Up to now I’ve avoided stating this in public, since I was attempting to repair my relationship with my sons. Since that is a failure, I have nothing to lose. Here is the truth about my relationship with Jesus Christ:
My “personal relationship with Yeshua” actually begins with my first kiss in July 1970. My parents were visiting Herb and Joanne Tiarks, old friends from Beaverville IL. Suzie was 14 at the time. I was seventeen. Suzies sisters instigated the kiss. For me it was love. I was in love. But, by the time the summer before my 18th birthday happened, Suzie had dumped me.
About a month before I turned 18 I was invited to a “Young Life Party.” It turned out that it was sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. There was singing and eating and pizza and a nice assortment of kids my age. I didn’t really think too much about it. I was given a pamphlet, “Have You Heard of the Four Spititual Laws?” I put it in my pocket and forgot about it.
My birthday is November 15. On that day, my 18th birthday, I was pretty depressed, mostly about how Suzie had treated me. It was my practice to end each day with Yoga Meditation (Raja Yoga), but I needed something to focus on. I came across the little pamphlet, “Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?” I read it. I read it again. The third time I said to myself, “ok, I guess I will try this.” I recited the “sinners prayer,” finished my meditation and went to bed.
When I woke up I felt lighter. Freeer. I said to myself, “I guess it worked.” Christian friends I met at school gave me another pamphlet, this one from a group called Jews For Jesus, since they knew, I was a Jew. That’s where I learned that Jesus real name was Yeshua.
Now, let me make some things clear. I have always been a panthiest. I have always believed that collectively we are all G-d. This came from my reading, at the age of 14 or 15, Robert Heinlein’s Science Fiction novel, Stranger In A Strange Land. Another unconventional belief that I continued to hold onto was that of Reincarnation. I have had experiences that have convinced my of the utter truth of this. I also felt, in reading the New Testament, that Jesus had taught pantheism and reincarnation.
My first “Church” was His Community. I thought Community had the potential to evolve into an Intentional Community (like the Kibbutz I had stayed at in Israel). I was elevated to the rank of “Core Member” there and was one of seven leaders. I was kicked out of Community when the other members of Core were informed that I was praying with other members (behind Core’s back).I suspect that Lynne (my wife at the time) had ratted me out, She never really cared for my involvement with leadership as it took too much time away from her. That happened on Veterans Day, 1976. His Community we later learned was a cult, and “rotten to the Core.”
The second Church I was a part of was the Kankakee Fellowship. It met at a house in Oakdale Acres and was led by Shepherd Duane Winn. This church was part of what was called the Shepherding/Discipleship movement. Now Duane’s Shepherd was a man named George Peak who lived closer to Southern Illinois. George was big on several principles, mainly that women should cover their heads and be submissive to their husbands, and that disciples should copy was their shepherds did. We went on a camping trip one time, and Lynne was several months pregnant with Joshua. I had brought along a futon to make the tent a little more comfortable for Lynne. During the camp inspection, George took me around to other campsites, and pointed out that none of them were using futons, or mattresses of any kind.
I believed that Kankakee Fellowship would evolve into just the type of intentional community that I longed for (like the Kibbutz I had stayed at in Israel) so we put our house in Kankakee on the market, and purchased a newer home in Oakdale Acres. I play guitar and I used to lead the worship on Sundays.On occaision, we caravaned to Gilman IL to attend services at the Gilman Fellowship Church, which was Shephered by another disciple of George Peak, Rob (I forget his last name). They were very advanced in that they had an actual building with a parking lot in town, and ran a school.
Duane was getting deeper and deeper into conspiracy theories involving the FreeMasons, the Illuminati, the Roman Catholic Church, and of course, Jews. And this is where I called it quits. One weekend when Duane and his family were away on vacation, I rented a U-Haul and Lynne and I packed up our house and moved back to Kankakee, to the house we had vacated two years prior (It had never sold and we were playing “Landlord”). You see, the Discipleship/Shepherding movement was also a cult. At least I didn’t get kicked out this time.
Lynne hated living in Oakdale Acres, so moving back to Kankakee was just what the doctor ordered for her.
We met up with some Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) and for a time a Quaker meeting met at our house, under the auspices of Illinois Yearly Meeting. These meetings did not last very long, maybe a year? Lynne hated the silent worship, and she particularly despised Bridget Rorem, a prominent member of our meeting. Jordan and Jesse (the twins) were born during this time.
Next stop was The People’s Church. My sons were coming were of Scouting age, so I persuaded the elders to establish Rainbow Council Troop 313, and I became it’s Scoutmaster. A friend from Gilman Fellowship, Drew Horn was my Assistant Scoutmaster. I through myself into Scouting. In fact, I received awards three years running for having the most active troop. The reason it was the most active Troop was because I took every opportunity I could to get away from my increasingly fundagelical wife. On my days off (or vacation) it was either stay at home with Lynne or take the scouts out on adventures in nature. I even spent my two weeks vacation at Rainbow Scout Reservation with my Troop. Of course, Lynne REALLY didn’t like that, and unwittingly I gave her the very weapon she would use to end Troop 313. You see, one of the female Scouters I met was Doreen. Well to cut to the chase, the little head in me argued with the big head, and won. I had an affair with Doreen over a year or two.
Lynne found out. I think Doreen might have told her. Lynne informed the elders at Peoples Church, and Troop 313 was disbanded. Probably the fact that I hadn’t attended a church service, well, for years did not help. Now, this was my fault, my mistake. But, by this time, I was an atheist with very strong pantheistic tendences, but I was in denial.
Actually. my doubts about Jesus started when I was in Israel. I visited all of the Christian shrines, and the Jewish shrines and the Moslem shrines. The Jewish shrines were as I expected them to be. The Moslem shrines were, architecturally and artistically, beautiful, The Christian shrines were, well, like Disney Land. Therefore Jesus didn’t seem very real either.
The story is that Saint Helena, who was Roman Emperor Constantine’s mother, traveled around the Holy Land looking for the places that significant things in Jesus life happened. She would come across a place, and then have a conniption fit and pass out. Upon waking up she would proclaim that this is where he was crucified, ot this is where the tomb was, or this is where he lived. Then a few centuries later the Crusaders came into the Holy Land and bult churches over all these places.
Since all that, I’ve read some books:
By Kenneth Humphreys:
Jesus Never Existed, An introduction to the ultimate heresy
By David Fitzgerald:
Jesus: Mything in Action Vol. 1 Jesus: Mything in Action Vol. 2
Jesus: Mything in Action Vol. 3
By Joseph Atwill:
Caesar’s Messiah, The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus
by James S Valliant and Warren Fahy
There are some videos:
Caesar’s Messiah
Zeitgeist The Movie – The Greatest Story Ever Told
Jesus is a Myth
Religulous (Documentary by Bill Maher)
The God Who Wasn’t There
So now I know why I found the Christian shrines in Israel to be so “Disneyesque.” Like Disney Land, these places were marking things that never happened, and a person who never existed.
That means I wasted almost 20 years of my life on an outright lie. That also means that I raised three sons into this myth, and they’re raising eight more souls to believe the myth. It means I abandoned my children to a woman who was a Fundagelical nut ball (or, as my brother refers to her, simply “the nut”). It means I spent money to send my sons to a Christian School, where they were thoroughly indoctrinated (brain washed) into the Jesus cult.