Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Jesus Before Christianity, Chapter One
I started reading a book published in the 1970's by Albert Nolan called "Jesus before Christianity." His aim is to look at Jesus through an historical lens. His first claim is that we can't look at history without considering our own vantage point, and we will won't be able to form a purely objective view of history. The world in 1976, Nolan claims, shard many characteristics with 1st century Palestine. According to Nolan, these shared characteristics allow us to hear Jesus differently than any previous point in history. We can give Jesus an honest historical look.
First century Palestine was convinced that the world was coming to an end. The system of government was out of control. The socio-political system created winners and losers, and those with money kept winning and those without money kept losing. Today's socio-political system does the same thing. To be fair, the main system has probably done this in every period of history when governments manage too many people. As I understand it, there was a time when clan chiefs were responsible for the well being of every memeber of their clan. They could lose their power and authority if too many people under thier leadership starved or were homeless. I'm sure these clans didn't get to be very large, unlike the millions of people some Mayors lead today, and the billions under the President.
Our system exploits and pollutes our world. It doesn't enable us to manage overpopulation and distribute resources. It promotes an ever-increasing spiral of violence. The problem is that our system is focused on profits, not people. Hasn't the collected wisdom of the ages told us that the love of money is the root of all evil?
Even worse, according to Nolan, we have a hard time changing the system because there is no one truly in charge of things. The system runs itself and we can't just put a few people in key positions and fix things.
Thinking about this in terms of simplicity, we have to opt-out of this socio-political system as much as we can. We have to focus on people, not profits, but we need to stay involved in the political system enough to participate by voting for positive changes. I try to pay attention enough to make informed decisions when I vote, but I consider it my duty to vote. Otherwise, I try to opt out of the socio-political system. I try to live simply, buy locally, be mindful. It doesn't always work. ¶ 10:18 AM
First century Palestine was convinced that the world was coming to an end. The system of government was out of control. The socio-political system created winners and losers, and those with money kept winning and those without money kept losing. Today's socio-political system does the same thing. To be fair, the main system has probably done this in every period of history when governments manage too many people. As I understand it, there was a time when clan chiefs were responsible for the well being of every memeber of their clan. They could lose their power and authority if too many people under thier leadership starved or were homeless. I'm sure these clans didn't get to be very large, unlike the millions of people some Mayors lead today, and the billions under the President.
Our system exploits and pollutes our world. It doesn't enable us to manage overpopulation and distribute resources. It promotes an ever-increasing spiral of violence. The problem is that our system is focused on profits, not people. Hasn't the collected wisdom of the ages told us that the love of money is the root of all evil?
Even worse, according to Nolan, we have a hard time changing the system because there is no one truly in charge of things. The system runs itself and we can't just put a few people in key positions and fix things.
Thinking about this in terms of simplicity, we have to opt-out of this socio-political system as much as we can. We have to focus on people, not profits, but we need to stay involved in the political system enough to participate by voting for positive changes. I try to pay attention enough to make informed decisions when I vote, but I consider it my duty to vote. Otherwise, I try to opt out of the socio-political system. I try to live simply, buy locally, be mindful. It doesn't always work. ¶ 10:18 AM
