Jesus who?!?

The politics Jesus wouldn't do...

2006-04-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

"There is no such thing as a "Christian politics." If it is politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: "My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here" (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program.

This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, "Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him" (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.

Those who want the state to engage in public worship, or even to have prayer in schools, are defying his injunction: "When you pray, be not like the pretenders, who prefer to pray in the synagogues and in the public square, in the sight of others. In truth I tell you, that is all the profit they will have. But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father, and your Father who sees you in hiding will reward you" (Matthew 6:5-6). He shocked people by his repeated violation of the external holiness code of his time, emphasizing that his religion was an internal matter of the heart....."

Full article...

Then there is the Gospel of Barnabas...

2006-04-19T03:29:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, any debate over this text is wrapped up in Muslim-Christian rivalry. But, perhaps out of all the extra-biblical sources in the hunt for the historical Jesus, this is the most controversial? After all, it is the primary source Muslims use to provide a critique of the traditional Christian view of Jesus.

"The Gospel of Barnabas is a work purporting to be a depiction of the life of Jesus by his disciple Barnabas. The two earliest known manuscripts have been dated to the late sixteenth century, and are written in Italian and in Spanish; although the Spanish version survives now only in an eighteenth century copy. It is about the same length as the four canonical gospels put together (the Italian manuscript has 222 chapters); with the bulk being devoted to an account of Jesus' ministry, much of it harmonised from accounts also found in the canonical gospels. In some, but not all, respects it conforms to the Islamic interpretation of Christian Origins; and consequently its authorship and textual history remain the subject of continued controversy.

The Gospel is considered by the majority of academics (including Christians and some Muslims) to be late, pseudepigraphical and a pious fraud; however, some academics suggest that it may contain some remnants of an earlier apocryphal work edited to conform to Islam, perhaps Gnostic (Cirillo, Ragg) or Ebionite (Pines) or Diatessaronic (Joosten), and some Muslim scholars consider it genuine…."

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Barnabas

Judas Iscariot: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?

2006-04-06T08:42:00.000-07:00

Easter seems to bring about more debate over the historical Jesus... constructive or not... it is that time of year again...

http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/

Here is a selection of the debate from Beliefnet:

"The document is clearly a gnostic forgery. Key concepts and words from gnostic philosophy are prevalent from even the first few pages. There is a reason that the attempted 'hijacking' of Christianity by gnosticism failed-it was clearly demonstrated to be false and historically invalid during the second/third century. Visit: http:///www.davinci-code-breaker.com/gospel-of-judas.htm for more info. The truth prevailed, gnosticism and its historical revisionism faded away." (rmcwilson)

"One of my favourite versions of the Christ story is the much-maligned Last Temptation of Christ. In it, Judas is portrayed as not exactly sympathetic but understandable.What is often lost in discussions is that there was a militant strain of Judaism that advocated armed revolt against the Roman oppressors. Kazantzakis' Judas is a former zealot who sees Jesus as a potential messiah but is disillusioned when Jesus advocates a passive campaign against the Romans. It's truly fascinating stuff." (dplatt)

"It has been said that a wise person can learn something from any book - even a lousy book, as an example of what is lousy - whereas a fool cannot learn from even the greatest book. My attitude toward the Bible is not reverent, but respectful. I have tried to learn from it without blindly and dogmatically accepting everything as literal truth. But then, that is how I approach most serious books. God-breathed? Perhaps - but who is to say that God didn't breathe through other books as well?" (Heretic for Christ)

Jesus, the King of Kings

2006-03-05T16:33:00.000-08:00

"Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Mahomet, and Napoleon; without science and learning, He shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and schools combined; without the eloquence of schools, He spoke words of life such as never were spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of any orator or poet; without writing a single line, He has set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art and sweet songs of praise, than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times. Born in a manger, and crucified as a malefactor, He now controls the destinies of the civilized world, and rules a spiritual empire which embraces one-third of the inhabitants of the globe. There never was in this world a life so unpretending, modest, and lowly in its outward form and condition, and yet producing such extraordinary effects upon all ages, nations, and classes of men. The annals of history produce no other example of such complete and astonishing success in spite of the absence of those material, social, literary, and artistic powers and influences which are indispensable to success for a mere man."

