It is Christmas today, typically, theoretically and to a small minority of people the actual symbolism of the birthday of Jesus Christ, whose exact date of birth we do not know except by approximation. But that is not important since it is not important when we celebrate an anniversary but what we celebrate and commemorate by it each time.
Usually, a birthday anniversary means for every person having it that we are happy about the beginning of his/her existence upon the earth, because his/her existence has made our world fuller, better, more important, more meaningful: that is, the action, reaction and interaction of this person with the pre-existing environment has yielded very positive results for us or more people.
Therefore, to celebrate the birthday of anyone, that which we do is (consciously or subconsciously) refer to and think of this personʼs life and existence. That is why it is unthinkable to have a birthday party without the one having the birthday being present.
At the birthday of Jesus Christ, therefore, that which we logically are obliged to do is to think of him, regardless of how we wish to refer to him internally or cognitively, upon his work and the importance of his teaching across time. Because this certainly does not happen during Christmas, we will do it by the analysis of Jesus Christʼs political influence through the way of life he taught and how that existentially transforms anyone who truly chooses to apply it. That which usually is taught by the church and its sacerdocy is not the above, which we will analyze presently, but a blatant distortion which pushes people who listen to them in good faith as the representatives of the Christian teaching to do the exact opposite from that which Christ taught.
Cognitively, what is the teaching and what is the way of life Jesus teaches?
All those who have been raised with or been interested in the Christian religion/ dogma will immediately say with a word “Love”.
That term is one of the most abused, mistreated and twisted ones in the history of languages and concepts of the world. The church rushed in a historically speaking lightning fast time span to redefine the definition of Love into what we are now taught. According to the church and its priesthood, Love towards the fellow man, the only kind in which they are actually referring to, is apathy, passivity, sybaritism and lack of reaction when our fellow man acts, especially when that which he does is evil, negative, harmful, destructive, breaching other peopleʼs or our rights. Christians are taught by the church and its priesthood that the Christian is obliged to accept and suffer anything his fellow man does at his/her expense without not only reacting but not even saying that what the fellow man is doing is wrong. Many times in the hard-core clergy circles it is taught that the Christian is forbidden to even think that his/her fellow man infringing on him/her and oppressing him/her is doing so.
So, through the interpretations of the assorted priests through the ages, Love is defined as the most abject of hatred against Humanity and Humans as according to the above:
1. the good Christian is a masochist
2. the good Christian is subdued to everything negative and evil as that is expressed/ manifested by other individuals
3. the good Christian does not dare point out anything that he/she might see is not right or completely against well being (physical, psychological and mental) of him/herself and others
4. the good faithful Christian is always full of guilt, especially when he/she has fun or is vindicated over someone who objectively had harmed him/her
5. in the end, the good faithful Christian hopes for a torturous death which completes a torturous life full of suffering, injustice, pain and misery.
Why is this the most abject hatred and definitely not Love?
It is abject hatred because it is fed by an unnatural and diabolical seeking of torture in every form while it is forbidden and systematically avoided to make any effort of correction or obstruction of any agent of evil, injustice, inappropriate behavior and deepest attack and injury of the human existence in all levels: that is how there is tolerance of all injustices especially when committed by people presented as socially or ranking superior. There is complaint but not an act of rectification as well as a constant incrimination of God for anything bad that happens and which we can at any moment correct. The height of absurdity and brazenness of this is the statement of A. Kougias (the defense laywer) that Alexis Gregoropoulosʼ death was ʽthe will of Godʼ and not the sin of man, if we speak with religious terms.
That definition of Love, which is the core of political life not only of the church-sacerdocy but of all society within and outside of Greece at least for the Western culture coutries, is the alibi of all criminals against humanity regardless of scope, from the grandmother keeping the children and terrorizing them that God will incinerate them to Hitler, the ʽby the grace of Godʼ kings, emperors and czars and the supreme global president- leader of the USA with his court of other heads of states. By this definition of Love the ʽgoodʼ will not react to injustice, will patiently tolerate anything and will blame God who ʽgaveʼ them such bad leaders who, since they are bad, cannot do anything else but oppress everyone.
It is already clear why ʽchristianityʼ in this blatantly twisted and unnatural version is so accommodating to the priesthood as well as to the political leaders of the world.
But is this the definition of Love according to Jesus Christ?
Of course not. An objective, scientific overview of his life shows exactly which was and is Love, which is definitely nothing of what is projected with propaganda by the usurpers of the most groundbreaking metapolitical and highly Humanistic social system presented in recorded Human history.
Because the object of our analysis today is not to expand on a theological discussion but on a sociopolitical analysis, we will handle everything without calling for a need for faith and as such we will refer to all the miraculous instances and testimonials as symbolic references to the impact of Jesus Christ on the people.
