Tag Archives: corruption of religion

Equality of Women in Early Christianity

I often come across information that I find to be very educational; information that I feel everyone needs to hear because it dispels the religious teachings that religion propagates regarding women and their true positions in the early church and society. Consistently, as I find this information, I quote it on my blog and expound on it. My blog is full of articles that provide evidence of changes and corruptions in translation that have leaned attitudes of men against women and female leadership. These changes have been purposely done to write women out of autonomy and equality and point them into positions of servitude to men. These attitudes have had an opportunity to saturate societies the world over for centuries and, set a foundation for abuse of women everywhere. These abuses have never been more prevalent than in today’s culture – a rape culture – where even the smallest female child has no safety from the abuse. For an example of this mentality and culture, click any of the following links:

More rape in India as Delhi reports 4 year old assaulted

Saudi preacher gets fine and short jail term for raping and killing 5 year old daughter

Iran legalizes Pedophilia

Sacrificing Our Daughters: On the Psychology of Islamic Rape-Gangs

Throughout history, religion has, through translation, forced women into specific roles within the church and even society. This is mainly because of men dominating religion and re-writing scripture to lean it toward their biases and preconceptions, and then, using their corruptions as a means to force issues and mindsets regarding women.  All manuscripts written regarding women disciples and their roles in the church have been forced out of existence. The only remnants we have through discovery are very small. Because of religion’s biases, women have lost their equality, honor and dignity; leading to abuses in the home and society. It has also led to secular laws in some places that prevent women from ever shedding the shackles of abuse and regaining their honor and dignity back. We often hear of honor killings where men’s “honor” is emphasized, but what these abusive societies fail to consider is the “honor” and “dignity” of women; many of which, are accused falsely and, some are even killed without proper recourse to the rapist and/or murderer. Those that try to escape the abuse will find themselves in jail or killed.  And yet, others will be mutilated or tortured by these same religious mindsets. For examples of these mindsets, click any of the following links:

Norwegian Woman: I was raped in Dubai, now I face prison sentence.

Newlywed Afghan beheaded for her refusal to become prostitute

Afghan women imprisoned for ‘moral’ crimes

Female genital mutilation on the rise in the United States

Muslim gang-rapes across Europe under reported by Press

Saudi cleric says ‘baby burkas’ would prevent child molestation

Rape is Rape: How the Culture of Shaming, Stigma, and Victim-Blaming is Hurting Us

The information that I would like to share today comes from the book, Lost Christianities, by Bart D. Erhman. I believe that Erhman brings to the forefront in an exceptional way, the very attitudes of the early church leaders and gives plausible insights as to why many of the manuscripts of the early centuries disappeared that were written or handed down regarding women and their roles in the church. I sincerely hope this information is helpful and educational for the reader as it was for me.

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Lost Christianities by Bart D. Erhman

Women in Paul and the Apocryphal Acts

Scholars of Paul have debated his view of women in the church. . .a number of scholars have concluded that Paul’s instruction for women to be silent in 1 Corinthians may not be from Paul, just as the letter to Timothy is not from Paul.

What, then, was Paul’s attitude toward women in the church? In his undisputed letters, Paul indicates that “in Christ there is no male or female” (Gal. 3:28), that is, that men and women were completely equal in Christ. Moreover, as scholars of the late twentieth century began to emphasize, churches connected in some way with Paul appear to have had women leaders. Just in the greetings to the church of Rome, for example, Paul mentions several women who worked with him as Christian missionaries (Rom. 16:3, 6, 12), another who was the patron of the church meeting in her home (16:3), one other, a woman named Phoebe, who was a deacon in the church of Cenchrea (16:1), and most striking of all, yet another woman, Junia, whom Paul describes as “foremost among the apostles” (16:7).

Paul, and his churches, may have been more open to women and their leadership roles than people have traditionally thought and far more than Tertullian thought. No wonder that members of Paul’s churches (primarily women members?) told stories about the adventures of his female companions like Thecla. And no wonder that men in the churches eventually decided to clamp down, forging documents in Paul’s name condemning the practice of having women speak in church (1 Timothy), inserting passages into Paul’s authentic letters urging women to be silent (1 Cor.14:34-35), calling church councils to condemn an elder of a Pauline church who had dared collect narratives of Paul’s woman disciple Thecla and pass them off as authentically Pauline.

