Jesus vs. the Religious People

I haven't really been in the mood to write anything deep, introspective, or philosophic. But there has been something on my mind. Since I got back from Texas, I have been thinking a little about how much Christians (a category in which I am included) condemn and marginalize people who don't profess faith in our system of belief.

As a Christian, my role model, my example is the man named Jesus (whose last name is not Christ by the way). When I look at the New Testament accounts of his ministry, I see that he interacts with two distinct groups of people. He interacts with those people who do not claim to "know" God, and he interacts with those people who claimed that not only did they "know" God, but they had religion all figured out.

This first group of people, were commonly called "sinners." Interestingly, the main criteria to be a sinner was to have broken one of the ten commandments. So in my case, since I am a lying, prideful, lustful person, I am also a sinner. These people were called sinners because they did not claim to have an understanding of the nature of God and what his plan was for their lives.

The second group were often called the Pharisees. They were the powerful religious and political leaders of the era. They claimed to have everything figured out and they wanted everyone to know it. (Good thing humanity grew out of this kind of arrogance, huh?)

When Jesus spoke to the first group, he said things like, "Get up, take your things, and go home." or "i do not condemn you." or "your faith has healed you."

When he spoke to the religious people he said things like, "you thieves," or "you hatefilled oppressors," or "you do not know God"

Jesus did confront and condemn people, but they were the religious people who spewed judgment on others.

This is an interesting observation if you look at the state of Christianity today. In America, the Christians tend to believe that they are the moral police of the nation, that they should condemn and judge everyone. But from my observation of Jesus's own actions, the Christians are not to judge those outside of their belief system, they are to judge and hold accountable those who have professed faith in Jesus.

It just seems to me that more harm is being done in the name of Jesus than good. I know for a fact that many deeply spiritual people will have nothing to do with the message of Jesus because so many hatefilled people have corrupted that message.

Jesus said that there were two laws we should keep: Love God, and love our neighbor. By doing this, we keep all the other commandments and display the love of God. It is unfortunate that some of the meanest people on this side of Hell happen to be Christians.

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