Christianity and the left

[EddyBlack]

There are other examples of 'woe unto the rich' themes in both the Old and New Testaments.

There is a reference to the rich in the prophecy of Isaiah 53. This chapter also helps us to understand Christianity:

Isaiah 53

1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied ;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

 

[JimW]

Have we had Luke 1:52 yet? Crops up in a few leveller-type texts:
"He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree."

 

[kyser_soze]

I was reading Chomsky's "Understanding Power" before Christmas, and a propos of not much else, he says - paraphrasing - that if you read the Gospels, Jesus is basically a radical socialist pacifist. And it was only when Emperor Constantine (?) made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 5th Century AD that it took on all the trappings of conformist state power and oppression.

Yup, the first 150 years of Christianity were pretty wild, with hundreds of sects, from ascetics through to hedonists all claiming to have the word. It was only when it was integrated into the power structure of the Roman Empire that the 'official' version that we have today was formalised as The Truth...

 

[EddyBlack]

A story attributed to Jesus in the gospel of Luke, about a rich man and a poor man:

Luke 16 20-26

There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

 

[Dillinger4]

Yup, the first 150 years of Christianity were pretty wild, with hundreds of sects, from ascetics through to hedonists all claiming to have the word. It was only when it was integrated into the power structure of the Roman Empire that the 'official' version that we have today was formalised as The Truth...

Makes you wonder whether we have ever really left the Roman Empire.

 

[Azrael]

The thing is, is Jesus attacking acquisitiveness per se? Is the rich man hell-bound because he has an unfair allocation of wealth, or because his money distracts him from spiritual concerns? I'd guess it's the latter. Jesus seems mightily unconcerned with temporal concerns: and fair enough when eternity's at stake. Them's much bigger odds.

The portrayal in the gospels is of an eschatological Jewish mystic from the 1st Century. Making him into some sort of class warrior feels anachronistic.

 

[Demosthenes]

It's trying to separate out the two that's anachronistic.

But it's important to remember that the jewish expectation of their messiah would be that he would be a powerful warrior king who would drive out the romans by force, and establish god's kingdom.

It was probably quite upsetting for Jesus to find people had that expectation of him when he didn't have the power to fulfil it and probably realised that armed rebellion against Rome was doomed.

Tbh I don't buy that rich man and lazarus story as authentic, though I suppose it could be, - but, in other stories where Jesus speaks of hell, he used the word gehenna, which was the word for the rubbish dump outside jerusalem, "where the fire does not go out and the worm does not die" implying recycling, rather than eternal torment, whereas I reckon the place of eternal torment was a later invention for propaganda purposes as the christian religion became increasingly otherworldly. I don't know, it just reads too much like propaganda for me.

One I do buy though is the saying "you cannot serve both god and mammon."
Which I think is clear enough.

 

[kyser_soze]

I tend to think of the mentality of the 3 'religions of the book' as follows:

OT - written by refugees in a wilderness who had to survive and rebuild. Hence, lots of law, lots of vengeful, good behaviour induced by fear type stuff. In other words, exactly the sort of set of social guidelines you'd expect to see from people who'd had a hard time of life

NT - written by an oppressed/occupied yet largely comfortable, urbanised people; central message is one of forgiveness and tolerance, both qualities required to peacefully co-exist in urban environments. Being sublimated into the Roman Empire bought forth the 'We are the only truth' message as a result of the need of the empire to control it's people.

Qu'ran - written by a travelling merchant who had to endure some harsh conditions, but most importantly recognised the value of ritual in control. The trading part brings the traditional Muslim approach to other faiths (pay us and we don't care what you believe), the approach to knowledge (that lots is a good thing) and no interest (but you can have service charges on loans); the harsh environment brings the ritual and control elements.

 

[kyser_soze]

One I do buy though is the saying "you cannot serve both god and mammon."

He's just reitering the 3rd and 4th commandments tho - tho shalt have no other God before me and you shall not make yourselves and idol (what are skyscrapers if not self-idolotous symbols of power?)

 

[Azrael]

It's trying to separate out the two that's anachronistic.

Why's that? If Jesus did see the material world as a means to the end of heaven, it tallies that he would only be concerned with wealth insofar as it helps or hinders spiritual bliss. Its equitable distribution wouldn't be an end in itself, as no temporal matters are.

Saying that you cannot serve both God and mammon is consistent with this.

And I imagine the reasons you list are among those which cause Judaism to reject Jesus's alleged claim to be the Messiah.

 

[Demosthenes]

Why's that? If Jesus did see the material world as a means to the end of heaven, it tallies that he would only be concerned with wealth insofar as it helps or hinders spiritual bliss. Its equitable distribution wouldn't be an end in itself, as no temporal matters are.

Saying that you cannot serve both God and mammon is consistent with this.

And I imagine the reasons you list are among those which cause Judaism to reject Jesus's alleged claim to be the Messiah.

I don't quite follow you.
I mean I don't quite get what you mean.

 

[Azrael]

If Jesus' primary concern is getting souls into heaven, then his only interest in this world would be things that facilitated that.

Money and the comfort it brings distracts you from spiritual concerns. It's the distraction that's bad, not being rich. If you're rich and saved, fine. But most rich people are distracted, hence the camel quote.

I don't know if this is what Jesus (or his scriptwriters) intended, but it makes more sense to me than Christ as a proto-Marxist.

 

[Demosthenes]

Well I'm not convinced that Jesus' prime concern was getting souls into heaven, -
though I don't rule out the possibility of there being some other version of reality that's better than this one.

You see from my point of view the notion that Jesus' prime concern was getting souls into heaven was basically a catholic invention designed to distract from his real goal of redeeming the world, - that is, making this world the kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of Satan. (the kingdom of God meant not some other world, heaven, but wherever God's ways held sway.) the phrase "the kingdom of God" got changed in the gospel of matthew to "the kingdom of heaven" as a circum locution in order to avoid using the word "God", because the gospel of matthew was written mainly for conservative jews, - and so by process of chinese whispers the idea that jesus was all about getting to this other world heaven developed, and was fostered by the Roman hierarchies when they coopted christianity in order to blunt its radicalism and prevent it from having any effect in the real world.

I reckon it was a long-term project and it was supposed to be completed about now, - but it got called off.

 

[Azrael]

Well that's a interesting theory if ever I saw one!

Sadly I'm not up on Hebrew, so I can't comment about mistranslation/change for conservative Jews, but it's an intriguing idea.

 

[Demosthenes]

Well thanks, - it's more or less what most liberation theologians say.

There's a book called Jesus before christianity that's quite good on the subject. But perhaps it's important to balance that understanding of jesus with a mystical understanding. -- there's a book called the zen teachings of Jesus which is quite good on that front.