About Jesus - Not Proselytizing

[JudyG]

I was just wondering about other readers' thoughts on Jesus.  It's hard to ignore his presence, especially here in North Carolina.  Even in groups for Buddhist meditation I go to Jesus is often mentioned as a religious icon, often being compared with the Buddha.  Probably the biggest reason I could not be a Christian is because I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus or that God would only have one son.  Yet I like to think of Jesus as a moral and ethical example.  Then this causes me to feel confused about how I could look up to Jesus but still consider myself a Jew.  I feel like it's a dirty little secret.  I don't have the same problem with Buddha, because no one is asking me to worship him and our society is not rife with Buddhist references and vestiges.  Buddha is just a good example.  So anyone with any opinion at all, please share!

[Sara]

We live in a very secular town, but a drive outside the city yields views of numerous churches and Jesus billboards. When I see them I wonder how I would feel if I lived in a country where I saw Jewish symbols as often. Some of my husband's family members have the blue-eyed European Jesus picture on their dining room wall.

It is difficult in a culture where the dominant religion is Christianity to avoid the Christian holidays, Christian imagery, or Christian ideas. We all absorb them to some extent. Most television shows have embedded Christian attitudes and philosophies. Most convey ideas that are incompatible with Jewish thought. Most of U.S. secular culture has an underlying Christian ethos. There is a big difference between a secular Jew and a secular Christian.

I think it is possible to find inspiration - wherever you find it, no matter what religion you belong to. If it speaks to you spiritually, I don't really see a problem with it. We can be inspired by many people and prophets from the past - we just don't deify them, because God cannot incarnate in human form. God is limitless while the human body is limited.

The symbolism of Jesus as someone who was willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good is a nice idea. The concept of the resurrection - or eternal life through belief in God - is also a nice idea.

[B]

I agree with the second poster. It is impossible to ignore Christian iconography in the U.S., and the Christian ideas that permeate our media and culture.

I wanted to point out that resurrection is a Jewish idea as well. We just don't claim that anyone has been resurrected yet, at least not physically.

Actually, this is debatable within Christianity as well; for example, (St.) Paul says something about the resurrection body being a different kind of body than ours. Also, the divinity of Jesus was not an original doctrine. The divinity of Jesus was added on years later, and not adopted as official church teaching until 325 c.e. or so. In fact, the first few hundred years of Christianity was rife with different groups that taught some very different things. There are several good books available about this, including Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels, and When Jesus Became God by Richard E. Rubenstein.

I'd like to mention, too, that we must be careful about admiring the idea of self-sacrifice a little too much. In American media, this is always noble. But in many cases it goes against the Jewish teaching that life is sacred, and that prolonging life is almost always preferable to self-sacrifice. Even the question of preferring death to forced conversion was debated by our sages. Some ruled that Jews should die rather than convert; others said that it's better to prolong life and try to keep Jewish traditions in secret. So we need to consider carefully before we accept the "noble death" imagery as good. In many ways, Christianity subtly promotes a culture of nobility of death over nobility of life.

[Sara Davies]

I agree with B - Christian imagery seems to promote a glorification of death, self-denial, and suffering - the notion that the Afterlife is more important than this life. It may not be so much a glorification of death, however, as a glorification of giving - to be willing to give one's life - one's most valuable possession - for a cause greater than oneself. (It is thus probably no accident that military culture in the U.S. is predominantly Christian.) In Jewish thought, we belong to God - we don't own our bodies or lives. Everything belongs to God - thus they are not ours to give. But there may be a parallel - "whose blood is redder?" - who can say which life is more valuable. As the Christian story goes, God and/or Jesus believed the salvation of humanity was more important than one individual life. Jews don't believe we need to be saved because we are not inherently sinful. Our energies are not good or bad - rather, it's how we choose to direct them that brings us closer to - or takes us farther from - God. Helping others could only be accomplished through actions in the physical world. No one could atone for the sins of another. If you believe our time to be with God is while we are alive, not after we die - then giving up our lives might be viewed as an abandonment/rejection of God.