My name is R. Jerome Harris.

For more than 40 years, I identified as a Christian. During that time, I preached, taught the Bible, and sincerely believed I was serving God. I was not pretending. I was serious about my faith, serious about Scripture, and serious about doing what I believed was right.

But over time, something began to trouble me deeply.

I looked at the kind of person religion was shaping me into, and I did not like what I saw. I had become narrow-minded, self-righteous, judgmental, and far too comfortable looking at others as if they were outside of God’s concern. I began to see an “us versus them” spirit in myself and in many around me.

If someone had not accepted the same doctrines, joined the same church, used the same religious language, or identified with the same system, they were often treated as outsiders — even enemies.

That disturbed me.

I began to ask myself a painful question:

Is this really what God wanted?

The Apostle Paul spoke of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control as the fruit of God’s Spirit. But I had to be honest. Much of what I saw in myself, and in organized religion around me, did not look like that fruit.

I also began to notice something else.

The Bible and the religious system built around it were often given more attention, more authority, and more devotion than the very one God sent and commanded us to listen to — Jesus Christ. In Luke 9:35, God says, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”

That verse would not leave me alone.

I did not want to be a worshiper of a book. I wanted to be a worshiper of God. I did not want to follow man-made religion. I wanted to follow the one God sent — Christ Jesus.

But leaving the system was not easy.

I was afraid.

• Would I lose my salvation?

• Would God be displeased with me?

• Was I walking away from Him — or was I finally obeying Him?

So I prayed.

The answer did not come all at once, but it came. And when it did, it changed everything.

I came to understand that God did not send me Christianity. He sent His Son. God did not command me to wear a religious label. He commanded me to listen to Jesus. God did not tell me to place my faith in a religious institution. He told me to obey Him and follow the one He appointed.

That realization set me free.

I began to listen more carefully to Jesus — not through the filter of church doctrine, religious tradition, or the teachings of men, but as my Teacher, Lord, Master, and Head.

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” — John 14:6

That became the foundation of my walk.

I also began to understand that Jesus himself is called The Word of God in Revelation 19:13. The Bible points to him, testifies about him, and contains writings that speak of him — but Jesus himself is the living Word. He is the one God sent. He is the one God exalted. He is the one we are commanded to hear.

I asked, “But Lord, how can I learn from you if not through religion?”

The answer was already in his own promise.

Jesus promised that the Father would send the Advocate, the Comforter, the Helper — the Spirit of Truth — to teach, guide, and remind his disciples of what he taught. That promise is not rooted in buildings, denominations, rituals, or religious systems. It is rooted in the living presence and work of God’s Spirit.

That changed the way I understood faith.

Faith is not walking by sight. It is not clinging to what men can organize, name, control, print, brand, and institutionalize. Faith is trusting the unseen God, the risen and invisible Christ, and the Spirit of Truth sent by the Father.

So today, I do not call myself a Christian.

I call myself what Jesus told his followers to become:

A Disciple.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

• No religious title.

• No denominational identity.

• No loyalty to man-made systems.

• Just a student of Christ, learning from the one God sent.

This website and the accompanying YouTube channel exist for one purpose: to challenge the counterfeit version of faith that claims to follow Christ while often replacing him with religion, tradition, fear, and man-made authority.

• My desire is not to draw people to myself.

• It is not to build another religion.

• It is not to create another label.

My hope is to point people back to the ascended and invisible Christ — the true Teacher, Leader, Lord, Master, and Head — so that they too may learn directly from him and become his disciples.

I am simply a disciple of Christ.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

R. Jerome Harris The Disciple