Here, let's fix the confusion:
"I like your Christ. I don't much like your Christianity. It doesn't seem very much like your Christ." -- Dragon
There. Now, whether Gandhi said something similar to that or not, I just did, so we can discuss it independently of verifying whether or not I am plagiarizing him. The above also removes us from the side-issue of whether Christians personally and individually fall short of the example of Christ, which no Christian would deny and which is not really saying anything pertinent.
There is a problem in Christianity as it is practiced in most denominations. It veers very far away from the teachings of Christ, as expressed in the Gospels, in its claims to exclusive possession of the truth, its hostility to and intolerance of other faiths, and its elevation of material success and political power over and above holiness and dedication to God. It places God in the written word, and in fixed and inflexible rules and regulations, not in the still small voice in the heart, nor in the inner fire that moves the heart to love. The things that Jesus said so angrily about the Pharisees are today all true of most of the religions that pretend to follow his teachings: whitewashed sepulchers, a generation of vipers, who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, who wash the outside of the cup carefully and leave the inside filthy.
I believe that most of this can be traced back to an event that occurred in the year 325 AD: the Council of Nicaea, and the founding of what I call the Imperial Church.
Initially following the crucifixion, the followers of Jesus consisted of a small group of Jews who lived in Jerusalem, led by the Apostles, especially Peter and James, Jesus' brother. These people saw themselves as a Jewish sect, although the Jewish authorities considered them heretical. Paul of Tarsus, after his conversion, separated Jesus' teachings from Judaism, preached to the gentiles, and founded what can be called "Pauline Christianity" as distinct from the "Jewish Christianity" that existed from Jesus' teachings and his closest followers.
Pauline Christianity was an illegal religion in the Roman Empire for centuries but the laws against it were seldom enforced. What that meant in practice was that it was a free religion, with no enforceable authority (the state would not back it and sometimes cracked down on it). It was highly diverse, even more so than Christianity today. There was no Bible as such. Some Christians honored the Old Testament, but not all. Many Christian writings circulated, including gospels, letters allegedly from the Apostles, books of prophecy, and books of liturgy, but none of these was "canonical" as there was no authority to make them so. Some Christian sects were structured and authoritarian and elected "bishops" to govern them. Others were free-wheeling and libertarian and did not. Some Christian sects were ascetic. Others practiced free love. Some were millennial, others more practical.
In 325, the emperor Constantine, who wanted Christianity to become the new state religion of the Roman Empire, called a convocation of "bishops" (all from the authoritarian Christian sects, of course, as they were the only ones who had "bishops") to meet at Nicaea in Greece and hammer out a creed that would be binding on all Christians and a canonical scripture. The Emperor himself did not directly intervene in the discussions, but it was understood that he wanted an instrument that would support the power of the throne. This the bishops gave him, not without dispute and controversy, but in the end producing the Nicene Creed and the New Testament, proclaiming four gospels, one account of the Apostles, a number of apostolic letters, and one book of prophecy canonical and sacred and all others false and heretical. Under Constantine and his successors, this Imperial Church replaced the freewheeling Pauline Christianity, ground all dissidents under its heel, and was responsible for more persecution of Christians than the pagans ever had attempted. The Church became a political organization first and a religious one second.
Later, the Imperial Church would split into the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. Later still, the Protestant Reformation would break away from the Roman Catholic Church. In all cases, however, the essential authoritarian, doctrinaire error of the original Imperial Church was preserved.
If Christians want to get back to the heart of Jesus' teachings, this is what they must do:
1) Abandon Biblical authority and infallibility. The Bible can be an inspiration and a guide, but if taken as an authority it becomes a prison.
2) Abandon fixation on permanent rules and regulations. That's not what Jesus was about. Remember that he reduced the Law to just two commandments: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. Remember that he was infamous for breaking rules he considered senseless, and once proclaimed that the Sabbath (and by extension, the Law itself) was made for man, not vice-versa.
3) Remember that true faith comes from the heart, and is not imposed from above; remember also that God will not fit under your hat, and a person can be following the teachings of Christ who has never heard of him.
A Christianity that does these things will resemble Christ's original movement. My problem with Christianity as it usually exists is that it does not.
