Conventional Christianity

Conventional Christianity?
Suddenly there seems to be a plethora of occurrences questioning conventional Christian thinking. First we have the “The DaVinci Code, “The Templar Legacy”, then the "Last Templar", followed by the Gospel of Judas. What in the world is happening? Could the Holy Roman Catholic Church have secrets hidden for 2000 years? Let’s go back to the early days of Christianity----why did it take hold and spread so quickly? There are three major reasons:

First, the promoters of the new religion did not preach the idea of Christianity, but rather marketed it. Paul was so successful in his efforts to seek converts that if Paul were alive today he would be a whiz kid on Madison Avenue.

Second, those days back then were hard times under the Roman yoke and people were looking for any sort of hope. Judaism preached a Messiah, but couldn’t deliver. The idea of a Man-God was appealing especially with the concept of life after death as depicted in the Resurrection. Judaism offered a more complicated metaphysical salvation that may not be easily understood.

Third, and probably the most important was that the early promoters of Christianity made it appeal to women in the form of the “Madonna.” What better way to get women involved than to have the Man-God have a mother and a virgin mother sans the original sin! In Judaism, women played an important but minor role----Yahweh was a masculine deity. But in the new Christianity, the “Madonna” became a pseudo-deity greatly appealing to woman and no doubt women persuaded their husbands to join the new religion for it had something for them.

And so the legend was born and as Pope Leo X (circa 1530) said, “It has served us well this myth of Christ.”