Myth #2: Jesus Founded Christianity and the Church

In the first myth on the list, we saw how Jesus, historically speaking, was not a "Christian," but a Jewish wisdom Teacher and "Anointed One" who came to reform first-century Judaism and open up a new way to connect with God (that welcomed non-Jews), based on love and the testimony of the Jewish prophets and writings. From this, we can see that, since Jesus was not a Christian, he did not found a new religion called "Christianity."

In reality, Jesus was against religion, all religion, Jewish or otherwise. In his movement, there were no sacred priests, pastors, places, or proscribed religious practices (only love was its guide).[1] In Christianity, all this came later (Frank Viola, Pagan Christianity). Jesus announced that the Jewish Temple, along with its Priests and sacrificial system, was about to become unnecessary. It would be destroyed and a new way of worship was coming, and had come, where it didn't matter what place people worshiped, but only the state of one's heart. (John 4:21-24). Jesus did not come to replace the Temple with a new Christian system, but to instill what Garry Wills calls "a religion of the heart." (Wills, What Jesus Meant, page 76).

Jesus didn't found a church. The word translated "church," ekklesia, merely means a gathering of people. The same word is used to describe a mob in Acts. Jesus and other New Testament writers describe gatherings of people that were non-hierarchical. They met in homes not church buildings. They were not led by pastors or apostles ('apostles' means ones who are sent, and could include women), let alone professional clergy, but either were self-regulating or facilitated by a egalitarian plurality of elders--unpaid, non-professionals. Where two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, Jesus said, he is present. This is the meaning of the original "church." The notion that Jesus founded a Church on Peter or otherwise and/or began an apostolic succession is a myth that began centuries later (see Wills, What Jesus Meant and Robin Meyer, The Underground Church). The practice of assigning bishops did not begin until the second century. All the other church practices we know of from buildings, to altars, to choirs, to worship teams, to sermons, to statements of faith, etc., arose in the centuries after Christ (see Viola).

No, Jesus did not found a new religion called Christianity, nor a new institution called Church to replace the Temple or synagogue system. He came to demonstrate the love of God and announce that "the reign of God" (misleadingly translated 'Kingdom of God') had arrived and would be growing--and in a way that would welcome and include all people and not be proscribed through a religious system. So, why do we have churches, denominations, professional clergy, church planting, and a mentality that Christianity is a religion began in the first century?

[1] Many demonstrate historically that things like communion were instilled later. The "Lord's meal" was merely a Jewish custom that Jesus said "as often as you eat it it, remember me" and didn't proscribe a schedule for it nor command it. As for baptism, that appears to mirror the Jewish custom of ritual cleansing and many argue it was not technically a legalistic prerequisite for conversion or salvation that it has become. 

Walking the Religion-free Path of Christ

Wild Goose Festival 2014 | June 26-29 | Hot Springs, NC

A few months ago I submitted the following speaking proposal to the Wild Goose Festival. They had over 300 submissions this year! Unfortunately for me, I was not chosen. Fortunately for you, there will be plenty of incredible speakers more accomplished than myself, including Sara Miles, Mark Scandrette, Brian McLaren, Melvin Bray, Jim Wallis, and Frank Schaeffer. This year’s theme "Living Liberation!" explores how our walk with Christ can lead beyond our legacies of racism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, and economic inequalities. Check out the speakers and musicians lists and consider going. Although I won't be attending this year, I have gone three times and have always been blessed and encouraged. The fellowship with like-minded folks in the beer tent is worth the price of admission! The blurb below includes some of what I've been involved in lately. Cheers!

Walking the Religion-free Path of Christ 

Former evangelical missionary to African Muslims and author of Confessions of a Bible Thumper, Michael Camp uncovers the critical importance of historical rather than “biblicist” faith in “The Religion-Free Path of Christ: Walking an Old Paradox in a New Paradigm.” He gives examples how ignorance of history and misreading the Bible have caused erroneous views on women, homosexuality, the church, evangelism, and the future, and offers a vision for religion-free but Christ-centered world service that fosters love, goodwill, and social justice. Michael co-leads a Seattle-based missional house gathering, facilitates theological discussions in pubs, and serves Rotary International on community development and microfinance projects empowering the poor in Africa based in a club in Bainbridge Island, WA.

