Forget what you know about Christianity from Sunday school and church. If you’re not down with the whole Jesus as religion thing, don’t worry, I ain’t preaching here. What I want you to recognize, all of us, is that despite what churches and religion have done to this guy named Jesus over the centuries, there is absolutely no question but that he was a man, that he did walk the earth and that he did stir up real trouble among the social, political and especially the economic powers that were in control of what was the Roman world at the time.
The undisputed archeological and historical evidence of much of his life is well, undisputed. Did he have this agonizing death on a cross? It’s fairly likely that he did. The Romans were quite prolific in handing out crucifixions as punishments for loudmouths and troublemakers. In fact, the whole point of the cross and the long, slow, agonizing, gut wrenching public death was to make sure everyone saw it. It was like a billboard or a facebook page for Roman authority….”Kids, if you’re not good I’m gonna take you to see the crosses at Golgotha.”
And in the same way we like to speak of the Civil War in its high social meaning cause, we tend to focus on the roots of Christianity as a social movement….and exclude the critical, perhaps fundamental economic aspect of the movement. But you see, that’s precisely what it was. Did Christ throw the money changers out of the Temple? Almost certainly he did. There was a guy named Jesus Christ, Superstar. There was a temple. There was a corrupt union between the Jewish elders and the secular Roman governing authority. Undoubtedly base human instincts took over and the very same thing we see playing out in our current day politics was occurring in and around Israel.
The followers of Jesus Christ, Superstar were not the Wall Street bankers, dressed up in their suits. They were the dirty, broke hippies hanging out in Zuccotti Park. This is a real time for everyone today to examine your party and philosophical allegiances then understand, with history as a guide, where we are heading today.
