Okay, I suppose an explanation is in order. I believe in Jesus as The Christ. I do. What I don't believe in is people in positions of authority telling me what I can and cannot believe. It all started with Wisconsin Lutheran catechism class. All we were doing was memorizing what was in this little book. When I questioned this rote memorization as having little spiritual value, I was pretty much told to shut up and get in line. This church later demonstrated more hypocrisy. I was having trouble in my first marriage and went to my pastor for guidance. The first words out of his mouth were, "You know, you haven't donated anything to the church in 1-1/2 years." Really? Would Christ have worried about my financial gifts before giving me spiritual counseling?
The failure of Christianity was further demonstrated to me by what happened to my best friend at the time. She was getting married. The priest of her Catholic church, who had been her priest since her birth, refused to perform the marriage ceremony because the proposed husband would not sign a contract to raise the children Catholic. Really? What about Matthew 5:34, where Jesus says, "Do not take an oath at all." Here we have a religion forcing someone to take an oath, which conflicts the word of The Christ.
After going through that, I decided to explore other religions for a while. I became a Wiccan. However, I discovered they were just as hypocritical as Christians. My first teacher told me about karma, as seen in the Rule of Three, and the Wiccan doctrine of "As you harm none, do as you will." Well, this same person later bragged to me about how she put a spell on someone and made them fall out of a moving car. So much for karma and not harming someone. I moved from Wicca to Tantra, but American Tantra is full of sex-crazed lunatics who believed the acts could be separated from the spirituality, much like Americans have separated the spirituality from yoga. Then I attempted to follow my Teutonic roots. By this time, though, I was so disillusioned by other people I gave up the search. Until I started working at a renaissance fair.
I was given the opportunity to "follow my bliss" at the fair. I joked around; I prepared food. I was in heaven. If that was what heaven was like, they who should I be worshiping. Eventually, I started my own group at the fair. Most fair groups, or guilds, have a saint in their names. Which saint could I use for cooks and comedians? To my surprise, there is actually a saint for this purpose: St. Lawrence. So I started praying through St. Lawrence, and good things began to happen in my life. To make a short story long, this helped me discover that religion was my own to create. That was when I first got the desire to separate the words of Jesus from the religions of man.
I didn't truly become the Antichristianity Christian until I came across a quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. He is credited with saying, "I like your Christ. I do not like your christians for your christians are so much unlike your Christ. If your christians were more like your Christ, all of India would be Christian." That is when I decided to try to place more importance on the actual words of Jesus. After all, he forgave the prostitute, who probably had undergone abortions, and he never spoke out against homosexuality. On the contrary, he was soundly against divorce, calling the remarriage of divorced spouses adultery; yet we never seen christian groups protesting outside off divorce courts, only at abortion clinics and gay rallies
Of late, I have come across others with the same feelings. They are called Red Letter Christians. They attempt to live a life more in line with what Jesus said. That is what I am hoping to do now and will log my efforts here under the Antichristianity label.
The failure of Christianity was further demonstrated to me by what happened to my best friend at the time. She was getting married. The priest of her Catholic church, who had been her priest since her birth, refused to perform the marriage ceremony because the proposed husband would not sign a contract to raise the children Catholic. Really? What about Matthew 5:34, where Jesus says, "Do not take an oath at all." Here we have a religion forcing someone to take an oath, which conflicts the word of The Christ.
After going through that, I decided to explore other religions for a while. I became a Wiccan. However, I discovered they were just as hypocritical as Christians. My first teacher told me about karma, as seen in the Rule of Three, and the Wiccan doctrine of "As you harm none, do as you will." Well, this same person later bragged to me about how she put a spell on someone and made them fall out of a moving car. So much for karma and not harming someone. I moved from Wicca to Tantra, but American Tantra is full of sex-crazed lunatics who believed the acts could be separated from the spirituality, much like Americans have separated the spirituality from yoga. Then I attempted to follow my Teutonic roots. By this time, though, I was so disillusioned by other people I gave up the search. Until I started working at a renaissance fair.
I was given the opportunity to "follow my bliss" at the fair. I joked around; I prepared food. I was in heaven. If that was what heaven was like, they who should I be worshiping. Eventually, I started my own group at the fair. Most fair groups, or guilds, have a saint in their names. Which saint could I use for cooks and comedians? To my surprise, there is actually a saint for this purpose: St. Lawrence. So I started praying through St. Lawrence, and good things began to happen in my life. To make a short story long, this helped me discover that religion was my own to create. That was when I first got the desire to separate the words of Jesus from the religions of man.
I didn't truly become the Antichristianity Christian until I came across a quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. He is credited with saying, "I like your Christ. I do not like your christians for your christians are so much unlike your Christ. If your christians were more like your Christ, all of India would be Christian." That is when I decided to try to place more importance on the actual words of Jesus. After all, he forgave the prostitute, who probably had undergone abortions, and he never spoke out against homosexuality. On the contrary, he was soundly against divorce, calling the remarriage of divorced spouses adultery; yet we never seen christian groups protesting outside off divorce courts, only at abortion clinics and gay rallies
Of late, I have come across others with the same feelings. They are called Red Letter Christians. They attempt to live a life more in line with what Jesus said. That is what I am hoping to do now and will log my efforts here under the Antichristianity label.
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