He read a review of a book

debunking Christianity by

showing that St. Paul started

a new religion never envisioned

by St. James, Jesus’ brother,

the heir apparent to the Jesus

Movement of Judaism. Maybe

so.

 

He had read previously that St.

Paul was the first to mythologize

Jesus from an itinerate teacher/

preacher into the Cosmic Christ,

beyond anything that had come

before but including notions

that had been around for

quite a while.  Maybe so.

 

And that some have spent a

considerable amount of time

demythologizing that Cosmic

Christ back to the itinerate

teacher/preacher. Maybe so.

 

He likes Jesus, the person of the

Gospels, when you whittle it

down to what he probably said

and did and even what would

have been in agreement with

those things, the person who

urged sacrificial love, justice,

mercy and peace, who blessed

children and stood up for the

oppressed and thumbed his

nose (metaphorically speaking)

at the ruling religious and

political classes.

 

Someone said that Jesus is

the mirror through which

we see the God of Life.

Maybe so.

 

Also, he likes the mythology

of dying and rising, resurrection

in the here and now rather

than later on “pie in the sky,

oh, what a good boy am I

individual salvation in Jesus

Christ, I’ve got mine and you

better get it just as I say”

stuff that crept in over

the ages. 

 

He even likes St. Paul,

the old curmudgeon,

who had the big picture

and wouldn’t let go even

when scared little minds

wanted to reduce the big

screen to a Dick Tracy

watch which is on the way

from Samsung and gave

Paul a lot of time in solitary

confinement to think and

write about it with the

muses of myth sitting on

his shoulder.

 

He likes the metaphors and

similes of faith like the 

parables of life in the Realm

where all those things Jesus

said and did ever and always

rise from the ashes of human

folly and speculation and then

hard, recalcitrant certainty

with the ever-present us

vs. them.

 

And lastly, or should he say

for now, he’s content with

“maybe so,” or even “maybe

not,” for he knows he sees

through that mirror dimly with

the hope of seeing face to

face, metaphorically speaking,

and he’ll trust that.