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Philip Schaff, German-American Theologian and Church Historian

Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings

2006-02-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

Are there universal truths? If we compare the sayings of Jesus and Buddha the answer is a heartfelt yes.

Buddhism and Christianity would appear to have little in common. One is non-theistic for instance, the other, theistic. But the sayings of Jesus and the Buddha, whose teachings gave rise to the two religions are another matter. They have much in common in the realms of ethical behavior, discipleship, compassion, materialism and the inner life. The following are some examples.

Jesus: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31

Buddha: "Consider others as yourself." Dhammapada 10:1

Jesus: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." Luke 6:29

Buddha: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words." Majjhima Nikaya 21:6

Jesus: "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." Matthew 25:45

Buddha: "If you do not tend to one another, then who is there to tend you? Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick." Vinaya, Mahavagga 8:26.3

Jesus: "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword." Matthew 26:52

Buddha: "Abandoning the taking of life, the ascetic Gautama dwells refraining from taking life, without stick or sword." Digha Nikaya 1:1.8

Jesus: "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." Mark 8:35

Buddha: "With the relinquishing of all thought and egotism, the enlightened one is liberated through not clinging." Majjhima Nikaya 72:15

Jesus: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." Matthew 28:19-20

Buddha: "Teach the dharma which is lovely at the beginning, lovely in the middle, lovely at the end. Explain with the spirit and the letter in the fashion of Brahma. In this way you will be completely fulfilled and wholly pure." Vinaya Mahavagga 1:11.1

Reprinted from "Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings" edited by Marcus Borg, published by Ulysses Press

Unitarian Views of Jesus

2006-02-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

"How odd of God," said someone, "to choose the Jews!"

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But the fact remains that the Jewish contribution religious insight is unique and unsurpassed, and for me, all that is best in the faith of Israel is summed up in the life and teaching of that astonishing first century rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, one of the greatest religious geniuses of all time. and the very embodiment of the Liberal Christian brand of Unitarianism to which I have always given my allegiance. Could this be the truth behind the claim (which few of us now take literally) that he was indeed the Christ, the Holy One of God and the Lord and Master of us all?

As H. G. Wells no less once said "Jesus was like some terrible mortal huntsman digging mankind out of the snug burrows in which they had lived hitherto. In the white blaze of his kingdom, there was to be no property, no privilege, no pride, no precedence; no motive indeed, and no reward but love".

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But there is much more to Jesus than the challenging paradox of his teaching. The effectiveness of any religious tradition always depends upon the extent to which it is focused through some great human personality. In an age when we are only too conscious of the fact of suffering and the problems involved in the idea of God, the light which shines through the life and death of Jesus, undergirding us with an unshakeable awareness of a transcendent but immensely demanding love, still remains the clue to ineffable joy.

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For me, Jesus is certainly not Very God of Very God. The supreme irony of mainstream Christianity lies in the extent to which it has obscured his essential humanity in a morass of sycophantic adulation. But despite the historic reluctance of most of our Unitarian forbears to offer him worship or adoration, I find increasingly he can indeed become, in a symbolic or mythological sense, a true image of the divine - a window through which we can catch some authentic glimpse of that Reality which he was not afraid to think of in terms of a daring metaphor built out of the tender experience of human parenthood.

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Arthur Long

The continuing fascination of Jesus as a man and as a religious symbol derives from his constant gnawing away at our collective and individual consciousness.

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Because he put his finger on what is wrong with our lives as individuals and as a race in a way that no one else has done before or since, and has shown the way out, we have not been able to forget him. But because he has been remembered, he has constantly suffered at the hands of those who have sought to explain him, tame him or generally make him fit in with their own particular needs and desires.

