JESUS CHRIST

This is the final article in our series on doctrinal differences between ourselves and The Family.

We call ourselves Jesus Christians. Our commitment is to Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. The Christ we are talking about is not the effeminate, system-worshipping Christ of the churches. It is the One whose teachings are found in the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is the one who so angered the religious institution with his fearless stand for the truth that they executed him for it. It is the one who rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and will soon be returning to judge the earth. There is nothing we want to do more than to point people to this very real, very personal, very powerful Saviour.

We have had many church friends who question our association with The Family, on the basis that their teachings are heretical. Perhaps by now they have realised that in our examination of the differences between The Family and ourselves, we have actually been examining the differences between ourselves and the entire institutional church. Differences between us and The Family are slight; but they mirror the overwhelming differences between us and traditional Christianity.

Certainly there are sincere individuals in the church; but they are extremely rare. For the most part church leadership is there to promote themselves and their empires, and the little people have more faith in the leaders than in Christ. At best the church is a replication of the religious institution at the time of Christ... the same one that crucified him!

In the articles leading up to this one we touched on a number of areas in which The Family seems to have deviated from the teachings of Christ. Most of the deviations are just echoes of what has been taught and practised in the church for many years. We will summarise a few below:

(1) Jesus said, "Unless you forsake everything you own, you cannot be a Christian" (Luke 14:33). The church teaches that "disciples" and Christians are two different things (see Acts 11:26), and that you need only say a prayer asking Jesus into your heart to be a Christian. Jesus never taught this.

(2) Jesus said that anyone who puts his hand to the plough and then looks back is not fit for the kingdom of heaven (Luke 9:62). The church says that once you've said the little prayer, you can never be kicked out of the kingdom of heaven no matter how much you turn back to the sins of your past life.

(3) Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). The church says that only certain Christians are called to full-time service; whereas others are called to be supporters.

(4) Jesus said not to use titles of respect for religious leaders (Matthew 23:8-10). The church says that it is good to call leaders Father, Mister, Doctor, Rabbi, Reverend etc...

There are arguments in defence of all the above church teachings, and we don't want to be unfair in our criticisms. But if we are to bend over backwards to tolerate teachings which at least appear to contradict the teachings of Christ, then it seems only fair to ask that others show more tolerance of our desire to take these and other teachings of Christ more seriously.

While we are at it, we would like to suggest a few other teachings of Christ which seem to be contradicted by The Family in particular and the churches in general:

(1) Justifications for war seems to contradict Christ's teachings about loving our enemies. Sure, there are Old Testament instructions to kill in the name of Yahweh; and when Christ returns, he will punish the nations for their rebellion. But justifications for the wars being fought by today's selfish, materialistic nations seem contrary to the teachings of Christ.

(2) Racist comments about African Americans, Aborigines, Indians and other Asians are cruel and unloving when we consider that these people have largely been plundered by the Western nations. They suffer today because we have taken their best land and used it for luxury crops for ourselves (tea, coffee, sugar cane, tobacco, rubber trees, wood-pulp etc..) and taken their best leaders and experts to work in our schools, hospitals and factories. Christ said that the nations would be judged when he returns, and it would be the nations which did not help the needy that would be sent to eternal punishment (Matthew 25:41-46). On this basis, it is the so-called "Christian" nations which will receive the greatest punishment when he returns.

(3) Christ has told us to do our prayers and alms in secret. Public prayers, and promotional material which talks about what we are doing to help the poor seem to be contradictions of this. At the very least, there needs to be a forum where people can say something in defence of the teachings of Christ and how his teachings should affect the lives of all those who profess to be following him. And if there appears to be a contradiction between what he says and what Paul or Solomon or Billy Graham or the Pope or Moses David says, then we would feel that it is our duty to point people to Christ and away from all other fallible subordinates in those areas where they might be seen to contradict Christ. We do not see this, either in The Family or in the churches.

END OF SERIES

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