waterboy,

Please excuse the above typos. I think you should still follow.

Sells and Poly,

How about a reply, please?

The scriptures to which Jesus would have be attuned would have emphasised love and mercy over sacrifice. If we assume, for argument's sake, that the Last Supper is an historical event. Why the "death by cop" suicide? Sells, Poly open your Bible, its there in black and white; Hosea and the Last Supper and Crucifixion. Do you not believe in the aforementioned? Presumably, you do; so how do these matters relate to the faith of Jesus the Jew?

Sells, you complain that secularists don't argue. I have argued and provided the Bible and what is generally known about Judaism to support said argument.

Oliver

You are right that many Christians are unfamiliar with the history of the early Church but there are a surprising number who are. Anglicans seem to be particularly knowledgable on the Church Fathers for example.

History is at its most valuable when knowledge of past events informs contemporary self-understanding and throws light on what is possible for the future. Given your obviously considerable knowledge of, and resources pertaining to the early Church Id like to hear more of how this knowledge might impact the contemporary self-understanding of the Church. What difference do you think it would make if more Christians were knowledgable about the birth of the Church and its early struggles?

I know you want Sells to develop his theology of death a little further and I too would like to know what more he has to say on that topic

waterboy,

I think it would depend on how far back the Christians were prepared to go. They might have avoided the schicism between the Latin and Orthodox Churches (but that was political as much as it was theological), further back recognition of the Hellenisation aided by Paul, further back recognizing a Chistrian Jewish sect and perhaps way, way back, simply a claimant to the House of David.

One would need to confront whether Jesus is/was a god, a human with a divine spirit or a human mendicant cum faith healer (or similiar). If one wanted to recognize history and remain religious, option two would be chosen, I suspect; wherein, Jesus would be a prophet. The Christians could fight with Islam about whose prophet is the greatest.

Roman needed to institutionalise the faith to establish unity. So did Moses (if he existed) and Mohammed.

Nothing from Sells or Poly, yet. Come-on guys this is a forum

Another emotive rant by Sellick.

Have you ever thought about the suicides committed because of a book that YOU worship, Sells?

The suicide rate amongst homosexual men is very high.
I could write emotive stories, if I wanted to, about homosexuals who were treated like crap because of religious dogma.

It would help them if you scrapped the text in the Bible that tells Christians that homosexuals should be put to death, and then start treating homosexuals like human beings.

I could also write emotive rants about the plight of unwanted street kids and abused kids who were not aborted because of religious dogma.

And I could write emotive rants about people who are forced to suffer unbearable pain against their will because of religious dogma.

Great book you're reading every Sunday!

Kalweb, wonderful posts.
I think that Sells should absorb your information, do some more research so that he knows what he's talking about, and then perhaps re-write the article.

Like Veronika, I wondered why this was published. I am a full supporter of Freedom of Speech, but Sells simply has no idea what he is talking about.
If he had done his research he wouldn't make such a mess confusing or overlapping suicide and euthanasia.

Celivia,

I have seen terminally humans take days to die and pets mercifully "put to sleep". I would want the latter for my own exit.

Sells and Poly simply will not address the matter of Christ's suicide and Hosea 6:6. I would not normally turn the topic in this way. I was motivated by who was the author and thus saw the religious aspect, apt.

O.

Oliver

If I understand you correctly you are saying that an awareness of the history of the early Church would convince Christians that Jesus was not Divine but rather an itinerant preacher, healer and political activist.

It appears to me that you are identifying ideas that were prevalent as part of the context within which the Church was born and concluding that the early church adopted those ideas and practices unchanged. The early Church, however, was largely shaped by its resistance to those ideas. The early Church may have been 'infiltrated' by gnostics but it rejected gnosticism quite strongly. Paul's evangelical missions took him into the Greek world and he knew the work of the Greek philosphers but was at pains to distinguish Christianity from them.

Christianity is quite self-conciously in continuity with Judaism and Hebraism before that but separates itself from Judaism most obviously in its rejection of circumcision and the idea of the priesthood of all believers.

Many Christians are very knowledgable about those times and remain Christian. I think your analysis of history is too 'black and white'.

Why do you think the Church today is dividing itself along 'liberal' v 'evangelical' lines?

Why is the Church growing in Africa and Asia?

How might the Christian and Muslim worlds contrive to live in peace with each other in the future?

Can history help us with these questions?