"Nobody who ever met Jesus ever had a moderate reaction to him…They either hated him and wanted to kill him, they were afraid of him and wanted to run away, or they were absolutely smitten with him and they tried to give their whole lives to him."
(J. Stott)
The strange thing is that the Jesus portrayed by many who profess Christ today doesn't provoke any of these reactions.
11 comments:
Are you kidding? Have you seen the great howling and gnashing of teeth by conservatives about James Tallarico and other progressive-minded Christians? They hate the Jesus that we recognize and lash out regularlyand venomouslt.
On the other hand in Jesus' day the people that loved Jesus were the normal people, the regular people, the workers, the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed. They did love Jesus and great crowds followed him. It was the religious and powerful elite, the rich oppressors who hated Jesus. In that sense not much has changed.
Dan
No.
Well, maybe that’s because the Jesus you recognize is significantly different from the one in Scripture.
Yeah, unfortunately the same crowds that “loved” Him, also yelled “crucify Him”.
Craig, missing the point, said:
maybe that’s because the Jesus you recognize is significantly different from the one in Scripture.
OR, maybe the Jesus YOU recognize is significantly different from the one found in the pages of the Bible? You'll recall Gandhi's apt words about "followers of Jesus" vs Jesus his own self as presented in his own words?
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Isn't it at least possible that you, in your fallible humanity - along with the other fallible humans in your human tradition - have read the Bible, read the Gospels and come away with an image of Jesus that simply isn't recognizable from his own words and the presentation of him in the Gospels?
I'll remind you that I grew up conservative and believing just as you believe, being taught to take the Bible literally and Jesus seriously. And the more I did that/do that, the less I can see much of the actual Jesus in my former (your current) human tradition.
He's just not there.
But on topic, where you say:
The strange thing is that the Jesus portrayed by many who profess Christ today doesn't provoke any of these (hate/love) reactions.
Talarico, Jeff St, Dan, the extended beloved community are constantly being attacked for following the Jesus we understand from the Scriptures. The religionists HATE our notion of Jesus (which we would say is just commonsense, rational and biblical to the extreme).
On the other hand, the poor, the LGBTQ crowd, immigrants, the marginalized... they LOVE our beloved community and the Jesus we present.
In other words, at least in OUR circles, we ARE seeing those reactions. That's all I was pointing out.
I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that I might get things wrong about Jesus. That is why I always ground my view of Jesus as firmly as possible within Scripture. Given your penchant for editing and paraphrasing Jesus to fit your predilections, I doubt you'd say the same. Now, I don't arbitrarily limit what can be learned about Jesus only to the Gospels (or parts of the Gospels).
I'll remind you that I simply don't care about unproven, unprovable, claims about how you grew up. It's just you being narcissistic.
I do so appreciate your bold decision to speak for me and to attribute things to me without proof.
More narcissism. "Look at how people hate us." Bullshit. People don't "hate" you because of the nonsense you spout, people here don't even "hate" you because of how you act, your lies, your vitriol, and your unpleasant personality. That's just your imagining something that isn't there, yet still puts the focus on you. We might attempt to correct you, mock you, or ridicule you, but not hate.
I'm sure they do because you present a Jesus that tells them exactly what they want to hear.
Craig:
That is why I always ground my view of Jesus as firmly as possible within Scripture
Me, too. That's what led me away from conservative religionism. Their Jesus and theories have very little to nothing to do with Jesus as found in the pages of the gospels. Again, maybe you are the one that's getting it wrong?
Craig:
I'm sure they do because you present a Jesus that tells them exactly what they want to hear.
Well, we present Jesus who says, "I love you. I welcome you to the Beloved Community of God. Enter by God's grace! (and not a bunch of rule-following dictated by various human authorities...)"
