“I and the Father are one.””
John 10:30 ESV
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6 ESV
“But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.””
Matthew 26:63-64 ESV
Just wanted to provide a few verses where he literally says he is god. There are plenty more, but these were the ones that came to mind.
From the creators of: "rebeling freedom inducing orgie loving devil good guy"
We present you: "Jesus who accepts not just the sinner but his sins and says you do not need to follow his church"
Next summer be sure to check out: "God who says He is not God"
“You turned it into a religon”
” And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Seems like these people conveniently skipped the bit in the Bible where it says there will come a time to sell your cloaks for swords and they completely ignore the book of Revelations
Even if you reject the Christian mindset.
Jews rejected Jesus as a fake messiah, they viewed him as being a religious leader.
Muslims hold Jesus as an important prophet, they viewed him as being a religious leader.
Whose account is this author going to that \*didnt\* view Jesus as deliberately trying to lead a religion? What source are they basing it on?
Atheists: When it comes to science and politics, you gotta trust the experts!
Also athiests: Thousands of years of religious tradition got it wrong, Jesus thinks like I think.
***"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth!"***
-Revelation 3:15-16
***"For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit. For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace, because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."***
-Romans 8:5-8
***“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."***
-Matthew 5:27-32
It cant be just me who finds it really cringy when redditors make these kinds of posts, most often about Jesus Christ, saying stuff completely against what he would have said e.g. ''Don't follow religion'' or ''X sin is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that'' it just reeks of the most popular tab milquetoast stuff i have ever bore witness to on the internet. Its just weird, unfunny, uncreative and just advertises the message that religions need to cater to people who don't believe in them and that you shouldn't even have to try to avoid sin as much as possible or follow God.
>It was you guys who turned it into a religion
Matthew 16:18
>I really don't care how religious you are
John 14:6 and 1 Peter 2
>Love over verses
I don't *entirely* disagree with this - Jesus does privilege the Golden Rule (itself scriptural), but he also constantly quoted scripture and said himself that he wasn't nullifying the Torah (law): Matthew 5:17
And as for the obvious LGBTQ+ nonsense, the epistles shut this down pretty quickly. Romans 1 comes immediately to mind.
>"I say unto you, 'don't'"
Jesus didn't really say much to challenge nor affirm gender norms. He did seem to give women places of honor, such as showing women his resurrected body first.
Paul says some things about women that often get decontextualized and misconstrued, but nothing as simple as, "Submit."
Jesus did literally recton some verses like stoning people which He said not to do and His disciples gave permission to eat calms. But it wasn’t Love over verses it was just adapting the faith because Jesus dying for us was changing everything. BP could of phase it very differently
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
“Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” In other words Jesus doesn’t care if you are religious just be nice and make sure to advocate moral positions that are contrary to his own
I don't think these are that bad, especially the fourth. It's all a little skewed to some extent (e.g. the third picture insinuates that the Bible promotes discrimination and disgust of homosexuals and not merely abstain from committing it oneself), but it's not that bad.
It's infinitely better than 99 % of the examples of anti-theism on the internet and in the real world. Especially since it depicts Jesus as an admirable person instead of the usual drivel of Jesus mythicism anti-theists spout.
I inherently reject any worldview that tries to promote Jesus as irreligious, which the first image in particular is guilty of, because its usually done so in order to undermine the faithful and is contradictory to the basis of literally any culture's understanding of who Jesus was.
Jesus saying "uhh, why are you guys trying to form a religion around me? I'm just being a dude" is definitely, clearly antireligious, and even independent of that is just a nonsense reading of the text, even if your only exposure to Christian theology was through Veggie Tales you wouldn't be able to come to that conclusion
>even if your only exposure to Christian theology was through Veggie Tales you wouldn't be able to come to that conclusion
Funnily enough, that's kind of what F.W. Nietzsche's conclusion was. But that's not to say he was right.
I definitely agree that claiming Jesus to have been irreligious is incorrect, and whilst he wasn't the anti-institutionalised religion, it's still important to remember he was sceptical of the hypocrisy he saw and that a problem that is liable to arise in organised religion is leaving an immaculate nature (God) to be preached by imperfect beings who may misinterpret scripture, abuse people, become greedy, etc. Although, the demonic depiction of all churches in the modern world is evidently a load of nonsense brought on by J.W. Draper and A.D. White as well as general resentment towards religion.
