I sometimes think the standard Christian view of things is this.
Mankind, like the people in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, are stranded waiting on aid and God flys over and sees them on the roof waving and holding up signs, but, He can't really do as much as He would like to.
He has some stopgap aid here and there for a few, but, mostly everybody just has to do the best they can to hang on.
Like Federal Aid or the National Guard---Jesus is coming! Hang on! Jesus is coming!
Would that be accurate?
I'll tell you why I say the above.
Jesus arrived and his disciples and Apostles didn't really understand much of anything He said. After all, he spoke in parables and didn't hang around very long. Jesus never instructed any of his followers to write down what he was saying. Neither did Jesus himself write anything down.
He commanded them to preach. That is an oral tradition.
The Jews who believed in a Messianic Jesus watched him die and heard promises that he'd come back and finish the job later. But, that was "Sooner" later, in their belief. They were wrong. He never returned.
Now everybody, Gentile and Jew, really really expected Jesus would return QUICKLY to finish his work.
Jesus did NOT return quickly. I repeat: Jesus never returned!
People such as Jehovah's Witnesses jumped the shark and gave us a Jesus who is back---but, who does nothing!
From the death of Jesus, and later his apostles, the message was passed around. People with different belief systems adopted THEIR VERSION of what they heard. When they believed---(this is important) they believed THEIR VERSION.
As far as I know--and you can correct me if I'm wrong---the ONLY person in the New Testament who was directly instructed to write anything down was John in the "vision" in Revelation.
The oral message spread, certainly. But, Judaism was almost wiped out in 70 a.d. At least it had a huge setback from which, I'd argue, it has never recovered.
This is where we really have a terrible problem for Christians at large today.
Who was shepherding the diverse group of believers?
If you say Jerusalem, well, Jerusalem wasn't instructing Paul what to preach. Jerusalem and Paul were sniffing each other out. Paul had a DIRECT contact (if you believe his vision story) with the Lord and Jerusalem did not.
Everybody had Holy Spirit (or so we are given to understand). But, Holy Spirit didn't stave off what happened to Christianity as far as the ROMANIZING effect of pagan rulership under Constantine.
My point?
If God were running the show through Jesus and the Holy Spirit simply by giving each christian believer a tingling sensation of special contact---it hasn't prevented the corruption of the identity of Christianity with Catholicism.
Splinter groups opposed by an enormous Catholic monolith with the power of Rome behind it doesn't speak well for God's organizational strengths!
If God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus could only barely manage a rag-tag insurgency of martyrs and squabbling heretics it doesn't speak well for THE KINGDOM OF GOD, now does it?
Where in the scriptures is there a command to make a Bible to straighten things out? It was oral tradition and oral teaching and preaching and not the written commands and documentary bastion of carefully preserved orthodoxy which Christianity embraced in the beginning.
This leaves us with a GIANT, GAPING HOLE logic-wise.
1.If God communicates with Christians directly by Holy Spirit--what do you need a bible for?
2.If God communicates with Christianity by Church, then why did the Catholic Church drown out the thousand factions of congregational disunity?
3.If God communicates with Christianity by magisterium, tradition and scripture--then why wasn't the Catholic Church kept pure of pagan corruption and political whoremongering?
4.If God communicates with Christianity by Bible alone---why did the original autograph uncorrupt texts vanish suspiciously into a void only to be replaced over and over and over again by layers of "translation" opinion in which the scribes and copyists shaped the contents to fit pre-conceived ideas?
5.Any word (like "Christian") which can mean anything really means nothing. Christians may agree on general Creed statements---but--they do not embrace one another in the spirit of "that they have love among themselves" as is abundantly demonstrated by sectarian polemic.
The black and white fact of Christianity is that Christians disagree with each other's beliefs about hundreds of issues which tear them apart.
It doesn't seem to matter whether there is a Trinity or not when it comes to the split in the Baptist convention, does it?
What really is the unity in Christianity that differs from the disunity among--say, Democrats with Democrats and Republicans with Republicans?
It is the same story whether secular or religious: HARDCORE FUNDAMENTALISTS are always at odds with SOFTSHELL PROGRESSIVES.
The rest is rhetoric and jockeying for position in pitting one group against the other.
Discussion at the upper levels of religion and politics is always rhetoric aimed at framing the other guy's position in the worst possible light.
PRO-LIFE vs WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE. Take that one, for a good example. You have holy spirit accepting, trinitarian agreeing, Bible loving christians on both sides of that terrible issue, don't you?
Has the Holy Spirit or the Bible done anything to keep Christians from shaking their fist at other Christians on such issues?
I think not!
The proof is in the taste of the pudding.
The arguments I hear and read from Christians from diverse factions are pretty much all Pre-Enlightenment arguments without a shred of practical logic to them.
Christians seem to believe all over the map whatever seems right to them without including the other Christians who think they're full of crap.
Christains are Pre-Enlightenment "thinkers" in a Post-Enlightenment world.
Science is a lie, for example, of the Devil!
One Christian calls another christian "wrong" and views them as unstable, immoral and doomed. Each, however, is convinced beyond all reasonable persuasion that HE has preserved fundamental doctrine inside of his own heart and head!
Christians are suspicious of each other and are quick to condemn you, me or themselves.
As long as they can clutch their bible in their tight little fist and gain comfort all the bad guys are soon gonna die at Armageddon (with themselves safe and secure in Luxury class) all is well.
If I'm full of hot air here please explain to me where I'm going astray.