Bearing False Witness

A debut book offers a reinterpretation of Christian theology.

In an appraisal of virtually the entirety of Christian thinking, Brathwaite argues that the church has spent centuries misleading the faithful into a belief in false and distorted teachings. Chief among these is the existence of hell. The author argues that Scripture clearly teaches that God’s love and mercy cancel out any possibility that souls might be cast into an eternity of suffering in payment for their sins. He builds upon this assertion by also arguing that souls are not formed at conception or birth, but that all souls have existed since the start of creation. This fact, then, would lead to a reevaluation of the soul’s fate after it has lived in a human body. Eventually, Brathwaite comes to his ultimate thesis, that the soul lives more than one life. Rather than label this as reincarnation, he calls it regeneration. Brathwaite declares throughout this work that the established Christian church has knowingly ignored obvious Scriptures on regeneration to control believers with the promise of heaven or hell, earned through a single life. Various discussions stem from the regeneration argument. For instance, the author theorizes that the priest Melchizedek was an early manifestation of Jesus, and that John the Baptist was indeed Elijah the Prophet. Brathwaite also asks how the spirit of sin is supposed to have spread through every generation of the human race, whereas individual spirits are supposedly confined to single lives. Brathwaite’s arguments have the potential to be revolutionary in nature; but his rhetoric toward the established faith is so caustic that it detracts from the strength of his arguments. Speaking throughout of an “impostor God” and theology taught by “bearers of false witness” who act as “pallbearers” for the faith, Braithwaite is strangely harsh toward the basic thinking of the global church, even if he feels it has always been in error. A lack of academic rigor (for instance, little if any use of original Greek and Hebrew) also handicaps this otherwise promising work.

A thought-provoking, but imperfect call to a revolution in Christian thinking.