Some scholars have wondered whether the stories of Thecla were causing problems in the Pauline churches years before this accused forger did his work, wondered whether the existence of such stories is what led the author of 1 Timothy, whoever he was, to compose his letter in Paul’s name. It is indeed striking that the letter predicts that in “later times” there will be people who condemn the practice of marriage (4:1-4): “Paul” himself speaks against the practice in the Acts of Thecla. Moreover, the canonical letter of 1 Timothy explicitly urges its readers not to listen to “the profane tales of old women” and condemns younger women who are “idlers, going about from door to door . . .as gossips and busybodies, saying things they should not” (4:8, 5:13). The younger women who have lost husbands are to “marry, bear children, rule their households, and give the enemy no grounds to reproach us” (5:14).

This is certainly not the view advanced in the Acts of Thecla, which urges women not to marry, not to bear children, and to leave their households. For THAT “Paul,” the Paul of the Acts of Thecla, “blessed are the continent, for God shall speak with them” and “blessed are the bodies of the virgins, for they will be well pleasing to God and will not lose the reward of their chastity.” Possibly the stories of Thecla and others like them are what motivated the author of 1 Timothy to write his letter in Paul’s name. – Bart D. Erhman, Lost Christianities, pages 37-39.

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Many of the stories that had to do with women disciples obviously empowered women to be autonomous; something men did not want, have never wanted. Control is what men desire to have. If they cannot get it in society then they will get it through scripture as shown above. Forgeries done in the names of the Apostles were a weapon used to stop women from being equal; from being leaders. According to Erhman, “ancient Christianity stressed the equality of women in Christ.”

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Lost Christianities by Bart D. Erhman, page 46

For apocalypticists like Jesus, Paul, and their immediate followers, this age and the social conventions it embraces are passing away. Jesus was reputed to have women followers who associated with him in public, ate with him, touched him, supported him. And no wonder, either, that Paul had women leaders in his churches and insisted that in Christ “there is not male and female.” . . .

Even so, one can see how the message of Jesus and his followers would be attractive to women. In the coming kingdom there would be no oppression or injustice or inequality. Women and men would be equal. Some of Jesus’ followers started implementing the ideals of that kingdom in the present, working to alleviate poverty and suffering, working for justice, striving for equality. This implementation of the ideals of the kingdom was clearly evident in the early churches, where slave and free, Greek and barbarian, man and woman were all given an equal standing.

That is why the tales of Thecla and other ascetic women were not an anomaly in the early Christian movement. They were a significant statement of an important stream of early Christianity. Here were women who refused to participate in the constraints of patriarchal society. They remained unmarried, not under the control of a husband. And they were travelers, not staying at home under the authority of a paterfamilias, a father, a male head of household. The ascetic life went hand in hand with freedom to decide what to do with their own bodies, how to treat them, how to live in them; it went hand in hand with freedom of movement, not restricted to the household and household chores and the care and education of children, which occupied most women’s time.

Thus the asceticism advocated in the texts of the Apocryphal Acts both manifested and helped bring about a kind of liberation for Christian women. It is not surprise that women feature so prominently in the tales and no surprise that some scholars suspect that women were principally responsible for telling the tales, spreading the tales, embracing the tales, making the tales their own. Nor is it any surprise that other Christians hated the tales, outlawed the tales, burned the tales. It was these other Christians who, at the end of the day, proved the more powerful, for it was through the machinations of these other Christians—powerful proto-orthodox leaders and writers like Tertullian—that this stream of early Christianity was lost, only to be rediscovered in modern times. – Bart D. Erhman, Lost Christianities, page 46.

