Jesus called, he wants his name back from Christianity

I was 15 the first time I went to Italy. Upon visiting several museums, I remember wondering why all the art was religious. I’d never seen so many images of baby Jesus in my life!

Years later, after several European trips, it became clear to me that Christian art essentially depicts two predominant Christian themes: (1) the immaculate conception, as represented by the myriads of images of Mother Mary with baby Jesus, or (2) the crucifixion and resurrection. I often wondered why there were no paintings of Jesus as a boy, a teenager or a young adult. Why were his conception/birth and his death/resurrection the only aspects of Jesus’ life that mattered? What about his life, the 33 years in between?

I should divulge at this point that I am not Christian, despite having grown up in a country that’s pretty much 100% Roman Catholic. I was born Jewish, and I am highly drawn to Eastern spirituality and philosophy, mostly Buddhism. I’ve never been baptized, never had first communion, never been inside a confessional, never tasted a communion wafer (I hear they’re tasteless). However, I do consider myself a Jesus devotee. I am a big fan of Jesus Christ and his teachings. For starters, I share a birthday with him. I am reminded of Jesus every time I present my ID: “Ooh, you’re a Christmas baby!”.

As a life-long seeker, I’ve read the major religious scriptures: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, the Tao Te Ching. I’ve attended many a religious service for multiple faiths and denominations; I’ve sat through Sunday sermons in English, Spanish, French and Latin; danced at Gospel services; and attended Christmas midnight masses, Easter Sunday services, Christian weddings, first communions.

What endeared me to Jesus was reading the Sermon on the Mount. Wow, so powerful! I learned of a kind, compassionate soul who preached about LOVE. Jesus maintained not only that we should love our neighbor, but we should also love our enemies. Can you imagine loving your enemies? This teaching alone is worth the price of admission. This kind of love would change the world in the most profound way. In Sermon on the Mount Jesus speaks of a kind, benevolent God who takes care of us; not an angry or punitive God. He taught us to turn the other cheek when evil is done unto us, rather than fighting back. And he taught us to not judge others, nor to be hypocritical. Such compelling teachings! THIS is the stuff of those 33 years in between birth and crucifixion that Christian art does not depict.

What’s NOT in the Sermon on the Mount is a representation of God as a harsh or vindictive entity to be feared. Jesus himself is portrayed as God-loving, not “God-fearing” (the expression makes me cringe every time I hear it). Jesus did not terrorize his disciples with the gruesome threat of burning in the flames of hell for all eternity for not behaving a certain way. He did not implicate his followers of being evil sinners … much less of being born sinners, soiled from the moment they came out of their mothers’ wombs. He did not judge or criticize women — he was kind even to prostitutes — nor he did not malign abortion or birth control. He mentioned absolutely nothing about priests having to be celibate.

Speaking of which … I find it hard to believe that Jesus was celibate for his 33 years of life. Why should he be? It was customary for Jewish Rabbis of his time, for jewish people in general, to marry and procreate, the more prolifically the better. Jesus was, after all, Jewish from his birth to his death, Christianity would not arrive for another four hundred years. Given that Jesus never got married, that he spent most of his time with his male disciples, and that he had an extra special relationship with his disciple John (the only of the disciples who came to the crucifixion, who sat next to Jesus at the Last Supper table, who laid his head on Jesus’ chest, and who was asked by Jesus to look after his mother) it’s not unreasonable to hypothesize that Jesus was gay. Many scholars believe that Jesus was gay. He certainly did not defile or insult homosexuals the way Christians do today.

What about his politics? Jesus’ teachings are all about equality, compassion, humility and serving the poor. He doesn’t appear to hold the wealthy in high regard: “How difficult for those with money to enter the kingdom of God.” He called for income redistribution: “For he will rescue the needy from their rich oppressors, the distressed who have no protector. He will have pity on the poor and the needy, and deliver the needy from death; he will liberate them from oppression and violence and their blood will be of high value in his eyes.” (Psalm 72:12). Folks, these are the pillars of modern day socialism. If Jesus were in the U.S. today, he would undeniably be in the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren camp.

