Preface

I grew up in a Christian family, in a Southern community where even the few reprobates believed in God—and trembled. Within my family, there were two uncontested assumptions: God existed, and at some point I would have to surrender to His calling. It wasn’t a matter of believing in God; that was a given. It was a question of reaching the point of total surrender. That happened in a Baptist church when I was 13, and can only be described as the most spiritual event of my life.

When I surrendered my will, something else took control; an indescribable feeling of joy and love overpowered all other emotions. All worldly values ceased to exist. Nothing held any value compared to the love I felt. I left the church convinced that everyone must be told of this wonderful blessing. For the next few weeks and months I moved within the after glow of that marvelous event and could hardly stop talking of Jesus’ saving grace.

At that time, I knew nothing of the Bible. Oh, I was familiar with the Bible stories told in Sunday school, and I could quote a few verses, such as John 3:16, but it was the stories I knew, not the interpretations. As the Scriptures teach, my roots were in poor soil. I soon turned back to the world and a life of self-reproach. Through my teens and into my late 20s, I resisted the guilt that tore at my soul. Then, a tragic event led me back to the fold.

I joined the Original Church of God, a church that practiced a very literal approach to Bible interpretation. Where the Bible said that God spoke and the world was made, that was exactly what I believed. Where it said Jesus was the Word, that was what I believed. Where it said Jesus rose from the grave, I believed. My understanding wasn’t very strong, but I believed the Bible was holy and without error. And where it said things I didn’t understand, I believed the interpretations of my pastor and elders. When they were stumped, faith bridged the gaps. I learned there were many things known only to God; things that would be revealed to us in His own time.

When I returned to church, it was without the fire of the newly converted, but with a passion for knowledge.  I developed an overpowering desire to know everything about the Bible. Pleas to understand God's will in my life were always foremost in my prayers. To further that end, I attended Bible studies, read commentaries and, with the help of a concordance, traced topics throughout the Bible. For the next few years, I was driven by the desire to learn. I carried a Bible with me almost everywhere I went and spoke to anyone who would listen. Many times, I prayed for understanding on a certain topic and then had what I perceived to be the answer revealed in a sermon or a casual conversation. Or I might reread a passage that I thought I understood, only to have a clearer, truer, meaning open to me. Gradually, as the years passed, it seemed my prayers for understanding were answered, bit by bit.

However, as my knowledge of the Bible grew, the number of those hard-to-understand contradictions became more numerous. Eventually, my “faith file” was filled, and questions were jamming the cabinet drawer. If God’s Law was eternal, how could Jesus change it? If Jesus taught salvation through the Law, why would he teach Paul a different plan? If He answered prayers, why was I hearing the same prayer requests again and again at prayer services? If the Sabbath was holy, why was it changed to Sunday?

Then one day, as if in answer to prayer, one of those questions was brought into the spotlight. Was Sunday or Saturday the Sabbath? Many times, I'd heard our pastor say that sometimes God revealed things to him in the pulpit. He called it preaching himself into a corner, and he said when that happened, he just had to reverse his stance and follow God. Then, as if by divine decree, one day our pastor preached about the Sabbath. He was explaining how Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath when he preached himself into one of those corners. The Jews kept the Saturday Sabbath after the crucifixion, he said, and so did the early Church. In fact, the Jews still kept it, and it had never really been changed. Maybe we should still observe it.

Very naively, I sat there waiting, truly expecting him to say something like this: "So, next week, we'll meet at 10:00 o'clock, Saturday morning." Instead, he concluded that we didn't keep the Sabbath anymore because we observed the Lord's Day on Sunday.

That was the issue that forced me to begin investigating those “faith files". I was frightened and had little confidence in my own ability to “rightly divide the Word". After all, the Church of God, to which I belonged, claimed divine authority through the power of the Holy Ghost, and to question the Holy Ghost might well be an unpardonable sin. That was the first teaching I had to reject. Have no doubt; it was not done lightly. I left the Church terrified that I might have committed the unpardonable sin.

For about a week, I was a physical and emotional wreck, but with the guidance of a friend, I was able to accept the fact that the Original Church of God was not the infallible mouthpiece for God.

For the next few years, I searched for a church that could dispel my confusion. During that period, I became almost fanatical in my desire to understand. Everything I had believed for years was at stake, and I could no longer just accept what I was told on faith. The door to understanding finally opened when I was in my late 40s.

I was suffering periods of deep depression and developed an ulcer. The future began to appear short, without sufficient time to set and accomplish goals. I hated my work and felt my life had been wasted. Often, I'd drive off somewhere and sit alone for hours, brooding and contemplating suicide. I reasoned I would be better off dead. I had enough insurance to take care of my wife and perhaps help the kids go to college.

When my physician could offer no cure, I turned to God for help, but my prayers remained unanswered. I prayed for understanding, but none came. I prayed for guidance, but was left to stumble alone. I prayed for forgiveness, in case I'd unconsciously sinned, but felt no guilt. Church services were boring trials of singing the same songs over and over and praying the same unanswered prayers. I talked with my minister, but he could offer no solution. At last, I prayed to die. God wouldn't grant me even that.

I had been taught that God promises He'll never leave nor forsake us, and never burden us with more than we’re able to bear. However, when I could stand no more, I was forced to look to my own resources. At first, I thought it was my fault, something I was neglecting. But after I'd done all I knew to do in an effort to clear my own heart and still had no answer to my prayers, I had to accept the fact that the problem lay elsewhere. Since God was perfect it couldn't be His fault, so it had to be in the link between God and me. And, of course, that link was the Bible. I'd conformed to its teachings, had turned to God in my need, and had been ignored. Assuming God was real and just, the corruption must then come from man's recording and perpetuation of His Word. Thus began a study that would span almost two decades. The Amazing Deception is the result of that endeavor.

