Jesus Against Christianty – Introduction to Chaptre 13
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Luke Timothy Johnson said that the search for the historical Jesus is “dangerous because information it reveals threatens Christian orthodoxy and creates doubt among believers”. I feel this statement suggests us to do something outrageous, denying any faith exploration. To question and discover is an essential part of ones faith life, especially for one to grow in their faith. A faith life is a constant journey, where there are many paths to take. Often there are people on the side of the path, where others have found comfortable places to settle, but I have continued on, not quite ready to settle down as I am still discovering, still questioning, and still growing. I feel as my faith life has become more open, my spiritual life has taken a strong upturn . I am often asking people about their faith views to gain new and different perspectives on what faith is, and this in turn helps me define my own spirituality and faith.
I find it strange that people often use Gods name in such strange circumstances. As the book pointed out, we often misuse Gods name, and may not actually be referring to God in the first place. I also feel it is important to notice that people tend to misuse Gods name in times of some extreme emotion or event. For example, after 9/11, across the nation, a word that was once considered taboo suddenly found its way on to signs, bumper stickers, flags, and verbal statements that all proclaimed “God Bless the USA”. Before this time, I hardly remember if I had ever seen a public proclamation to God as advertised via these means. I found it almost angering that people all of a sudden turned to God (which may not have even been God at all) in their moment of need. For many, it may have been the first time they have mentioned God in a long time. Though it would seem hanging a sign or slapping on a bumper sticker can relieve on the duty of an actual participatory role in their faith life.
The masculinity of God has always been an interesting area of controversy that I liked to explore, though I admit, I have not done as much exploration as I would have liked. But, as a child, I was always asking my mother why God was a “father” and why it was always “He”, especially since Pastor Doug used to talk about the sexlessness of God, always seeming to refer to God as just that: “God”. Pastor Doug taught me a God of love through his stories, the news, and through compassion for the very church he started. This violent God was very absent from our Church while Pastor Doug was around. We still sang songs about the Walls of Jericho and such, but often the music in our church was bluegrass and folk songs, such as “All Gods Creatures” or “One Tin Soldier”. This violent God fascinated me later on in my life as more of a fiction character than a reality, as his imagery was too fantastical for me to even take to heart.
Now that I look at it, the bible is certainly full of a raging force of violence and vanity stemming from God. It is strange that even though thousands of years have passed, large scale violence against religious enemies still exists, such as Israel – Palestine, the Crusades, or Bushs War on Terrorism. One eerie pattern I noticed was the parallels between the given Old Testament and New Testament of violent events, such as using the blood of an unblemished lamb to protect the people captive in Egypt and the sacrifice of “the perfect man”. One could even argue that violence in the bible is quite paralleled by violence today. Another concept brought up was the idea of God is God due to superior violence. If we look at our God(s) this way, it reduces power to one source: (militaristic) strength. More importantly, it seemingly reduces all Gods to partaking in a power struggle of violence in order to achieve supremacy.
This characteristic has become a normal image for people. It is almost as if we used it in the past to justify our own violence. It is very apparent that this misguided characteristic is still at large as I often hear people say things such as, “Its Gods fault!” or “It was in the name of God” within the contexts of responses to violence. Images of God committing genocide and mass destruction are not images I particularly like. If the Christian God were one of violence, itd make him very similar to the Roman or Greek gods of war, Mars and Ares, respectively. One could even make the argument that the Holocaust was then justified by God, as violence is his nature.
The violent God brings about what I felt was the most important point: the imagery of God. As the book points out, too often are we bombarded with images of God that emphasize characteristics that, well, I would prefer my God to not have. As I talked about above, Gods affinity for violence is possibly the most disturbing, but prominent characteristic. We often muddle the image of God with images,