So … how did we get from a gentle, liberal, likely-gay, socialist prophet preaching about love and compassion to the severe, judgmental and punitive views and practices of Christianity today? How did the whole concept of “God is love” get so completely lost, to be replaced by a cruel scary God to be feared and obeyed? The various Christian churches all seem less interested in promoting Jesus’ teachings on love, compassion and acceptance, and more keen on demanding that their subscribers follow a rigid set of laws and rules that, if broken, can land you in eternal damnation with no air conditioning.

I fail to see even the slightest, most minimal correlation between Jesus’ teachings and modern day (or ancient day) Christianity. Not even a remote resemblance thrice-removed. In fact Christ’s teachings are downright antithecal to Christian practices — they are much more akin to Buddist teachings. It sure seems to me like the name “Christianity”, with its reference to Christ, was co-opted purely as a marketing ploy. They’re not fooling me: Christianity could not possibly be more un-Christ-like.

The ruthlessness of Christianity can be traced back to its origins, when the religion was decriminalized by Constantine the Great and widely disseminated as a means of political propaganda. His goal was to obtain the complete submission and loyalty of his subjects throughout the empire. The Roman empire of course was not exactly known for its loving-kindness practices; torture and brutality were the norm (gladiator anyone?). The brutishness of the period permeated the religion to its core. It seems quite fitting that the cross — a common torture device in Roman days — should be the symbol for the Christian faith.

My jewish ancestors were brutally tortured during the Catholic church’s Spanish inquisition and forced to flee Spain. They fled to South America, where they were relentlessly followed by the inquisition and driven to live in caves for survival. Entire indigenous populations were erased by Christian missionaries, their women raped and their children tortured and brainwashed into conversion. In the United States the early Catholic church was literally built on slavery. The Jesuit order owned numerous slaves, they constructed churches and schools from profits derived from the ownership and sale of humans. In fact, the New Testament condones slavery, and Christian slaveowners used the bible to justify slavery! Years later, the Vatican & the various Christian churches turned a blind eye to the horrors of the Holocaust, or worse. Many Christians collaborated with the Nazis. After all, didn’t Hitler’s virulent antisemitism stem from established Christian antisemitic views, rooted in the false notion that Jews killed Jesus? (The Romans killed Jesus). In Africa, rather than helping eradicate the AIDS crisis by supporting condom use, the Catholic church preached the unattainable stance of abstinence, leading to mass deaths. Christianity — and notably the Catholic church — always seems to be on the wrong side of what most would consider moral or ethical. They have a colossal amount of blood on their hands.

The thing that really bothers me is that an organization as influential as the Catholic church could be an incredibly powerful source of good (if only they shared Jesus Christ’s beliefs!). Sure, plenty of Christians and Christian churches do good charity work, I’m not denying that. But Christian charity comes with judgements and conditions. I don’t see my local church helping gay & trans people in need, or unmarried women, immigrants, Muslims. They only love certain neighbors. And Christians are not big on self-love either. If you believe you’re born a sinner, how can you be worthy of love?

The Catholic church is more intent on amassing wealth and power, and keeping it in perpetuity, than in spreading love or kindness (much less promoting inclusion or equality). If you’ve ever visited the Vatican, you’ve seen first-hand the Catholic church’s obscene wealth, the gobs of gold, silver, precious stones and art they pilfered from colonial territories, destroying countless lives and entire tribes in the process. Do you think Jesus would approve of the vitriol, the murders, the wars and the theft perpetrated in his name?

Sadly, Christian greed and cruelty are not relegated to the past, it’s just taken a different form. Biases held by Christians continue causing enormous harm to millions of people. Attacks on gays and trans people — both verbal and physical — perpetrated by self-righteous Christians lead to hate homicides and suicides. In their positions towards women & girls, many Christian churches are not ideologically far off from the Taliban. Extreme abortion prohibitions being legislated across red states with no exception for rape or incest — encouraged and supported by Christians and their churches — devastate many girls’ & women’s lives, and create unnecessary medical emergencies and deaths. Nor will some churches allow women to become priests & ministers. Just recently the NYT featured an article about Southern Baptists cracking down on women as pastors — never mind that it’s the women who are the ones practicing and spreading the actual teachings of Jesus Christ!

