Jesus versus Christ

Glory be to God the Father, the creator of my mind and free will.
Glory be to God the Son, the creator of my compassion, empathy and forgiveness.
Glory be to God the Holy Spirit, the creator of my Wings… that allow me to fly.

I read an interesting article by New York Times writer, David French (Certainty, Ferocity and Solidarity Define the Fundamentalist Mind Set… New York Times, December 7, 2023). French (an Evangelical) discusses the mindset of the Evangelicals and their unconditional love of Trump.

As French tells us, the three pillars of fundamentalist Christian, Evangelicals are…

Certainty
Ferocity,
Solidarity.

I have no reason to doubt what David French says about the “symptoms” of evangelicalism…

Certainty… in their “unprovable” and “indoctrinated” belief system.
Ferocity… in defending those “unprovable, indoctrinated” beliefs… as “Born Again,” Onward Christian Soldiers marching us to war.
Solidarity… with like-minded people who support Evangelicals for Trump… “Born Again,” Onward Christian Soldiers marching us to war under the banner, “Us Against Them.”

I find it interesting (actually, more amazing than interesting) that the “Born Again” Evangelicals (and the Right-Wing Catholics)… all wrap themselves in a religious cloak of certainty and infallibility… when they proselytize their “unprovable” beliefs about all the unknowable mysteries of life, death, eternity, heaven, hell and God. I think the existence of a God to be “probable.” God… To Be Or Not To Be But, I do find the Holy Books to be lacking in their claim that they are the infallible words and thoughts of the “infinite” mind of God. Truth in the Holy Books

My perspective comes out of my (much appreciated) Catholic school education

Dominican Nuns and Benedictine monks at Detroit St Scholastica Grade School,
Basilian priests at Detroit Catholic Central High School and
The Jesuits at the University of Detroit undergrad and Law School.

From that perspective, I have far graver concerns… than whether God exists or whether the Holy Books contain the words of God or the words of man. My concerns (and they are huge)… are that Christians (and Muslims too) are “indoctrinating” each new generation of God’s Children by telling them… don’t worry about using your free will, your deductive reasoning and logic because “we will do your thinking for you” and tell you what you must believe (and what you must not believe).

Such indoctrination…

Takes away the need for our children to learn the independence of exercising their own, God-given, free will.
Takes away our children’s ability to embrace their autonomy by engaging in an open-minded, lifetime pursuit of developing and constantly enlarging their God-given power of logic, deductive reasoning, critical analysis and original thinking, Originality
Instead, our children are being set up for a lifetime membership in Club Q’Anon with its knee-jerk acceptance and endorsement of any kind of “unprovable” belief system (religious, political or otherwise)… like (1) Trump was cheated out of the 2020 election, like (2) the insurrectionists of January 6th were just Mom and Pop tourists and sightseers at the Capitol Building, and like (3) Evangelical Televangelist, Pat Robertson… telling us, Putin was “compelled by God” to invade the Ukraine in 2022… so we Christians can get on with Armageddon. Pat Robertson says Putin was ‘compelled by God’ to invade …

Using my own, God-given free will, my own, God-given logic, deductive reasoning and critical analysis… please allow me to expand on the pervasive problem caused by forcing each new generation to accept (without questioning) the religious doctrine and dogma of our Elders.

Here comes Santa Claus

If we continuously repeated the “unprovable” Santa Claus story throughout our children’s childhood and adolescence, and if we continuously tell our children that they must believe in Santa Claus for a lifetime or suffer the loss of Paradise and be banished to the eternal damnation of Hell fire…

Would we be guilty of brainwashing our children with “unprovable” beliefs and fears ???
Would we be guilty of child abuse ???
Would we be guilty of “hard-wiring” our children’s brain for a lifetime of… believing in and accepting that which is not provable ???
Would we be guilty of theft of our children’s God-given, free will ???
Would we be guilty of undermining or retarding our children’s, open-minded pursuit of logic, deductive reasoning and the critical analysis skills needed… to obtain and use facts and evidence to solve life’s never-ending list of obstacles and problems ???

Here comes Evangelical Crusaders

In the front line of Trump supporters are the “Born Again” Evangelical Christians. See 5/13/2025, Detroit News Editorial (Will Pope Leo XIV follow the path of his predecessor ?) where Evangelical Reverend, Richard Clark, tells us that “84% of evangelicals voters gave their votes, not once but twice, to [Trump].” These very same, finite minded Evangelicals claim they can read the infinite mind of God… a God who tells them to convert the rest of us (world inhabitants) so we can be “born again” into the “unprovable,” Evangelical, Christian “belief” system. The Evangelicals use their “subjective” interpretations of God’s will to tell the rest of us what we must do and discriminate against us if we don’t.

