![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theamericanjesus.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Jesus-442x600.jpg\" "\\"Jesus-442x600\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Apparently Andrew Sullivan didn\u2019t watch the Jefferson Bethke \u201cWhy I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus\u201d video that went viral<\/a> a few months ago.<\/p>\n Instead, in his latest article for Newsweek<\/em><\/a> he\u2019s decided to use another Jefferson, in this case Thomas, to make what is essentially the same argument. Namely, that in order to\u00a0truly\u00a0follow Jesus we must\u00a0separate\u00a0ourselves from the church and\/or organized religion. In that way we can discover the \u201creal\u201d Jesus, free from all of the dogma and boundaries the Church has supposedly placed upon his followers since the resurrection. In doing so, Sullivan hopes that Christians will stop letting their faith overlap with their politics.<\/p>\n To be fair, there are many points at which I agree with Mr. Sullivan. Particularly in regards to giving up power, loving and caring for others, and forgiveness. As it pertains to those facets of the Christian life, Sullivan is right on point. In fact, I could not agree more with his statement,\u00a0\u201cWhat does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand?\u201d<\/p>\n However, this article is full of statements that are either patently false or incredibly misleading. Some of the factual errors are minor, but others are a much more\u00a0significant. The\u00a0issue here is not to nit pick, but to point out that the Jesus Sullivan describes is a sanatized Jesus, free from any controversy or quirks that Sullivan is not comfortable with. It\u2019s a disembodied Jesus, free from the Body which incarnates him to the world and free to be molded into whatever form the religious consumer desires. It\u2019s a Jesus formed in the image of Andrew Sullivan.<\/p>\n So, what are all of these\u00a0discrepancies?<\/p>\n For starters, Jesus never disowned his parents. That is a radical reinterpretation of the story of the boy Jesus teaching in the temple that ignores the gospels\u2019 account of Jesus\u2019 close and ongoing relationship with his mother. Implying that he did, allows Sullivan to make the case that our abandonment of the Church is somehow in line with Jesus\u2019 actions and therefore justified.<\/p>\n Likewise, Jesus actually had more to say about marriage than Sullivan would have us believe. Like it or not, in Jesus\u2019 condemnation of divorce (which Sullivan cites) Jesus also, very clearly and very specifically, describes the sacrament of marriage. What we do with that is a matter for another time, but to leave out Jesus\u2019 words on this matter is deceptive. However, for Sullivan\u2019s purposes, minimizing Jesus\u2019 words on contemporary \u201chot button\u201d issues allows Sullivan to minimize their\u00a0significance\u00a0or ignore them altogether when they don\u2019t exactly line up with his own personal theology, thereby adding another layer to his straw man Jesus<\/a>.<\/p>\n The gospels make no claim that Jesus expected the immediate end of the world. Not only does Jesus utter the famous words \u201cno man knows the hour\u201d, but at the\u00a0ascension\u00a0Jesus tells his disciples that he will be with them to always, even to the very end of the age. This promise of ongoing comfort and support are not exactly the words of a man expecting the world to end tomorrow. Implying that Jesus was focused on the life after this one allows Sullivan to further support his case that Christians need not worry so much about the \u201cpolitical\u201d issues of our day.<\/p>\n Contrary to Sullivan\u2019s claim, Jesus did not flee from crowds. The one occasion of Jesus leaving to go pray by himself is not the normative paradigm for his ministry. If anything it\u2019s the exception that proves the rule that Jesus spent most of his ministry preaching to crowds, i.e. the sermon on the mount, preaching to 5,000 before feeding them, and preaching to the crowd before<\/em> going off to pray after he finished his message.\u00a0Simply put, Jesus didn\u2019t advocate the sort of retrenchment Andrew Sullivan claims that he did.<\/p>\n And since Sullivan doesn\u2019t want us to make conclusions about things the Bible doesn\u2019t specifically mention, the Bible also says nothing about whether or not reproduction will take place in eternity.<\/p>\n Again, this may seem like nit picking, but it\u2019s important nit picking because what Sullivan does is create a new Jesus which will more easily support his case than the Jesus we actually find in the gospels. Without this reconstruction of Jesus, Sullivan doesn\u2019t have the Biblical support he seeks in making a case that Christians should \u201cforget the church, [and] follow Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n Those factual issues aside, Sullivan\u2019s case is still riddled with problems.<\/p>\n Sullivan grounds the validity of his argument in the work of Thomas Jefferson and his infamous cut and past Bible. However,\u00a0Thomas Jefferson was not a theologian.<\/p>\n Brilliant though he was, Jefferson was no more qualified to discern the \u201creal\u201d teachings of Jesus than the guy delivering our pizza tonight. Jefferson seemed to know that, which is, in large part, why he took pains to make sure that hardly anyone would read his work (which in turn is why most people have never heard about Jefferson\u2019s Bible until recently). It was a private hobby of his intended only for himself and a small group of friends. (See Stephen Prothero\u2019s wonderfully titled\u00a0The American Jesus<\/em> for more on this.) To imply that he was someone able discern the \u201creal\u201d teachings of Jesus and that we should in turn follow this \u201cpure\u201d gospel is simply absurd.<\/p>\n The manipulative politicization of the faith today is certainly problematic. Running a blog entitled The American Jesus<\/em> I am particularly sensitive about the ways in which Jesus is wedded to American political ideology. However, to claim Jesus was in no way political is either incredibly ignorant or intentionally deceptive, particularly for a self-professed Catholic during Holy Week.<\/p>\n Whether Catholic or Protestant you are probably aware that last Sunday was Palm Sunday. While admittedly Jesus didn\u2019t perform many overtly political actions, his entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was nothing short of a political revolt, an act which led very quickly to his death at the hands of a Roman government which would abide no threat to its rule.<\/p>\n While his political actions where very different from what we see today, riding into Jerusalem and declaring yourself king instead of\u00a0Caesar\u00a0was an incredibly political act and the beginning of the climax of a ministry which offered an alternative kingdom to the established empire. Guess what kingdoms and empires are. They\u2019re forms of government. Offering an alternative form of that\u00a0government\u00a0is a political act. While Sullivan is right to call attention to the problematic relationship between the modern religious and political right, he\u00a0demonstrates\u00a0a very myopic understanding of politics.<\/p>\n Despite this flawed understanding of politics, however, Sullivan employs it to further his case that Christians should abandon a church he views as too wedded to \u201cpolitics\u201d. Instead, for Sullivan, Christians should learn to more fully embrace \u201csecular space.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Sullivan, \u201cThe crisis of Christianity is perhaps best captured in the new meaning of the word \u201csecular.\u201d It once meant belief in separating the spheres of faith and politics; it now means, for many, simply atheism. The ability to be faithful in a religious space and reasonable in a political one has atrophied before our eyes.\u201d I agree with Sullivan that we as Christians need to be more reasonable in our interactions with those outside the church. However, Sullivan\u2019s assumption that for Christians there is such a thing as \u201csecular space\u201d is fundamentally flawed. And turning to St. Francis of Assisi, a man who lived during a time in which the\u00a0government\u00a0was understood to be appointed by God, doesn\u2019t help his case.<\/p>\n