I live in the north end of town, and the only way for me to get home from almost anywhere is to drive the main thoroughfare, North Avenue. Every time I drive this road, I pass a Catholic church. The church is used for church things, of course, and until this upcoming election it’s also been my local polling station, aka the place where people in my ward vote. Additionally, it periodically houses local schools that must vacate the kids for a semester or so due to construction projects (the reason my polling station will move this fall).
The church doesn’t sit all that far back on North Ave, so it’s totally visible to me each time I go by. And this is relevant because we’re getting close to my wondering.
But first, we have to look at the church itself.
Fronted by lawn, the building is square-faced, square-angled, and brick. Its sanctuary doors open front and center. Doors that are intended to welcome should open that way, don’t you think? Their placement is important because it means that everyone who drives or walks or bikes North Ave, in either direction, has a clear view of those doors. The doors are big, maybe 10’ tall (?) and built with a handsome lattice wood design. Above the doors, much broader in width and taller in scale, is a wall made of square glass bricks. The effect of these glass bricks is eye-catching, even visible at night when an interior light shines softly through. Mounted center on the glass bricks is a huge cross. On the cross is Jesus. This statue is at least the size of the double doors below, if not taller. The crucifix above the welcome doors is unmissable.
Jesus did not have an easy death, and this portrayal does not romanticize it. He’s barely clad, pinned to the cross, and living his final moments or just past them. It’s violent, painful, ominous, and heartbreaking.
Most days, I drive past Jesus’ suffering body at least twice. I’ve been doing this now for three-and-a-half years, and in this time, driving back and forth in summer and winter, ice and humidity, storm and temperance, it’s struck me what a stark religious symbol Jesus on the cross is.
Yah, I mean, duh, of course. That image portrays the end of Jesus’ life story: people turning against him, betrayal, God sacrificing him for us, him dying for our sins. Really hard stuff.
But over the last few months, here’s what I’ve begun to wonder. What would the world be like if the universal symbol for Christianity was something different?
Not one ounce of disrespect
First, I want to say front and center: I intend absolutely no disrespect to someone who lived, then gave, his life for Love for everyone. And I’m not here to trash Christianity. Nope. So, if you’re either worried or hopeful, let that go. This wondering is not that.
And please note: though a crucifix above a church door started my wondering, this wondering works everywhere. The symbol/language highlighted as central to whatever religion/spirituality you are affiliated with is yours to parse and ponder. Religiously, spiritually, this wondering is easily translatable.
It’s always easy to go next door and criticize someone’s back yard. Try your best to start with your own. We all have enough weeds to contend with. And wondering is not a witch hunt, that’s a different, single-focused, animal altogether. Wondering is open.
So, back to my wondering
What would happen if the image hanging above that church door on North Ave, and above church doors and altars all over the world, was not of Jesus dying on the cross? What if the symbol of Christianity wasn’t any form of the cross at all?
A quick cross history (1)
To loosely get our history straight, Jesus died in the year 30ce (what the Western world used to call 30AD ), and the cross existed as a symbol all over the world long before Jesus’ life, looooong before. The cross was not originally a Christian symbol. Among other things, it was pagan.
In early Christianity, and for centuries after Jesus died, the symbol was a fish. The fish, as theories go, symbolized that Jesus and his disciples were fishers of men and that Jesus fed (and ate with) everyone.
In the 300s, over 270 years after Jesus died, the cross was chosen to replace the fish by emperor Constantine when he became a Christian. This first crosses were empty crosses. they symbolized the triumph of good over evil.
It took until the mid 350s for the cross to become a popular Christian symbol. That’s 320+ years after Jesus died. It was around then that Jesus was sometimes portrayed on the cross. When he was, he was alive, exalted, glowing, a sign of hope and promise. That portrayal of Jesus was a beautiful thing and symbolized God’s power over evil.
500 years passed with this version.
