One other thing that's been going through my mind

[xiphias]

So, I was thinking about that poster of Jesus washing the feet of various modern leader-type people -- including Osama bin Laden. And the controversy about it, and the things which people offended by it have been saying about what they believe about Jesus.

There was a comment that was made that many modern American Christians have all sorts of beliefs about Jesus, but lacking from their conception of Jesus is anything from Jesus's actual ministry.

And I was thinking about that. And it occurred to me how ironic it is that our dominionist folks in the United States are Christian. Because I couldn't really think of any religion in the world LESS suited to the message that the Christian Right tends to attempt to send.

I mean, their message is one of patriotism to the extreme of jingoism, strong leadership, admiration of the wealthy and powerful. And many other factors, too. Some of it is hard for me to verbalize, but I have a general feeling about what the Christian Right seems to want.

Now, I can think of religions throughout history that would dovetail perfectly with these -- the Roman state religion from the late Republic/early Empire period, for instance. Frankly, that's the religion that the Christian Right ACTUALLY wants. But you could twist Confucianism to fit these goals, without TOO much strain. There are historical forms of Judaism, and even some modern forms, that might be able to fit into this model, although the form and shape of Judaism that I practice wouldn't. The Norse religion, you could do it.

Taoism and Buddhism would be hard to shift into this mode, but there's nothing particularly in them that is AGAINST it. After all, the Samurai managed to find forms of Taoism and Buddhism that fit with their worldview, which isn't that far off from the worldview of the Christian Right.

But what of Christianity itself? That's the irony. How do you take a religion that was founded as a protest against a worldview, a religion that was designed to be a direct challenge to nationalism, earthly power, wealth, focus on crime and punishment, focus on sexual morality -- and use it to support a regime EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE IT WAS FOUNDED TO COMBAT?

I want to write an attack ad. "Jesus forgave a sinner. Jesus didn't support the war of freedom that his country was fighting. Jesus: soft on crime. Soft of defense." I bet, if I was Christian, I could actually pull that all together.

If all of y'all Christians want to write up a script for an anti-Jesus attack ad. . . I'm sure it's been done.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Christianity turned into a religion exactly like the one it was founded to combat long ago, fueled by two men: St. Paul, who decided to turn it into a universalist religion and try to convert the Roman Empire, and Constantine, who made it the state religion and thereby enforced Paul's plan. As soon as it became the mandatory official religion of the Empire, it became all the things that the modern American Christian Right uses it for; they're not doing anything new with it. Yes, that's diametrically opposed to what Jesus is described as having wanted, but the change happened early.

"It is is his disciple who shall tell us how/ Much the master would have scrapped had he lived till now..."

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I loved something I once read by Vonnegut where he opined that Paul had originally been tasked to destroy the Christian faith - and he had succeeded admirably.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Dude, the worship of pharaoh! That's what these folks want. Someone who is greater than them but is also of them, giving them some touch of the divine.

I don't know enough about Christianity (and am three sheets to the wind tonight) to know what folks originally got from Jesus' message, but in general, most folks want to know that there's a reason for it all to suck so bad. Also, most folks seem to be team players and want to identify with something greater than themselves that streams back to them, to give glory to their mundane lives. If only they'd look around and see the wonder and beauty that surrounds us and makes up us all.

We are Star Dust, We are Golden
Billion year old carbon...

We are the eyes that the universe has opened to look back at itself and go Wow!

How much cooler can it get?

/off to look at a grain of sand (and get another drink)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

gilmoure, I want some of what you're drinking; I adore your take on this.

xiphias, you know how tempted I am to apply my decade+ of Sunday School to this project.... but it means I'd have to go find the appropriate Bible verses, which would mean rereading the Bible I've inexplicably kept in my possession. I think I'd rather go read about another religion and go write a story.

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

by "pharaoh" do you mean "President Bush"?

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes.

I think the stance that weirds me out the most is Christians who advocate capital punishment. I mean... just... Gah. *headdesk*

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You heard Mike Huckabee's comment about that, right? I think it was Huckabee, anyway. The one who's also an ordained pastor.

His comment was that, if Jesus ACTUALLY had a problem with capital punishment, he probably would have spoken against it while he was nailed to the cross, because wouldn't that just be a perfect platform for that message? And, since he didn't, clearly, it's okay.

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

But if he had said something while nailed to the cross, then Huckabee would just be saying "oh, he was just saying capital punishment sucks because he was dying, he didn't mean to speak out against capital punishment in general."

And you could probably make an argument that "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is Jesus speaking out against capital punishment.

[aethelflaed2.livejournal.com]

Maybe he DID say something about capital punishment but nobody wanted to listen? Of course, if I were dying of extreme pain, I would be screaming not giving a speech.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, after all, he did: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." If what they did was OK, they wouldn't have needed forgiveness.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Didn't Jesus say "Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do" at that point?

