The Triune Source Of Sorrow
How did Christianity, as known in America, particularly in the Bible Belt, come to the doctrinal propositions and beliefs that it currently embraces? It’s that old, “why do you cut the ends of the ham off”, question. The answer is because that’s how it’s been done for as long as I know and I’m only doing what I’ve seen and know. 🙁
Let me simply ask three simple questions that history can validate!
1-Why do preachers, pastors, and ministers get personal state TAX DEDUCTIONS?
2-Why do we equate killing ‘in the name of God’ and winning wars as being some sort of divine favor?
3-Why is their such OPULENCE in church buildings with however large of a “church complex” being no-taxable?
All three answers go back to 325 CE and Constantine, the sun-worshipping pagan Roman emperor who wanted to CONTROL the CHURCH and did so with the axiom, “Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer”. Constantine left us the above legacies and many more.
But worst of all was his influence on the nature of the Godhead itself. It’s Constantine, not God, not the church, not the Bishops that have given us many of our BELIEFS that are followed today. But let me deal with just ONE of the three above- Church opulence.
Christians were meeting secretly in homes and thriving in spite of persecutions and being fed to the lions. So, Constantine brought them into the PUBLIC forum where he could watch and rule. He poured money into the building of HUGE edifices such as the first basilica of St. Peter on Vatican Hill. Such display of WEALTH and OPULENCE was alien to Christianity; however, the bishops easily bought into the opulent lifestyle and caved in to the emperor.
Jerome wrote, “Parchments
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