Love according to Jesus Christ is a very austere and active point of reference demanding a great level of responsibility and intent by the individual to invest time and energy where he/she may not have. The goal of Love is to achieve a type of immune system for the prevention of social illness through self-correction and aid for correction to third parties so that constantly the average competence of Humans regarding Humanistic values and the defense of psychological and mental health becomes higher and higher, forever approaching the positive infinity (if we speak with mathematical terms).
What does that mean behaviorally?
The true Christian is any Individual truly calls upon and applies the following basic positions:
1. when I feel bad I express as much and look into it with the goal of stop feeling bad and never again feel bad for the same reason
2. when someone else feels bad and I see as much or he/she expresses that to me I help him/her look into it and express it with the goal of him/her stopping feeling bad and never feel bad again for the same reason if and only if that person wishes for my help with his/her own free will.
3. when I have erred and/or have caused a negative state or reactions I recognize it, and ask for apologies actively, doing all I can to reverse what I have caused, reimburse it and satisfy as much as possible those I harmed with my actions. Mere lip service to an apology without a change of behavior and course is not rectification.
4. when someone has erred in my expense, I inform him/her of the fact and explain how he/she erred in my expense and urge him/her to improve by making amends and develop as an individual and personality as described in (3).
5. if the one who erred in my expense responds as in (3), then with joy I recognize him/her as a new Individual and thus his/her earlier actions are irrelevant to me and I forgive him/her.
6. but if the one who erred at my expense does not respond as in (3), does not change course and behavior or if he/she is forced to make amends without him/her actually wanting to himself, then that person has not evolved or improved, remains dangerous to him/herself and others and cannot be forgiven because that would mean that I agree with and endorse and accept his/her negative actions as correct before God, logic and Humans. Forgiveness is not given to the ones who donʼt change course by other Humans since that is a breach of the rules that God has given (or any other authority we recognize and which has set forth clear rules, and which authority for Christianity is God but could have been any commonly accepted system of rules) for their daily living.
We see therefore that Love is not easy at all because it constantly demands by us to be unpleasant when we mean to not only see but also openly shout out loud all the malpractice and abuse of ourselves and others and furthermore act to correct them or prevent them. Also, Love demands that we donʼt accept people we would want to accept if those people behave and act against the rules we have said we follow. Many times to sever relationships from such individuals is especially painful yet necessary (thatʼs why this is compared to cutting off a leg or an arm: “it is better that you enter the kingdom of God maimed or lame than be whole and thrown in eternal fire” and “I came to cast a knife/sword between…” ).
Also, Love demands the complete lack of compromise/ moderation when that has to do with accepting something against the rules by which we have accepted that it is right to live.
But Love also prevents us from having scapegoats and an act revealing that something is not going well or is illing, immediately sets us on discovering not only the reason/ cause of the negative condition but also the discovery of the accessories before the fact of it. Thus, a person taking drugs has a share of the responsibility for this choice but along with him/her the responsibility is shared by the ones who sold and are selling drugs to him/her, and those who pushed him/her to drugs with the parents being the primary responsible parties as well as the immediate environment and those who have vested interest in this person to continue to be a user with periodical efforts to be weaned from drugs.
The same holds for the political life and condition of a state: immediate culprits are the executors, i.e. the government officials and the politicians but accessories are also all those who either live off / profit from it or all those who put up with it and choose not to use their political and social rights with the excuse of fear, turning a blind eye or having the sensation that someone else should act on their behalf.
We see therefore that if the concept of Christian Love was truly taught and applied there would be no chance of perpetuation of those who are implicated in scandals or crimes, law or Constitution breakers, those who tolerate having people who starve, are hustled and die/ are murdered in a day and age when there is the technology and the quantity to nourish, house and protect the population of the earth abundantly. There would be able to exist and be accepted as philanthropist families implicated in crimes against Humanity and/or amassing a great surplus of money and assets and are involved in tv shows of ʽphilanthropistʼ content and other assorted such activities as parties/ balls, artistic and athletic performances and fund raisers for the victimized and the poor who mysteriously remain poor exactly as those families remain rich.
In the exact same way and the application of Love there wouldnʼt be allowed to any priesthood schema to bear the name of Jesus Christ while gathering iniquitous, huge amounts of money and assets while Humans (Christian or not) are left to sell themselves out for a monetary sum that is a fraction of the price for the robes of every member of the clergy.
But didnʼt Christ say to turn the other cheek?
That is one of the most wrongly interpreted teachings as it is taught, as almost everything is, out of context and without looking for its application within the scriptures.
When someone slaps us, he does so because he has no other way to deal with us except with the threat of bodily violence and suppression. If someone has resorted to the use of physical violence it means that he has no longer control of the situation and that we have won, and the only way to lose it to be scared. To avoid the second slap of the parable we would need to move from our position, which would mean to lose ground, what we have won. But if we are not frightened and turn the other cheek it means we stand by everything we have achieved and we do not succumb before violent suppression (the same holds for the stealing of the shirt which cannot be taken from us except by violent theft). We thus force someone who we have already called out and charged, with the necessary actions that entails, to act in the same way in a more blatant level which makes him look weak or censurable, and us look strong and forceful. In this manner Themistocles won in having his strategy followed by even the hostile leaders and generals regarding the sea battle of Salamina which saved the Athenian population and more (“strike me first, listen after”). In modern world history, the same highly successful experiment was done by the Indian People under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and by the Afroamericans during their struggle for Human Rights in the USA (1955).
It is a fact that this kind of resistance is one of the most redoubtable and nightmarish for any government and that is why it rushes to declassify such movements or struggles through corruption or intermixing its own agents who act violently (e.g. hoodies in between the students / protesters/ demonstrators), degenerately (e.g. the development of the Hippy movement with unhindered sexual behaviors and drugs/ vagrancy) or inconsistently (see syndicalistic parties dividing protesters with cancellation of protests, strikes, etc).
And then what was the purpose of Jesus Christʼs crucifixion since he teaches something so dynamic and powerful and combative as Christian Love?
The priesthood church focuses with glee upon the whole process of the arrest, jeering-torturing and crucifixion-death of Jesus Christ while it devotes the minimum amount for the reference and commemoration of his Resurrection.
As we have already said we will not refer to it theologically but symbolically in our analysis today so that we wonʼt demand from anyone to believe or not believe something from the recorded incidents.
We have already, in our blog Stigmata, made a thorough analysis of the political situation and propaganda of that era around the illegal, irregular and improper summary procedure of arrest-trial-execution of Jesus Christ. Today we will look upon what it offered socially, just as in the cases of many other fighters who have been murdered by a state of suppression.
If we believe in the nature of Jesus Christ as God and Man, then we have His choice of going through this procedure while He could very well have avoided it. We must take into consideration that up to that moment, for three years He had been miraculously avoiding the authorities and teaching, showing irrefutable proof regarding Who he represented and had acquired a following of a few thousand people 24-7. When, then, the time came, it was not in order to be ʽsacrificedʼ and other such interpretations that willingly belittle the true meaning and nature of things and give an alibi to those present at the crucifixion. It was the challenge and His challenge to those declaring themselves His followers but also towards Humanity as it was represented by the society of Jerusalem (a city where many nationalities, cultures and points of view merged, from the Jewish to the Greek/ Roman) to oppose and not accept the violence of suppression, taking all the action necessary to stop the process of the trial and for sure that of the execution: at the time 5000 people were an army and there was no chance the Romans would risk an uprising or even a peaceful gathering of such a crowd just to please a priesthood they already had under control.
We see therefore that those who bear responsibility for the crucifixion and chose for it to take place are the Humans and not Jesus Christ or God. And those who realized as much are those who worked afterwards (according to point (3) of Christian Love) to apply and disseminate the social and political revolution Jesus Christ brought about, which they did for the next two centuries. If we believe in Jesus Christ as God and Man, His Resurrection just gave even more faith and commitment of Humans to this task and the conviction that he remains Living and unharmed by attacks. If we donʼt believe in this Nature, his Resurrection shows that his unfair execution which could have been prevented rehashed those who could have prevented it to the point that Jesus Christʼs impact after the crucifixion was 100, 1000 times more intense than before and ascription to his teachings Resurrected him, kept him alive for a much longer time span than any human life of those who raised a hand against him.
This year, in Christmas 2008 letʼs decide if we will act truly according to the teachings of Jesus Christ or the priesthood (secular and religious) that killed him and continues killing (regardless if bearing his name as it then bore the name of God) daily in His name each one of us.
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From Readers
That’s to me a revolutionary way to consider love. We have been told that love turns a blind eye to faults, even makes accommodation for them. Yet at the same time we are chastised for being ‘enablers’ if a loved one falls to some sort of addiction or persists in open anti-social activity and we do nothing to stop them. Thus we get revolving-door-rehab syndrome, and ‘out-of-control’ teens. The mixed message about what love is and how to show it plus the utter futility of the way we treat friends and family who’ve gone astray results in the feeling of helplessness that seems to have pervaded so many families, and occupies their time to the point that nothing else exists. Which I’m sure suits guvvies and other authority figures very well.
The trial and crucifixion of Jesus is something I found inexplicable until this article. I couldn’t accept the idea that Jesus was a sacrifice to wash away sins. In fact I found that repugnant. This reading of the events is much more in keeping, I think, with the personality I see depicted by John, and serves a much greater purpose.
N.W.M. , Reader of a non-Christian Denomination