The Church Militant and Triumphant

I am borrowing and editing from something I read only because I appreciated the context and in the way it was written, that so agreed with my own research and study of especially the last ten years.

Tragically, the history of the church has been largely a history of people that say, " I believe in  " Jesus BUT have refused to trust the WAY of the crucified Nazarene and instead given in to the very temptation he resisted. It's the history of an "Institution" that has frequently traded it's entire mission to bring Good News to the world and peace.
It is the history of an "organization" that has more then frequently forsaken the slow, discrete, non violent, non retributive, peaceful way of transforming the world for the immediate, obvious, practical, and less costly way of improving the world and least that is what they thought they would do.
It is a history of a people who too often identified the "Kingdom of God Within You", with a "Christian version of  - the kingdom of the world.

For the first 300 years, this wasn't so. Followers of  "The Way" of Jesus, during that time period saw themselves as resident "aliens."  They were a persecuted minority and as such did not dream of corporately exercising "power over others."  Indeed those few followers of the Way, resulted in a huge increase and grew at a mind boggling rate!! This growth came about not by "Christians" fighting for their rights, as many do today, but largely by seriously being opposed to archy and the archy's of this world and it resulted in them being put to death by the State. No different then like the One  they said they followed in his way of love and peace.
It was during this time that the word, "martyr", which originally meant "witness" came to mean "One who dies for their faith," for dying was one the primary ways these followers were hushed and silenced by the Arky, "The State" for being witnesses of their faith.
In fact many considered it an honor to be murdered as witnesses of the Kingdom they considered themselves citizens of,  one, unlike any kingdom of this world.

I am not suggesting that the early followers, all of them were a perfect expression of the Kingdom of Divine Love (God), they had their human weaknesses as well, from time to time, as we all do.  They too also begin to absorb some other religious ideologies as well. What we could call "pagan" ideas and attitudes. Pagan meaning some of those ideologies already that existed in many other religions, that too were based on arky's (rulers) as well.
But to a large degree the early followers of the Way, looked like a corporate bodily version of the One they called Jesus the Christ. They were willing to lay down their own lives if necessary to protect the lives of others, suffering injustices and hate by the arky's of the day. Being especially Rome at the time..  The main proof  they offered the world, was not a Jesus of the past in Jerusalem but the living Christ in them, as the Christ themselves.. both individually and corporately when they came together.

It's difficult to overemphasize the change that occurred when in AD 312, the emperor Constantine claimed conversion. Just prior to an important battle of empire war, legend has it, that Constantine had a vision in which he was told to paint Chi Rho (the first two letter of the Greek word for "Christ") on the shields of his soldiers. Allegedly, a voice in the vision announced, By this sign you shall conquer."  Constantine went with his vision and winning the battle, a new religion was born.
The "magic" apparently worked, and so Constantine and his administration dedicated themselves or at least his new empire he would build to this "Christian god",,  unlike anything the Christ or the early Christians taught or lived.
This was the FIRST TIME anyone associated the Christ with violence, but it's success stained the followers from then on and became the Christian Church.

Constantine "legalized" Christianity in AD 313, this new Christian religion of violence and force.
Because of it's association with him, the religion immediately exploded in popularity. Of course it would, it was the same as the ways of this world. Within Seventy years it was proclaimed the official religion of the Roman Empire - making it a crime not to be a "Christian (the Jews were exempt from the law, but not from growing Antisemitism of the "church,"    The first recorded Christians murdering those they then called pagans, those that did not obey the law and attrition to their beliefs and doctrines, shortly after that.
In short order, the MILITANT CHURCH extended it's power by conquering lands and peoples throughout Europe, compelling them to be baptized Christians or DIE.  As Charlemagne instructed his "Christian troops" in their conquest of the Saxons: If there is anyone of the Saxon people lurking among them unbaptized, and if he scorns to come to baptism.... and stay a pagan, let him die!!"

The peace, love and just equality kingdom centered on mercy and compassion and the willingness to lay down one's life for another now had succeeded in becoming  a massive "POWERING OVER" kingdom centered on "the sword."  The church became "the church MILITANT AND TRIUMPHANT" and the kingdom of Divine Love (God) manifested in the crucified Nazarene, had become the EMPIRE OF CHRISTENDOM.

The unconditional love and humility that characterized the Christ, and the early followers of "The Way" had to be reininterpreted at this time to accommodate the new power that church "authorities" ie; leaders, a new archy not existent before among the early followers of the Christ, that church leaders believed "GAWD"  (I say that like a fundamentalist southern preacher would, punningly) had given to them, the "Church."
Instead of being seen as the essence of the kingdom of Divine Love, the" power under" lifestyle of Jesus and that which the early followers did it came to be understood as only a provisional inconvenience that had to be tolerated until this "(new religion) Christianity could gain the status, arky in the world..
Jesus had taught his early followers, the disciples to be humble and in that to be willing to suffer the world's judgment of their way of life, it was argued by these new zealots of the religion of Christianity, because they didn't have "THE POWER" to do otherwise.. But now they did!!
Forgetting that the "god of this age" all the authority of the kingdoms of this world and gives that power to whomever it wills..(Luke 4:6-8)  The grand delusion of Domination and Dominators, was now the recipe of the day for this new Religion, called Christianity, at it's height in "power over" nations and peoples at this time..

