General Jesus

Here’s a bold statement…the teachings of Jesus is in contention with natural human behavior and the basic tenets of our society. What I mean by that is that I contend that the actual teachings of Jesus is inconsistent with how most of us humans behave. Two immediate examples come to mind:

THE ACCUMULATION OF MATERIAL WEALTH (Selflessness vs. Selfishness)

“A camel has a better change of moving through the eye of a needle than a rich man has of reaching the kingdom of God”.

"Blessed are you poor, For yours is the kingdom of God…Woe to you who are rich, For you have received your consolation".

“Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys."

“You cannot serve both God and Money”.

(Luke 6:20, 24; Matt. 19:23-24; Luke 12:33, Matt. 6:24)

This is an interesting conundrum for the modern Christian. How does one justify the accumulation of wealth versus the teachings of Jesus. A few justifications come to mind; the first and foremost is that one needs to provide for the long-term financial security of his/her family. A simple, easy justification for material wealth, right? I think it’s justifiable and appropriate. Another way of “feeding the pig” is the practice of tithing. Giving 10% of your wealth to, no, not some needy person or organization, tithing is giving $$ to your church. Well…at least it’s giving. Other people justify wealth as “God’s grace”. If they have money then it must be God’s will. They have been given the opportunity to make money because they are believers and followers of the Christian faith. These are all sensible justifications for wealth. But still, how one is able to selectively ignore the actual words spoken by Jesus, or so says the New Testament, confuses me.

This psychological see-saw continues when one also considers the values of our society. The United States is the epitome of capitalism in this world while being a vociferous Christian nation, and we’re proud of both. We do not think twice about very wealthy Christians, we applaud their ability to create wealth for themselves and if they give some money to charity then they are truly good people. However, if I was to become “born-again” tomorrow and give all (or most) of our belongings to the church then I’m considered by the same group of Christians to be of unsound mind. That isn’t a responsible thing to do but it is rational from a Christian perspective isn’t it? The Book of Luke and Matthew say it is and doesn’t that supercede any justifications posited in the pervious paragraph? Food for thought, that’s all.


PEACE (Righteousness vs. Defense) – “No Jesus, No peace/Know Jesus, Know Peace”

“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace”. – John Lennon

Okay, I’m too lazy to lookup quotes from Jesus stating that peace is good so let’s just accept that principle…okay?

This is example two of the teachings of Jesus operating in antithesis of modern Christian thought. For example, the Republican base that got Bush 43 elected believed in war and God at the same time (they still do!) in spite of the consistent teachings of Jesus for us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. WE CANNOT LOVE OUR ENEMIES, no doubt about that. Our latest pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign nation is a prime example. Christians continue to justify this by stating the action as an act of national defense. Much like the justification in the previous example regarding gathering wealth to ensure financial security for your family, the physical defense of your family can justify practically any violent act taken. The funny thing is that it’s the liberals who are against the war and not the group of people who hold Christianity in a higher regard.

So…why are Christians the warmongers during these times? That’s a tough question, I think it follows a couple of lines of reasoning; the first one is the evolution of the party in which they hold dear, the Republican Party. The “neo-conservative’ movement has been said to hijack the party in the early part of the decade leaving the Christian-base of the party trying to justify and reason with the aggressive behavior of Bush 43 and there has been a small revolt in the party because of that. But generally, they still stick behind being for the war and finding a way to accept the 100,000 dead Iraqis, 4,0000 dead American soldiers (not including our dead American contractors), and our 100,000 wounded soldiers as a consequence of the greater good. Just as Manifest Destiny (God’s will) justified us killing Native Americans in order to acquire the western part of this nation, God’s will plays a major part in how they deal with what we have done in Iraq.

The “eye for eye” notion was so Old Testament that even Jesus refuted that statement and taught that his follower should turn the other cheek so that’s no Christian justification for this war. The fact that we invaded a Muslim country adds to the equation as well. Perhaps the justification is to save the people who were being killed by Sadaam Hussein’s regime but then aren’t we a bit inconsistent? We should be invading half of Africa (Darfur region, Rwanda, etc…). Plus, how bad was Hussein? We know as much about that as we do of his WMDs. So is the justification from the perspective of freedom? This lead me to my next question…where does Christianity and Freedom coincide? Freedom is such an important element to the Republican Party where the majority of Christians ascribe to yet did Jesus talk of Freedom and its importance? I find little evidence of it, in fact, I find no evidence of it. All I can say is that the amount of violence in this country is completely incongruous with the values of Christianity.

Are the teachings of Jesus inconsistent with human behavior and society’s values? It’s a valid question I believe and there are more examples of this, the acceptance of this society’s 50% divorce rate is one. If the institution of marriage is so important to the Christian cause that homosexuals are violently disallowed from partaking in this ritual, why is this society so accepting of divorce?

I’m done with this subject. Again, this blog was partly created for things like this. Not necessarily to find answers but to think things through to no end. Anyhow, onward.