What Happened to Following Jesus?

thoughts-of-rev-polyamory:

I have become increasingly concerned that mainstream American
Christianity has departed from the message of Jesus in such a fundamental way
that I am not sure that one can even call their beliefs Christian.  

Historically we have seen very few large Christian movements
maintain a commitment to the teachings of Jesus as hierarchal superior to those
attributed to Moses.  This tension
between “the law” and Jesus’ declarations that showing love to those around
you is the fulfillment of the law goes back all the way to the years after the crucifixion.

How did church goers come to simply ignore the plain
teachings of Jesus? To answer that we must go back to the beginning.

In the very earliest years of Christianity there was already
a sharp division between the supporters of Peter and the supporters of Paul.  Peter and his followers expected the non-Jewish
converts to adhere to some (but not all) of the law of Moses. In his case,
Peter focused on the issue of male circumcision.  He said that to be accepted into the Christian
community, all men must be circumcised. OUCH. While I guess he had a point that
any man willing to undergo that procedure in an age before anesthesia & antibiotics
was truly committed; however,  that was
not the teaching of Jesus.  In the
council of Jerusalem, Paul swayed the disciples away from what Peter was
promoting. Not only did he remind them of the teachings of Jesus, but he
pointed out that they themselves pick and choose which Mosaic laws to obey. The
“committee” declared that  Hellenistic
Christians did not need to be circumcised nor did they need to learn and obey
the rituals of the Mosaic law.  It was
concluded that the only thing they would ask of Hellenistic Christians is that
they (for the sake of their Jewish brothers) not buy and eat the meat that had
been used in pagan sacrifices; and, they were told not to buy sex from the pagan
temple priestesses/prostitutes because that in the symbolism that Jesus taught
that by putting their penis into a false god’s “vessel”  they would be rejoining the pagan
religion.  

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good points… however Jesus DID say He would build His church on “peter the rock”

hmmmm