I was not familiar with Marcion. Just read up about him - what do you mean he was later accepted? The core things he taught are still considered heretical by all mainstream, trinitarian congregations.
Please do a little more study, perhaps from some more 'non-mainstream, trinitarian' sources, Samuel. Perhaps that heresy has become SO 'mainstream' in those sources that they don't honestly give him the credit he so richly deserves.
The fact that the mean, judgmental,
patriarchal, nasty vengeful god of the 'olde' - therefore outdated and 'done away with', even 'nailed-to-the-cross' - OLD Testament has been replaced by the kinder, gentler, even warmer and fuzzier 'jesus' (who forgives everybody, and doesn't require 'repentance,' just a once-and-done prayer) is perhaps the simplest evidence. (Same for 'new testament churches'...oh, yeah - and the advice to newbies: start reading the Bible at John 1:1!)
And that certainly SEEMS to be THE main message from what I call the 'whore church'...
And it's arguably so mainstream that even leftist Wikipedia gets this part right:
"
Marcion of Sinope (c. 85 – c. 160) was an
early Christian theologian in
early Christianity. Marcion preached that
God had sent
Jesus Christ who was an entirely new, alien god, distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of
Paul the Apostle, whom he believed to have been the only true
apostle of Jesus Christ, a doctrine called
Marcionism. Marcion published the earliest extant fixed collection of New Testament books."
Which sounds at least a bit like things in this very thread.
From Angela Tilby in
Heresies and How to Avoid Them (edited by Ben Quash and Michael Ward):
For him [Marcion], there was a fundamental contradiction between law and love, righteousness and grace. Marcion thought that true Christianity was flawed by the incompatibilities at the heart of its teaching. His solution was radical. Nothing less than a restatement of faith would do, and for Marcion that restatement had to focus on what for him was the essential gospel: the love, mercy and compassion displayed in the life and teachings of Jesus. This, for him, was all that was necessary, it was the blueprint for a new and pure humanity. There was no other truly Christian foundation for belief or morality.
BTW - I found that in this 'mainstream'-looking article:
The idea of recasting Christianity for a new day--in softer, gentler hues, with updated ethics and a more relatable God--is always popular.
www.thegospelcoalition.org
