"Christianity's Criminal History" by Karlheinz Deschner Volumes 1-3, An apologetic commentary

[Starise]

This group of books 1-3 may be downloaded for free online.

For anyone who has read this work by Karlheinz Deschner, German author, wikipedia HERE, I think we see some backround dynamics that may have led him to write such books against the "church". Being a member of the German Army during WW2 and earlier having had some exposure to what was seen as the church in Germany at that time, having been involved in the 'church' as he seen it.

My commentary will be on the first three volumes with possibly more subsequent commentary on the rest of the 10 volume set. Originally written in German and translated to English.

A few of the opening ideas of the books state in no uncertain terms, that "Christianity" is the main cause of all the problems in Europe. Volumes 1-3 set out to discredit both the bible, the 'church' and Christianity.

Due to the nature of a forum thread, my commentary will in no way be seen as exhaustive. Instead, I will highlight some key points that books 1-3 bring out. I believe to say there aren't anti semetic overtones throughout these works is an understatement, with Hitler referring to the "Jewish problem" in one of his quotes. Not that the Jews are blamed for all of it as we will see.

Karlheinz has been largely accurate in his accusations against those he seen as the "church" which will always be a highlighted term here due to the inaccuracy of the word as it is used in various places in his writings in books 1-3 . for his accusations are leveled front and foremost at the Catholic Church and her inner workings. I always say if one is going to shoot they should know what the target looks like, and in this case Karlheinz blundered seriously in calling the Catholic Church the "church" and referring to them indirectly as the chief elements of christianity.

How could something so blatently obvious have been overlooked, by a man writing 10 volumes no less? Possibly in volumes 4-10 there are accurate references to protestant evils, and we know such evils existed as offshoots of the catholic church during the early years. These were neither true protestant or catholic churches but hybrids driven by the same or similar goals as the catholic church, and therefore, not truly separate entities.

One can only hope the omission wasn't intentional on Karlheinz's part, yet it seems a stretch to say he was unaware of protestant faiths running under different leads with entirely different objectives. Biblical ones. Instead he chooses to magnify the easily magnified sins of the hypocritical Catholic church. Numerous volumes have been written. To call the availability of such books exaustive is an understatement. In using his decided directive, Karlheinz clearly has a fairly easy time of it to uncover sins through history of the Catholic church.

Ask yourself why, in the very beginning, Christians in Rome were thrown to the lions and burned at the stake, then a very short time later Constantine embraced 'christianity'. Why this mad swing? This was the beginning of religion as a means of political power and domination through the popes which have successively continued to this day. To any protestant who knows, this is when the thing promoted in Rome was no longer Christianity. The hybrid which emerged was not true Christianity. Jesus never intended for certain powers to be used in an effort to leverage power and domination in this world. His kingdom will come from Him. Not Rome.

The volumes go on to describe bararious acts done in the name of 'christianity'. This is the spirit of anti-christ mentioned in the bible. The great whore, drunk with the blood of the saints. True belivers everywhere can only cringe when we see the entire world calling this body the 'church'. It surely isn't the church of Jesus Christ, and has habitually wandered so far away from those roots as to often not be recognizabe as anything Christian. The unjust taking of countries, peoples and property is the opposite of our teachings as Christians. Not to mention the sexual mores of the various popes and other general craziness more reminiscent of demons than of saints.

Karlheinz got a lot of it right, but he managed to miss the undercurrent of real belivers all over the world who follow the ways of love to our neighbors as ourselves. THIS is the true church. These are the teachings of Jesus. Not a semite destructive religion. Jesus reached out to all men.

It is very telling what happens to societies that become socialist and godless. Just take a visit to Russia where people aren't allowed to have personalities. Look at what happens when the evil are in power and call good evil and evil good. The communists and the humanists have a track record folks. All you need to is look at it. How can modern man pride himself to be heading this direction yet again?

I will end by looking at the hermeneutical extrapoliations made by Karlheinz in his evaluation of the bible as an incomplete pile of rubbish. We should also be  aware that the catholic bible is not the protestant bible, and yes, they toyed with it. That's why we don't read catholic bibles.

