Holy Spirit Fellowship

There are some civilizations and some religions that depend on members, especially the young, to die for their cause, in battle or martyrdom..

In England, the glorious dead are memorialized in small town squares, in cities and in the great cathedrals. Without the cult of the Glorious Dead there would not have been the wars in Europe, or the Empires overseas. I can remember when classroom maps had countries painted red around the world, glorifying the Britsh Empire on whch the sun never set .

I can remember when the British patriotic songs and the war poems of WW I were dusted off to great effect in WW II, and we all still wear red paper poppies memorializing the dead of Flanders Fields

Today, there are those who die in suicide bombings to get the promised passage to paradise, just as some early Christians courted the martyr's crown for an honored place in the company of Christ in Heaven

But is this what Jesus wanted?.

Jesus knew he had to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah that the Messiah would be put to death on a tree. The night Jesus knew he would be arrested and probably crucified, he prayed that he would not have to suffer that fate.

Jesus came to fulfill the the Laws by replacing rituals and animal sacrifices with universal love, which is the only thing that could bring justice and peace. . .

There are many who say that without Jesus death and resurection, there would be no Christianity. If that is so, Jesus was not here to teach people how to live, but how to die. .

There have been other teachers of a way to live a good life who were not killed. The Buddha lived to an honored old age, and on his secular teachings many religions and phlosophies were founded that exist peacefully together as they have in Japan. .

Jesus came into a situation where there had been more than a thousand years of genocidally waring tribes and the people were being taxed by an occupying empire against which there were frequent uprisings. .

The people Jesus came to with his gospel of universal love had no ears to hear that, and flocked to him for his miraculous healings. .

After Jesus died, his teachings of justice and peace based on universal love, attracted very few followers. But Christianity's forgiveness of sins and promise of Heaven, had a very wide appeal. .

The Christianity we have today is the world we have today, with forgiveness for everything and Heaven for everyone.

In another Abrahamic religion there are those now exploiting the young with glorious martyrdom and a fast track to heaven. I can remember when it was dying for king and country and a name on the local monument. There is even a memorial to the horses and carrier pigeons who gave their all for Britain. .

We live in a corrupt, insatiably greedy civilization that is destroying its own world. To defend themselves, the rich and powerful need poor and powerless young people willing to die for medals,

Each era creates its own Christianity. We use the cross and crucifix. but Jesus' martyrdom and resurrection do not have the importance they did in the early centuries of Christianity, or had with later religious pioneers and political resisters. In recent centuries more often it is popular, successful founders of religious organizations who get canonized.