I ran across a recent Gallop Poll this morning, indicating that organized religion is losing ground in America. Nearly thirty percent of Americans today find religion in general to be old fashioned and impotent to address many issues we face today. With this in mind and the holiday season now officially past peak, perhaps now is a good time to reflect on the Christmas season and the relevance of organized religion in our society.
I could go on and on about the tragic commercialization of Christmas, and how we in the modern world have abandoned the ways of our ancestors for the new church of the Consumer Economy, but you already know these things.
Many people who celebrate Christmas seem to have lost sight of the true meaning of the holiday. Both theists and humanists alike seem to forget that the true spirit of this season is one of peace and reflection on our brotherhood with all humankind, and not just an excuse to over indulge in unhealthy eating and drinking habits for several days while participating in the collective national potlatch that’s become retail America’s seasonal wet dream.
Rather than striving to live up to the social ideals put forth by the Jesus Christ, most modern forms of Christianity appear to have lost touch with his message of peace, love, and unity. Instead, most churches today have become as social clubs for the idolization of the man, Jesus Christ, supernatural actions invented by early church mythology, and recruitment centers for political ideologies. In many religious communities, belief in the divinity of Jesus is far more important to one’s “salvation” than practicing ethical living and encouraging people to live up to progressive standards like brotherly love and unconditional human compassion that Christ espoused.
I read a short blog post at Black Sun Gazette the other day which, though lacking any scholarly references, stated that there is essentially no proof the historical Jesus of Nazareth even existed. I’m not convinced that anyone ever wandered around Roman Palestine performing miracles such as healing leprosy and blindness or raising the dead; supernatural feats such as those attributed to the biblical Christ have always seemed just a bit beyond the limits of believability to me.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure someone bearing a strong resemblance to Jesus Christ did travel the area with his followers, telling his ideas regarding the meaning of life, universal truth, right and wrong to anyone willing to listen, and generally trying to leave the world a better place than it was when he arrived.
That this same fellow probably irritated the local establishment, caused them a lot of political and economic trouble, and eventually got himself executed for speaking his mind and undermining their authority is, to my mind, a pretty likely story. A story I could just as easily see playing out in our modern world as it did in the old Roman Empire. Some aspects of human society haven’t changed at all in the last two thousand years.
I seriously doubt that the man we know as Jesus Christ ever intended for the mythological aspects of divinity now associated with his life and work to become his legacy. If it were possible for the soul that was Jesus of Nazareth to see the ideals he preached corrupted and misapplied as they are today, I think he’d be appalled at the things people have done in his name over the past two millennia.
Too many churches demand that their members adhere to strict dogmatic rules having nothing to do with the message Jesus Christ brought to the world. Blind faith in the virgin birth, divinity, and resurrection of Jesus – ideas many people find hard to swallow – are demanded by most churches before one can join the congregation. Failure to publicly espouse and propagate such beliefs as fact often leave skeptics with even the purest of intent branded a heretics and ostracized from the group. Too many people have gotten hung up on the really hard to believe aspects of the Jesus of legend and lost sight of the more important message he preached: compassion, peace, non-violence, community, and our interdependence on one another.
If more churches would behave like spiritual fellowships; being more concerned with improving the lives of their wider communities than with controlling the thoughts of those who facilitate their existence, perhaps more people would consider attending and joining churches today. It’s unfortunate that so many churches use their incredible influence to control the thinking and behavior of their members in ways so irrelevant to what Jesus stood for. Ultimately such behavior only drives away the most thoughtful, intelligent, and creative among them.
As long as organized religion in America continues to resemble a Christian version of the Taliban or a flock of mindless sheep, unwilling to question the staleness of the snake oil they’re being sold, I suppose it’s for the best that the importance of organized religion in our culture continues its long slide into obscurity and irrelevance.
Good post! But I would argue for the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. There is ample proof.
And not only have I been witness to several ‘miraculous healings’, I am a recipient of one.
That said, I would agree that organized religion, Christianity more so than others, has been egregiously perverted. The reason for this, is the very same thing it was developed to combat, avarice.
The explanation is actually quite simple: The finite mind of man, trying to comprehend an infinite God. Rather than absorbing and practising the original doctrines and dogma of the faith, the church hierchy has turned it into a game of semantics. Jesus, Himself, warned against it.
Mark 7:6-7
Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
I was castigated and cast out by the Evangelicals for preaching heresy from the pulpit. Rather than taking up comment space, you can read about it here.
Whether it be the Torah, New Testament, Qur’an, Vedas, et al, the core tenets are the same. Love God and love thy neighbor. If the people of the world were to concentrate more on our commonality, than our differentiality, we would, at long last, attain true world peace.
I hope your holidays are blessed. All the best to you and yours, Thurman.
Thank you, Brother Tim, I look forward to hitting your link in a moment to read more.