When examining his comments I find he is expert at taking a typo or a way of interpreting something like a geneology and fabricating a story around it with no basis. One problem with his assumptions is we have later manuscripts found that will confirm earlier texts to be accurate, such as the dead sea scrolls. At this stage I can't ascertain if the books he says are falsely attributed is accurate. He could be onto something here, but in the scheme of things, if we believe all scripture is inspired of God, the authorship of the work is secondary to it's importance IF it is inspired and canonnical.

There is a lot to go over in these three volumes. I have only managed to show but a few of the overarching ideas which I feel discredit it as an unbiased work.

 

 

 

[Big Boy Stan Murf]

Quote

Christianity's Criminal History

Somebody is confusing catholics and calvinists as being Christians!

The Lord never lead His people to go out and initiate killing others... self defense of course is a different matter as is not a crime or a sin.

[Starise]

1 hour ago, Stan Murff said:

Somebody is confusing catholics and calvinists as being Christians!

The Lord never lead His people to go out and initiate killing others... self defense of course is a different matter as is not a crime or a sin.

I believe there are saved people in the catholic church, but as a whole catholicism is full hypocrites. I know some saved calvinists and they are pretty good people. It seems you might be referring to what went on back in history with some of them? This would point to my comments about the corruption branching through leadership into other churches. 

[Who me]

3 hours ago, Starise said:

Being a member of the German Army during WW2 and earlier having had some exposure to what was seen as the church in Germany at that time, having been involved in the 'church' as he seen it.

 

A good example of the pot calling the kettle black !

More to to the point, is Christianity true?

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

It isn't  a case of they are so bad what they believe is untrue, but a case of Christianity is true and far too often its proponents don't  live as they should.

[Big Boy Stan Murf]

39 minutes ago, Starise said:

I believe there are saved people in the catholic church... I know some saved calvinists and they are pretty good people

That is in error... one cannot participate and support doctrine that opposes God's Word and be saved.

If they were being led by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, they would depart from the false doctrine.

Instead, they are being led by another jesus into a different gospel... one they is not scriptural.

[Starise]

4 minutes ago, Stan Murff said:

That is in error... one cannot participate and support doctrine that opposes God's Word and be saved.

If they were being led by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, they would depart from the false doctrine.

Instead, they are being led by another jesus into a different gospel... one they is not scriptural.

Some of them have asked Jesus to save them and were raised in the church. Probably not knowing any better. I agree, if they really looked at what the church is teaching they should be looking for another church. 

If you were born into a system it would be easy to stay there and never investigate further, which is unfortunately where a lot of people are.

 

[Starise]

23 minutes ago, Who me said:

 

A good example of the pot calling the kettle black !

More to to the point, is Christianity true?

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

It isn't  a case of they are so bad what they believe is untrue, but a case of Christianity is true and far too often its proponents don't  live as they should.

If you read the volumes it's easy to see how those with no point of reference can be misguided. If the sources can be discredited, so can the god. I would say he made a grand effort to do that here. Due to some of the hermeneutic hoops that have to be jumped through to get to the real truth, it seems convincing if you take it all at face value. 

The alternate replacement is naturalism/atheism. He doesn't emphasize that here, but chooses to emphasize the attacks instead to make way for atheism. Lies should be uncovered, so I think it's fair to analyze this in light of the data we have.

The natural man recieves not the things of the Spirit. They see a book written over a number of years by different authors and flags go up. I'm not necessarily here to preach to the chior. If anyone questions any of this I'm open to discuss.

[The_Patriot21]

One needs to define Calvinism before labeleling anyone unsaved.

I went to a Bible college that was strongly Armenian. I had a professor who hated anything to do with Calvin. For one of my research papers in his class I only used Calvin's commentaries for my research.

You know what...I got an A. And the professor had a new outlook on exactly what calvin really taught. He read those commentaries after that and told me he agreed with 95% of what John Calvin wrote.

