Now take a deep breath, inhale deeply and exhale like your toe has a slow leak. Lower your shoulders, relax your muscles and ask God to let you see the people of who you were referring to like he sees them. That’s what I do anyway.
"I can’t pretend anymore to find a way to reconcile the Jesus Mike Johnson worships and prays to with the Jesus I’m trying to follow."
I think it's important to remember that the point is to reconcile both you and Mike Johnson with the actual living Christ, that neither of you need to correctly understand Jesus for this to occur, and that the only thing either of you need to do to be saved is to accept that salvation.
You say you're trying to talk theology, not politics, but your core frustration seems to be with politics. I don't think anyone's politics are Christlike, except maybe the Jehovah's Witnesses. Christ didn't tax the rich to uplift the poor, he simply was poor, and he said the poor would always be with us. Following in Christ's footsteps doesn't involve taking political power. Politics is a purely human endeavor, born from our desire to _not_ give away everything we own and pick up a cross. If you're getting involved in politics at all, you're already falling short.
Which is not to say I don't vote! I'm no Jehovah's Witness. Jesus wants us to be Christlike, but knows we will fall short. His whole schtick is loving us anyway, so I don't think Jesus wants us to beat ourselves up for falling short--or beat anyone else up for falling short, either. So go ahead and play politics. Just don't think Christ has an opinion on government-subsidized healthcare...that's really no more Jesus' thing than tax breaks for the rich.
Thanks for reading and commenting Jack. I don't think the Gospel has a singular point but rather a story of a better way, a kingdom coming that we can choose to live in - to some degree - more or less - now. Of course Jesus has an opinion about affordable healthcare, subsidized by tax dollars or not. How could love not care that we have this basic human need met? But the point of my post was that Mike Johnson and I are not following the same Jesus. It's like saying that Ba'al and YHWH were so close in the description of who they were that to worship one was to worship the other. That's one of the many ways Israel found themselves in trouble over and over again.
"How could love not care that we have this basic human need met?"
Love cares, but it doesn't achieve this end through force, it achieves it through self-sacrifice. Big difference between giving all you have to the poor and using the threat of violence and imprisonment to redistribute resources according to your own sense of fairness. Jesus only did one of those two things.
And while I do sort of get what you mean by "the same Jesus" there's really only the one.
Who said anything about doing violence? See, you can tell that Jesus doesn’t do something like that or lead us to. And there is not only one Jesus. “Jesus” is a name, a placeholder that signifies a person but using the name doesn’t mean we know the person.
That's what the government is--the threat of violence and imprisonment. If you're getting people to support one another without that threat, it's not government, it's private consensual association. If you can't get people to support one another without the government, you're getting them to support one another through the threat of violence and imprisonment. Anything you do via government, you're doing via threat.
I mean, you could add "the threat of fines" to that list, too, but you can't make that threat if you can't back it up with the threat of violence and imprisonment, so I generally consider it part of those.
Point being, the government compels via threats. Jesus does not.
"And there is not only one Jesus. “Jesus” is a name..."
I'm not talking about the name--I'm pretty sure there are several Jesuses just among my neighborhood landscapers--I'm talking about the living God, whatever name you want to use for that real, existing being. That you and Mike Johnson have very different understandings of what that being wants doesn't mean you're interacting with different beings. It's like the blind men and the elephant, entirely possible you're feeling Jesus' legs while Mike's feeling Jesus' trunk.
There’s my tasty tasty “Christian” gaslighting! It’s not like in the spectrum of US religion and politics Mike J and Brian M, one must be wrong, it’s that they have different unique views of Jesus. Yes that must be it.
Right on, Brian!
Now take a deep breath, inhale deeply and exhale like your toe has a slow leak. Lower your shoulders, relax your muscles and ask God to let you see the people of who you were referring to like he sees them. That’s what I do anyway.
So well put Brian. It keeps coming back to the words and ways of Jesus as found in the four Gospels.
"I can’t pretend anymore to find a way to reconcile the Jesus Mike Johnson worships and prays to with the Jesus I’m trying to follow."
I think it's important to remember that the point is to reconcile both you and Mike Johnson with the actual living Christ, that neither of you need to correctly understand Jesus for this to occur, and that the only thing either of you need to do to be saved is to accept that salvation.
You say you're trying to talk theology, not politics, but your core frustration seems to be with politics. I don't think anyone's politics are Christlike, except maybe the Jehovah's Witnesses. Christ didn't tax the rich to uplift the poor, he simply was poor, and he said the poor would always be with us. Following in Christ's footsteps doesn't involve taking political power. Politics is a purely human endeavor, born from our desire to _not_ give away everything we own and pick up a cross. If you're getting involved in politics at all, you're already falling short.
Which is not to say I don't vote! I'm no Jehovah's Witness. Jesus wants us to be Christlike, but knows we will fall short. His whole schtick is loving us anyway, so I don't think Jesus wants us to beat ourselves up for falling short--or beat anyone else up for falling short, either. So go ahead and play politics. Just don't think Christ has an opinion on government-subsidized healthcare...that's really no more Jesus' thing than tax breaks for the rich.
Thanks for reading and commenting Jack. I don't think the Gospel has a singular point but rather a story of a better way, a kingdom coming that we can choose to live in - to some degree - more or less - now. Of course Jesus has an opinion about affordable healthcare, subsidized by tax dollars or not. How could love not care that we have this basic human need met? But the point of my post was that Mike Johnson and I are not following the same Jesus. It's like saying that Ba'al and YHWH were so close in the description of who they were that to worship one was to worship the other. That's one of the many ways Israel found themselves in trouble over and over again.
"How could love not care that we have this basic human need met?"
Love cares, but it doesn't achieve this end through force, it achieves it through self-sacrifice. Big difference between giving all you have to the poor and using the threat of violence and imprisonment to redistribute resources according to your own sense of fairness. Jesus only did one of those two things.
And while I do sort of get what you mean by "the same Jesus" there's really only the one.
Who said anything about doing violence? See, you can tell that Jesus doesn’t do something like that or lead us to. And there is not only one Jesus. “Jesus” is a name, a placeholder that signifies a person but using the name doesn’t mean we know the person.
That's what the government is--the threat of violence and imprisonment. If you're getting people to support one another without that threat, it's not government, it's private consensual association. If you can't get people to support one another without the government, you're getting them to support one another through the threat of violence and imprisonment. Anything you do via government, you're doing via threat.
I mean, you could add "the threat of fines" to that list, too, but you can't make that threat if you can't back it up with the threat of violence and imprisonment, so I generally consider it part of those.
Point being, the government compels via threats. Jesus does not.
"And there is not only one Jesus. “Jesus” is a name..."
I'm not talking about the name--I'm pretty sure there are several Jesuses just among my neighborhood landscapers--I'm talking about the living God, whatever name you want to use for that real, existing being. That you and Mike Johnson have very different understandings of what that being wants doesn't mean you're interacting with different beings. It's like the blind men and the elephant, entirely possible you're feeling Jesus' legs while Mike's feeling Jesus' trunk.
There’s my tasty tasty “Christian” gaslighting! It’s not like in the spectrum of US religion and politics Mike J and Brian M, one must be wrong, it’s that they have different unique views of Jesus. Yes that must be it.
I mean they could both be wrong, too.