That’s what I have come to believe, at 70 years old.
BACKGROUND: I used to be a “born again Xtian,” (aka, Messianic Jew, aka, Christian). That was for about ten years. It was on my 18th birthday (1971). I was belaboring the fact that I didn’t have a girl friend (my first kiss, Suzie had dumped me a year or so prior to this). I entered into Yogic meditation (Raja Yoga), as was my habit but I needed something to focus on.
About a month before I had attended a “Young Life” Party at a couples house. I was invited to attend by a friend. This was a “Party” only in the sense that about 50 teenagers were in attendance and there was a couple of guitar players leading songs and there was food and sodas and inter sexual mingling. The real reason for this event was to proselytize young minds into Fundagelicalism (accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior so as to avoid Hell when they die and become foot solders in the Republitarian Party’s culture war against reasonable people and wokeness).
At this party I was (like all the rest) “witnessed to” and I left the party with a little booklet published by Campus Crusade for Christ entitled, Have you heard of the 4 Spiritual Laws?
It was this booklet that became the meditation fodor I used on my 18th birthday. I read it. I read it again and again, three times total. And I said to myself “Ok, I’ll try this out.” I repeated the “sinners prayer,” that was recommended. In that moment I became a born again believer. A Messianic Jew. A couple of things you should know: I was a believer in reincarnation, and even after “my conversion” I continued to believe in it, as I still do to this day. Another belief that I had was pantheism, the idea that you and I and everyone else breathing on this planet (and indeed in the entire universe) is G-d. I got this idea from Robert Heinlein’s seminal novel Stranger In A Strange Land which I read when I was around 15, a gift from my High School best friend, Louis Dolmon. This is another belief that I have retained up to this day (I am 70 years old as I write this). Both of these beliefs are blasphemy to Xtians, and I was told this whenever I brought it up. So, during my time as a Xtian, I stopped bringing either of them up. I guess I figured (wrongly) that eventually they would see things as I see them. Another thing I retained as a Xtian (and again, I still subscribe to to this day) was liberal thinking. I am a lifelong member of the Democratic Party. My parents were Democrats (and in fact my mother was a Democratic election judge) as were the majority of my friends.
In February of 1974 I traveled to Israel. I spent an entire year there, and returned home only after learning that my mother had passed away. My intention was to return, but family and friends talked me out of that, so here I am. At that time I became a member of His Community, which was, I later learned, a cult. I joined it because I was convinced that they would eventually evolve into a commune, (a lifestyle I was already familiar with having spent most of 1974 living at Kibbutz Nahsholim, on the Mediterranean Sea, about 60 miles south of Haifa).
I met Lynne, who was a devout Catholic. She introduced me to “The Happening” a sort of Catholic version of Young Life and it was there that I was introduced to His Community. On August 9th 1975 Lynne and I married at St. Stanislaus Church in Kankakee IL. That parish was known as a hot bead for Catholic liberalism (the associate Priest there, Father Raymond Lescher was known for his anti-Vietnam War and pro Civil Rights sermons). He as the presiding Priest at our wedding, the first Judeo-Xtian wedding ever seen in Kankakee. (My father was a French Roman Catholic and my mother was a Scottish Jew, so I was raised more or less in both faiths). Our wedding was traditional Catholic Mass with Jewish additions: Louis and I (being the two Jews in attendance), wore our Kippahs .A chuppah (An Israeli flag was recruited for this) stood over the Priest and the couple. At the end of the exchange of vows, Lynne and I shared a cup of wine (glass) which Louis wrapped in a cloth for me to stomp on.
I was kicked out of His Community on Veterans Day of 1975. Lynne was pregnant with Joshua Joel, at the time. I was a member of Community’s governing body, “the core” (as in rotten to) and my offence was “unauthorised praying” for members of the core with a lay member of Community. To this day I believe Lynne let the other core members know about my indiscretion, as she never really approved of my role as a core member.
Joshua Joel was born the following June (1976). Before that happened I was approached by Duane Winn, who had heard of my experience with His Community. He ran a prayer group (which evolved into a House Church) called the Kankakee Fellowship. By the time Josh was born Lynne and I were firmly members of Kankakee Fellowship. I was the guitar playing worship leader, and Shepherd (Pastor) Duane’s right hand man. Duane’s Shepherd was a man named George Peak, who led a Fellowship in a town way south of Kankakee (which locals disparagingly called “Peaks Religion”). He had another disciple, (Rod something) who led the Gilman Fellowship, whose services we attended monthly (because our group was too small I guess). These “Churches” shared something in common: they were part of what would be named the “Discipleship – Shepherding Movement.” In other words, they were a cult. Because Kankakee Fellowship (I thought) was going to develop into an intentional community, Lynne and I left our home in Kankakee (which never sold) and purchased a home in Limestone Township in the same subdivision that Duane was in. It was maybe two years later that I came to the realization that I was once again involved with a cult. While Duane was away on vacation, Lynne and I packed up a Uhaul with all our stuff and moved back into our previous house in Kankakee (the one that never sold).
Lynne and I settled into a normal church, Peoples Church, which was, happily, not a cult.
On May 8th 1981 Lynne gave birth to the twins, Jordan Justin and Jesse Jonathan. We became close friends with a Quaker couple, Bridget and Chip Rorem, and we actually hosted a Quaker meeting at our home for awhile, members of Illinois Yearly Meeting. Lynne didn’t really like it very much. It was a little too liberal for her taste, but she never really said anything. Eventually we just kept attending People’s Church. Around the time the twins turned 9, and Josh was 13, I enrolled him in the Boy Scouts, and the Twins in Cub Scouts. Eventually I talked the elders of People’s Church into sponsoring a Boy Scout Troop, Rainbow Council Troop 313, and I became their Scout Master. A friend of mine (from Gilman Fellowship), Drew Horn was my assistant SM.
After getting kicked out of one cult, and leaving voluntarily another, and having my belief system (reincarnation and pantheism) attacked over and over again, Xtianity was leaving a bad taste in my mouth, and I started to understand why my people (Jews) had never accepted Jesus as their messiah in the first place. I began believing that “accepting Jesus” had been a huge mistake. It was about this time that I read Did Jesus Exist? by George Albert Wells who speculated on the evidence of Jesus Christ. Wells argues there was no historical evidence of Jesus existing.
That was it for me (1990). After that, I read many more books concerning the existence and historicity of Jesus which further convinced me that Jesus was a total myth. Most recently (2005) I read a book by Joseph Atwill, Caesar’s Messiah which states that Jesus was made up by Imperial Roman Flavius family (of whom Flavius Josephus was a prominent member) in order to subjugate the Jews, a campaign which began with the renaming of Judea (from which the word Jew comes from) to Syria Palestina. If true, and I think it just might be, this campaign has been highly successful since persecution of Jews by Christians has been a mainstay in history since 70 CE.
All told. my total career as a messy Jew lasted maybe 15 years, and it basically ruined my life.