In the 800s, 770 years after Jesus died, the portrayal of Jesus was changed to the one like the crucifix I now drive by on North Ave. This suffering body on the cross was invented to symbolize Jesus dying for us and God’s willingness to sacrifice his son on our behalf in payment for our sins.
The average lifespan back then was 30-40 years, so the symbol we take for granted today was created around twenty generations after Jesus lived. It’s an evolution to wonder about.
It wasn’t a God phone call
Remember, God didn’t call people on the phone and say, Hey, here’s how I want you to represent Jesus … and the religion you’re creating based on his teachings!
And Jesus (in his life as recorded by the three earliest gospels, still written at least 30 years after he died, but much closer to his actual life, and not composed to set up a religion) never said he wanted to be
represented
or
the center of a religion (let alone worshiped)
It was human European men who picked the symbol
As I drove back and forth wondering, and my questions laddered one atop the next, I realized it critical to remember that human beings chose what became the predominant image representing Jesus, his life, and the Christian church. Even more, it wasn’t everyday human beings, it was religious leaders who created and controlled the religious messaging. See, everyday folks couldn’t even read the Bible (it was strictly kept in Latin and they couldn’t read Latin), so they relied on everything (facts to interpretations) given to them by the priests and leaders of the Catholic church. And these men, headquartered in Europe, set themselves up as unquestionable.
Each of the four evolutions I listed above - fish, bare cross, triumphant cross, agony cross - were decided upon by man.
Sidebar: Jesus was not lily White
And (though not the focal wondering of this piece), so, too, was it European mens’ decision to depict Jesus as lily White. Jesus was not. Jesus grew up in what was Palestine, though it’s now northern Israel.
Let that rest with you for a minute. Let this past year’s intense retaliatory murderous onslaught by Israel that so far has killed over 40,000 Palestinians — where in Gaza “the smell of death is everywhere” (2) — as a result of the awful conflict between Israel and Hamas, rest with you for longer than a minute.
Jesus was born in the Middle East. He did not have blonde hair or blue eyes or look like me. When counter protestors at Ole Miss overwhelmed a Pro-Palestine protest, and chanted ““Who’s your daddy?”, “USA”, “Hit the showers”, “Your nose is huge” and, in one instance, included a white man making monkey noises at a Black woman (3),” somehow the fact that Jesus in highest likelihood looked much more Palestinian than White frat boy was lost on them. And trust me, this type of response was not limited to the South.
How in the world did we get here where we can’t talk about mass murder with any objectivity let alone compassion? And I wonder, what if Jesus had been among them?
Anyway, I’ve digressed. Here’s one of the earliest representations of Jesus, found in Southern Israel.
DROR MAAYAN/ANTIQUITY (3)
Over the millennium, the repercussions on People of Color because of this man-made depiction of a White Jesus have been horrific. But it sure has been convenient for any White person who wanted to be literally made in God’s image, go to war, enslave, or colonize, hasn’t it? And, for anyone not White, to have God’s son portrayed as White was also a thing, especially in countries where White supremacy reigned. Think of receiving the messaging all your life that God looked like the people who hate/are afraid/have subjugated you.
Always, always we benefit from circling back upriver to the wondering, Who does it serve? White Jesus. Who does that portrayal serve? I’d love to leave you there for a bit.
When you’re done, let’s return to the focus of this wondering.
Why did those early fish/cross images transform in the way they did?
What was happening in history when each was chosen, and what purpose did each change serve?
Clearly none of us have all the answers, though there are academic historians who come as close as is possible. Historians are different than the folks who say: BECAUSE GOD SAID SO. One group works hard to do fact-based, fella-historian-science-fact-corroborated research into the past. One does not.
For now, don't google. Metaphorically drive up and down North Ave. Wonder the question for yourself. See where it takes you. Then, I’ll jump to the symbol at hand.
What’s the impact of agony and murder being a religion’s symbol?
And here we are.
