What happened to Jesus?

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You all know I am religious. You all also know that I am a sinner -- I've broken TONS of commandments. I'm not proud of that, but I'm being honest here. Christ knew that we would fall short of his ideals; that's why he died on the cross -- to enable us to repent for the things we do wrong, pick ourselves back up, and move forward toward the Kingdom of God.

OK, sermon over. The article in question here Fahrenheit 451 . Now, I don't have a copy of the book in front of me, so please excuse any errors in the quote. An old professor of Literature is discussing the breakdown of civilized society due to . . . several factors, and he says "I wonder if God would even recognize his Son the way we've dressed him up ... or is it dressed him down?"

In that sense, I agree with the author. Attempting to dress Christ as a Republican (or a Democrat, or a Liberal, or a Conservative, or whatever) is pathetic. It de-values the importance and sacred nature of the message he brought. It's good for people to recognize that.

It is ALSO important for people to recognize that this sort of stuff will always happen, and the best defense against it is to be educated about Christ (and the political issues that some politicians try to invoke His name on) rather than just engage in useless knee-jerk reactions like attempting to ban any reference to deity at all in public discourse or burning down the house of the politician who said something you don't like.

 

Ah, perhaps you should consult the Quakers on this...

 

The Quakers believe God condones disobedience to the government even when God doesn't have a problem with it? You'll have to explain.

 

Oh, yeah? What about Christian folk in Germany, say 1939, who were decent enough to disobey their government? Do they have to explain was well?

 

Seeing that the Quakers don't see the Bible as the final word of God - they're quite justified in disobeying it if they have one of their inspirations to do so - and seeing that they have a long history in what is/was considered blasphemy by other churches as well as opposing government oppression (often done in the name of God...), I'd say that stands.

 

In fact, Jesus did much the same thing. Who crucified Him? And what were the reasons? Seems to me that He had been accused of blasphemy. And seems to me that it was "Caesar's" minons who did the dirty work. They certainly did not murder Him because He had been a fine example of a citizen who "obeyed" Roman law. Quite the reverse: He was an upstart, despised by the conservatives, who viewed Him as a threat to the authoritative powers of His day.

 

Actually, Pilot only agreed to crucify Jesus because all of Judaea was ready to revolt if he (Pilot) make one wrong move. It had nothing to do with Jesus Himself.
As for Christians under Nazi Germany, the Nazis were hardly obeying God's laws.

 

And yet Hitler often referred to God in his speeches and the millions who cheered certainly thought God was on his and their side.

Thank goodness we're all too smart to fall for that sort of thing these days. Unlike those silly Germans, we know how to read our Bibles and interpret them properly!

 

While America is no where near the crimes committed by the Nazi regime, and our current regime is certainly not as evil as Hitler's, "sanitizing" by the government and the media, has made America's wars seem a lot less like real wars to its population. The tendency is to think that only a few people are killed here or there, "so it's really no big deal" - Unless of course it's one of your children who gets blown apart by a bomb. Then it suddenly becomes a "real war." Yet, we all know that America's wars are just peachy with God - it's everyone else's wars that He detests.

 

This topic has been beaten into the ground with a Quarterstaff +5...evidenced by the fact that it only took us three pages before we brought up the Nazis.

I would point out that the author's original complaint was that people were hijacking Christ's good name for their pet issues. I would further note that all of us have been doing the VERY SAME in some kind of perverse contest to see who can find the biggest planks in others' eyes. To quote the One we're supposed to be focusing on:

I'm not denying that I have the biggest plank of all, as an American rightwinger and orthodox Christian who is altogether too young to know real suffering. This thread has forcefully reminded me of just how many blindspots I have and how little I know of Who Christ really is. But please, for the love of all that is good and holy -- for the love of all Who is good and holy -- could we stop dwelling on the political particulars and refocus on the Person?

 

Although I have been following this thread I haven't posted anything but a very short comment. But since the Quakers have been brought into it I must make a few comments. I am very familiar with the silent Quakers. They are pacifist and I mean real pacifist. They don't argue. Their groups are run by concensus not by majority vote. They do not advocate breaking civil law but if the 'light of God within you' leads you to believe that a law is wrong you may break it but you must also be willing to suffer the consequences of your action. The two examples that jump to my mind are 1) Slavery 2) Paying taxes to support war.

Interestingly, to me, I was taught the same thing in my Anglo-Catholic theological classes. If a law is wrong you may break it but must be willing to face the consequences of that act.

Now it is my understanding from extensive reading and study of the Bible that Jesus was crucified because he threatened the established Judaic religious hierarchy.

There are many interpretations of the Bible, if there weren't there would be only one Christian denomination instead of the multitude we have now.

[ February 27, 2006, 08:05: Message edited by: Nakia ]

 

Actually, most of the denominations argue on theological issues, like once-saved-always-saved, not on translations.

 

I'm not sure I understand NOG's post. If it refers to my comment: "There are many interpretations of the Bible" then I have been misunderstood. I was not refering to various translations but to various interpretations of the same or similar text.

I am really hesitant to discuss religion because it is such a personal thing and misunderstandings and disagreements arise.

 

Oh, my bad. I understand your reasons to hesitate, but if you say nothing, you've said nothing. If you believe that others suffer for doing wrong, then you have to at least take the risk of telling them, or you're dooming them to suffer.
This is what God taught about spreading His message, in the Old Testament and the New: Tell them what I tell you. If they don't believe, that's their problem, but if you don't tell them, its yours.

 

To try and keep on topic of 'what happened to Jesus' but not get bogged down in theological differences I have always felt that the essence of Jesus's teachings was this:

Treat other people the way you would like to be treated.

Yes, I know there is more to it than that but if we start from there this world would be a much nicer place.

 

Good start, and I agree. If everyone could start there, no matter where we went, things would be better than they are today. Unfortunately, most people are still running on the 'How can I get the Most' operating system and haven't caught the upgrade.

 

For some reason, now every time I look at the title of this thread it sounds more like: "What happened to you, Jesus?! You used to be cool, man."

 

Jesus is still cool! He's ready to forgive anyone who will repent his sins but he can't come busting down the door on people "ACCEPT ME OR ELSE !!!!" ;p