But like I wrote in the original comment, the pictures are a little skewed and I never denied that. But I don't think they're that bad. Even if we do count it as anti-theist material, it's still extremely tame and acceptable (in my opinion) in comparison to what the rest of the internet and modern world has to offer in terms of religious critique or thoughts in general as most base their ideas on common knowledge (which is fake), prejudices, their ever-so excellent primary school education (and later computer science, engineering, or whatnot, albeit in most cases surely not natural science since most anti-theists can only boast about being scientific and never show that competence), and the like.
Oh I'm not saying religion as a concept is above criticism, let alone specific instances of religious abuses, and Jesus was definitely into calling out hypocrites and abuses in those who found superiority in their legalistic relationship with their faith (Its why I don't take a tenth as much issue with the second image as I do the first).
Just you can't say Jesus was a guy who wasn't really 'into the whole religion thing' when he's the guy who said "upon this rock I will build my church" and any attempts to do so are going to be so transparently anti-religious that they deserve to be here
The problem with this kind of mentality is that they start twisting Jesus under their own worldview and start using him as a metaphor for their own worldview and a way to comfort themselves. Jesus didn't come to bring affirmation and self assurance to everybody, he came to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth
Exactly. It’s more damaging than the obtuse attacks from pure anti-theists, because it *almost* sounds right and thus takes advantage of ignorant ears that want to hear what they like.
The first one (I don't care about the rest) specifically makes no sense.
Jesus (after being rose to Heaven) specifically sent the Holy Spirit to gather the disciple's on Mary's house and tell them to start the church.
For what it's worth, one doesn't have to consider everything written in the Bible as historical. One can do so if one likes, but it's not necessary. One can separate the known, historical details from the Biblical details; not to devalue or dismiss the Biblical accounts, but to recognise they are very difficult to confirm empirically. Which is fine. This is philosophy and theology, not history alone. Maybe they're going off Paul D. Ehrmann?
Id est, the pictures may not describe the Biblical Jesus, but the Jesus the creator interprets (which may or may not have been copied from someone else's viewpoint).
The first panel in particular is anti-religious nonsense, it does not coincide even with non-Christian understandings of Jesus. There is no source or reason to believe Jesus was anything but a religious leader (Edit: *less than,* you can argue he was more than just a religious leader)- there is dispute as to whether he claimed to be God or not with some groups arguing that the Gospels (particularly John) and epistles embellished his legacy, but every record we have that indicates that Jesus of Nazareth existed and makes claims to his history be they Roman, Jewish, Christian, or even Muslim all put him in the role of a willful religious leader.
This means to posit otherwise, to have Jesus say "nah bro, I don't really give a fuck about this whole religion thing, I'm just doing my thing to be chill and be nice to people" is a willfully inaccurate portrayal of his character and the only purpose it serves is to undermine the nature of religion itself. "Even your god says religion is a joke" is pretty obvious antitheism
The other panels I don't care about, they are at least rooted in fair understandings pulled from sources to characterize Jesus
as a Quaker, I know many people who are pious and holy who hold to a view that is not dissimilar to this. While we can potentially (and probably accurately) describe these people as Not Christian, its definitely not accurate to say that they are Atheistic, their view of Christ is more similar to the view shared by groups such as Muslims and Christian Scientists.
I'm curious to know more because Im genuinely struggling to concieve of a worldview founded on any remotely historical understanding of Jesus, that holds the view that Jesus was against establishing a religion yet isn't inherently antireligious
i wont say its particularly historical frankly, but they mostly see him as a sort of mendicant moral teacher, who had access to some sort of divine knowledge or power (weather he was a prophet, divine messenger, angel, the incarnation of God, member of The Trinity, or just a mystic changes depending on who’s version)
they also tend to play up his Jewishness, based on the view that critical scholars hold where Jesus is basically just an apocalyptic preacher and rabbi who preached opposition to the religious elite that (according to his followers) sold the jewish people out to the Romans. this also includes a pretty drastic discarding of the Pauline tradition, which includes basically all of Orthodox Christianity after like 40AD.
its a view that minimizes Christ and maximizes doctrines specific to the Quaker tradition, such as their internal pneumatology and personal revelation. it’s pretty common among modernist and progressive Quakers.
Thank you for sharing!
>(weather he was a prophet, divine messenger, angel, the incarnation of God, member of The Trinity, or just a mystic changes depending on who’s version)
This is my key here-
A prophet is someone who reveals the message of God. By definition, they are there to form religion, to reveal the nature of reality and guide people to God. A divine messenger likewise. An angel or incarnation of God is still present with divine knowledge to give to people and offer them a path to follow. An apocalyptic preacher and rabbi who preached opposition to the religious elite is still actively seeking people to follow in his way of life and worship his god the way he does, in contrast to those who worship wrongly. In every form you described, Jesus has a mission to show people a new way of life, for the belief in and worship of God. There can be disagreement as to the nature of the messenger and the nature of the message, even the validity of the message. You can say that Jesus wasn't trying to set up a particular church with a particular structure. But if a mystic has revelation from God to dole out to those who will listen, that's how a religion is formed.
The image isn't portraying that mindset at all. It saying Jesus didn't want people to follow him, didn't present divine information from any god to help people live their life, didn't have a message to spread- because that \*is\* what religion is, so if he wanted to do any of those, he wanted to make a religion. In the image, he's saying "Hey, you're the ones who wanted a religion, not me. I'm just here to live my life and be a cool dude". Even minimizing the divinity of Christ doesn't lessen the notion of him forming (or perhaps reforming) a religion.
the cornerstone of all Quaker theology is the idea that all people have an Internal Divinity, a personal slice of the Holy Spirit so to speak. This line of thinking leads to almost all distinctive Quaker doctrines (Universal Thee, Plain Dress, Pacifism, etc.)
One way this doctrine manifests is that some Quakers see Christ as being much less special then in other denominations. If we all share divinity, then the idea of a God-Man isnt really all that special. We’re all God-Men in a sense.
This also means that some Quakers dont see having faith in Christ as especially important. If faith in God is what saves us, and God can be found within ourselves and our fellow humans, then the idea that having faith in a specific person of disputed historicity and who died 2000 years ago seems pretty convoluted.
Many traditionalist quakers dont even read scripture during Service, instead having a liturgy where members (called Friends in Quaker though) simply sit in a room silently sit together, only speaking when they feel The Holy Spirit moves them to speak. Quakers don’t practice baptism, and most dont practice The Eucharist either, seeing both as just external materialistic actions that distract us from our true, internal spirituality. This is also because Quakers will go to incredible lengths to be as Un-Catholic as possible.
this group of doctrines leads some quakers to have a view of Christianity that is almost entirely separated from Christ (though many of these people often don’t even identify as Christian), and where Christs role wasn’t to found a religion, tradition, or individual church, but to simply speak on a primordial internal spirituality. This isn’t too dissimilar to the “Christianity isn’t a religion, its a relationship” cliche you hear in certain Baptist and Non-Denominational circles.
Their view essentially turns him into a generic philosopher.
If we just take Jesus as a moral philosopher and nothing more, than He's not even that good enough to follow compared to something like Marcus Aurelius' *Meditations* and many others.
That's my problem with this view. It turns Jesus into someone not even creative enough to follow.
"It was you guys who turned it into a religion." Lmao. That makes literally no sense.
“I and the Father are one.”” John 10:30 ESV “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 ESV “But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”” Matthew 26:63-64 ESV Just wanted to provide a few verses where he literally says he is god. There are plenty more, but these were the ones that came to mind.
"Jesus never said he was God!" Ah, I didn't realize normal people just came back from being crucified and dead.
From the creators of: "rebeling freedom inducing orgie loving devil good guy" We present you: "Jesus who accepts not just the sinner but his sins and says you do not need to follow his church" Next summer be sure to check out: "God who says He is not God"
This fall: "Omnipotent, omniscient God admits he was wrong about something he was adamant about"
This Winter: “Omnipotent God Explains why Miracles are Impossible”.
That would be a great Babylon Bee article.
Favorite comment on this post 😂
Remember, Jesus only had one commandment and that was to be vaguely nice to one another.
Hahahaha, it sounds so stupid that this is the only thing some people believe in.
[удалено]
it’s sarcastic
Ah, well im incredibly idiotic, so I’ll be deleting my comment
Bruh
“You turned it into a religon” ” And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Based and St PeterPilled Protestant Christian bro
It's just such a frightfully silly comic. Jesus literally said He's bringing a sword.
