Jesus, like many of my heroes, was seriously flawed.
(It is not my intention to offend anyone. Really. But as you know from my prior posts, I think free speech is more important than tiptoe-ing around people’s religious anger. And I do have a point I want to make about doubt and sin, and their relationship to multiculturalism. I read the Bible regularly with absolutely no religious training.)
I can’t accept Jesus as divine. I’m always ready to forgive some flaws in historical characters, because it isn’t fair to judge them out of temporal context. A man may be forgiven for owning slaves at a time when it was customary, but God would have known better than to condone slavery. God would have known something about the benefits of the free enterprise system, the equality of women in all matters, and germs.
I admire Jesus’ use of analogy and his concern for the marginalized. I also admire, above all else, his admonition to remove the log from my own eye before trying to help others with their specks. This is the cornerstone of my approach to psychotherapy, marriage, parenting, and friendship.
Now, it’s quite possible that everything I dislike about Jesus was something tacked on to him by the gospel writers. Since there are no other sources of information about Jesus the man, all we have is what the gospel writers provided. I suppose I would like to think him perfect, and blame all his flaws on them. But it’s impossible to distinguish what reflects the man himself and what reflects the writers’ varying agendas. They, after all, were trying to start a religion, so they may have been primarily responsible for what, in my reading of the gospels, sounds like a lot of bullying. On the other hand, Jesus’ worst attributes, to me, sound like those of the bullying preachers of contemporary America, so I have to consider the possibility that he was one of those sorts of preachers: a lot of good ideas mixed in with obsessive concern about whether you believe in him.
Like some contemporary preachers, he says terrible things about anyone who doesn’t believe in him, demanding not only obedience but a kind of totalitarian thought-control (if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!!—please; everyone would be blind). I prefer the morality implied by my unprepared reading of the Ten Commandments. By saying not to commit adultery, I think the Bible implicitly condones the occasional glance and the prurient fantasy. By saying not to kill, I think the Bible implicitly condones anger.
So I don’t know whether I am calling Jesus a bully or the gospel writers, but he comes across to me as the sort of bully who forces you to say nice things about him under threats. When a bully of that sort is really determined, like a batterer or child abuser, the best strategy is to genuinely believe the nice things you must say about him to protect yourself from expressing skepticism and getting a beating.
People at sporting events hold up signs that say John 3:16, which I think may be the single most despicable verse in the Bible. It says, in effect, that to get eternal life, all you have to do is believe. It says, in effect, that you have to choose between going to Heaven with Hitler and going to Hell with Gandhi. Who in good conscience could choose the former?
In Luke, Jesus tells the parable of the lord who goes off to Rome to get his kingship papers and leaves money with his slaves to invest. Jesus means that he himself is the lord, soon to depart, and the slaves are the people who can get him a return on the investment he has made in his ministry. The slaves who make money for the lord are rewarded. One slave, however, tells the lord that he did not invest the money. “I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.” This is as fine a dressing down of slave-owners as you could hope to find. But in the parable, it is the outspoken slave who is punished, not the cruel master. The lord adds, “As for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.”
The Bible, like all history, is replete with stories of kings who solidified their power by murdering everyone who questioned, or might question, their authority (though none that I can think of besides Jesus who take so much glee in the murders as to insist on witnessing them). You’d think that if the Christians were to draw any conclusion at all from his crucifixion, it would be that we shouldn’t punish, much less kill, people for their religious beliefs. But Luke’s Jesus is just as bloodthirsty as the Pharisees (who, after all, sought Jesus’ death for the same crime—blasphemy—that Jesus condones killing and torturing for). The master of analogic thinking somehow failed to appreciate the analogy between his heresy toward his own religion and the doubt of those who don’t believe in him.
Why am I writing about Jesus in a multicultural blog? His attitude toward the marginalized is at times inspiring. Sinners, especially, are well treated. But then he creates whole new classes of marginalization that are treated from badly to horribly. In Matthew, this includes gentiles; in John, it includes Jews. Throughout, it includes nonbelievers. I want to face my doubt, and my sins, and other people’s doubt about what’s important to me with the same acceptance I have when I face the sins of the people I love. Jesus is a lovely model of the latter, but not the former.
Michael Karson, Ph.D. 