This is what started me. Driving north to south, south to north, I got to wondering about that agony-filled image. My first wondering (even before all I’ve just offered) was:
What’s the experience of that heartbreaking sculpted image on the people who experience it?
What’s the experience of that heartbreaking sculpted image on the people who worship it?
What is it like for someone to enter that church, day after day or week after week, underneath Jesus’ dying suffering body?
Really.
What does it feel like to have entered that sanctuary your whole life under that crucifix?
What is it like as a child? As an adult?
What is it like to notice?
What’s the internal impact of eventually beginning to not notice?
What is it like to be a stranger (to town, to that church, to church at all, to Catholicism, to Christianity) and see that portrayal of Jesus hanging over the door?
And imagine, never having been in a church, walking in for the first time under a man dying on a cross. What would your feelings be? And if you were a small child?
What a choice that was
I mean, wow. This image of Jesus being murdered was what church leaders picked to go with. I wondered and wondered about that, and marveled as well. It’s something we take for granted. Honestly? Up until this past year, it was a symbol I’d never questioned.
And then I got to wondering, what would Christianity be like, what would the world be like (!), if the church had picked an entirely different image as its representation?
I wondered about this for a long time, too. I still do.
What image would you choose?
On my way to wondering about the impact of Jesus suffering on the cross, I found it helped to wonder, What would I choose instead?
So, here are options that leap out to me: Jesus calling the little children to him; Jesus feeding thousands of people with one fish; Jesus praying quietly in the wilderness; Jesus denying a devil that’s offering him every power and possession in the world; Jesus making and sharing really amazing wine at a long wedding bash where he was a guest; Jesus eating with people (everyone) that his religion forbid him to hang around with; Jesus healing; Jesus teaching everyone about Love.
(I apologize that this is still a Western looking Jesus. It’s fascinating to search the stock images for Jesus: they’re mainly cross-based, suffering, power based, European. I don’t find the Love.)
What about being empowered?
Where my wondering lead me next was to the realization that each of these alternate images are empowering, yes? Each one speaks to love, the kind of radical love that transcends our personal groups, our egos and insecurities. Each speaks to that metaphorical God mansion that has a room for everyone, and a love that is both active and includes the whole world.
These images, drawn from Jesus’ ministry, represent his choices of how to live. They aren’t what was done to him. They’re images of a humble, brave, loving man deeply committed to the world and his God.
Driving down the road, seeing one of those hanging above the church doors that lead to sanctuary, what would that be like? What would that do for you? For religion? Our nation?
Images give birth to language
We are language-based people, and each of these images naturally gives birth to messages. So, let’s explore words for a bit. Here’s an example of what I mean: imagine if the image was Jesus feeding everyone with one fish (the implication, beyond the obvious, being there is always enough) and so the words Feed Everyone hung above every church door in the world.
For goodness sakes, people. Imagine that.
Do words hurt us?
I grew up with that sticks and stones saying, didn’t you? That words will never hurt us? Well, B.S.
Words can be like poisonous snakes (sorry snakes) and sneak in to poison us over time in ways we don’t see. As a result, words often require more care in their selection than images do. And to me, this is especially true when it comes to religion. Words tied to God (or whoever/whatever you worship) can pack a heavy wallop. So, words that go over church doors, and extend from pulpits, all over the world need to be chosen with great care and awareness. Because our words, let alone an institution's, can decimate a person’s foundation, self-image, confidence, and ability to love.
Some people use words in this way on purpose. For example, there’s a practice called proof-texting which means to lift a small piece of text (words) out of a larger body of text and use it as a message – even though it flies against the message held in the larger body of words. I don’t know about other religions, but in Christianity, this is done a lot with the Bible (especially in regards to the LGBTQIA+ community). I’ve been seeing it happen with the news, as well.
Proof text, big or small, is a cheater’s way of supporting the point they want to make. And in Christianity, I have not seen it used to make the world a better place for the Neighbors Jesus asks his followers to love in the second of his two commandments.
