Jesus seemed no more impressive than other humans

In an earlier post, I mentioned the fact that when Christianity gets uncomfortable, we’re encouraged to look at Jesus’ words and actions – as documented in the “New” Testament – and remember that God has a lefty side to Him and is therefore worth sticking with because you want to, not just because you have to. When I first became a Christian, my faith was all about God – He was the one I ultimately needed to impress, after all, while Jesus was merely the punching bag who’d cleared things up so that I could now chat directly with the Man Upstairs. I grew up taking for granted the fact that God was real, and Jesus was always a key part of the God story. I’d never needed to have Jesus’ God-ness proven, or to figure out his miracles, or to make sure he’d actually existed. I’d assumed and accepted all of it. 

As my deconstruction continued, I came to appreciate Jesus more. Though I found God problematic and the church insular and blokey, Jesus’ perspective on the world was one I could mostly get behind. There are a bunch of examples of Jesus treating women with kindness and respect in the Bible, and reaching these conversations after reading it from the very beginning is like walking into an air-conditioned room after sweltering outside. For this reason, Jesus seemed like maybe he’d be okay with female-me (more okay than all the other men recorded within the Bible’s pages), and, because the bar was so very low, I liked him for that. I highlighted the parts of the gospels where Jesus sounds gentle and progressive and quite Enneagram-Type-One-ish, and I liked him for that, too. I decided that if he were around today, we’d probably share political views.

I knew, however, that others read the gospels and imagined completely different Jesuses, which, after what I’d learned about the bazillion varying approaches to the rest of the Bible, came as no surprise to me. I was aware that I was choosing the Jesus I respected most because this would allow me to hold on to the last remaining fragment of my shattered faith. I didn’t know what else to do.

What really grates is the portrayal of Jesus as a wimp, or worse. Paintings depict a gentle man embracing children and cuddling lambs. Hymns celebrate his patience and tenderness. The mainstream church, Driscoll has written, has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”

Molly Worthen, writing about Mack Driscoll
(Notice the homophobia inherent in these quotes.)

I originally wrote paragraph upon paragraph in this section, much of it outlining the reasons I don’t think that Jesus is/was God, and then deleted it all after realising I was explaining away ideas that hadn’t actually factored into my decision to be or not to be a Christian; I’d gone from documenting my experience to arguing against imaginary people. This section about Jesus will be disappointingly meagre to those who care a lot about Jesus. I do like Jesus! Still! No more than many other people, though. And not enough to build an entire faith around.

For one thing, as I mentioned earlier in this series, God was Father and Jesus was Son, and I was neither of these relationships with anyone; Jesus’ maleness – like God’s – would always be a barrier between us. Also, honestly, I was disappointed about the way he’d used his platform. Given he was God, he should have known that a whole religion would eventually be created around his teaching, right? So why not teach in a way that unvaguely called out terrible behaviour and gave instructions for living well while he had the chance? Where was the section of his Sermon on the Mount in which he cried, “Yea, verily, I say unto ye: Equality is a really big deal to me/God, okay? Stop arguing over power and BE KIND to everyone. EVERYONE! Racism is disgusting! Gender is not binary! Peoples’ sexuality doesn’t bother me, I’m not a creep! Don’t be a creep! Don’t harm people! If someone loves me/God – weird how we’re the same person, I hear ya – let them tell others about their experience! No matter their gender/sexuality/marital status! Now go forth and BE KIND PEOPLE, PEOPLE!”? It didn’t exist. Jesus had the perfect opportunity to clear up a whole lot of questions us humans had (and would eventually have) about him/God, and instead we got parables and pigs running off cliffs. 

(To be fair, the gospels were probably written at least 30 years after Jesus died, so it’s possible Jesus did say many things along these lines but no one remembered them when it came time to write it all down. Or the authors remembered such teaching but chose not to include it after considering that it may inspire their wives/daughters to go chasing an education rather than cooking dinners. Or the authors wrote it down as best they could remember it and then the scribes changed it because they didn’t want their wives/daughters, etc., etc.. Whatever the story, these are all issues that could have been ironed out fairly easily if Christians were right about God’s a) existence and b) omnipotence.)

Plus, while I liked a lot of Jesus’ teachings, they seemed no more profound than those of other teachers or philosophers or songwriters or authors I read. For example, the Golden Rule (“Do unto others…” which Jesus shares with a crowd in Matthew 7:12) – a motto I still try to live by and regularly repeat (in more modern language) to my kids – has been said in a hundred different ways by a hundred different people, religious and also not. Jesus wasn’t the only one who said cool and wise and quotable things. If I were to choose a bunch of interesting men from history to have over for dinner, Jesus would make the list, but after, say, Fred Rogers, or Nelson Mandela.

I’d let go of the concern that there was a scary afterlife, and so I didn’t buy the idea that Jesus had needed to die to save me from it. Why did he die, then? What was the point of it? Had he actually consented to it, or was he coerced into it by God the Father? Why did we celebrate his gruesome murder year after year after year at Easter, banning our children from M-rated movies but happily and regularly sharing with them the story of Jesus’ torture? Why did we still sing about blood and sacrifices each week at church? It made no sense to me; all of it seemed like we were trying too hard to uphold ancient religious traditions that were in serious need of a major update. The newer version could have room for Jesus, but which one? My “wimpy” version, or Mark Driscoll’s warrior? No one would be able to decide on one, just as no one was able to agree on what the Bible taught.

I wanted to hold onto Jesus because I knew that as long as he played a role in my faith, people would worry far less about me; you can ditch the doctrines of gender roles and/or hell, you can even ditch church, but you can’t ditch Jesus. That’s the point at which even the most open-minded Christians decide that you’ve definitely switched from In to Out and begin to cry at you. I was becoming better at listening to myself by this point, though, and doing what felt right rather than what made others happiest. I was done with pretending. I cautiously moved Jesus from my “important deities to worship” dish to my “fascinating people from the past” bucket, and then I waited for the profound sadness to kick in. I waited, and I waited some more. After a while, I admitted to myself that profound sadness was probably unnecessary and that it was official: I no longer followed Christ. I could no longer call myself a Christian.

I’d thought such news would rock me, but letting go was such a slow and careful process that by this stage it was a relief to accept that the things I’d always thought didn’t make sense really didn’t make sense, and to figure out what – if anything! – came next, rather than continuing to cling to something mostly dead and hoping for it to spring back to life so that I wouldn’t disappoint anyone.

I was no longer a Christian. 

The deconstruction was done. 

I felt 100% okay about both of these facts.