The Christianity of Christ

Introduction

There soon comes a time in every child's life when it begins to notice things and to realize what is right and what is wrong. This is especially true if the child be of poor parents and must early bear a part of the burden of getting a living. And as the child grows older he can see all around him that something is wrong, but what it is he does not know. Life seems a puzzle.

Anybody can see that something is wrong, but how to improve conditions is a matter of no little concern. Millions of reasons are given, investigating committees galore are put to work trying to find the cause, and still things go from bad to worse. But the cause of all evils is the lack of Christianity. " Lack of Christianity ! " some one will say, " with all our churches and services ? " Yes, churches enough and religions enough, — or rather too many, — but Christianity does not exist. In the following pages I will give my analysis of life and the rules which will, if put into practice, insure us a life as the Creator intended we should live it. I hope the day will come when this selfish life as it exists will be extinct and in its stead will reign the altruistic life as taught by Christ. Give Christianity full swing, and heaven on earth we will have. Then, and then only, can man be the highest creation of God, whereas in this degenerate state he is an abomination.

Preface

Upon studying existing conditions one comes to the conclusion that things are not equal in this world. One is born as a pauper, another a millionaire. These are the extremes, with all the intermediates between. The pauper is subject to the same physical laws as the millionaire. He must eat, have clothing and shelter. We will not particularly take into account the unfortunates who are born cripples, as their physical handicap prevents them from being 100% able, and for a comparison only able bodied persons should be taken.

The question naturally arises, why is there so great a difference? Why is one class of people bom into this world under such poor conditions that millions of them die in infancy because the abundance of the things of this world which would insure them life is denied them while another class has those things in abundance? Who is responsible for these conditions? Why do these conditions exist?

Man is responsible for these conditions. And they exist because of man's inhumanity to man, — because of man's selfishness and greed. If everybody in this world would make his living by his

PREFACE

own labor without in any way getting anything of the product of the labor of his fellow man or woman, these conditions would not exist. The trouble is that man is inclined to get for himself the things which are his neighbors. All people, of course, are not alike, and some will say this does not apply to them. They will say they are honest and give everybody what is coming to him. That may be as it is. There are honest people, but there are times in everybody's life when he does not give in return a full equivalent. Some people will call an act of their own just, but would not think so if it were measured out to them. But the greatest factor, the one that causes most of the unjust conditions in this world, is the deliberate and inexcusable meanness of man to get what belongs to his neighbor. By what right does anybody appropriate unto himself anything from anybody else without returning a full equivalent. Another method is to prevent a fellow man from gaining access to the things in this world which he needs to make his living and which were put into the world by an all-wise Creator for all alike, in that way exacting tribute of a fellow man, and making a living without working, — just working the other fellow. Man is created to make his living by his labor without in any way infringing upon the rights of anybody else. Infringement upon others in any way, shape or form is stealing, whether legalized or not, whether sanctioned by custom or usage. This holds good be-

PREFACE

tween any two people, whether they be strangers or relatives, whether husband and wife, parent and child, brothers, sisters, — whoever they are. Of all animals, man is the only one that preys upon his own kind. In lower animal life we see one specie preying upon another, but they are not to blame, — they are created that way, while man is created in a class by himself, separate and distinct from all other animal life. Lower animals can use only what is created, but man is capable of making things come his way. His upright position of body, his gift of reasoning and of speech, puts him in a class by himself. But with all those valuable attributes, man of all the species is the only one that does not live true to its creation. He has degenerated, and badly at that. Not satisfied with those invaluable endowments which would make him the crowning creation, he has to stoop so low, — prostituting his intellect and gift of speech, — as to invent the devil, hell fire and brimstone for nothing more than the subjugation of his fellow man.

