Abraham and his people were Horites, a caste of ruler-priests who were devotees of the mythical Horus who was called the "Son of God." Many have noted the uncanny correspondence between the myth of Horus and the story of Jesus. The correspondence can be explained in two ways. Either Christians borrowed the Horus myth or Christianity emerges in an organic way from the belief system of Abraham and his Horite people. If we decide that Christians borrowed the Horus myth, we must explain why they should have selected this one in particular. There are other great world myths that could have served as the pattern for the story of Jesus.

Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He will receive an eternal kingdom from the Father. The citizens of this eternal kingdom must themselves be eternal beings and that is why Jesus alone offers eternal life to all who believe that He is the Son of God, the fulfillment of the Edenic Promise of Genesis 3:15. He is able to do this because He alone has conquered death and can deliver sinners from the curse of death. This is the core of Christian belief. Surrounding this core are attendant beliefs which logically follow. One is that to receive eternal life, we must acknowledge our need for mercy, forgiveness and salvation. Another is that God does this for us out of His boundless love. John wrote, "This is the revelation of God's love for us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him." (1 John 4:9)

Some would add church attendance, obeying the Ten Commandments, being a good citizen, voting Republican, etc. None of these have anything to do with the core of Christianity.

Some who call themselves "Christians" reject the core beliefs. The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, doesn't believe that Jesus Christ alone opens the way to Paradise. She is a great innovator who wants the Episcopal Church to welcome everyone and to accommodate core beliefs to personal preferences. She disagrees with the Apostles who said that to be saved we must believe that Jesus is the Son of God come into the world to save sinners. The saints of old called people like her heretics, but current political correctness prevents people from calling her what she is.

Then there are Protestants who have so distanced themselves from the core that they no longer know what is and isn't Christian. They eschew Easter eggs as a pagan practice though painted ostrich eggs were a symbol of life among Abraham's people. They distain sacred mystery so that sacraments are no longer God's work but something we do to make a public commitment to Christ. They put God in a small box. Sometimes the box is labeled "liberal Protestant" and doubts abound about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. Sometimes the box is labeled "evangelical" and the Virgin Mother of God is ignored. Both boxes represent departures from the core of Christianity.

A Christian holds as central the fulfillment of the Edenic Promise through the Virgin Mary, a descendent of the ruler-priest lines of Abraham's people. A Christian venerates the Woman to whom God makes the promise that her Seed shall crush the head of the serpent and restore Paradise. The whole of the Bible is about this promise of Genesis 3:15. When we lose this core belief we must innovate, because we have to put something into the hole left by our prejudices and fears. We introduce praise bands, revivals, church marketing and activities to pump us up emotionally, but that's not Christianity.

----Alice C. Linsley teaches World Religions, Philosophy, and Ethics at Midway College in Midway, Kentucky. She has written extensively on the book of Genesis and is pioneering Biblical Anthropology.