36 Modern “Christian” and Secular Myths You Should Know

Yes, I believe all of these are myths, in one way or the other, either as specific assertions or as blanket statements. At least, I will attempt to make the case that they are, based on biblical, historical, linguistic, archeological, and, in some cases, scientific evidence. Think about each one and see if some of them surprise you in light of others. Stay tuned for a blog post on each.

1 - Jesus was a Christian
2 - Jesus Founded Christianity and the Church
3 - America is a Christian Nation
4 - Jesus is a Myth
5 - Jesus is Irrelevant
6 - The Bible is Infallible
7 - We Should Obey the Bible
8 - The Bible is Altogether Unreliable
9 - English Translations of the Bible are Trustworthy
10 - The Bible Has No Spiritual Authority
11 - The “Kingdom of Heaven” is About the Afterlife
12 - Jesus Predicted the End of the World
13 - The End Will Come When the Gospel is Preached to the Remaining Unreached Ethno Linguistic Groups of the World
14 - Jesus is Coming Back
15 - Only Christians are Saved
16 - Atheists are Evil
17 - You Deserve to Go to Hell
18 - Jesus Took the Punishment for Our Sins
19 - Jesus Taught a Literal Hell
20 - Universalism Means God Won't Judge Us
21 - Paul Was a Misogynist
22 - There Were No Women Leaders in the New Testament
23 - Monogamous Heterosexual Marriage is God’s Standard
24 - God Condemns Homosexuality
25 - Sex Outside Marriage is Always a Sin
26 - Sex is Not a Moral Concern
27 - Science Has Proved There is No God
28 - Progressive and Liberal Christians Are Heretics
29 - Conservative Christians are Bigots and Religious Nutcases
30 - God Commands that Believers Belong to a Local Church
31 - Believers Should Tithe to a Local Church
32 - All Religions are the Same
33 - All Religions Besides Christianity are False
34 - God Hates Divorce
35 - Evolution is Not Biblical
36 - Intelligent Design is Not Science

Shooter, not God, caused Newtown tragedy

Someone wrote a letter to the editor of my hometown newspaper, The North Kitsap Herald, and implied God used the Newtown tragedy to punish the country for legislating God out of the public sphere. Here's my response (and below) that was published on January 4th, as well as another good response from James Behrend: http://www.northkitsapherald.com/opinion/letters/185674471.html
______________________

I don’t doubt Don Wiens is well meaning (“Reaction to school shootings in Newtown,” page A4, Dec. 28 Herald). But when he implied that God didn’t prevent the Newtown shooting because we’ve legislated God out of public life, he parroted the standard conservative “Christian” line from the likes of James Dobson, Franklin Graham, and the American Family Association.

They’ve been touting a vindictive God for decades, stating mirrored threats at every national tragedy to scare and manipulate the populace to buy into their warped theology: the nation has fallen away from God (pushing prayer out of schools and permitting gay marriage) and divine judgment has prevailed. I know. For 25 years, I was a part of that movement and trace my spiritual evolution out of it in my book, “Confessions of a Bible Thumper.”

Wiens and his national counterparts overlook the heart of the very God they claim to serve. Jesus condemned public displays of religion, told his followers to pray in secret, and taught the reign of God is not about Old Testament-style retribution, but rather cultivating a kind heart, loving your enemies and fighting for social justice.

Wien’s citing a C.S. Lewis book as proof of divine judgment is also misguided. A loving God may not always be “safe” because His justice is restorative — He has a knack for winning over renegades — not because He’s vindictive.

The truth is, the Newtown shooter was a home-schooled, mentally ill loner whose mother had an arsenal of guns. His deranged act wasn’t God’s instrument of justice for our rejection of fundamentalist religion. There may be underlying reasons for violence in our society, but God’s revenge isn’t one of them.

