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Good Intentions: Bad Outcomes.

 Let me attempt to 'reconstruct' how I imagine things must have happened within Christendom from the little Church history I know.


Let's jump back to just after all the actual 12 apostles of Jesus have been killed off and their disciples are running things, for lack of a better expression, at the middle to end parts of the first century.


The writings of the apostles had begun to be collated and copies of the collection were available in several Christian communities. Even though the canon of what is now referred to as the New Testament, hadn't been finally decided on, copies of NT 'bible' must have been relatively available to the believers.


Then, various heresies were already thriving in the church in various communities (gnosticism,  Arianism, Montanism, to mention but three). I've studied a few of these movements, some were offshoots of genuine men who misunderstood or had a different interpretation of the message of the apostles, others were outrightly men inspired by Demons.


This continued into the 2nd and 3rd century. Now, here's my guess, someone with GOOD INTENTIONS must have thought, 'Making these manuscripts (collections of the epistles) readily available to the populace is creating grounds for just anyone to interpret it hence the MANY varying 'wrong' doctrines. If we restrict access to it, we can control the birth of heresies'. Good idea, right? Wrong.


Enter the beginning of legislation against access to scripture and the supra-normal separation of laity and clergy.


Restricting access to the Word seemed to work in one way: heresy was no longer multiplied in many forms...it became monopolized by ecclesiastical authorities with the backing of state to crush any opposition. From there, the world was plunged into the dark ages from which the church is still being freed from, even till today.


It can all be traced somehow, in my opinion, to good intentions built on the shaky foundation of the elementary rudiments of this age and mere senses; men's rules that overtime morphed into laws of God, in the eyes of people.


I shared all that just to say, 'you may want to be careful of importing things; concepts and rules into the church to control perceived decay, protect people or as moral prophylaxis. After a while, these mere supplementary rules will solidify in people's minds as dogma- they can kill and hate over your advice which isn't God's word (not like its correct to kill and hate over God's word either).


Something as simple as an advice about controlling what kind of content is viewed on TV can change into God hates TV in the future; something as noble as be careful of what 'Christian books' you read (some have strong errors) can morph into strong dogma such as don't read any other person's book. There may not be a need to monitor a couples' traditional wedding ceremony, etc. I'm just saying, we all can increase with sticking to scriptural prescription.


Afterthought 1: it's my opinion, that a lot of the folks classed as heretic by the church in almost every age, we're people who were misunderstood. Some of them had signs and wonders that their contemporaries couldn't explain hence the attack.


Afterthought 2: In a remotely related talk, have you read about these two unsung premier indigenous African missionaries, William Wade Harris (a Liberian) and Garrick Sokari Braide (an Nigerian)? Their impact on their societies will shock you!

Google is your friend.


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