Wondering with awareness and some caution
So, there’s caution to be had in this part of the wondering. For example, if you google important sayings from Jesus to help guide your wondering about alternative words for the primary message of Christianity, a lot of the quotes that fly up most quickly are from the last gospel, the gospel of John. This is the gospel written 65-80 years after Jesus died and it was both not first-hand and also very unlike the gospels written closer to the time Jesus actually lived. The three earlier gospels were largely intended to tell the story of Jesus’ life and death by capturing his words and acts (though even these were first passed along as oral stories). John’s Gospel is different from these three gospels as it had a purpose beyond telling Jesus’ life story. It was intended to bolster the beginnings of Christianity.
A number of John’s inclusions in that Gospel were not drawn from what some Biblical historians (4) think actually came out of Jesus’ mouth. Instead, they were written to give people strict guidance on how to be Christians, honor the belief there was only one way, and go head-to-head with Judaism. As a result, the Gospel of John makes it feel like Jesus wanted to start a church (one centered on him) when there is absolutely no evidence for this in the earlier gospels.
What is consistent among the gospels is that Jesus lived guided by his connection with God and this was what he was trying to share with the people he met.
So, for the purpose of this part of the wondering, I’ll instead take words from the Gospel of Matthew (which they think was written within 30 years of Jesus’ death):
Let your light shine before others (5:16)
(which means let your inner light illuminate the path we walk together, not make yourself first)
Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened (7:7-8)
(it’s ok to wonder, and to search for truth and love, God is cool with that)
Seventy Seven Times (18:22)
(Jesus’ message that forgiveness should be infinite)
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (22:37-40)
Or simply
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
or
Love Your Neighbor
(a personal favorite, and no, Jesus didn’t only mean the people you live near or hang with)
And what about Wonder?
What if the huge word that hung above every church door was Wonder?
WONDER
Imagine driving by that every day. Imagine entering a sanctuary with that word as your invitation.
Wonder
Now, among the priests and their leaders way back when (and in many places today), there was absolutely no interest in having a public that wondered. Religious leaders held the reins tight. Want to understand what’s in the Bible? Sorry, that’s for church officials. Just trust us. Want to be forgiven? Give the church some money, tell your secrets to a priest, and he’ll do his best to intervene on your behalf. Want to go to heaven? Hang out in purgatory for days, weeks, months, while other church folks pray on your behalf and maybe eventually you’ll make it. Told to go kill the heathens on God’s behalf? You get the picture. I am not being disrespectful, this is simply how it was. Absolute power cannot be questioned, it creates the cracks that let the light in.
Wondering was as dangerous to those church leaders as kryptonite is to Superman.
So, wonder about Wonder as the symbol. It has so many beautiful meanings, and all, to me, feel close to whatever word it is people - atheists and spiritual alike – use for the essence of God. It’s an invitation for direct contact. Wondering, to me, is a sacred act.
And, OMG. What if the word was love?
LOVE
Or (because Christians – and humans – often monkey with the word love to a point where it becomes a weapon against people who are different) what if it was love everyone?
LOVE EVERYONE
What would it be like to drive by a church whose official word(s) and sole image was to love? What would it be like to walk into a sanctuary under the word Love or Love Everyone day after day? What would the world be like if that’s what Christians were expected to do above all else? What would our lives be like? Think of the effort so many people would put into learning how to love themselves and others in healthy ways.
What if the verb-command became a verb-received?
What if instead of telling us what to do, it was a message directly from God that said, I love everyone equally? Or, I love you and I love everyone else too?
I LOVE YOU
I LOVE EVERYONE EQUALLY
Imagine driving by that every single day. Imagine walking through those doors. Rather than being reminded we or they are sinners, not worthy, children of an angry God, defenders of an angry God, I wonder what it would be like if Christians all over the world were confident of God’s love? Knew it wasn’t a competition? That everyone they passed on the street was loved in equal measure?
