I composed my reply to my preacher based on yesterday's sermon..
What a contemplation!
A lot of memes this year it seems about Jesus that are contemplative.
One I saw for the first time was a Spanish cartoon depicting a reality in the Manger, with young dirty bestraggled couple who has been on the road just giving birth in a horse stall, raw in its form of sketch and blood on the baby, Mary and all over Joseph, not gross, just real.
And the translated text
What a strange day today. We celebrate the birth of a revolutionary who faced an empire and who stood on the side of the poor, sex workers and pariahs. A son of displaced people who rebelled against ambitious religious leaders, a rebel killed by the state. It is a date to commemorate the birth of a struggle. Not that figure imposed on us by the church, but that of someone who represents revolution, change and hope. May transformations be born today, may the sun shine within you, may you have all the strength to challenge your fears. Baby Jesus, bring us power, joy and rebellion
Another I saw was similar a couple cuddled next to a fence, while a helicopter with a spotlight, the authorities, search for refugees, illegal immigrants
Both bringing the past into the present.
Your talk brought me back to our (UCL) interfaith experiences I have had, and the Muslims, Hindu, Buddhists, Jews that I have met and compare them with many of the Christians I know in regards to being Christlike. In regards to the memes above. In regards to the recent interactions where many followers of Jesus Thought the last Resident of the White House was their savior to make America great again, to make America Christian again, and our Supreme Court which is stacked with Christians who don't believe in equality or human rights in the way that we think Jesus would have or the Christ within would aspire.
So when I think of a world without Jesus, I also think of the Christian right, the literalists, the fundamentalists that won't let women preach, that put homosexuals as sinful, that support the family separation and deportation of parents at the border.
Also would that world not include Mohamed as a new prophet to counter Jesus as son of G!d, would it also mean no Mormons, or Amish, or Rastas, or the death cults that would use warped Jesus teachings for harm (much as some warp Koranic teachings to oppress)
And I think of all the good, compassionate, and caring of all other religions and the non-religious who either don't feel the need for or have rejected the need of a savior.
Would the crusades have happened or colonization of African nations and the America's have occurred in the name of G!d?
Would others have stepped up at built trillions of dollars of temples to their belief system or a new one?
Bottom line, I don't know if the world would be better or worse, but do find it an interesting contemplation...and also think you and Alan Watts and other philosophers and thinkers would have still made us think.
