And the Invention of the Church
It seems to be a fact of human nature: as soon as someone has a good idea, others want to turn it into a movement. Something simple and personal becomes complex and collective.
This tendency runs contrary to the teachings of Jesus. His message was not designed for an organisation, but for the individual. “The kingdom of God is within you,” he said. That single line tells us what we need to know: the real work is inward.
And yet—here we are, surrounded by churches, cathedrals, vestments, rituals, and hierarchies.
Still, to dismiss these outward forms entirely would be to deny their beauty. The music, the liturgy, the candles, the solemnity—they stir something. They point beyond themselves. But they are not the message.
So we are left with a contradiction: if the message of Jesus was for the individual, not the institution, how is it to be shared? What infrastructure—if any—does truth require? That is a pressing question for the Church today.
But perhaps we’re asking the wrong question.
Was Jesus even thinking about the long term?
Perhaps he wasn’t teaching for all of humanity—for future generations—but only for those alive in his own time. Perhaps his message was an urgent warning, a plea to prepare for what he believed was the imminent end. Apocalyptic thinking was widespread in his day, and I’ve explored that theme more fully elsewhere.
It happens again and again. A teacher speaks from lived truth. The words resonate. People gather. Then someone writes them down. Someone else adds a structure. Over time, that structure becomes the main event.
The early Church did not emerge out of thin air—it arose from the need to preserve, organise, and survive. But in doing so, it shifted the focus. What began as a personal call, rooted in the teachings of Jesus, became a public creed—shaped largely by the letters of Paul.
As Erich Fromm observed, people fear freedom. The open sky of individual conscience is too wide, too lonely. We prefer rules—someone else to tell us what God wants.
So the teachings of Jesus—rooted in perception, compassion, and personal change—were repackaged into systems. Jesus became the Christ. The parables became familiar anecdotes. And Jesus’ promise of personal power and agency was replaced by a message of human unworthiness: that we are guilty, fallen, and in need of a saviour. What survived, thanks largely to Paul, was not the call to awaken, but the belief that we stood under judgment—and that only surrender through faith in Christ’s death could save us. The Church offered not freedom, but forgiveness—on its terms.
At the heart of this system lies the doctrine of substitutionary atonement: the belief that God required the violent death of his own son in order to forgive humanity. But what kind of morality is that? If a human father stood by and allowed his child to be tortured and executed to satisfy a principle, we would call it abuse—to say the least. Criminal, monstrous, unthinkable. And yet Christianity asks us to call it divine love.
This theology, rooted in the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament, turns Jesus not into a moral teacher but into a human offering. It drags Christianity back into the logic of temples and altars, where death is the price of mercy. But Jesus himself said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” He healed, forgave, and restored without requiring payment. His message was not about appeasing wrath—it was about transforming hearts.
To reduce that to a legal transaction—blood in exchange for pardon—is to betray everything Jesus stood for.
And yet the pattern endures.
The problem: personal unworthiness.
The solution: submission to the authority of the Church.
A familiar strategy: create the wound, then offer the bandage. But only at the price of control. In this telling, we are not empowered, only forgiven. Not awakened, only absolved. And not for free.
This logic isn’t confined to religion. It thrives wherever fear is manufactured and dependence becomes obedience.
Take the war in Ukraine. It is framed as a defence of sovereignty, a clash of values, even a holy war of democracy against tyranny. But beneath the slogans lie resource-rich territories: lithium, coal, and rare earth elements—materials that power the technologies of global dominance. What appears to be a humanitarian crisis may also be a calculated resource grab. The script is familiar: amplify the threat, justify intervention, claim legitimacy, secure access. The flags change. The method does not.
Religion says: You are broken. We alone can fix you.
Politics says: You are in danger. We alone can protect you.
In both cases, the result is the same: submission to those who claim to save you.
And yet through all this, a quieter voice still rises. Not from pulpits or governments, but from the margins. A voice of longing, protest, and clarity:
Domine, usquequo?
Lord, how long?
The psalms are not pious platitudes. They are cries of the oppressed.
“How long will you forget me, O Lord? Forever?”
“How long shall the wicked triumph?”
These are not questions for God alone. They are questions for us.
How long must we live under systems that define the disease only to sell the cure?
How long must we mistake control for care, and submission for salvation?
The Message: Within, Not Without
Jesus never called for an institution. He never laid out rules for hierarchy, governance, or ritual.
His concern was the inner life:
“The kingdom of God is within you.” — Luke 17:21
“Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” — Matthew 9:13
“Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.” — Luke 6:27
These are not the building blocks of an empire. They are invitations—to forgive, to see and to live differently.
The Beauty of What Followed
And yet—something beautiful was built.
Churches and cathedrals, though far removed from the simplicity of Jesus’ message, carry an aesthetic and emotional weight. The chants, the incense, the silence of stone—they reflect human longing for the sacred.
And perhaps we can learn to see them differently. Not as evidence of religious truth, but as artifacts of devotion and faded echoes of an earlier truth.
The Urgency of the Moment
Jesus, according to many scholars, believed the world was about to change.
“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” — Mark 13:30
Albert Schweitzer and Bart Ehrman, among others, argue that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet—not a founder of a religion, but a voice crying out in a time of crisis. His message was not designed to endure for centuries. It was meant to prepare hearts for something immediate.
Seen this way, his teachings take on a sharper edge. The call to leave one’s family, to give away possessions, to live nonviolently—these are not abstract ethics. They are instructions for surviving the immediate collapse of the world as he knew it.
When that collapse did not come, the message had to be repurposed and the Church took its place.
Repurposing the Flame
What you inherit today is not the message itself, but the memory of it. Preserved in stone. Sung in choirs. Whispered in candlelight.
There is still value in that—but it is not the same as the fire that first lit those hearts.
Perhaps Jesus wasn’t so much misunderstood as gradually reshaped by history. His message was reframed to serve new purposes. Even so, his words remain. They speak most clearly not through institutions or formal sermons, but in moments of quiet reflection.