What in the world would things be like then?
Wonder for a moment, or year, how the world and Christianity would be different if the welcome word, the team mascot so to speak, was a word or phrase of affirmation not only for us but for the world and the world around us? And it had an image that supported it?
Imagine passing these words above the door of a church every day:
Hey! You are so loved! And so is absolutely everyone else! Take care of one another!
What impact would that have? I don’t know, maybe a lived Sermon on the Mount?
So WHY is it a suffering man on a cross and the message that he died because of and for our sins?
It felt to me, Pollyanna as this may be, that an alternate image like one of these with words to support it would be wonderful. Same root! Wonder! Wonderful! And so, as it goes, all this wondering led me to a new set of questions.
Pretty much this: Why? WHY?
What was/is the purpose, the aim, the objective of the choice to make the symbol of Christianity a murdered dying man on a cross?
Now, I know I’m armchair quarterbacking, but in those three first gospels there isn’t one tiny indication of Jesus saying (or wishing), Hey everyone, let’s carve an image of me suffering and dying on the cross because of you! We can use that to teach people about loving God and their Neighbor!
And, for me? The teaching to Love your neighbor as yourself and a man tortured on the cross don’t intersect easily on any Venn diagram.
So, why?
Going within to my own experience and also listening without (to what I hear said, taught, and the repercussions I witness), I come out with two main things. At least so far.
The we are sinners impact
First part of the message that’s arisen over the years is See? This man died for you. This man died because of your sins. God gave up this man, his beloved son, for you because you are sinners, forever and amen, and he wanted you to have a chance. You are responsible.
Whether hidden between the lines or said out loud, you don’t have to travel far for this message. We are the reason Jesus died.
What’s at the heart of it?
Imagine if you were raised by a parent who said they loved you in spite of yourself. That you were broken, fatally flawed, a sinner. (I mean, we’re all broken in some way, duh, it’s part of being human, and hopefully we’re all trying to heal those breaks, but this parental message is about a deeper brokenness, one that comes without much hope and with a lot of shame).
Jesus died because of them pretty quickly translates to Jesus died because of me. I am filled with original sin. I’m unworthy. It’s a guilt trip. It puts us in our place. It also puts the original them, and those who later become them, in their place.
Can we love when we believe we’re bad?
Either way, how am I, how are we, supposed to be guided by a message that, at its heart, says we are irredeemable sinners?
This is where the wondering took me next. I’ve been learning just enough to be dangerous about Attachment Theory, which is the Psychological theory that the way we were each loved as children has shaped our social and emotional development and our ability to (and the ways we) create relationships.
To do the briefest of recaps, “the physical attachment between parent … and child leads to a sense of physical and psychological security. Nonresponsive or rejecting interactions with a caretaker lead the child to feel anxiety, insecurity, and low self-esteem. These psychological insecurities inhibit the child’s formation of satisfying relationships with others, including, eventually, his or her own children. Thus, attachment theorists propose that neglecting and abusive behaviors are transmitted across generations”(7).
You may wonder, what the heck does this have to do with anything? But in Christianity, God is called the Father, which makes God the ultimate parent. And God’s real son dying on the cross because of me/them/me/them? God sacrificing his real son for me? Because of me? And needing to get down on our knees over and over to beg forgiveness for our permanent sins? Being threatened with the fiery pits of hell? Don’t you wonder how that leads to a healthy attachment style?
The I love you in spite of who you are, is a tough message.
It’s very different than I love you exactly the way you are, flaws and gems; I love you for you; I have chosen you as my own.
I think most any psychologist would say it’s impossible to love truly (let alone love the world as our Neighbor) when we believe we are bad and evil. When we think our parents believe this of us. Our pastor or priest. Our God.
