Board index ‹ Assorted Bible Questions

[Azi]

I had a Christian upbringing, followed by a decade and a half of atheistic reaction formation, finally settling down for the past five years as an active and practicing entheogenic pagan. I'm not here to tell you what to believe, that's between you and the universe...

That said, there is a common meme among Christians that I remember from my childhood that the cross repulses the occult. The reason for this is usually understood to be some kind of intimidation by the 'higher power' therein represented~ 'The power of christ compells you' and such.

Well, here I am, two decades out of my Christian faith and I must say, I find the cross offensive. Highly so, even. It's not that the cross itself intimidates me, or that I'm afraid of what it can do. Fortunately for all of humanity, crucifiction fell out of fashion almost two millenia ago, so there's not much threat implicit in it.

But that brings me to my fundamental question.

Do any of you, at any point, feel the least bit odd about ascribing to a religion/faith whose primary symbology is the most excruciating form of torturing another human being to death devised by mankind?

I mean, It's odd enough that you regularly (from my perspective anyways) blaspheme the name of your own savior by trumpeting his Roman name (Jesus) rather than his actual name (Jeshua), and attaching him not to salvation, but to the pagan Roman notion cristening (Christ). That's odd enough, but then ya'll take it a step further—the symbol of the faith isn't one of Jeshua's teaching, or even his ideology. No, instead ya'll idolize your faith with the fundamental mechanism that the ruling empire used to crucify him for daring to speak out against the status quo.

Whoa. Seriously?

You love the guy, you love his message, you think he fulfilled the Jewish Covenant and he forms the basis of your life, but it's not him or his teachings that adorn your churches and social contracts... no, instead you celebrate how the people in power murdered him in the most excruciating way practiced at the time for daring to thoughtcrime against the existing state.

Say what? Worshipping a guillotine would be more civilized, in my frank opinion.

Sorry, but from my current perspective I just don't get it. Worshipping instruments of torture seems to me to be what profoundly broken, dare I say, evil people do. I don't care how indoctrinated your life circumstances are with this shit, at what point does common sense strike you?

"Maybe if my religion is focused on the act of torture to death, maybe just maybe we're not the 'good guys' we think we are?"
Just sayin'... and honestly curious. How do you rationalize idolizing a tool of mortal agony?

[jimwalton]

Thanks for your honesty. It makes for good dialogue. The whole message of the Bible is not about being good, or following a wise teacher, but being saved from sin that separates us from God. Sin is what has ruined us, and sin is what enslaves us. What Jesus came to do is not to be a nice guy and heal people who were sick and teach nice things, but to take care of the sin problem. The cross is where that happened, and so the cross is what matters. Even in those days, Paul said very offensive stuff like, "Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles..." (1 Cor. 1.22-23). And in 1 Cor. 1.18 he says, knowing people like you, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." It's the cross that is the power of God's salvation (1 Cor. 1.17). That's why the cross matters. That's why it's in our churches, on our lapels, and around our necks. The one thing that matters is being redeemed from sin and having the life of God in us, and the cross was the way that happened.

Just a few other technicalities. Jesus was his Greek name, as written the NT. It transliterated into Latin in the same form, but we call him Jesus because that's what he is in the Greek New Testament. And it is a name that attaches to salvation, because Joshua (Yeshua in Hebrew, Jesus in Greek) means "God is my salvation; God saves."

"Christ" is also Greek, christos, meaning "Anointed One." It's the Greek translation of the Hebrew word *hamashiach* (where our word "Messiah" comes from), meaning, uh, anointed one. So our calling him Christ is about acknowledging that he was the one sent by God and anointed by God to die for our sins (back to the sin problem). So it's the christening idea, but the ground floor of the christening is not some notion of oil, but of him being chosen and sent for this one particular purpose: to free us from sin.

So, as Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the message of the cross (the gospel), because that's where the power of God is.