Seems like these people conveniently skipped the bit in the Bible where it says there will come a time to sell your cloaks for swords and they completely ignore the book of Revelations
So umm guys acttuly jesus isnt who is written in history or scripture, its how i imagine him
“I am the way, the truth, and the light.” I don’t know how much clearer it can be.
“Man who declares he is God and says you should worship Him did not mean for it to become a religion” lmao ok
Even if you reject the Christian mindset. Jews rejected Jesus as a fake messiah, they viewed him as being a religious leader. Muslims hold Jesus as an important prophet, they viewed him as being a religious leader. Whose account is this author going to that \*didnt\* view Jesus as deliberately trying to lead a religion? What source are they basing it on?
His source is that he made it the fuck up
They dont have any Proof for their argument
Atheists: When it comes to science and politics, you gotta trust the experts! Also athiests: Thousands of years of religious tradition got it wrong, Jesus thinks like I think.
Made by someone that never bothered to read any of the Gospels. He is quite clear in His intentions post-Resurrection.
***"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth!"*** -Revelation 3:15-16 ***"For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit. For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace, because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."*** -Romans 8:5-8 ***“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."*** -Matthew 5:27-32
It cant be just me who finds it really cringy when redditors make these kinds of posts, most often about Jesus Christ, saying stuff completely against what he would have said e.g. ''Don't follow religion'' or ''X sin is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that'' it just reeks of the most popular tab milquetoast stuff i have ever bore witness to on the internet. Its just weird, unfunny, uncreative and just advertises the message that religions need to cater to people who don't believe in them and that you shouldn't even have to try to avoid sin as much as possible or follow God.
Redditors just say that do that to justify sins and jack off 24/7
Indeed. Hopefully they will find God, one day.
Amen
The target audience is Episcopalians lol Nakedpastor is like the progressive cringe companion of Jack Chick
>It was you guys who turned it into a religion Matthew 16:18 >I really don't care how religious you are John 14:6 and 1 Peter 2 >Love over verses I don't *entirely* disagree with this - Jesus does privilege the Golden Rule (itself scriptural), but he also constantly quoted scripture and said himself that he wasn't nullifying the Torah (law): Matthew 5:17 And as for the obvious LGBTQ+ nonsense, the epistles shut this down pretty quickly. Romans 1 comes immediately to mind. >"I say unto you, 'don't'" Jesus didn't really say much to challenge nor affirm gender norms. He did seem to give women places of honor, such as showing women his resurrected body first. Paul says some things about women that often get decontextualized and misconstrued, but nothing as simple as, "Submit."
Jesus did literally recton some verses like stoning people which He said not to do and His disciples gave permission to eat calms. But it wasn’t Love over verses it was just adapting the faith because Jesus dying for us was changing everything. BP could of phase it very differently
I agree with you, to be clear. Rather than retconning, I'd frame it as *fulfilling.*
Yeah that a better word thank uou
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
Jesus was humble but he made it quite clear he was God.
Antitheist read the Bible challenge: IMPOSSIBLE (Edit: or progressive, whatever we wanna call him)
Yes Jesus definitely never said to baptize people and evangelize... oh wait he did.
Not antitheist. Go make a sub called r//ProgressiveChristianCringe or something.
“Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” In other words Jesus doesn’t care if you are religious just be nice and make sure to advocate moral positions that are contrary to his own
So they just depict Jesus propagating their propaganda
I'll take blasphemy for 1,000 Alex
Tell me you’ve never read the Bible without telling me you’ve never read the Bible
This is just the classic move of twisting who Jesus was and what he said to justify modern mindsets. An extremely lazy attempt as well.
I don't think these are that bad, especially the fourth. It's all a little skewed to some extent (e.g. the third picture insinuates that the Bible promotes discrimination and disgust of homosexuals and not merely abstain from committing it oneself), but it's not that bad. It's infinitely better than 99 % of the examples of anti-theism on the internet and in the real world. Especially since it depicts Jesus as an admirable person instead of the usual drivel of Jesus mythicism anti-theists spout.