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It is very difficult for religious people to understand and accept that religion has worked very hard and deceptively to subjugate and control women through corruptions in translation and through corruption of interpretation. It is very difficult for many religious people to accept the fact that “there is neither male nor female in Christ.” Women of today must have their honor, dignity and equality restored. Without equality, they will never be treated with honor and dignity and, they will never be protected from abuse. Any time there is inequality, there will be abuse of those slighted by it. Women have borne the brunt of abuse for centuries and, even today, are not getting the protections they deserve from the abuses. Instead, society has taken a position of blaming victims of abuse instead of helping them. Let’s work to give women their honor, dignity and equality back and protect them and their children from abuses hidden under the guise of “religion.” In order to do so, we must start with unmasking the lies that religion propagates and hides that foster this abuse toward women. That’s what my blog does.

Constantine’s Corruptions that Changed Christianity Forever

ConstantineThe laws of Constantine, which were the outcome of the triumph of Christianity, mark the greatest era in the history of the world. Christianity was not a state religion at the time, and the persecution of Christians had already been going on sporadically throughout the empire.  But after Constantine defeated his brother-in-law, Licinius, who was his rival, Constantine “openly avowed himself the patron of the new religion (Backhouse).” However, he was not a member of the Church until his baptism just before he died. He identified himself with Christianity in order “to bring all nations to agree in one opinion concerning matters of religion and to restore the sick world to health (Backhouse).”

When “He discountenanced the heathen worship, exhorted his subjects to embrace the Gospel, and selected the members of the Church as the objects of his patronage,  thus began a church system that, to this day, exists throughout the world in every sect of human society. He elevated men to positions of honor, prestige and power that brought about the biggest corruptions the world has ever known. . . corruptions that, even today, exist, and, control the masses in individual religious institutions.

“But when Constantine began to distinguish the Christians from the rest of the community by State gifts and Imperial favours, and even set himself up as their head, he went beyond his province as a magistrate, and invaded the prerogative of Christ. Amongst his acts of this kind may be specified:

  • The endowment of churches with revenues derived from the confiscation of heathen temples, and from the common funds of the cities; [Later this mutated into confiscation of the property of Christians who refused to submit to the Church of Rome.]
  • the appropriation to the Church and clergy of a portion of the corn and other produce which was received in kind by the officers of the revenue, and also of the tribute exacted from conquered nations; [This mutated into forced tithes and offerings in today’s churches.]
  • the exemption of the clergy from all civil offices.
  • He even proposed to free the Church lands from taxation, but this law was afterwards repealed. [This mutated into tax exempt status for clergy.]

No less revolutionary, or less fruitful in results, were two other measures; by one of which litigants, instead of taking their suits to the civil courts, were permitted to carry them before the bishops, whose decisions were to be enforced by all governors and military officers; by the other (measure) the clergy were empowered to receive bequests and to hold lands, a gift which would scarcely have been exceeded if the Emperor had granted them two provinces of the Empire. It became thenceforth almost a sin to die without some bequest to pious uses; and before a century had elapsed the mass of property which had passed over to the Church was so enormous, that the prodigality of the devout had to be restrained by law. “The evil effects of this policy were such as might have been expected. Many rich men procured for themselves “ordination” as ecclesiastics, in order to enjoy the immunities and privileges attached to the clerical office. The Emperor became alarmed, and saw that measures must be taken to secure the interests of the State; he therefore prohibited all such as were by their property qualified to fill municipal and other public offices, from entering the priesthood, and (a new exercise of authority) deprived of their ecclesiastical rank all such as were in this way evading their civil duties (Backhouse).

The first interference by Constantine in the affairs of the church was in 313 A.D. However, this was not by force that this happened. It was by sheer coincidence that Constantine was pulled into the position by the Donatists who, “committed the great error of invoking Imperial aid.”

Before Constantine’s interference, a synod had already been held amongst bishops and presbyters in 305 A.D. What was realized during the debates was that “it became apparent that scarcely one present (church leaders) was entirely clean-handed.” The conclusion of this synod was that all of the dirty laundry of these leaders would be suppressed and forgotten! In other words, shoved under the rug. [Doesn’t this sound familiar?’]