These Church leaders, hier-arky, of this time insisted that GAWD had given the Church the POWER OF THE SWORD and thus concluded "the church" had an obligation to use it.
Indeed, since the church knows the truth and the knows what is best for people, the thinking generally went, it would be positively immoral to lay this power aside and "come under" the "heathen."
Rather for the sake and for the glory of GAWD, the Church must use it's newfound "POWER OVER" to COMPEL, by "FORCE",  and heretics to agree with it and "be saved."
Why else would GAWD have given the power to us, they thought?

What followed was a long and terrible history of people using the sword "in Jesus' name for the glory of God,"   Though there are, of course, some examples of people that did not turn away from the Way, within the movements within "church history", the reigning church as a whole - "Christendom"- acted about as horrible as most versions of the kingdom of the world,  The Holy Roman Empire was about as violent as the Roman Empire it  aspired to replace.  It just carried out it's typical kingdom-of-the-world BARBARISM under a different banner and in service to a different god.

Augustine was the first theologian to align the church in an official way with the use of the sword, and happened to be a against a fellow "Christian" group, the Donatists. Among other things, the Donatists believed that the alliance between church  (religious arky ) and the state (political arky)...that had been forged since Constantine was undermining the purity and integrity of the church, and they wanted to keep the church pure.  Though Augustine had previously spoken against the "coercion" for religious purposes, his ongoing battle with the Donatists led him to reverse his view..

Augustine now justified the "use of force" by arguing that inflicting temporal pain to help someone avoid "eternal pain" is justified..
Since GAWD (God) had given "the church" THE POWER OF THE SWORD, Augustine reasoned, it has a responsibility to use it further God's purposes in the world just as a stern father has a responsibility TO BEAT HIS CHILDREN for his own good..
(ugh)...He reasoned that God sometimes uses terror for the good of humans, the we who are representatives of God on earth - the church- may use terror for the sake of the gospel.
If the end justifies it, the use of violence as a means to that end is justified."
This is, in essence, Augustine's "just war" policy,) Augustine thus invoked a recent edict of the emperor Theodosius to "Criminalize"  the "heresy" of Donatism and attempt to persecute it out of existence. This set a tragic PRECEDENT for handling doctrinal disagreements for the next THIRTEEN HUNDRED YEARS!!

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, millions were burned at the stake, hung, beheaded, or executed in other ways for resisting some aspect of - the church's- teaching or failing to exist ( operate) UNDER IT'S AUTHORITY..
Thousands upon thousands were totured in unthinkable ways in an attempt to elicit a "confession of faith" in the Savior and in the Church!! Some of the macabre torturing devices were often inscribed with the logo "GLORY BE ONLY TO GOD."
Christian ssectarian groups such as the Paulicans, Cathars, Albigenisians and Waldensians were massacred by the towns - often including women and children - and Christians in both the east and the west slaughtered each other "IN JESUS' NAME as ruthlessly as they slaughtered Muslims.
Terrible autrocities were carried out on Jews as well, expecially when the Crusades needed to be financed, and multitudes of women ( estimates range between sixty thousand to several million) were burned or hung for allegedly being witches - most of whom denied the charge. The followers of the once peaceful and love teaching Nazarene of THE WAY, who had once considered themselves resident aliens, had now  become the religion "Christianity"  a HORDE OF SAVAGE WARLORDS!!

Yes, the Church WAS and still is. the CHURCH MILITANT and TRIUMPHANT now still in bed with the Political State.. One of the same WHORE..

Now ask me why I am not a Christian, I think you should know why now..  ask me why I follow the Way, the Christ Spirit within me, as me.. and you should know the reason why now..

Ask me why I don't go to church am not a church member, ,, if you don't know why now.. you'll probably never understand..  but I hope you will..  sooner or later..

I did not have to throw out "The Way" to come to love, my fellow human race,  I actually awoke to the Peace and Love of the Way, of the Spirit of Christ IN ME, AS ME..   but I had to come out of her Babylon first..  and I do not support any kingdom of  THIS VIOLENT world,,, including the church in any way manner or form. AND NO I CANNOT RECONCILE JESUS AT ALL WITH CHRISTIANITY.... the two are so far apart.. it's unfathomable!!

I am a Spiritual Anarchist..  and that's who I am and how I intend to live..  like it or not..

- Joey Black


Be sure to follow my blog if you like, I will be writing more in the future here.. I hope this might be informative for many.. and might help some see even a glimmering of truth..