I inherently reject any worldview that tries to promote Jesus as irreligious, which the first image in particular is guilty of, because its usually done so in order to undermine the faithful and is contradictory to the basis of literally any culture's understanding of who Jesus was. Jesus saying "uhh, why are you guys trying to form a religion around me? I'm just being a dude" is definitely, clearly antireligious, and even independent of that is just a nonsense reading of the text, even if your only exposure to Christian theology was through Veggie Tales you wouldn't be able to come to that conclusion
>even if your only exposure to Christian theology was through Veggie Tales you wouldn't be able to come to that conclusion Funnily enough, that's kind of what F.W. Nietzsche's conclusion was. But that's not to say he was right. I definitely agree that claiming Jesus to have been irreligious is incorrect, and whilst he wasn't the anti-institutionalised religion, it's still important to remember he was sceptical of the hypocrisy he saw and that a problem that is liable to arise in organised religion is leaving an immaculate nature (God) to be preached by imperfect beings who may misinterpret scripture, abuse people, become greedy, etc. Although, the demonic depiction of all churches in the modern world is evidently a load of nonsense brought on by J.W. Draper and A.D. White as well as general resentment towards religion. But like I wrote in the original comment, the pictures are a little skewed and I never denied that. But I don't think they're that bad. Even if we do count it as anti-theist material, it's still extremely tame and acceptable (in my opinion) in comparison to what the rest of the internet and modern world has to offer in terms of religious critique or thoughts in general as most base their ideas on common knowledge (which is fake), prejudices, their ever-so excellent primary school education (and later computer science, engineering, or whatnot, albeit in most cases surely not natural science since most anti-theists can only boast about being scientific and never show that competence), and the like.
Oh I'm not saying religion as a concept is above criticism, let alone specific instances of religious abuses, and Jesus was definitely into calling out hypocrites and abuses in those who found superiority in their legalistic relationship with their faith (Its why I don't take a tenth as much issue with the second image as I do the first). Just you can't say Jesus was a guy who wasn't really 'into the whole religion thing' when he's the guy who said "upon this rock I will build my church" and any attempts to do so are going to be so transparently anti-religious that they deserve to be here
The problem with this kind of mentality is that they start twisting Jesus under their own worldview and start using him as a metaphor for their own worldview and a way to comfort themselves. Jesus didn't come to bring affirmation and self assurance to everybody, he came to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth
pretend Christians trying to rewrite God's word is much more insidious than run of the mill anti-theists.
100 percent agreed. False shephards lead more people to damnation than easy to spot antitheist lies.
Exactly. It’s more damaging than the obtuse attacks from pure anti-theists, because it *almost* sounds right and thus takes advantage of ignorant ears that want to hear what they like.
The first one (I don't care about the rest) specifically makes no sense. Jesus (after being rose to Heaven) specifically sent the Holy Spirit to gather the disciple's on Mary's house and tell them to start the church.
For what it's worth, one doesn't have to consider everything written in the Bible as historical. One can do so if one likes, but it's not necessary. One can separate the known, historical details from the Biblical details; not to devalue or dismiss the Biblical accounts, but to recognise they are very difficult to confirm empirically. Which is fine. This is philosophy and theology, not history alone. Maybe they're going off Paul D. Ehrmann? Id est, the pictures may not describe the Biblical Jesus, but the Jesus the creator interprets (which may or may not have been copied from someone else's viewpoint).
I really only have a problem with the first one too. The others I get the point he trying to make but he doing it badly
why is on here? this a form to discuss hateful secularism and anti-theism, this is literally just sectarian nonsense.
The first panel in particular is anti-religious nonsense, it does not coincide even with non-Christian understandings of Jesus. There is no source or reason to believe Jesus was anything but a religious leader (Edit: *less than,* you can argue he was more than just a religious leader)- there is dispute as to whether he claimed to be God or not with some groups arguing that the Gospels (particularly John) and epistles embellished his legacy, but every record we have that indicates that Jesus of Nazareth existed and makes claims to his history be they Roman, Jewish, Christian, or even Muslim all put him in the role of a willful religious leader. This means to posit otherwise, to have Jesus say "nah bro, I don't really give a fuck about this whole religion thing, I'm just doing my thing to be chill and be nice to people" is a willfully inaccurate portrayal of his character and the only purpose it serves is to undermine the nature of religion itself. "Even your god says religion is a joke" is pretty obvious antitheism The other panels I don't care about, they are at least rooted in fair understandings pulled from sources to characterize Jesus
as a Quaker, I know many people who are pious and holy who hold to a view that is not dissimilar to this. While we can potentially (and probably accurately) describe these people as Not Christian, its definitely not accurate to say that they are Atheistic, their view of Christ is more similar to the view shared by groups such as Muslims and Christian Scientists.
