So I sat in church yesterday, awaiting the cue to leap up for the Halelujah Chorus, pondering the greater meaning of the Judas gospel. If it is true that Jesus had Judas turn him in to fulfill his wishes, what does that mean for the sermon I was hearing, the anthem I was singing, the building I was sitting in? I never much bought the virgin birth, wasn’t too clear on the meaning of the crucifixion, and wasn’t 100 percent convinced about even the resurrection. But, as the frequently heard rationale among the doubters goes, at least we believe in the message of Christianity and think the world is better off for his teaching. Right?
What if it was so much spin? Was Jesus fulfilling a martyr complex on top of his messiah complex? Was he fulfilling a prophecy and a plan? What does that say about free will? What if this didn’t have to happen? What if Jesus had lived a long life and died of natural causes? What if there wasn’t a crucifixion? What if he had an influence of Judaism without his followers splitting away? Would we have the same wars among the Abrahamic religions we have today? Would the world be bettter off? What does this say about moral relativism, about ends justifying means? What does it say about secrecy and conspiracy? Is heaven political? And, of course, is there heaven? Should I be Jewish?
Yes, Jeff, you SHOULD be Jewish!
I haven’t really paid much attention to the whole Judas Gospel brouhaha, but is it really so heretical? Jesus knew he was destined to die for our sins. Judas had a role to play and he did. What the Judas Gospel really does is change what we’ve been taught in Sunday School our entire lives: Judas was a traitor who committeed suicide rather than face the consequences of his actions; condemned to eternal damnation for his role in the death of the Messiah. If anything, this makes Judas less of a boogey-man and more human. And if we’ve learned anything in the last five years it’s that humanizing a perceived enemy is tantamount to treason.
For whatever reason, I don’t find myself drawn to thinking about Jesus the man. He lived, he died, he had motives, he did stuff. I don’t know that I can expect answers about such things that would be unbiased.
As a devotional this Easter, I sat and thought about a few words of his, the Beatitudes, and how they measured up to the 10 Commandments. I always thought the 10 Commandments were wise, so if the Beatitudes said something about them that I needed to know, maybe I could appreciate Christianity all the more.
The more I study christianity and other religions, the more perplexing I find it to be. No other religion seems to mandate absolute thoughts to the exclusion of all others the way christianity does.
But then, being automatically forgiven for everything that you did, and everything that you will do in the future, with no requirement to better your behavior – that is quite a tempting way to see God. Why attempt to refrain from sinning, since Jesus will forgive it all anyway?
I like your treatise on learning from one’s mistakes, but I fear it is not shared by the Catholic church. This is the same church that refuses to include other gospels – those of Judas, Mary, Thomas, etc. and instead picks only the 4 gospels that tell the same story in the same words. If scholars were to find that the other gospels had meaning and relevance, or that a heretical gospel shed some additional light on the life of Jesus, would the church be willing to say “sorry, it was a mistake to leave that part out!” I doubt it.
As to what kind of God is in the Old Testament bible – the Bible was written for the people of the time. When they needed a warlike god, Yahweh was warlike. When they needed him to be jealous, he was jealous. When they (later) needed him to be compassionate, kind, loving, he was. Yahweh has always, and only, been what the people at the time needed him to be.
I recommend reading Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels, and John Shelby Spong, to give you further questions to ponder…
Why would anyone go to church in the 21st century? It’s beyond obvious that God doesn’t exist. JJ expects us to take him seriously with what he writes, but reveals that he believes in fairy tales. Says a lot about his intelligence.
It’s refreshing to see that you “practice what you preach” by opening your personal questions and doubts to public debate. Christian’s must never fear this debate. Our faith passes muster intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. By torturing our individual faith with questions and hypotheses until opinions and facts confess the truth, we energize our faith with the confidence that opens our hearts to our detractors.
Keep up the debate!
I’ve been an analytical Christian since I was 13 years old, so I understand the doubting believer. But the message of Christianity IS the Crucifixion and Resurrection. If you do not believe in these 2 events why do you go to church?
The fortuitous return of the Judas Gospel to the theological fray at this stage of the game is part of the larger “explosion” of culture we are currently smack in the middle of. Disintermediation is transforming every aspect of our lives, from where we get our news to whom/what we choose to believe in and why. Bronze Age sky gods and their infallible and inflexible dictates are increasingly not going to cut it for Mankind — this isn’t to say God has to go, simply that one’s relationship with the eternal is going to become increasingly personal and unique as time goes on. Martin Luther started this whole process centuries ago by attempting to open source the Catholic Church. Now in an age that is anathema to hierarchy of any sort, does organized religion as we know it stand any chance of survival whatsoever? The savvier faiths will find a way to respond to the netroots parishioners, but the old brontosaurs are simply lumbering along on borrowed time.
The beautiful part of the Catholic Church is precisely its refusal to bend to the gusts of popular trends.
I have to agree that the non-mutability of Catholisism makes it a stronger religion. I don’t understand people who say – I’m a Catholic, but I don’t belive the church about X Y or Z.
A religion should be what it is, if you aren’t what it does, you aren’t
You don’t change what a religion is, you accept or you find one that matches you.
That being said, I’m a proof person. While I believe there was a man named Jesus and the basic stories told in the gospels are based in truth, I don’t see how any religion is reality. While I could accept a way of life through the teachings of christianity, I can’t accept the dogma baggage that goes with it.
