Hunky Jesus - The messages of the New Testament held hostage by the Christian Right.

[pinto]

Somewhere along the way it seems Jesus became the poster boy for a visceral, aggressive, in your face version of some religious movements in the US. One I doubt he would recognize. Or one that he would condone, for that matter. At least not in his testaments, though all were aspects of the religious and cultural milieu of his time.

Extremism in the name of Christianity has happened before - some brutally enacted without any heed to the tenants advocated by the historical Jesus.

Today, we see some echoes of that extremism. Less violent or broad based of course, but extreme in its own right. The political sphere grows increasingly confrontive in regards religious issues. Legislatures run out biased laws, usually found to be unconstitutional. Social pockets in the country somehow find Jesus as a calling card for petty bigotry and a cloak for self-victimization.

I'm 62 and don't recall it ever being this way. Maybe it was all "under the carpet" so to speak and just now coming to light. Civil rights have run this course before. I was around then. Civil rights have, for the most part, held the day.

As we all will. I trust in that history.

[Fred Sanders]

1. Lawmakers that deliberately pass obviously unconstitutional laws need to face a consequence.

Paying back to taxpayers, personally, the cost of the court and the legislative process....that should also should be in any constitution.

Frivolous lawsuits are a bad thing, frivolous laws are a crime.

And where is the media on this story, the obvious story of how religion is influencing, even taking over, the GOP?

[xfundy]

3. The GOP replaced Christianity as a religion a long time ago.

Though now the smarter among them are regretting it. Chaining themselves to that brutal, uneducated monster made them its slaves.

[Fred Sanders]

15. That is not "Christianity" the GOP is pushing, that is classic fascism...we who know, know it.

[trotsky]

18. Funny, that's pretty much the same thing right-wingers say about liberal believers.

"You're not the true Christians, WE are!!!!"

The same battle that's been waged for the last 2000 years.

[xfundy]

2. At first I thought you were talking about the Hunky Jesus contest in SF

It happens every Easter:


In the last 20 or so years, there's been a decided campaign to depict Jesus as a ridiculously 'butch' man who would carry an assault rifle, spit on the poor and generally be the opposite of the Jesus most of us learned about in Sunday school, in order to recruit gun nuts and others who resent the 'feminization' of men, or the softening of the hard, unfeeling authoritarian daddy figure the right needs to follow.

It's pretty new, IMO.

[pinto]

5. A piece I came across on the contest led me to post. (aside) I like the sunglasses and the event.

Yeah, the perception of Jesus sure has morphed for many. A loss, imho.

[Fred Sanders]

16. You would think Christians would know what their main man looked like...and not to mention

it kind of all points out the wisdom of Islam to ban the depiction of the appearance of foundational and past holy men.

The false worship of idols is actually in their somewhere in Christian teaching, is it not?

The Golden Calf, am I right?

[potone]

4. It has been this way for some time.

It began under Reagan. Do you remember the "Moral Majority"? Reagan harnessed that movement; it was the beginning of the unholy alliance between the social conservatives and the "trickle down" Republicans. In the process, Jesus somehow turned into a gun-toting capitalist. Go figure...

[bvf]

6. Easy to do

with any imaginary "historical" figure.

Show me what a leprechaun or the tooth fairy actually represents in the way of moral code.

[TM99]

7. Under Reagen real power

was given to the religious right, but it actually started in the 1960's. During the same time period of the hippie movement and the civil rights movement, the religious right began wedding religion and politics and the corporate class began the infiltration of Wall Street into DC.

Hell, even Goldwater warned the GOP about the craziness of the religious right.

[Act_of_Reparation]

17. The religious right began wedding religion and politics.

Three words:

1- William
2- Jennings
3- Bryan

Do you even history, bro?

[Igel]

19. It's always been wedded.

Because there is no religion apart from what the bearers of a religion and their leaders say it means.

Because there is no politics or ideology apart from what the bears of a political idea or ideology and their leaders say they mean.

Religion and politics are always united in every person that has both religious and political views. It wasn't entirely by accident or out of pure cynicism that Obama picked the church he did.

Thing is, when your religion and politics agree with somebody else's, you tend to think of them as separate. It's when they are at odds with yours they're suddenly horribly comingled in blasphemous and anti-social ways. Then again, the enemy is always immoral and evil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_movement is an example of a left/Xian movement that occurred just before the Religious Right. In fact, the Religious Right is sort of a reaction to the religious left. MLK was, after all, a religious figure and grounded his political ideolology in his religion, and he preceded the Jesus movement. Liberation theology is the same, again, hardly on the right, and certainly *before* the American religious right; it's parallel to but radically different from the Jesus movement.

The WCTU was religious. So was the abolitionist movement *before* WJ Bryan. They picked and chose elements of the NT and OT narrative to elevate above all others.

Left-liberal DUer Xians do the same thing. So do right-conservative people that I've met. It's not that they usually discount and discard what they don't want--push, and you find that they belatedly admit that there are those bits of text. They just don't think they're as important. (Some do just say, "I don't think that was part of the original Bible." Most of those are on the left, since disregard of tradition is more of a left than a right trait, at least until the American left had a lot of successes to defend. More, both right and left, find ways to defang annoyingly contrarian Bible text bits.)

