Skip to main content

GETHSEMANE REVISITED Part 1: The Father

By Carl S ~

When I was a monk at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane monastery (Trappist) in Kentucky, in the 1950s, one of the rules strictly observed was silence. You didn't speak except to a superior, all other communication was done with sign language. The silence was to create an atmosphere of contemplation, penance, and prayer; a "communion with God". In this silent ambiance, we read scripture as beliefs to not just absorb, but to understand, by dwelling on passages, especially those dealing with the teachings and character of Jesus. There was nothing shallow or half-hearted in our dedication.

Let’s begin by acknowledging that no one really knows who wrote those gospels (a few, a committee?). Let's see what "portrait of Jesus” they created, for isn’t it really the “idea” of Jesus that Christians love?

The Jesus of the bible is an apologist for God. He preaches not the vengeful, angry, destructive god of Jewish scriptures, but a "new testament" God, one who's had a change of heart. This heavenly Father is personally involved with the well-being of each and every one of his children, despite all evidence to the contrary, which evidence Jesus, being God's apologist, tries to explain away. Jesus speaks of a father-God who provides daily bread, and who will not give his child a stone if he asks for bread; a father who rejoices at the return of an ungrateful, wastrel son to his household, with a festive banquet; an all-merciful, all-forgiving of all debt father. The message describes a close, loving relationship, even as the reader is commanded to be, "perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect." This is the God of Christianity written into the texts and to be believed in without doubt.

One would conclude, based on the teachings of Jesus, that in the most distressing of circumstances, the father would be there immediately. Ironically, the text says that the reality was quite to the contrary, for, as the son pleads for deliverance from an impending, agonizing and prolonged death, he is answered with . . . silence. There's no one there. Jesus is abandoned to his fate, without even a whisper of consolation, "forsaken," according to Matthew 27:46 (although his mother is there as he dies). It makes one wonder if the father was only a wishful-thinking product of Jesus' imagination, if the constant references by Jesus to "thy will" stem from Jesus’ own imaginings of what the "will" is, but of which he has no real knowledge. One might conclude that the Jesus portrayed by the Gospel writers is a figure living in a hopeful but delusional state. These considerations stem directly from the texts. Notice, also, that Jesus prays throughout the Gospels, without ever mentioning any answers.

The story of Jesus' persistence, in believing that the god he preached was real, is repeated constantly by those who believe as he did, and with just as much intractability. There are many Gethsemanes in this world, even at this minute, where mothers pray to an absent god that their children not suffer and die. But, the children suffer and die anyway, about 24,000 each day, in Africa alone. Heartbreakingly, tragically, these deaths are preventable. Clearly, we humans are the true fathers, and there are no others.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro