DU christians educate this heathen on the death of Jesus

[ProudGerman]

This is something that has been bothering me for years, and a recent post in one of the various "The Passion" threads inspired to just up and ask.

"the murder of Christ", "the Jews killed Jesus", these phrases are usually said like they are bad things. But, ummmm, wasn't that the plan? Doesn't the whole "god loved me so much that he sent his son to die for my sins" require that at some point in time that Jesus, ya know, die?

I've asked this questions a few times before, but I obviously asked the wrong people as they only took it as an opportunity to proselytize.

[Kamika]

1. hmm

You're saying that it was ok they killed him because he was gonna die anyway?


So let's say you know a woman is gonna get killed, is it ok you kill her since she is gonna get killed anyway?

[ProudGerman]

2. I'm not saying its ok to kill someone that is gonna die

Because that would make it ok to kill everyone.

What I'm asking is, wasn't one of the points of Jesus supposedly being sent by god was to die for your sins? If that is the case, then at some point, it is required that someone kill him. If he hadn't been killed, Christians everywhere would be saying that god sent his son to earth to get really old and pass away for their sins.

[Kamika]

3. yes it was the point

But it's still not nice to kill someone

[MsUnderstood]

4. Jesus committed suicide. . .

From what I know of the story (correct me if I'm wrong) Jesus went into a jewish temple and because Jesus was ashamed of the actions in the temple he turned over the tables and caused a ruckus. THat is a crime. I can't run into city hall and start throwing furniture around because I don't like the laws. . .

He committed a crime and was punished. Obviously in that time before constitutions and human rights, punishments were a bit more harsh.

But hey, he knew the job was dangerous when he took it.

[youngred]

34. that's not why Jesus was killed

different story completely

[lovedems]

6. I think you are correct.

He knew he would be betrayed and he knew he had a prophecy to fulfill.

To say the jews killed Jesus is obviously open to debate. There are (to my knowledge) to schools of thought. You can view it religiously or historically. Religiously people like to say the Jews killed Jesus. Historically that doesn't play out. There are many groups responsible for his crucifiction. You have the Romans and to some extent the Jewish leaders, however, if my knowledge serves me correctly, it does a grave disservice to all the Jews because at that point, the Jewish leaders were not reflective of the Jewish people at that time. We have seen that trend all throughout history, where the religious leaders are not representative of their religion.

There are many different theories, was Pontious Pilate a willing particpant or a reluctant one? It is these theories that will be in debate for our entire life time I presume.

[Kamika]

7. I don't think you should say Romans or Jews etc

Just say "the people of that time".. much easier

[pagerbear]

10. Pontiac Pilate?

I used to drive one of those.

[Solomon]

29. You make a good point ProudGerman, which means Judas Iscariot

wasn't such a bad guy afterall. He was helping God's plan.

[MidwestMomma]

31. That's one reason there was a outcry over the JC Superstar movie

Because after Judas kills himself, he has the big JC Superstar number with the 'angels' in heaven. I remember that really upsetting the conservative Christians...to say that Judas got to go to heaven.

Call me crazy, but to me, JC Superstar is the best treatment of the story of Jesus. It shows the human side of Jesus and his eventual acceptance of his inevitable fate.

[ClassWarrior]

13. You and I can't know a particular woman is gonna get killed...

...because we don't have foresight. But God can. So it is okay for God to let someone be killed, because it is all part of His predetermined plan anyway.

And I agree with your post above, that we shouldn't think of it as the Jews or the Romans who put Jesus to death - it was the people of that time who did it.

(edited to be clearer)

[Frodo_Baggins]

5. As a Jew, may I ask, SO WHAT?

So 1970 years ago some bunch of Jews killed Christ. So? Why do I care?

I have a f___ing alibi! I wasn't there! :-)

[Kamika]

8. hehe as Bush told Saddam

Prove it! :P

[1monster]

11. I'm with you Frodo!

No, I'm not Jewish, but at the Check-out counter the other day, I mentioned the cover of Newsweek magazine to a lady behind me bemoaning the very graphically gory movies that are made today.

The woman then said something to the effect that WE did that to Christ. And I said, "NOT ME! I wasn't there! Unless, of course, it was in another lifetime, but since Christianity doesn't recognize the possibilty of multiple lifetime, that would be a moot point..."

She was left with nothing to say. :D

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. Besides, Jesus himself was Jewish

a fact that the types who use the "Christ killer" epithet conveniently forget.

[Bertha Venation]

9. I don't think "the jews killed jesus" can be rationally explained.

First, yes, that was part of God's plan, claim the evangelicals: that Christ must die.