Case in point… the (conservative) Detroit News front page article of 6/4/2025, Ono blocked from Florida job. Recently, the University of Florida hired Santa Ono (former President of the University of Michigan) as their University President… subject to the approval of the Florida Board of Governors (Donald Trump Jr., Florida U.S. Senator, Rick Scott and self-appointed, Evangelical spokesperson, Carson Good… among others). During the Florida Board of Governors’ hearing, the good Mr. Good seemed to dress down Santo Ono in a public forum because Ono once said that racism is one of America’s “original sins” (which it is… think Slavery, Jim Crow laws of “separate but equal,” redlining, restrictive covenants in deeds, Ossian Sweet Murder case in Detroit in 1925, etc. etc.). The good Mr. Good enlightened one and all by telling us that in, order to rid ourselves of Original Sin that we are all born with, we must have a “total rebirth, total uprooting with divine intervention.” I ask ??? What is Christianity (Evangelical or otherwise) ??? Well, according to the good Mr. Good, it appears to be a combo of voodoo and incantation of gibberish theology rather than a bastion of love your neighbor and forgive their trespasses. And, whatever Christianity is, the Founding Fathers knew of the danger of any government not separating Church from State… like the Florida Board of Governors who, apparently, have no qualms about letting the religion of Evangelical Christianity trump the affairs of State.

Although they don’t see it and certainly don’t want to hear it, these Evangelical “Missionaries of Souls” are engaged in Attempted Grand Larceny of their followers’ God-given free will, self-determination, logic, deductive reasoning and their Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness… all under the guise that Evangelical Christians can read the mind of God, and know what’s best for the rest of us. And, what is best for the rest of us ??? The Evangelical answer… a conversion experience of being “born again” and saved from the eternal damnation of Hell Fire ??? For me one birth and one baptism into the Catholic Church is enough. So, I’ll take a pass on the invite to be “born again.” I do not diminish the rapture or the connection with “Christ their Savior” that these “born again” Evangelicals tell us they feel when they are called to Christ a second time. But what about the downside ???… a moment of “born again” rapture that only continues to lock the Evangelicals into an unalterable and “unprovable,” lifetime “belief” system.

Ditto for many Catholics I know… those Right Wing Catholic Priests, Bishops and Cardinals and their ardent followers of “True Believers” inclined (as they are) to judge us progressive Catholics with a “doctrine of exclusion and excommunication.” But, us progressive Catholics (born, baptized and raised in Mother Church) know… “no one” has a monopoly on the “one and only” true doctrine of God or on the “one and only” true path to the unseen kingdom of (the unseen) God. Although many of my contemporary Catholics have suffered the dogma fatigue of right wing judgment and exclusion and left the Church, I am still in the affray, fighting the battle… as the Benedictine Monks, the Basilian priests and the Jesuits of my youth taught me— stay and fight the good fight, as a revolutionary Jesus himself did 2,000 years ago, as he held up a mirror to the “oh so controlling,” Patriarchal, Jewish religious authorities of his times.

Why are we progressive Catholics of the 21st Century not allowed to do what Jesus did, and raise our voices and hold up a mirror to the religious leaders of our time ??? Why do we progressive Catholics have to be bludgeoned with the “unprovable” dogma and have a scarlet letter “H” (for Heretic) emblazoned on our forehead by those “oh so judgmental,” Right-Wing Catholics who insist on assuming the role of “enforcers” and morality police for the propagation of unprovable “faith and morals” ??? Why do the indoctrinated, Right-Wing followers of Christianity insist on exalting the “Christ” figure of Savior, Messiah and God over the Message of the Jesus figure… the Man in Sandals who walked from Galilee to Jerusalem empowering his followers with a new order of inclusiveness at the table of life, acceptance, non-judgment (on morality alone), forgiveness, love and the Golden Rule philosophy of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you ??? Us progressive Christians know (as Bob Dylan sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”).

