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The second in the series that looks at the life of Jesus.

This is the first in a series that looks at the life of Jesus and contrasts the story that has come down through the ages with what probably really happened.

How about the “me” that I think I am? Is that a constant? Not really. The person that I thought I was a decade or two ago, is not totally the person I think I am today.

The four searchers now realized that there were two Jesus stories, one pervasive across the Christian churches, the other hidden in the background.

How did the wealthy accrue the power to change the thinking of the church about who Jesus was and what he did? That, our four researchers discovered, is -up to now- a mystery hidden in history.

Unlike many would-be messiahs who took up arms to evict the Romans, only to be crucified for their efforts, Jesus proposed and lived a path of peace and love.

I believe neither that Hades exists nor that anyone would be sent there even if it did. But as a critique of the manner in which wealth neglects the poor, this is pretty powerful.

Following his life in Nazareth that possibly included day trips to Sepphoris looking for work, the next training ground for Jesus was a brief time with this same John the Baptist in the wilderness, hearing again that injustice is not the way of the Lord.

So who is right? Did Jesus live and move in a society that was doing alright economically, or one mired in poverty? Or does the question not really matter?

Money, wealth, financial power, economic power, call it what you will, extreme wealth disparity destroys societies from within, eating away at the bond between people and the fabric of society.

I read once that if everyone started out with the same amount of good land and the same amount of money or what money could buy, despite the initial equality, some would become rich, and others would become poor. Why would this happen?

Jesus did die on a cross, but not to save us from our sins. He did rise from the dead, but not by walking out of an empty tomb. He did not perform miracles, but he did heal peoples’ psychological wounds inflicted by massive oppression. His story got twisted.

Palm Sunday is a festival celebrated by Christians around the world. Jesus went to Jerusalem; that much is certain. The details are less clear.

Where is all this going? What can we ultimately hope for, for both the universe as a whole and our own individual life as part of that same whole?

As the years moved along, this answer seemed less and less adequate in the face of undeserved suffering in the world, the epitome of which is the baby born into the world, experiences extreme pain, and dies after one day.

Christmas presents us with an intersection of religious and secular stories that come from and come with a mixed bag of fact and fiction

Here are some recent news items to which I have added a few facts that seem related. Have fun putting it all together, creating your own narrative about what it all might mean, if anything. 

Fifty years ago, one prominent topic of conversation in the churches was the ecumenical movement, trying to determine what the various bodies had in common.

It is not so much my thinking that has changed over the last fifty years, as the attitude I bring to that thinking.

What a person does, the content of one’s act depends on how one analyzes the situation, that is, the method by which one decides.

If you ask this question, the most likely answer you will get, is that a Christian is a person who accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior, this being the most likely answer both fifty years ago and also today.

The Jan 6th committee has done everything possible to show that Trump attempted to overthrow the government. They almost beg the undecided to look anew at the evidence and realize how close we came to losing our democracy and that it is still possible for that to happen.

The terms messiah and messianism have, of late, been resurrected in the political sphere. For some, Trump is the second messiah, come to liberate us from the devilish democratic cabal who eat children and worship satan,  thereby creating the kingdom of god as envisioned by heartless, authoritarian Republicans.

The question Who is Jesus? is perhaps the most complex issue in Christian theology, embracing, as it does, three interrelated sub-questions: who was he in his person, what did he do, and how does that impact us today?

Answering this question is both easy and difficult. The easy part is differentiating sin against God from plain old immorality, as well as from crime against society.

Fifty years ago the Christian understanding of human nature fell into two camps. The fundamentalist approach placed humanity at the apex of an unchanging universe.

Creation and the health and activity of God go together.

Even fifty years ago, whatever creation means, it does not mean that in seven days God brought the universe into being out of nothing.

About 2022 years ago a man called Jesus was roaming the countryside of Galilee in Palestine. That’s the first we know about him. Before that, nothing.

Almost 50 years ago I wrote a book entitled What to Believe?, subtitled The Questions of Christian Faith. Fortress Press had been looking for such a book, and so published it in 1974. Fifty years later, I thought it might be interesting to see how my thinking today has changed. Hence the title.

In a recent article, Gretta Vosper, of the United Church of Canada, was asked, How can you be an atheist and still be a member of the UCC?. In answering that question, she described how that church has become liberal on social issues, but also remained very conservative theologically.

The faith of Christians,  all too often, is approached  on the basis of “Here it is, take it or leave it.” Frequently, it seems that the mind of the church has been eternally established,  that Chris­tians have all the answers and thus need face no more questions.

Speaking of God as a “he” is pretty much in your face, but there are other distinctions to be made between the past and the present when speaking of how God makes God known.

The word matrix can bring to mind science fiction images of living in a web of illusion, but my intent here is quite the opposite, not fiction, but reality.

The word matrix can bring to mind science fiction images of living in a web of illusion, but my intent here is quite the opposite, not fiction, but reality.

The entire existence of Jesus is therefore based on a Jewish legend developed by Jewish preachers. Am I missing something?