What Does Christianity Require?

Personally I do not believe that Jesus ever was or is God, I'm right with the Moslems in saying that there is only one God and not three. It is a grevious error to think our great teacher of forgivness was anything other than a human being. If Jesus was himself a divinity then it is only natural that he would be able to overcome the world; we can never be like him, we could never accomplish what he did. Obviously he walked into the crucifiction knowing full well what might happen to him, but he believed it was neccessary for some reason. It was even neccessary for one of his own disciples to betray him. But there is evidence that he suffered from a severe case of anxiety in the Garden of Gethsemane[sp?] when he was seen to shed blood from every pore of his body. Jesus even described himself as the, "Son of Man" in addition to the, "Son of God." I believe that it is perfectly in accord with the principles of Christianity that we are all Sons and Daughters of God, so it is not particularly remarkable or significant that Jesus may have refered to himself as such. Whatever the precise conditions of his conception may have been; even if it was an immaculate conception, every male child has one biological father. For a male child to be born there MUST be a biological father; we simply do not know who it was, or how insemination occured. Heaven may very well have intervened within the womb of Mary, but we don't know exactly what was done.

It was the labor of Jesus's life to bring Forgiveness to the world, and particularly to teach forgiveness. And Jesus appeared among the people who were most in need to learn forgiveness, the Jewish people.

So what exactly is required for a person to believe in, in order to be considered a Christian. Must we beleive that Jesus was and is God? Must we believe in the immaculate conception? Perhaps it is enough to believe that by his example, Jesus saved the whole world of humanity from Sin? And he really is our saviour; he is everybody's saviour, even the people who never heard of him or believed in him. Because upon the cross, with his dieing breath he uttered a prayer to our Heavenly Father. "The people do not understand what it is they are doing," he proclaimed. And to this day, two-thousand and some odd years later that prayer has been heard. And he's perfectly correct; the people do lack understanding, its as true today as it ever was back then.

The Christian community has long expected a great villan to arise to power in the world. An Anti-Christ, but I think this person may not be exactly what they are expecting. The world has been promised a day of Judgement, therefore there must be a Judge of all the Nations. If one man fulfills the mission of Judgement with his life; if a man comes into the world to teach Judgement, then in a sense he would be the anti-thesis of Jesus. Jesus fulfilled the role of the ideal First-Born Son, it is an archetype in human society of particular importance to the Jewish traditions. Now history will require one man to appear and fulfill the role of the ideal Patriarch, which is another great archetype from human society.

I still believe that there is one and only one true and most high God. To the best of my own personal knowledge this God is not Angry with us, he might not even be dissappointed with us. It may not be possible for God himself to judge us, it may be required for one of us to come forward and do the job. And it is a job, it is something that we all do each and every moment of the day. Judgement is a part of human nature, to exercise it only comes naturally to us. Judgement is a basic and common human talent in the same sense that flight is a natural talent to all bird life. And perhaps it is even possible for one person to excell in judgement in the same sense that the popular fictional character, Johnathan Livingston Seagull excelled at flight.

Even though Jesus was never recognized as the expected Messiah by his own people; or at least not all of them, in a sense he did deliver them from the Roman power over the world. The rise and spread of Christianity reached Rome, and in some respects was instrumental in its downfall. Jesus has been described as the, "Prince of Peace," and this has always been one of my favorite titles for him. He was a human being like us, and a true king with the power of Heaven behind him. He was titled, "King of the Jews," and I believe thats a true title. But he was not the King of Kings, who I believe is yet to come. The true General of the Armies of Heaven, the man who will make a pillar of flame fall from heaven and strike the Earth in the presence of men.