# Chain: Religious Error > *Established religious doctrines have obscured the simple truth of Divine Love* **The argument it traces:** Inherited doctrines are human constructs, not absolute truth → the Vicarious Atonement is false → organised religion lets human will usurp God's → no written word is final → truth comes through the soul, personally **14** messages · **10** supporting · opening message not yet identified --- ## Elaboration ### 1963-12-26 - [[1963-12-26 Jesus' Birth and Youth|Jesus' Birth and Youth]] Mary corrects doctrine as someone who was there, evidence of a different kind from a reformer correcting doctrine he studied. The virgin birth narrative is untrue. The portrait of an elderly Joseph was invented. The crucifixion was "not as a blood sacrifice as most Gentiles believe" but the sacrifice of a life in carrying out a mission of preaching God's Love. That last correction sits directly against the thread's central claim about inherited error. ### 2015-06-15 - [[2015-06-15 The Imaginings and Ideas of Men Create Falsehoods and Misinterpretations|The Imaginings and Ideas of Men Create Falsehoods and Misinterpretations]] Joseph Smith speaks about the church he himself founded, having come into the Celestial Heavens and the truth of Divine Love, "though I had glimpses of this Truth while on Earth, I did not fully understand the workings of this Love." He does not disown the founding, and he confirms that the help was real: "the angels did indeed come to support me and influence me in my work in creating this great church." The error came afterward. "Now I see that this church and its workings have become too infected by the human condition. It is indeed a great machine desirous of consuming all of humanity in what it perceives to be the truth. And its workings are complex and its understandings unfortunately contain more error than truth." He then generalises it to the thread's central claim, in the words the message takes its title from: "so it is with many religions that are organized in the world. The will of man usurps the Will of God. The imaginings and ideas of men create falsehoods and misinterpretations of the laws and Love of God." Two facets. First, the mechanism is named as appetite rather than mistake: "This desire often is for power and recognition," which he traces to the beginning, "The source of the great fall of mankind is to be powerful, to not acknowledge the power of God." Second, the instruction is to stay and work from inside rather than to leave: "continue to challenge that which you see is error, for if you do so in Love and integrity, you will make some changes which are necessary... if you, who say you are a part of this church, become an example of Love and Truth within it you will have an opportunity to change the conditions within it." ### 2016-04-02 - [[2016-04-02 Jesus' Ministry and the Teachings of Divine Love|Jesus' Ministry and the Teachings of Divine Love]] **(anchor)** The correction of the vicarious atonement (the belief that Jesus' death paid for the sins of humanity), given by Jesus himself: "nothing could be further from the truth that my death and my blood could save humanity," an interpretation that "has wrought much pain and error in the world." It stands beside Mary's eyewitness correction ([[1963-12-26 Jesus' Birth and Youth|1963-12-26-ds-mary]], "not as a blood sacrifice") and the Testimonies of the reformers, and here the correction comes from the person the doctrine is about. Presumptive anchor material for the atonement step of the argument. ### 2016-07-18 - [[2016-07-18 Pursuit of Truth|Pursuit of Truth]] Supplies both the reason the written record cannot hold and the faculty that succeeds it: "your journey is to understand truth in your relationship with God," and the mentally assembled paradigm is serially superseded, "do not rely upon this chimera of understanding for as you journey forward it will disappear and something else will emerge," so the remedy is not a better doctrine but a different faculty. Closest member [[2016-04-12 Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth|2016-04-12-af-moses]] (Objection-removed); distinct from Luther's own 2015-06-21 sincerity facet. Testimony considered, but Augustine 2015-03-28 already holds it; Elaboration the modest fit. ### 2016-08-31 - [[2016-08-31 Welcome to Frankfurt|Welcome to Frankfurt]] The successor-reformation facet, the reformer's verdict on the mechanism of reform itself: "In my time my thinking was different and my efforts were born mainly of the mind, the material mind," and therefore "those of you who are willing, must again fight for change... to start a new Reformation," whose method reverses direction: "It is not from the mind to the soul, beloveds, in these days ahead, it is from the soul to the mind." Closest member his own 2016-07-18 (the chimera and the faculty); new facet: the thread's members end at the correction; this turns the correction into a programme and names its faculty, the thread's only forward-looking statement. Kept at Elaboration over the staging caveat: a programme is not a restatement. ### 2019-03-14 - [[2019-03-14 Love Is My Message|Love Is My Message]] Jesus himself extends the thread's argument that no written word is final and truth comes through the soul, applied directly to the Bible: "there are many things there that I have said and done and there are many things that I have not said nor done," so "when you read that book... bring it to your heart and listen to what your heart has to say." Adds the reform vision from the source it most needs - the churches should "simplify the doctrines, to wipe away the error," their edifices become "sanctuaries of light." Where Augustine (testimony), Joseph Smith (institutional ambition), and Moses (Vicarious Atonement, finality of written word) build the case from various witnesses, here the