Grumpy Old Religion

[dreamer_easy]

Catching up on podcasts. Tom Keneally is making me LOL in a "Spirit of Things" called "Grumpy Old Religion" - there's a transcript online, although his scratchy old voice is a great part of the humour:

"One of the things I like about Judaism is that God is someone you argue with, as in the Old Testament, you know, God is right there for Moses to argue with and for Abraham to argue with. And God, I notice, is treated by some Holocaust survivors I know as a sort of over-imaginative, brilliant nephew who has written the world like a turbulent screenplay, and who has to be reasoned with so much. An old Jewish bloke said to me 'When I went to Malthausen and there was that quarry cliff and the SS throwing people over it, I said, "God, this has gone far enough".'."

(Kenneally's mention of Jesus' association with outcasts moved me. I'm not sure why; it's not as though it was an unfamiliar concept. Anyway, I've been banging around in Mark this evening. What anarchy!)

Comments

[qthewetsprocket.livejournal.com]

Kenneally's mention of Jesus' association with outcasts moved me. I'm not sure why; it's not as though it was an unfamiliar concept. Anyway, I've been banging around in Mark this evening. What anarchy!

well-behaved messiahs rarely make history. < / laurel thatcher ulrich (-ish) >

anyway, yeah...not a christian here, but one of the things i really like about the guy is the fact that his most ardent 'followers' would get a heck of shock if they actually met him. most of them probably wouldn't like him at all.

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

LUR of OMICRON PERSEII 8: "The one called Smelly Hippy is right!"

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

There's a song I've heard before, and I think it may be on a Chieftains' christmas album, called "The Rebel Jesus".

If you think about it, though, scripturally, JC was always an outsider. He was effectively adopted, and was the nerdy kid who showed up the profs in school (teaching the rabbis at age twelve or whatever). He only got invited to weddings because he brought the wine. He went away to learn about the world rather than following "dad" into the carpentry trade, and came back a bit of a hippy, and he spent a bit of time with an out-there cousin of his who liked to dunk folks in the river. Later he hung out with a strange collection of fishermen, reformed drunks, and former tax collectors, and he threw a very public fit in the temple that earned the emnity of the authorities. He wandered with no home and survived on charity. He encouraged people to rebel, subtly, against established Jewish religious authority, and he danced a careful dance with the far more powerful Roman authorities.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Nerd!Jesus!

[matthewwolff.livejournal.com]

He also convinced 12 men to leave their wives.... and come traveling with him. Face it, Jesus was gay. ;)

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Have you read John Shelby Spong's Reinventing the Gospels? my mum-in-law lent it to me (she is a observant Anglican, who thinks about her religion). It's a very interesting look at the Gospels and how they were written and the influences that formed them.

Also Margaret Starbird's The Goddess in the Gospels and The Woman with the alabaster jar.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I am determined to read some Spong when I get a mo.