Part of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified, according to this new novel.

This is a copy of my fifth post on the Communitas Collective blog.

It seems to me that ‘Christian Power Play’ should be an oxymoron.However, the words and actions of some Christians imply otherwise. After reading the local newspaper this week I wrote the following response to a column by a Christian.

In her December 2 column Virginia Seuffert argues that public schools should display Christmas trees at this time of year. Her reasoning is “the United States was founded by Christians on Christian principles” and “almost 80 percent of the United States’ population is still Christian or Jewish”.

Virginia’s power play is common human behavior but the opposite of how Jesus entered the world and lived in it (according to the Bible). In the Christmas story Jesus could have come as a powerful King with a crown yet he was born as a baby. Later he gave up his life for humanity rather than using God’s power to take the throne. From birth to death Jesus opposed human exploitation of power.

Virginia wrote “symbols threaten no one but their loss threatens us all”. It seems to me that a corrupted symbol is worse than no symbol at all. When Christians like Virginia link Christianity with power plays they go against everything Jesus stood for and the beauty of Christianity is destroyed.

In the Bible the author of Philippians exhorts Christians to emulate Jesus’ humility, love and compassion. He says if Christians live this way and do everything without complaining or arguing they will “shine like stars”. Virginia wants sparkly Christmas trees to adorn our public school classrooms. Wouldn’t it be better to have sparkly Christians adorning our community? Then perhaps Christianity would become the Good News the angels announced to the shepherds that very first Christmas.

They taught it’s necessary to believe certain things and then pray a particular prayer. They said God will always answer the prayer if you mean it.

Someone summarized what you need to believe and the prayer into four Spiritual Laws:

1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
2. Man is sinful and separated from God.
3. Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin.
4. We must individually receive Jesus as Savior and Lord. (this is the prayer)

These laws are all about me and fixing my problem. They remind me of commercials which assure me that my life will be so much better or easier if I buy what they are selling.

Lots of people don’t seem to know the Four Spiritual Laws. Or maybe they do and they just disagree with them. Most of them who believe in heaven seem to be hoping that if they are good people and are kind to others, that will get them there.

I found places in the Bible where it seems like Jesus agrees with them. One time Jesus said people who did the following things would go to heaven:

• Gave food to a hungry person
• Gave drink to a thirsty person
• Invited a stranger in
• Gave clothes to someone who needed them
• Looked after a sick person
• Visited someone in prison

Jesus didn’t say anything about what they’d believed or whether they’d prayed any particular prayer.

Jesus also didn’t say how many of these things people had to do and how much. But, I don’t think Jesus would ask people to be kind to others if he wasn’t planning to be kind to them. So I think in his decisions about who did enough he will be kind.

Another time a man actually asked Jesus how to make sure he would go to heaven. First, Jesus said, do these things:

• Don’t murder
• Don’t be unfaithful to your wife
• Don’t steal
• Don’t tell lies about others
• Don’t cheat
• Honor your parents

These are mostly from what Christians call ‘the ten commandments’. Jesus only mentioned the commandments about how to treat other people. He didn’t mention the ones about God or keeping the Sabbath holy. I don’t know why he left them out.

The man replied he’d already done what Jesus said. So then Jesus added, do one more thing: “sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, then come follow me”.

Jesus didn’t tell him he had to believe three things and then pray a prayer. What he did say was hard. I don’t think I would be willing to sell everything I have. I think Jesus will be kind when he decides if this man did enough.

Jesus’ way of getting to heaven makes sense to me. If I was in charge of heaven, I’d like to have people there who were kind to others, not people who just prayed a prayer. (If they did both that would be fine) I’d like to be on earth with those people as well.

It was confusing that my church said it was very wrong to think doing good things like being kind to people was how you get to heaven, yet Jesus said that.

I decided to quit church and hope Jesus was right.

This month I’ve been taking a course offered at Unity Temple called “Jesus for Unitarian Universalists and other Modern Persons”. I’m not a Unitarian so I guess I must be a Modern Person, whatever that is. It sounds flattering, anyway.

I actually belong to a very conservative Church in Oak Park where a few people have expressed a combination of shock and concern that I am attending such a course. Perhaps the rest of them are blissfully unaware that I am. Certainly the initial reactions didn’t encourage me to be especially open about it. To be fair, I know the reactions are out of concern that it will not be ‘good’ for me spiritually, to subject myself to the teachings of this course. And I do appreciate that concern.

I really don’t want to think I’m going just to get a reaction out of conservative Christians; I hope that’s not why. I think I’m going because I genuinely want to know more about what some other people are saying about Jesus.

The particular views shared in this course are those of the Jesus Seminar members – a group of academics whose studies, speculation and yes, perhaps also personal biases, have led them to certain conclusions. They believe that there is a core of historical truth in the New Testament gospels but much of what is contained in them is myth and legend that developed around Jesus after he died, rather than being descriptions of the actual events of his life and his actual words.

The most frustrating thing to me about a course like this is that there’s little time to present much more than the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar. I’m the sort of Modern Person who always wants to know how and why people come to the conclusions they do. I don’t know how to begin to assess their validity otherwise. I suppose one answer is to read the source books for the course and I am doing some of that. Another is to read the conservative Christian books that tell me how tenuous what the Jesus Seminar says, is. They will find every loophole there is. But when it comes to personal bias I don’t believe the conservative Christian writers are any better than the Jesus Seminar at being objective. It’s hard to step outside one’s own belief system – it’s hard to even see a reason to, in fact.

