Ragged Clown

It's just a shadow you're seeing that he's chasing…


Dec
27
2006

Atheists for Jesus

A positive post about religion for a change.

I just read this op-ed piece about Jesus in The Guardian.

I think there are three powerful elements in what we know about his teaching that are enduringly important and have lessons for us today. The first was his attitude towards the laws and customs by which we have chosen to organise ourselves. He did not believe they should be afforded absolute, unchanging authority over us. They were created to assist us in leading the good life, but he knew that if they were not held lightly, and with a shrewd appreciation of their provisional nature, they could easily became stupid and tyrannous.

This is the hardest thing for me to understand about the prevalent forms of Christianity in today’s America. When a liberal, atheist like me reads what Jesus actually taught, we want to punch the air and say “Amen, brother!”.

I just find it so difficult to reconcile what I know about Jesus’s teaching with what his latter-day followers advocate.