This is one class of people. Then again the tendency to live without working has created another class, — the lazy ones. Those two classes of drones throw the burden of the work of the world upon a third class which has to do all the work. Naturally, under such conditions there must be injustice. Again the why and wherefore of things begins to become the uppermost thought in the mind of the worker. Seize upon any exist-

PREIB^ACE

ing condition and the injustice of it will be apparent. Why, then, are things thus, and what is the remedy? This brings us to the creation or beginning of the world. I will try in the following pages to give my views, and my hope is that this volume may be the means of awakening humanity to better existing conditions and create a world in which nothing but justice shall prevail.

Chapter I

It is apparent that some higher power or force than we on this earth know of is responsible for calling this universe into existence. Some call this power nature, others, possibly, something else, but we can see manifestations in all grades of life that each stage or grade of life has the feeling of mystery about a higher stage of life, till of the known grades of life man is the highest. And man has his ideas about a higher power, and the conceptions of this higher power in man are not constant but of many varieties and interpretations. A name is given to a Something by which it can be known and differentiated from other things. For our purpose this unknown power, this superhuman force, will be known in this work as God. God, then, is the creator of all the universe.

The question arises, for what purpose was this universe and all it contains created? We can see that man is the only active being on this earth ; all other things, by whatever name called, are passive and made only for man, whom God has destined to be his free agent on this earth and who has a definite place to fill which God has incorporated in his plan of creation. For this reason God has endowed man with the gift of speech and reasoning. As there is a chasm between the amoeba and man, so is there a chasm between the mind of man and God. In other words, the amoeba is an organism subject to the laws of life; it is born, lives and dies and is subject to the laws of nutrition during its life just as man is. The amoeba is the lowest form of animal life and man is the highest. There are millions of forms between the two. As low as the single cell amoeba is compared to the complex organism of man, so low down on the scale is the mind of man compared to God. But the mind is that medium which God has placed in man to be the factor through which that part of man which is his spark of godliness can be developed so as to bridge the chasm and be the cause of man's rising to a plane on a level with God. That is God's plan, — to use man as his acre on which to grow something which shall in the end be like him. For that reason has he given man a mind. That is the only way whereby man can be created in the image of his Maker. Not in a bodily image as the preachers try to make us believe, — to believe that God has the shape of a human body is ridiculous. It is claimed that God is omnipresent. Just imagine such a God, shaped like a human body, spread all over the earth, — let alone all over the universe. Think it over and draw your own conclusions.

Now if man would live true to his creation, all the misery we have in this world would never have come into existence. But instead of following the voice of his bosom and building upon it step by step to a finer and higher life, he allowed his baser feelings to possess him and the spark of godliness died out. Thus man sunk below the level of the lower animals, for they live true to creation and man does not. The depth to which man has fallen is amply illustrated in the present world war of extermination. Thus are the fruits of disobedience harvested. And people are alike all over the world, — read}^ to do the same thing when opportunity offers. Instead of making a blessing of their free agency, they turn it into a curse.

You say, " Why did not God create man differently, so that he would have continued as he was created .? " The answer is that this very gift of reasoning is necessary for man to become Godlike. It is reason, too, which puts man in a class by himself, apart from all other forms of animal life. If man were not free, he would be compelled, and compulsion is not freedom. God being free (he was not compelled by anybody to create the universe), he wanted man to be free. And to become Godlike man must give his consent. This is necessary for harmony. Unwilling and grumbling people can not create a heaven. The standard along which lines God created man is fully exemplified by the man Jesus Christ. True humanity loves its neighbor as it does itself; it does not murder him.

Since man has fallen from the way in which God intended he should live, it follows that he must be converted back to God if he would realize to the full the promises which he was intended to become heir to. It all rests with man. If he is willing to obey, all is well ; if not, he has only himself to blame. For the torture of his mind will be terrible if he realizes what he could be and what he is, in the next life. Our earthly life is just a step toward another conscious existence and if we have lost it, it is our own fault. God has implanted in the human breast and mind the knowledge which tells us what to do, and in the degree to which he has given us understanding will we be held accountable.

