Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Simple Simon

Simple Jesus and his "simple and pure" message.

What a laugh. Andrew Sullivan, whose descent into what he is now I will always lament, apparently is hoping for such a thing in...Newsweek, which has become, in its death throes, the chick-flick of dead-tree magazine "journalism".  Part of the regular Christmas and Easter issues of the MSM, deep theologians if ever there were any, pointing out that whatever the 2000 year old Christian tradition thinks, it's wrong.

The pure and simple message of Jesus. What a cliche. As if a pure and simple message could ever have any appeal or power for the human race, outside of fantasy. If the Gospel can be sufficiently reduced to a three by five card, "Be Nice To One Another", what was all that fuss about?

Unlike Moses, Buddha or Mohammed, Jesus did not last long. These other three religious founders had the opportunity and the burden of setting up and running numerous communities over long periods of time. Jesus never did. His religious career lasted three years, tops. He provoked a movement but did not set up an institution. That was for his disciples to do.

One of the things that post-Protestant types forget is that if God reveals himself to mankind, the revelation has to be for mankind, not for angels or journalists or Boomer academics. It will likely be suited to the species, not to the Revealer. God does not need religion, we do. And nothing else about us is simple and pure, so why do we expect religion to be?

While the image of the poor itinerant preacher of the Kingdom of the God of Love who was executed by The Establishment is an appealing poster, it is only a poster. And I have never yet met a devotee of this poster boy whose image of Christ did not conveniently match his own idealized self.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I suppose it doesn't happen that the worse or more-contemptible one gets in one's "idealized self" the grander one's Shadow becomes. ... It should happen that way, but I suppose it doesn't.

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