I agree, there is plenty of proof of the existence of the historical Jesus, though I am not convinced that some of the miracles were not added to the story after the fact, to add spice to the narrative, so to speak.
I don’t need miracles to “get” the message. As you stated, the core tenets are the same where ever one looks.
I debated for a while whether I should post this. Your response tells me I made the right decision in sending it out to the world.
I’d be interested sometime to read your thoughts regarding the Gnostic Gospels. The more I read, the more convinced I become that the Christianity we see today should more appropriately be called “Paul-ianity” – so much of what Jesus taught seems to be overlooked in favor of what Paul came up with after the fact.
Thanks for helping me to better understand, Tim.
I consider myself to be a very rare breed of Christian. I often refer to myself as an Apostolic Christian. This is not some ‘denomination’; but rather, striving to adhere to the original church teachings that Jesus bestowed upon His disciples, the Apostles.
I give heavy weight to the Gnostic Gospels, as well as all Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Scriptures. This was another problem I had with the Evangelicals, who insist that the 66 canonical books in the catalogue known as the ‘Bible’, are the ONLY legitimate scriptures.
I often point them to 2Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
They usually respond that Paul was speaking only of the Bible. When I tell them that when Paul wrote that in A.D. 67, a lot of the New Testament hadn’t even been written yet, and the catalogue (as we now know it) had not even been assembled, I am met with silence. Or worse, I am branded a heretic.
Logic tells me that if Paul, John, James, and Jude referenced in their epistles, scriptures that are not now canonized, there was a major problem in the canonization process. Works such as the Book of Enoch, the Protevangelion, the Story of Adam and Eve, et al shed much light on things not fully covered in those 66 books.
I am also baffled by mainstream Christianity’s support of war and capital punishment, two things that Jesus was adamantly opposed to. This is not a modern, or American thing either, as the Christians (Catholic and Protestant alike) fully supported Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Going back further we have the Crusades, the Inquisitions, etc, etc.
How, in all honesty, can people call themselves a ‘Christian’; when they refuse to follow the teachings and doctrines of their leader, Christ??????
Sorry for the long-winded comment, but I’m only trying to let you know from whence my reasoning came.
I might also add, that I feel the church is losing ground in America, for the same reason it went belly-up in Germany. The Church, more so than Hitler, was responsible for the downfall of the Wiemar Republic of Germany. Had they stood up and preached against the war-mongering Third Reich, the Nazis could not have gained control. Instead, they wholeheartedly backed their ruthless and war-mongering agenda.
Pre-WWII Germany was a lot like America today, with 80+% self-describing as Christians. When the German people finally awoke to what Hitler and the Nazis had done, and realized the church had abdicated their duties to speak out against the un-Christ-like atrocities being perpetrated, they felt betrayed. Today, Germany’s self-described Christians are near the single digits. The same turn of events will happen here if the church fails to step up and recalibrate the nation’s moral compass. It’s a sad state of affairs, indeed.
But I will persevere; preaching the TRUE Gospel to small congregations and anyone else willing to listen, in the hope that others may follow my lead and turn the tide.
OK —- I’ll shut up now.
Wow, I think you just put into words a lot of what I’ve always felt about this subject, but never had the knowledge, etc. to put it into words.
Growing up I was always struck by the blatant discrepancies in the Bible, not to mention the hypocrisy of so-called Christian role models in the churches I attended.
Please drop me a note (email or FB) sometime and tell me which apocryphal and gnostic translations you consider worth my time. I’ve looked into some of these before and found that some books on the subjects are well written and easy to follow, while others are just cryptic and, to this knuckle head, impossible to understand. Translation and editing make a huge difference.
Thanks again for the insightful commentary.
Sorry, would have responded to this earlier but the pingback got lost in my spam folder.
No scholarly references, but someone did take the time to add some. As I said repeatedly in my comments, I wish I had given some kind of suggested reading list. The point is that what you and I “think” about the existence of Yeshua ben Yosef is irrelevant. What matters is that the only reason we have for thinking that he lived is the say so of the Catholic Church, who were in charge of such things for a millennium or so.
Hi Nick,
Didn’t mean any disrespect to your post, though on a second read through it looks that way, sorry.
You are very correct in your description of the monopoly of knowledge that the Catholic church held over the centuries. You’ll never find me defending them or any other bloated, mainstream organized religion.
Thanks for visiting and for fueling my thought process.
Yeah, I mean, no disrespect taken. It was basically just something I fired off for Christmas. I am certainly no expert on the subject and have a lot better writing on there. Thanks for the link back!
Personally, I think it’s absolutely impossible to figure who or what Jesus was because his “story” has been so interlaced with layers over the years. I think what Brother Tim stated about loving ones neighbor as oneself — which is a tenet of almost every religion or philosophic belief system — is the key. If each of us acted upon solely that one precept, heaven on earth would be a tangible reality in the here and now.
Hence, the Kingdom of Heaven is within each of us.