The Problem with Christ

 The problem with Christianity is that it thinks of its Bible as scripture, as sacred text, as words God wrote down through the pens of men and not as the dig that it actually is. An archeological site. A place where were collected many contending voices who were, as they preached, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Who was this Jesus? What did he do? They have many incompatible opinions. Just like us. We can't agree in all the churches because the book doesn't agree, and because we start from the misshapen premise that it does. We'd do a better job of agreeing, I imagine, if we'd agree that the Bible is a collection of texts trying to figure out what it's talking about.

Look: If the Jesus event meant anything, then what it meant it means whether anyone understands it or not. It's the one thing in all of human history that did something that needed doing that changed history whether or not we understand it. 

Yes, it changed history in many other ways too related to our misunderstanding, or partial understanding, our violent arguing. Plenty to be said about that. But on some level or some plane it changed everything. God came into the world in a way God had never come into the world before nor ever will again and did something that changed everything in ways we can never fully understand. Though we try. And must continue to try. Plenty to be said about that.

The first thing to acknowledge then is that Jesus has nothing to do with the privileging of the Bible as access to knowing him. That's not to say it's not among our best tools. The second thing to acknowledge is that the church is not a privileged, blessed, God-sanctioned institution for getting access to Jesus. That's not to say it's not among our good tools. 

But if you fail to understand the Bible is one collection of texts that don't agree, and if you fail to understand that all churches fail at least as much as they succeed, and mislead at least as well as they lead, and care about their own institutional existence at least as much as they care about the gospel and are blinded by their own worldly being, then you will not make much progress on comprehending the Christ.

You fear chaos? We have chaos. I fear that your vision of order is too much like dictatorship.