The Gospel of Jesus

His (and my) imminent return.

“The promised speedy re-coming of Christ from heaven, was the exciting cause to the belief of the great mass of the early Christians; like a bill renewed, it has existed to the present day, appearing as a delusion at interlapsed periods. Even the Millerites [7^th Day Adventists – author] are not the last; for a colored convert to the doctrine of Christ's speedy coming from the clouds, has more recently formed a party in Brooklyn. The whole subject is big with instruction, identifying Christianity with fanaticism, and illustrating its want of evidence. G. V.” [Gilbert Vale]

In an article “The Gospel of Jesus.”
Monthly Beacon 1:4
Aiugust 1847
p. 63

The author’s own return after a twenty-six day hiatus is at least a better performance than that of the Christ. Any reader of the so-called Gospels can clearly discern that Jesus himself plainly believed and declared he would return … and SOON !! “And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.” [Matthew 16:28] His followers clearly believed it. “Surely I come quickly. Amen.” [Revelation 20:22] Let’s be frank: Jesus didn’t and hasn’t in the passage now of two thousand years.

I am back, however amen, to remind you that when the Christian church was in charge, this kind of talk carried a death offense.

François-Jean Lefebvre de la Barre (12 September 1745 – 1 July 1766) may have been the last European executed for blasphemy. The twenty-one year old Frenchman was arrested when he and three companions failed to remove their caps for a Corpus Christi procession of the Catholic Church. For the sake of history and memory, read here the charges and punishments:

”Regarding Jean-Francois Lefebvre, chevalier de La Barre, we declare him convicted of having taught to sing and sung impious, execrable and blasphemous songs against God; of having profaned the sign of the cross in making blessings accompanied by foul words which modesty does not permit repeating; of having knowingly refused the signs of respect to the Holy Sacrament carried in procession by the priory of Saint-Pierre; of having shown these signs of adoration to foul and abominable books that he had in his room; of having profaned the mystery of the consecration of wine, having mocked it, in pronouncing the impure terms mentioned in the trial record over a glass of wine which he held in his hand and then drunken the wine; of having finally proposed to Petignat, who was serving mass with him, to bless the cruets while pronouncing the impure words mentioned in the trial record.

In reparation of which, we condemn him to make honorable amend, in smock, head bare and a rope around his neck, holding in his hands a burning candle of two pounds before the principal door of the royal church... of Saint-Wulfram, where he will be taken in a tumbrel by the executioner who will attach before and behind him a sign on which will be written, in large letters impious one; and there, being on his knees, will confess his crimes...; this done, will have the tongue cut out and will then be taken in the said tumbrel to the public marketplace of this city to have his head cut off on a scaffold; his body and his head will then be thrown on a pyre to be destroyed, burnt, reduced to ashes and these thrown to the wind. We order that before the execution of the said Lefebvre de La Barre the ordinary and the extraordinary question [that is, torture] will be applied to have from his mouth the truth of several facts of the trial and revelation about his accomplices... We order that the Philosophical Dictionary [of Voltaire] ... be thrown by the executioner on the same pyre as the body of the said Lefebvre de La Barre.”

Ten years before the Declaration of Independence in America and a bit more than twenty years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the sentence was carried out to the letter … and more. The young man was made to confess on his knees in the prescribed manner. And he was horrifically tortured before having his tongue cut out, finally beheaded, his body burnt on a pyre with Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary nailed to his torso. Louis XV refused him clemency. Under the severest torture, Lefevre gave up not a single name of a fellow offender.

”The promised speedy re-coming of Christ from heaven, was the exciting cause to the belief of the great mass of the early Christians; like a bill renewed, it has existed to the present day, appearing as a delusion at interlapsed periods ... The whole subject is big with instruction, identifying Christianity with fanaticism, and illustrating its want of evidence. G. V.” [Gilbert Vale, 1789-1866]

The restoration and memorialization of our nearly forgotten progenitors and family; this is 21st Century Restoration.

French postcard circa 1906. Paris, 18th arr. at Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre: statue relocated in 1926 and later melted by Nazi occupation forces. {Photo is public domain]

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