by Richard Dotson

Created on: March 13, 2009   Last Updated: March 23, 2009

Christianity is one of the world's largest religions. It is also one of the most popular and most controversial. We see on the news, the many controversies and disagreements in the Christian church. It seems that not every one who claims to be a Christian agrees on the same issues and doctrines. One of these issues is the idea of whether or not there is room to accept beliefs outside the accepted canon into mainstream Christianity.

Dear readers, to you, my answer is a definite "yes"! In explaining my answer I will first define Christianity. Simply put a Christian is a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christ walked the earth over two thousand years ago. To understand what he taught in his time on earth, we must review what others in that time or in the centuries after, wrote of his teachings.

So we turn to the collection of some, yes I said some, of those writings, The New Testament. Many Christians today believe that to be a Christian you have to believe in The Bible. I do not find this to be true. In the words of a friend of mine, "The Bible does not make a Christian, The Christian made The Bible". It wasn't Jesus who wrote or produced The New Testament of the Bible. The early Church decided which writings were included in the Bible and which were not. Many writings were declared heresy and were suppressed. In fact, the New Testament is not the only collection of texts claiming to portray Jesus' life and what happened to his disciples and his ministry after his death.

We also have other writings such as The Book of Mormon and many Gnostic texts such as The Gospel of Judas and The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. We also have the books of the Apocrypha.. One last thing I have to mention. Christians believe that Jesus ascended to the Father after the resurrection. Some who don't believe in the resurrection of his physical body believe that his spirit ascended. If that is true than we should be able to feel his presence with us and be able to communicate with him, since he is an Intercessor to the Father for our prayers. Why can't we seek personal "gnosis" (knowledge) directly from Christ? I believe that we can do this! So if we gain knowledge from Christ that contradicts the dogmas of Christian churches today, why should we throw that away if it helps us to be loving and peaceful humans? We shouldn't, even if that belief originates from outside organized Christian religion.

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