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"Free thought elevates man's dignity by making him an active, intelligent being rather than a belief machine". (KARDEC, Spiritist Magazine, 1867)
"The error comes from those who, not realizing the progress of ideas, intend to be able to govern mature men, as if they are children". (KARDEC, Heaven and Hell)
Introduction
We saw the following post on the writer Liszt Rangel’s Facebook - a researcher of ancient civilizations, with special dedication to the historical Jesus and Primitive Christianity (1):
Yesterday, 04/18/1919, I received a message through WhatsApp forbidding me to speak at a Spiritist Institution in Araruama, RJ. They claimed that my studies about Jesus and my texts where I criticize some thoughts of certain famous Spirits are not accepted by some people within that Institution (1).
It is incredible that there are still people in the Brazilian Spiritist Movement who, instead of being "root kardecists", idolize certain Spirits and some mediums - emmanuelists, andreluisests, humbertocampists, chiquists, divaldists, and so on - in such a way as to exasperate those who have "common sense and logic" as parameters for the evaluation of things. Because of this, they never admit to be questioned about what they say, and they treat us as if they were bearers of absolute truth, and are therefore irreproachable in anything they say.
Together with these, we have a number of followers who are quite uncomfortable when a scholar appears and puts in check some biblical narrative. Perhaps they are very attached to the knowledge of their original religions, in which it is a "mortal sin" (going straight to hell) to question biblical texts, since they consider them to be truly "God’s word".
Many brethren think that the expositor's mission is to only explain the Gospels as they are without the slightest openness to demonstrate various errors contained therein and the shameful adulterations to justify dogmas. Not to show the truth does it not make people live in error?
To begin with, they have no idea, for example, that "The names of the titles of the Gospels do not designate their authors" (3). Can we imagine how they will behave when they know that we arrived to the conclusion that not everything in the Scriptures is inspired (4), that we affirm that Judas betrayal is a poorly told story (5), that Jesus' death was for political reasons and not for the remission of sins (6) and that we are of the opinion that there is no prophecy in the Old Testament which refers to the Messiah. (7)
For us, it is something regrettable to see the ingrained attachment, sometimes even unconsciously that some Spiritists show regarding the dogmas imposed by the so-called Christian religions, in which biblical texts can never be questioned. It seems that they do not have the slightest idea that they were written by men who spoke of their social and religious culture, and the fact that it is now known that many of them were manipulated and altered to fit the established dogmas.
It is worse when we realize that Kardec himself also questioned certain dogmas of the Church - reincarnation, the birth of Jesus in the ordinary conditions of life, his divinity, his miracles, and his resurrection in the same physical body. The Encoder, too, made serious objections about the belief in heaven and hell, angels and demons, future punishments and rewards, giving the public a view more in accordance with the logic to interpret such themes. Why can we not follow his example?
In Heaven and Hell, speaking of religions, the Encoder stated:
[...] What is lacking in this century of positivism - that seeks to understand before believing - is the sanction of its doctrines by means of positive facts; it is also the agreement of certain doctrines with the positive data of Science. Since it says it is white when the facts say it is black, it is necessary to opt between the evidence and the blind faith. (1) (Emphasis added).
Kardec confesses that "Spiritism relies on facts. The facts, according to rigorous reasoning and logic, give to Spiritism the character of positivism that is appropriate to our time. [...]." (9) (Emphasis added), therefore, we have to advance pari passu with Science, otherwise we will perish.
Certainly, the advent of Textual Criticism (10) is an advance of Science; so we cannot pretend that it does not exist on the one hand and deny its conclusions about the various biblical accounts on the other hand, since it is public and well-known that scientific positivism has, over time, developed more objective criteria of analysis of biblical texts, allied to the knowledge of the culture, geography and philosophy of ancient peoples; thus, the current view of biblical narratives has greatly changed, but unfortunately, few Spiritists have heard of it.
Our friend Maria Jose Gontijo, from Divinopolis (MG), inspired, said something that makes us think: "We know that evolution is inevitable and with it the progress of knowledge. So, how can we deny the need to contextualize conceptions that do not fit this progress?"
On the other hand, we must take into account that Jesus made serious criticisms, albeit subtly, of the "revelations" of Moses. If it were not for that, it is certain that there would be no Christianity and perhaps all of us were following Judaism.
Let us look at some of them, which we have mentioned elsewhere:
- The Scriptures did not allow to work during the Sabbath (Exodus 20: 8-11), and those who dared to disregard this rule were punished with death (Exodus 31:15). Jesus was insistently asked about this point; but he always said to his opponents: "The Sabbath was made to serve man and not man to serve the Sabbath".
- Adultery, according to the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 20:10), resulted in the death penalty for those who practiced it; but Jesus said to the woman in adultery: "I do not condemn you either. Go, and sin no more". (John 8:11).
