LETTER TO THE EDITOR : Youth Synod: an Oximoron (living contradiction)?

 

In this letter George Nedumparambil is responding to previous articles by james kottoor, especially to "Only female cleric in Synod speaks” in CCV on Nov. 4^th. Please read it and react.

 

4th November 2018

To

Dr James Kottoor

Editor-in-Chief

Church Citizens' Voice

 

Hello Brother James,  

 

My comments on what you wrote please!

Multitude of Christian factions are an insult to Jesus and His memory.  Therefore any call for unity is welcome. But,  will there ever  be a unified and united church?

The chances are nil as maximum adjustment will be required of the dominant faction, the Catholic Church.  The Catholics have Mother Mary and an army of saints to pray to, for the believers.  This is completely not in accordance with the teachings of Jesus who commanded us to pray to Father. 

Do we need any more testimony than the prayer taught by him beginning with "Our Father in Heaven".  Jesus also taught us to pray "Deliver us from evil". The reality on the ground seems to be that Catholic Church has been infiltrated wholesale by the devil and stands itself delivered to him as evidenced by their teachings and prayer content, most of which are completely outside the teachings of Jesus.

My understanding is that Jesus is the only mediator between man and God and prayers are to be formatted accordingly, something Catholics can't digest.  Goodbye unity. 

George Nedumparambil

Palarivattom, Kochi, Kerala.

 

Reply from Dr James Kottoor

Dear Brother George,

If there are many Christian factions today, it is clear proof Jesus never founded them. So we are starting from the wrong premise and any number of silly or stupid conclusions may be drawn.

Research scholars have proved beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth never founded any one church, priesthood,  sacraments or the grandiose hierarchical church structure that we see today. It all started from the time of emperor Constantine.

Even the knowledge we have today about Jesus is very sketchy, confined mostly to three years of his public life. Jesus is not reported to have undergone any education, He wrote nothing, nor did his bearded Father figure and least of all the Holy Spirit(the dove flying about) – all three making up the Trinitarian Godhead, beyond all human comprehension.

Everythiing written and recorded was done by fallible humans and modified and revised during the last 2000 years.Today we call this the revealed Word of God, to be believed blindly and followed without questioning. Can there  be anything more irrational or stupid than this for us claiming to be rational creatures?

Yes history has left behind for the benefit of posterity ever so many pearls of wisdom starting from geniuses like  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus,  Buddha, Kabir to our own days like Tagore, Ramakrisna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda, Narayana Guru — all historical persons belonging  to different religions, countries  and cultures.

Churches originating with Jesus

The multitude of Churches tracing their origin to the humanly divine or divenly human,  Son of God and Son of Man itself may be seen,  at once as an insult to human intelligence to comprehend. How can an eternal, all powerful creator and sustainer of the universe without beginning or end, go through the process of birth, grown and death?

So the historical youthful Nazarene in his thirties was either a Man or God, not both. We are called to imitate him,  all Churches exhort the same. If he was and is God incarnate, it is impossible for a  creature to imitate a God one’s creator. It would be like “Playing God”, an impossible task for creatures.

If he was only a human being, the ideal human person, as he called himself the SON OF MAN 85 times in the Gospels,  we can all imitate him. But do any of the Churches imitate his life and teachings? None of them do, starting with  their prayer life consisting of loud prayer services  with all sorts of rituals and ceremonies as if God above is short of hearing or totally deaf.

This is done in spite of Jesus’ strict teaching and command to pray in silence after closing the windows and doors of  five senses. Jesus always went up to the mountains to pray alone. Christians of all churches are examples of such counter-witnessing and betraying the teachings of Jesus and his examples.

Pharisee-Publican praying in Temple

Since you referred to the  “dominant faction, the Catholic Church”, just a word on it. Recall the parable of the Parable of the Pharisee and publican praying in the temple, and the Pharisee advancing the “better-than-thou” argument and the publican humbly beating his breast admitting himself to be “the last, least and lost” praying “have pity on me a sinner” and going out of the temple justified before God.

So among all the divided churches,  who is betraying or counter-witnessing  Jesus? Definitely the  Dominant faction and all divided churches. Besides, if every day new churches with new names come into being it is because they think they are better than any of the existing ones. Otherwise the new ones could be joining any one of the existing ones with identitical thinking.

So the “devil” in the multiplicity of Churches is the “proud and perverted thinking” among the multiplicity of churches to become the first and foremost, and not even satisfied to be equal to anyone else. It is this ‘flow’ or ‘poison’ that Jesus rubbishes when he, in spite of  his equality with God, empties himself to become, not an equal to anyone else, but a servant, a slave to serve all the rest, as his masters.

No unity possible!

As long as this attitude of Jesus does not becomes the only driving force in all the followers of the Nazarine, no unity among the existing churches is ever possible. That is why we called quits to all organized churches and religions and floated what we call the CATTLE CLASS, where the competition is not for the first places, but for the last only, imitating the Nazarine, who darts to  take the last place of a slave to serve and not to be served by  anyone. He insists to wash the feet of Peter who resists, which reads like a fairy tale!

The full import of the call of Jesus to become the ideal SON OF MAN, 95 times, still remains to be understood and imitated and followed by the so-called churches in the world. That day may never dawn! So good-bye to a united Christianity or Christendom. But a united humane humanity may still be possible as long as the LITTLE FLOCKS, scattered all over the world work in unison.

Yes, as long as they all act like leaven in the dough and salt in the earth  in a hidden way as the  CATTLE CLASS, believing in the principle, MANAVA SEVA IS MADHAVA SEVA, and other principles like: “One who exaults himself will be humbled and one who humbles himself (like Jesus) alone will be exaulted,” because humility and serving the least, lost, least alone is the glorious TRUTH that can liberates all humanity.

There can be no future, as it appears to this “know-nothing” for those who call themselves Christians or churches, the moment they lose sight of JESUS, fail to focus of  Him all the time and start following his teachings and imitating his service to the little ones, the poor, the needy, the marginalized and exploited in society.

Sincerely

James