Chico,
Certainly, if you consider gospels written at the same time as Mark to be “popular trends”, hehe. But really, these gospels were labelled heretical in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when the church was trying to avoid being wiped out through religious persecution by the romans. So, to simplfy the message, only 4 gospels were retained, along with 20 something other texts which supported the basic message. This is the Catholic church. And I take back some of what I said before, in that the church has had to admit some things discovered by science to be true (earth actually does revolve around the sun for instance) when it became apparent that the people knew the truth anyway.
In the long run, all religions must change if they are to survive. No one believes in ancient pagan gods anymore, yet traditions from pagan religions can be found in christianity, which adopted these traditions so that those practicing them could be persuaded to join the Church. It was “Happy Saturnalia” long before it was “Merry Christmas”.
Please go to the secular web (www.infidels.org) for further rantings along these lines.
The Judas Gospel is a gnostic text that was rejected precisely because its message was contrary to Jesus’ teachings. You cannot reconcile it with Christianity. It is a pythagorean greek philosophy that posits that the material world is Evil, created by an Evil creator (demiurge), to warp creation from its original, purely Spiritual Goodness as created by the original creator. In its most extreme versions gnosticism states that Yahweh is the evil principle and that Lucifer is the lightbringer and principle of good and freedom. The implications of this on the status of Jews should be obvious. Don’t fall for the hype!
Mr. Jarvis–
If you’re a Christian believer, you’re already Jewish. Christians are waiting for the same Messiah the Jews are. The level of faith Paul talks about in Romans 8 is called “emuna” in Jewish theology. Yeshua came out of the grave on the feast of First Fruits (sound familiar? Paul talks about that, too). Pentecost is a Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Word; Christians celebrate the same thing in a wider context.
Don’t confuse a religious structure with the spiritual truth it was established to represent. Any organization can stray from its roots.
The beautiful part of the Catholic Church is precisely its refusal to bend to the gusts of popular trends.
You’re joking, right? When’s the last time you went to a Latin Mass?
Rudely, but to save myself time retyping something i do have some thots on re: Judas Gospel –
http://knapsack.blogspot.com
Peace, Jeff
Hey, i just read your sermon from the link Jeff, and that’s a gorgeous piece of pastoral theology — this from a pastor considered a wee bit too evangelical by many of my UCC clergy colleagues! I’m going to send it to my wife who was worrying this weekend about many of the same questions (actually, wondering if she should feel guilty about thinking the Incarnation makes more sense than the Atonement).
There’s stuff i’d put differently myself, but that’s a sermon i’d be delighted to hear from any lay member, let alone youth Sunday school teacher.
Pax, Jeff (the one in Ohio)
“I never much bought the virgin birth, wasn’t too clear on the meaning of the crucifixion, and wasn’t 100 percent convinced about even the resurrection….”
Hmmmm…. Like someone asked earlier, then what the heck were you doing sitting in church Sunday, Jeff? Waiting for the lightning bolt to hit you with a revelation about the virgin birth?
And what’s this about “at least we believe in the message of Christianity and think the world is better off for his teaching. Right?”
Uh, the message of Christianity is God in the flesh coming to earth to sacrifice himself for mankind to forever bridge the gap caused by man’s sin and God’s perfection. And since sin is passed on from one man to another through birth, then how does a perfect God become a man without becoming sin himself? Well, through a virgin birth.
Does that clear it up for you?
http://www.uu.edu/news/NewsReleases/release.cfm?ID=1021
A pretty good summary here.
JE
Long time no Latin. And the meditative experience is worse for it. Some parishes still do it. Dumbest changes resulted from Vatican II back in 60s. Altar flipped around, English. Worst of all, the music. Singing crapass Sebastian Temple tunes instead of centuries-old Latin hymns. Art that was created by people who were making a gift of their finest skills. I guess those changes qualify as bending to society’s need for “relevance”, at least in the way Mass was celebrated.
Relgion has two aspects, one is the stories of the origins of the world and those of the religions founder(s). The other is the moral lessons it wants society to follow.
Most religions seem to be based upon some version of the golden rule as a moral framework. Thus, if a person becomes disenchanted with the story telling aspects of religion they can still use the moral parts as a way to guide their own personal behavior.
Living a moral life and trying to “do right” does not require belief in a specific historical narrative.
Good. So if I read “Huck Finn” or “Tom Sawyer” but don’t appreciate Twain’s theme about racism and slavery, then I can call it a book about rafts.
Or maybe it can be a novel about two boys and their adventures on the Mississippi River in the 1800s. Nope, that’s too much of a “specific historical narrative,” which may lead me to read deeper and investigate why they were rafting on the river, which leads back to all that sermonizing.
I better just stick to a book about rafts. I do have a choice, right? To believe what I want to believe? That doesn’t make me a fool, does it?
I think the modern world says more about the sinning….er….spinning of Paul than it does anything else. It was Paul who decided to sell the koolaid to the gentiles.
The rest, as they say….Is History…..
Some interesting questions. I agree with you that a Christ who hasn’t risen makes Christianity kind of useless. The Apostle Paul agrees with you, too (1 Corinthians 15:1-19).
And as for you Toblerone, you wrote: “But then, being automatically forgiven for everything that you did, and everything that you will do in the future, with no requirement to better your behavior – that is quite a tempting way to see God. Why attempt to refrain from sinning, since Jesus will forgive it all anyway?”
You might want to check out my blog for an answer to that. Christianity DOES have a requirement to better your behaviour!