THE ORIGINAL SIN OF THE CHURCH
Is there any inviolable proof that Christ historically existed? It is time to seriously examine these matters. Swamiji had doubted the historicity of Christ after experiencing a dream while aboard a ship close to the island of Crete. Thereafter, his doubt lingered for the rest of his life and he could never quite be sure as to the truth of the matter.
Like the historicity of Christ is shrouded in mystery, so is the personality of Christ and his actual message under a deep veil of contrasting confusion where Jesus luminously stands against the backdrop of some sublime teachings of his admixed with equally archaic superstitious affirmations of the age which cast a terrible doubt as to his luminosity after all, for who could pronounce such arrant superstitious statements alongside sublime spiritual truths but a medley of personalities portrayed as a single human being or, perhaps, a conjured picture, fictitious and framed with the spiritual message of the times thrust on its personality to suit the narrative? Who knows where the truth lies for here superstition resides at close quarters with sublimity, making Christ the most controversial meta-historical personality in human history.
This is the origin of Christianity, shrouded in mystery, with the Messiah's message equally baffling in its profundity in places and puerile elsewhere which makes the overall blending not only impossible but unnatural, too. That such a figure should be the author of such a worldwide movement that has encompassed almost every aspect of human life is itself a tribute to the creative power of the human mind in fashioning truth out of fiction, if even crucifixion. But one cannot be sure. Perhaps, there is a kernel of truth after all in the whole affair. Perhaps, history has failed to adequately record the happenings of the times that would lend validity to the Christ truth and not lend sole credence to the Christ myth. Perhaps, a great personality had appeared in Galilee who the Jews and the Romans failed to recognise but whose silent influence did stay to shape the future course of spiritual life there, and the narrative built around it was borrowed from various sources thereafter to fill in crudely the blank spaces of history. Thus has the chronicled life of Christ so many loopholes that it is impossible to piece together enough evidence that would give it a smooth narrative down the dateline.
If this is the beginning of the movement that has been dubbed Christianity, is it small wonder that it should be open to all sorts of narratives, all sorts of sectarian interpretations, for nothing is concretely possible to infer from the original Christ who may have been or may not have been historically? Thus abound the thousands of sects and their teeming translations of the Messiah's message with none having the better claim to truth over the other in terms of original articulation of the Master. And this is the genesis of all the aberrations of the message of Christ as embodied in the teachings of the Church, be it Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian, Trinitarian, Quaker, Baptist Mission, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, Russian Orthodox or the like. They all differ and none can vouch for the veracity of their doctrine as being the true teachings of the Master beyond dogmatic assertion to the effect. And this I have chosen to call 'The Original Sin of the Church' from which it is yet to be redeemed of. For who will redeem when the Redeemer himself is mired in a mystery that never dissolves, is shrouded in a veil that never lifts.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Bottom -- Portrait of the Madonna and the Bambino in Jadu Mallick's house that had transported Sri Ramakrishna into such a deep ecstasy that his whole being was flooded by the love of the Messiah of Galilee and all vestiges of his inherent Hindu tendencies were for the while swept aside to make room for the Son of Man ; middle -- the Oriental Christ, the yogi ; bottom -- the Master and his protege, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.
No comments:
Post a Comment