“The “pious fraud” already mentioned as practised by Mensurius, Bishop of Carthage, in passing off some heretical writings in place of the Holy Scriptures, drew upon him the censure of some of the Puritans. [When the Christians were being persecuted, all scriptures were sought out and burned. Some bishops refused to give up their copies and turned over instead heretical writings to be burned instead. This is what Menssurius did and the Puritans used his decision against him to discredit him.]  But it was his prudent conduct in checking the inordinate reverence for martyrdom that brought out the ill-humour of the disaffected. He saw that there were too many would-be martyrs, whose characters would not bear scrutiny, — insolvent debtors, for example, fanatics and idlers who were fed by injudicious devotees; and with his archdeacon, Caecilian, he did his best to discountenance the mistaken reverence with which good Christians regarded these undeserving men (Backhouse).”

What Mensurius realized was that the would-be martyrs (leadership) were frauds! But, they had follow-ship and their follow-ship revered them as holy and righteous, when if fact, they were not. He saw what was being swept under the rug and did his best to expose the truth! In turn, these leaders did their best to discredit Mensurius. [This same thing is happening in today’s churches when church leadership is exposed. The victims of clergy abuse are attacked by the congregants and discredited if they speak out about the abuse.]

“During the lifetime of Mensurius the storm was brewing; it burst when Caecilian succeeded him, A.D. 311.” It was at this time that the bishops began their fight to remove Caecilian as bishop and thus began the schism that set the churches as naught. In consequence of this proceeding, the whole Church of North Africa was divided into two hostile camps, the supporters of Caecilian, and the adherents of Majorinus, or rather of Donatus, Bishop of Casae Nigrae. . . (Backhouse)”

This is when the appeal was made to Constantine for his help in deciding who should be bishop. This was the first instance in “which the Church asked aid of the State for the settlement of her internal affairs. It was a fatal precedent, the commencement of an unholy alliance by which the Church was a sore loser.”

“Constantine at first showed some displeasure, but soon accepted the position to which the schismatics invited him, and made him self judge between the contending parties. . . Swayed doubtless by his counsels, Constantine at length came to consider that the duty of settling disputes in the Church belonged to him, not only as Emperor, but as Pontifex Maximus.” (The Pontifex Maximus, or chief of the Pontiffs, was the highest sacerdotal functionary of ancient Rome. He was the supreme judge in all religious matters. When the Republic was merged in the Empire, the new rulers assumed to themselves this dignity, as they did the other high offices of State. Even the Christian Emperors for awhile retained the title.)” Thus began the control of the masses through religion, by the new Pontif! Thus began the corrupt system by which this Pontif controlled the empire. However, “Constantine had not counted the cost; and in constituting him self arbiter of the Christian differences, he did not find himself upon a bed of roses. The interminable quarrels amongst the bishops, and disputes as to heretical doctrine, gave him no rest during the remainder of his days (Backhouse).” [The same disputations about doctrine are STILL taking place today between various religious sects!]

Constantine, was irritated at the obstinacy of the bishops after confirming Caecilian. But, he did not stop there. “He proceeded to enforce his decision by the aid of the secular power. The losing party were proscribed as enemies to the State. Decrees were issued depriving them of their Churches, confiscating their ecclesiastical property, and exiling their bishops. They defied the authority of the Emperor, who sent an armed force under Ursacius, a Count of the Empire, to reduce them to submission. The “Catholic” party were only too ready to assist in this crusade. A sanguinary contest ensued; and now for the first time the world beheld the followers of the Prince of Peace engaged in slaughtering one another. The Imperial attempt at coercion stirred to its depth the fanaticism of this hot-blooded province. Bands of furious desperadoes, known under the name of Circumcelliones, who held their own lives cheap, and deemed no death too cruel for those who differed from them, swept over the country, carrying fire, torture, and slaughter wherever they came. Their war cry was Deo laudes (Praises to God), and because Christ had forbidden the use of the sword to Peter, they took for their weapon a huge and massive club, which they named The Israelite. The Catholics, according to their own admission, were not far behind them in violence; they appealed to the Old Testament to justify, by the examples of Moses, Phineas and Elijah, the Christian duty of slaying by thousands the renegades or unbelievers. It must be acknowledged that the first-fruits of the alliance between the Church and the State were bitter enough (Backhouse).”

