The Gospel of Jesus

By John H Lindell

The Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth Is not what you think it is!

The New Testament contains two different Gospels, describing two different ways to find the Kingdom of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rogers Rocketships
• Release date: May 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781636250328

John H Lindell

John Henry LindellOctober 9, 1930 - February 27, 2021John attended Baylor University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Religion in 1952.In 1953, he was called to become the minister of the Baptist Church at Turnersville, Texas. Later, he was employed as a caseworker at the Texas Department of Public Welfare in Houston. John continued his education at The University of Texas - Austin and was a member of the first graduating class to receive a Master of Arts degree in Social Work in 1957. John was a dedicated caseworker, counselor, and administrator in family and children's services throughout the state of Texas. He was instrumental in the growth and development of the Texas Department of Public Welfare (Human Services) for over 30 years. He retired from the Department in 1987.John evolved from his Baptist heritage and became a member of the United Methodist Churches in Corpus Christi and Austin. In 1980, he joined the First Unitarian Church of Austin. A lifetime of religious study and reflection led John to embrace Christian Deism.He was enormously proud of his Swedish heritage and opened his home to several visiting Swedish relatives. As a city councilman, he answered the call of his Rollingwood community and contributed to the greater good. John led a life of selfless service and was always at the ready to help a friend in need.John was a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, uncle, family counselor, marriage officiant, inventor, author, poet, small business owner, songwriter, and lover of life.

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Foreword

(Why you should read this book.)

The New Testament has two different gospels in it.

This book reveals the one taught by Jesus of Nazareth.

That is why, next to the Bible, I believe this is the most important book in the history of Western Civilization.

At this writing, America is being destroyed; our citizens are divided against each other, our laws are unenforced, our borders invaded, our dollar inflated to worthlessness, our treasury in unrecoverable debt. War in the East has begun. Worldwide pandemics threaten our future. If this trend continues unabated we will sink into a new dark age.

If you are someone who does not believe in any higher power over humanity, if you've been told that only physical things exist, that there are no absolute truths or principles, especially in morality, this book is for you.

All societies are built on some common attribute that establishes unity and trust amongst its citizens. A common morality was the basis for vastly different colonists from many different societies being able to create an America. Today that basis is severely damaged. But there is hope.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth showed us a practical method, based on lasting principles, of bringing a truly peaceful civilization into physical reality. Or as close to one as we poor, flawed human beings can manage.

America’s founding fathers knew of, understood and believed in his message. They designed America as a place where self-supporting people who lived by Jesus' morality could prosper. As a result, America became the land of hope, freedom and prosperity for the whole world to see.

However, only a brave and moral people can live in an ‘America.’ Today, you can see all around you, many multitudes of Americans have been corrupted.

But the good news is; Jesus’ instructions have been rediscovered, clearly showing each of us how we can improve our own lives and fix society in the process. 

Like you, I thought I already understood the Gospel Jesus was bringing us. When I learned the truth, I changed.

I became a Christian Deist.

I believe following Jesus’ Gospel, his morality outlined here, will give you and your family, anybody, the keys to a successful and happy life. As you demonstrate its power by your success, it will spread throughout our society and restore Americans and America to greatness again.

Jon Charles Rogers

The Mainland, 2022

Preface

(About the author and how this book came about.)

I was born in 1930. As a child, I grew up in Baptist churches where I was taught that everyone is naturally bad (sinful) and will be punished by unending dying in a horrible place called hell. I was told that the only way to avoid this punishment was to become a Christian by believing that God's only divine Son (Jesus) paid this death penalty for us by dying on a cross (crucifixion). At age 11, I became a Christian by accepting Jesus as my savior. At age 14, I decided that I would become a Baptist preacher to save people from hell.

At age 17, I entered Baylor, a Baptist university, as a ministerial student. Before then, I had not thought much about what I had been taught. In my sophomore year, I began to question the idea that people would go hell if they did not believe in Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross. I recognized that most people in the world would never even hear about Jesus. It did not seem fair for God to treat people so unequally. Also, unending torture in hell seemed cruel. I could no longer accept these ideas.

