{"id":47477,"date":"2018-07-03T05:42:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T09:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=47477"},"modified":"2018-06-29T20:41:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T00:41:52","slug":"what-would-jesus-do-instinctively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/07\/what-would-jesus-do-instinctively.html","title":{"rendered":"What Would Jesus Do Instinctively?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Richard Beck<\/a> posted one of his characteristically provocative posts recently, this one with a title informing readers that \u201cyou don\u2019t have time for \u2018What Would Jesus Do?'\u201d Here is part of that post:<\/p>\n

Most of us, I\u2019m guessing, think that becoming more Christ-like in our lives is a process of making good choices. Life presents us with a series of moral decisions and we need to ask ourselves at each of these crossroads \u201cWhat would Jesus do?\u201d<\/p>\n

But\u2026life isn\u2019t really like that. Those \u201cchoices\u201d come at us so fast that we don\u2019t really even notice we\u2019re making them. Mostly because our decision-making is being done automatically and emotionally\u2026<\/p>\n

We tend to think being like Jesus is controlled by the fast, rational, and conscious part of the mind, the part that asks \u201cWhat would Jesus do?\u201d<\/p>\n

But in reality, it\u2019s the fast, emotional, and automatic part of our minds that\u2019s really controlling the show. As I\u2019ve written about before, the battle to be like Jesus is won or lost in milliseconds.<\/p>\n

In short, learning to love isn\u2019t about standing at an ethical crossroads and making good, Christ-like decisions, rolling the question \u201cWhat would Jesus do?\u201d over in our minds. Life and our brains are moving way too fast for that.<\/p>\n

Learning to love is, rather, about forming yourself into a person where love becomes natural and automatic, like a habit of breathing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Confucius emphasized something similar in Analects 2.4<\/a>, a particularly famous passage:<\/p>\n

At 30, I took my stand<\/i>; At 40, I no longer had doubts<\/i>; At 50, I knew the will of the heavens<\/i>; At 60, my ear was attuned<\/i>;\u00a0At 70, I follow all the desires of my heart without breaking any rule.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea is that morality became first a matter of deep investigation and reflection, but ultimately a matter of determined habit-formation, so that the instinctive reaction becomes that which one would judge moral if one had the time to think and reflect on it, but which so often in a moment of intense crisis we do not.<\/p>\n

Finally, I came across the image below when searching for a picture that would serve as a suitable accompaniment for this post, and it amused me enough that I thought I should share it with you. But jokes aside, if it is true, isn\u2019t it precisely because Jesus had turned his teaching into instincts that he followed without having to stop and look at a bracelet around his wrist?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Beck posted one of his characteristically provocative posts recently, this one with a title informing readers that \u201cyou don\u2019t have time for \u2018What Would Jesus Do?’\u201d Here is part of that post: Most of us, I\u2019m guessing, think that becoming more Christ-like in our lives is a process of making good choices. Life presents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":47711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[2127,3166,5677,10355,13925],"class_list":["post-47477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-morality","tag-confucius","tag-ethics","tag-jesus","tag-richard-beck","tag-wwjd"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Would Jesus Do Instinctively?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Richard Beck posted one of his characteristically provocative posts recently, this one with a title informing readers that "you don't have time for 'What\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/07\/what-would-jesus-do-instinctively.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Would Jesus Do Instinctively?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Richard Beck posted one of his characteristically provocative posts recently, this one with a title informing readers that "you don't have time for 'What\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/07\/what-would-jesus-do-instinctively.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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