by banned » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:26 am
...last time I looked is the Big Cheese of Christianity (it being called "CHRISTianity" is what tipped me off), didn't see fit to spend his time on earth spinning a lot of doctrine, including whether his Mom was born free of original sin or where unbaptized babies go when they die.<br><br>He was more interested in telling people how to treat widows and orphans ON EARTH.<br><br>He didn't blather on trying to explain how a single God could be a trinity.<br><br>He didn't tell people they couldn't eat meat on Friday.<br><br>He didn't drone on about transubstantiation versus consubstantiation till everyone was sound asleep on the hillside.<br><br>He didn't tell them if they didn't make their Easter duty they'd go to hell (once there was an Easter of course.)<br><br>Jesus was not concerned with DOCTRINE which is what one BELIEVES. <br><br>He was concerned with GOOD WORKS which is what one DOES.<br><br>You can take all the doctrine, all the 'guardians of the faith', all the church buildings, all the encyclicals and papal bulls (and papal bull****), all the marble altars and silk vestments and gold chalices and church music and statues and PITCH IT ALL IN THE DUMPSTER.<br><br>To be a Christian all you have to do is do what Jesus said: love God, love others, and do unto them as you would have them do unto you.<br><br>That's it.<br><br>And if you do that, Christ is with you and in you and that experience, that ENCOUNTER, not memorizing the contents of the Vatican Library, is the whole point of being a Christian.<br><br>At the end of his life Thomas Aquinas, one of Holy Mother Church's most brilliant theologians, never finished his "Summa Theologica" because he had a mystical experience, the realness and profundity of which caused him to say "All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."<br><br>The Angelic Doctor died 3 months and 1 day after his mystical encounter.<br><br>The Church needs to get back to the Imitatio Christi and forget all that straw.<br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>