The Church is Dead

Description

The Church is dead. This book is a wake-up call for Christian Churches. They have misunderstood the significance of the New Testament for way too long.

The Church Is Dead challenges the established churches’ beliefs and pronouncements on the subject of salvation, especially regarding the concept of faith plus works. It condemns the teachings of the pastors of some of the megachurches regarding tithing, and how they have used their pulpits to feather their own nests, making themselves fabulously wealthy at the expense of the poor people they cajole and bully into giving money to their churches.

It is hoped that The Church Is Dead will convince the Church it’s on the wrong track; that it will challenge Christians who condemn gay people because they think God expects them to; that it will encourage gay people, showing them that, even if the Church hates them, God doesn’t.

Two thousand years after Jesus died the most lonely and painful death imaginable, in order to provide a way for His people to gain eternal life, the Christian Church is still unable to explain and proclaim faithfully its message of salvation to the whole world.

Why do you think that is? Is it because so many governments now ban praying and the teaching of Scripture in schools? Is it because the media commonly seize on any opportunity to embarrass the Church or its leaders? Is it because there are so many other things competing with the Church for our attention? Is it because so many high-profile church leaders are perceived as hypocrites? No, it is none of those things. The problem can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of the Church itself. This book attempts to expose the fundamental flaw of the Church today.

Have you come across the term anamorphosis? It dates back to the 16th century, when the Italian artist, Tommaso Laureti, intentionally distorted a work of art so that it could only be recognised from a particular angle. For example, a sculpture might consist of a series of apparently-random vertical poles which, when viewed from a particular angle – and that angle only – reveals the face of a famous person.

In a similar way, the Bible needs to be looked at from a particular perspective if it is to be read as God intended. Sadly, I believe that the Church in general presents as unable to interpret the Bible correctly, as it is looking at it from the wrong perspective.

This is why Christians have misused the Bible for the last 2,000 years. It’s why Christians believed that God condoned slavery until 1833 in England and 1865 in America. It’s why interracial marriage was banned in the US until 1967. It’s why coloured people are often still not encouraged to mix with whites – even in church. It’s why women are still treated as inferior to men in some denominations.

The Church is dead! I have written this book as a wake-up call to the Church, which has misunderstood the significance of the New Testament. The word testament comes from the Greek word for covenant, and it is effectively a will. A will can only come into effect with the death of the one leaving it, so the New Covenant only came into effect when Jesus died on the cross. His last words, “It is finished”, confirmed that Jesus had accomplished what He had set out to do: To replace the old covenant of Law with the new one of Grace.

“The Church is Dead” is always in stock. “Printed On Demand” in Australia by Intertype