The Word; or, Hello Jesus, have you met Christianity?

The problem with Christianity, if anyone will consider a diagnosis from an atheist, is that Jesus became a book. He became the written word. If I accept that Jesus of Nazareth actually existed (which I do), and if I accept that the Gospels contain many of the things he said and did (which I do, with reservations), then I think that an important teaching of this rabbi was that the written word could no longer be used for real communion with the god of the Israelites. Famously, Jesus didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. He was the way, the truth, and the light. So, what has Christianity done with this rabbi? With this teacher? They've made the written word about his life the law, and made these written words the way, the truth, and the light. (Not the words he wrote--as far as we know, he didn't write anything except maybe some words in the dirt.) And Christians have done this with apparently no real consideration of whether or not Jesus would have thought this whole New Testament thing was a good idea.

So, today, we have people calling themselves Christians who claim that a major, fundamental tenet of their religion is to believe in the infallibility of scripture. And the worst consequence of this today, to me, is that we have a religion like Christianity, which claims to have the moral high ground, leading the fight against giving homosexuals equal rights. Yes, of course, not all Christians are doing this, but some are, and the main reason is this reverence of the written word as a holy text, infallible, internally consistent, the source of all moral guidance for 21st century Americans. It is so obvious to everyone else that conservative Christians are on the wrong side of this thing, and this will be an embarrassment to the church in, say, 50 years. In the same way that some Christians were on the wrong side of slavery and the civil rights movement. There will be back pedaling. There will be apologies.

We could say that what Jesus taught and what actually became Christianity were two different things. And, in an evolutionary sense, the cultural advantage of the written word as a holy text won out. Christianity, and Christian nations, conquered a large part of the world, and they did it with the priest on the front lines, carrying the holy book, converting the 'pagans'. The actual teaching of Jesus, that he was the word, his life was the word, and that the kingdom of god was inside you, inside all of us, lost out. Or, at least, the idea survived but it was grossly overshadowed by the old way, the law, the book. We could also look at it this way: Jesus said that a spirit was going to come and guide his followers, and he (apparently) did not say that a book would be written that would give his followers all the answers. The idea of a spirit coming to guide the followers of Jesus of Nazareth makes sense with the rest of his life and teaching. The idea of a book being written about his life and the life and letters of his followers, which would then be used as a holy text, does not make sense with his life and teaching. His solution to the spiritual crisis of his day, as I understand it, was to make religion a personal experience that is available to every person without undue human mediation. The protestant reformation removed priests from their mediatory role. Can evangelicals remove the worship of the Book in the same way?

[Periodically, I've been checking out Ken Wilson's blog: http://kenwilsononline.com/. He's an evangelical pastor in Ann Arbor who is questioning the fundamental beliefs of evangelicals within that community. And I've had conversations with other evangelicals I've known for years who are doing the same thing. I'm curious to see how this actually plays out in the American evangelical community.]