Jesus Was Not Against Imperialism

The Bible & Interpretation online magazine has published a new essay adapted from The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics and titled “Jesus Was Not Against Imperialism: New Testament Ethics as an Imperialist Project.” Here is the abstract:

The portrayal of Jesus as an anti-imperialist pervades the scholarly literature of New Testament ethics. However, portraying Jesus as an anti-imperialist actually betrays a pro-imperialist Christian agenda on the part of many New Testament ethicists. Usually, the main evidence cited is Jesus’ resistance to the Roman empire. However, anti-imperialism should properly describe an ideology that is against any empire. Jesus’ endorsement of the Kingdom of God, which is envisioned as an empire, should certainly disqualify him from being an anti-imperialist. In addition, many prominent New Testament ethicists are Euro-Americans with no indigenous ancestry, and so are themselves part of an empire occupying Native American lands.

In the near future, I also plan to challenge more thoroughly one of the most important myths in Christian historiography—Constantine the Great (ruled 306-337) was where imperialism began in Christianity. Constantine, therefore, represents a corruption of Jesus’ teachings in this view.

The placement of the start of Christian imperialism in Constantine’s reign has served to deflect attention from the fact that imperialism is inscribed in the New Testament itself. Constantine only put into effect an ideology that was already there from the beginning of Christianity and one that reaches back into what Christians call "The Old Testament."

The Processed Word of God

I suspect that many of us–well, those of us of a certain age–have an image of Billy Graham etched in our minds: the patriarch of TV evangelism standing in the pulpit and holding the Bible aloft as the very Word of God. However, few of those in Billy’s audiences, few of those who gaze reverently at the Bible on the altar every Sunday at church, realize that the richly bound, revered book isn’t the real thing. It is the processed word of God.

What do I mean by that? Can’t we just pick up the Bible, open it and read God’s Word? No, it’s not that simple–even if you believe that the Bible is God’s Word. Everything we see on the pages of any modern Bible is the product of countless hands and minds that were involved after the original authors wrote the books in it. So there are many uncertainties that stand between the reader and the original Bible authors and texts. It’s processed material.

For example, the earliest Greek manuscripts were written with no separation between the words and no punctuation, which can lead to confusion. Someone later made the word separations and added the punctuation.

There is a complex history of manuscript copying and recopying–and an enormous number of scribal errors to deal with. There is also the matter of translation, the meaning of words, and which manuscripts to rely upon. These issues required thousands of decisions–some informed, others not. All divisions into chapters and verses came later. Some Bibles print the words of Jesus in red, which may give the impression that these are the very words of Jesus, which is misleading. We are reading English translations of Greek manuscripts that purport to record words spoken by Jesus in Aramaic, perhaps a generation or two earlier. Was a stenographer present? It is false advertising to print the (supposed) words of Jesus in red.

And now we are confronted with many contemporary translations that attempt modernization and paraphrasing of the text, which allow the biases, prejudices, and agendas of the translators to have a voice–and there have been blatant, egregious distortions. Beware: The translators are commonly conservative theologians who do have their own agendas.

It is a theological affirmation that the Bible is the Word of God. But even if you do believe that, it is important to remember that the modern Bible you hold in your hands is the product of ongoing adjustment and manipulation over the centuries. Some of the pious handlers of the “holy text” have been competent and conscientious, but far too many have not been.

The Cure-for-Christianity Library

“What do you think about the upheaval in Jesus studies?”

THIS IS THE QUESTION I WOULD so much like to pose to my Christian friends—to be met, I am sure, in most instances–with blank stares. “What upheaval?” Because they are not paying attention. In fact, the Jesus question has been removed from the exclusive domain of Bible scholars and ecclesiastical functionaries. Most New Testament scholars have been, and remain, committed to the Jesus faith. These are the folks who, in the words of one observer, “...still write books manufacturing and manicuring Jesus to look like they do.” Secular observers decided that this biased community could no longer be trusted to provide honest answers on who and what Jesus was. So you will find plenty of titles on this list by secular analysts who have opened up Jesus studies as never before—and exposed its faulty methodologies and conclusions, e.g., Richard Carrier, Robert Price, David Fitzgerald.

Of course, it’s not just Jesus; theism in general and Christianity in particular have been subjected to penetrating, withering critique. As I point out in the Introduction of my book, we are experiencing—and have been for some twenty years—an unprecedented atheist publishing surge. This has never happened before. Ever. There are about 250 titles on this list (click below). Some of the titles predate 2000; I have included them because they are classics in the deconstruction of Christianity, e.g. H. L. Mencken’s Treatise on the Gods (1932) and Charles Guignebert’s Jesus (1935). Not all of the authors cited here are atheists, but one thing that they do have in common is their conviction that the Christian brand of theism—no matter how successful it has been—has been falsified.

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An Atheist Is An Agnostic Is An Atheist Is An Agnostic! Why Every Agnostic Should Become An Atheist

We need a consistent definition of agnosticism that makes sense, so in what follows I offer one. We also need to recognize that all religion is localized religion, and as such, there is no such thing as religion but religions, just as there is no such thing as Christianity but Christianities.

Thomas Huxley invented the word "agnosticism" who defined it like this:

Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle... do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable. LINK.

But Bertrand Russell suggested a different definition:

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. LINK.

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Another God Before Us?

An Evil Maker?

Those who insist that there must have been a creator don’t get to arbitrarily decide the nature of the creator, based on cherished theological traditions. It just cannot be that the problematic god of the Bible is the only candidate for The Maker of the Cosmos. So it’s not all that radical to urge Christians to consider other gods that may have created the Cosmos. It’s a bit narrow-minded to be exclusive on this issue. For the sake of argument, perhaps we might consider that a god indeed may have kicked things off. But, even so, we’d still have to be open-mindedness about what kind of god that was.

While a good god is considered a self-evident truth by Christians, nothing about the Cosmos mandates this conclusion. Joseph Daleiden has observed that, given the state of the world, it would be easier to prove a Devil than a god.[1] Is there anything that rules out an evil god as Creator? In fact—and how embarrassing is this for Christians?—many of them already believe in an evil god; those of the evangelical variety take Satan very seriously. As does Pope Francis, who employs a staff of exorcists. And Justice Scalia, good Catholic that he was, stingingly rebuked people who denied the reality of the devil. Jesus spoke of Satan (he even spoke to Satan), so what more could the Bible-believer want to prove Satan’s existence?

Throughout Western history Christians have credited Satan with enormous havoc and evil, positioning him as their god’s adversary and as a cunning, irresistible tempter of humans. Christians may protest that Satan is not a god, but that’s splitting hairs. They’re convinced that Satan is a being who can stand up to and hold his own against their god. That is de facto acknowledgment that Satan has supernatural powers; he must enjoy some rank as a god. So why would it be such a stretch to believe that the chief god of the Cosmos is evil—perhaps none other than Satan himself? Or that the Satan who gets so much airtime in the New Testament is his deputy?

Frankly, the seriously defective god of the Bible would be a major disappointment as the Creator Deity. He is overtly and covertly evil, camouflaging his evil with talk of love. But an aggressively evil god would have to be a possibility.

This is an excerpt from David Madison’s book, 10 Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, pp. 124-125

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[1] Joseph Daleiden, The Final Superstition: A Critical Evaluation of the Judeo-Christian Legacy (Prometheus Books, 1994), p. 136.