And trying to walk through what the Jesus Seminar says, for many conservative Christians, is probably a bit like being invited to the post-mortem dissection of your best friend. It won’t change the friendship you had and it’s certainly not how you would want to remember them. Although that analogy falls very short since conservative Christians believe Jesus is very much alive, even though he is not present in a physically material sense. Anyway, that’s probably why I’m the only conservative Christian taking this course – to my knowledge – and I wouldn’t expect others to rush into it.

I think my church would argue strongly against the idea that Jesus (as taught about and worshiped there) is not for Modern Persons. After all, do we not have contemporary worship music and powerpoint? But more importantly, don’t people have the same basic needs and problems that they always had? Has the solution for those changed? Do we need a different Jesus today from the one proclaimed by the church since the writers of the ancient creeds took their stand on who Jesus is? Does the underlying message of traditional Christianity really need ‘updating’?

My church would say, in the strongest possible terms, definitely not! But the Jesus Seminar would deny that they are going forward from what traditional Christianity teaches into something new. They would say they are rather going back to look at who Jesus the person ‘really’ was, before the beliefs developed that coalesced by late into the first century, into Christianity.

Their search is for Jesus’ original teachings, they might say. They are impressed enough with their picture of Jesus that many of them call themselves Christians, although many conservative Christians find that claim absurd. Anyone can say they are a Christian but according to conservative Christians you aren’t really one unless you believe Jesus is God, his death was for you personally, his resurrection really happened and he’s the only way you can have a relationship with God. And you are going to hell if you aren’t really one – hence the vital importance of teaching ‘the truth’ about Jesus and not the ideas of some group of people whose starting premise is that the Bible is full of made-up stories.

It seems fascinating and ironic to me that both my church and this course want to ‘set people free’ by teaching them ‘the truth about Jesus’. My church offers God’s forgiveness, salvation and eternal life through a right understanding of Jesus (and acceptance of him as Lord and Savior). One main goal of the course at Unity Temple is to encourage people who had dismissed Jesus when they decided Christianity was not for them, to take another look at him. To ‘give him his due’, as it were, as a great and influential person who is worth studying.

I don’t feel comfortable saying to other people “you’re wrong!” when it comes to things I can’t prove either way. That doesn’t mean that I never comment or ask questions. In fact it’s possible that my comments/questions during this course might have revealed a little skepticism about some of the content.

But I also ask questions or comment at my own church, regularly. Trying to do it with appropriate ‘gentleness and respect’, since that is one Biblical admonition about how Christians are to interact. I would hope that asking questions and commenting at least shows I am listening to what I hear and thinking about it. It seems to me that that’s the most likely way for me to find ‘the truth’, whatever (or Whoever) that may be.

And besides, isn’t that exactly what a Modern Person like me ought to be doing?

I enjoy the signs of Spring very much, but couldn’t say that they give me new life- even though they might put a smile on my face! But God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, offers us new life. It was a long time before I realized this. I studied Jesus’ life according to the Bible in high school in my religious education classes. So I knew about the resurrection and knew that people argued over whether it really happened. I thought it maybe it did; I didn’t know. I didn’t know there was anything more to being a Christian than being one of those people who were of the opinion “yes, that probably did happen a long time ago”.

But when I was twenty I heard something that I’d never heard before: that being a Christian was about beginning a new life with God; it was not simply mental assent to some historical fact. I heard that God has a plan for my life and wanted me to give my life to Him so He could show me what His plan was. That His plan was better than mine could ever be (since He knows all things) and was the best plan for me (because He is love and loves me). That giving God control was not just a matter of coming under some external code of conduct but about inviting Jesus, who is very much alive, into my life to be Lord of it. This new life was freely offered to me by God but it cost Him a very high price; Jesus His Son had to die for my sins, otherwise I couldn’t have a relationship with Him because my sins separated us. The only way to have this new life and relationship was to receive it from God as a gift. It would be impossible for me to earn my way into a relationship with God by doing good things.

I thought carefully about beginning this new life because it was obviously a commitment that would involve changes in my life although I didn’t know what they would be. A couple of weeks later I did decide to pray a prayer along the lines of “Jesus (if you’re real), thank you for dying on the cross so I could be forgiven. Please come into my heart and life and take control of it.”

Until then I was thinking the changes in my life would be external – for example, now my schedule would change because I’d have to go to church! But in fact God began changing me on the inside within days, as I realized that since God loved me totally and unconditionally, I could begin to let go of unforgiveness towards people and a need to impress others or be a certain way to win their approval. Now I knew God loved me, it didn’t matter so much what other people thought and now I had a relationship with God I would always have Someone to go to when I was lonely or afraid or needing direction in my life.

God is still changing me (as fast as I will let Him!) and bringing new life into my life. And I’m very thankful I can teach my children about having new life through Jesus before they are twenty. I hope you will consider coming to God and receiving the new life He offers through Jesus, this Easter, if you have never done so.

Bible verses to look up about new life in Jesus: John 3:16, John 5:24, John 14:6, 2 Cor 5:21, Eph 2:1-10, Rom 8:9-11, Rom 5:8 (see below)

Bible Passages Mentioned Above:

John 3:16 (NIV) “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 5:24 (NIV) “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

John 14:6 (NIV) Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

2Cor 5:21 (NIV) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ephe 2:1 (NIV) As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Roma 8:9 (NIV) You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Roma 5:8 (NIV) But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.