The key concept that sows and nurtures all the confusion within Christianity is faith. Faith is the mortar that holds the bricks of Christianity together. And what is faith? According to the Bible, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). That, of itself, is a very hazy statement. As a Christian, I often witnessed many confused expressions on the faces of fellow parishioners confronted with that passage. It might be more timely translated as: "Faith is what hope is made of, the proof of things not seen." Still, a lot like smoke in a heavy fog—there, but hard to discern. According to Funk and Wagnalls, it is "belief without evidence” or, "confidence in or dependence on a person, statement, or thing as trustworthy." But when it comes to biblical interpretation, faith is an excuse to believe the speculative and impossible.

Such faith reminds me of the “hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil” monkeys that were so popular a few decades ago. Artists vied to depict them in various states, each with hands clamped over ears, mouth, or eyes. In regard to Christian teachings, the “evil” that Christians attempt to avoid is reason. Reason is the antithesis of faith. When reason contradicts faith, up go the Christian's hands to eyes, ears, and mouth.

Another problem lies in the fact that Christian study methods are not objective. How can they be, when the result is predetermined by obligatory faith? Teaching and private study are geared to prove or strengthen currently accepted beliefs; new concepts or contradictions are negated by faith or even attributed to the devil. And though the educated clergy are aware of the fallacies of biblical Scriptures, most still represent them as divine and infallible. To openly teach otherwise would bring every teaching and every doctrine under question—and the teachings of Christianity, apart from blind faith, cannot stand up under truthful and unbiased investigation.

While the determined, stubborn adherence to faith may be admirable under certain conditions, and might enable one to “move mountains,” it often cripples the senses and destroys reason. For the Christian, this is one of the greatest hurdles to seeing the reality of the Bible. The unwavering belief that they already possess the “truth” makes it almost impossible for them to see the errors within the Scriptures, and, therefore, in their reasoning. This is most evident in the fact that they invariably turn to the Bible to defend their beliefs, without realizing that they are using the Bible to defend the Bible. For the Christian, there can be no greater authority, and no more logical source of knowledge. For the non-believer, such reasoning is absurd. It is equivalent to a court allowing the convicted criminal to pronounce his own sentence.

I know that many, if not all, Christians struggle with their own 'faith files'" balancing this verse against that verse, lining one passage against another, reading and rereading them—before finally slipping them back, unanswered, into that 'to be answered in the future' folder. To anyone struggling under such burdens, I would like to say: “You must question the unquestionable. Until you do so, you will never be able to recognize the inherent deceptions that have been instilled within Christian teachings."

For me, as a Protestant Christian, there had always been unanswered questions rising up in my Bible studies. Many concerned the history and origin of the New Testament. To me, the whole time period prior to Martin Luther and the Protestant movement was a confusing jumble of events and persons. I had heard the names of some early Church writers, but we were not encouraged to study their works; such writings were not used in our congregation. More attention was placed on interpretation of the “Word". History was worldly, composed and recorded by man—and therefore fallible. But what of the New Testament writings? Where did they originate? I was told they were the inspired writings of Paul, the Apostles, and the disciples of Jesus, written to the various churches, and later canonized by the Catholic Church to become the New Testament (canon, in its simplest form merely means a list or selection).

But what of the stories I had heard of the Catholic Church: the persecutions, greed, lust for power, the inquisitions and, yes, even murder and warfare? I was told the Church was an instrument of God’s will. He used it to preserve his Word, complete and undefiled. But if the Church was evil and corrupt during all those ages, where were the true Christians? Oh, they survived as small, persecuted groups, such as the Montanist and Albigenese, and came out into the open as followers of Martin Luther.

These were only a few of the questions that troubled me—questions that I now see I should have addressed earlier. However, Christianity places one in the awkward position of questioning the wisdom of his teachers when he questions the Scriptures. Why? Because it is not the Scriptures that the new convert is accepting, but man’s interpretation of those Scriptures.

It is here that faith clouds the issues. Most Christians come from three main backgrounds: (1) they are from a Christian family, in which case they are indoctrinated from childhood; (2) they are guilt-ridden and desperate souls who 'accept Christ' on the basis of faith, knowing only what they are told; or (3) they are youngsters lured in by social activities within the Church.

Very few people study and research Christianity before making a commitment. By the time new converts are knowledgeable enough to question doctrines, they have already been taught an approach to study that admits 'puzzles' that are 'hard to understand'—puzzles which must be accepted by faith. As love covers a multitude of sins, so faith covers a multitude of contradictions—and hides a world of ignorance.

To a great extent, the first Christians were pacifists who suffered martyrdom in testimony for their beliefs. Their ministry was restricted to spreading the gospel of Jesus, and not enforcing obedience; the acceptance or rejection of their message was based upon free choice. However, under Catholicism, the concept of compulsory salvation became an obsessive belief. And, as the reigning 'Kingdom of God' on earth, the Catholic Church instituted a goal of world domination and pursued that goal with a maniacal fervor. It had total faith in its actions and inflicted some of the most horrific persecutions imaginable with total confidence that it was performing God’s will. Shame was lost from its vocabulary. When those early writers within the Church invented stories or added their own beliefs to the record, they did so because they felt they were promoting God’s word. Later, when the Christians tortured and burned others that they labeled heretics, there was still no shame, and therefore no need to hide their deeds. The full, horrendous story can be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia, compiled by the Church's own editors.