founder of the tradition confirms it: read scripture through the soul's feeling for truth, not as final authority. ## Objection-removed ### 2016-04-12 - [[2016-04-12 Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth|Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth]] Moses repudiates the Vicarious Atonement from inside the tradition that produced it. He names the practice as his own people's: "In our Jewish culture and religion, shedding of blood was a common attempt to appease God," and gives the reason it was done, "we feared God and in many ways we blamed God for our mishaps." He then traces the Christian doctrine directly to it: "when our brother Jesus, a Jew, and a prophet, and the Messiah, was put to death, the concept of the blood having power to wash the sins of humanity arose from these old beliefs." The denial covers both the original practice and the doctrine built on it: "They are entirely erroneous, even when we practiced in the old days this sacrifice, it had no effect in our world and still today, the idea of the sacrifice of our dear brother has had no effect and will never have any effect upon the souls of men." What replaces it is personal responsibility: "each soul, each man, each woman must be responsible for their actions." ### 2016-04-12 - [[2016-04-12 Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth|Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth]] The scripture claim, which is the larger of the two repudiations. Again from inside: "We, the Jews, took great import upon the written word. We felt that the written word was the Word of God." His verdict on the Bible is neither dismissal nor endorsement, and he is careful about the distinction: there is truth in it, "There are moral laws which, if heeded, will bring a soul to a place of purity of action," but "many of the words written within this document have little or no consequence to the progression of a soul," and the whole "is not entirely false nor is it entirely true. It is old concepts and understandings from many, many years ago which have been transmuted into erroneous beliefs." He adds a practical warning: "an individual living in this present time would have a great deal of difficulty discerning Truth from this document." ## Testimony ### 2015-03-28 - [[2015-03-28 The Journey of Divine Love Takes Time but Brings Great Benefits|The Journey of Divine Love Takes Time but Brings Great Benefits]] Augustine names himself, names what he did, and says what he now does about it. He opens: "I am Augustine, once the bishop of Hippo while on Earth. I played a great part in developing the church of Christ, and in so doing I encouraged many erroneous beliefs and understandings of Jesus' true message." What he does now is undo it: "so today I work with souls on the Earth and souls in spirit to bring this Truth and clarity, the Truth of God's Love, which is the message that Jesus brought to the world." This is the thread's claim in the most direct form it can take. The other members argue that inherited religious teaching is in error; Augustine is one of the people who taught it, saying so himself. He does not defend the error, explain it away, or describe himself as having been misled. He says he encouraged it, and that it was his doing. ### 2016-03-30 - [[2016-03-30 A Lesson on the Power of Humility|A Lesson on the Power of Humility]] Augustine tells how the error came about inside the man who taught it. He received the Love while he held power in the church, "God touched my soul in prayer, God lifted me up in prayer and I did indeed receive the first drops of His Love in those times when I was in a position of power and control within our church," knew the better road, and refused it out of ambition and the fear of losing his power, "I knew there was a higher road to take and yet I resisted." The result is the thread's subject, "I taught error and that error to some degrees still survives to this day within the church," and the cause is the registry's third step seen from inside, human will put in place of God's, "I did not listen to God, I listened to my own mind and desire and fears, my own humanity." [[2015-03-28 The Journey of Divine Love Takes Time but Brings Great Benefits|2015-03-28-af-augustine]], the section's anchor, says what he did; this message says why. ### 2018-11-05 - [[2018-11-05 Speak Up for Truth and Change|Speak Up for Truth and Change]] The founder of Methodism on the limits of his own ministry: "I was unable to clearly understand the truths that were attempted to be given to me by the angels in heaven. My mind would not accept that which was not in orthodoxy presented within the Bible," so the best he could do was "reorganize and rearrange the information within that noble book." From the Celestial Kingdom he judges his church and others in need of reform, "my church and I would venture to guess all churches in your world, are in great need of reformation," with the cause named, "truth has been perverted by this ambition to have control, wealth, power." Stands with the other reformers testifying against their own traditions. ### 2019-01-31 - [[2019-01-31 Reincarnation and the Perception of It Proliferated by Many Yogis and Gurus of the East|Reincarnation and the Perception of It Proliferated by Many Yogis and Gurus of the East]] Yogananda on his own tradition's perpetuated error: taught reincarnation from a young age as part of his culture, believed and reinforced it through his spiritual pursuits, and corrects it now from spirit. Extends the thread's reformer arc beyond Christianity for the first time. ### 2019-04-01 - [[2019-04-01 We Are Not So Different|We Are Not So Different]] Yogananda's reincarnation correction in full, in the first person, and, notably, its origin story: he taught reincarnation as his guru taught it, then entered spirit and found that among all his