Christian history is a two-thousand-year-old dinner table argument over whose version of Jesus is the right one. People have been debating about who Jesus really was—what he said, what he meant, where he came from—for ages. The reality is Jesus is a metaphor into which we dump our vision of humanity. Regardless of who he actually was, that has always been who he is to us (and always will be). The Jesus we hold dear is a mirror image of our beliefs about human potential. The question, who is Jesus? really is the ask, what do I believe about who I can become? What is my ideal human, and how do I become that? We could call this your personal philosophy of Jesus.
The Scriptures we do have about Jesus leave a lot of room for imagination and interpretive bias–not to mention the impossible conundrum of having to decipher the scramble of what Jesus actually said from what later traditions, scribal blunders, or blatant partisan rewriters had him saying. Jesus preposterously added to this confoundment by preferring to speak in parables and teaching by asking questions, which require our imaginations to fill in the empty spaces and invite us to make a multiplicity of imprecise interpretations–none of which can make a legitimate claim to have been inside the mind of the Rabbi to know exactly what he meant to say.
So, what is the good orthodox believer to do? One must know the right answer to the Jesus quiz to get into the pearly gates! The prescribed Christian solution is, lie to yourself, obviously. Convince yourself you know for sure until you don’t remember there ever was a process of convincing or something to be convinced of in the first place–Jesus is this way and this is what he said! That’s an easy solution, until that uncomfortable moment when you come into contact with other Christians, and other not-Christians, who believe in a completely different Jesus yet who spoke the very same words. Maybe none of us have got it right, so we’re all going to hell! What if the whole Church wound up in hell because of its fixation on Jesus?
Unconsciously, every good preacher and Christian faction has its own ideas about the human condition, the spiritual path, and how far out there is too far to go. They project this all onto Jesus, the perfect theological object for all our hopes and dreams. And Jesus is designed to take on all our projections–that is precisely his power. The Jesus we find ourselves believing in and preaching happens to be the embodiment of all our aspirations and lunacies because Jesus is the godhuman. Whatever we see as best, we see as God, and Jesus shows us how to be that as humans. That is the metaphor of Jesus, being the best you you cannot possibly imagine yourself to be.
The trouble is that people project onto Jesus unconsciously. Jesus is the answer is a lie and a joke. He is the question. He is the power to understand what the question that’s plaguing you about you is. Because his face is the metaphorical face of the divine, and of you the human, your Jesus is a mirror for what it is you most want yourself to be and fail to live up to at the same time. He can hold the polarities of your unconscious conflicts: your human shortcomings and divine potentialities. Therefore, those who see Jesus as a fixed historical image have lost the capacity for self-reflection. If we find ourselves looking for the One True Jesus, we are really lost.
Create your own Jesus instead. This is the invitation of Jesus. Lose yourself in the imaginative dream journey of living to fully become yourself. You will be confronted with the full truth of your human frailty and depravity–if you really try (death). And you will see the face of God–witnessing yourself transform into what once was impossible (resurrection). Of course, this in itself is one vision of Jesus. There is a social justice Jesus, a climate change Jesus, and an infinite array of Jesuses fitted to whatever problem-dream combination you find yourself living in.
One of Jesus’ disciples, Thomas, asked Jesus, what is the way to heaven? Jesus answered him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, NIV). The answer Jesus gave has been interpreted as if it was code for some kind of orthodox dogmatic formula of salvation, i.e. the fundamentalist creed that in order to get to heaven you have to know that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way of salvation. But nothing could be further from the truth! Jesus was inviting his disciples into a living relationship with the reality of himself and his message. There is no way to know “the Father;” to see the face of God–to experience divinity exploding your limited human possibility–except this way of becoming, which is more of a journey than an answer.
Another of Jesus’ disciples, Philip, demonstrated his fixed-image misunderstanding of Jesus, exemplified in the thinking that the path of Jesus is about being shown who God is by Jesus: “Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us” (John 14:8). The delusion of Philip is what Christian Orthodoxy has decided to focus its heresy wars on–the nature of Jesus: is Jesus homooúsion tó patri, the same substance as the Father; is he God, part God part human, etc., into an endless wasteland of irrelevant questions. Orthodoxy wants Jesus to be the answer about God, not a quest to find out who you are. It wants Jesus to be God for you, telling you Jesus did all the work of seeing God so you don’t have to; only listen, believe, and obey–never challenging you with the impossible task of divinity. But Jesus corrected Philip: “Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?’” (John 14:9). If Philip thought knowing God was a matter of being shown God by Jesus (or the Church, for us by extension), he didn’t know Jesus at all.
