Those of you with two good ears had better listen and those of you with two good eyes had better read!  I am the Zaddik, your Pastor.  I have founded this church for all who are disenfranchised from their current faith or religion.  This church is founded on the principle that all discussion about God is positive and every person should feel free to discuss their most intimate feelings about the Creator.  Many intensely spiritual and dedicated religious people believe that there is only one way to the Kingdom of God.  We, at the Church of the New Apostles, accept that there are many paths to salvation, many choices and many rooms in our Father's house.  We welcome you to our humble church and hope that you find solace within.   

Thank you for visiting our Internet site. This church exists only in cyberspace and does not have a physical location.  The Church of the New Apostles is a non-profit corporation dedicated to expressing our collective inquiry into the nature of God.  All faiths are accepted; all opinion equally credible.  God is like a jewel, multifaceted.  In the reflection of the facets of God are the expressions of the people of this world in God's existence.  These faiths are equally viable, equally relevant and equally worthy of study; as God is and should be the only ideal that we seek to understand.  I would caution Christians, Muslims and Jews who so visit this site, that they are all Children of the Book and each should remember their inherent unity in this fact, if only in this fact.  You are each brothers and sisters of the Book and the similarities between you far outweight the dogma that separates you. 

This Church is not about dogma or ceremony.  Many faiths offer such spiritual guidance according to differing esthetics which appeal to some and not to others.  We hope to serve a new spirituality which is yet to come.  We stand on the principle that each of us are a part of God, imbued with life through God's Holy Spirit, a physical presence illuminated by our spirit, an extention of the Divine.  I believe that is why Paul said: “And they glorified God in me.” (Galatians 1:24).  That is why each of our opinions about God matter, for we are all linked by our souls to the Divine and stand witness to God's glory.  You who attend our site are each parishioners in a new beginning which reflects the spirituality of our age. 

Our goal is to discontinue the animosity of the various religions of the world to the beliefs of others.  Therefore you should know that your Pastor believes that all faiths are equally valid and no one can ultimately say who is correct, since the Creator speaks to each of us in thoughts and ideas, languages and images, culture and spirit, words familiar and words foreign, according to our unique understanding.  That is why each of you is a witness to the existence of God.  If you do not believe, stay and read on.  Perhaps you may find succor in our discussions.  As St. Augustine once said:  "Lord I believe, now help my disbelief."  Remember, the neighbor who disagrees with you does not need to be wrong for you to be right.  As for Christianity, this church accepts neither the authority of the Catholic pope nor the authority of the New Testament as its plumbline.  What we do believe in is the Word of Jesus Christ.  This is not to say we accept the New Testament as the exclusive word of Jesus.  Indeed, the Evangelists who wrote the New Testament were a generation removed from Jesus and his family; therefore, as we endeavor to discern the true meaning of Jesus and thus the true meaning of Christianity, we accept only the Word of Jesus as a basis for Faith.  To that end, we have adopted the 91 sayings of Jesus as voted on by the Jesus Seminar as the ONLY authority in Christianity.  I will be happy to debate the meaning of Jesus' words; but I will not debate the meaning of the Evangelists whom I consider to be influenced more by Pauline Doctrine, than Jesus, the man.  To that end, the only valid scriptural authority are the words of Jesus and Jesus alone.   If you can accept this reformation of Christianity, this interpretation of scripture, then you will find the writings on this site to suit you; if not, there are many rooms in our Father's house, many faiths more suited to your needs.

As your Pastor I profess a personal understanding of God and so it is fair to state for our congregation my beliefs.  You need not share in these beliefs to be a member of this congregation.  Rather these beliefs are offered to establish my position on various religious topics and should in no way be considered exhaustive.  As Martin Luther stated:  "Here I stand, I can do no other.  God help me, Amen."  

1.  I believe in God.

2.  I believe that God creates the universe at the end of time, not at the beginning.

3.  I believe that the living soul is a living fragment of God and the purpose of our human life is to combine our human individuality with our eternal soul.

4.  I believe that is why Paul said: “And they glorified God in me.” (Galatians 1:24)

5.  I believe that when we die, we are born into an eternal life.

6.  I believe that all person's who live in this world, pass over into the next life.

7.  I believe in heaven, but I do not believe in Hell. 

8.  I believe that our sins stain our souls in the next life and those stains are eternal. 

9.  I believe that hell would be to live eternally with a soul stained with mortal sins.

10.  I believe that the social strata of the next world, will be determined by how badly the sins of this world stain our souls and I pray my sins are no worse than the next person's.

11.  I believe that pride and shame will carry greater meaning in the next world than this.

12.  I believe that when the Bible tells us that we were made in the image of God, it is not a physical image, but a mental and emotional image.

13.  I believe that God has emotions and that is why we have emotions. 

14.  I believe that free will is the variable of the universe, which makes it all interesting for God. 

15.  I believe in Jesus Christ and I believe that Jesus lived so that God may judge man through the eyes of a human, Jesus, who carried his cross to the grave.

