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

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I remember going to a church camp and one of the speakers' entire message was getting up and saying the Sermon on the Mount...completely from memory.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to hash out what I believe when it comes to Christianity. I refuse to believe that Christian dogma has a monopoly of truth when it comes to the nature of the Divine, the human condition, and morality. I don't see myself ever again participating in organized religion on anything other than a nominal level. And yet, the glimpses into ultimate truth that Christianity does have (Sermon on the Mount being one, I Corinthians 13 being another) are compelling enough to keep me returning to its teachings.

I'm sort of with you there...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

What I say is that I am a Christian... in the sense that I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. I think, in my mind, that makes me a Christian. I have no compelling need to argue doctrine with anyone about it... but it has been years since I have been able to make that specific profession of faith that says, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the only son of the living God." I started out at about age 20 leaving out the word "only" and it has gradually crumbled from there. Because I had a whole career as a church employee it's been a little tricky. I hadn't noticed how much pressure I was feeling about that until after I retired and discovered how relieved I was.

[oakmouse]

Well, I'm a pagan non-agnostic, and I believe that Christianity has some seriously good stuff in it. The Sermon on the Mount is part of that. I no longer accept (never did, actually) that the god of the Bible is the only god, or even necessarily the "best" god (certainly not the best for me), or that Christianity has universal validity and exclusive truth; but there's no need to throw out the whole thing. I've always used some of the old Biblical teachings as guidelines on how to live because I feel that THEY WORK. But, as I once told a Christo-pagan friend, Jesus isn't one of my patron deities.

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

I do not consider myself Christian, I don't believe in God, and I don't believe that Jesus was the son of God.

That having been said, I really don't have a beef with anything Jesus taught. Obviously I don't buy into the stuff about worshipping God, but the things he taught (by word and by example) about how we should treat one another--you really can't argue with it. I think the world would be a better place if more people tried to behave the way he advocated.

And who knows...maybe back in Biblical times the only way to get anyone to take your teachings seriously was to claim divinity, or communication with the divine.