Like any effective heresy, much of what Samira Kerhner says is based in truth. Much of the corruption that Kernher points out is real and must end.
But make no mistake. This is a clear heresy and Samira has been brought under the sway of deception and error.
I. We Cannot Choose our own Scripture
In this manifesto, famous snippets of scripture are used to deny the whole. We see a bizarre reading of the Epitoth and a repeated prioritization of the Book of Missions. If we were to play the scripture quoting game, we could easily counter these with other famous scriptural quotes, Book I 1:14 or the Second Letter of St. Junip would both run counter to her argument, but to match her quote for quote would be to play her entirely flawed scriptural interpretation game.
A core element of Kernherism to my mind is this fundamental assumption that some scripture is inherently more valid than others. That you can go through the massive volumes of scripture and find ātrueā scripture. And once you have decided what is true, you can just declare the rest to not be divinely inspired. She also prioritizes older scripture over new, but that comes with limits. If one of the oldest scriptures happens to not support her claims, she can just claim that any scripture in conflict with what she has decided is the true Amarr message is a moral reforms interpolation and must be tossed out.
This is a clear heresy and must be opposed. The scriptures cannot be treated so haphazardly and Godās ability to be present and active in the universe in less flashy ways than the Sefrim cannot be denied. A piece of scripture telling the story of one Emperor being required by God to redeem himself by ruling without blatant divine aid as he fixed a crisis that his laxity had allowed does not mean that God abandoned Amarr.
The Moral Reforms were also not the disaster that Samira makes them out to be. They were a necessary reform movement for the Empire and my predecessors, both the Holders of Lokāri and the Chapter Masters of the Sacred Throne Order fought for the side of righteousness in those dark years. While contemporary Amarr certainly needs many reforms, it would take an uncontested divine revelation of a new era for changes to the Order established by the Moral Reforms to be acceptable.
Does Samira claim such a divine revelation? Does she claim to be a Saint?
II. Populism is not an Answer.
While I applaud Samiraās faith in the Amarr People, such an open appeal to populism as a force for change is contrary to the divinely appointed order of things. Samira speaks as if she is one of these masses of Amarr, but she is not. She was exalted far above her origins and is wealthy beyond the dreams of almost any freed person or commoner. Her Holder started it by freeing her family. PIE continued it. Now, from a position of new money, she speaks to the common people as if she is still one of them. But what happens if they follow her advice? Who bears the burden of the upended order?
Samira will not. She is protected by CONCORD and by wealth. But what happens when she incites slave revolts? When she incites riots? Does Amarr change? No. She will just destabilize Amarr and get many people, mostly of the lower strata, killed. And in doing so she fuels the insane fantasies of those corrupt holders who look to the vast populations of Commoners, Freedpeople, and Slaves in Amarr and see something to fear. In every action Samira has made since leaving PAux, she has served to empower the very people she claims to oppose. This manifesto is no different.
Populism just breeds chaos. Like Samira, I have great faith in the people of Amarr. But the answer is not for the people of Amarr to demand change, the people of Amarr should do their duty, be pious to God, fulfill their responsibilities and work within our divinely ordained systems to remove the corruption they encounter both in themselves and in their peers and subordinates.
Reform of the Holder Class may indeed be necessary, but that reform needs to come from within the Holder Class. When I read the stories of the Moral Reforms era, the similarities to our own times are often striking. It is the duty of the faithful Holders to enforce Amarr values on other holders by drawing attention to their corruption. It is our duty to act when those under our authority show corruption. Similarity, it is the duty of our superiors to act on the evidence of corruption in their subordinates. When possible, that action should be corrective rather than punitive, but it is our duty to act. The nobility that treat power as a game rather than a grave and holy responsibility are not true nobles. But neither are those who believe that they, individually, have the answer to the problems Amarr faces.
III. Individualism is the Enemy.
This manifesto is glaringly individualistic. Yes, it shows an admirable compassion for the suffering of others, and an admirable sense of purity of purpose, but it is centered around her own personal fall from faith. Her solutions, the things that the commoners she calls to āmustā do, are her personal solutions. Her interpretation of the scriptures is the one that matters, not the interpretations that was developed by many learned people over millennia, but her own personal take on a complicated subject that she developed over less than a decade. She thinks, in her youthful inexperience, that she is simply better than all those who came before her.
The only prior authority she points to is Toth, who was most famous for getting himself and 50,000 of his followers lost in a pointless search for lost treasures. And even there she misappropriates his memory. According to my theological advisors, whom I admit I needed to consult on his actual teachings as opposed to his wild goose chase, he was certainly a radical theologian who spoke against the Reclaiming and in favor of prioritizing service to God, but he was never declared a heretic. He was also alive centuries before the Moral Reforms, so the systems he spoke against was the very Council of Apostles to which Samira elsewhere in her piece calls for Amarr to return. So even in her one appeal to a past authority, Samira takes her own individualistic approach to interpreting his message.
The strength of Amarr is not in individuality. If anything, those Amarr who embrace their individuality are its worst weakness. The Sani Sabik and other such heresies, the most blatantly corrupt holders, and those who do not do their duty all have in common that they value their individuality. This is not the Amarr way. To choose for yourself is to err. To choose for yourself is the root of new heresy.
The Amarr way is to stand together in community with the faithful. To do our duties with no thought of personal cost. We surround ourselves with the faithful and we stand together. To do otherwise is to betray Amarr and betray ourselves.