“The political events of the reign of Constantine from the death of Maximinus Daza in 313 may here be briefly noticed. Licinius, after his defeat in 314, fell back upon Paganism, and became its champion. The struggle between himself and Constantine for the dominion of the world was renewed in 323, when Licinius was defeated in two great battles, and was shortly afterwards put to death by order of the conqueror. Constantine, thus become sole ruler, resolved to remove the seat of Empire to Byzantium, which he called after his own name, Constantinople. The new city was solemnly dedicated in 330 (Backhouse).”

Constantine’s laws gave clergy money, power and prestige. Later, they were given tax exempt status as well. Under Constantine, the face of Christianity changed dramatically. Using secular strength, Constantine was able to force his brand of “Christianity” onto the populous under penalty of death. When the church realized the great error they had made and the unprecedented persecutions that it invoked, it was too late. As a result of this un-holy alliance, millions lost their lives over the successive centuries if they did not submit to the control and wishes of the Pontifex Maximus. The Church of Rome’s administrative prowess and power was impossible to fight against. Thus:

The pagan church of Rome merged with Christianity to produce a “system” of worship that has mutated, birthed new corruptions, and proliferated. The fruit of the corruptions are still money, prestige and power for clergy and church leaders. However, one of the mutations that has reaped havoc the world over has been the twisting of scripture to relegate women to servitude to men. Thus, the sexual exploitation of women was rampant then and, is rampant throughout the world today. Not only this, the sexual exploitation of children ensued then, and is also rampant today as a result. Religious institutions have hidden their atrocities under the mantle of “righteousness” called the church just as bishops of the early centuries hid their sins under the same mantle. Millions have been duped into following un-holy men that are well hidden under a “cloak” called, pastor, priest, or some other religious title. It is time for this cloak to be removed and the truth to be revealed.

As a result of Constantine’s leadership, the church system turned into a “Beast,” and during a period of several hundred years, [We had the Crusades, the Reformation, the Inquisition; all of which entailed murder and mutilation of believers as well as the confiscation of property.] millions lost their lives as a result (the majority of which were women, by the way).  Today, clergy still have the same power, control and prestige. Base men rule over congregations earning lavish salaries off the backs of those within their congregations. Tax exempt status and perks and privileges of ecclesiastical positions are still an enticement for “less-than-desirables” to enter the ranks of church leadership.  Sex offenders and Pedophiles have made their homes within the system. Sex trafficking is rampant. The “Beast” that was then, still exists today but has become more subtil, more enticing, more educated in the ways it can manipulate and control and extract money. Scripture translations were corrupted and women lost their autonomy, equality, dignity and honor as a result.. Every area of religion that man has touched, he has corrupted. Millions have been affected. The victims are innumerable.

The clarion call was sounded ages ago and, it has not been heeded. Rev. 18:4: “Come forth out of her, My people, that ye may not partake with her sins, and that ye may not receive of her plagues (YLT). Judgment will begin at the house of God and soon, if God’s people do not wake up, sound the alarm, and purge what is hidden from their midst and, undo what has been corrupted.

The State of the World Before Christ

before christAt the birth of Christ the Roman empire was comparatively, enjoying a state of peace ; but as to other nations, who were not subject to Rome, those of the eastern regions were strangers to liberty, owing, in a great measure, to their manners and effeminacy, and even to their religion; whilst, on the contrary, the northern nations, from their form of government, climate, and robust constitution of body, enjoyed the blessings of freedom.

All these nations, except the Jews, were devoted to the superstitious worship of many gods, over whom presided one deity, as supreme, yet in such a manner, that this supreme deity was even under the control of what the philosophers called “Eternal Necessity.”  As each nation differed in the names and qualities of their divinities, so did they also in their mode of worship. The Greeks and Romans, in process of time, became as ambitious in religion as in politics : they asserted that their gods were the objects of worship in all nations, and, therefore, gave the name of their deities to those of other countries. Hence arose great confusion in the history of the ancient superstitions ; and hence innumerable errors in the writings of the learned. Notwithstanding these varieties of religion, they produced neither war nor dissension among the different nations, the Egyptians excepted ; nor was this toleration exercised by any more liberally than by the Romans.