[temima.livejournal.com]

Huckabee didn't have the story where Jesus stopped a stoning of an adulteress as his memory verses, I guess.

[yndy.livejournal.com]

The problem with this is something that a devout Christian would say - and that's simply that the "religion" wasn't founded to 'combat' anything... it was simply 'God's Will' - and Christians simply see their religion as continuing from Judaism.
That Old Testament God? He sure wasn't 'kinder & gentler.'

Theology is weird. It's more often than not a cafeteria plan - as in, believe whatever best supports what you want to do at that time...
Hence Leviticus and all that.

But yeah, there are other religions more aptly suited to the Extremist "Fundamentalist" folks... but none that makes them feel more like they are kind and good... Saying they are Christians makes them feel as though they are 'righteous.'

That's my take on it anyhow.

[ailbhe]

Christians for More Hate!

Thankfully, I don't know any. My-aunts-the-nuns have their faults but they don't hate anyone.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

:::nods:::

It has been done, I guess, more or less.

My folks taught me that Jesus' supposed words largely support democratic socialism (and they can be seen in such a way), but I'm fed up with the whole Christian thing, you know?

So little of it is about what's in the gospels.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Buddhism is the state religion of a few countries. Mind you, Thailand has never really invaded and conquered another country, despite border disputes. Still, the temples play an active role in politics there.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Thailand is too busy invading and conquering itself, most of the time.

Seriously, Thailand has had more military coups than any other stable country I can think of -- it's just that they're all PEACEFUL military coups. Basically, the military deposes the leader, puts in a new leader, and then exiles the old one -- with a full pension. It's weird, but it seems to work.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

I would gladly support a tax increase if it allowed us to exile a certain leader and his lawyer shooting partner out of the country. I mean, it's not like they're going to be getting a pension anyways.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, the Thai system only works in a monarchy. In a democracy, you cannot cede the power of getting rid of your leadership to your military.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Wasn't thinking of the military doing this so much as the fiscal costs. If there was a way to get rid of a bunch of bums by paying them off, I'd be all over it.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Corporate America does it all the time. "Here -- we'll give you sixteen million dollars for running our company into the ground, and you go away and never come back."

[deerdancer22.livejournal.com]

When buddhism became a state religion, in various countries, it often lost it's essence. But then a bunch of monks would go into the countryside, start a new sect and attract many followers and get buddhism back on track.

I don't know why that didn't happen with Christianity. Certainly the desert fathers were in that tradition. Maybe because buddhism emphasizes personal experience of the teachings rather than deifying someone.

gettin' back to fundamentals

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

I'd say that various sects of Christianity, trying to get back to the "essence" or "fundamentals" of the religion, have sprung up over the centuries. Of course, they tend to disagree on exactly what that essence is. To take two obvious examples:

To Martin Luther, "essence" meant getting away from the Catholic church hierarchy and going back to the Bible as the source of religious authority. He believed the primary lesson of the Bible was that salvation was attained by faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

Unitarians of the 19th century also thought that they needed to return to the "fundamentals" by going back to the Bible, but the "lesson" they took out of it was different: to reject the Trinity (a tradition that did not emerge until long after the Gospels). Unitarians believe(d) in the moral authority, but not necessarily the divinity, of Jesus.

I've long found the 20th-century version of "Christian fundamentalism" (from whence the modern political Religious Right sprang) to be rather odd, because while its proponents claimed they were returning to biblical literalism, it seemed transparent to me that they applied that method very selectively-- i.e., that their (prior) beliefs caused their interpretation and not vice versa. (That may have also been true of Luther and the Unitarians, but not so transparently.) In a sense, I'm happy that the Christian Right tends nowadays to shy away from the label "fundamentalist" (preferring terms like "Evangelical")-- at least it's more accurate.

Re: gettin' back to fundamentals

[deerdancer22.livejournal.com]

You're right the Unitarians and the Quakers are good examples of this.They didn't influence Christianity the way the new buddhist sects did for buddhism. I think buddhism is much less rigid.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

True, but the coups that they have are not really religious in nature - no rival religious sects or rival religions going at it.

[deerdancer22.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more of feudal Japan and other times in the distant past when buddhism revitalized itself out of the bureaucracy.

right-wing "christians"

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i blame paul. in general i'd like to rename christianity "paulism" because it hasn't been about christ since paul.

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

How much have you actually read about religion in the mid to late roman period? I'm hardly an expert, but I've read a little more than most - this is after all the war between my religion and the currently dominate one - and even though I'm no fan of Christianity, or the Christian right, I have to say it's not that simple.

For example, no one "invented" Christianity to "oppose" the Roman state religion. It not even clear that it's a major reason they converted.

Kiralee

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

*grin* That reminds me of times listening to Michael rant about some fundamentalist Christians. "I can't believe they're calling themselves Christians! If Jesus were here, he'd kick their ass! You remember the temper tantrum he threw in the temples with the merchants? We'd have another round of that." And on and on. It was a lot of fun to hear.