Let's be charitable and say that Jesus was indeed a real person and that he really did say the things the gospels report him to have said. Or at least, let's say that the gist of what he said is more or less accurately reflected in these texts.
He said many things that have resounded through the ages as praiseworthy and have become part of the normative ethics of western culture.
Let's then take all that he said as seriously as he intended it to be in his short ministry--his aim was to put us into a correct relationship with the will of the almighty creator of space, time, and dimension.
So: who's up for selling all your worldly possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor? (Matthew 19)
(Silence)
He's not saying give your second hand clothes and toasters to the Salvos, or throw a bum a coin, or donate to your favourite charity. He's requiring a radical redistribution of goods, putting the last first, as he says. So: all that private wealth and property you acquired? Let's be having it then...(Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 5)
(They do not move)
Okay, then: who's up for walking off your job right this minute, leaving all your tools and unfinished work behind, and following Him?
(Silence)
Oh, and leave your families too. Familial relations don't matter. The world is coming to and end, and soon, so ditch the lot and get yourself right with the almighty. Let's go! (Luke 14)
(They do not move)
What's wrong with you? Don't you know there is no way to the Father but through me? (John 14)
(A lone, nervous voice): "You mean all those billions of Buddhists and Hindus are wrong?"
Yes, that's the only thing that can mean.
(Silence)
***
Are these injunctions about becoming His follower (i.e. a Christ-ian) to be taken seriously or not? Can these even be considered moral?
Even if we are liberal-minded, and sympathize with radically privileging the poor and dispossessed, we certainly haven't voted that way. Ever. Anywhere.
But yes, he did lots of comforting, put snobs and hypocrites in their place, and opposed the brutal Roman empire. Cool. But if we cherry-pick that sort of thing only, then we want the message to be what we want it to be, and not something else.
The real question with cherry-picking is: why do I want it to mean only this? What is the longing I am expressing? And what meaning am I avoiding, and why?
Whatever our longings, they are not and have never aligned with the tough, exclusive injunctions cited above. If we really thought the world was ending soon, there would indeed be the breakdown of all social order, and maybe we too would cut and run from our piles of stuff, our work, our families to seek our own personal salvation.
And if we did that, we'd be moral cowards.
This is why I'm not a Christian, not because Christianity is difficult, but because much of it is simply wicked, perverse, and manipulative.
In his famous essay of the same name, Bertrand Russell says:
"A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create."
Amen.
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