Skip to main content

WWJND?

By Carl S  ~ 

If you're familiar with WWJD, you know what the letters stand for. They were once popular in Christian circles, representing “What Would Jesus Do?” The whole reason for this slogan was to make them ask themselves what Jesus would do when having to deal with life's moral decisions. Is this the “Jesus” who cared about the poor and disenfranchised, and said, “everything you do for the least of my brethren, you do for me?” Would he consider giving them free meals on Christmas and Easter enough to meet that requirement? Do they heed the Jesus who says they must forgive, or, threateningly, his father will not forgive them? What about the Jesus who hated hypocrisy, and made this clear in no uncertain terms? Do they do as he did?

A friend and I were talking about our Sunday meetings at the cafe. He calls them our “church.” I said few would be found in our church, but on the other hand, even Jesus wouldn't attend my wife's church. He wouldn't describe himself, as her pastor did, as a “conservative.” No, Jesus was a liberal. He wouldn’t' pack a gun in church, or sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” on the morning the U.S. invaded Iraq. He wouldn't stay for that bible study, when the pastor expounded on the Book of Revelations, those workings of demented and hate-filled minds, as the final result of Jesus’ teachings.

It might be better if we posed a question: WWJND? What would Jesus NOT do? For one thing, Jesus wouldn't “do” evangelism. Evangelicals voted into office an amoral sexual predator who conducted affairs in his three marriages (so much for “one man and one woman”!) They hate LGBT's; the kind Jesus hung around with. He wouldn't support a women's rights denier like Mike Pence. He wouldn't “do” Republican, because that Party doesn’t give a shit about the poor, needy, and victims. The Jesus of the gospels wouldn't “do” Catholic either; he said anyone who harms children should have a rope tied around his neck with a rock attached, and be thrown in the lake, Mafia-style.

Gospel Jesus wouldn't be caught dead with congregations that forgive pastors who commit criminal activities. He wouldn't be around those who, by their actions, don't really believe what they preach. He wouldn't be among the political Christian Righteous. And you know why. What would he not do with Paul's “Christ?” When told he was “good,” Jesus answered, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God.” When asked if he was divine (Roman emperors were divine), he often avoided the question, preferring to turn it around and ask, “Who do you say I am?”

Jesus of the gospels wouldn't “do” tolerating con artist televangelists. He'd tell them, “Woe to you hypocrites.” He'd reject the “prosperity gospel” as the opposite of what he preached, for it is an oxymoron. His mission has everything to do with building up treasures, “in heaven.” He'd reject the Christians who regard punishing non-believers in the here and now as justified. He threatened non-believers with hellfire in the hereafter, but never rubber-stamped torturing and killing them here on Earth.

Gospel Jesus wouldn't be caught dead with congregations that forgive pastors who commit criminal activities.The Jesus of the gospels wouldn't “do” religion+politics, nor tolerate Christian politicians using their positions of power to create laws absolutely denying human rights to those not sharing their sincerely held prejudices. What would this Jesus “do” but vomit, watching ordinary men acting like vessels of wisdom, because they quote ancient scriptures to their advantage? And, he'd reject those copycat prophets who speak “for him,” predicting an imminent end times. (again?)

WWJD with our information, our evidence (amassed since his death over two thousand years ago), about how the world and universe function? WWJD if faced with the colossal evidence of evolution? Wouldn't he be forced to change his teachings to accommodate reality? What would Jesus do TO those who consistently preach bullshit and lie for the sake of a religion he never envisioned? And if he had a chance to live his life over and over again, as in “Groundhog Day,” wouldn't he do bacon? Sure.

Christians have real problems with WWJD, which is why we don't expect to hear that slogan anymore. They don't know. They're content to assume he said things, but not everything he's alleged to have said. That's too inconvenient.


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

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

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

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

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two