What God intended - the beginning

In Europe all religions, particularly Christianity, have for some time been under heavy fire - for several reasons. Some view religion as an impediment to social progress, others decry it for presenting a worldview that's obsolete, mythical, out of tune with what modern man wants and aspires for.


It will, perhaps, come as a surprise that I support, or even welcome, some of these criticisms. Why? To understand my position on this, I need to take you along for a brief walk through history from about AD 30 to the present day. Ready?


Fully God, fully human


When Jesus allowed himself to be incarnated as a true human being while simultanesouly retaining his godhead, all the qualities that make him God, it wasn't for the purpose of establishing a new world religion. The Bible expressly states that he came in order to fulfill prophecy, and not primarily the speculative kind of prophecy. The prophetic expectations in Judea at the time revolved around a superhero from God, bent on and ready to expel all foreign influence and religious infiltration. 


Some of the most zealous of his contemporaries were bristling with pent-up energy and zeal, dead set on overthrowing the existing order: the reign of the Roman overlords. But Jesus consistently refused to align himself with their mindset and modes of operation; he repeatedly refused to take up arms, and be crowned as a military king - the lustrious leader of a bloody campaign against an overpowering enemy.


Weapons of love, not war


Instead, Jesus often spoke about a revolutionary, mind-boggling concept of love for your enemy, homegrown or alien. And he acted in accordance with his appparently impossible ideals by on a number of occasions e.g. healing representatives of the foreign occupants or members of their households. He thus deliberately defied both friend and foe in that he acted in ways no one had foreseen or could find tolerable.


He, a male, adressed a woman Samaritan at a well, knowing the she most likely was a prostitute, an outcast for moral reasons. He often dined with members of high society of dubious repute, knowing that even the slightest association with collaborators and opportunists would make him unpopular with the masses, the very ones that normally flocked  around him.


In sum, Jesus often spoke the strangest things and did the most unlikely things that would startle or unsettle even his closest associates. His disciples found themselves on more than one occasion on the receiving end of his verbal 'abuse' as he lambasted them for playing along with the religious hyprocrisy so prevalent in society. Jesus positively hated all religious externalism; the showing off of religious fervour while at the same time trying to hide your deeply roted vices of e.g. greed and sexual abuse.


A king of a different kind


Jesus was the shepherd-king who came to revive humanity. He came to establish his kingdom of justice. He never came to make us into Bible-bashers, spitting out our fears and phobias in a society that is illiterate in the things of God. He taught us a lifestyle of uncompromised love for truth and fellow man. His every action was model behaviour for us to emulate. And to secure the success of such a gargantuan undertaking, he provided us with divine power and sustenance to be able to mirror the same qualities of life, once he had returned to his heavenly throne.


Of course he counted on temporary setbacks. Obviouly he made provisions for the onslaught of opposing forces and persecution. He knew how the empire builders of his day would respond to the explosive growth that occurred in the centuries that followed his ascension. But he must hva been deeply grieved by what ensued this era of uninhibited expansion.


Here was a 'religion' in which the slave owner and his slave would unite in brotherhood that required neither elevated status or a sizeable purse in order to be considered for membership. Here was a group of people who met regularly - not to carry out intricate rituals or mutter voluminous incantations, but they were simnple folk with little education who simply were learning to live life in its everyday ordinariness, in respect of God and practical, humdrum love for neighbour.


Forget your books on rituals and rites!


Christianity didn't introduce another set of tiresome regulations or external rules. Its beginning signalled a veritable declaration of war on all kinds of injustice and abuse. The Jesus I know never intended his followers to side with unjust power-grabbers and autocrats. He wanted a quiet revolution of love to sweep oppression and deprivation off of the face of his own earth.


Don't go away. More to come. Tomorrow, perhaps.