Stop Worshiping The Wrong Jesus
We are living through a devastating time of disruption and change. The world is at war in seen and unseen ways while technology slowly replaces us, our capabilities, our intelligence, our values, our humanity, our truth, our worth.
The war is not between left and right, but between dark and light.
You don't have to go to another country to see the fallout from this war. Around the globe, the darkest among us have been deemed dispensable by the most powerful among us. But in our country they're also being erased from history.
If there ever was a time for a helping hand from heaven, this would be it. But too many Christians are waiting for the wrong Jesus to return.
Jim Palmer is an ordained minister and former Evangelical Mega Church pastor. He's the author of several books in which he reflects on some fundamental truths about Jesus.
Below is a bit from his book "Inner Anarchy". I happen to agree with him. My wish is for Christians to stop worshiping an imaginary Jesus. The real Jesus is already here dwelling in each of us, asking us to act more like him. It's the only thing that has the power to fix the mess we're in.
Excerpt from Inner Anarchy:
"Jesus did not tell people to behave themselves and accept the world as it was. He told them the world they had accepted as normal was upside down, and then he started turning it over.
"That is why the historical Jesus was a lightning rod. Rome didn't crucify people for being nice. Crucifixion was public torture carried out by an empire against people it regarded as threats to its order. Jesus ended up hanging on a Roman cross. Sit with that for a moment before turning it into jewelry.
"Which brings us to the church's favorite question: WWJD?
"Please.
"Most Christians don't actually want Jesus doing what Jesus did. They want him safely contained in stained glass. They want a Jesus who blesses their lives, validates their beliefs, protects their tribe, endorses their politics, forgives their sins, guarantees heaven when they die, and asks as little as possible of them in the meantime.
"The actual Jesus is far more threatening. He might overturn some tables. He might ask why your church needs another multimillion-dollar building while people sleep on sidewalks. He might sit beside the person your religion says God rejects. He might have harsher words for religious hypocrisy than for the people you've been calling sinners.
"Jesus said that following him meant taking up a cross. We turned the cross into a necklace. There may be no better symbol for what institutional Christianity has done to Jesus. An instrument of execution became an accessory. A summons to radical transformation became a belief system. The man who challenged religious authority became the supreme authority of another religion. Somewhere along the way, believing things about Jesus became a substitute for becoming anything like him.
"Because worshiping Jesus is much easier than following him. You can worship Jesus and keep your privilege, protect your reputation, despise your neighbor, surrender your conscience to a political party, and remain comfortably embedded in systems that exploit, exclude, humiliate, and destroy other people. You can worship Jesus without changing much of anything. Following him is another matter.
"Following Jesus puts something at risk: your certainty, your comfort, your status, your tribe, your need to be right, and your allegiance to institutions that demand your silence or complicity.
"Maybe that is why Christianity has spent two thousand years making Jesus safer. A domesticated Jesus can be worshiped without disturbing much of anything. The Jesus before Christianity is considerably harder to deal with.
"And there is a bitter irony in all of this: the man who terrified religious authorities became the centerpiece of a religion that is often terrified of people who behave like him."
— Jim Palmer, Author, Inner Anarchy
Wonderland
Very interesting concept. I absolutely disagree with you. I don’t need to interpret Jesus. He comes to me. I don’t believe there is a right or wrong Jesus. I believe in Jesus Christ, Lord and savior. He is much more than our description of him in stained glass. Just like my grandchildren are much more than an instagram pictue on the internet. I’m not sure why faith is being attacked these days. I close my eyes, say a prayer, and continue on.
I proudly wear my cross necklace. It was given to me by a close friend when I was fighting a rare disease. I’ve never taken it off.
Evangel
I welcome disagreement. And since Jesus comes to you, count yourself blessed! There are countless interpretations of Jesus in this world, but when Jesus was alive, there was only Him, the Son of God, and he asked us to do the things he did, which included feeding the poor, clothing the naked, and comforting the sick. He did not ask us to interpret him, he asked us to follow him and be like him.
So many Christians today are abandoning their faith or leaving their church because it has become too politicized, leaning so far to the right there's no longer any room for Jesus' truth. This politicization began with the Christian Coalition in the 1990s. When I ran for Congress they issued endorsement cards during church services, rating each candidate on the church's preferred issues, none having to do with Jesus' teachings.
It's interesting you should mention both the stained glass and the cross. I am the only person I know who actually has a ten foot tall stained glass window of Jesus installed in my home. It came from a church in England, brought to the US by a band member of Three Dog Night. I couldn't let it sit in the antique store I found it in. At the bottom of the frame, it says, "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life."
