Houla massacre in Syria (Main Forum)

by Chris Hum, Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 14:13 (386 days ago) @ James

Of course, people will say, "but that is not Christianity", and we will get down to the old chant of "the problem with Christianity is that it has never been tried", which is as tired and as meaningless as the other one: "the problem with socialism is that it has never been tried."

I don’t agree James. Socialism failed from its Marxist inception which mandated coercion. It was tried and failed dismally. The compassion that Jesus taught however was lost as soon as Paul created the personality cult of Christ. It has never been properly tried and has only recently been glimpsed at by biblical scholars like Marcus Borg and JD Crossan.

I agree that there is a compassion deficit, and there are aspects of Christianity, just as there is with Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism, that, if adopted, would make some improvement. But it means first getting rid of a lot of the bullshit that Christianity has accumulated over the centuries. Since a lot of that bullshit is tied up with property and power, I don't see that happening too quickly.

This is an overly pessimistic outlook, especially in relation to Christianity. Property and power were far more imposing obstacles a few centuries ago before they were reined in somewhat by democratic revolutions in the West. That process could now be greatly advanced if Christians could tap into the confidence and idealism of Jesus. But this would involve jettisoning the debris of a failed theology with its hollow rituals and liturgies, smoke and mirrors, ‘softly spoken magic spells’ and constructing a new social revolutionary, grass roots ‘religion’ based on Christ’s spiritual humanism.