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I’m a Restorationist Christian, per the Stone/Campbell Churches of Christ. Restorationist Christianity strives to ignore Church Fathers, ignore Catholic history, ignore Protestant creeds, be only Bible-based, and worship only per the New Testament.
Generally, agreement on this subject is not essential to the Egodeath Core theory. Adherents to the Egodeath theory can have different views on religions.
Restorationism has to be listed as an alternative to the others, so:
Ally the based/trad/healthy version of Cath/Prot/Rest/Orth.
Stone/Campbell Restorationism (those independent Churches of Christ) is historically an offshoot of Presbyterianism, which is a denomination of Protestantism.
Restorationism rejected not only Catholic additions to the Bible, but also rejected Protestant additions, that is, creedalism (reciting Protestant doctrines to adhere to).
Restorationism is not meant to be negatively defined (though they have a negative defining self-description like “Neither Protestant nor Catholic nor Orthodox”). Restorationist Christianity is intended to be positively “based on the Bible only”, without later traditions’ additions, as a strategy for enabling unity among all brands of Christianity.
I’m not an exoteric Restorationist, though; I’m an esoteric Restorationist, by background & inclination. I “affirm and support” literalist Christianity — but I don’t believe literalist Christianity. I agree with Valentinian Gnostics per Elaine Pagels’ first 3 books, as summarized in Freke & Gandy’s book The Jesus Mysteries.
I believe esoteric Christianity metaphysically, together with the mundane sexual-regulation moral values (vs. de-generacy which is infertile). I am not only an esotericist; I embrace mundane moral conduct of life, for prosperity of a nation, like Abraham’s numerous offspring.
A few men should be dedicated to religion, not marriage. This is well-supported in the New Testament.
I also advocate for the Pagan wisdom like Platonism and Greek Mystery Religion; as an esotericist and cultural historian/traditionalist of Western Civilization, I don’t consider Paganism & Christianity to be simply mutually exclusive. So:
Ally healthy Pag/Ath/Orth/Cath/Rest/Prot.
I’m least supportive of “Atheism” – atheists are just ignorant, uninformed, impoverished, don’t understand the real nature of religious mythology and the mystic altered state. As an esoteric Christian, I am more supportive of Paganism than Atheism.
As a possible ranking of valuation of brands of religion:
esoteric Christianity > esoteric Paganism > exoteric Christianity > world religious mythology > Atheism
‘>’ means “is better than”.
‘Paganism’ means Ancient Mediterranean Paganism & Northern European Paganism.
I covered Mediterranean Paganism relatively thoroughly. My writings have only covered Northern European Paganism to the same extent as non-Western religious mythology; as part of World Religious Mythology.
All brands of religion must ally the healthy version of each, against the unhealthy version of each, to lead to thriving fecundity like Abraham’s descendants.
Defining ‘church’ and ‘catholic’
I support traditionalist Catholics — but in the bible verse, the word ‘this’ refers to Jesus, not Peter, as the foundation of “the church”. Peter or the apostles as “holders of the key to Heaven’s gate” doesn’t mean that only the Catholic Church(TM) is valid.
The word ‘church’ means “multiple disciples of Christ worshipping together”, not the Catholic Church(TM) institution. I believe in the lowercase catholic (universal) church, not the exclusive institutional uppercase Catholic Church(TM).
catholic church > Catholic Church
Video:
Explaining the Faith: Understanding the Holy Spirit
57:30 (57:42-58:13)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eexDHK9Xhtc&t=3430
“TM” indicates “trademark”; a joke meaning the official, institutional, top-down controlled Catholic Church, as a powerful political hierarchical institution which has the power to excommunicate and to not share their official Eucharist meal (and its salvation) with outsiders, even though those outsiders consider themselves real Christians. It is exclusive; anyone outside that official, legal, political, institutional church is considered by the Catholic Church as accursed.
As opposed to house-church, legally or ecclesiastically informal, grassroots gatherings of Christians, which are part of the inclusive, broader, lowercase “catholic church”.
The word ‘catholic’ means universal, whole, wide variety; all-embracing. The word ‘catholic’ is derived from the Greek word katholikos; ‘universal’, from kata ‘in respect of’ + holos ‘whole’: “in respect of the whole”.
‘catholic’ = katholikos = kata holos = regarding the whole = the whole church = all gatherings of disciples of Christ = all followers of the Way of Jesus.
The word’s emphasis is inverted in the Catholic(TM) Church, where ‘whole’ comes to mean “excluding all other brands of Christianity”.
“The” papacy and “the” Catholic Church, are historically misleading phrases. Multiple competing popes excommunicated entire competing organizations, so that any Catholic was excommunicated by one simultaneous pope or another. Sermon video: Roman Catholic False Gospel John MacArthur. In Catholic Church history, the word ‘whole’ was used to exclude.
The ‘whole church’ means all followers (disciples) of the way of Jesus Christ.
Supporting People Moving from Exoteric to Esoteric Christianity
People might need guidance in moving from (deeply felt) exoteric literalist religion to (deeply felt) esoteric analogy-based religion. It is not a matter of doing away with their religion and replacing it by different religion — it’s a matter of transforming exo to eso, preserving the lower level and yet transcending it, per Ken Wilber — not destroying the lower level.
Esoteric Christianity does not scorched-earth “destroy” exoteric Christianity. I would not say “Everything you know about Christianity is wrong.” Literalist Christianity is virtually true, and esoteric Christianity is the full development and destination of literalist Christianity.
Literalist Christianity tends to shut-out esoteric Christianity, and that aspect of literalism must be done away with. We must “break” and sacrifice that aspect of literalism which tries to prevent transformation upward to esoteric, analogy-based Christianity.
See Max’s 2020 video debate about this, probably Transcendent Knowledge Podcast, Episode 16 with Jimmy (Kafei) on “Different attitudes towards the historicity of Jesus Christ”.
I don’t know much about literalist Christianity, I didn’t come up through, or grow up with, intensive religion of any type. It was a spread of weak Jewish religion, minimal exposure to fundamentalist literalist Restorationist Church of Christ, moderate cultural Christendom in various churches occasionally, moderate exposure to New Age, Occult, & Human Potential. A cafeteria plan.
Catholicism is a different religion than the mostly Protestant-type exposure I had, occasionally sitting in varied church services and Sunday school. I don’t even know the denominations I was taken to; somewhat Orthodox, maybe Episcopal; a changing assortment of mainline denominations but never a Catholic mass.
I fully support literalist Christianity — but I don’t know it well, how people view and experience and think of their literalist Christianity.
The Egodeath theory 