Christian Media Watch - The Miracle Channel on sacrifice

Miracle Channel, Wednesday May 29, 2002

     On the Miracle Channel talk show, they were discussing some large prayer meeting that is going to be taking place in Canada, I believe the city was Ottawa. The meeting will be video-taped and broadcast on the station. One thing caught my attention and that was when the host justified the great gathering by quoting a single line from Psalm 50 : "5 "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!"

     The sacrifice being alluded to here was of course the 'substition of Jesus' who 'by his sacrificial death' then 'paid the price for our sins' so that 'we could then go to heaven'. This substitution doctrine is the theoretical basis of all Christian evangelization and traditional Christian theology. It is based on the ancient cow sacrificing doctrines of Leviticus, and depends upon these doctrines for its legitimacy. Ideologically, the doctrine assumes that one can treat law concerning such things as 'paying off someone's credit card debt' in the same way that one would treat law concerning, for example, 'paying the price for murder.' For example, if someone were to pay off your credit card, you would then be free of the debt. No principle of justice would be violated in this area of the law, since someone merely volunteered to pay off your credit card for you. However, if we were to give the death penalty to John to 'pay the price for the sin of Harry's murder' in no way can one argue that in this area of the law 'justice was served', but rather the very essense of the thing, which is justice itself, is seriously comprimised and violated. This is my first protest against traditional Christian theological dogmas, that they violate the conception of justice. Now one could argue, as Augustine attempted to argue, that 'heavenly justice is not the same as human justice' and that since 'humanity was corrupted in Eden' therefore the sense of justice of humanity is also corrupted thus causing people to think that executing Tom for Harry's murder was somehow 'unjust' (while at the same time having no problem with Tom paying off Harry's credit card, which is not unjust nor does it violate the principles of justice, because this type of law is entirely separate from the law concerning murder, for example.) Augustine also argued that the burning in hell forever of unbaptized babies was also 'certainly just' even if it was the case that no one could understand how such a thing could possibly be proper, using the same argument of 'the divine mysteries of the justice of heaven' to prop up his argument in favor of Christian theological dogmas over and against the lives of babies. On the other hand, it will be argued, when it is dogmatically convenient, that 'people know right from wrong' and therefore they are subject to 'judgment by God for their sins'. After all, how else can one prop up the dogma of judgment, which is also at the core of Christian evangelizing, unless we hold that people are guilty of sin, and that they know it, thus 'feeling the need to have their credit card debt paid off through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ'.

     So to summarize my first objection, Christian theology is unjust, unless you choose to believe that people know nothing about justice, in which case it is inconsistent and self contradictory.

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     Now as I mentioned previously, Christian dogma is build upon the ancient Levite doctrines of the cow sacrifice as described in Leviticus, and thus depends for its legitmacy on the legitimacy of Leviticus and its dogmas. This forms my second objection to the validity of Christian evangelism and the traditional theology on which it is based. As Jeremiah described it "Burn your whole offerings and eat the flesh yourselves, for on the day that I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I gave them no instructions or commands concerning whole offerings and sacrifice...How can you say, 'We are wise, for we have the Torah', when actually, the lying pen of the scribes had it falsified.' Jeremiah Chapters 7 and 8. Jeremiah rejects the Moses myth and Leviticus

     Now we are told that we must 'abandon human reason' in favor of 'the truth from God's word as found in the Bible'. So here we have my second objection to Christian evangelization and the old dogmas on which it is based concerning 'the sacrifice of Jesus to pay off the debt of sins'. It is hypocritical, based on 'God's word' as it claims to be, for God's word says otherwise. Apparently we will choose what 'God's word' is, nullifying this prophet, for example, in order to lift up Leviticus (being 'God's word' as I am sure that cow sacrificing doctrine is, or so some would have us believe'.)

     Now continuing on with this theme 'covenant made by sacrifice' taken from the 50th Psalm, I thought it might be good to actually read the whole 50th Psalm instead of just that one line and thus see what it has to say about 'making a covenant by sacrifice'. Note that I am not a Zionist, and because of the violence of Israel and my huge embarrassment about the word 'Zion' I always substitute the word 'Eden' for Zion wherever I encounter it...You will notice a few things about this Psalm. First it is hardly the justification for a Christian meeting, rather the theme is the gathering of everyone on the planet to witness the judgment of God's people, and they are being judged for their sacrifices, not endorsed for those same sacrifices, so then the complete 50th Psalm actually carries on the theme of Jeremiah, and does not endorse Leviticus, but rather condemns it...

Psalm 50
1 The Mighty One, YAHWEH God, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2 Out of Eden, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
3 Our God comes, he does not keep silence, before God is a devouring fire, round about God a mighty storm.
4 The heavens above and the earth are summoned to the judgement of God's people:
5 "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!"
6 The heavens declare God's righteousness, for God himself is judge! Blah
7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
8 I do not reprove you for your sacrifices; your burnt offerings are continually before me.
9 But I will accept no bull from your house, nor he-goat from your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine.
12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

     The psalm then goes on to ask 'what right does a hypocrit have to quote line after line from 'God's word', for they hate correction and hurl God's word behind their backs, and spend all their concocting decietful arguments instead. The way Jeremiah is treated is a classic example of this sort of thing, or so it has always seemed to me.

     So to summarize the second objection I have to Christian theology and the evangelism based upon it, it is hypocritical, and while my opponents would like to justify themselves by claiming that their counter arguments are 'based on God's word' they actually hate correction, just as the Psalmist said, and they literally hurl 'God's word' behind their backs, and spend the rest of their time conjuring up deceitful arguments to use on people instead.

     My third argument is that this so called 'sacrifice' argument and the doctrine of 'substitution' (the pay my credit card argument which is purported to represent the 'justice' of Christian religion) all of this is actually a mask for 'works of salvation' and negates grace. You are saved by the work of salvation which consists of 'choosing Jesus' of 'your own free will' and thus in some 'mystical way' your credit card gets paid off through this Leviticus cow sacrifice of Jesus. Actually what this is simply religious dogmatism, and is dogmatism purely for the sake of dogmatism, which is the very definition of religion if you ask me. It is graceless, devoid of Grace, for as the well known Curse of the Christian Religion proclaims 'cursed be those who do not our of their own human effort and will power choose of their own free will to make a decision for Christ and then do all the works of the Christian law daily...' For more discussion of this subject of the work of Salvation under the Christian sacrificial system, which is the underlying idea behind Christian evangelism, see the page The Liberation Gospel where I argue for a return to grace, rather than the works preached by Christian evangelism. It is understood here that to practice, believe, understand and then preach grace, one must first destroy the animal sacrifices of Leviticus, since my observations of Christianity over the centuries and over the years that I have been alive demonstrate that mixing in those works of bleeding a cow with the gospel is what has been responsible for draining the church of grace in the first place...Another comment we might add to the list is that as a result of their graceless dogma of the works of salvation, Christianity has also become known throughout the ages as an oppressor and censor and this remains true right to this day, which is why they are in the trouble they are in today...