We are born into this world without our consent and we leave it without our consent. We have no choice in the father we shall have, — millionaire or pauper. But we know that we must die, and the place we go to is of our own choice. We can find either riches or poverty in the next world, so to speak. We will get just what is coming to us, and the man who is a millionaire on this earth can be a pauper in the next world. Just as we prepare ourselves for some calling in this world, — if we would be a lawyer, we go to a law school ; a doctor, to a medical college ; a shoemaker, we go to a shoeshop ; a blacksmith, to a blacksmith shop, and so on, — just so we can prepare ourselves for something in the next world. And we will be placed just where we belong, to do what we have trained ourselves for. We would not hire a tailor to make biscuits or a butcher to build aeroplanes. This earth is the shop where we learn our trade for the next world. Here we can find plenty of instructions and material to work with. God has given us immutable laws by which we can live and which will teach us his will if we will only obey them. We deal direct with God. There is no devil or anything else between God and man.

But man is conceited and when his little brain tells him what he should do, he forthwith becomes contrary. He also wants to get credit for something he is not entitled to ; he thinks himself clever and wants to put one over on God. Never mind; you can not do it. It acts like a boomerang; it comes back home.

This earth being the school where we learn our lessons, it behooves us to pay strict attention. We can see that certain principles hold good in all lines of endeavor, — in fact, they hold good everywhere, in all lands and among all people. Another lesson teaches us that a harvest comes not only in agriculture, but in everything. Those two things, — i.e., the certain principles and the harvest, — are man's greatest concern.

The harvesting of man by God is on the same principle as the harvesting of grain by man. The soil is represented by man; the seed by the spark of godliness ; the wind, rain, storm, sunshine, hail, drouth, etc., by human proclivities ; the harvest by death; and the threshing by the awakening to the next conscious life. If the elements are favorable, a crop is produced. If the seed succumbs to the elements, we have a crop failure. So also if the human proclivities are not overcome by the spark of godliness, we will have a crop failure for the life to come. Everything on the land is cut along with the gathering of the grain, and when it is threshed, is separated ; so, also, everyone dies and is separated and put in the class where he or she belongs.

There is one difference, however, and that is this. Everything as we see it on this earth springs from a parent, owes its existence to a parent, must have a parent, — man included. The mission of the parent is to give life to the offspring. The parent dies and the offspring continues the life of the earth to become a parent in turn. Every offspring is influenced by the parent. This is the order of things on earth and also pertains to the body of man.

But the spark of godliness which is put in that body by God and is part of God and is given to man as life everlasting through which we become as God, — that spark is ours to keep, or reject by putting our proclivities in command over the spark. This spark, then, is the nucleus of our life hereafter and has no separate parent; each individual is his or her own parent in that sense. The laws of heredity do not apply here. You can be healthy, free from all taint and disease ; you are the controlling force. The only requirement is full, complete and unequivocal obedience.

Man is willing to obey in a certain fashion after his own pleasure. This is evidenced by man's wanting a king or some other ruler. This is obedience with strings to it, and man feels important that he has made a king; but he plays a losing game. If we had obedience as we should obey, we would have no need for any king or other ruler. We would obey God and lead a life worth 100 per cent.

" How can this life be led? " you say. " I have been so busy eking out my existence I have never had time or energy to think of anything but making my living. I have had no part in shaping affairs on this earth. It is the other fellow with time and money who is guilty." The rule for everybody is expressed by the word Christianity. Let Christianity reign and all is well. " What, then," you say, " is Christianity ? " We will explain that in the following pages.

Chapter II

As soon as there is more than one person on earth it becomes necessary to get up a code of ethics or rules and regulations. And if the number of people increases considerably, these rules should be in writing. But, mark you, these rules should not be handed do^vn by some autocrat for his benefit, but should be formed so as not to do the slightest injury to even the least of the people. This fact prompted God to have the man Jesus Christ write a code of ethics, or, if you please, live a life just as God would have every man live it, so as to set an example before the world.

