What is it that G-d is defficient in that would require someone to 'carry on the family business'? G-d has communicated with humans through Angels and Prophets since the beginning of time, so why didn't He either mention the coming of a son or at least say My son will be your saviour? He clearly says He will be our saviour and Jesus tells us to worship only G-d. What is it you believe Jesus (pbuh) can achieve that G-d cannot achieve without the assistance of Jesus (pbuh)?
It may seem ridiculous, after communicating with us through angels and prophets, that God would not, once again send another angel or prophet as messenger as he had done before.
But if people expected angels and prophets, then that is what they'd expect everytime God was to send us a message. Some guy would appear out there on the streets to preach a message of doom, to repent of one's sins and mend one's ways.
It may have been that this time God didn't want to send an angel or "prophet," and nor did He want to reveal Himself directly or His glory by opening up the sky so that a light would shine through, as happened at Mt. Sinai. Such an appearance would have been too obvious. He did want to reveal Himself, but not directly, so He sent a man as a masquerader for His plan, agenda and purpose. Those who personally understood God were able to identify the "masquerader," as one who dedicates His life to God becomes more vigilant of things that are "godly." To everyone else he was just an ordinary man or spoke of ordinary politics and ideology.
That's at least the way I'd see it. Christianity therefore, is a faith that seeks to remember the life of this "covert agent/operative" who presented a world, a kingdom that was unlike any kingdom in our world, and ideas that were weird because they weren't like the politics and ideology we've had since the beginning of humanity. He presented us with an invitation to come and live in that world, and Christianity seeks to preserve that story.
One of my worries about Christianity while growing up was this attitude of calling G-d 'the Father', which suggested a very human relationship and this has continued to the point where people now speak of G-d as a human father, with all the emotions that go along with human parentage. To me that feels wrong, we are trying to understand and limit the unknowable.
My impression is that "father" hasn't always been used to mean a biological parent, or even a relationship with feelings for such an individual.
I've seen the word "father" used to refer to a religious leader, a master, a teacher or the founder of a nation/religion/political system. ie. the Founding Fathers of the American political system. There are examples in the Bible where the future King David calls the incumbent King Saul, then his master, his father. When Elijah is taken up into heaven, Elisha calls out saying, "My father! My father! You are gone!" Elijah was not Elisha's biological father. He was a prophet. Elisha had his own family. Elisha later became a prophet himself, probably immediately, so Elijah could be seen as a mentoring prophet and Elisha his student/pupil. That's one way to understand our relationship with God.
We have our own parents and God is just our Mentor. It is true that I can't have the same feelings for God as I have for my parents. God will never die, so I can't cry for the pain I feel when something bad happens.
And I am trying to understand why Christians do it.
People then say 'let's worship the messenger'.
Again with Mary, the mother of Jesus (pbut), people decided to worship her - they were both tangible, real, somthing to latch onto that didn't need absolute trust to believe in.
Christians are just trying to resurrect and relive the first-century experience. Well that's just my justification and explanation. That is a reason why we continue the tradition. We are trying to rediscover it. . . . or at least that is how I will put it. That is
my policy. That is the conservative claim that I will make.
There will of course be Christians that proclaim boldly that they have it, that this
is Christianity, that we didn't fail to preserve the first-century tradition, but I disagree. Christianity has broken into thousands of fragments. That could never have happened to the Gospel united in one Spirit.
The New Testament doesn't say much about Mary, so I doubt if devotion to Mary existed in the first century. The "Jesus worship" is definitely influenced by the New Testament because the NT contains "hints" that seem to suggest we're supposed to see things that way (not that I agree).
I believe contemporary Christianity is more influenced by traditions in the fourth century than the first century. The New Testament is definitely a written tradition from the first century, but our interpretation of that written tradition is something I reckon comes from the fourth century onwards. The Trinity controversies and "Jesus worship" are influenced by traditions that originated in the fourth century and onwards. Because we acknowledge and accept many of the conclusions and decisions made in the fourth century, this is a barrier to us understanding the first century tradition.
This view I have was something I developed while looking for information on Noahidism. I was asking myself, can a Christian be a Noahide? I came across a web site that saw the origins of Christianity in the context of a culture rooted in Judaism. If you haven't heard the term before, Noahides are people who have committed themselves to Judaism, not as Jews but as adherents of Judaism following the Seven Noahidic Laws. It's similar to a
dhimmi in Islam, ie. Righteous Gentiles.
Here's the link to the web site I came across:
MyJewishLearning.com - Ideas & Belief: Christianity in Context
This is a quote at the very end, though I'd encourage you to read the whole article if you want get further insights on how to think of Christianity.
Later on, when this Jewish movement in­tersected with Greek philosophical thought and as its adherents attempted to explain how God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit were related, the doctrine of the "Trinity" developed.
It may explain where Trinity came from, Greek philosophical thought with its frame of reference and ways of examining and analysing philosophies caused Christianity to develop the idea of a triune God. The Trinity may have been influenced more by the phenomenon of
gnossis, which sought to define the nature, structure and properties of the universe whereas Judaism was more interested in the role, function and purpose of concepts in life and in religion. That is perhaps why there is no Trinity in the New Testament. It wasn't part of the first-century tradition. The tradition of the Trinity arose out of the practice of
gnossis. This in no way discredits Christianity, because we still have the New Testament as reference, which existed before the
gnossis phenomenon took hold. Christianity just took a wrong turn at a particular stage in its history.
As the gulf between Christianity and Judaism grew and as Christianity drew closer to Greek philosophy, Christianity lost touch with the way Judaism analysed, examined, evaluated and criticised religious concepts and attitudes. "Jesus worship" may have been a result of Christianity losing its intimacy with Judaism and not being able to understand Jesus' relationship with God as the first-century Christians actually saw it.
Even if Jesus was important to the first-century Christians (many of them Jews), if he became too important that would be idolatry, which violated both Jewish beliefs and one of the Noahide Laws. That may mean that Christianity was meant to be more of a fad for the Jews, who were using it more to achieve a paradigm shift than to actually see Jesus that way for eternity or a lifetime. Well . . . what I mean is, they wouldn't have seen it the way Christians see him today. Moreover, they had Judaism, which would have provided a rich sea of alternative concepts. Jesus may have been just a part of this rich sea of concepts, rather than the centre of Christianity today.
Modern Christianity finds it hard to dilute "Jesus worship" because it doesn't have Judaism to supply alternative concepts. Jesus just takes over. This, I believe, is the first-century experience/tradition that Christianity has lost. I believe if we are to properly understand Christianity, we can only rediscover it by exploring Judaism. The purpose of Islam may have been to call Christianity back to Judaism, but it may have strayed from that purpose by asserting its own identity. It may have been the same for Christianity. What if we were all meant to be Noahides? I wonder.
But anyway . . . this is just my speculation.