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He cannot be neatly categorised. The Gospel records themselves are usually enough to give the lie to any cosy misconception, and when these records are linked with the ongoing experience and thought of the Christian community it is clear that Christ continues to challenge us and defy our attempts to tie him down.

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While Jesus was, like all people, a unique individual, he was not other than human. He was our brother in every sense, sharing the same human lineage as us. And thus when we speak of him as child of God, as incarnate divinity, as vessel of God's promise to humankind, we speak of him as embodiment, as symbol of what is true of every human baby.

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The ministry of Jesus, and of those who have walked the same path, was indeed an enfleshment of creative power, supremely that of love, which can re-make human beings by revealing to them their roots in a divine creation, their reclaimable goodness and wholeness, their oneness with this glorious universe.

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Jesus was, and is, the focus of a dynamic community dedicated to the remaking of humankind. There are other such communities focused on other individuals and they too are evidence of divine re-creation. It is a tragedy and a betrayal when such communities are led into conflict with each other through ignorance and the corrupting powers of pride and fear. I believe that all humanity's spiritual traditions recognise a universal kinship between their followers, even if some of them choose to deny it.

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Cliff Reed

The life and teachings of the great religious poet, Jesus of Nazareth, are a continuous source of inspiration astonishment and deep delight to me.

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His sayings and stories, the paradigm of his life, speak ever more richly to mind and heart. The integrity of person, the incredible matching of life and language challenge to the core of my being. I admire his example in speaking out for the poor and despised, the underprivileged and socially unacceptable people of his day; his liberal, open attitudes towards women; his compassion; and his single-minded courage in risking his life for a new way of understanding our relationship with God and creation. I count him amongst the greatest of the children of God; a beautiful poetic genius who lived out the wisdom he taught.

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The title of 'Christ' absorbed the Hebrew notion of the Son of Man and the Roman concept of genius; our alter ego, the Other - the enormous potentiality inherited through billions of years of evolution. It was understood in theology as the archetypal image of God in the psyche.

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Christian theology usually assumes Jesus of Nazareth became the Christ - that he realised in his own nature the union with the Other described as the mystical marriage between God and the soul. The Christ is an archetype of human potentiality, God in the soul, realised or integrated within the life of Jesus; but realisable too, as for example St. John of the Cross taught, by any human being through this hypostatic union. (The Buddha, too is a figure in whom the archetype of the 'Self' has constellated.)

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Jesus the Christ becomes so much more meaningful to me, more inspiring and convincing, as another human being, struggling with God and humanity as I do, rather than as a god whose facade of humanity is, consequently, quite different from mine. The Way to Salvation, wholeness of person, is revealed in the paradigm of the life and teachings of Jesus. Its flower is the experience of union or nirvana, where we shed the delusions of time and separateness.
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David Doel

An extract from Unitarian Views of Jesus

‘Who do you say I am?’ From faith to faith, visions of Jesus vary

2006-02-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

“Many Buddhist teachers I know, and myself included, view Jesus as an enlightened being, a bodhisattva, whose message was not that much different than that of the Buddha’s.”Lama Chuck Stanford of the Rime Buddhist Center in Kansas City

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The “who question” about Jesus is key, Thomas A. Noble tells his students.

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“I unpack all the rest of Christianity from Christology (the study of Christ),” says Nobel, professor of theology at Nazarene Theological Seminary of Kansas City.

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Similarly when professor Warren Carter of St. Paul School of Theology teaches New Testament classes, he asks students to think about two questions Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do people say I am?” and “Who do you say I am?”

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“I talk a lot about this in relation to particular texts we work on,” Carter says. His goal is to help them understand that “there wasn’t a monolithic understanding in the New Testament” about Jesus and that church doctrine about him continued to develop after New Testament times.