There was a tradition among the Pharisees and doctors of the Law that it was not allowed to eat bread without washing their hands. This is what Jesus answers: "It is not what comes into the mouth that contaminates a man, but that which comes out of the mouth that contaminates man". (Matthew 15, 11) Obviously we should wash them, but by a health precept and not a religious formalism.
- When Jesus famously preached to the crowd, in the episode that was consecrated with the designation of "The Sermon on the Mount", Jesus began several times by saying: "You heard what was said to the ancients,"referring to the Mosaic legislation, adding his own interpretation to the various facts, of which we highlight these two:
1st) at that time, the Mosaic Law established "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Exodus 21:24). However, Jesus recommended "do not take revenge on those who harmed you. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn him the other too!” (Matthew 5,39).
2nd) Contrary to the previous law, which allowed us to hate our enemies (Leviticus 19:18), the Master taught: "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you". (Matthew 5:44.)
If it were to follow everything the religious leaders wanted or thought was right, Jesus would not have publicly preached anything; He would just keep His mouth closed and would have blindly followed Moses.
In the work Existential Conception of God, the Spiritist philosopher Jose Herculano Pires (1914-1979) very well said:
Nothing justifies the merger that the Christian churches made of the Jewish testament with the Christian testament. Jesus, as a reformer of Judaism, corrected the mystical excesses of the archaic Israel and pointed new directions to human understanding of man. The condemnation of the Jewish formalism, of the erroneous and hypocritical concept of purity, of racism common to closed and isolated civilizations, as well as the overcoming of absurd sexual prejudices, as seen in the episode of the adulterous woman, the forgiveness of the theft of Zacchaeus under the condition of reparation for the evil committed, the violation of the Sabbath in the synagogue to attend a sick man, the claim that prostitutes would reach the Kingdom of Heaven before the vainglorious believers of their conventional purity are an indicative of a more human and greater ethic that should arise in the future. The Apostle Paul himself, so strongly marked by the Jewish prejudices of time, even considered that the ancient Scriptures were superseded by Christian reformation. Nevertheless, Christian churches to this day live clinging to the ancient texts, which they consider as the word of God. (11) (Italic Emphasis in the original, and our bold)
Herculano Pires, therefore, confirms what we think about the fact that Jesus did not even sanction the Mosaic legislation.
What is seen in Kardec's speech
In The Book of Spirits, commenting on the answer to question 625, Kardec said:
If some of those who sought to instruct man in the Law of God sometimes transgressed it by false principles, it was because they allowed themselves to be dominated by too earthly feelings, and because they mistook the laws which regulate the conditions of the soul's life with those governing the body’s life. Many of them presented as Divine Laws what were simple human laws, created to serve the passions and to dominate men. (12) (Emphasis added)
In Genesis, Chapter I, item 8, Kardec, details a little more:
Unfortunately, religions have at all times been instruments of domination; the role of prophet has tempted secondary ambitions, and there has been a multitude of would-be revelators or messiahs who, by the prestige of this denomination, have exploited credulity for their own pride, their own cupidity, or laziness , finding it more comfortable to live at the expense of the deceived. The Christian religion has not been able to avoid these parasites. [...]. (13) (Emphasis added)
Should we not point out these "false principles" in order to free the people who visit the Spiritist Center from the yoke of those who interpret the biblical texts strictly "to serve their passions and to dominate men"?
As appropriate, we also highlight this passage from the answer to question 626, from The Book of Spirits:
[...] That is why the precepts which they [the divine and natural laws] consecrate have been proclaimed at all times by men of good, and that is also why we find their elements in the moral doctrine of all the peoples who have already left barbarism, even if incomplete or distorted by ignorance and superstition.(14) (Emphasis added)
Is it not our duty to restore what is meant by Divine and Natural Laws "distorted by ignorance and superstition"?
In question 801, Kardec asked the following question: "Why did not the Spirits teach at all times what they teach today?" The Higher Spirits answered the following:
"You do not teach the children what you teach to the adults and you do not give the newborn food that he cannot digest. Everything has its time. They taught many things that men have not understood or have distorted,but which they can now understand. Through their teachings, even incomplete ones, they prepared the ground to receive the seed that now begins to bear fruit. (15) "(Emphasis added)
Should we still consider all those who seek the Spiritist Centers as children? And what about the distortion in the teachings of Jesus, will we have to "turn a blind eye"?
In the "Introduction" of The Gospel According to Spiritism, we find:
Many issues in the Gospels, in the Bible, and in the sacred authors in general are only unintelligible, seeming some to be irrational, due to the lack of the key that enables us to understand its true meaning. This key is complete in Spiritism, and those who have studied it seriously have already been convinced, and all will be convinced and aware of it later. [...]. (16) (Emphasis added)
Because it has a positivist character Spiritism can restore the true meaning of the sacred texts, especially those that are "unintelligible, even seeming irrational." Now, for this to happen, there is no way to escape from presenting a new proposal for the interpretation of some biblical texts, although initially for some people this causes some discomfort, but we insist: the truth above all: "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).
(The conclusion of this article will be published in the next issue.) |