After graduating from Baylor University, I got married, entered a Baptist theological seminary, and became pastor of a church in a small town. My experiences in the seminary and in the church led me to face the fact that I was not a Baptist in my beliefs, so I dropped out of the seminary and left the ministry to begin my search for what I could honestly believe.

I began a career in social work, obtained a master's degree in social work at the University of Texas, and spent 33 years in family and child social services. While my wife and I were rearing two sons and a daughter, we were members of Methodist churches, and I personally continued my search for what I could reasonably believe. At the age of 38, I wrote a small book entitled Principles and Practice of Natural Religion expressing my personal religious beliefs. I called my religion Eso, a Greek word meaning within because I found my beliefs within myself from observation, experience, and reasoning.

In 1981, at age 50, I joined a Unitarian Church that belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). In its by-laws, the UUA stated that it would cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great teachers and prophets of humanity, immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love to God and love to humanity. This described my personal religion. In 1985, the UUA deleted this statement from its by-laws because a majority of the members of UUA churches did not affirm a belief in God. Eventually, I realized that a UUA church was not the place for me.

In 1998, I discovered that my personal religion had been known as deism for more than 300 years. A deist named Matthew Tindal published a book in 1730 entitled Christianity as Old as Creation: or, The Gospel, a Republication of the Religion of Nature. Tindal explained that belief in God and love for all people are the timeless principles of natural religion, and are the essence of Christianity. Tindal used the term Christian Deist to refer to someone who holds this view.

I am a Christian Deist.

This book is the result of my journey and my search. I want to define Christian Deism in simple, understandable terms as taught by Jesus in his parables so that others may benefit from knowing the natural religion that he taught so many years ago.

John Henry Lindell

Introduction

How the simple religion of Jesus came to be the complicated and convoluted orthodox doctrines of the trinitarian Christian church is a story that most people do not know but need to learn if the history of Western Civilization and the deist movement is to be understood.

The English word deism comes from the Latin word deus which means God. Deism is a natural religion that is known through human observation, experience, and reasoning. Natural religion is as old as humankind, but historically it acquired the name deism in the 17th century CE (Common Era or Christian Era) in England.

At that time, religion was defined by the national Church of England in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion adopted by the church in 1571. These Articles of Religion consisted of doctrines of trinitarian Christianity which were considered orthodox. As the state religion, these doctrines were enforced by church and civil authorities. Anyone opposing these doctrines was subject to charges by the church and government, and might be imprisoned or executed.

Most of the early deists considered themselves to be Christians but they believed that the natural religion taught by the person, Jesus, had been subverted by the theology of Paul of Tarsus and revised in creeds created by a series of church councils beginning in 325 CE.

Trinitarian church leaders viewed deism as a threat to the authority of the institutional church so deists became the targets of zealous attacks by trinitarian clergy.

To explain Deism, from its rise in the 17th century to its importance today, this book is divided into four parts:

The First Section will show the history, origin and development of orthodox trinitarian theology explaining how this version of Christianity became dominant today.

I will next show how the intellectual developments of the Age of Enlightenment helped the spread of deism. I will review how deist thinkers contributed prominently to history and the American Revolution.

The Second Section will tell Jesus’ known history from his origin as a political revolutionary, his evolution into a religious leader and establish the context of his message.

The Third section will give Jesus’ religious message clearly to show its importance for all people today.

The Fourth Section will give some help to those who wish to practice Christian Deism as a personal religion.

And finally, I will offer some final thoughts and two Appendices on the background research used in writing this book.

The third Appendix is about the future of Christian Deism and a call to join in common Fellowship.

PART ONE

Understanding Today’s

Christian Gospel

THREE BLACK SWANS

I looked upon a silver lake

One early morn in Spring

And sailing there,

Were three black swans

That made my heart to sing.

With grace,

They glided silently,

As mist hung in the air,

And for a moment, in my mind,

With them, I glided there

John Henry Lindell

May 22, 1989

One

Today's Christian Gospel

and Its Origin

The word gospel means good news. In the book called the New Testament, there are two different messages called the gospel. One was given by a man called Jesus of Nazareth, and the other was given by a man called Paul of Tarsus.

The gospel given by Jesus is that the kingdom of God (the reign of God) comes on earth when people follow God's commandments (laws) to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Love for God is shown by love for