loved ones and the ancient teachers, "NONE of them had ever had any experience of reincarnation on earth," and so dropped the belief. Complements his 2019-01-31 correction (through Al Fike) with the personal narrative of how the error fell away. The thread's Eastern voice deepens: confession, repair (the Yogananda book), and now the moment of seeing. ### 2019-04-06 - [[2019-04-06 Your Gifts Are Opening|Your Gifts Are Opening]] The correction as an ongoing project rather than a retrospective confession: "there are many things missing within this prescribed way to God that I have put forth on paper. I desire to rectify the error... and to bring the Truth of Divine Love in these teachings." Yogananda plans to correct his own published books through a new writing rapport, for the many who follow his path "yet they miss the greatest Truth." With his 2019-01-31 reincarnation correction, the thread's Eastern voice now holds both the confession and the repair. --- ## Also touches on this *These messages restate or echo the idea rather than carry it forward, so they sit alongside the thread rather than in it.* - **2015-06-21** [[2015-06-21 God's Will Is above Man's Will|God's Will Is above Man's Will]] (considered and set aside) - The message does not address religious error or doctrine; its subject is God's Will prevailing over human will. - **2016-07-18** [[2016-07-18 Pursuit of Truth|Pursuit of Truth]] (build) - The same spirit's [[2015-06-21 God's Will Is above Man's Will|2015-06-21-af-martin-luther]] does not address religious error; this message is where Luther carries the thread. - **2016-09-02** [[2016-09-02 I Am Your Brother|I Am Your Brother]] (witness) - The worship-misdirection facet, "it is God you must worship; it is God you must reveal your heart and your souls to". This corrects a practice rather than a doctrine, which none of that chain's messages do, and the message never turns to religion, churches, or the history of the error. Worth reading beside [[2016-04-02 Jesus' Ministry and the Teachings of Divine Love|2016-04-02-af-jesus]], the same spirit correcting the same family of error. - **2016-09-10** [[2016-09-10 Divine Love Will Change the World, Starting with You|Divine Love Will Change the World, Starting with You]] (context) - A full doctrinal address whose every argument is already carried at member level elsewhere. The confession is the [[2015-03-28 The Journey of Divine Love Takes Time but Brings Great Benefits|2015-03-28-af-augustine]] [[Chains/Religious Error|Religious Error]] Testimony; the complication motive is the [[2015-06-15 The Imaginings and Ideas of Men Create Falsehoods and Misinterpretations|2015-06-15-af-joseph-smith]] Elaboration; the simplification-of-a-life claim is the [[2016-08-28 Pray for the World Healing Centre|2016-08-28-af-faith-nyquist]] witness under [[Chains/Simplicity Of The Path|Simplicity Of The Path]]. Witness level throughout, with two facets named below. - **2016-09-10** [[2016-09-10 Divine Love Will Change the World, Starting with You|Divine Love Will Change the World, Starting with You]] (witness) - The corrected term given positive content, by the man who helped build the error. "When the Master Jesus taught of redemption this is what he spoke of, it is the transformative blessing of the Father's Love, it is the Divine Essence coming from the Creator, it is the Holy Touch that awakens the soul." The thread's atonement members work by negation; this supplies what the word means once the negation is accepted. One sentence, so witness. The Testimony half of the message is already held by the same spirit at 2015-03-28. - **2016-09-12** [[2016-09-12 You Are Supported in Your Struggle|You Are Supported in Your Struggle]] (context) - Jerome of Prague (c. 1379 to 1416, burned at the Council of Constance) has been raised as a possible identification, on the martyrdom and the street preaching. Nothing in the text confirms it and neither the message file nor the spirit file carries it. Recorded only because it would change what this message is evidence of: if it holds, Jerome stands beside Martin Luther, John Wesley and Joseph Smith among the institutional witnesses of [[Chains/Religious Error|Religious Error]], and his counsel becomes the most striking thing in the message, a man executed by a church council telling a servant to go into the churches, pray in their services, and let their error pass uncorrected. Do not build on it until a message names him. - **2016-12-07** [[2016-12-07 Pray from Your Heart|Pray from Your Heart]] (sighting) - "Do not worry for those who are entangled within the dogma of religion. Each soul will find their way to God in some way." The dogma named as something to leave to God rather than to correct. - **2018-11-26** [[2018-11-26 Clarification on the Existence of Jesus|Clarification on the Existence of Jesus]] (witness) - How error enters through the well-meaning, "There are many in your world and there have been many in your world, that have brought distorted truth through and yet they strive to bring light and harmony and truth to the world," which has "brought forth many errors within the Bible, many errors in doctrines of religion... through the best of intentions." - **2019-01-30** [[2019-01-30 How Can We Discern Truth When Messages from Different Mediums Contradict Each Other|How Can We Discern Truth When Messages from Different Mediums Contradict Each Other?]] (sighting) - The James Padgett record and the correction of mediumship expectations; the message's spine is mediumship and discernment. - **2019-04-06** [[2019-04-06 Your Gifts Are Opening|Your Gifts Are Opening]] (build) - The writing collaboration this message initiates did materialize and later produced a book of Yogananda's messages. Strengthens the [[Chains/Religious Error|Religious Error]] Testimony above: the announced repair project was carried out.