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    No God, No Heaven, Just Jesus
    No God, No Heaven, Just Jesus
    No God, No Heaven, Just Jesus
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    No God, No Heaven, Just Jesus

    By David Miller

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    About this ebook

    In No God, No Heaven, Just Jesus author David C. Miller asks the reader to examine the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the bible, while acknowledging that it is still debatable whether Jesus even existed. Could Christianity (stripped of its bible myths), and the words attributed to one Jesus of Nazareth (released from their biblical confusions), be of inspiration in your life?

    The author’s aim is to help the reader see Jesus’ teachings in light of 21st century peoples’ education and knowledge in their Reality. He leaves it to the reader to judge if the words attributed to Jesus are worthy of consideration in the purpose of their life.

    Come on a journey through the Gospel of John and think about how the Christianity of Jesus can be applied in the reality of the 21st century.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTellwell Talent
    Release dateAug 22, 2017
    ISBN9781925666328
    No God, No Heaven, Just Jesus
    Author

    David Miller

    David A. Miller is the vice president of Slingshot Group Coaching where he serves as lead trainer utilizing the IMPROVleadership coaching strategy with ministry leaders around the country. He has served as a pastor, speaker, teacher, and coach in diverse contexts, from thriving, multi-site churches to parachurch ministries.

    Read more from David Miller

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      Book preview

      No God, No Heaven, Just Jesus - David Miller

      No God, No Heaven,

      Just Jesus

      A 21st century review of the Gospel of John

      David C. Miller

      This is an IndieMosh book

      brought to you by MoshPit Publishing

      an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

      PO BOX 147

      Hazelbrook NSW 2779

      http://www.indiemosh.com.au/

      Copyright 2017 © David C. Miller

      All rights reserved

      Licence Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

      Disclaimer

      Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

      Dedication

      To All Who Would A Christian Be!

      Preface

      Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship (1937) proposes the definitions of ‘cheap’ and ‘costly’ grace – the former without Christ’s Grace, and the latter to submit to Christ – which is costly because it causes one to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow Him.

      Jesus tells us of this Grace:

      ‘My Yoke is Easy and My Burden Light.’

      The Lutheran theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote The Cost of Discipleship because of his concern with the Lutheran Church’s quiescence to Nazism. He saw the Church become secularised and increasingly accommodating to the fascist regime, and saw that the German community found this acceptable. This attitude he named ‘cheap grace.’

      ‘Costly grace’, in contrast, cost Bonhoeffer his life. He was imprisoned by the Nazis and executed on Hitler’s orders on 9th April 1945, aged 39, in Flossenbürg concentration camp.

      As we move through the second decade of the 21st century, a divided Christian Church attempts to be relative. The broad collection of practices that are collected together under the banner of Christian is wide and diverse, including extreme evangelicalism and ‘watered down’ traditional liturgy. The result is that the Church seems increasingly removed from the concerns and daily life of society.

      Clinging to forms of worship based on traditional sermons and readings from a bible have also reduced perceptions that church has any meaningful part to play in community life.

      The various translations and incarnations of biblical texts, with all their different wordings, also add to the confusion of those seeking purpose beyond fulfilling their secular needs.

      We are slipping into cheap grace.

      Introduction

      What I attempt to do in this little book is to strip away any assurances that the Bible is the word of God – for that claim is a myth.

      The first words in most Bibles are these:

      Genesis: Chapter 1, V1:

      In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

      Today, Church-Christianity – that which is disseminated from pulpits around the world – is based on the Bible. It is the source material for writing and preaching the sermon, for the liturgies of service in churches, in related Bible-based stories, and is the reference source for countless scriptural texts in common usage. The Bible is also used to vindicate related religious events, such as ‘miraculous’ cures and mystical visions. For children being taught Bible stories provides the foundation of biblical indoctrination.

      I will attempt to reveal the Reality-Christianity, the beliefs that Jesus taught, which have been hidden by mythology and Church-Christianity doctrine.

      It would be unjust to proceed without mentioning that some within Church-Christianity structures acknowledges that Bible passages have been misinterpreted by readings and interpretations, directed by the Church hierarchy for their own purposes, as a means of misrepresenting the potential underlying meaning of the words attributed to Jesus.

      Then should we read the Bible texts as ‘literal’?

      Merriam Webster Dictionary states ‘literal’ means:

      According to the letter of the scripture; adheres to the literal reading of a passage; exact; verbatim-a literal translation.

      Here are two authors that accept that definition of ‘literal’:

      Scholars around the world have been saying for some time that the stories of the Bible are not to be read literally. Not only this, but more startling is the news that the stories were not intended to be taken literally.

      David Tracy, Beyond Literal Belief (2015)

      Emeritus Professor of Literature at La Trobe University, Melbourne and Research Professor of the

      Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture

      And:

      My point is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take then literally. They know what they were doing; we don’t.

      John Dominic Crossan, Who is Jesus? (1996)

      I have taken professional advice to use instead of ‘literal’ the following-:

      The actual words in many Bible passages have been read as facts.

      Church-Christianity in disguising of the Truth of Christ’s Teachings by creating fear to hold over congregations with biblical myths of ‘hell for sinners’ and ‘heaven reward’ for obedient attendances at church service, has today lost ‘its punch’. Attendances at established churches is continuing to fall in their number.

      This book is not a thesis. It is not an essay. There are ‘necessary’ interruptions such as some quotes. They are from authors of differing eras, and of views which may appear ‘holding up’ the subject of this book as described earlier in the introduction. However, each quote is directed to us to think with clear non-indoctrinated minds.

      The true and not ‘blinkered’ Christ’s Teachings may be glimpsed in some of the following quotes. There are those that reveal in their authors’ minds thoughts as to accept the statements attributed of Jesus to be taken as actual facts. Some mention Eternity.

      From: Mahatma Ghandi: An Interpretation by Dr E.B. Jones (1948):

      ‘Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ, it is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.’ – Mahatma Ghandi.

      as stated to Dr Eli Stanley Jones, (1884-1973) a friend of Gandhi in India over many years and given the ‘Gandhi Peace Award’ (1963).

      Interesting Quotations:

      The visionary inspiring religious ‘mystic’, poet and painter, William Blake:

      If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite.

      The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (circa 1790)

      Plate 14 by William Blake

      In these words Blake reveals how his mind is filled with ‘images’ of the reality of Christ’s teachings that his own era’s society, including the church, is well and truly ‘stuck’ in stale past entrenched traditions and dogmas.

      In his poem ‘Tiger’ he vividly depicts the savagery of the tiger. Then he ends it with a question that suddenly brings home to the reader we all should ask to ourselves:

      Did He who made the Lamb make thee?

      His paintings such as ‘Steam’ startled established artistic modes and spoke of the rapidly approaching industrial age, with an onrush of scientific discoveries and philosophies that would shake the Church belief s from Creation to the existence of God.

      John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedmuir, Governor General of Canada (1935-40), historian, author, and novelist wrote:

      In Christianity is the love of which Jesus spoke that is eternal and spiritual.

      Memory Hold the Door (1940)

      Buchan’s most popular book was The Thirty Nine Steps (1915) which is described as a spy thriller. The hero of the story is Richard Hannay. The latter’s experiences where personal mental fortitude in escaping from his pursuers may have a source in Buchan’s spiritual inspiration from hiking alone through remote areas of the Scottish Highlands in his youth. Both in several of his stories, such as Green Mantle and his historical works Augustus and of George V, Buchan’s writings reveal a strong Christian Spiritual Faith.

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