JESUS' LEGACY WAS TO MAKE RELIGION DIVISIVE NOT ECUMENICAL

Ecumenism is about bringing different religions together in friendship and unity.

Despite what Jesus said about religious teachers who came before him without being authorised by him Christianity for its own purposes is involved in ecumenism. Read John 10:7 where Jesus annunciates, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture" (NKJV). He condemned Buddha and Krishna and Zoroaster as liars not just as blind religious leaders leading the blind.

Jesus says in John 10,

 1 Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.

2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.

9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.

13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—

15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.

18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

19 The Jews who heard these words were again divided.

20 Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”

21 But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

This text shows that if God sends a real shepherd the fruit is that the people who are good will know his voice.  This is a nod to the idea of by their fruits you know them.  Jesus dismisses anybody who claims to be a follower and has not come into the sheepfold to put his opinion on faith and morals above their own.  They are thieves and robbers for they seek the benefits of religious observance while others are the ones submitting their minds and lives at great potential cost.  The text seems anti-clerical as well if you understand hired hand as a clergyman.

By their fruits you know them and his saying, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit", is clearly an attack at any other shepherd and the religions they found.  He will not accept the argument, "It is not all bad."  As the good is the enemy of the best only the best will do.

Ecumenism is the face of the religious conspiracy to mask the fact that religion is divisive and causes suspicion and trouble and war. Ecumenism is so artificial and obviously shameful that it can’t make any advantageous impact on the world peace scene. Suicide bombers kill for religion because they think they will awaken in paradise. They are the people who sign the affidavit that religious belief causes death and destruction and even peaceable forms of it are dangerous in their own blood. Once you choose faith over reason and human welfare and no matter how decent you are, you are advocating what could snowball into an openly destructive form of faith. All suicide bombers started off believing that God came first not people (a belief advocated by the evil Jesus when he said that the greatest command is the love of God and the second greatest and therefore less important one was love of neighbour – so people are to be valued for God and not for themselves, it is really only religion that ultimately matters). Their belief that religion mattered not people was the seed that grew into the tree that led them to bring on their horrific deaths. They were murderers in their attitudes long before they murdered. Whoever devalues people is a killer in his heart and desires no matter how much charm he pours out on them.

The Catholic gospel teaches that you must be saved by the sacraments which induce faith and hope and charity. The Protestant gospel says you simply ask Jesus with sincerity to save you and he does so you are saved forever and sacraments and good works have nothing to do with this. The liberal Christian gospel cares little for doctrine and thinks you will go to Heaven if you do good. Some Churches say you need to keep parts of the Jewish law to be saved. All those different Christianities! Paul the apostle wrote in Galatians 1:6 and 7 says there is no gospel but one. This clearly shows that ecumenism is a religious con. If Mathematicians who agree that 1 and 1 is 2 discover mathematicians who say it is 3 they cannot seek to forge relationships with them for that gives credence to their errors. If they do, you get the sense that the friendship is false and superficial.

A religion is not the people who comprise it. It is a system. It is ultimately certain religious systems that are bad. Catholics can be good people in a bad system, Catholicism. What has this to do with ecumenism? The Protestant, for example, who attends the Catholic Mass in order to forge better relations with the Catholic people is making a mistake. He means to embrace the people but embracing and honouring the system is not the way to do it unless that system is considered to be good within reason. He is also making them think that their system is fine when it is not.

SEPARATION TEXTS

Ecumenical Indifferentism is opposed to Christ who said that he was the truth. Christ hates indifferentism, “Publish openly the good news to every creature” (Mark 16:15 AB). The practitioner of this ecumenism is no Christian. Christ and the apostles forbade any reluctance to spread the good news (Ezekiel 33:8). The Christians believe that Jesus died because he taught and valued what he thought was the truth. For the Christian to have become an indifferentist is to call Christ mad.

In 1 Corinthians 5:11, God tells us not to eat with apostate Christians or ones who are sincerely wrong – the idolaters. He is not telling us to make social pariahs of them for he encouraged trying to bring straying people back and required evangelisation of pagans. Eating with them would signify religious fellowship but he does not want us to support their religion in any way or to worship with them or listen to their preaching. In short, you associate with them in every way and preach to them but it has to be a one way street for you. In defiance, Catholicism and many of the Protestant Churches support and have prayers with other religions. The Bible perceives paganism as demonolatry (1 Corinthians 10:20) which is why the Christian is not permitted to have religious fellowship with the pagan or the unbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). It is amazing how many disobey. Even the pope disregards what his God has said these days.

St Paul commanded the people he duped into following his Jesus to avoid heretics (Titus 3:10; 2 Thessalonians 3:14, 15) and 1 Timothy 3:5 says that all heretics who command what is against the moral code of God must be avoided. Today, we see Protestant Churches meeting the Catholic Church with open arms despite its shameless disobedience of the Bible. He could have seen to it that people could face the heretics after learning they couldn’t be right thus guaranteeing immunity to their influence but he did not. Christianity does not like people looking too closely at the case against the faith. We read that we must not let a heretic come into our houses or say hello to them (2 John 5:10). Jesus wanted a heretic to be treated as an outcast (Matthew 18). Obviously, these precepts forbid attending the worship of any religion that is not your own. In those days, the Church had direct revelation from Heaven through the apostles so now that the apostles are gone these rules are even more binding. Falling into heresy is easier today than then without the chief guardians of the faith.

The New Testament strictly warns about the infiltration of the Church by heretics and says it will worsen after the apostles die. When it says that people prefer false religion to God’s way how could it tolerate anything like ecumenism?

These teachings of separation come from the Old Testament which Christians are to adhere to in the spirit of the Law (page 5, The Unequal Yoke). God was so strict that once he forbade a prophet to even eat in a land where unbelievers were everywhere and he rejected that prophet and murdered him just because he made a friendly gesture with an other prophet who had backslidden (1 Kings 13:21-24).

Jesus claimed to be the way, truth and the life (John 14:6)- that is he gives us the life of God and we experience God living inside us. It follows then that he came to be truth and life for us. It follows then that once you believe in him and experience his life-giving power you have no excuse for departing from the faith or any part of it. The New Testament claims to be the truth and that those who believe have the truth (2 Timothy 6:3,4). So it is forbidden for the Christian to say, “I believe I have the truth”. The Christian must say, “I have the truth.” There is no doubt that Christianity advocates stubborn arrogance. Truth is naturally intolerant of error so if you have the truth then tolerating those who differ or their views would be wrong. A mathematics professor who believes that 2+2=5 will be rejected from his university and from any gatherings. If you claim to have the truth then you must claim the right to separate from anybody who contradicts you except to plead with them to see their errors.

INCLUSIVE VIEW REFUTED

The inclusive view is patronizing. It says Jesus in a hidden way, works on erring pagans for God's power is bigger than their errors. It's still invalidating Islam and Judaism and other faiths.  And why are they so sure that Krishna or Zeus perhaps is secretly relating to them through their own relationship to their wrong God?  And a relationship as serious as that with God cannot be turned into a mere word.  To say that you love Jane though you hardly know her is not a relationship.  You can call it that but it is no such thing.