Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Jesus was not a radical. Deal with it.

Jesus wasn't a freaking radical darnit. He did some unorthodox things (table turning over/temple temper tantrum, chilling with tax collectors), but for the most part, many of his social interactions were perfectly socially acceptable, especially his social interactions with women, which so many people try to claim were socially forward. I had to read a bunch of articles and textbooks on both sides last semester, but the general scholastic conclusion is that for the most part, Jesus wasn't that socially radical. SO STOP USING JESUS AS A VALIDATION FOR YOUR PERSONAL ISSUES WITH ANY SYSTEMS/"THE MAN" and take that stupid bumper sticker off your car, plzkthx?

My textbook on Quakerism called Jesus a radical, and I got pissed off. There's a huge difference between the historical Jesus and the qualities we ascribe to Jesus in a religious context. And honestly, while I thoroughly enjoy the Bible, it was written by a whole bunch of people, many of whom actually never saw him in their lives and who have radically different accounts of his way of speaking to and interacting with people. Granted, some aspects of stories in the Gospels are the same (I have to highlight all of them this semester...), but it's not particularly consistent beyond some basic story aspects. And I don't think it's fair to attribute qualities to Jesus that we just plain want him to have. Sure, it'd be cool if my lord and savior was a radical, but honestly, I'm perfectly fine with him being a middle of the road divine kind of guy, if that makes any sense.

It just makes me angry when people use Jesus to fit their own agenda and interpret all Biblical events as not only entirely factual but with an all to contemporary mindset on top of that.

I don't care if you have issues with authority/government/the church/whatever. But don't validate your contemporary radical opinions using your assumptions about a guy who lived 2000 years ago and who also deserves more respect than that.

I know we get grr at the super conservative Pat Robertson types, but honestly, I'm not so impressed with the more liberal end of the spectrum either.

Rawr. I is an angry college student with a virtual soap box.

1 comment:

  1. Its my understanding that ONE of the reasons that Judas betrayed Jesus was that Jesus was not radical enough. The messiah that was expected and the one that came were far different.

    I also think the truth or fallacy of the statement "Jesus was a Radical" has a great deal to do with perception of the word radical. I think that word, like many others, has lost meaning from casual overuse.

    Keep stepping up on your virtual soap box. We'll get some discussion going around here yet.

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