You say, " Why did not God have him live from the beginning of time so that everybody might have the benefit of his example? " I will say that every man is created with the same potentialities as Christ, and if every man were to live alone on this earth without ever coming in contact with another human being, he would live his life in accord with the plan of God, excepting only the propagation of the species. This one phase we will not touch upon just now. We simply want to show at this time that every man is all he was intended to be when he is all alone on this earth, so to speak.

The trouble commences as soon as he comes in contact with another man. Then he turns loose his lower passions. He wants to control and cheat and so forth. Those passions are strictly human and should be held under the control of the spark of godliness, and that is the task God has set for us to do. Every man has that feeling in his bosom; all he has to do is to obey. But that is the testing point ; he balks. He does not allow the voice of the bosom to control the thoughts of the mind. That is the point where all our misery originates. And there is practically no difference between any two people. In some the feelings are stronger, in some weaker, but they are there. Obey the voice of God and all is well.

" Now, then," you say, " why does God allow this.f^ Why doesn't he or didn't he make man so he would obey him? " Because that would be forcing him, and God does not want to use force in that way. He wants man to act on his human impulses and put them under God's will voluntarily. That is the only way to have a free man, to be wholly and willingly and without reservation God's friend, or whatever you may want to call it, much in the same way as you want a true and tried friend. He does not have to be under your will or control, but he puts himself there voluntarily, and of his own free will does things that you would never ask of him to do were he your paid servant or slave, and that you could not make him do were you to use force even were you in a position to take his life if he refused. God having put into man all that is needed to make himself like God if he only chose, he abused his liberty and strayed away from God. God, knowing the outcome, let him have his own will, as on that free will rests the whole plan. God knew that in order to have man become Godlike it had to be developed in man by man's consciousness and free will. This holds good for the individual as well as for nations and generations. Man is only the unit of the nation and generation. Letting man have his way long enough will finally convince him that he cannot come out right by his way and that God's way is the only right one. This applies not only to the individual but to the nations and generations alike, as, for example, man begins to learn as a child and keeps on till death. Nations learn in the same way and so do generations. To make it clearer, think of one man's life from birth to death, his trials and learnings ; then of nations from the first man of that nation until that nation ceases to exist; and of generations all over the world from the beginning till the world is no more. They go through the same metamorphosis, as nations and generations depend for their existence upon that one unit, man.

Now all this is the logical result of man's disobedience. If he did not disobey, it would not be this way. All this learning, these trials and so forth would never have been, because God had implanted in man all the results of all of this and gave him for his guide that spark of godliness which would ring if man wanted to do something which was wrong. But it only rang, and did not hurt him, and he did not heed. If it had hit him like a club and knocked him down, he would have noticed. But God wanted it to be gentle, for he knew that by gentleness alone would his plan come out right. We can see this proven almost daily. When fear loses its grip man is as bad or worse than ever. It is only when he is bound by that fear that he willingly (?) obeys. This terrible, insane, worse-than-butchering European war gives us another example of force doing nothing for the good of the world, showing that this knock-down is not the proper channel to follow. At first people gasped at the frightful affair; now it is so common they can joke about it.

Fear and force are like unto man ; they are born to die. But love is like the sun ; by giving, it creates or grows bigger. God, knowing all this, let man have his way until he became conscious he could not continue that way. And man, having so long disobeyed, had forgotten about the voice of his bosom; the human elements had killed the seed of godliness ; it did not ring any more. So God gave them a man who did live a life in accordance with God's will, that they might see and remember. But no sooner did Christ appear than they wanted to kill him. The human thoughts were again master. And so it is till this day.

Now as long as people do not want to obey their own voice, because they get it without any effort on their part ( and in order to value anything they want to go through hardships), and some by heredity and environment have not received this spark in a very viable form, God established through Christ the code of ethics which we call Christianity. The principle of Christianity is this : Love God above all else and thy neighbor as thyself. That is all there is to Christianity. It is short and simple.