Ok this is a really complicated post. For me, Jesus (historical, divine, symbolic, whatever) is so many different figures–interpreted by so many others (not only by the gospel writers, but by the scribes and translators since then, and by priests and ministers, and by our Sunday School teachers) that it’s hard for me to agree that “Jesus” is a bully, because I’d have to ask, “Which Jesus? In which story? As interpreted or translated by whom?” And, “What do we get by characterizing Jesus as a bully?” I think you’re saying that we get a more lucid view of his humanity, and we also get a sense of the danger of viewing him as God if we take, from his behavior, in certain stories, that God–being all-powerful–gets to do whatever he wants, even if its mean.
I don’t want to see him as a bully either. I want to blame it all on others. But I’m not interested in a more lucid view of his humanity. I’m interested in applying his lessons about accepting those out of line with respect to sin to those out of line with respect to ethnicity and with respect to questioning the party line. The Jesus of the Gospels is wonderful when it comes to welcoming those who have sinned; he’s pretty awful when it comes to welcoming those with the wrong ethnicity or a failure to parrot the party line. In that respect, the Jesus of the Gospels is like many multiculturalists: good people with an important, positive agenda, but demonizing and debasing anyone who doesn’t salute it.
I have always attributed the less tolerant aspects of the new testament to the authors rather than the hero. It helps me find common ground (sometimes) with my friends who believe in Christ’s devinity. Your post gives me pause. Was Jesus like anyone else who acquires too much power; the actual mortal I believe him to have been anyway? I know you value debate far more than pats on the back. But I applaud the guts to write about this third rail! Attempted recently to explain to my partner my reading of the Resurrection as metaphor. “Hmmmm,” was her reply.
Thanks. I was pretty nervous about this, mainly worried about offending my Christian friends. But as the Jesus I admire said, “What you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” Matthew 10:27
This is a very interesting post. I like it when people critically look at the Jesus character with open eyes. If you put issues like historicity, reliability of the gospels and how Jesus morphed from man to God aside and just look at everything he says and does in the gospels, Jesus quite frankly is an a-hole. And it’s no wonder that in time this mythological character spawned a belief system of similar nature. I grew up as Jehovah’s Witness and saw it at its worst. The message of love really isn’t strong at all, once you deconstruct it. What’s loving about a “I love you so much, now obey me and kneel or I’ll cast you into eternal damnation” message? I may know little about psychology, but I can say for sure based on personal experience and observation, that it produces masses of people with very twisted views and morals. All under the guise of “love”. And walking away from that is a hard, long and painful process. All for a flawed character with questionable morals that is presented as savior.
Interesting i agree the bully at the last supper man of reflection ? stupid fool judas in killing yourself i suppose if you have a prophecy of betrayal leading to your death then its got to go ahead, on the other hand you could use it intelligently to avoid the outcome.
it is bizarre that they see jesus free of sin, it looks like christians do evolve after all we have read some sad stories in newspapers where young people have taken their lives because of bullying, the words do in deed reveal jesus as a sinner, i looks like o mens scribbles come back to bite them in the arse.
whats more amazing is even through the ignorance of men writing in a book offering very little respect truly, the amazing part is the hearts of people of christan faith are at times in a greater place than the bible, i am positive jesus was a unique man, i believe theres not a lot of truth in the bible, although as i have pointed out the real miracle is faith within jesus christ has grown too today, that in its self is a greater gift than the bible, its interesting how people go to bible lesson after sitting silent in there church, my first and only time i went to sunday school as a young child of 8 after the boys brigade i sat around a table we each had the bible open at the same page and the adult at the head of the table started to read a passage and stopped and asked each child to continue reading parts of the book in turn, until it came to myself where i had to confess i could not read as i was dyslexic, i simply took away that day “treat others how you wish to be treated” its certainly not rocket science that principle, in fact thats the beginning and end of any teaching thats required. i never did go back to sunday school and only ever entered the church when we visited as children with the school from time to time, whats true is jesus himself was not around to take part in writings of men that made the bilbe so indeed what do we truly know of the man, i wonder the miracle of the virgin marys tears , are ones of sadness the way they mentioned his end in this world with no respect to him after all was he not more a man of reflection to others and one of kindness, the last supper takes that part away from him truly
the miracle is even through the ignorance of scribbles the faith of christians even though they are blind with there remarks has grown so great….
there are still slavery, when it was banned here, they were outsourced elsewhere in foreign countries!