The
Rendition Of Christ:
Winning the Battle for their Souls
By Jason Miller
10 July, 2007
Countercurrents.org
America as the beacon of human
rights and dignity is but a dream yet to be realized. While the dream
has lain dormant, amoral opportunists have busily unleashed their nightmare
on billions of human beings. And all the while they have trumpeted the
many virtues of the United States as a Christian nation.
There are many admirable
aspects to our country, but these are often over-shadowed by the actions
of the Machiavellian, ruthless, and avaricious individuals who have
long dominated the social, economic, religious, and political institutions
comprising the power structure United States of America. While a nation
is an abstraction encompassing many aspects and dynamics (i.e. its people,
culture, government, resources, etc.) that are in a constant state of
flux, there are at least four elements of the United States which have
remained relatively consistent throughout much of its history:
1. A wealthy White patriarchy has monopolized most of the power and
wealth.
2. An economic system resting
on the pillars of greed and self-interest has driven the United States
to enslave a race of human beings, commit genocide against another,
and to commit virtually innumerable crimes against humanity in the pursuit
of growth and profit.
3. Disseminating powerful
propagandistic messages through a corporate-owned media and a public
school system designed from the top down to produce obedient consumers
and workers, the ruling elite in the United States has convinced generations
of citizens that their nation is a moral icon and that American Exceptionalism
justifies the slaughter of millions of innocents.
4. Many in the United States
assert that the United States is a Christian nation. “Christianizing”
the “heathen” Native Americans and the Filipino “savages”
provided a rationalization for annihilating millions of human beings.
Self-righteous hypocrisy
and the banner of Christianity have been staples of the ruling elite
in the United States as they have led their followers on a 200 year
spree of economic and geographic expansion at the expense of those unfortunate
enough to stand in their way. Exemplifying their latest crusade, in
October 2003, newly appointed undersecretary of defense for intelligence
Lt. General William Boykin emphatically proclaimed that fundamentalist
Muslims hated the United States “because we’re a Christian
nation, because our foundation and roots are Judeo-Christian…and
the enemy is a guy named Satan”
Given that the psyche of
most Americans has been battered with the notion that our country was
founded by Christians intending to form a Christian nation, and that
many of those besieged psyches have acquiesced and accepted this assertion
as dogmatic truth, perhaps an analysis of the founder of Christianity
would be instructive.
Jesus Christ. Was he deity,
man, or myth? The answer to that question depends on one’s point
of view. Christians embrace him as the son of God and a member of the
Holy Trinity. Followers of Islam consider him to be a prophet and holy
man who performed miracles, but do not believe in his divinity. Some
of us in the “pagan” realm simply view him as an inspirational
moral leader. Others doubt that Christ even existed.
Whether he was god, exceptional
human or legend, almost all of our knowledge about Jesus Christ is derived
from the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And these three
books of the Bible do reveal a story of a remarkable being.
Jesus was a radical agitator
and social outcast who challenged the establishment of his day. A carpenter
by trade, Christ would have been considered one of the working poor.
As is common knowledge, he defied the Sanhedrin’s insistence on
strict adherence to religious law to the extent that they eventually
saw to his crucifixion.
In his hometown of Nazareth,
Jesus was stigmatized as a bastard and shunned as the son of an adulteress.
Joseph is believed to have adopted him, but that apparently did little
to alleviate the situation. Jesus eventually embraced a new “family”
in the sect that followed John the Baptist. Jewish leaders, whose power
was largely dependent upon their Roman occupiers, came to view John
as a serious threat as he preached loyalty to God over Caesar. Jesus’
equally tenacious commitment to placing the will of God above that of
a political leader ultimately led him to martyrdom too. Both men represented
serious threats to the social order and it was virtually inevitable
that the ruling class would kill them.
Aside from the fact that
he claimed to be the Messiah and seriously threatened their authority,
the Pharisees feared and hated Jesus because he developed such a mass
following throughout much of Galilee during his three year ministry.
He won hearts and minds with his messages of redemption and compassion.
Whether it was through the placebo effect, alleviation of psychosomatic
illnesses, or true divine intervention, Jesus performed many miraculous
cures and exorcisms. Encouraging his considerable throng of followers
to follow the spirit rather than the letter of the law and asserting
corruption in the Temples, Jesus demonstrated that he was an anarchist
capable of initiating a successful rebellion against the status quo.
Excepting his martyrdom,
perhaps his crowning achievement as a spiritual leader was the Sermon
on the Mount. As he spoke, he shocked his listeners with the Beatitudes
in which he defined the blessed in ways that defied orthodoxy. According
to Christ and his Beatitudes, the blessed and the inhabitants of the
Kingdom of Heaven include mourners, the hungry, the persecuted, the
merciful, the meek, the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers.
Note that his criteria for
blessedness did not encompass the aspects of humanity which Americans
have been programmed to worship, including winning; accumulating wealth;
attaining power; being thin, youthful and beautiful; succeeding; heterosexuality;
regular attendance of church; being Caucasian; and patriotism.