Orthodox Christian theology has become an enterprise in manufacturing Jesuses for its people instead of finding itself in the creation of Jesus. Jesus is a living, creative way, not an object of deification and religious outsourcing of spiritual encounter (the Jesus created by orthodoxy). Perhaps we must lose our salvation, as we’ve been sold it, to find God. The Jesus our institutions have created is the reflection of their unconscious strivings, and by reflecting on this, they may yet awaken. We all create our own Jesuses, and Jesus has been created as a weapon of violence and oppression, and as a symbol of peace and liberation. Create your Jesus intentionally.
I’m a huge fan of Andrew’s blogs. I was badly traumatized by religion and I’m learning a ton from these articles.
Until 20 years ago I was a Christian. One day, I bought a book at a neighborhood book fair. I can’t remember the exact title, but it was something like: “Why do we do what we do?” It was a small workbook with 111 questions asked twice. The first time you answer the questions, you answer them from your memory of yourself as a child. Questions like “Describe your relationship with your mom” and “…with your dad” and “…with your older siblings,” “…your younger siblings” etc. etc. etc. Then you answer them again as you are today.
At the time, I was 40. On paper, I spent a few evenings, after work, answering every, single question, 222 in total. Then I reviewed my answers and was shocked to discover that my answers to “Describe your relationship with your parents” (as a child) were nearly word-for-word identical to “Describe your relationship with God” (as an adult).
Identical!
My parents were selfish and jealous. They repeatedly told me they loved me but they withdrew their transactional love completely any time I embarrassed or inconvenienced them. I walked on eggshells around them so as to not anger them, and I was never quite sure what would anger them. I was NEVER allowed to be angry at them, but they could stop talking to me for days if they wanted to teach me a lesson. My parents were judgmental and demanded that I do plenty for them, but they would almost never do anything back for me. They had me convinced they were good, loving, caring people, but not much of what I wanted to do, have or be was supported (or even allowed) by them. I was made to know that I was less important than them. More of a pet or a possession than a human being. I was born to be their servant.
They put me into Catholic school where I was abused every which way you can abuse a boy. They would NOT let me leave to go to public school with my friends. They refused to believe I was being abused and said “We know better than you do. You’re staying in that school.” All of my problems were my fault and all of my successes were to their credit because they were “good parents.”
As an adult, my answers to who God was to me were exactly the same description. All his pain was my fault and all my joy was his doing. I was born to be his servant. I was to ask and ask and ask for help, but would pretty much never get it. I was not allowed to accept that he was not going to help me. I was to always know that he was pure good and I was the flawed one. I had to pretend he had my best interests at heart because “He knew better than I did.” I had to love him unconditionally, but he could turn his face from me anytime he felt like it.
As a child I was gaslighted by my family and then as an adult I was gaslighted again by my own faith in the God who replaced them.
What I learned from that amazing little workbook is what finally helped me see the truth about who Jesus was: He was the emotional replacement for my parents after I grew up. I’ll bet this is true for most who still believe he’s real.
Six weeks ago I lost a close family friend to the Coronavirus. He was the young, healthy, 5th person to die in the US. Ever since then I’ve been aware of the danger and have been self-quarantined and frightened. For the first time in 20 years I want a god to pray to. But this time, I know Jesus lives in my head, so, this time, I’m recreating him to be who I need him to be. Loving. Kind. Someone I can talk to and can say anything to without punishment. I’ll know he’s not real, but as a fiction author myself, I also know that I can make my characters into who I need them to be, and I can breathe life into them, and make them real within my own heart. So that’s what I’m doing with the new and improved Jesus that lives inside my head and heart this time.
For me, this Blog post couldn’t have come at a better time. Thanks Andrew.
Thanks James! Exciting to hear about your journey, and glad to hear you find this blog helpful.