"Hate Jesus Christ?" - Absolutely NOT!

The historical Jesus was a common eating and healing Rabbi who would have no use for spiritual warfare and division, contrary to the memes pushed by too many fundies!


Well, at least one Florida Pastor seems to have seen the light, and now has implored Terry Jones (in an open letter) to reconsider his public burning of Qur’ans and do it in private if he must do it at all. Mayhap he actually read the blog I posted yesterday including the quotations from Matthew (5:43-44, and 18:21-22) that enjoin followers to love their enemies.

Of course, as per his usual shtick, he’s conveniently twisted the words to suit what I referred to as an arrogance of exclusionary absolutism. I noted that this enters because a person somehow believes his text and only his is the absolute correct standard for revealed truth and all others must be frauds, or pretenders. And hence their followers must be "misguided" or aligned with "false doctrines".

This is confirmed when the (would-be) changeling pastor scribbles:

"I believe ….. that the majority of Muslims are in fact good-decent people (albeit misguided , like the Catholics , JW's , Mormons , etc..) .

(But) as Christians , we know that all throughout the New Testament when Jesus spoke of "love," he meant it in the context of BIBLICAL love . i.e., to pray for our enemies , and not to hate them personally , but to hate their false doctrines , and their sinful actions , as well as whenever possible to preach the TRUE Gospel of Jesus Christ to them . He did NOT mean it in the UNbiblical (ecumenical) way”

But again, an examination of the particular scriptures and their L- and Q-tradition roots and language disclose this pastor is seriously mistaken! (Which of course comes with the territory of obtaining your scriptural education at an online bible college rather than a fully accredited major university that is grounded in proper theology and not pseudo-theology).

In fact the exegetical deconstruction shows one can’t willy nilly excavate ANY “false doctrine’ component from the personal! There is NO distinction made! The odd quotes he uses to justify his exclusionary thought (a quote from Galatians) was clearly a later syncretic addition which as noted by the Rev. Thomas Bokenkotter (A Concise History of the Catholic Church, p. 17) “was written to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus, but was not biographical or historical”

But as I showed time and time again, this fundie is content to conflate where it serves his imperious purpose, so in effect he says: “yeah, okay, go ahead and love your enemies but not their (devoutly held) beliefs which are false doctrines”

But devoutly held beliefs are part of the person, and even Christ said more than once “there are many mansions in my Father’s house”. Meaning that there isn’t ONE and only ONE way to get to his kingdom (which in the strict exegetical sense we don’t take as a literal “heaven” but as a consciousness of comity and harmony)

Nor would Jesus have uttered the words of Matthew 5:43-44 merely to isolate the personal from the doctrinal. He MEANT BOTH! Of course, he would’ve meant the personal, but ALSO respecting the enemy’s own doctrinal basis deeply held, unless that basis provoked hate or malice.

But to do as the changeling pastor, and condemn ALL other religious belief systems to perdition and “Satanic origin” merely because you disagree on their mode of salvation is to be as fully misguided as Terry Jones in his desire to burn Muslim holy books. It is, in effect, to commit the mental crime and abomination of hate prior to the actual deed. (Recall here that Jesus said over and over that when one merely THINKS of murder or adultery in his heart, he has already committed the deed in actuality)

In effect, the pastor is guilty of the very hateful thought sin to which Yeshua referred. The message to take away is that when he made his “love your enemies” statements he meant unconditionally, not parsing the meaning to mean hating the doctrines – which btw, can never be known to be “false” by any finite brain or even collection of ancient finite brains such as the authors of the NT.

He also (amusingly) pulls me up for citing scriptures at all, possibly believing that since I am a “radical atheist” (his words) I have no right to do so though I studied biblical exegesis and theology for three years at a Jesuit university!

He writes:

“many hypocritical militant atheists and their ilk take Jesus' words out of context ( from our Holy Bible that they profess NOT to believe in”)

But he has it wrong! First, as I showed, the words were not taken out of context – they were perfectly in context, in the sense that loving one’s enemies means doing it fully not partially (which would imply reservation and hence not warrant the seven times seventy forgiveness mandate)

He also has it wrong in misconstruing my quotations from a book I “profess not to believe in”. But this shows he hasn’t been paying attention. It is not that I don’t “believe in it” but that I have said one can’t take every passage literally because of the differential language re-translation, and ad hoc transcriptions (often with deliberate later additions or mutilations - see Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus), not to mention thousands of copyist errors. He even implicitly agrees (or has effectively agreed) with this contention, as when – after I cited more than 40 unambiguous biblical contradictions - he came back “parsing” using “correct interpretations” to show most of them weren’t in conflict (at least in his mind). However, this very resort to parsing and interpretation discloses he himself doesn’t take every passage literally! SO, who is the real hypocrite here? One who faithfully and consistently approaches the good book from the viewpoint of non-literalness or one who claims he does, but then employs conveniently rationalized expositions to justify “interpretation” when it suits his fancy?

His last remarks are even more humorous, and just as wide of the mark:

“Again , I speak from personal experience , having an older sibling who is a radical atheist , and has his heart so hardened against Christ that he "loves' only those doctrines and people that are opposed to Christ . Nevertheless , I continue to pray for his salvation every day , in spite of the hold that Satan and his demons have on him .”


