On a Tragedy

I am only an undergraduate, and cannot boast of superior knowledge in the matters of church history, but I can comment on what I have learned, and in many aspects, I see the unfolding of Jesus' amazing message upon his followers as an unfortunate tragedy.

I call myself a Christian, although I know that probably the comfortable majority of others claiming the same title would disagree. I believe that it is not doctrine or theology that saves though, but God. I look to Jesus for inspiration. I look to God for help, for comfort, for guidance, for strength, for pretty much anything I would call good in me. But sometimes I realize that so many who share the same faith and same tradition have fallen so far away from intent, that I can't help but call it a constantly unfolding tragedy.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Jesus, a remarkable man and teacher, is unjustly sentenced to death for preaching radical love and peace. After the death of this man, his followers go out through the world proclaiming his teachings. Paul, the great missionary, never even met the pre-Easter Jesus, and yet spoke on behalf of God as a devout Jew and ex-pharisee. Years go by, martyrs die, and Jesus is deified as more than just any man. People start writing of his divinity, of how he was unlike any human, and even greater than any prophet who had come before him. People started calling him God in the flesh, the incarnation of the Jewish YHWH. Years go by and people start arguing about what this man was exactly. Was he God? Was he not God but equal to God? Was he less than God? What exactly was this man who reportedly healed the sick and made the blind man see? It was God, they decided. It was none other than the Old Testament YHWH who created the world and spoke to Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. But did this man Jesus have a body? Or did he only appear to? Does he still have a body? What happened to his body? What happened to his body if he ever did have one? Did he know everything? As God, did he limit his powers while incarnated? Did he change? Did he cease to be everywhere when he was on earth? People started dying for this man, they were dying, people with families, people with children, people with brothers or sisters, young people with futures ahead of them, elderly people with full lives behind them. They all died for this man, this God. What was this man? Does he still have holes in his hands? Does he still wince when he walks from the holes in his feet? Does he still feel my pain? Does he still care about me when I have a bad day?

Then they had to make sure that the correct teaching made its way through history. So we had to make sure that we got everyone on the same page. There must be unity among believers, since we all believe in the same thing, and there was only one Truth, they must make sure that everyone believes it. Get people who were with Jesus. Of course, that must be the way to do it, because I'm sure that after hanging around somebody for a couple years make them worthy of speaking on account of him, knowing exactly what he would have said had he been there. And then when they all die, I guess the real teachings belong to the followers of them. Because, of course, I would know exactly what my grandparents would believe on any matter because I was raised by those that they raised. So a few generations after Jesus of course it must have been the same way, and I'm sure that something like "Authority" is something that can be passed from one person to another at will. I'm sure that if I taught someone for 20 years they would know what I would say if asked about something new that I had not taught them. But the bishops of the old church kept the Truth. The one and only. But then they disagreed. So what truth? Who knew exactly who this Jesus was?

When they start disagreeing about who Jesus was, what Jesus was, what he wasn't, they must be heretics. Let's kill them. That seems to be appropriate. Let's go to war against them. Let's tell them that they cannot be accepted into the kingdom of God that Jesus talked about because they don't believe the doctrines that Jesus never mentioned.

Let's deny Jesus' offer in his name. That sounds like a good idea.

Let's tell everyone what we think Jesus meant, and let's look at what other people thought he meant. Let's look at a few writings that have made it through and see if what we already think about Jesus is reflected in it, and if it's so, then they must be right. Then eventually let's start associating them with the Hebrew Bible, and let's start calling it all divine. Let's start making up theories about inerrancy and God's infallible word because it allows us to use the Bible as evidence for whatever we want it to and claim that it's not our own ideas, but it's God's.

Let's tell someone they're not a Christian because they don't want to believe what someone wrote about Jesus is really not written by them but written by God and therefore the complete Truth. Let's find something to cling to that will allow us to condemn people that aren't like us in the name of an incredible man that reached out to those same people.

Let's tell everybody else that we're the only ones who have it right. Lucky us eh?

I think Jesus would be absolutely appalled at what his teachings became. I think Jesus of Nazareth would find it disgusting that people learned how to hate and discriminate by being raised on "his words." I think Jesus would laugh out loud at the philosophies of those only several generations after his death. I think he would be sad to know that all of his work in trying to promote love and acceptance turned into obnoxious self-righteousness and elitist inclusiveness.

Am I saying that we should not be Christians, not at all. I think we should reevaluate what it means to say that we are one. I think Jesus would weep to those that said you had to believe that these ancient writings we have are divine and as long as we believe every word of them we'll go to Heaven when we die. I think Jesus would weep if he knew that his "followers" did not love those that were "sinners" and instead told them that they were doomed (unless they became like us). I think Jesus would hardly want to be labeled a "Christian" in our society today.

I am proud of being a follower of Jesus. I believe that he was unlike any other man that has ever lived or ever will. I believe that he has the power to save us in this life. I believe that God is revealed through him in a unique way, and that through Jesus we can see what God is like. God is like the caring parent, the loving husband, the accepting friend. God loves us, but it seems like Christians today would like to think that he loves them the best. I think that Jesus is in heaven with God looking down shaking his head at his flock. I think that we could all learn something from him. He died because he wanted us all to love. He died to overcome the power of death. He lived to teach us how.

It is a tragedy, I believe, to see what Christianity has become, and to see how far it's fallen. Oh what it must be like to love others. I hope Christianity comes around to doing that some day.