Christianity controls its subjects by making them feel small, powerless, guilty and shame-full. How do you feel when you walk into one of those massive, gothic cathedrals with spires reaching up to the heavens? You feel like a tiny ant who could be squashed at any time. Doesn’t exactly build self-esteem. Then, from the pulpit, priests and ministers finish the job by constantly reminding you that you’re a worthless sinner, that YOU KILLED JESUS, that you’re going to hell.

Isn’t religion supposed to be uplifting, a source of fortitude and inspiration?

What does it even mean that “Jesus died for our sins”? Nobody has been able to explain that to me in a coherent way. How do you make sense of a claim that you & I are to blame for a death that occurred two millenia ago? Sounds to me like Christians have been beaten over the head with that phrase so many times, hundreds of thousands of times, incessantly, until they accepted it as gospel. Much like Trump with Stop the Steal. How is that not the ultimate conspiracy theory? Whatever “Jesus died for our sins” means, I find it incredibly cruel to lay that on innocent children: to teach them that they are so bad, such horrible evil people, that they are responsible for the death of their hero. And then we wonder why our society has such collective trauma, so many mental health issues!

Then there’s this whole clerical celibacy bullshit. I’m sorry, there is no logical rationale or religious basis this practice. It’s not natural, it drives men to do unspeakable things. The priest celibacy practice began in the 11th century as a means for the Catholic church to preserve the wealth among a few powerful men, so they did not have to share the spoils through inheritance. Christian greed was, and continues to be, limitless.

Worst of all in my opinion is the cruelty towards the children. Look, if you choose to self-flagellate, or climb up a mountain on your bloody knees to replicate the Via Dolorosa, that’s your business. If you choose to subject yourself to going to church every Sunday to be told repeatedly that you are a small, shameful, worthless sinner, that’s your deal. But are you really OK with the evangelicals imposing harsh corporal punishment on their kids as part of their Christian home-schooling indoctrination? Are you comfortable turning a blind eye to the thousands of priests who routinely sexually molest and rape altar boys and school children? (Why are these priests not being indicted and incarcerated?)

Separation of church and state is most definitely not a reality in this country, no matter what our forefathers may have proclaimed. Evangelicals and other zealots are very much involved in the political process, and they are wrecking our democracy. They are also dumbing down American voters with their flat-earth, creationism, book-banning, anti-science positions.

It’s not difficult to see the correlation between belief in the bible and modern-day conspiracy theories. If you believe literally that a man walked on water, or that a virgin woman became miraculously impregnated — in egregious defiance of what we know to be scientifically true — it’s not a stretch to believe in outlandish conspiracy theories, like MTG’s jewish space lasers. If you believe that Noah literally brought two of each animal onto a floating vessel in a deluge, or that the world was literally created in 7 days … a QAnon cabal of pedophiles is not such a crazy concept. THESE ARE ALLEGORIES FOLKS! For God’s sake, the bible is NOT a historic document!!

The science world has no qualms recognizing its limitations and acknowledging that science and religion can coexist. Darwinism can only go so far in explaining the origins & evolution of mankind; actual creation remains a mystery. Science does not pretend to prove or disprove the existence of God. Does Christianity extend the same courtesy to science? They sure went out of their way to ostracize and excommunicate brilliant scientists like Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Renee Descartes & Isaac Newton. Christianity has no interest in knowledge; its only interest is power and control.

Mercifully, the demise of organized Chistianity is already underway. People are sick and tired of the hypocrisy, the bigotry and the cruelty. They are abandoning Christianity in droves. Approximately 64% of Americans today consider themselves Christian, down from 90% half a century ago. It is predicted that Christians will no longer be the majority in America by the year 2070. That’s not nearly fast enough, if you ask me.

I suspect my birthday-buddy Jesus Christ would concur. He would like his good name back.