Jesus was never a Christian.
Jesus was a Jewish Revolutionary who took on the Jewish, religious leaders of his time and held a mirror up to reflect their rigid, Patriarchal injustice.
Jesus brought, taught and championed a new order of Social Justice for his people, centering it around the dismantling of Patriarchy and the “empowerment” of the people of Israel… via acceptance of one another, moral non-judgment, forgiveness, inclusion, love and the Golden Rule of “do unto others.”
Jesus’ life and death stands for resistance to the “oh so domineering and controlling,” Patriarchal certainty and ferocity of the religious authorities of his time.
Jesus was crucified and died for challenging the old order of rigid, religious rule and indoctrination by the Jewish Patriarchs of his time.
After the death of Jesus, the Gentile, Paul (seemingly a zealot character), engaged in the persecution of Jesus’ followers.
Then, after falling off his horse, the Gentile, St. Paul, had a “born again,” change of heart conversion and reversed course… becoming a follower of Jesus and created a new religion (“Christianity”) out of what he perceived to be the Message of the Jewish Jesus (a man he never met).
Eventually and ultimately, Jesus’ life inspired (amongst the Gentiles) a change in names, changing the Jewish religion of Jesus to the (brook no dissent) Christian religion of Rome. But, that change in names was one of semantics only as the newly-named, Roman Catholic Church of Jesus was still “controlled” by the same-o, same-o, rigid, top-down Patriarchy of “no dissent allowed,” religious structure… that was the regular fare of Imperial Rome and many of the Popes of that era.
The Golden-Rule folklore of Jesus (the man from Nazareth) then morphed into the Christ figure (Messiah, Savior, God) or, as the Evangelicals say, “Christ my Lord and Savior.” But, even if true, the “unprovable” belief in Christ the Savior is nowhere near as important as the Golden Rule, Message of Jesus which, in its practicality, asks, “How we are all going to live together on this planet and love, support and empower one another, and stop killing one another and stop killing our planetary home” ???

Universality of the Man in Sandals

As a voice of one, I say the Universal Message of Jesus is much more indicative of goodness than the dogma surrounding the Christ figure (the Messiah, the Savior from our Original Sin and God, the second person in the Holy Trinity). The Universal Message of Jesus is a human one… which I call the Universality of Humanity.

Be a Child of God first and then a member of some organized religion, second.
Be a Citizen of the World first and then a patriot of some, postage-size stamp of the world’s land, second.

That way, I see myself in the faces of all of God’s children across the globe and they see themselves in me. Then, all we Followers of Jesus can extend our hand to all God’s children across the table and across the globe (European, American, Native American, Inuit, Mongol, Mediterranean, Arab, Caribbean, South Sea Islanders, African, Asian, Aboriginal, White, Black, Brown, Yellow, Mixed, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Palestinians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Rastafarians and all other people and all other religions) and say… “May the peace of Jesus and the peace of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Father Livius O.S.B., Father Clemens C.S.B, Father Heutter S.J. Father Clement Kern, Capuchin Friar, Blessed Solanus Casey, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, etc be with all of you and your family.” Better than the Crusaders for Christ and Onward Christian Soldiers, no ??? Novel ??? Not really. Original ??? Not really. Just the non-denominational, Golden Rule, love your neighbor Message of Jesus… extended (as it must be) to all of God’s children across the Globe.

Now for those who would challenge my interpretation of the “history” of the Message of Jesus, I say okay… feel free to do so. Because 2,000 years later, who really knows what was said by Jesus, the High Priests, the Pharisees, Herod, Ponticus Pilate, Simon Peter, Judas Iscariot, the Roman soldiers at the foot of cross or anyone else, including those who wrote the first Bibles… well after Jesus died. But, even if, hypothetically, you are right and I am wrong i.e. even if, your subjective view of the Christ figure carries the day, does that debate really matter ??? The “essence” of Christianity is not labels (Christ, Savior, Messiah, God the Son, etc.), not the “unprovable” dogma and not even miracles.

As the Blessed (soon to be Saint), Capuchin, Detroit “Soup Kitchen” priest, Father Solanus Casey said… your life, your struggle, my life, my struggle and everyone else’s life and their struggle… is the miracle.

Don’t pray for easy lives.
Pray to be strong.
Do not pray for Tasks
Equal to your power.
Pray for powers
Equal to your tasks.
Then the doing of your life’s work
Shall be no Miracle.
You shall be the Miracle.
(Father Solanus Casey… the Porter of St. Bonaventure)

The “essence” of Christianity under the Jesus figure is the Message of the Golden Rule… inclusion, acceptance, forgiveness and love (especially for the least of us)… love that conquers greed, power, violence, domination, Patriarchy and injustice and tells Russia’s Putin to stop the killing in the Ukraine and tells Israel’s Netanyahu (and Trump) to stop the starvation and ethnic cleansing of innocent Palestinians— the very same Message of Jesus that our “born again,” evangelical, former President, George W. Bush… refused to listen to when he invaded Iraq in Gulf War II with a “preemptive strike” based on knowingly, flawed and questionable intelligence (that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and that he had weapons of mass destruction. All bull sh_ _).

