CORBANISM

In the Church's efforts to show how much it can relate to the world, it has become like the world. I believe the war of the Faith, the contending for the Faith, is between the Institutional Church and the Spiritual Church. The Faith is in a battle of identity where one must pick a side and where no one is safe straddling the fence in this battle between the corporeal Church and the celestial Church. We are in a struggle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And unfortunately, these high places are positions within the Church.

The Faith is in a battle between the traditions of men (the long-established religious customs and beliefs that were designed and are used to benefit the religious institution and hypocritical leaders not to help humanity) and the Bread of Life (John 6:35), the Way and the Truth of life (John 14:6). So let's read in Mark 7: 5-13 what Jesus says about this in his one of many contentious encounters with the religious leaders and primary religious institution of his time:

So the Pharisees and scribes questioned Jesus: “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead, they eat with defiled hands. ”Jesus answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’ You have disregarded the commandment of God to keep the tradition of men.” He went on to say, “You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), he is no longer permitted to do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”

This stark rebuke wasn't about Jesus giving a lecture in Mosaic law, but rather, it was a rebuking of the religious leader of their subversion, twisting, and destabilizing the Scriptures to fulfill their greedy appetite, to benefit themselves and to cover up their hypocritical tendencies. One significant way of doing this is by invoking a word, a sub-law that Jesus once spoke of and only once appears in Scripture; that word is Corban or what I call Corbanism (Corbanology). The Pharisees misuse Corban, which means “a sacrifice or offering made to God,” and used it for their own selfish gain. So what was good in essence, became bad in reality. The subject in this passage of Scripture isn't about respect that a child must have for mother and father but about deception and greed and the use of Scripture to facilitate deceitfulness and greedy desires through the twisting of Scriptures. Corbanism not only destabilizes the Faith but also destabilizes the family. To evoke this word (Corban) was not just that, but it also was the dismantling of, the belittling of, and prioritizing of the importance of one's obligation to one's family, in this case, mother and father. To make it clear before I move on, the phrase 'God first, then family.' has never been God's way; his way, especially for leaders, is and has always been 'Family first, then God.' (1 Timothy 3:4-5). This order has nothing to do with which one is less or more important than the other but has more to do with what is important to an unselfish, caring, and understanding omnipotent God who has and is all things.

Basically, it should have been the loving obligation of children to take care of their aging or illing parents with their finances, but if a rotten kid wanted to relieve themselves from what should be a loving obligation, they would invoke the sub-law, the loophole law, the manufactured law, the manipulating law, the tradition of men law called "Corban." Meaning that they could relieve themselves of the financial care of aging or ill parents or of family in general by making a vow instead to give a gift to the Church and the clergy or to themselves. A gift, a vow, a responsibility, and an obligation that should have been reserved for family. This ideology started in the 1950s with the Evangelical/Televangelism movement and has hit full throttle, posing in many forms and variants today. Believers were bamboozled by these false, hypocritical religious leaders and influencers to give to these multi-million dollar preachers and religious institutions rather than providing for their families, ignoring their own family real-life needs. People who are still hurting from the greedy action of the Evangelical/Televangelism and now the Social Medievangelism phenomena. One cannot imagine how many families have been or are now silently hurting because of the many actions of Corbanism, how many families have been ruined by Corbanism, much like those families and communities who are still outwardly and silently hurting from the crack epidemic of the 80s.

Some believers are bamboozled by the most sincere leaders who themselves are unaware that they have been bamboozled by the same false ideology because it is something that has been handed down from generation to generation or because that is the way it has always been done; you know, we call it church tradition—not knowing that religious traditions or sub-laws were created to manipulate Scripture for man's selfish greed and purpose.

You may say: So Ray, I get it, but are you advocating the killing of a child who doesn't honor or who curses their parents? Absolutely not; I see the term "must be put to death" as being used as an idiom, as allegorical, much like the phrase used in the hood when we say, "Kill that noise."_Of course, we can't murder noise, nor should we murder the person making the noise, talking smack, or killing someone for spreading lies. What it means is to stop talking smack, stop spreading falsehoods, or stop doing or engaging in things you shouldn't be. Or, in the instance of this Scripture, not to kill the child physically but to "put to death (another idiom)" or to cease the negative social behaviors or the spread of the negative behavior of that child, not the child. That's what should be put to death.

Paul said:"...Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" Galatians 3:1-3

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. II Timothy 4:1-2.

One thing is for sure: God has no respect for any greatness, any position, or any success gained through deception, greed, and through the manipulation of the Scriptures. So when we say contend for the Faith, let's dig in the trenches and stop living like it's peacetime when the enemy of the Faith has breached the walls. So in conclusion, I leave you with these words of Paul as though they were my own words:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14–21)