Editor’s Note: The following satire intends to spark careful thought about the intensity — and specificity — of Jesus’ direct challenge to our popular religious paradigms, whether 2000 years ago or now.
A voluminous and vacuous cant is rumbling today, as if the smartest jury of peers decided to join in a global harmony. Bolstered by strong evidence from an information age and the introspective wisdom of pop anthropology, the brave jury has declared: “A new verdict is in! Jesus was a regrettable Christian from the start.” Though the pile of hard data available to convict Jesus is staggering, the following four proofs easily suffice to make an eerily convincing case.
1: He dissed the Samaritan woman and her culture (John 4).A suffering woman is working in the scorching Noon heat to draw water because her sexual preferences were made mockery by a legalistic and holier-than-thou society. As a Samaritan she descended from a mixed-race people with its own special culture, equally valuable to all cultures, a people who created its own Bible version and temple to fit its preferred worship style. What could be expected of her?
Her circumstances were oppressive and unique. Her theological upbringing was not something she chose. And yet Jesus ... Read More »
