I have been asked many times if I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior, am I a Christian, do I believe the Bible is indeed the word of God. My answer, in other times, would have me burned at the stake. I would be shunned as a heretic and banished from society. Because my answer is no to all of these.
I accept no labels for my belief. I reject the notion of sin and thus that of salvation. I believe that mankind has attempted to define God in many different ways - all flawed. Thus I must reject the Bible as the pure word of God and regard it, instead, as an imperfect attempt to capture what is perceived as the desires of God for his children. Some words I value - others I do not. Some words I reject and know in my heart that they did not come from God.
The true history of the formation of the Bible is enough to have me question it. Many discoveries since have conclusively proven that it contains only some of many varied writings from the time of Jesus.
I reject Jesus as the true Son of God in the many ways in which his disciples later describe him. After a lifetime of listening and reading I must conclude that the message Jesus brought to God’s children is too often missed. Instead, I see those that across ages, have built an empire of wealth and power and claim that they do so in his name.
I believe that all this is false. The true church of Jesus exists on a grassy hillside by a lake. Not in a monumental structure containing statues of gold. Consolidation of wealth and power; the formation of a global empire, the vestments, the rituals, all of the special words – to what end I ask?
For a humble man who walked among the sick, the outcast, the down-trodden; who despised the wealthy money-changers; a single man who lived and died for his beliefs and whose true message was to love each other, care for each other, put aside differences and join together, to forgive, to have compassion and to be generous with what fortune you have.
No, I can be a Christian of this time. All wealth should go to feed the poor; to the betterment of the unfortunate; to make a better world for all. I do not believe the Jesus I have come to know would find any pleasure in the way his name is used today. He would instead, walk among the least of us and ask “Why do you have such wealth while these many have such hunger?”