And yes, they DO love that message that is grounded in Jesus' actual teachings. You know, Good news for the poor and marginalized. Welcome. For God so loved ALL the world... that God is not willing that ANY should perish... I come to seek and save the lost!... Invite the poor and marginalized to my dinner table... for what you do for the least, you do for me...
Yes, people (especially amongst the poor and marginalized) DO love being loved and welcomed. Is that NOT what your church does?
As to "unprovable claims" about how I grew up... It IS quite provable. You can find records of the Southern Baptist Victory Memorial Church in Louisville, KY. You can see in their various records that they were just a traditional SB church, part of the local traditional Long Run Baptist Association, with pastors coming from the traditional Southern Baptist seminaries teaching quite traditional Calvinist(ish) messages. There are many people still alive who know me well from those days. They could easily attest that I was a very traditional, conservative, anti-gay, anti-abortion, devoted conservative values boy, then man.
It may not be EASY to establish how conservative and traditional my faith and experience were, but it is certainly provable.
Now, I GET that you are someone who repeatedly says that humanity is totally depraved and I might have been HIDING all my wild, flamboyant liberal ways all those years just to play a trick on people. Or something.
But that's so daft as to be just ridiculous. I was what I was and it's provable.
IF you have that much distrust for human records, then why in the name of all that is holy do you believe ANYTHING about the bible? I mean, they ALL could have been secret radicals just waiting 2,000 years to expose their evil liberal plans! The whole story of Jesus could have been entirely made up! There WAS no Jesus-barjoseph born in Bethlehem. it was all a series of human lies as part of some secret leftwing plot.
Testimony is not that difficult to discern and figure out. You believe it in the case of Jesus' story 2,000 years ago, why would you think it's "unprovable" now?
This kind of paranoia is just baffling.
Seriously, just you and me, right here, right now?
Do you truly DOUBT that I attended VMBC MULTIPLE times each and every week - Sunday School, Sunday worship, RA classes in the evening, Sunday evening worship, visiting the elderly on Thursdays, Prayer meetings on Wednesdays. Kids and youth groups around all of that... Do you seriously think in your head that I'm making ALL of that up?
Why?
OR, do you have the grace and common sense to at least allow, "yes, he probably DID actually attend that church all those years ago... there's no rational reason to guess he's making it up and I certainly have NO proof that he's making it up..."?
Do you have the grace and common sense to allow, "And yes, he probably truly DID believe all those conservative teachings back then. He probably DID "walk the aisle," confess his sins and pray that old sinners prayer back when he was ten at a weeknight revival service, just as he says... I have no reason to seriously think he'd make that up..."?
Do you have the grace and common sense to allow that, "And yes, he probably was a devoted and regular part of his youth group, his youth choir, his adult choir later on, his CCM band later on... he probably DID go to Ridgecrest and other youth and Christian camps back in the day, probably DID have a more adult experience at 16 at one of those camps where he was "sanctified" as they teach in the Nazarene church that he probably DID attend in his 20s, just as he says..."?
Do you have the grace and common sense to allow that NONE of that is likely made up and that you certainly have no reason and NO evidence to make such a guess? That it's just as likely that, as many serious conservative religionists do, as he grew older, his faith path just took a good faith turn that has led him to where he is today?
This has always been an exceedingly strange bit of testimony against conservative religionists, this hostility and mistrust against people who came from their same tradition.
I'm still plugged in enough at VMBC (even though I've left it far behind) that I manage a FB page of people who attended VMBC from the 1950s - 2000. I've got a photo/flickr account dedicated to sharing photos from those years (and beyond). I just today scanned and posted more photos to that group and to this account...
https://flickr.com/photos/59766195@N00/albums/
It's just so deeply strange. You all don't believe women know best when they say, "I think abortion is my best choice right now." You don't believe LGBTQ people and their families know best when they want to get married or adopt a child or support a trans person. You don't believe progressives when they tell you that they love God and the bible and are dedicated to walking in the steps of Jesus our Lord (if you'll forgive the sexist language), you don't believe Muslims who tell you they intend no evil or abuse, and you don't believe people when they tell you their actual real-life experiences. On and on it goes, you all just treat all of humanity as if they/we were "totally depraved" - which, to be fair, might be what many of you believe, but still, it defies reason and basic common human decency.