Besides the Beatitudes, Jesus
Christ gave us several other gems of moral wisdom. His “turn the
other cheek” metaphor inspired the powerful non-violent spiritual
leadership of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The Golden Rule has acted
as a cornerstone of civilized behavior. And Christ’s hyperbole
concerning rich men, camels and eyes of needles has served as a largely
unheeded warning about greed and the accumulation of excessive wealth.
Were Jesus Christ incarnate
today and living in America, what would he think of a nation inhabited
by many who claim to be followers of the spiritual movement he founded?
And how would the ruling elite of the United States receive him?
Imagine this scenario:
Jesus Christ returns to Earth as he was portrayed in the Gospels at
the height of his ministry. Geographically, his manifestation occurs
in a blighted urban core in a large American city. Despite his humanity,
he is endowed with omniscience and omnipotence. But he will not use
them to change the course of humankind. He is here to act as a mortal
agent of change.
Jesus’ initial reaction
to the knowledge flooding his mind and the assault to his senses is
a catatonic state. Horror at the rapacious and avaricious nature of
the United States’ social order overwhelms his consciousness.
Shaking off the initial shock,
he succumbs to a wave of uncontrollable nausea. Thoughts of institutionalized
racism, the wealth chasm, and the military industrial complex evoke
a burst of primal and toxic hatred. He retches violently.
Having purged his loathing,
Jesus sits back and rests quietly on a soiled mattress someone had dragged
into the garbage strewn alley where he finds himself.
Surrounded by broken bottles,
hypodermic needles, and used prophylactics containing their repulsive
spent payloads, Christ falls into a deep state of reflection which is
unhindered by the scurrying sounds of rats and roaches. As he contemplates
the many horrific atrocities committed in his name, a resident of the
alley brushes past him in a drunken stupor, urinates in his pants and
promptly passes out.
A country claiming to practice
his spirituality spends $600 billion a year on its behemoth murder machine
while over two million of its own people live on the street and eat
from dumpsters. Rage surges through Jesus’ being. He grabs a chunk
of broken brick, hurls it with abandon, and shatters what is left of
a broken window. The thought that his ministry and martyrdom had spawned
such inhumanity infuriated him.
Regaining his calm and composure,
Jesus resumes his contemplation.
What is this abomination
called Capitalism? Permeating nearly every facet of the United States
(including his churches), exploiting human beings and the Earth, demanding
perpetual war, and ensuring the comfort of a few through the suffering
of the many, Capitalism is a cancer that reduces its blind adherents
to empty, soulless shells.
Greed is good? Had his flock
truly strayed so far that they enshrined selfishness, mean-spiritedness,
ruthless competitive instincts, and avarice as virtues? What chance
would his message of compassion and peace have competing with the clever
propaganda and allure of immediate gratification purveyed by the likes
of Fox, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, and Rush Limbaugh?
Grief-stricken, he cries
in despair for the Native Americans, Black Americans, and the tens of
millions of victims of the imperialist United States foreign policy
in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, and Palestine.
He smiles briefly at the thought of Judea and Galilee and feels a twinge
of home-sickness. Joy and nostalgia are short-lived as thoughts of Palestinian
suffering at the hands of the merciless Israeli government quickly intrude
on his nostalgic reminiscence.
It perplexes him that the
United States has not lived up to the rich promise spawned by the American
Revolution that broke the shackles of tyranny against tremendous odds.
Early Americans had created a phenomenal instrument with which to govern
a nation when they wrote the Constitution. They even included a mechanism
to amend its inherent flaws (i.e. the legalization of slavery). But
despite the valiant struggle of many poor, working class, and minority
Americans, the de facto tyranny of wealthy elitists has endured.
Jesus concludes that many
Americans were amongst the blessed he had enumerated in the Sermon on
the Mount and that many Americans would enter his Kingdom. Yet he agonizes
over those millions who had succumbed to the propaganda and sold their
souls for the hollow rewards offered by the “American Way”.
Torment consumes him as he realizes that conspicuous consumption, aggressive
militarism, overt and covert racism, abject inhumanity, torture, theft
of land and resources, corruption, “win at all cost”, survival
of the fittest, and pathological self-absorption are the hallmarks of
the social and political systems of the United States. Jesus marvels
that so many people would fall prey to such obvious spiritual cancers.
Limping severely, a one-armed
man with a very bad prosthesis, matted gray hair, and a badly tattered
Army jacket flops himself onto the mattress next to Jesus. He smells
of alcohol and stale urine. Vacant eyes transfixed on the alley wall
before him, he mutters unintelligibly as he pulls a rancid-smelling
piece of meat from his pocket and begins gingerly munching with the
remaining stumps of his severely decayed teeth.
Christ feels overwhelmed
with compassion and embraces the man. There is little response, but
he does feel a slight shudder. This coupled with the fact that the man
does not reject the embrace satisfies Jesus that at some level of his
being, the hapless itinerant welcomes human contact and kindness. Jesus
realizes that this man had answered America’s call to “fight
for his country” in Vietnam. Abandoned by the government he had
served, this lost soul had been condemned to suffer a living hell of
homelessness, untreated PTSD, and substance abuse.
Suddenly Jesus had an epiphany.