16.  I believe that Jesus will judge us as a fellow human, even if He is also a part of God.

17.  I believe that the truth of Christianity is that God will judge us having experienced the human experience.

18.  I believe that we should all submit to the will of God and take what Jesus said literally:  “Judge not and you will not be judged.”  Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37.

19.  I believe that God favors the religious polyglot and will censure the religious zealots of all religions.

20.  I believe that God speaks to His peoples in languages that they will understand.

21.  I believe there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.

22.  I believe that Allah is the same as the God of the Jews and Christians.

23.  I believe that the truth of Islam is to submit to the will of God.

24.  I believe that what Christians must learn from Islam is to submit to the will of God, as children to their parents.

25.  I believe that America will never win the hearts and minds of Islam, as long as we fight a war of attrition against Islamic fundamentalists.

26.  I believe that the Jews are God's chosen people.

27.  I believe that Western Civilization owed the State of Israel to the Jewish people not only for the atrocities of the Nazi's but also for the atrocities of the Romans.

28.  I believe that when a son of Islam detonates his bomb and shreds his flesh for Allah, the look in his eyes is the same look that must have been seen in the eyes of that nascient Christian when his or her face was shredded by a lion in the Flavian amphitheater.

29.  I believe if 9/11 happened to Rome, the whole of the Middle East would have been turned to glass on 9/12.

30.  I believe that Christianity saved, civilized and preserved the Roman world.

31.  I believe that Islam saved, civilized and preserved the Arab world.

32.  I believe that the Hindu gods represent a voice of my God that I do not understand.

33.  I believe that the faiths of the East sound with God’s voice.

34.  I believe that a person does not have to be a Christian to be saved in the next world.

35.  I believe that God wants us to understand each other and live in peace and prosperity in this world. 

36.  I believe that this cannot happen when religions and their orthodox zealots refuse to acknowledge that the truth of their religion is in no way diminished by the fact that a brother or sister human believes something else.

37.  I believe God will judge each of us according to our faiths, whatever that faith may be.

38.  I believe that to believe otherwise is to put words into God's mouth.

39.  I believe that God speaks for Himself.

40.  I believe that Christianity will be held to the central truth of Jesus’ teaching: “do to others as you would have them do to you. (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31)

41.  I believe that the way Americans treat minorities, will be reflected in the way majority peoples of the world will treat Americans in the future.

42.  I believe that India's Bollywood will dominate the world’s future culture more than America's Hollywood.

43.  I believe that China will dominate the world's economy within my life.

44.  I believe that India's economy will one day exceed the American economy.

45.  I believe that the future prosperity of China and India, will not mean a decrease in the American standard of living, but shall be a renaissance for America.

46.  I believe the war in Iraq has eroded much of the good will bought by American blood during World War II.

47.  I believe that the precedent set by George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq shall return to haunt America when the same rationale is asserted by China, or India, or Russia, or any other nation in the future.

48.  I believe that Islamic terrorism will not end until the West can learn to listen to what they have to say. 

49.  I believe that we can never abandon our commitment to Israel.

50.  I believe that Islam must learn to live in a world where the Israeli state is entitled to exist.

51.  I believe that Iraq and Islam would have benefited more from a "Marshall Plan" for the Middle East, than from a war with America. 

52.  I believe that Jesus had brothers and sisters and they are spoken of in the Bible.

53.  I do not believe that the Pope is infallible, that Jerome was correct about the ever-Virgin Mary, or that Peter was the most significant apostle.

54.  I believe that James was the younger brother of Jesus as was Simeon bar Cleophas and Judas Thomas who was called the twin because he looked so much like Jesus.

55.  I believe that the author's of the Gospels may have revised the historical reality of life of Jesus to lessen the influence that historically, the family of Jesus had in the leadership of the early Church.

56.  I believe that the family of Jesus may have been well connected in the Jewish priesthood.

57.  I believe that Joseph, who may have been called Cleophas, was the brother of Zachariah, who was the father of John the Baptist.

58.  I believe that Zachariah was a High Priest in the court of John Hyrcanus, the last of the Maccabees rulers of Judea.

59.  I believe that when Julius Caesar rewarded Antipas the Idumaean, an Arab, for relieving the siege by Cleopatra's brother, Ptolemy XIII on Caesar in Alexandria, he made all the future members of Antipas' family from Herod the Great to Saulus of Tarsus, Roman citizens. 

60.  I believe that is why Paul demanded trial by Caesar, because he was a free- born citizen of Rome and a member of Herod's family.

61.  I believe that is why Paul persecuted the Jerusalem Assembly so viciously.

62.  I believe that after the death of Jesus, James was elected head of the Jerusalem Assembly, which was the first Christian Church.

63.  I believe the Jerusalem Assembly grew stronger and as important as the Sanhedrin and that James became opposition High Priest, known as the Zaddik. 

64.  I believe that James was wrong when he instructed Paul not to admit Greek male converts without their first becoming circumcised according to the Laws of Moses and that is why Paul was chosen.