Michael Camp
Poulsbo, WA

Film Drives One More Nail in Hell's Coffin

When I first heard about Hellbound?, Kevin Miller's new documentary that critically examines the doctrine of hell, I was encouraged. With the recent plethora of books and commentary on the topic that challenge the traditional position (including two chapters in my book, Confessions of a Bible Thumper), how captivating would it be to put this doctrine under fire on film? Sounded promising. Well, now that I've seen the film (twice), sure enough, my hope for a visual fair hearing of a "biblical" (warning, loaded term) view of universal reconciliation was realized. The movie was sheer genious.

Miller and co-producers David Rempel and Brad Jersak just didn't lay out a case for rethinking hell but forced viewers to face the conventional dogma of eternal damnation head on. We heard straight from the mouths of conservative pastors and evangelists (from the whole spectrum--right-wing wackos from the infamous Phelps church to hip but hyper-conservative Mark Driscoll to moderate-sounding theologian Kevin DeYoung), without interuption, where the notion of hell leads. They let the doctrine speak for itself, in other words. That's when the emotional disconnect between everlasting punishment for one half to 99.99 percent of the human race (depending on who was defending it) and an unconditionally loving God hit viewers like a ton of bricks, kiln-fired to 2000-degrees Farenheit. Huh?, was the unspoken response, just as Rob Bell had asked.

But Miller and company don't leave you there. Just when you were thinking, there must be a better way, through theologians, scholars, and studied authors,* they piled on the preponderance of evidence that hell is a modern misinterpretation of religious narratives anchored in an ancient history we know little about. Gehenna, erroneously translated as "hell" in the New Testament, is a metaphor for judgment in this life, God's justice is restorative, not retributive, the term "everlasting" is mistranslated, and much of the early church embraced the idea of universal reconciliation. The overall impression the film leaves is inspiring and redemptive. Cries of heresy by convervatives are misplaced as should be a sense of superiority by Universalists. So much of this stuff is a mystery. The question boils down to, what kind of God do we think we serve?

Run, don't walk, to see this film. It's an important commentary on our religious divide. It fairly lays out a continuum of positions. It opens up a vision for the nonviolent paradigm Jesus espoused. The honest listening and questioning is refreshing. The music is powerful. Five out of five stars. Easy. After you view it, come back here and join the conversation through your comments. Or, better yet, grab a brew of your preference and have a discussion with friends.

*My only critique of the film is minor. They definitely interviewed top voices who expose the problems with the traditional view, such as Robin Parry (pseudonym is Gregory MacDonald) and many others, but they left out one important author, Thomas Talbott, who in many ways began this conversation about rethinking hell in 1999 with his watershed book, The Inescapable Love of God.

The New Spiritual Paradigm: Not Church

I recently cracked open the newest issue of Time magazine, which displayed the words “10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life” on the cover, and was pleasantly surprised one of those ideas mirrors one of the major themes in my book: Many believers need to be saved from the church. The article explained how American society is experiencing a shift in its concept of spiritual community. More and more people, without rejecting God, are leaving the institutional church and rethinking “religion.”

Time’s article calls the number four idea “The Rise of the Nones,” the Nones being the now 16 percent of the population who say they have no religious affiliation. That percent does not correlate with the 4 percent of Americans who identify as atheist or agnostic, meaning 12 percent of these “Nones” are still believers. Their hunger for spiritual meaning and connection is still strong. Many have fled the doctrinal battles, hierarchal control, and spiritual abuse happening inside the church to create grassroots Christian communities, often meeting in homes.

There is an irony to this phenomenon. This movement of Nones and Not Church (what one Sunday gathering calls itself) is worlds closer to the original intention of what New Testament writers called ekklesia, in Greek, or what is commonly translated “church,” than what fundamentalist, evangelical, and Catholic churches have become. In Confessions of a Bible Thumper, I explain (as does author Frank Viola) that a more historical and linguistically accurate reading of the Bible does not support our modern concept of church.

I’m excited about this trend. I believe a Not Church movement has begun. A movement that exposes controlling churches and denominations, such as Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), which I was apart of in another life (and whose abuse is thankfully gradually being exposed here and here) and Mars Hill Seattle, whose recent extreme “church discipline” case was reported by KOMO 4 News Seattle. Moreover, I would hope, it would be a movement that funnels energy and money into fighting poverty and oppression, pursuing social justice, and simply loving others unconditionally (Jesus stuff), rather than building ego-driven empires that too often control the flock, idolize the Bible, and canonize doctrine. As I say in my book, the models for such communities are endless, way beyond simply a home church movement. I welcome your comments.

