Jesus

It may be an occupational hazard, but I have been thinking about Jesus lately. As one of the more popular rhetorical weapons and symbols-to-fight-over. It sometimes makes sense to step back and consider for ourselves where he stands in our own faith journey. This may sound terribly Christian of me and...well...it is.

Even Unitarian Christians need to take stock of Jesus the rabbi and prophet from time to time and certainly the many Trinitarian Liberals (and/or Liberal Trinitarians) in our community at the Eliot Church and elsewhere also should give some thought to the man. Otherwise we run the risk of allowing ourselves to accept some comforting stereotype to affirm our own goodness. Now does that sound productive? I think not.

Earlier I reccomended Rabbi Jesus by Bruce Chilton. I do so again. Also, I refer you to this quote from Dorothy Sayers: "I believe it to be a great mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it.... We cannot blink at the fact that gentle Jesus meek and mild was so stiff in his opinions and so inflammatory in his language that he was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger. Whatever his peace was, it was not the peace of an amiable indifference."

Something to think about...