Second, yes, it was the Jews who had him killed. But it was a particular group of Jews, those who virulently objected to his ministry to regular people. He taught new ways of reaching God, and those ways interfered with their control, power, and money-making.

Third, yes, it was part of God's plan, again according to the evangelicals, that it would have to be the Jews who had him killed. Their scriptures prophesied that the Jews would kill their own messiah because they would refuse to acknowledge that that's who he was.

Finally, and this is my opinion: for anyone to blame today's Jewry for the murder of Christ is backwards, perverted, insulting, and just plain stupid.

[pagerbear]

12. Sure it can--it's a marketing slogan.

The idea has been pushed by anti-semitic church leaders for centuries. Used as an excuse for anti-semitic persecution.

Same thing that is happening now with gays and lesbians--take an idea out of context from historical documents representative of their times and use it to further your own prejudices and agenda.

[Bertha Venation]

26. Heh. I said it can't be explained RATIONALLY.

;)

[DenverDem]

14. Jesus' ministry wasn't about the crucifixion.

His message was to let people know that our true identity is not the physical body but the super dimensional electrical frequency of consciousness that lives on after finite three dimensional physical life ends. This electro-spiritual monad is actually a piece of the Prime Creator and our quest is to reach atonement (literally "at one-ment") with Prime Creator by raising the frequency of our monad through interacting with other souls with agape love. This is what The Beatitudes are about, a spiritual road map to atonement.

The Crucifixion story(and, indeed the whole Bible) was re-written by the Romans to be a guilt inducing, enslaving obfuscation of the real meaning. Thus the church became the most powerful tool for the power elite to control the collective unwashed and has been used as such for 1700 years.

Jesus' real message of liberation was that we have control over our own salvation and if we live in love over many incarnations we can return to oneness with Prime Creator by raising our spiritual frequency to its original level.

This is the antithesis of the current fundamentalists' judgementalismn and legalism which was the very thing that Jesus fought against in his time, the legalism that had taken over the Jewish faith. That's why the Jews of the time wanted Him whacked, because his empowered each person to handle their own spirit life, but the Pharisees (and later, identically, the roman catholic church) wanted to maintain that access to salvation came only through them. If Jesus returned today with his message of liberation, American fundamentalists would rush to whack him again.

[lovedems]

15. I am a Roman Catholic and my church doesn't tell me that my

only way to salvation is through them. My in-laws, on the other hand attend a Southern Baptist church and that is their daily message, if you don't come to our church and believe as we do, you are destined for a life in hell. I kid you not. I will not let my children step foot in that church. Not only do they preach fear, they preach hatred and intolerance. I have never been to a catholic mass that preaches anything but love, acceptance and tolerance. I have even been told by my msgr. that I must tolerate my in-laws beliefs, even though they think I am going to hell for being a catholic.

When I go to mass, I leave believing that I alone am responsible for my own salvation. That is by recognizing that I have sinned and asking for forgiveness. I have the power over my own actions, my church doesn't have the power over me.

I didn't take your post as insulting to the Catholic church, rather as an insult to the fundamentalists, and I do agree with you 100% that the fundamentalists would have Jesus whacked if he were to return today for their own sense of power and greed.

[DenverDem]

18. The catholic church has come a long way since the Coucil of Nicea.

Jesus' message was rewritten by Rome to make it acceptable to the Empire, however. Enough of his theology still leaks through in the Gospel so that some of the message still exists.

After Pope John XXIII's ecumenical movement the Roman church became somewhat less onerous, but there's a lot of karma to burn for your organization. I'm a life long Methodist, and have reached my insights in spite of rather than because of my denomination, as must all members of mainline denominations. We at least make a point to welome everyone, whether a member of the UMC or not, to communion.

You guys are still really hung up on the crucifixion and the guilt tripping it induces, I mean, come on, the image is ubiquitous. I prefer to focus on forgiveness, grace and agape love through social consciousness.

I'm sure you are raising your vibration by attending mass, but don't blind yourself to the obvious shortcomings of your denomination, as, certainly I see in mine.

[DemBones DemBones]

22. I don't see how you can possibly see the

shortcomings of the UMC when your eyes are focused on the flaws of the Catholic Church. ;-) If you are happy as a Methodist, why criticize anyone else's faith?

Only Catholics are supposed to receive Communion in the Catholic Church because of our particular belief as Catholics in Transubstantiation. Communion is different in the Methodist Church from what it is in the Catholic Church. If you believed exactly what Catholics believe, then logic would dictate that you would leave the Methodist Church and become Catholic.

Those who don't believe as Catholics do would be essentially lying to God if they took Communion in a Catholic Church.

