Odds

Whenever I think of the teaching of Jesus I am reminded of historical crusades it inspired — of William Lloyd Garrison and abolitionism, of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in the United States. I think of Tolstoy’s astounding The Kingdom of God Is Within You, the Sermon on the Mount-inspired treatise of nonviolent resistance that, coupled with the New Testament, informed Mohandas Gandhi’s satyagraha.

The example of Jesus’ life is one of humility, non-judgment, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, and divine love. “Love your enemies,” he commands. “Do good to those who would harm you.” He loses his temper only once: When the religious leaders of his time turn his Father’s house into the profiteering parody of a place of worship, he tosses the moneychangers out of the temple. From the cross, where his running afoul of those religious leaders led, he did not rain fire down from heaven, but pled on their behalf for mercy.

How any of his life and teaching gets twisted into a law condemning practicing homosexuals to death by hanging is beyond me. I am completely mystified.

Must be the same teaching that permits televangelists to exploit poor believers as they enrich themselves and build media empires on Jesus’ broken back, or the teaching that coopts the utterly apolitical Jesus and turns him into a spokesperson for Conservative Republicans (or Liberal Democrats, for that matter).

Clearly, though, a license to hate is far more palatable to humans than a gospel of love. Today I’ve learned nothing new. If anything, I am more confused than ever.

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