Sunday, May 29, 2022

From Jesus To Christ: Early "Christians" did not call themselves Christians But Followers Of "The Way". The Theological (And Personal) Implications Are Vast

 


From Jesus To Christ
PBS Frontline
Part 1
Part 2

The Way

Two Millennia of Christian Community

By Alden Bass

JUNE 8, 2018

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/community/church-community/the-way-two-millennia


Early "Christians" did not call themselves "Christians". 

Instead, they saw themselves as practitioners of The Way.

Their lives comprised a process: they were not a thing - no matter how virtuous it might appear - to be acquired.

For practiionerss of The Way, devotion to the spirit of Jesus was a practice that made their lives on earth a palpable, "felt" adumbration of all future heavenliness because to live in the spirit of Jesus evokes the spirit of love.

And that is the only "homecoming."

That is to be at home.

To be in love.

To be at peace.

I have come to believe that the modern "Christian" "conservative's" obsession with "salvation" in the next life is essentially selfish - a careful, pragmatic calculation by which "the left hand" always "knows what the right hand is doing."

I once heard a black man comment: "We are not punished for our sins; we are punished by our sins."

"Virtue is its own reward."

Behaving virtuously is heavenly.

There is no other heaven.



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