[DenverDem]

23. I am critisizing the shorcomings of all "Christian" churchs.

Thank you for proving my point on the legalistic foundation of modern "Christianity".

[lovedems]

24. I would have enjoyed your opinion a little bit more if you

would have presented your case in a less offensive way.

I would never critize you or your beliefs and I don't appreciate you assuming that I am blind to my church's shortcomings. I know what they are and don't need anyone to remind me. I don't live my day to day life struggling over those shortcomings. I have learned to recognize them and still believe in my church despite them.

I don't know where you have recieved your opinions about the catholic church but your opinions are not at all how I consider the church to be. We are not guilt tripped by the crucifiction. It is considered an act of love and I don't feel guilty about that.

[JohnyCanuck]

16. That's one of those philosophical questions like

what happens when an irresistible force meets and immovable object. There is no real answer. I, at one stage in my life, attended a fundy church. One of the questions I never got a satisfactory answer to was the same question you are asking. I asked what would have happened if the Jews had accepted Christ as their promised messiah and therefore Christ had not been put to death on the cross. Since fundamentalist belief is that without Christ dying on the cross and the shedding of his blood as the ultimate sacrifice there was no salvation from sin, if Christ was never crucified it would have meant that everyone ever born (aside from Jesus) would go to hell period.

The only answer I got was that everyone has free will to believe or reject the word of God, and if the Jews had approached Jesus with a sincere heart and an open mind they would have realized that he was the Messiah and accepted him. However the prophesies of the Old Testament used by the Church to point to Christ as the Messiah also supposedly foretell his suffering on the cross,e.g. the suffering servant of Isaiah. That brought up the old conundrum that various philosophers and various sects of Christianity have argued about for 2,000 years: To what extent is free will limited by God's foreknowledge of events. Does God's foreknowledge limit your choice of action and exercise of free will, or does God just miraculously know beforehand how you will exercise your free will without actually limiting your choices or intervening to prevent you from acting in ways contrary to his purpose?

You'll get differing answers to that question depending on which denomination or which Christian you talk to. I never got a satisfactory answer myself. As far as the answer to my original question, what would have happened had Jesus never died on the cross, all I got was a, "well we have to trust that God being an omnipotent loving God and really not wanting people to burn in hell for eternity would somehow have worked it out for the best."

The Church I was attending happened to believe in individual free will and the ability for people to accept or deny Christ on their own volition. Christians who follow more Calvinist type doctrines (named after one of their chief proponents, the Protestant reformationist John Calvin) believe God foreordained "before the foundation of the world" who would believe and who would not, and there is no choice on the part of the believer/non-believer as to which camp he/she belongs.

According to Calvinism, if you are a believer that's because God intervened in your life to make you one. Likewise if you are an atheist and an unbeliever God made you that way too and had planned to make you that way before you were even born and in his mind had consigned you to the flames of hell before you were even an embryo in your mother's womb, and there's not a whole heck of a lot that you can do about it. That meant that God could quite easily have foreordained the Jewish citizens of Jerusalem in 30AD to reject Christ thereby causing his death and leaving the Jews involved no choice in the matter. However as per Calvinism that still does not relieve them of the blame for causing the death of God's son.

The conundrum for the Calvinist Christian then becomes how do I accept a loving God who would create sentient beings and consign them to hell, without even giving them an opportunity to be saved from that dreadful fate. They too just write that off as another mystery that's way above man's puny mind to resolve and since we can't really understand God's mysterious ways there is no sense worrying about it. If you are a believer just be happy that you lucked out and God made you that way.

[Goldberg]

17. Amen to that.

He was supposed to die. His death was right for us because at that moment, Jesus created a bridge between us and God. It was also God's plan all along that Jesus were to die, by us, for our sins.

[DenverDem]

19. Jesus didn't create a bridge to God

He showed us that it was there all along. Our soul is literally a part of God, our Christ Self, and by accepting this (accepting Christ) we are saved from guilt as we are empowered to act in devine agape love.

Jesus was killed because the power elite didn't want people to know that "The Kingdom of God is within us" as Roky Erickson so eloquently put it with the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. The mythology of original sin, the justification of Jesus' experience as a fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy, the expiation of original sin through the crucifixion was just a post Jesus storyline used to obfuscate the very simple liberation theology that Jesus was teaching.

Jesus trumped all that went before Him. He liberated humanity from institutional domination, but humanity cowardly needed the security of institutional oversight so they rewrote the message 180 degrees differently and jumped right back into the same trap.

As the Church of the Subgenious opines of Xists "They will pay for you to tell them what to think."