Nine Reasons Beer Is Better than Religion*

*source unknown

I had the priviledge this past weekend of hearing Marcus Borg speak in Seattle and was pleasantly suprised when he began with a light-hearted piece about beer. It's seems every where I go, the subject of beer in relation to faith just crops up.

The next night, I went to a local microbrewery to video a blurb about my book and several of the patrons came up to me afterwards to voice their interest in my story. My friend John and I ended up chatting with Melody and her husband over some nice Belgium Porter about open-minded faith and how the church has squelched certain freedoms, one being the responsible enjoyment of beer. It really is a shame, because it's true. Beer really is better than religion (but not genuine reasoned faith) and here are nine perfectly good reasons why with my additional thoughts:

1. No one will kill you for not drinking beer. [Or devise some elaborate torture method, use it on you, and claim they're doing you a favor by compelling you to recant and thereby save your soul]

2. Beer has never caused a major war. [Or a nasty church split]

3. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex. [Nor when to have it]

4. When you have a beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away. [Or hand out simplistic tracts that you have to apologize for to intellectual types]

5. They don’t try to force beer on minors who can’t think for themselves. [Or force it on adults by telling them it's dangerous to think for themselves]

6. You don’t have to wait 2000 years for a second beer. [Or a second well-crafted microbrew fit for a returning King]

7. There are laws saying that beer labels can’t lie to you. [Or decieve, manipulate, or twist the truth]

8. You can prove you have a beer. [No need to blindly believe because a church or a pope says so]

9. If you’ve devoted your life to beer, there are groups to help you stop. [They meet in buildings devoted to religion]

Any other reasons beer is better? I welcome your comments.

Did Jesus Hate Religion?

That is a question that Jefferson Bethke addressed in his "Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus" video that went viral. When I watched it, I found myself agreeing with a lot of Bethke's assertions, but was uneasy with the way in which it was expressed. It seemed like he wasn't getting to the root of the problem that I see in religious institutions.

Then I saw David Brooks' fascinating article on how Bethke caved to his critics; people like Kevin DeYoung, who "corrected" Bethke, saying that Jesus, although he hates self-righteousness, doesn't really hate religion because he observed Jewish holy days, went to the Temple, founded the church, instituted church discipline, initiated communion and baptism, and didn't abolish Jewish law. Bethke apparently wrote DeYoung in an email exchange and admitted to him that he actually "agrees 100 percent." Ahh, so this is perhaps why I was uneasy about the video. The "religion" Bethke critiqued was not the same as the one that DeYoung defends. But it's the religion that DeYoung defends that needs the critique!

In my book I make the case, based on historical analysis by people like Garry Wills, that Jesus in fact did not found a church, perpetuate Jewish law, and insitute a set of rituals to be followed to the letter. These ideas are read into the New Testament, not derived from a fair, exegetical reading of them. When Jesus taught on the church, he did not have our modern churches in mind, particuarly ones that promote spiritual abuse in the name of "church discipline," he is widely misunderstood on Jewish law (that's why Paul says "we have been released from the law" and "we are not under its supervision"), and in fact, not only was he opposed to this type of religion, but confronted the corruption of the Temple and accurately predicted it would be destroyed!

David Brook argues that disaffected youth and protestors have to do more than just cry injustice. They have to come up with an appropriate alternative, preferably based on an already establshed counter traditional school of thought, or else their critiques are vague and ineffectual. Excellent point.

On the other hand, in my mind, the answer to the "religion" Bethke ranted about is not DeYoung's view of Jesus' religion. Jesus' religion was a religion of the heart, where love is the only law. It wasn't a religion of unquestioned institutions and ecclesiastical authority. The alternative to DeYoung's "religion" (and the issues Bethke addressed) is Jesus' established but misunderstood philosophy of the loving reign of God. I appreciate your comments and thoughts.