The note below is from a man named Brian Roberts and a website called ChristianMystics.com. It was Brian's same sentiment below that led me to tell a friend yesterday, I wouldn't call myself a Christian because in this day and age I can't associate myself with what has become of that title. I am actually a Kabbalist who believes-in and follows the teachings of the blessed Rabbi Yeshua HaMashiac. So what of people who feel like the name of their "religon" has been so demeaned and desecrated that they would rather walk away with a pure heart than be associated with evil? What is actually more important? The religous title or the Lord himself?
Baruch Hashem HaMashiac Yeshua! Baruch Hashem Adonai! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!!! May the love and peace he originally intended as the fruit of his life continue to thrive in those who truly long for the ways of Heaven. . .
As if you asked for a suggestion, I bring one anyway - my suggestion to anyone who feels this way is this, study the words of Yeshua. Go to your bible and study the recorded words and actions of Yeshua and study them in more than one language. Study HIM. . . not your pastor, not your friends at church, not the guy on TV or the guy on the corner. . . study the one you call Lord.
Adios
Posted: 24 Aug 2010 08:29 PM PDT
Having studied Christianity, been an active Christian both in my earliest years and over the past few years, maintaining one of the leading sites on Christianity on the Net in the form of ChristianMystics.com and probably too much other stuff, for me, the time’s come.
Above all, I thank the many who found as much value in this site as witnessed in the strong, rich traditional of the remarkable mystics found within Catholic thought, Quakerism and certainly elsewhere. Yet, I forgot who said it, but it was along the lines of — “Dear God, protect me from your followers….” Whoever did say it was right.
My friends. I’ve lived long enough to have seen the world change, and change it has.
Christianity, which was predicated on both the path of divine inclusion and of the value of one’s love of neighbor has, instead, become glutted with people whose political goals prey on fears, bigotry, hatred and self-serving tendencies. Many are in the movement, some are simply wise enough to know, unfortunately, that whipping up religious fervor and racial intolerance and pandering to piety is the best way motivate their sad, pathetic mob.
In short, Christianity has become the convenient tool of choice. How, really, can some idiotic and venting Tea Party member stand up for “my Christian beliefs” so that the absurd claim drives them to be rabidly against helping to achieve health care for others and the common ground of humanity we share? Hope they at least get flowers from the stock holders in big insurance companies.
It has been said:
On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, “Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me.” Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, “Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me.” These will ask Him, “When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?” And Jesus will answer them, “Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!”
At their heart, the teachings of Jesus were found to be so radical and so threatening that their spokesperson was put to death. Punching the buttons on the thing called “Christianity” these days no longer yields an astonishing personal revelation of the spiritual heart but, instead, has been retooled and hijacked to be more about the need for protecting power and money right here and right now.
Sinclair Lewis once said, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
I carted down a big collection of books about Christianity’s history and teachings, the direct experience of God in one’s life, translations and the books of Quakers and St. John of the Cross and many more. Did it make me sad to realize those books, many of which I’ve owned for several decades, were now gone? No. Not even a bit. The spirit in those books does not live in Christianity today, although, of course, it does live in certain individuals or groups out there right now. It is not, however, found in those people that Jesus would dismiss with “Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me.”
I’ve been fortunate enough to have found, for myself, anyway, a path that doesn’t have the ridiculous and self-destructive character of what it means to try and be a Christian in a day where the reigning voices of Christianity are so wildly divorced from the reality and action of their namesake. All I can do, at this point, is to wish that each of you is able to find the same for yourself and, again, to thank you.
As always, I hope you find some of the traditional Christian thoughts and ideas contained in this surprisingly large site as you explore to be of help in pointing in this or that direction, marking as a signpost your holy journey.
Brian Robertson
http://www.christianmystics.com/
Photo by Jasna Boudard and Jerod Alexander
