Jim Palmer´s Critique of Fundamentalism, and Spiritualizing the Solution Further and Recognizing Jesus´ Special Significance

Jim Palmer dnte7 9hh5rhf1a21st07 · 10 Things about Christianity that Jesus Would Vehemently Dispute if he Returned: 1. That his vision for a transformed society, which he called the "kingdom of God", got twisted into an afterlife fantasy about heaven. 2. That a religion was formed to worship his name, instead of a movement to advance his message. 3. That the gospel says his death solved the problem of humankind's separation from God, instead of saying that his life revealed the truth that there is no separation from God. 4. That the religion bearing his name was conceived by the theories and doctrines of Paul, instead of the truth that Jesus lived and demonstrated. 5. That he was said to exclusively be God in the flesh, putting his example out of reach, rather than teaching that we all share in the same spirit that empowered his character and life. 6. That the religion that claims Jesus, teaches that his wisdom and teachings are the only legitimate way to know truth and God. 7. The idea that humankind stands condemned before God and deserving of God's wrath and eternal conscious judgement, requiring the death of Jesus to fix it. 8. That people are waiting on Jesus to return to save the world and end suffering, rather than taking responsibility for saving the world and solving suffering ourselves. 9. That people think there is magical potency in uttering the name of Jesus, rather than accessing our own natural powers and capabilities to effect change. 10. That people have come to associate Jesus with church, theology, politics and power, rather than courage, justice, humanity, beauty and love. Jim Palmer 29 Comments Mark Rego Monteiro Many good points. However, his notion that the solution involves negating Jesus is its own form of problem. His assumption that Jesus will really return, instead of posing that as one possibility, is one thing. That would be fun, I would think, if Jesus did really return spectacularly. Leaving that as an unlikely outside possibility, continuing on. 1. Jesus´ vision of the Kingdom of Heaven is for this life. 2. To advance his message, including the importance of spiritual-religious practice. 3. That his life revealed that spiritual seeking while honoring Jesus and his message allow unified empowerment with and by God. 5. Jesus taught, "Go and heal the sick and spread the Good News to the poor. These things I do you too shall do and greater." He did teach that he was the Son of God and Man, giving him a basic dual-interactionist nature. Again, he taught that people who followed him, seeking the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth on the inside, could do the same things and greater. Palmer says, "that we all share in the same spirit that empowered his character and life" as we honor Jesus´ loving integrity in the Divine. 6. Jesus did teach that his way was important and of primary significance, and that is the way of God´s love through Jesus´ love in people seeking the Kingdom of Heaven on the inside and among others. History has shown, in Jesus´ legacy, that ancient Greek philosophy was immediately taken up in syncretism. Clement of Alexandria made an early effort to reconcile Greek culture with Jesus´ message, and called Plato a kind of Christian. Anthony of the Desert pioneered Christian asceticism, and became the Father of Christian monks. Christianity, meaning the people in Jesus´ legacy, and especially in Europe, Important things were happening in Christian culture including invasions by outside tribes at first which were converted by missionaries. Later by 711, Islam began invading Europe from the Southwest, until they were stopped in 732 by Charles Martel in their greatest single historical threat, among others. By 1258, the Khan Mongols destroyed Islamic Bagdad, but stopped their advance at Moscow, and never posed the same threat against Christian Europe. By 1150, indigenous Christian culture developed as Christians changed monastic schools into Universities, and the pivotal monk Thomas Aquinas was able to make important innovations. A good exercise, up to this point. Jesus is not sufficiently recognized by secular materialist spirituality. If Jesus is distorted by Christian fundamentalists and their economic materialist funders and corporate-consumerist ideology, their distorted passion is a perverted version of a true spiritual religious power that is virtually "magical" and missing from secular materialist spiritual progressives. That is my analysis as a longtime interfaith seeker and eco-social justice activist, having identified with the spiritual-religious power through the sequence of modernized transcendent transpersonal psychosomatic medicine and Christian Science, along with spiritualized Unitarian Universalist interfaith.