Thinking we’re bad gives us shame. Shame drives us underground and makes us fragile. Fragility creates anger and fear. Being angry and afraid makes it easy to collect evidence against ourselves and difficult to believe we’re worth love, despite our flaws. Feeling we are unworthy sends us out to make others even more unworthy. And so on.
What role does guilt play?
There is a lot of guilt attached to the crucifix. We humans are rather easily manipulated when we’re guilt-ridden. Where do we go to be saved from this guilt? Right through those doors. And yet those are the doors telling us to feel guilty in the first place. It’s a bit of a vortex, don’t you think?
Keeping us guilty keeps us loyal to the institution that offers us salvation, and well, that makes us even easier to manage. Especially if we’re seeking to be saved for life eternal, and we’ve been told we can’t do it on our own, mm mm, not just us and God.
Come through our doors, you poor lost sinners, and we will save you. Don’t ask questions, that is the way of the devil. We’ve got you. This is the path.
Wonder on that for a bit. I did. Then I wondered, Wait. Is the place so many people are going for love actually doing the opposite? And is that why so many people worship in places despite the fact that those places/religions actually teach values opposite their own? Is this why people can’t break away from their life/church/etc to live the love they truly feel?
Recently, in my friend’s meditation group, someone cried out in heart-pain: I thought Christians were supposed to love their neighbors?
And my wondering that followed was,
If we’re taught that we’re bad, carry original sin, made God kill his son because of us and for us, can we love ourselves?
If our church teaches us shame and that we aren’t worthy, how can we possibly expect ourselves to love ourselves for who we are?
And if we can’t love ourselves, how can we ever love others at all, let alone in a healthy way?
And then one day, driving along, I thought it again. WAIT.
So, what is the message about stepping out of the fold to live with love?
Because there’s an even more subtle impact of this image of Jesus suffering on the cross, isn’t there?
Think for a moment about how Jesus actually lived. Jesus was a radical dude. He bucked his religion’s boundaries (there were a lot of rules that included things and people he was not supposed to associate with). But he ignored the rules. He ate with and talked with and healed and loved everyone. He said there was a room for every person (not just people of his own faith) in his father’s mansion. He said, leave to Caesar what is Caesar's. He said a rich man was less likely to get to heaven than a camel was to pass through a keyhole. Camels are big. He even flipped over the money changer’s table in the temple, a table run by his own religion, and exposed his religion’s hypocrisy in getting money from its people in order for them to worship their God. He told people instead to feed and love everyone, and his sermon on the Mount? Well, look it up.
Day after day, he bucked his religion’s systems and rule in favor of Love, a radical love that challenged his tribe and religion. The way he lived, and the things he preached?
Ever met one of those people who live in a way you know is the path of the heart and it makes you hugely uncomfortable (consciously or unconsciously) because it threatens your own comfort? He was that guy. Boy, did he piss people off. And we all know what happened.
So, north and south, south and north, a conversation with a friend here and a conversation with a friend there, I thought about this. And I began to wonder, is it subtle? Or is it actually pretty strong messaging when a religious institution puts the spiritual leader’s dead body front and center? Especially considering that leader was killed because he ignored his religion and lived for all the people and God, and (here is the kicker!) the church of today is RIGHT NOW doing so many of the things Jesus preached against?
Taking in money? Preaching against loving everyone? Saying the path to heaven is exclusive? Telling people to vote for a convicted sexual assault perp and convicted felon who is openly racist and says he’ll kill his opponents? (It’s true, a clear illustration of what institutions will do to keep their power)
What if subliminally we’re afraid, too, we will be killed?
In the midst of this I remembered that when I was really little, I was terrified I’d be killed just like Jesus was. Isn’t that funny, to be a really little kid and worry about something like that? But Jesus who loved people, well, to see him hung up there, suffering, killed by people of his own religion for loving (and if anyone gets sidetracked here and blames the Jews, you are missing the whole point), well, it was unsettling to say the least. And not in the I am an awful sinner way but in the If I live like Jesus, will I be killed, too? way.