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Christians, however, aren’t the only ones thinking about Jesus. He’s also on the minds of adherents of many religious traditions. And their answers to Jesus’ questions vary widely. Here is some of what they say:

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Islam

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Muslims call Jesus Isa (variously spelled Issa or I’sa) and call him a highly honored prophet, though not divine. The Qur’an mentions Jesus many times and includes a story of his virginal birth. Islam believes Jesus was calling people to surrender to God, which is what the word “Islam” means. So they view him as a Muslim, even though he lived hundreds of years before Muhammad. Although they believe Jesus performed miracles, they deny he was crucified. Rather, they say, God merely made it appear so to Jesus’ enemies. Muslims believe Jesus ascended bodily to heaven.

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Syed E. Hasan, chairman of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a member of the Islamic Research Foundation, calls it “an absolute requirement of the Islamic faith to believe in him and the message he brought.” But Hasan notes that “Islam rejects the concept of Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and emphasizes the oneness or unity of God.”

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Judaism

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Jews acknowledge that Jesus is the personal historical connection between them and Christians. Jesus was a Jew, and his followers believed he was the promised Messiah of Israel, a claim most Jews who knew — or knew about — Jesus when he lived rejected.

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Rabbi Alan Cohen of Congregation Beth Shalom says that not many years ago, “with the taste of persecution still very fresh in the mouths of many, Jesus’ very name was anathema to most Jews. Identifying him and acknowledging his existence would be to painfully give life to the accusations of ‘Christ killer’ and deicide that began in the early years of the church and continued to modern times.

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“While today there is still no unanimity of views about Jesus within Judaism, there is certainly a much more accepting view. To many Jews, he was born, lived and died a Jew. Some would clearly identify him with an element of the rabbinic community of the first century and categorize him among the reformers of that community. Probably many would say not just a reformer but a radical reformer (but one who) … never proclaimed a messianic status.”

Hinduism

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The range of views about Jesus in Hinduism is quite wide. Some Hindus admire him so much they think of him as a yogi (a practitioner of yoga) and follow his teachings. But, as a rule, Hindus reject the Christian contention that somehow the incarnation of God in Jesus was unique. Hindus believe God also was incarnate in such Hindu deities as Krishna.

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Anand Bhattacharyya, an active member of the Kansas City Hindu community, calls Jesus “a great seer of truth like ancient Hindu sages. He had extraordinary yogic power to communicate with God and revealed his messages to the followers. I am particularly overwhelmed by his message of love, kindness and compassion. He was a true Bhakti yogi.” (“Bhakti” is derived from a root word that means “to be attached to God.”)

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Sikhism

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Sikhism emerged 500 years ago with no direct connections to Judaism or Christianity. But an indication of the respect with which some Sikhs view Jesus can be found in an essay by a Sikh on a British Broadcasting Corp. Web site, .uk/religion /religions, that describes various religions of the world. Nikky Singh writes that she sees Jesus “as a wonderful parallel with the person of Nanak, the first Sikh guru. There is no direct connection between Christ and the Sikh gurus … but when we look closely at them, they illuminate each other.”

Buddhism

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There is no generally accepted Buddhist view of Jesus, but some Buddhists think of Jesus as a bodhisattva, one who, motivated by compassion, seeks enlightenment for everyone, including himself. Lama Chuck Stanford of the Rime Buddhist Center in Kansas City is among those who think that: “Many Buddhist teachers I know, and myself included, view Jesus as an enlightened being, a bodhisattva, whose message was not that much different than that of the Buddha’s. Jesus encouraged his followers not to harm others and to be kind, compassionate and to love others.”

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Stanford notes that “Buddhism predates Christianity (by about 500 years), so there would be nothing in the teachings about Jesus.”

