Jesus, Take The Wheel

I read The Jefferson Bible on the train home from Boston to New Jersey this weekend. I know I mentioned what it was before, but here's a short overview (for those of you who don't want to click that link):

• Thomas Jefferson was a Deist with respect for the teachings of Jesus. He was also a pretty strict skeptic and rejected the supernatural.
• He took a razor^[1] and cut and pasted verses from the Four Gospels in chronological order, removing some of the repetition -- no reason to have the Sermon On The Mount twice, for example.
• After that, he went through and took out everything that bothered his rationalist sensibilities, as well as verses he felt were too commonly misinterpreted and/or clearly added by the Evangelists. As a result, there are no miracles, angels, devils, etc. in his Bible.
• It's also incredibly short, clocking in at just over 100 Kindle pages.^[2] I read it in under two hours.

I fucking loved The Jefferson Bible. I'm not being a snarky atheist,^[3] either: several parts of this book made me smile. I learned three things:^[4]

1. Taken as a piece of literature, the Gospels are kind of poorly written. There's, like, zero character development. There are 12 Apostles, for example, and maybe four of them speak. People just show up with no backstory whatsoever and Jesus talks like Yoda. It's a dense book with a lot of verbose language that simply gets lost in translation.
2. When you see some "Christian" on television talking about the woes of gay marriage / birth control, just remember that jackass didn't read the source material. Jesus doesn't say a word about gays, abortion, condoms, science, dinosaurs, etc. Literally everything Pat Robertson says is ignorant and -- more to the point -- not what Jesus fuckin' said. It's all written down, bro; read it.
3. As an extension of that point, this is a philosophy I can get behind. It's all about helping people (especially the poor), forgiveness, and perseverance.

THIS PART IS GOING TO BE POLITICAL IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED PLEASE SKIP IT. YOU'VE BEEN TOLD. I'LL WRITE A "FIFTY GAMES OF TWILIGHT" POST SOON I PROMISE.

In American politics, Christianity is often associated with conservatism, or at the very least, the GOP.^[5] Something like 85% of elected officials are Christian -- I only know of one open atheist, and he's in the House -- and, of those, the only ones who talk about it at all are Republicans. Dems, as a rule, are quieter about their beliefs.

President Obama had to fight off rumors that he was Muslim. The correct answer to that charge, of course, was, "I'm not Muslim, but even if I were, why would it matter?" We don't yet live in a country where politicians can be sworn in on anything other than a Bible and not be shrouded in controversy. ANYWAY.

Like I said, the people who wear their love for Jesus on their sleeves typically vote Republican. Many of these (surely wonderful) people vote for officials who promise to ban gay marriage, strike down universal healthcare, and give tax breaks to the rich. These people do not love Jesus. They love Jeezus, who's a lot like Cheez-Wiz. He's an approximation of the real thing, but he's different enough that honestly he's not the same at all. Jeezus loves guns and thinks America is just top-notch.

Here are some of the quotes from the Gospels that made me smile on the train. Jesus said this stuff.^[6] Try to reconcile any of these with the typical stance Evangelicals take on political issues^[7] and you'll see why I get frustrated.

1. "And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" - Matt 5:47
2. "Jesus answered, 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" - Matt 19:21
3. "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'" - Matt 19:23-24
4. "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." - Luke 14:11
5. "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." - Matthew 22:37-40

I don't see how you can turn "Love thy neighbour as thyself" and "Sell everything you own and give the money to the poor" into "NO QUEERS" and "You're abusing welfare. Get a job, leech. Matter of fact, let's see your papers while we're at it. Also, piss into this cup."

Look at these guys:

These three gentlemen are praying at the steps of the Supreme Court; praying that the Affordable Care Act will be ruled unconstitutional. These are folks who believe prayer works. In their world, they have the power to ask their God^[8] for things and He'll deliver 'em. Instead of asking for all illness to be eradicated so no one ever gets sick, they're asking for legislation they disagree with -- not necessarily for invalid reasons -- to be undone. They are assholes, but they're doing it for Jeezus.

OKAY ALL THE POLITICAL GARBAGE IS OVER YOU'RE GOOD TO KEEP READING

This was my second time going through the Gospels^[9] and honestly I didn't miss the miracles. The Sermon on the Mount is still an amazing lil' manifesto, even if it's not alongside turning a little bit of bread into a ton of bread. The rationalist take made the ending kind of hilarious, too. (SPOILERS) I'll paraphrase:

They took Jesus's body from the cross and went to a garden. There was a tomb there, a tomb where none had been buried before; they laid his body in the tomb, moved a very heavy rock over the opening, and left. The end.

Alright I added the "The end." That wasn't written in there.

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[1] No joke, he did everything manually. Rather than re-write everything he just glued verses onto pieces of paper.↩

[2] I only measure things in Kindle pages now.↩

[3] I don't believe in gods. You should try it out; our meetings are on Friday the 13ths and we only eat the freshest of babies.↩

[4] This is a list-heavy post. Sup.↩

[5] Ironically enough, the GOP gave up on conservatism / minimal government interference in daily affairs at around the same time the Evangelical Right became a Thing.↩

[6] Provided the Gospels are an accurate transcription. This is debatable, considering they were all written well after Jesus's death. It's like if everything we know about John F. Kennedy were written from 1980 onwards.↩

[7] Two things: (1) I am aware that the Evangelical Left is a thing and that they're doing solid work. They're a small movement, though. (2) These stances are: supporting the "Biblical Definition"^[*] of marriage; banning abortion and -- sometimes -- governmental support of birth control; "only cis-het people can be happy!".↩

[8] Yahweh / G_d; not Zeus, Thor, Chronos, Hades, Poseidon, Ra, or any of the other hundreds of gods. Curious. I mean, just as a numbers game, you'd think they'd ask Oden, too -- wider net.↩

[9] I read it in 10th grade 'cause I thought we were skipping parts in religion class. We were.↩

[*] If you support this, you either (A) have not read the Bible's definition of marriage or (B) are fine with concubines, forcing women to marry their rapists, and men owning their wives as property.↩