Christianity's Five Steps to Extinction.

It is first necessary to define what is meant here by the extinction of Christianity. It is that point in time when not only are genuine Christians statistically invisible, but the churches have shrunk to a few remnant buildings, and even churchgoers are becoming statistically invisible. The time when that will happen will be different in different countries; for the UK, statistics suggest it will only be about another twenty-five years. Non-christian and anti-christian views of Christianity, whether atheist, Muslim, pagan or any other will be the standard. We are, of course, not so far from that point today.

Looked at from a purely worldly viewpoint, Christianity began with a Jew whose teachings were heretical to the point of criminality, resulting in His execution at an early age, and before He had ever written a book, formed an organisation, or even made much impact on His own culture in a troublesome corner of the Roman Empire. It is therefore remarkable that His teachings took root and flourished, and within three hundred years His followers were worthy of major persecution, yet still growing in spite of, or even because of, that. For the Roman rulers, it was possible to foresee a time when this radical, non-state belief system would overtake their own religion. How did Christianity move from such vibrant growth to such steep decline?

As the title here indicates, five steps are involved. The first was the clever diversion of Christianity into the Roman state religion by Emperor Constantine. He formed the Roman Universal Religion, now known as the Roman Catholic Church, the word “catholic” deriving from the Latin “catholicus“, meaning “universal“. His key action here was to pretend conversion to Christianity, a fake conversion that must always be presented as genuine by the churches since their own validity depends upon it. If Constantine’s conversion was fake, all the churches that follow him are merely invalid surrogates of Christianity. And that includes the Protestant churches. This was the first, and perhaps the most damaging blow Christianity ever suffered. It has never recovered. See more on this here.

The second step down was the reformation of Calvin and Luther. Earlier and largely genuine attempts at reformation had already taken place. Notably the Englishman John Wycliffe, born nearly two hundred years before Calvin, had declared that Scripture alone provided Authority for Christians. This view led him to translate the Scriptures into the English of his day, sadly barely readable for a modern audience, but very powerful at the time. The Catholics did not realise just how powerful until forty years after his death, when as a result they dug up his body and burned it at the stake. In due course the Catholic Counter-Reformation kicked in. It was aided immeasurably by the Calvinist/Lutheran Reformation which retained many Catholic errors and was equally opposed to any genuinely radical reforms. Thus real reform was crushed and Church, now separated into Catholic and Protestant streams, continued to present itself as the one road to Christianity, albeit now a two-lane road. This was perhaps not so much a step down for Christianity as a failed attempt to step up. Read more about Calvin here.

The third step down was Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Plenty more about Darwin’s errors elsewhere, such as here and here. It should be added that other writers had already provided fertile ground for Darwin’s theory, notably Thomas Paine who is almost unknown. His books were hugely influential in both the French and American Revolutions. One of them, The Age of Reason, published in 1800, shared its name with the time period in which Paine lived, also called the Age of Enlightenment. Paine said, in essence, that if something does not seem reasonable it can be dismissed. Paine was not being scientific, but merely providing a logical-sounding justification for people to rely on gut-feelings, as many still do today. Science was touted as a far better guide to truth than the Bible, and Darwin’s fatally flawed theory stepped conveniently into this corrupted thinking. Darwin’s work provided the foundation for a totally godless belief system. Thus the churches, which had already dragged the concept of Christianity down to their own surrogate version of it, could now be presented as unscientific and irrational, as well as pompous and corrupt. They gradually responded by absorbing evolution into their own beliefs, skirting around the first chapter of Genesis with compromises like the Day-Age Theory and the Gap Theory. Thus arrived the age of churches believing in evolution, the philosophical foundation of atheism!

The fourth step down was the publication of Cyrus Scofield’s Zionist Reference Bible in 1909. The damage done by the Scofield Bible is due to his ideas actually being anti-Christian. Christianity is based entirely on the Gospel, which has the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ at its centre. Scofield advocated rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, and restoration of the Animal Sacrifices that took place there until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The two kinds of sacrifice are completely contradictory. But among today’s churchgoers the idea of restoring Animal Sacrifice is both popular and growing. However, one cannot logically or convincingly proclaim the Sacrifice of the Gospel and the benefit of Animal Sacrifice at the same time. Therefore the Gospel, the very heart of Christianity, is relegated in increasing numbers of today’s churches to a piece of vestigial doctrine. Without the Gospel, Churches have little left to offer: the things that powered Christianity onward and upward in the years following the Crucifixion have been or are being pushed aside. Increasingly all that’s left is buildings, rituals, hierarchies, hymns, sermons, evolution; and now also Animal Sacrifice replacing the Sacrifice of Christ.

It is worth noting here that many Christian Zionists have not understood that the purpose of Zionism is to rebuild the Temple and restore Animal Sacrifice. They may not be aware of the work of the Temple Institute. This does not lessen the seriousness of this issue. Whether people understand the ultimate plans or not, they are following a doctrine that they have not taken the time to check. People who do not check things out are open to deception, and there will always be deceivers ready to take advantage.

The fifth step down has yet to happen, but is a natural consequence of the fourth given current World developments. The Temple Mount in Jerusalem today is the site of the Dome of the Rock Mosque. Two hundred years ago it was impossible to imagine that it could ever change, and nobody who followed the Bible thought that it should. Indeed, the very idea of Christians supporting a rebuilt Temple would have been anathema. But now plans are well advanced for the creation of a Third Temple. Christian Zionists around the World are providing moral and financial support. Animal Sacrifice will again take place there. What should Christian Zionists do when that day comes? Is not the logical step to return fully to faith in Animal Sacrifice, which would actually be a return to Judaism? At that point would it not seem reasonable to declare Christianity extinct, having fully returned to its Jewish roots?