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If you haven't read Part 1, read it here:
Question: Why Christianity is the worst thing that happened to Jesus (Part 1)
Question: Why Christianity is the worst thing that happened to Jesus (Part 1)
In Intro Psychology, we learned of Internal and External Loci of Control in identifying healthy living versus pathological personality disorders.
People with an Internal Locus of Control are strong, self reliant, have faith in themselves, and accept responsibility for their own sins, accomplishments, and lives without blaming or hanging any of that responsibility upon anyone else. This is considered strong and healthy because it reflects a high self-esteem and high level of confidence - the stuff Jesus called Faith!
People with an External Locus of Control do not accept total responsibility for their own lives and they attribute cause and blame for most aspects of their lives upon others and outside forces and things that they believe are beyond their control. This way of thinking is often considered by psychologists to be weak and pathological, as it seems to reflect low self-esteem and confidence leading to many other problems with living, the "poor in spirit" and those with albatross hanging on their necks whom Jesus asked us to help.
I see mainstream Christianity as favoring a weakening of our personalities and lives while Jesus' goal was to make us strong and confident, and wise.
Having been raised in a Bible-based Christian tradition, my dilemma and my conflict arose when I realized that the "Good News" or Gospel that Christianity had to offer was entirely different from that which Jesus himself offered us.
My conundrum has lessened since I have been able to see this clearly, express it publicly, studied the message of Jesus from the perspective of brother, teacher and rabbi and then really listened (Yes, I do have ears) to what he had to say.
Jesus is much more wonderful, beautiful, and even miraculous without all of the nonsense that was added by those who came after him and which took away from the "steak" of Jesus and his very important message with a lot of trumped-up made-up hype and "sizzle" and razzle-dazzle about the messenger.
I do get angry and probably downright insulting when I see and hear others painting pictures of Jesus as a machine gun-toting Rambo character who would have anything to do with war.
I do get angry and intolerant when see and hear others who claim to love and follow Jesus but who reject medical care for the poorest and sickest of any of our brothers and sisters.
I do get angry and mean when I see people get so sick and disgusted by the phony trumped-up brand of Christianity that has been shoved in their faces that even the mention of the name of Jesus causes them to turn away and hide.
I get so angry I could almost explode when I think of how the established church took Jesus' message away from his followers... destroying books, gospels, and the very words of Jesus that were recorded in those early works. How they turned Mary of Magdalene into a whore because of their misogynistic hatred of women and unwillingness to accept that Jesus had women as his closest students, friends, and disciples.
I do get violently angry when I hear supposed followers of Jesus speaking against other lifestyles that are just none of their business or speaking against alternate faiths in God and casting stones of hate against any of God's children.
I do get mean and ugly and nasty when I hear the name of Jesus used to promote reactionary, fascist, war mongering, money-making-at-the- expense-of-humanity ideals of any kind. I Get Very Angry!
Then, I think about or am reminded of “Just what would Jesus do?”
So then, I calmly think about Jesus and what I know of this man of peace and fellow child of God.
Just WHAT would Jesus do?
He would yell at them, rant, flip over tables, and tell them what a brood of vipers and a generation of hypocrites they are for using the name of God for profit , for withholding food or medical care or mercy of any kind from God's children, for saying they espouse a certain belief and then behaving or believing in ways that are exactly the opposite of those beliefs to which they claim to adhere.
Vipers! Hypocrites! Yes, Jesus told them so!
Then, Like Jesus, I forgive them. I have to, for at some sad pathetic level they know not what they do. They know not the consequences of their sadly misguided, sometimes even sick perceptions of God, of Jesus, or of what God or Jesus expect of us. We have to forgive them and try to steer them back onto the path they wish to be on.
They were probably brought into their warped thinking by family tradition or some type of cultist recruitment. Not their fault. Jesus said we must forgive them - even those who have bastardized his teachings and his name.
I forgive them and pray for them and do the best I can to show love and kindness and compassion to all of my fellow human beings in hope that somehow, the lost, and especially those lost in the "sizzle" of Jesus might find the peace and the beauty and the warmth and the reality of the Real Jesus and his Real message of encouragement and empowerment and faith.
I mean faith in God and faith in ourselves, as Jesus meant - not in the divinity or the genealogy of Jesus. He could not give a flipping damn about those things, which have so sadly usurped his message of love and hope to us.
When Jesus said "Believe in me" he was not talking about making himself into a god or a new religion; he was trying to give us Faith. Faith in his message, his word, his Gospel, that we are all children of God, that God loves us and forgives us, and that the Kingdom of Heaven is right here in our hands, here on Earth, just as Jesus said - not way off later in some far off misty magical fantastical afterlife, but right here and right now on Earth, and in our hands.
And all we have to do is repent our sins, love God, have faith in God, in ourselves, and each other. Stop waging wars, and love and take care of each other,especially the sad, the sick, the lonely, the most undesirable among us, including those who have ruined what Christianity was supposed to be and those who have bastardized Jesus' message, as best as we can.
Forgive them, take care of them, and love them with all of our hearts.
Let us pledge to make peace, to Love God, to forgive each other and to Love each other.
The Kingdom of Heaven is in our hands.
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