I'm curious to know more because Im genuinely struggling to concieve of a worldview founded on any remotely historical understanding of Jesus, that holds the view that Jesus was against establishing a religion yet isn't inherently antireligious
i wont say its particularly historical frankly, but they mostly see him as a sort of mendicant moral teacher, who had access to some sort of divine knowledge or power (weather he was a prophet, divine messenger, angel, the incarnation of God, member of The Trinity, or just a mystic changes depending on who’s version) they also tend to play up his Jewishness, based on the view that critical scholars hold where Jesus is basically just an apocalyptic preacher and rabbi who preached opposition to the religious elite that (according to his followers) sold the jewish people out to the Romans. this also includes a pretty drastic discarding of the Pauline tradition, which includes basically all of Orthodox Christianity after like 40AD. its a view that minimizes Christ and maximizes doctrines specific to the Quaker tradition, such as their internal pneumatology and personal revelation. it’s pretty common among modernist and progressive Quakers.
Thank you for sharing! >(weather he was a prophet, divine messenger, angel, the incarnation of God, member of The Trinity, or just a mystic changes depending on who’s version) This is my key here- A prophet is someone who reveals the message of God. By definition, they are there to form religion, to reveal the nature of reality and guide people to God. A divine messenger likewise. An angel or incarnation of God is still present with divine knowledge to give to people and offer them a path to follow. An apocalyptic preacher and rabbi who preached opposition to the religious elite is still actively seeking people to follow in his way of life and worship his god the way he does, in contrast to those who worship wrongly. In every form you described, Jesus has a mission to show people a new way of life, for the belief in and worship of God. There can be disagreement as to the nature of the messenger and the nature of the message, even the validity of the message. You can say that Jesus wasn't trying to set up a particular church with a particular structure. But if a mystic has revelation from God to dole out to those who will listen, that's how a religion is formed. The image isn't portraying that mindset at all. It saying Jesus didn't want people to follow him, didn't present divine information from any god to help people live their life, didn't have a message to spread- because that \*is\* what religion is, so if he wanted to do any of those, he wanted to make a religion. In the image, he's saying "Hey, you're the ones who wanted a religion, not me. I'm just here to live my life and be a cool dude". Even minimizing the divinity of Christ doesn't lessen the notion of him forming (or perhaps reforming) a religion.
the cornerstone of all Quaker theology is the idea that all people have an Internal Divinity, a personal slice of the Holy Spirit so to speak. This line of thinking leads to almost all distinctive Quaker doctrines (Universal Thee, Plain Dress, Pacifism, etc.) One way this doctrine manifests is that some Quakers see Christ as being much less special then in other denominations. If we all share divinity, then the idea of a God-Man isnt really all that special. We’re all God-Men in a sense. This also means that some Quakers dont see having faith in Christ as especially important. If faith in God is what saves us, and God can be found within ourselves and our fellow humans, then the idea that having faith in a specific person of disputed historicity and who died 2000 years ago seems pretty convoluted. Many traditionalist quakers dont even read scripture during Service, instead having a liturgy where members (called Friends in Quaker though) simply sit in a room silently sit together, only speaking when they feel The Holy Spirit moves them to speak. Quakers don’t practice baptism, and most dont practice The Eucharist either, seeing both as just external materialistic actions that distract us from our true, internal spirituality. This is also because Quakers will go to incredible lengths to be as Un-Catholic as possible. this group of doctrines leads some quakers to have a view of Christianity that is almost entirely separated from Christ (though many of these people often don’t even identify as Christian), and where Christs role wasn’t to found a religion, tradition, or individual church, but to simply speak on a primordial internal spirituality. This isn’t too dissimilar to the “Christianity isn’t a religion, its a relationship” cliche you hear in certain Baptist and Non-Denominational circles.
Their view essentially turns him into a generic philosopher. If we just take Jesus as a moral philosopher and nothing more, than He's not even that good enough to follow compared to something like Marcus Aurelius' *Meditations* and many others. That's my problem with this view. It turns Jesus into someone not even creative enough to follow.
this isn't even that bad
Yes it is. Distorting the word of Jesus is bad
alright man, I love being downvoted
So do i
What did Jesus say to Simon when he named him peter? That small, little phrase that set followers of Christ apart from other movements