But people will not do it. They have established a Christianity of their own making and they call it religion. They worship their religion and call it Christianity. For in order to live a Christian life you must obey God, and with their religion they can make themselves believe they can make God obey them. They all have a religion that suits their purpose. Again I will refer to this monstrous crime of war raging just now, each nation praying to God to help her kill the other fellow. And no nation is exempt. Our own United States of America is even worse than any of the European nations now engaged in the war in that it has appropriated for army and navy purposes more money in one year than any one of the same European powers has for the same length of time, in times of peace before this war started. Religion will allow those things, but Christianity never. Religion as it is in vogue to-day and has been practiced from the beginning stands for a system of master and servant. Such is not Christianity. Christianity is service to your neighbor ; but not in the sense as it exists, — not to make your less fortunate brother your slave, not to take any advantage for whatever reason or under any condition over anybody. Religion allows you to take advantage in any shape, Christianity never. Christianity helps the ignorant. Religion takes advantage of them.

If all nominal Christians were converted according to Christianity, we would have only one body of Christians instead of all the different sects. But 99%, and probably %o of the remaining 1%, are not converted in accordance with Christianity. They are converted according to the doctrines and dogmas of their respective churches. That is the reason we have this pseudo-Christianity existing in the world to-day. Study these so-called Christians in the different parts of the world or the different denominations in a certain community and you will find that so. Each class has a different conception of Christianity. A group of people find themselves together with a basis of their own standard of Christianity for a foundation and then they work along the lines of what they would like Christianity to be, never once thinking that they are working their ideals instead of the Christianity of Christ.

There is only one standard of Christianity, and that standard is the standard of Christ Jesus. All others are false, even though people defending them m.ay do so in a sincere belief that they are doing it according to Christ Jesus. Christianity is the same at all times and anywhere in the world. But take your Christians of one kind and try to have them mingle with another kind of Christians and in the majority of cases they cannot get along together. There will be dissensions, disagreements, quarrels, fights, — even murder and war, — all because one kind of Christianity does not agree with another kind. This is a sad state of affairs, but true, and it proves that nominal Christians have a Christianity born of their own flesh. If it were the Christianity of Christ Jesus, that friction would not and could not exist ; instead there would be universal love.

It is palpable that hate to a strong degree exists between Christians so-called. They cannot agree on earth, still they are serving the same God and want to share the same heaven. Here on earth they draw race lines and geographical lines, with the intention of getting the best of the other fellow, and then when they die expect to wake up and find themselves living in peace and harmony with their enemies. That will not work. We are our own builders and what we erect we will get in the next world. If the lion and the lamb shall sleep together, you first must train them to it. If the cat and the mouse shall walk together in love and peace, you must convert them; otherwise the mouse will do her walking inside the cat.

These illustrations are identical with Christianity as it exists to-day, — one Christian nation trying to eat up the other, one Christian denomination trying to exterminate the other. And then they expect the kingdom of heaven ! It is impossible. If a contractor wanted to build and his men would not work in harmony, he could never finish that building. If one set of men tore down what the other set had built, or weakened some parts, put in poor material, etc., that building would be doomed. So it is with the house of God. It will consist only of the material put in and be in strength according to the material put in.

Now if the material above described be used, it is easy to see that it must fall. It cannot be built of Christianity fashioned after mankind, but must be built of the Christianity ordained by God. And any Christianity which is not according to God's rules will not be used as material in the building. Mistake not; God is the overseer, and you cannot deliver anything that does not come up to specifications. God builds safe and thuswise that nothing will contain a flaw. Size up existing Christianity and you will see that it falls way short; therefore Christianity as it exists here on earth cannot be used as material. Christianity has been commercialized; it has gone through a metamorphosis. It has put on a new gown. Any Christianity that does not conform to commercialism is not acceptable nowadays. All Christianity to-day is promulgated from the basis of commerciaHsm. Is it any wonder no progress is made.^^ How can a thing prosper and be strong if it rests on a foundation not in accord with the superstructure ?