These are the words of Leo Tolstoy from the preface to his book, THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU, 1893.
In affirming my belief in Christ’s teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church’s doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.
Imagine that, one hundred and twenty one years ago this great Russian novelist was arrogantly questioning the authority and workings of the church. In his time, as in ours, there was a divide between the faith of a few biblical believers and the doctrine of the church. The issue of his time and seemingly every time was the evil of war and violence. The state, supported either actively or passively by the church, says that it has the right to order the killing of another human being for political purposes. The state says it is the duty of Russian citizens to kill as directed. The church was silent.
The term church may be too broadly defined. The top down institutional church of whatever flavor will not confront any issue that questions political authority even when these politics conflict with divine authority. The institutional church has the status of a mere human religion whose primary focus is it’s own survival. This church always forgets, neglects, avoids or reflects the sad state of the people because the salaries of the institution must first be paid. In addition, the hierarchy of the church would find it more difficult to raise the budget if evil were to be reduced or eliminated by calling the people to action. Far better is to preach an other worldly spiritual salvation of non-action.
This was the state of spirituality in the time of Jesus. Judaism had long been mired in religious priorities despite a long history of God sent prophetic voices who were silenced by the religion. Jesus was one of these voices who began a revival of Godliness condemning the failure of man centered Judaism. Before you begin that anti-Semitic mumbo jumbo, the same degeneration is equally valid for Christianity, Islam or a religion of any other flavor. There is more that we could say about Jesus that is grounded in scripture but we must first begin with Jesus the religious revolutionary.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