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Baha’ism

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Adherents of the Baha’i faith believe Jesus was a manifestation of God but not the only one. Rather he was one of several messengers from God. The founder of Baha’ism, who took the name Baha’u’llah, called himself “a later manifestation” of God. In addition to Jesus, this line of messengers honored by Baha’is includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster and Muhammad.
Christian-related movements

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As Warren Carter notes, it took traditional Christianity time to reduce its beliefs to written creeds to which church structures gave approval, but eventually those creeds declared the church’s historic view that Jesus is God’s fully human, fully divine son and one of the persons of the Trinity. Various other views (under such names as Arianism, Nestorianism and Monophysiticism) were expressed in early Christianity — and have continued to emerge in other times and places — but eventually were declared heretical if they disagreed with the Nicene Creed, which first was articulated in 325 C.E.

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But faith communities with connections to Christianity have developed views in tension with traditional Christian beliefs. Among them:

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Mormons

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with headquarters in Utah, calls Jesus the “Heavenly Father’s Only Begotten Son in the flesh.” But the writings the church holds as scripture go beyond the Christian Bible to include the Book of Mormon, which tells a story of how, after Jesus was resurrected, he appeared to people in what is now known as America, taught them his gospel and formed his church.

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The Book of Mormon says the people to whom Jesus appeared here were descendents of a prophet named Lehi, who the book says lived in Jerusalem about 600 B.C.E. and whom God commanded to lead a small group of people to the American continent.

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The Community of Christ

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Formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with headquarters in Independence, this group also holds the Book of Mormon to be holy scripture but has positioned itself closer to traditional Christianity than the LDS church.

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Bruce Lindgren of the Community’s First Presidency’s office says the church believes Jesus is “ ‘God with us,’ the Son of God, and the living expression of God in the flesh. … Although we do not use creeds in our worship, we believe that our understanding of Jesus Christ is consistent with the ecumenical Christian creeds.”

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Unitarian Universalism

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In this tradition, Jesus is often honored as a wisdom teacher but is not considered divine and certainly not part of any Trinity, which Unitarians reject.

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The Rev. Thom Belote, pastor of the Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church, says that “if you ask a Unitarian Universalist if they believe Jesus was God, most would probably answer no. And it would be a tremendous mistake to interpret this reply as a negation, a rejection or a denial.

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“We say that Jesus was fully human, no different than you or I, except that he made use of that humanity more fully than you or I ever will. … Jesus’ ministry did not so much point to a kingdom in a time to come. It said that the kingdom is already here.”

Christian Science

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The founder, Mary Baker Eddy, expressed great reverence for Jesus as she created her unique views on healing. One tenet of Christian Science says in part: “we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.”

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Riley Seay of the Christian Science Committee on Publication for Missouri puts it this way: “We look at him as the savior of the world, as the son of God, as pretty much as he identifies himself as scripture. We look to him for guidance. He was the master Christian, if you will. Through healing we know we are on track with his theology. If we understand what Jesus was teaching, the byproduct is going to be healing.”

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Unity

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This movement, based at Unity Village near Lee’s Summit, says it affirms the divinity of Jesus in that “Unity teaches that the spirit of God lived in Jesus, just as it lives in every person. Every person has the potential to express the perfection of Christ, as Jesus did, by being more Christlike in everyday life.”

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Jehovah’s Witnesses

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This faith community believes Jesus must always be distinguished from — and is subordinate to — God. The group’s Web site explains: “In every period of his existence, whether in heaven or on earth, his (Jesus’) speech and conduct reflect subordination to God. God is always the superior, Jesus the lesser one who was created by God. … After his resurrection, he continues to be in a subordinate, secondary position.”

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That view differs markedly from this one expressed by the Nicene Creed: Jesus is “the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”

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But, as Carter says, that wording took time to develop. As his students wrestle with New Testament passages, he says, he first tries to get them to see what the text itself is saying about who Jesus is rather than imposing a Nicene or other view of him on the verses in question.

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Noble at Nazarene Seminary describes the process for his Christian students this way: “We’re exploring what we’ve already confessed.”