It is evident that the God of the ever-expanding universe, in an attempt to fulfill centuries of prophecy and secure mankind to himself, sent his one and only son, the firstborn of all creation, into the world to employ himself in a ministry characterized by miracles, righteousness, nomadism, sacrifice, and repentance, culminating in the climactic events of innocently suffering corporal punishment and dying a horrendous death at the hands of those who take God’s name in vain, and at the behest of his own acolytes.

All of this was obviously meant to serve as a foundation for Christ’s converts to center their faith around bathing each other in baptistries and basins, eating a little bread and drinking a little wine, doing little sing-a-longs, and snoozing through a little sophistry.

It is my estimation that one of two realities occur by implication. Either Christ did not get his money’s worth, having received symbolic fatuities (identified as “ordinances”) and ecclesiastical subterfuge of his sheep, transacted for his obedience, sacrifice, blood and life, or our notions of liturgical performances and spiritual rites of passage curtail all practical relation between those who claim Christ’s name and the very intentions of Christ’s ministry.

If baptism and the Lord’s supper are reducible to symbolic gestures, and if the body of Christ is reducible to ceremonial showmanship, then not only have the gates of Hell prevailed, but they have been relocated and multiplied to buttress every church.

Many professing Christians have been ensnared by the illusion, but their biggest oversight is in imagining that Christ himself will take the bait on his return, apparently ignorant of the call to come out of them and seek the Kingdom of God instead.