A Wisdom Archive on Christian

Introduction and links to related topics

Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.


Jesus Christ - The mythological founder of the Christian religion. Christ is the Gnostic title of the only begotten Son of God. By giving this title to Jesus, the Christians are proclaiming that their Jesus is the only true manifestation of God.

Peoples Temple Christian Church - Jim Jones, influenced by Unitarian Humanism, Father Divine, and Marxism, founded this church in 1977. He later claimed at various times to be God, Buddha, and Lenin. In 1978 after the majority of church members moved to Jonestown, Guyana, at Jones'' command, 914 people (including Jones) committed suicide or were murdered. The group is now defunct.

Scientist Church Of Christ - Official name for Christian Science.

Blood Of Christ - A Christian term describing the mystical power that "saved" mankind from sin at the crucifixion of Jesus. This "blood" supposedly washes the individual from the spiritual consequences of sin if he "believes" in Jesus.

Bride Of Christ - A symbolic term used to designate the Christian church in its relation to Christ as one who is a pure virgin (2 Cor. 11:2), loved by Christ (Eph. 5:22-33), who will be in the marriage supper to the Lamb (Rev. 19:7). Rev. 21:9 says, "And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I shall show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."

Christ Consciousness - A term the Christian tradition has used for intuitive knowing or the realization or attainment of high consciousness. The pure level of consciousness in which the mind, love, and will of God are made known to the enlightened person

Christian Science - A religion and system of healing. Christian Scientists do not believe in disease and do not succumb to illness, nor do they nurse chronic illness



Christian Scientist - Christian Scientist. A newly-coined term for denoting the practitioners of an art of healing by will. The name is a misnomer, since Buddhist or Jew, Hindu or Materialist, can practise this new form of Western Yoga, with like success, if he can only guide and control his will with sufficient firmness. The
"Mental Scientists" are another rival school.

These work by a universal denial of every disease and evil imaginable, and claim syllogistically that since Universal Spirit cannot be subject to the failings of flesh, and since every atom is Spirit and in Spirit, and since finally, they - the healers and the healed - are all absorbed in this Spirit or Deity, there is not, nor can there he, such a thing as disease.

This prevents in no wise both Christian and Mental Scientists from succumbing to disease, and nursing chronic diseases in their own bodies just like ordinary mortals.

Christmas - Christmas Christmas Day and its festival are a curious blend of Christian, Jewish, Roman, Western pagan, and perhaps other institutions. It arose as a Christian festival as part of the adaptation of the early Christian Church to the world in which it grew up.

The accounts given of the birth of Christ present obvious difficulties against regarding this date as that of his actual birth, and it was looked upon rather as a commemorative festival. Before the 5th century there cannot be said to have been any general consensus as to the date, the choice wavering between that of Epiphany on January 6th, the 25th of March, and the 25th of December. According to Chrysostom, the choice of the first of these dates was due to Western influence; and it is true that the Romans held their Saturnalia at the same time.

The celebration of the winter solstice, often identified with that of the new year, is virtually universal and denotes among Christians the mystic birth of the Christ; the significance has, however, with the Christian Church, been divided between Christmas and Easter. Besides its application to the death and rebirth of the year, and to death and regeneration both cosmic and human, the symbol has special reference to the esoteric rite and exoteric drama performed in the Mysteries at this epoch, where the candidate for initiation was placed in a tomb or coffin, or on a cruciform couch, where his body remained entranced during the experiences of his liberated self, until rebirth or resurrection on the third day.

Christmas customs likewise are derived from various sources: the exchange of gifts or sweets is a common accompaniment of new year celebrations; the tree is a universal symbol of manifested nature, and this appears again as the cross, which however is appropriated to the Friday before Easter. At the winter solstice, the sun enters Capricorn, a house of Saturn -- who appears in such figures as Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Old Father Christmas; and the spirit of license and good cheer are more appropriate to the genius of Saturn, especially in the form of Silenus or a satyr, than to the mystic birth of the neophyte.

Christian Science - Officially called Church of Christ, Scientist, it was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston, Mass. Her teachings are heavily indebted to Phineas P. Quimby, a mesmerist. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures functions as a canon of Scripture.

Matter is unreal; thus, so are sickness and death, which are overcome by believing that we are Mind. Christ is “the divine manifestation of God” most fully seen in Jesus, who only seemed to die. The “Holy Ghost” is Divine Science, that is, Christian Science. Many New Age ideas have historical roots in Christian Science and related New Thought groups.

Heretic - A person who teaches or believes heresy.

Hermas, The Shepherd of one of the most widely known early Christian texts, said to have been written in Italy about the year 90. It is a mixture of Hermetic, Sybilline and Judeo/Christian apocalype that contains no definite quotation from the Bible.

Christian Science - Christian Science.

See also FAITH HEALING (BCW, SD, TG)