Taking Jesus Back

¡Hola! Everybody...
Okay, so pending confirmation from my sister, we might move the picnic over to her house. It’s closer to public transportation for those who don’t have cars. I’ll be sending an email later today, so stay tuned.

Today? I’m taking Jesus back!

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-=[ Kidnapping the Baby Jesus ]=-

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

-- Matthew 5:1-12 (New Revised Standard Version)

I have a friend, let’s call him Thomas. Thomas curses like a sailor, smokes cigarettes, occasionally enjoys getting his drink on, and is one of the funniest people I know. His commitment to social justice and the work he has done has done more to ease suffering than most people you will ever meet. He doesn’t “give a shit” about whether you accept Jesus as you savior or not. His main concern is your problem and how he can help you solve it.

Aside from the great work Thomas does what sets him apart from most of my friends is that Thomas is actually Father Thomas. He’s a priest and one of the most spiritually evolved people I have ever had the good fortune to meet.

One day I was speaking on social justice at a law school in Manhattan. It’s considered the top law school in the land (it competes yearly with Harvard for that distinction). After, during the question/ answer section, a gentleman rose and identified himself as being from the “faith-based” community and his question was to the point: “What can we in the faith-based community do to help stop the madness of mass incarceration.” My response was equally to the point: “Get up and tell the politicians to stop justifying these unjust policies in your God’s name. Tell them, ‘not in our name.’” I went on to explain that though I don’t identify as a Christian, I do know that a major theme as articulated in the life of Jesus is the concept of redemption.

This gentleman insisted we meet so that we could collaborate, and I accepted the invitation. However, when I looked at the program he was running, I immediately realized that this man wasn’t working toward social justice, he was pushing religion. A large part of his program involved coercing program participants into accepting Jesus as their savior, regardless of their spiritual backgrounds. When I visited some of his facilities, I knew I wanted no part of their program and let him know.

Two people, two Christians, each having a different impact on their communities.

I have no problem with another person’s faith. It’s none of my business. I do have a problem with individuals who, though they may like me, or respect my work in social justice, will continue to see me as incomplete because I will not accept Jesus as my savior.

As far as I’m concerned, this preoccupation with conversion experiences is a pathology. It is a plague on our nation and world.

As a young man, I remember learning from a Hindu teacher that all paths are valid. He taught that -- although they use different names and different religious methods -- they all point to the same goal. The poet Gibran described religions as fingers from the same hand.

For too long, we have allowed the neoconservatives to kidnap Jesus and twist his teachings to suit their particular brand of intolerance, injustice, and bigotry. We need to take back Jesus, developing a wider view of Christianity that includes respect not only for other religions but also for science, logic, and reason.

Many of you would think that the two, science and religion, could never be reconciled, but I dispute that claim. I believe spirituality speaks truths that are different from the truths of science. The bible should never be read literally. If you believe in a higher power, then you must certainly believe that higher power created human minds that could think critically and unearth the mysteries of the universe. Only a demented fool would stick to an idea even after it has been irrefutably dismantled. Still, many spiritual stories have metaphysical lessons to teach us -- truths that have nothing to do with science. Let science be science and spirituality be spirituality.

Evolution is a scientific theory like gravity, which has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Leave the child’s understanding of a universe created in six days behind, people. Personally, I do to believe in a Divine Hierarchy that must be prayed to in order to curry favor and so many of you would consider me an atheist or an agnostic., I am neither. I quite literally don’t give a fuck. My spirituality is more closely aligned to what would be called an evolutionary spirituality and no -- please! -- don’t come at me with that bullshit Intelligent Design! That’s not what I’m speaking of when I say evolutionary spirituality.

But I digress. What I want to talk about is a Christianity where science and religion are compatible. A Christianity that allows one to read the bible metaphorically rather than literally and respects the scientific method. Doubt, my friends, is the handmaiden of faith and love is the primary Christian value, and it is directly related to the promotion of liberty and social justice. There are many valid paths to the spiritual mountain and Christianity is only one of them.

I will address three hot button issues in the coming days and make a case for Christianity for those who identify as progressives or liberals. I will say this much, if you think what I have written above to be a pipe dream, please know that there at least 60 million Christians who identify with what I have written here today.

There is, after all, hope....

Love,

Eddie