Jesus Christ: Choose your own savior
One of the beautiful (and yet not-so-beautiful) things about religious faith is that we are all free to make our own interpretations of dogma. These interpretations can be based on any number of factors: experience, fear, uncertainty, prejudice- the list is endless. So who is correct? Well, unless you're a devout Catholic and accept the teachings of the Pope as coming directly from God, everyone is- and is not.
Like any religion in a society based on the free exchange of ideas, the interpretation of Christian teachings are often limited only by the imagination of the adherent. I suppose part of this depends on what an individuals wants from his faith: reassurance, validation, or perhaps even vindication. Everybody needs- or wants- something different, I suppose.
Why can everyone from atheists to Zoroastrians lay claim to knowledge of the real Jesus? Because there are so many of him. The New Testament itself presents multiple Jesuses, not just among the four competing Gospel accounts but within each Gospel as well: Baby Jesus, Teacher Jesus, Miracle Worker Jesus, to name only three. Just over the course of this coming weekend, Christians will move from honoring one Jesus, the suffering and dying Jesus of Good Friday, to revering another one, the Risen Lord of Easter Sunday. The old theological conundrum has a new twist: How many Jesuses can dance on the head of a pin?
The most popular Jesus of the moment may be the Manly Messiah, a macho savior unbowed by pain or torment. The logo of the Lord's Gym franchises may be the best example: A ripped, muscular Jesus does push-ups while carrying a cross emblazoned with the phrase "the sins of the world" across his back. You get the feeling that bearing the cross is akin to a soldier dropping and giving 20—it's unpleasant but not all that burdensome. This Jesus wouldn't fall three times on the road to Golgotha, and he certainly wouldn't need Simon of Cyrene to help carry the cross.
Of course, there are those who would argue that a religion free to be interpreted as one chooses is really no religion at all, that faith is a journey and there are traffic signs along the way that one must respect and obey. By this theory, one cannot simply pick and choose which traffic laws one will follow. What if one person wanted to drive at a stately and safe 55 MPH while someone else wanted to air it out at a riskier 95 MPH? What if someone wanted to drive north in the south-bound lanes? The results would be chaos- although some folks would be having a whole lot more fun.
Can a religious faith/philosophy/lifestyle really be something akin to a restaurant menu and still retain any credibility? Is religion supposed to be easy and/or convenient? Should the constraints of a one-size-fits-all belief system be the hallmark of the long and winding road that many feel a life of faith SHOULD be?
I don't pretend to have the answer, and I'm not looking for any. Being a Buddhist, the answers to these questions are moot. I believe the answers can be found within, not by following an abstract externally-imposed belief system, but hey, that's just me. I'd make a lousy Catholic, anyway.