Because witnessing the social messaging of Christians and many Christian churches, which is the opposite of the very things Jesus asked people to do, I have come to the conclusion that the crucifix is actually a subtle form of discouragement against
loving too radically.
loving and living the way he did.
challenging the church or its teachings.
not being rich.
loving our Neighbor exactly as ourself.
giving the power to God and Love.
Why would anyone be discouraged from these things?
Look upriver. Doing them takes power from the institution.
So, yes, make offerings; yes, love the little old lady down the street; yes, be a missionary and try to help those poor damned people who don’t yet know the truth; but don’t look too closely at what Jesus actually did and said, and certainly do not live it.
See him above the door? See what will happen if you do?
Where are we now?
In the months of the unfolding of this wondering, as I’ve watched it be ok for so many Christians to lie about other people simply to further their own gain (like admitting to lying about the Haitian immigrants in Ohio and claiming it’s ok, despite what these lies to do the Haitian lives - not to mention those of all immigrants and people of color because hate isn’t discerning - it’t all ok because it furthers a bigger goal, even if all the little children receive bomb threats at school) (omg, must I say it, it’s the opposite of what Jesus taught!!!), and I’ve wondered,
What is wrong with us?
Half of the messaging we receive these days is to totally and completely not love your Neighbor as yourself, and yet this half is largely done in the name of Christianity.
Jesus wanted us to feed everyone, take real care of people in prison, love all the children (can you imagine Jesus separating a child from its parents at the border and putting that child in a cell, when he himself was a border crosser and also had been a refugee with his own parents, both when his mom was pregnant and after he was born, running from a deranged ruler who endangered their lives), take care of the poor, etc etc etc.
And then there’s this. For many Christians, TODAY, it’s right (and encouraged!) to hate, threaten, discriminate, mock, kill people because they aren’t Christian, straight, White, male, and a particular political orientation.
How does this compute?
The symbol interrupts love
Driving north and south, walking through a doorway in and out, in and out, each time under the dead body of an incredible man who died because of me, well, I wonder, does that heal anything within me?
I do not think so. And unhealed I’m not whole. I’m dangerous.
My best parts are interrupted. So, too, is my potential.
So, back to the OG wondering
This is not disrespect to what happened to Jesus, or the significance of the cross. To know that we would probably do this again is an important reminder, both a behavior and love check. And to give ones life in love for everyone, well, there is no higher act other than (if you can) living ones life for everyone.
But as the central image?
Imagine Instead
Look! Eat your fill with me, multiply your loaves for others as there is always enough, celebrate love with the best wine, pray for the guidance of the heart, walk away from power and riches but don’t miss life’s beauty, love all the children of the world, take care of everyone, Love everyone and LOVE yourself because you are amazing. I love them and I love you, equally. Go, be love.
What would have happened if, from the beginning, this had been the central guiding image and wording of God’s love for Christians? The one above doors and altars and around people’s necks?
Who could we be? Who would I be? What would our world be?
I think it, all of it, could be much more beautiful.
So. How do we get there from here?
one step at a time. What do we do next?
******
If this essay speaks to you, please click the heart, comment, subscribe so you know when I release the next essay, recommend to another person, share, restack. One or all, each of these things make a big difference in a writer’s life. Thank you!!
*******
Sources
The Jesus Seminar (I am doing a terrible thing here and linking you to a Wikipedia page. Please forgive me, fellow educators. But this page can vault you into the deep study that took place among Biblical Scholars and lay people and where to find its resulting scholarship. Of course it’s biased as any scholarship religion, let alone on someone who lived at least 30 years before his life was written down, and yes, 2000 years ago. But it has really good thinking, thinking worth meeting. Borg’s, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, also includes their evaluations of the possibility of Jesus having said what is attributed to him, line by line. That’s a shorter way in.)
Britannica, Jesus (some Jesus’ life info)
I will be wondering about this and sharing this for a very long time