Despite being one of the wealthiest societies in human history, the
United States has a homeless population of about two million. As a fisher
of men, he would troll America’s cities, reaping a bountiful harvest
of loyal followers from amongst the homeless and other disenfranchised
groups. And he would start with the human derelict he had just embraced.
Jesus begins laying out his
strategy to his first disciple. As Christ talks, the despondent man’s
vacant expression is replaced by a crooked smile and a look of enthusiasm.
He feasts upon a small loaf of fresh bread from Christ’s goatskin
bag and listens to Jesus’ message of hope and redemption. Jesus
talks for several hours. His willing adherent absorbs his words like
a desiccated sponge.
Jesus speaks of his vision
to cast out his net, gathering millions of loyal followers from amongst
the homeless, poor, gays, minorities, the working class, and other people
who felt powerless to stop the momentum of the corporatocracy in Washington.
Reminding his disciple that the strength of his moral revolution will
lie in the sheer number of participants, Jesus predicts that tens of
millions will abandon working and shopping to join him in a triumphant
non-violent march on Washington. Crippled by the loss of its cogs, the
profit and war machine would finally grind to a halt.
Feeling mildly annoyed, Jesus
pauses briefly to brush away a fly that had been persistently buzzing
about his face.
Continuing his monologue,
Jesus reveals that he plans to expose the true weakness of the iniquitous
corporate militarists ruling the United States by awakening the millions
of Americans it had psychologically enslaved. He would free those who
had been deluded into giving their blood, sweat, tears, and children
to expand a malevolent economic empire. He would lay the nightmare to
rest and awaken the dream.
A sharp screech of tires
gives Jesus and his newly anointed apostle a jolt. Two powerfully built
men with close-cropped hair and serious expressions emerge from an ominous-looking
black SUV with heavily tinted windows. With the quick precision of a
trained assassin, one of the “men in black” snaps the disciple’s
neck. The other snatches Jesus by his hair and hurls him into the back
of the Escalade…
Awakening in a mental fog
induced by heavy sedation, Jesus struggles to remember what had happened.
Barely lucid, he slowly takes in his surroundings. He is in a small
cell dimly illuminated by a lone flickering candle. It is chilly and
the air is dank. Seated at a small table in front of him, a simple-looking
man is glaring at him with deep contempt. Jesus notes a rotund male
figure wearing a permanent snarl and a cruel looking woman with dark
skin hovering nearby. He senses that wickedness and deceit are habitual
with this trio.
Despite his significantly
inferior intellect, it is obvious to Jesus that the two others maintain
the pretense that the man at the table is their leader.
“I am George W. Bush.
I am President of the United States and the leader of the free world.
Our spies at the NSA were monitoring your conversation in the alley.
We know of your terrorist plot to destroy freedom and democracy in America.
I am declaring you an enemy combatant.”
Brimming with smug arrogance,
Bush leans back in his chair and locks his fingers behind his head.
He trains his gaze on Jesus with the air of one studying an insect and
contemplating whether or not to squash such an inferior being.
Finally he returns his attention
to the script laid before him. After several minutes of careful study,
he gives Jesus, Cheney and Condoleezza a start by forcefully slamming
his fist onto the rickety wooden table. Feeling triumphant because he
is about to vanquish a tremendous threat to the established power structure,
he begins speaking again,
“You are a threat to
national security. Like that MLK bastard, your goal is to empower the
poor, minorities, and the other groups we keep oppressed to protect
our selfish interests. You would awaken the masses to our moral bankruptcy
and to the foolish self-destructiveness of supporting us.
I cannot let that happen.
My wealthy base has spent years selling Americans on the virtues of
war, greed, free trade, free markets, tax cuts for the rich, cutting
social programs, surrendering their rights for security, and mixing
religion and government.
Millions of Americans need
to remain indifferent to our wealth obtained by exploiting billions
of people, the prison system we have used to replace slavery and Jim
Crow, the millions we slaughter to feed the military industrial complex,
and the torture of enemy combatants like you.
Many of my people believe
that I have a personal relationship with you and that your Father guides
me on a divine mission. They must continue believing these atrocious
lies.
We learned from the mistake
of the Roman and the Jewish leaders. You will not get a second chance
at martyrdom. I have decided to rendition you. You will simply disappear
and die anonymously in a torture dungeon in Syria.”
Wearing a confident smirk,
the self-satisfied little man fires a question at Jesus,
“Well, Jesus? What
do you have to say?”
Shedding tears born of profound
melancholy, Jesus responds,
“In the words of the
inimitable Russian novelist, if God does not exist, then everything
is permitted.”
Jesus then sighs heavily,
looks heavenward, and makes a quiet appeal,
“Father, forgive them.
Despite the fact that they know what they do. And Father. I beg you
to have mercy on the souls of their many wretched victims.”
Jason Miller is a 39 year old sociopolitical essayist
with a degree in liberal arts and an extensive self-education (derived
from an insatiable appetite for reading). He is a member of Amnesty
International and an avid supporter of Oxfam International and Human
Rights Watch. He welcomes responses at [email protected]
or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.