You're exactly correct. They perceived that they couldn't control the growing Christian movement, so they co-opted it instead. The Pope's office is literally the old office of the Roman emperor. It wasn't long before the pope took the Roman code and put "the church's" stamp on it.
"Anti-christ" doesn't mean "opposed to" Christ, but rather "instead of" Christ, which is exactly what the Pope claims to be; the regent of Christ, or the representative of Christ on Earth until he "returns", which I find odd considering I thought being Christian meant believing Christ is still among and around us today.
I believe the Vatican was created to take power away from the growing Christian grassroots movement.
They hijacked it. Put a human between us and God. Said we had to go through the human.
In other words, they tried to prevent us from becoming like Christ.
Drowned us in layers of hierarchy.
And I also think they conceived of confession as a way to obtain dirt on people for blackmail.
Just my opinion.
You're exactly correct. They perceived that they couldn't control the growing Christian movement, so they co-opted it instead. The Pope's office is literally the old office of the Roman emperor. It wasn't long before the pope took the Roman code and put "the church's" stamp on it.
"Anti-christ" doesn't mean "opposed to" Christ, but rather "instead of" Christ, which is exactly what the Pope claims to be; the regent of Christ, or the representative of Christ on Earth until he "returns", which I find odd considering I thought being Christian meant believing Christ is still among and around us today.
Christ is within each of us.
Yes, we are all children of God.