65.  I believe that the most tangible sign of the existence of the Holy Spirit is the conversion of Paul on the Emmaus Road. 

66.  I believe that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to Paul to convert the Gentiles without having to first submit to the Laws of Moses.

67.  I believe that Jesus is the Standing One; the first Adam; the Son of Man; and that He came to fulfill the laws of Moses and write a new covenant with man.

68.  I believe that neither James nor the original Apostles, nor Paul and his followers understood the full impact of Jesus’ preaching

69.  I believe that the Jewish War was started in reaction to the death of James in 62 c.e.

70.  I believe that Rome was burned in 64 c.e., by zealots who may have been associated with the Jerusalem Assembly as revenge for the death of James.

71.  I believe that we should all attempt to emulate the life of Jesus by helping our fellow man.                                                                                                              7 72.    I believe that Jesus was intentionally vague about religion because God wants humans to focus on this world and how humans treat each other, rather than on what will come after.   

73.    I believe that God has written into the fabric of the universe that humankind is in charge of its own destiny; that if we make this world an Eden, He will one day physically return to it; that if we make this world a hell, He won’t return until mankind understands that how we treat the weakest, poorest, most miserable person, defines who we are and matters more to God, than all the world’s prayer combined. 

74.  I believe in Good and I believe in Evil, but I do not believe in absolute Good or absolute Evil as espoused by the former and current Pope. 

75.  I believe that God created Good and Evil to test human free will.

76.  I believe that God has written into the code of the universe that mankind will create its own fate and the dreams of mankind shall be realized throughout the generations.

77.  I believe that humans who have psychic ability are a new genetic marker and that the inevitable evolution of humanity will result in a union of this world and the next. 

78.  I believe that the ultimate plan of God is to live eternally with human souls created through the union of His essence and our experiences in this world, united in an eternal and biological universe He has created.

79.  I believe that aliens could exist, though I have never seen one myself.

80.  I believe that the Sudarium and the Shroud of Turin are the actual burial clothes of the Lord not only because the carbon dating tested a contaminated piece of the Shroud but also because both are stained with the same AB blood type.

81.  I believe that Jesus had AB blood.

82.  I believe the carbon dating of the Shroud was invalid because the Hungarian Pray Manuscript, 1192-1195 predates the carbon testing dates of 1260-1390 and shows the Shroud with the 3:1 herringbone weave and the 4 burn holes that form the “L” shape on the Shroud. 83.  I believe in the poetry of the Kabbalah, as a means of expressing the emanation of God, but I do not believe that it is a religion.

84.  I believe in the beauty of Kabalistic imagery of “Ein-Sof”, the infinite God who, according to the Sefer Yetzirah, inhales, thus creating a place other than Himself, from which the Sefirots emanate.

85.  I believe that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was correct when he said:  “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

86.  I believe that the censure of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin by the Society of Jesus was a sin against humanity, a sin against the man and a sin against the Grace of God.

87.  I believe the time has come for a Second Protestant Reformation, not a reformation against indulgences granted by the Catholic Church, but against a Christian faith, which replaces the infallibility of the Pope with the infallibility of the Gospels.

88.  I believe the same Reformation needs to take place in Islam.

89.  I believe the Gospels to be the inspired word of God, but like anything, which passes through the human mind, the Gospels are subject to human fallibility.

90.  I do not believe in Judas Iscariot, but I do believe in Judas Thomas, the brother of Jesus, author of the Book of Thomas and subject of the Gospel of Judas.

91.  I believe the Book of Thomas is authentic.

92.  I believe that Jesus knew his fate and shared that knowledge with Mary Magdalene and that the Gnostics were derivative of Mary’s preaching after the death of Jesus.

93.  I believe that some of the Gospels were written with the intent that the family of Jesus be redacted from the historical reality.

94.  I believe that the Gnostics were purged from the orthodoxy of Christianity, among other reasons to deemphasize Mary Magdalene role as an apostle.

95.  I believe that Judas Thomas and Mary Magdalene coordinated their preaching after the death of Jesus going to the East, to Edessa while Paul and Peter went to the West, to Rome.

96.  I believe that Flavius Josephus was the son of Matthias, who stood for election as leader of the Jerusalem Assembly against James and lost and was known as Matthew, alleged author of the Gospel, which bears his name.

97.  I believe that in the first century, Christianity spread through Roman society, not just among common people but even into the house of Nero Caesar through his wife Poppaea Sabina, whom Nero kicked to death while pregnant and Epaphroditus, the Emperor’s personal Secretary, friend of Paul and later personal Secretary to the Emperor Domitian.

98.  I believe in the next life we will share our lives with those we meet by each experiencing the life the other led in real time, from birth to death.

99.  I believe our personal hell will be the stain of our sins, those with greater sins being shunned for eternity, wandering outside the communion of God and the communion of other souls.

100. I believe that Satan is God's Prosecutor for his name is Hebrew meaning “to accuse” and on our Day of Judgment before the Lord, Satan will accuse each of us of our sins and we shall have to justify ourselves to the Lord.

 
This is what I believe.

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