As I say, even if (hypothetically), my historical account of the life or the Message of Jesus is wrong, it doesn’t matter. Why ??? Because we people of “good will” struggling on Mother Earth to survive, raise our children, fight the good fight and run the good race… need an example of how to live our lives, much more than we need to tell one another that we have been “Born Again” and saved from the Original Sin of Adam and Eve by the crucifixion of Jesus. And, of course, the biblical story of Creation (like many Biblical stories) is a parable, an allegory of example, not a reality. The undeniable, historical record of human fossils shows (beyond doubt)… the first humans did not just magically appear in the Garden of Eden (or anywhere else)… as fully formed Humans at a single moment in time. The fossil record of Humankind does not lie. That fossil record, undeniably, shows that we Humans walking the earth today in the 21st Century… have evolved over a hundred thousand years or more. As I say… so says the fossil record of humankind.

My philosophy (after a lifetime of open-minded consideration) ??? Anything in the supposed, historical teachings of Jesus that is consistent with my God-given, free will and my reasonable, good faith analysis of the Golden Rule, I accept (whether historically accurate or not… matters not). Case in Point. Jesus supposedly said, “When I was hungry, you gave me to eat, thirsty, you gave me to drink, and imprisoned, you visited me…. ” Okay, I am in with that… whether Jesus really said it or not. I am also in with the law breaking and revolutionary, Civil Disobedience of Jesus (e.g. interrupting the capital punishment of the adulteress… “those without sin, throw the first stone,” touching the “unclean” lepers and throwing the money changers out of the Temple, etc).

There may be some readers who are part of the Choir while others may be offended with my views… to which I say, “I mean no impudence or disrespect,” but I must let my own, God-given, free will and God-given logic, deductive reasoning, critical analysis and cognitive powers of a lifetime take me… where they take me. God demands no less of me. I can’t claim Paradise (be there one) by simply saying, “Well God, I followed the orders” of my religion (Fill in the blank… Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Rastafarian, etc. etc.), so open the door and let me in. Following orders didn’t save the day at the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis, and, I suspect, it isn’t going to save the day on Judgment Day either (be there one).

Wrapping it up, I say (as merely a well intentioned voice of one), the Elders “brainwashing” of the Children (and the adults they later become)… to follow orders and embrace, without question, the unprovable belief system of any religion is a disservice to humanity— the old tried and true, historical strategy of “control” by one group to take away the other’s …

Autonomy,
Humanity,
Human Rights,
Self-determination,
God-given free will,
Deductive reasoning, logic, critical analysis skill, and
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Did Jesus blindly follow the orders and the indoctrination of the Jewish hierarchy ??? Heck no !!! Jesus was a Revoutionary who confronted social injustice with the Golden Rule and rebelled with Civil Disobedience… boink, #%@$*&!^^!!%#@… there you go money changers, take that, and some of this #%@$*&!^^!!%#@, boink… as he put his thumb in the eye of the unfair control via “unprovable” religious beliefs the Jewish hierarchy used to keep the economic status quo for those who had the power and money… by shunning, disenfranchising, punishing and even crucifying those who did not.

If Jesus would have followed orders like the Evangelicals and Right-Wing Catholics demand, no Crucifixion. He lives a full life and dies of natural causes at life expectancy, age 39, and there are no Evangelicals, no Catholics and no other Christian sects. Jesus didn’t follow orders, He challenged social injustice and the short-sighted, Jewish religious leaders of his time, and he paid the price of crucifixion and early death.

Indoctrination and brainwashing, blindly following orders and refusal to use God-given free will, logic and deductive reasoning, is the glue that holds any Fundamentalist group together, Jew, Christian or Muslim, etc… each separately claiming they can use their finite minds to read the infinite mind of God, and tell the rest of us what rigid, “unprovable” belief system is the only true religion that God endorses. How can that be so ??? It can’t.

On Judgment Day (Be there one) ???

In closing, I ask… how can we Children of God be condemned to the eternity of Hell fire if we are living the Message of Jesus and trying our best to follow the Golden Rule ??? I would rather stand before God on Judgment Day (be there one) as a non-believer of the unprovable beliefs than as one who just followed orders (without question)… thereby intentionally wasting my God-given talents of free will, logic, deductive reasoning and critical analysis.

I end where I began. Sharing a common humanity with the Jews, the Christians, the Evangelicals, the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Rastafarians, Palestinians, Ukrainians, etc… with the rapture of Glory…

Glory be to God the Father, the creator of my mind and free will.
Glory be to God the Son, the creator of my compassion, empathy and forgiveness.
Glory be to God the Holy Spirit, the creator of my Wings… that allow me to fly.