Nor do people put new tubes in old, bald tires. If they do the tires will blow out, and the tubes will be ruined and the tires will be torn up. But they put new tubes in new tires and both give good mileage. -- Matthew 9:17 (Cotton Patch Bible)I’ll be frank in saying that whenever I hear of Jesus, or see a depiction of Jesus, the first thing I think of by power of suggestion is the figurehead of political ideologies and their praxis. Perhaps the reaction is due to my background as a one-time preacherboy in the distant past, when I was a true believer who embraced fundamentalist evangelicalism without reserve. I’m sure the experience would be different for, say, African American christians, Korean christians, and so on, but I speak as someone who was immersed in the run of the mill, mass-religions Republican-conservative Reaganomics-christianity back in the day. I bought into it hook, line, and sinker, and believed that the United States was a Christian Nation founded upon the Bible and Christian patriarchy.The early first century “church,” the syncretistic mystery cults wrote the synoptic gospels employing symbolic language to create a soteriological mythology around the Q-logia, and there was a proliferation most likely post-Mark of gnostic and so-called apocryphal gospels. But the magickal gospels got ousted and condemned as apocryphal heresy, and the inherently poisonous gospels became canonized, which contained the condemnation of the Jews; they became testaments that catalyzed anti-Jewish antisemitism. They were what’s called “bad myth,” but what happened happened and it was a significant part of catalytic virus-behavior of human beings so far, and the situation of the globe is what it is. This early sanctified, sanctioned condemnation of a people became license for condemnation of anyone who is not a christian. Ironically, their syncretistic god had self-effaced into non-existence, but rose again (which is a common pre-christian hero-myth motif) as the suprahistorical christ. The suprahistorical christ has no doctrine to give but eschatological condemnations of churches and nations that are disobedient to teachings, teachings which have never been clearly delineated in the first place, leaving the christian community in a fog of fear and confusion. Based on this initial resurrection of the “historical” Jesus, the suprahistorical christ took on various forms throughout history, starting with the political authority of Constantine. Once ensconced in the seat of political power and authority, it became a scourge to clear the world of sin, wickedness, and non-christianity. So today, as it was in my day, we in America on a mass scale (never mind the heretics) worship Republican Jesus, whose truth will set our enterprises free. Because this savior has no through line teaching or personality, he is easily made to fit any scheme. So all biblical statements which have potentially different interpretations are hermeneutically supplemented with the unwritten small-print meme. "Love god": Support the GOP wholeheartedly. "Love your neighbor": This is to pat the backs of your christian neighbors, and support the NRA. It’s everyone’s god-given right to bear arms. A man should never love another man inordinately, in the biblical sense, however. "Help and feed the poor": This is to give tax breaks to corporations so that jobs will trickle down to the poor, so that they will be able to fend for themselves. "Heal the sick": This is to uphold pharmaceutical industries and never give free health care to the poor, because the former know what heals, while the latter would kill you (“death panels”). "Cast out demons": Environmentalists are satanic advocates of the “green dragon,” which is against the will of the lord; go ye out and cast them out, including illegal human beings. And so on it goes. Stop and reflect for a moment, especially if you are a christian that believes in the small-print Republican new testament like I once did when I was a young man. Doesn’t the Book of Revelation speak of the end times as when there will be a great deception? Maybe you are a follower of the dreaded Antichrist, and don’t even know it. But if you say no, and zealously hold on to your faith, then so be it. At least you won’t be alone.