Departed heroes were generally the deities of almost all nations, though the natural world afforded many objects for worship. The sacrifices offered to these deities were according to their respective nature and offices.  Most nations offered animals, and many human sacrifices. Various classes of priests presided over the ceremonies, who abused their power in the grossest manner. Besides this public worship of the gods, the Greeks and eastern nations celebrated secret rites, called Mysteries. That this religion had no tendency to promote real virtue is most certain, because the objects of worship were notorious examples of crimes, rather than of virtues ; and as to the knowledge of future retribution, it was uncertain and licentious.  Hence the wiser part of mankind, about the advent of Christ, looked with contempt on this corrupt system of religion.

The consequence of this theology was a universal corruption of manners, leading to the impunity of the worst of crimes, as fully testified by Juvenal and Persius among the Latins, and Lucian among the Greeks.

At the time of Christ s appearance on earth, the religion and arms of the Romans were spread throughout the world. With the view of not only confirming their authority, but also of abolishing the inhuman rites practised by the barbarous nations who were under their yoke, the victorious Romans introduced every where their own system of religion.

Passing from this view of the Roman religion to those of other nations, we find them divisible into two classes, political and military. In the former class may be ranked the religions of most of the nations of the east, especially of the Persians, Egyptians, and Indians: under the military class may be comprehended the religion of those northern nations, the Germans, Bretons, Celts, and Goths.
Notwithstanding the many wise men who have existed in all the heathen nations, none were able to stem the torrent of superstition ; which must convince us that none but God could reveal the truth, pure and unalloyed by error.

At the time of Christ’s birth, two kinds of philosophy prevailed; one of the Greeks, adopted also by the Romans ; and the other of the Orientals. The former was simply called “Philosphy;” the latter, “Knowledge.  The followers of the latter pretended to be the restorers of the knowledge of God, which was lost on earth. The disciples of both these systems again subdivided into a variety of
sects.

Of the Grecian sects, there were some which were enemies to all religion ; and others who, though they acknowledged a Deity, yet cast a cloud over the truth. Of the former kind were the Epicureans and Academics ; of the latter, the Platonists, the Stoics, and the Aristotelians.

In all these sects, as there were many things maintained absurd and unreasonable, certain men of judgment and moderation determined to adhere to none of them, but to extract out of each reasonable doctrines, and to reject the rest. Hence arose a new form of philosophy in Egypt, and principally at Alexandria, which was called the “Eclectic,” and founded by one Potamon, of Alexandria. This sect held Plato in the highest esteem.

From this brief account of the ignorant and miserable state of the world at the birth of Christ, it is self-evident that mankind required some Divine teacher, to convey to the mind true and certain principles of religion and wisdom, and to recall them to the sublime paths of piety and virtue,

The Jews, at this period, were nearly in the same state as other nations, and were governed by Herod the Great, a man of the most vicious and tyrannical disposition.

— Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, 1822

It was this state of the world that Christ came into. History tells us that many of the oriental philosophies and beliefs had infiltrated not only other pagan religions, but the Jewish religion from the time of the Babylonian captivity. From these corruptions came the many “rules” regarding women; the 10 curses of Eve; the subjugation; the servility.  What also came into being was the BIGGEST lie of all that I speak about in my book, Religion’s Cell.

Jesus came to undo all this superstition and to set woman in her rightful place as an equal to man, restoring the honor and dignity that was stripped from her because of these many corrupt belief systems.  As a result of the state of the world at Christ’s death, being that Christ did not stamp out all of the superstition and change existing laws regarding women, men soon stripped women of the autonomy, honor and dignity once more. To this day, women have borne the brunt of the abuses – sexual exploitation, rape, incest, murder, mutilation, emotional abuse, spiritual abuse.