10 Counterfeit Christ Figures We Should Stop Worshipingby Daniel Darling
faithstreet.com/onfaith
2015/08/31/10
In Romans, the Apostle Paul teaches of Christ’s mission to call out a people and form them into His likeness, but it seems we are more interested in forming Jesus into our image. Even conservative, Bible-believing evangelicals are fond of making statements like, “The Jesus I know would . . . †as if Jesus — who claimed to be the Triune God, one with the Father — can be easily molded into whatever we wish him to be.
Soon the Jesus we claim to worship looks strangely like the man in the mirror.
What are some ways we are tempted to mold Jesus, like clay, into whatever we want him to be? Here are 10 partial Jesus’ popular in Christian culture:
1. Guru Jesus
This is the Jesus of the enlightenment, the Jesus who existed in human history, but is not nearly as radical as that Jesus of the gospels. Guru Jesus is the wise, winsome, slightly supernatural figure who fits nicely alongside other religious titans like Buddah, Muhammad, Vishnu, and others. This is a safe Jesus, who will only ever tell us good, affirming, uplifting things, but doesn’t bother us with dangerous talk of the Kingdom of God.
...
2. Red Letter Jesus
This Jesus is in vogue among many well-meaning, progressive evangelicals. He’s a Jesus I’m tempted, at times, to embrace. He’s present in the kind of Christianity that only takes seriously those quotes of Jesus in the gospels that are marked out by Bible publishers in red ink.
What is convenient about this Jesus is that he replaces the so-called angry God of the Old Testament with a mostly peaceful, healing, non-controversial Jesus of justice. What’s more, he’s way more likeable than that irascible Apostle Paul who just doesn’t understand twenty-first century social norms.
There is only one problem with Red Letter Jesus: Jesus, in his very red-letter statements, declared solidarity with the Old Testament Scriptures. He spoke of an “unbreakable Bible†and coming not to abolish “one iota or jot of the law.†If we accept Jesus as a full member of the Trinity and if we accept the idea of inspiration of Scripture, we’d have to say that all the letters in the Bible are red, not just the statements from Jesus we like to put on coffee mugs.
I'd love to be able to quote this article in its entirety, and each
Counterfeit Jesus could have its own chapter in a book.
The YWAM leader who shared this article commented that he had seen each and every one, understandable for some one who's been in leadership as long as he has. I think I've seen all of them, and felt the lure of several. We're liable to hear of the "
Left Wing Jesus" some this election cycle, if Bernie Sanders continues to be strong (I've seen this "Jesus" referenced in a couple of DU posts quoted here). And the article describes a right-wing counterpart counterfeit.
As tempting as it is to see (or imagine) ideas that are "conservative" or "liberal", Jesus' message was about something other and far greater than political systems, and His message was directed to His followers and those who were interested in Him. IOW, Jesus' teachings were directed to people, as individuals, not to governments. A political "Jesus" would be far too small, and far astray from His mission.