[safeinOhio]

8. They find one little bitty

loop-hole and justify going against everything else, usually in the OT.

[trotsky]

9. "a visceral, aggressive, in your face version"

As if that doesn't have a biblical basis? Let's be honest and real here and not put blinders on, shall we?

So those bits where Jesus was driving out the money changers with a whip, calling out the Pharisees, cursing the fig tree, parables where he is the king who orders disobedient subjects to be executed, etc., etc., etc. ... None of those show a "visceral, aggressive, in your face" Jesus?

Oh wait, I forgot. Liberal believers KNOW they are interpreting the bible correctly, unlike conservatives. Right?

[mr blur]

10. Republican Jesus?

[cbayer]

11. The christian right co-opted and redefined christianity to the point that many

people don't even recognize it. Additional fallout is that liberal and progressive christians are painted with the same brush no matter what they do.

I see glimmers of hope that the left is taking it back, but there is not nearly as much progress as I would like to see.

BTW, an image search for "hunky jesus" gets some hilarious hits.

[trotsky]

12. Oh, bullshit. The right didn't "redefine" Christianity.

It's been a religion of the oppressors as well as the oppressed its entire history.

If we can't be honest and admit that yes, plenty of elements in the religion ARE compatible with the right-wing agenda, we ignore a huge part of the problem.

But whatever, this seems to be the place that if you dare try to take away someone's blinders and ask them to acknowledge the full picture, you're branded an "anti-theist bigot" and shunned.

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. "Redefined Christianity". Yeah, that's what they did.

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Yup. Everything was just peachy until the Christian Right showed up. Now the whole religion is totally unrecognizable.

[AlbertCat]

21. You DO know who the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are....right?

http://www.thesisters.org

[cbayer]

23. I DO and I LOVE them! Why?

[pinto]

29. They are a lasting take away from my first visit to SF Pride. Along with the "dykes on bikes" lead.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Somewhere along the way: 28 October 312.

Battle of the Milvan Bridge

Onward christian soldiers....


Those who are ignorant of history.....

[pinto]

28. Thanks for the link. I'm aware of the history. My OP was framed in my own personal experiences.

i.e. Over the course of my lifetime. I could have been clearer, I guess. Thought it was apparent.

[Warren Stupidity]

30. The point is that the NT is not being held hostage by the right

and that in fact the conservative angry warrior has been one of the personas of this deity from the start. Rightwing christianity in this country has a very long history as well. If anything, we have had brief episodes of progressive liberal christianity interspersed with the norm of the conservative regressive angry warrior god.

[pinto]

31. I think the angry warrior god persona of the OT and the Jesus persona of the NT are different.

(aside) LOL, caught this typo before posting - "the angry warrior gop of the OT..."

[trotsky]

32. You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Millions of Christians disagree.

[Warren Stupidity]

33. I tried to point out to you that the warrior god jesus persona dates to at least 312.

Obviously I failed to get that to register. Consider also the fact that the european chess board game character "the bishop" is a warrior, that europe's history is filled with warrior christ mythology, that the crusades were explicitly religious wars, that crosses decorate battle insignia to the modern day. The evidence for the aggressive warrior jesus persona is all over the place and dates back 1700 years.

"Onward christian soldiers..." not exactly a new song.

[trotsky]

34. Choosing to see things as they are, instead of how one PREFERS them to be...

is a challenge for some. As evidenced by behavior such as chiding others for not being "civil" or making things "personal" while refusing to say one word to a dear friend and prolific Religion group poster who recently got sent on an involuntary vacation for his rotten behavior. Or abusing one's powers as a group host to shut down discussion when another dear friend's stance is challenged.

Some dearly want to keep their blinders on, Warren, and don't want inconvenient facts getting in the way of their preferred narrative.

[pinto]

35. Good points. Got them, you didn't fail. I think the Jesus story has been repeatedly co-opted.

Again, I was phrasing my perceptions within my own life's timeline. Not the broader history of Christianity. Obviously a self-limiting point of view, but it is what I wanted to offer for discussion. A personal viewpoint. We can have a different discussion about the bigger pictures. I'm open to that.

(aside) Chess, apparently, is an Indian board game passed on through the Arab world to Europe. Probably morphed through many different cultures, i.e. the castle was originally an elephant, suited out to be ridden into battle.

[AlbertCat]

20. tenants advocated by the historical Jesus.

Who may not have existed.


"Jesus" is an idea. A malleable, easily hijacked idea.... that is not original (like sin apparently).

[cbayer]

22. Did Jesus fight slumlords?

That would make sense.

[trotsky]

24. Why do you make fun of people's typos...

when you make so many of your own?

[AlbertCat]

25. Doesn't bother me.

We all make them. (damn you spell-check!)


I love a good typo!


Besides..... I didn't make it. I cut and pasted it from the op ed.

[trotsky]

26. That's good to know.

Some people are put off by such bullying and belittling behavior. Like you say, typos happen to all of us! Unless it's severe enough to cause confusion about what's being said, I don't see much to gain by pointing them out.

[AlbertCat]

27. I don't see much to gain by pointing them out.

When I make a typo like "waist of time"..... point it out! It's hysterical. Like my friend Andrew did when I actually made that typo "Is that anything like in the "neck of time"?