A Christian In Spite Of Himself

[poliphilo]

I'm not a Christian. I don't believe in the Christian God or the Christian cosmology or anything to do with Jesus but - and it's a big but- I still regard the Sermon on the Mount- bits of it anyway- as the ultimate moral authority. 

I was going to say it's my conditioning- but I was conditioned to accept the whole shebang and I've shucked most of it.

No. The Sermon on the Mount- which I'm using as shorthand to mean the moral teaching of the Gospels- has something about it. 

And it's not that it was handed down from on high. Scholars have demonstrated there's nothing it it that can't be paralleled in earlier Jewish writings. It's not a revelation, it's the distillation of a long maturing Wisdom tradition- the essence  of several centuries worth of Greek philosophy and rabbinical teaching. You want to know how to live the good life? Here are the tried and tested rules. Love your neighbour, despise riches, seek your treasure in "heaven". Impossible demands? Well, maybe- human nature being what it is- but the purest commonsense. If we lived this way we'd be living in paradise.  

When I think about it, I have to admit that nothing has had a larger influence on the way I've lived my life and hone my responses.

Which- seeing how I classify myself  (when pushed) as a Pagan Agnostic- comes as a bit of a shock.  

I don't think Jesus was the Son of God or even The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived  or even that he lived at all- and I don't need to. The Sermon speaks for itself.

Comments

[shullie.livejournal.com]

can I join in....

I was once told I was to Christian to be a pagan and to Pagan to be a christian.

When I was a supposed 'practicing' Christian, I always felt I was reading a different book than the rest, especially when they were spouting doctrine.

Though I did like Jesus, I once made the mistake though of telling people I saw him as lover, rather than a husband...lol . I think that shocked them, as I was still married to my first husband at the time - who they were desperately trying to 'pray in'. In my experience, and at that time, lovers had always treated me much better than my husband had!

I have met and know some wonderful Christians, who would give you the coat of their back, who would feed you if you were starving, who would walk that extra mile with you. I have a great deal of respect for them. But I also, met and knew so many more who who rather walk across the street than be 'contaminated' and who lived and were rules by dogma and doctrine. Sadly they did tend to be the Church leaders, board members etc, who had more to loose.

Bitter moi?? lol. I could write a very long post on this, but life is too short.

I now see Jesus as one of many, like another commentator he is not part of my personal pantheon

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ailz and I sometimes got criticised by other Pagans for being too Christian.

The way I see it, we've had 2,000 years of Christianity, and our whole culture is steeped in it and we can't escape it. Sometimes I used to wish it was possible to entirely forget about our Christian heritage- go back- as it were- to 1 B.C. and pick up the thread from there- as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But it's impossible. Everything a modern Pagan does or thinks or says is conditioned by Christianity and we might as well be gracious and acknowledge it.