Which is balderdash. No demons have any more hold on me than they do on Stephen Hawking. His problem is that anyone who disagrees with him, or who formulates or posits a world view different from his dogmatic, absolutist antiquated one is assumed governed by “demons”. The problem is that this produces a perpetually hostile mindset not conducive to following the injunctions of Matthew 5:43-44 or 18:21-22, but to interminably seek out “enemies” and fight with them – if they don’t conform to one’s own uncompromising beliefs. This is a template for unending war, strife and personal conflict- hardly what Yeshua was thinking of when he enjoined people to "love one another as your Father loves you".

Far from “hating Christ”, I have the utmost honor, reverence and appreciation for one of the greatest teachers in human history- one rightfully to be considered along with Guatama Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, and Mohammed. What incenses the pastor is that I haven’t picked a favorite, as the only route to salvation. This not only disappoints him but causes him to believe I “hate Christ” when my position is the furthest thing from it. Indeed, why on Earth would I quote Christ if I hated him? To my own “hypocritical ends?” Hardly! Rather to show Terry Jones and his followers that their planned actions don’t conform with the actual teachings of the one THEY profess to follow!

He claims that I “love only doctrines and people opposed to Christ” but again, he is misinformed and misconstrues my position. I neither “love” nor “hate” any particular belief system- whether Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Eckist, Mormon, “JW”, Science of Mind, Anglican, Unitarian or other, I merely say – given the warning from the Gödel Incompleteness theorems to do with limitations of the human mind - there is no way absolutist exclusionary propositions can be supported. To do so presumes a perfection of brain, insight and knowledge that humans don’t possess.

If he could bring himself to see that, as opposed to incessantly lecturing on the formulaic way for HIS salvation (he'd best use his time not fretting over mine), he might be less inclined to see me as an “enemy”. Even one of the foremost New Testament scholars, Elaine Pagels, notes that the New Testament “supports a range of interpretations”. She argues that despite this, one literal view emerged in the 2nd century which declared all others “heretical”, despite the fact that actual history supported them more than the literalist ("Jesus= God") thesis. Pagels' further argument is that the literalist version was adopted because it “legitimized certain political and religious authority”.

By contrast, the actual recitation and analysis of the known facts of the life of the historical Jesus – not the made up version (see, e.g. John Dominic Crossan’s magnificent book: ‘The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant’) shows he repudiated such authority at every turn. Moreover, he himself – like the later Gnostics- would have regarded it as blasphemous for any one (especially himself) to presume identity with God. For this reason, biblical scholar Geza Vermes (The Authentic Gospel of Jesus) separates the authentic “Son of Man” sayings in the Gospels from their counterfeit “Son of God” counterparts - which as he notes were mainly uttered by his persecutors (in mockery), or by “demons”.

What we have here, therefore, is at once a failure of communication, and also a failure of respect. The pastor doesn’t respect me or my world view not only because he doesn’t understand it, but because it collides with his black or white, exclusionary mindset. For the same reason he renders as enemies all other people who differ in their own devoutly held beliefs from his own – including his own Catholic parents. (Let's not forget here that he’s indiscriminate in whom he consigns to the eternal pits. Catholics, whom he's also labeled as “false doctrine” holders fare no better than atheists! He doesn’t like me repeating this, preferring to keep the theists he condemns to Hell separate from the unbelievers, but one must keep him honest when he selectively goes off on “atheists” as if they will occupy some special rung in his Hell!)

Finally, my changing to this officious sibling's belief system and “accepting the Lord Jesus Christ” as a Savior, will not in any way alter, improve or repair our basic sibling relationship- which to all intents exists only on paper via birth certificates confirming the same parents. What was already irreparably damaged before will not be magically rejuvenated or enhanced in any way by a few words or even a change of my opinion or mindset. If what went before was dysfunctional then it can only remain so after. The problem then is not which belief or not I hold, but the fact he lacked any respect for me before, for other reasons, not merely to do with religion. Religion then was merely the rationalized scapegoat vehicle used to justify his alienation, which I’m okay with. I don’t wish to be friends with anyone who has a problem with me, brother or not. And if you believe in your heart of hearts that I'm hellbound and "Satan-possessed" now, then my changing to a religious belief- even one that conforms to your own - will not make me accept that you respect me any more. Not at all, not one bit. So let him keep his false piety and prayer, and use them on himself.

It ‘s a truism to say one can’t pick one’s family, only one’s friends. We are saddled with the family we have, but that doesn’t mean or imply we must be friendly with all of them or even have a cordial relationship. This is especially true when a gulf of personality difference exists such that any excuse can be mustered to demonize one’s sibling. Citing Jesus’ words on this is no use, since he would likely just continue to call me a hypocrite. And so it goes.

Maybe one day in the future, we can be more respectful to each other’s views, but in the end that’s really the limit of what one can hope for. Meanwhile we can perhaps be thankful we don’t live in any proximity to one another, but rather 2,000+ miles apart! When religious or philosophical differences are vast, geographical separation can be a boon!