"Is Christianity in Crises?"

Today we live in the dawn of the 3^rd millennium. The Christian Church throughout the world is going through a theological crisis in what she thinks of and believes about Jesus of Nazareth.

This crises grows out of the fact that both Protestant and Catholic theologians and exegetes freely admit, that what can be discerned of available data, is that Jesus of Nazareth did not think he was divine, and he went to his death without intending to found a new religion called "Christianity." There seems to be some discrepancy between who Jesus thought he was, (a prophet) and what mainline Christian believers now think him to be, the divine son of god, consubstantial with the father, and the holy spirit. (trinity) This difference between "Jesus of history" and "the Christ of faith" is not a new problem within Christianity. It has been rearing its ugly head ever since Constantine declared it to be the religion of Rome in the 4^th century.

Jesus himself if he ever existed was never a Christian, He was a leader of a sect within Judaism, his sect was called "The way" he was also a "Rabbi." according to New Testament. Any close study of New Testament reveals this. Acts 9:1-2. " Then Saul (Paul) still breathing threats and murder against the disciples went to a high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogue of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of "The Way" whether men or women he might bring them bound up, to Jerusalem. Acts 22:4 Paul said "I persecuted this "Way" to the death binding and delivering into prisons both men and women" After Paul's conversion in Acts 24:5 Paul is accused of being a ringleader of the "Sect of the Nazarenes." Notice what Paul say's in verse 14, "By this I confess to you according to The Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets. " Christianity teaching today say that they are no longer under the law. Paul himself say’s "Christ is the end of the law." So this makes Paul a liar if scripture is legitimate.

In Acts 10:26b "And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch". This was some considerable time after the death of Jesus. Jesus himself said in Matthew.5:17-18, that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill. (restore) He said that the law will remain as long as heaven and earth remain and the way I see it, is that heaven and earth are still here today, then so should the law. It was the "Council of Jerusalem", (see Acts 15:19-29) that decided what men could eat and that there was no need for circumcision. Paul infers that circumcision is a "mutilation of the flesh", Philippians 3:2 "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, so from Paul's statement one would have to say that Jesus suffered mutilation of the flesh. If that is the case then how could Jesus be the "unblemished lamb of God"? These were a group of men who made these decisions not God. These are tradition of men.

In the past few years Roman Catholic theologians and scholars say that "The Gospels" are not accurate ‘Histories’ of Jesus, but religious testimony produced by 2^nd and 3^RD generations of Christians." Even though some biblical scholars believe that Jesus is God, they do not maintain that Jesus himself thought that he was the divine son of God, who had existed from all eternity as the 2^nd person of the trinity. Many things are called into question today and there is much ongoing debate.

Outside of the New Testament there is no reliable evidence in any secular history books as to the existence of Jesus. This alone must pose a problem. If God sent Jesus to be the redeemer for the whole world to know, then surely God would have made sure that the people of the world had an opportunity to know about Jesus through history books.

Do Christians have at their disposal any supernatural information which is hidden from the non believer? No. Christians have at their disposal the same evidence as everybody else has, namely the" bible", but Christians interpret it differently.

Over the years New Testament critics have managed to identify at least three types of early Christian communities. The first of these however were not Christian. This first group were Aramaic speaking Palestinian Jews. They were adherents of "The Yeshua (Jesus) movement" know as "The way" a sect within Judaism. Jesus was a "Rabbi" (he was called a rabbi and teacher in New Testament) and he was also considered to be a man trained in the way of Jewish law. He was considered to be one of God's spokesmen who proclaimed the "Kingdom of God."

The second group to come upon the scene were Greek speaking Jews of Palestine and the Diaspora. (i.e. Syria) This group had come to believe in Jesus and who were the first to be called "Hellenists", see Acts 6:1, and in Acts 11:26b, where the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. It was this group of "Hellinists" that were first called Christian.

The third group were Greek speaking gentiles eventually converting to Christianity and they believed that Jesus was "The son of God" in a divine sense. They believed that he had pre-existed as God prior to his human incarnation and after his death had been exalted to heaven and was currently reigning there.

These discoveries sent tremors through traditional theology. If Jesus did not declare that he was Christ and God and if such Christology was a creation of later believers, what then did the supposed Jesus teach?

In the 19^th century a common task was undertaken to search for the Jesus of history, in the form of "The quest of the historical Jesus." Some of these theologians saw Christology, the doctrine that Jesus was the divine saviour, as an invention of the early Church.

Jim Lee.