To further explain this, he was under the impression that anyone who went to a Baptist church must be a Calvinist. It totally blew his mind when I told him I was baptized in a free will Baptist church, which is Armenian. In fact if you slapped Church of Christ on the sign, you'd never know the difference.

The fact is we arnt saved by Calvin. Nor Armenian. Nor Luther. Nor the pope. We are saved by Grace through faith in Christ Jesus. As long as your faith is in Jesus, it matters not if you believe in pre destination or not.

[Big Boy Stan Murf]

2 hours ago, Starise said:

Some of them have asked Jesus to save them and were raised in the church. Probably not knowing any better. I agree, if they really looked at what the church is teaching they should be looking for another church. 

If you were born into a system it would be easy to stay there and never investigate further, which is unfortunately where a lot of people are.

 

They have God's written Word and access to the teaching ministry of the Holy Ghost.... claiming one has no way of knowing any better on judgement day is NOT going to fly with the Lord.

As an example from current culture, there are people right now being taught that it's OK to be a "gay Christian" and these people know and hear others saying it's a sin so they are responsible to go look in God';s Word to see if it's a sin or not.... these folks will not be going to Heaven because sexual perversion of all types are on the list of "those that do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God"

Those that truly have a heart for the Lord and desire to please Him... WILL hear the leading of the Holy Ghost to study God's Word to learn the truth.

Of course we should pray for them and try to talk to them to lead them into what God says in His Word... but nobody should be making excuses for people that remain in a false teaching because Love would not do that.  Love would seek to correct, lead, and guide people to the Truth and God's Word is Truth.
 

Quote

I only used Calvin's commentaries for my research.

I can't imagine why anybody would want to read what an unrepentant murderer (based on calvin's own writings!) has to say much less hear what they think about the Gospel.

That never ceases to amaze me!

 

 

[Starise]

On 9/12/2023 at 6:33 PM, Stan Murff said:

They have God's written Word and access to the teaching ministry of the Holy Ghost.... claiming one has no way of knowing any better on judgement day is NOT going to fly with the Lord.

As an example from current culture, there are people right now being taught that it's OK to be a "gay Christian" and these people know and hear others saying it's a sin so they are responsible to go look in God';s Word to see if it's a sin or not.... these folks will not be going to Heaven because sexual perversion of all types are on the list of "those that do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God"

Those that truly have a heart for the Lord and desire to please Him... WILL hear the leading of the Holy Ghost to study God's Word to learn the truth.

Of course we should pray for them and try to talk to them to lead them into what God says in His Word... but nobody should be making excuses for people that remain in a false teaching because Love would not do that.  Love would seek to correct, lead, and guide people to the Truth and God's Word is Truth.

One of the points for my commentary was there are two forks calling themselves churches. One is real and the other(primarily the object of those books) is the false one. People are blinded in many cases. It is a mystery how God can work on a person to bring them to truth, especially if they are intelligent and have many layers of the onion working against them seeing the truth.

I agree they can know, but in order to know they have to first be aware there is an error and be willing to explore it. God is the one who changes hearts. Not men.

Imagine being born into a false system. We don't come from the womb saved. We are mostly put into the culture and systems our parents put us unto. Somewhere along the way we might begin to wonder what it's all about and investigate it further. Unfortunately this drives some people to atheism because instead of them considering that the system they have been exposed to is corrupt, they dump the entire system. 

The sad thing is many of these false churches never teach a gospel message, so a person can go on for years unaware. We have testimony from some of our members here who have been through this process. The others who go to atheism are often indoctrinated into that system, which is about as bad as the first, and frankly, the devil doesn't care how you go to hell as long as he gets you there.

A new believer caught up in this stuff is still seaching for their place in all of it. Some will be wishy washy and accept bad teachings because they have family connections through that system.Same as vexed Lot who while he was a beliver, he stayed too close to the bad elements and it vexed him. It ended up costing him his wife.

Other will see the errors, acknowledge them, and move away from it. Sometimes it's a process because they don't always see everything right at once.

I NEVER said they don't have a way of knowing. They certainly can find the truth.