When my home was broken into a few years ago, all of my jewelry was taken, but one piece of jewelry fell and ended up on the floor. It was my mother's baptismal cross which became mine when she passed away. I felt it was no accident that it remained in my possession despite everything else being taken. Apparently I didn't need to wear the jewelry. Didn't Jesus also teach us to sell what we have and give it to the poor?
So you see, we are not so different. We value what we value, but it doesn't negate the truth that Jesus asked us to follow him and honor his teachings, but never suggested we should prioritize funding new church buildings over homeless shelters or venerate him through leather-bound bibles or baubles.
Homeless Valley
Jesus was considered a heretic in his time and was crucified for it. Certain leaders would do the same to him today by assassinating his character if he showed up now and started preaching what he preached back in the day. Look at how they're treating James Talarico for talking about Jesus.
I think it's good for people to express their Christianity through traditional Sunday rituals, bible studies, and symbols, but I agree they should also do the harder work of dispensing love where its sorely needed. I'm no bible thumper or biblical scholar, but I do remember what Jesus said about Judgment Day, that we would be asked what we did to help the least among us: "...whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."
Thank you for your perspective. I always enjoy reading your posts.
Evangel
Thanks for your comment. I agree with what you said wholeheartedly, and the verbal attacks against Talarico are puzzling. How can any Christian claim to be a Christian and despise Talarico when he quotes Jesus straight from the Bible?
Wilsons Grave
I'm glad there's an ex-Mega Church pastor calling out the absurd misinterpretations of Christian theology that many of today's Christian leaders are foisting upon their flock. They no more echo Jesus' teachings than today's Republican party echoes the values of the Republican party of 50 years ago. I agree with Homeless Valley. Jesus turned over the tables of the moneychangers of his day and would do the same today by calling out the spoiled elites of our time...just as Talarico is doing.
Evangel
Good point! Thanks for your comment.
Slipstream
My understanding is that Jesus was an itinerant who travelled the land on foot (or maybe an oxcart when offered) and taught God’s word to whoever would listen. He relied on commoners to house, feed, and clothe Him. He was steadfast in his message of loving our neighbor, children, the poor, the sick, and the shunned. He booted those from the temple who were hawking their wares and didn’t speak highly of the super rich who hoarded their grain while people starved, and firmly stated they’d have a heck of a time getting into Heaven. In my mind and heart, He was a rebel who spread God’s Love to those who felt unloved, rejected, and forgotten. Dark features or light, that’s the Jesus I love.
Evangel
Nicely said. We can love Jesus for our own personal reasons, but the Scriptures revealed who he was.
All the religions teach lessons in humanity and humility. Jesus was a messenger from heaven. He advocated peace, knowing that our survival depends on it. No parent imbued with innate intelligence wants their children fighting or injuring each other. And yet, this is what our world currently thrives on and profits from, nation against nation, neighbor against neighbor. Why does anyone think this is okay?
Charlieville
Interesting…I agree with parts, others not so much. True, I think many professed Christians don’t practice the basic tenets of Jesus’ teachings….Love your neighbor as you love yourself. But I also think many do and they may wear a cross as a symbol of that faith, not just as a pretty piece of jewelry . Personally I wear my cross as a reminder that Jesus is always with me and suffered on the cross for my salvation.
Evangel
I think what the author was saying is that too many Christians wear the symbols, but don't behave as Jesus would have us behave. Of course that is not true in your case. As an example, I had a plumber who proudly displayed the fish symbol on his truck, but in reality there was not a Christian bone in his body.
Also, since you paint icons, you likely know that the earliest Christians did not venerate the holy ones through icons. It was forbidden. This is from a wonderful blog on Christian Iconography:
Stage two of early Christian art extended from about 313, when Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Edict of Milan, up to the 6th century. Art of this period still used symbols and biblical narratives, but in a more expanded and sophisticated manner. In the 4th century letter of St. Nilus of Sinai to Olympiodorus, he wrote advising about the decoration of a church:
“It would be, on the other hand, the mark of a firm and manly mind to represent a single cross in the sanctuary, i.e., at the east of the most-holy church, for it is by virtue of the one salutary cross that humankind is being saved and hope is being preached everywhere to the hopeless; and to fill the holy church on both sides with pictures from the Old and the New Testaments, executed by an excellent painter, so that the illiterate who are unable to read the Holy Scriptures, may, by gazing at the pictures, become mindful of the manly deeds of those who have genuinely served the true God, and may be roused to emulate those glorious and celebrated feats ….“
This idea of church decoration as a kind of Bible for the illiterate is repeated in two letters written by Pope Gregory to Bishop Serenus of Marseilles around the beginning of the 6th century. They were a response to Serenus being so worried by seeing images in church being worshiped by some people that he threw them down and broke them.
“Pictures are used in churches so that those who are ignorant of letters may at least read by seeing on the walls what they cannot read in books.”