It's deeply strange.
So what? You’ve got a few snapshots purportedly showing you in a place in that moment. I’ve got pictures of myself in a garage, therefore I must be a car.
Still can’t prove what you “believed” or what “the church” believed or what you were “taught”.
From someone who regularly denies the validity of the lived experience of others to demand that others blindly accept your alleged lived experience as being absolutely trustworthy and accurate is just one more of your double standards.
Well, if you’re going to make a bunch of crap up and insist that I believe the crap you made up, why don’t you just start a blog where you make shit up and pretend that I believe the shit.
Paragraph after paragraph of nonsense sprinkled with Dan making shit up and attributing it to me.
The problem is that you have done nothing to convince me that I should trust you. You regularly lie, you make shit up and claim that I “believed” it, you misrepresent people regularly, and you’ve given me zero reason to blindly accept your stories.
Does the Jesus you present talk much about being righteous like the Pharisees? Much "Go and sin no more."?
In a world of Photoshop, AI, and deepfakes, the fact that you can scrounge up some pictures purporting to be from the past, is hardly proof.
What is fundamentally unprovable about your claims is what you cannot prove. What you heard, what you thought, what you believed, whether of not what you heard was sound Biblical teaching. The simple fact is that you can't prove these things. Add to this your tendency to have poor memory to make things, up, to misrepresent, and to lie, and I have no reason to take anything you say as an accurate representation of reality. You may remember it thus, but memory isn't proof.
"Now, I GET that you are someone who repeatedly says that humanity is totally depraved and I might have been HIDING all my wild, flamboyant liberal ways all those years just to play a trick on people. Or something."
Yes, you projecting some made up BS on me and claiming that it represents anything I have said is outright daft and ridiculous.
"IF you have that much distrust for human records, then why in the name of all that is holy do you believe ANYTHING about the bible?"
Because I trust YHWH, I trust the Holy Spirit that inspired the Biblical authors, and because the Biblical text is far and away the most accurately maintained and attested manuscript from antiquity.
" I mean, they ALL could have been secret radicals just waiting 2,000 years to expose their evil liberal plans! The whole story of Jesus could have been entirely made up! There WAS no Jesus-barjoseph born in Bethlehem. it was all a series of human lies as part of some secret leftwing plot."
Well, have you considered some competent mental health treatment? Because you sound nuts here.
"Testimony is not that difficult to discern and figure out. You believe it in the case of Jesus' story 2,000 years ago, why would you think it's "unprovable" now?"
Apples and oranges. I have no reason to trust that you haven't shaped, paraphrased or otherwise manipulated your story because you see some benefit for yourself.
"Do you truly DOUBT that I attended VMBC MULTIPLE...
I don't doubt the possibility that you were there, yet that's not the real issue. If merely showing up at a church building made you something, then hanging out in a garage makes you a car. You're offering evidence of one claim "that you went someplace", as if it proves your other claim regarding what you were "taught", what you remember, whether you remember accurately, and what you believed.
"Do you have the grace and common sense to allow, ..."
Coming from someone who demands unreasonable levels of proof and dismisses the lived experience of others, this is freaking hilarious. But absent some kind of miracle you can't prove that which doesn't exist (spoken words, thoughts, beliefs). Sure you may have believed something that you thought was something, but your inability to articulate the things you claim to have believed in ways that make sense raises questions.
In short, none of this self aggrandizing, self promoting, self centered crap mattered because it all boils down to the fact that you (by your behavior) have given me no reason to believe that your memory is accurate (when you use poor memory to excuse things it automatically calls your memory in to question), or to trust anything you say.
You demand proof from others, live up to that standard.
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