Aspiration Toward Inspiration

Jesus spent his life talking about God and helping people, forgiving his disciples for the stupid things they did, telling stories, healing people, and being an amazing, selfless person. He gave up everything to go out and give. He challenged the religious institution, materialism, and people’s lack of faith. There’s a lot of stuff in the gospels, but the short of it is: Jesus was amazing and he was killed; his disciples would not defend him at his crucifixion; he knew his situation, he did not defend himself, and he died on the cross. Hanging there, beaten, suffering, he prayed for humanity as he was being betrayed, in the ultimate example of Humanity and divinity.

I was so affected by the story of Jesus, by this perfect human being that lived a beautiful, selfless life, and yet was crucified and died praying for those who crucified him.

I want, when I say “Christian,” for people to think of the teachings of Jesus… how he healed the sick and welcomed those who society spit at… how he forgave the unforgivable and ate with those that most people of his day would not even look at. I’m tired of “Christian,” meaning pamphlets with hellfire and gay-bashing. I’m tired of it meaning Bush-supporter and anti-evolutionist. I want it to mean “follower of Jesus” again.

I think that the idea of Jesus as a salvational figure is not useful. It becomes a shallow selling tool and, if it is even true, it is horrible motivation for being a Christian. As far as I’m concerned, one’s motivation for being Christian should be selfless… it should be about a profound connection with Jesus’ message and a will to live a certain way of Life—one in which the primary goal is to better Humanity, to help those in need, and to reach out to other beings in order to maximize the meaning that each derives from existence.

Jesus’ message is lost to mainstream Christianity —his significance is no longer as teacher, but as tool. He is the yellow brick road to heaven, his ministry trivialized by the exclusivist claims of Christianity. He is no more than the baptismal water that initiates us. The MESSAGE of Christianity has become to love Christians, to make Christians (whether by breeding or conversion efforts), to protect ourselves from heretics and Satan, and to fall in line behind the leaders that ask for 10% of our income so that they can convince teenagers to keep their fetuses and biology teachers to abandon science for Truth (with a capital T). His importance has become that he DIED for our sins… not that he LIVED a selfless Life preaching nonconformity and radical inclusivity.

The problem is, scholarly approach to scripture is absent from mainstream Christianity. The lay community is given no plausible alternative to the popular image of Jesus. This unfortunate truth is, as I see it, the core of the problem. If scholarly research could make it into Sunday school, perhaps Creationism wouldn’t be seeping into public schools. If Jesus could be given his context back, his ministry might start to have more importance than his death.

To be a follower of Jesus should mean that we were profoundly moved by his Life and ministry, not simply that we’re glad that he died so that we could go to heaven. How shallow.