[sasquatch]

20. Jesus was executed under Roman Law

The Jews had no more legal authority to sentence anyone to death than I have. Pontius Pilate was the one that executed Jesus under Roman authority.

[DemBones DemBones]

21. Jesus had a choice. He could have run

away and hidden himself but he didn't. He wasn't suicidal, but was submitting to the will of God the Father. Before being taken prisoner, Jesus prayed all night in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking God to spare Him, but also praying "Thy will be done," knowing that meant he had to die for our sins. He was the one perfect sacrifice to redeem humanity.

Jesus was, as I hope everyone knows, a Jew. He preached to other Jews and all of his disciples were Jews. But he taught some things that were different from what the chief priests taught, threw the moneychangers out of the Temple, and often criticized the Pharisees. Worst of all, in the minds of the Jewish leaders, Jesus seemed to claim that he was the Messiah. He was pretty evasive about it, but that made him sound like Yahweh in the Old Testament.

So the Jewish leaders gave the disciple Judas thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus, and Judas led the Roman soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane, where they arrested Jesus. After he was tried by Pontius Pilate, Pilate wanted to let him go. He asked the crowd who he should set free, Jesus or the thief, Barabbas, figuring they'd say Jesus. But they shouted for Barabbas to be set free each time Pilate asked. So he asked them what he should do with Jesus, and they shouted "Crucify him!"

Now, the Jewish leaders were Jews, of course, and Judas was a Jew and presumably most people in the crowd were Jews. But Pilate and his soldiers, who actually executed Jesus, were Romans. So Romans as well as Jews were involved in killing Jesus, and I'd say that was part of God's plan -- to make it clear that it wasn't only his own people who killed him. On Passion Sunday (AKA Palm Sunday), when we read the Gospel account of this story, the Passion story, the congregation as a whole plays the part of the crowd (i.e., the Jews) and shouts "Barabbas!" and "Crucify him!"

It's always been my understanding that Jesus came to save us and we responded by killing him, that the fault was ours, not placed on "the Jews." Historically, of course, it was Jews and Romans who killed Jesus, but theologically we all share the guilt and it doesn't matter if some have Jewish or Roman ancestry and some don't -- everyone shares the guilt. We aren't supposed to get weighed down with guilt but rather accept the sacrifice that was made for us.

Does that help? I made the answer long so it would (I hope) be clear to everyone, knowing there are people here who have little or no experience with what Christians are taught, though that didn't seem to apply to you. I might have been able to answer what you wanted to know with "Yes, Jesus had to die for our sins." There was no other option.

[SOteric]

25. I could pick a lot of nits with phrasing or posture a bit;

but pretty much, yes.

Christ's sacrifice of his own life (when he could have made moot had he wished to do so) was intended to act as one sacrifice for all of the sins of mankind. In this act he replaced the myriad sacrifices necessary to obtain absolution as described in Judaic laws.

All this petty finger pointing and use of terms like murder are, to my way of thinking (and other Christians of my acquaintance), so much bullcrap.

[Cuban_Liberal]

27. The Jews did not kill Christ.

Jesus was given up as a 'sacrificial lamb' by God the Father, to wash away the sins of mankind. He was executed by the Romans in accordance with the law and custom of the time. The focus on 'who killed Jesus' detracts from the larger and more fundamental issue: the purpose of His death.

:)

[funky_bug]

28. Look to history for the answer

The "Jews" didn't kill Jesus. The Romans did.

Go ahead, call me out. I'm an anti-romanite.

[VOX]

30. Jesus *was* a Jew. And as a radical mystic, he had the audacity to say,

in so many words, that he was God. ("I and the Father are one.") In his time and place, this was unutterable blasphemy, a major disruption of the status quo, etc. So, like most revolutionaries, he was executed. On a purely pragmatic level, it was Jewish law that Jesus broke, but the occupying Roman army had reason aplenty to quell any disturbance in their provinces. Yet the impact of Jesus' life really transcends the specifics of the culture into which he was born, lived and died.

Had Jesus been born in India, and had he gone running through the streets shouting "I am God," he would have been told "Congratulations, dude, you figured it out."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. He was killed by the establishment of his time

which included both the high-ranking Jews and the high-ranking Romans. He offended the high-ranking Jews because he was a threat to their control of people's spiritual lives. He offended the Romans because they thought he was a political rebel.

It was in both their interests to have him killed.

It is not clear whether Pilate was a willing executioner or not. The historical records of him show a typically cruel Roman administrator, and while it's possible that he had kindly inclinations toward Jesus, it's equally possible that he considered him just another troublemaker and ordered him crucified without a moment's hesitation.