voice in the very practice of religion. So it is that man, to suit his own convenience, has reduced God to a theological formula, an ethical code, or political program, a theatrical performance in a religious setting, the hero worship of some vivid personality..." 25
In his masterful presentation of diabolic activity, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has the senior devil, Screwtape, say to his nephew, Wormwood, "One of our greatest allies at present is the church itself," 26 i.e. "Christian religion." In another vignette Screwtape explains that "it will be an ill day for us if what most humans mean by 'religion' ever vanishes from the Earth. It can still send us the truly delicious sins. Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps of the altar." 27 Blaise Pascal likewise noted that "men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." 28
To identify religion with the activity of Satan will seem to be blasphemous to those who have not differentiated between Christianity and religion. Once that distinction has been clearly made however, the antithetical alternative to Christianity that takes place in religion will of necessity be identified with the activity of the Evil One.
Norman Olson explains that
"Satan uses religion and the idea of 'doing good' to make people blind to the fact that these have no saving value whatever, to say nothing of spirituality.
"Any system of religion is satanic in nature, no matter how beautiful the package might appear to be. Satan is the author of 'do good'."
"Religion is often portrayed by the devil as a mass solution to man's problem. If he can get everyone into some religion, he knows that he can keep people in some false hope, in some anesthetic, and prevent them from seeing their real need. Nothing that Satan has ever devised has been as successful as religion in blinding men's minds to the truth." 29
In like manner, Dave Hunt has written that,
"Satan's primary tactic in opposing God is not to foster atheism, but religion. A perverted 'Christianity' is Satan's ultimate weapon." 30
If we are to understand religion correctly we must recognize its satanic source and the spiritual conflict that is taking place between God and Satan in Christianity and religion.
The sociological attachment of "religion"
It might be pointed out that mankind has a natural tendency to develop religious practices, and that every known civilization of man has engaged in some form of religion. Indeed it is "natural" for man to form religions, for "the natural man does not understand spiritual things" (I Cor. 2:14). His "natural" wisdom is demonically inspired (James 3:15), for "the prince of the power of the air is the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2).
Sociologists have on occasion argued that religion serves a beneficial social purpose of attaching people together in group unity. Such social bonding ties a group of people together as they set their sights on a "higher" common goal. Religion thus gives a group of people a collective sense of identity, purpose and meaning, and provides for social continuity. When engaged in such a collective mutual pursuit of religious striving, their religion provides a legitimacy and validity to the rules and regulations that are imposed upon them, and when religion wanes the weight and authority of social and moral law diminishes.
It is indeed possible to analyze religion sociologically or psychologically31, but these are just observations of the phenomena of religion. It cannot be concluded from these observations that religion constitutes a social or moral "good," or that religion is the "better" or "highest" feature of the natural world system of man, especially when it is abusing people as previously noted. Religion is, on the contrary, the most subtle and insidious feature of the diabolically inspired world of natural men, and as such it is the most abominable and damnable.
There is nothing "good" about religion. Religion relativizes the goodness that is derived from God alone. Religion engages in the relativistic goodness of the "good and evil" game that has been played by natural man ever since man fell by partaking of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 3).
The world's view of "religion"
Many of those who call themselves "Christians" have been unable to differentiate between Christianity and religion. As they participate in the counterfeit of "Christian religion," they mistakenly think it is Christianity, and are blinded in the belief that religion is an admirable pursuit.
On the other hand, there are many who are not Christians who view the activities of the "Christian religion," and who likewise fail to differentiate between religion and Christianity. They in turn reject Christianity, believing it to be equivalent to the "Christian religion" they have observed.
Many abominable activities have taken place under the guise of "Christian religion." Man-made religion always seeks power and will revert to militaristic warfare to achieve that power. The history of religion, including "Christian religion," is but a succession of religious wars wherein religionists slaughter one another under the flag of "religion," usually with political overtones. The Crusades of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries are but one historical example among many.
Religious bigotry has been evident in every century as religious leaders engage in racial, national, sexual, ideological and denominational exclusion, ostracism and persecution. There are always the religious attempts to purge those who disagree, and to punish those who do not conform to legislated morality. The period of the Inquisition is a sad example in the history of "Christian religion."
People of the world observe the big religious organizations with their huge ecclesiastic superstructures. They are often rich, powerful, tax-evading, and political in nature. They observe the religious fanatics who try to justify any activity from bombing an abortion clinic to murdering a doctor who works therein. Any means seems to be justifiable if it achieves their religiously deified end-cause. They observe the seemingly endless and meaningless religious activities of church services, ceremonies and programs which seem to be just "pomp and circumstance."
Is it any wonder that many of the people of the world speak derisively of religion? They have read their history books and have heard of the atrocities perpetrated in the name of "religion." They hear of the vast gold reserves and corporate holdings of religious conglomerates gained through tax-exemptions and unfair advantage. They can see the exploitation of the populace through superstition and fear. They see through the ecclesiastic politicizing and cultural manipulation. They see the people going through their meaningless motions of religious ritual to try to appease God. Often they have come to the conclusion that they do not want anything to do with "religion," and I, for one, do not blame them! The world has a right, even an intellectual obligation, to reject the religious folderol that is so prevalent, and to demand reality.
Was Marx correct in his appraisal that "religion is the opiate of the people"?
Christianity is not "religion"
Religion emphasizes precepts, propositions, performance, production, programs, promotion, percentages, etc. Christianity emphasizes the Person of Jesus Christ, and His life lived out through the receptive Christian believer.
Religion has to do with form, formalism and formulas; ritual, rules, regulations and rites; legalism, laws and laboring. The "good news" of Christianity is that it is not what we do or perform, but what Jesus has done and is doing in us. Jesus exclaimed from the cross, "It is finished!" (John 19:30). The performance is hereby accomplished! Jesus has done all the doing that needs doing for our regeneration, and continues to do all the doing that God wants to do in us. "God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
Some have tried to explain that "Christianity is not religion; it is a relationship." Such a statement is too ambiguous, for it is possible to have a "relationship" with religious peoples and practices. Although Christianity does involve a personal relationship between an individual and the living Lord Jesus, it must be pointed out that this is effected by the ontological presence of the Spirit of Christ dwelling within the spirit of a Christian who has received Him by faith, and the Spirit of Christ functioning through that Christian's behavior. It is not just a casual relationship of acquaintance with the historical Jesus or with the theological formulations of Jesus' work. Perhaps it would be better to indicate that "Christianity is not religion; it is the reality of Jesus Christ as God coming in the form of His Spirit to indwell man in order to restore him to the functional intent of God whereby the character of God is allowed to be manifested in man's behavior to the glory of God.
Christianity is not religion! Christianity is Christ! Christianity is "Christ-in-you-ity." Jesus Christ did not found a religion to remember and reiterate His teaching. Christianity is the personal, spiritual presence of the risen and living Lord Jesus Christ, manifesting His life and character in Christians, i.e. "Christ-ones." Paul explained, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20).
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