(September 27, 2020 at 9:07 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: If they believe the dead jew on a stick was somehow "god" then they are a christian.
Ebionites believed Jesus of Nazareth as a mere man who, by virtue of his righteousness, was chosen by God to be the Prophet of the Messianic Age, while they rejected as heresies the proto-orthodox Christian beliefs in his alleged divinity, pre-existence, virgin birth and substitutionary atonement.
Some modern scholars argue that Ebionites may have been the most faithful disciples of the life and teachings of the historical Jesus.
Christadelphians today claim to base their beliefs solely on the Bible, they reject the Trinity and the immortality of the soul, believing these to be corruptions of original Christian teaching. They believe Jesus is the Son of God, this is only a relational title toward the Father who alone is truly God. Christ's personhood, therefore, is human not divine, (believing this to be necessary in order to save humans from their sins).
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
