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Yep this hits the nail on the head, in my view. Christians will tend to argue otherwise but Jesus did very explicitly argue for a sort of Saturnalian reversal quite often. The last shall be first, and all that.
I'm sure there are reasons why Christianity is more nuanced than Marxism, but they do have similar themes. Capitalists could easily be this wicked and corrupt generation.
Thank you for this post with a completely alien perspective of my faith. It shows me where the real battle for understanding is.
I have worked for a Christian businessman before, and were it not for that job, I would have found less professional success in my life, and less freedom from my emotional turmoil. It was the job with the healthiest emotional environment I’ve ever been in. Yet his small business, his petit bourgeois success, is exactly the kind that Marxists would make impossible.
C.S. Lewis would have said that the Saturnalian reversal was an echo in pagan thought of the later true divine reversal in which the Son of God washed his followers’ dusty feet and, instead of taking over the world and ruling it, willingly dying for the sins of all. Satan the rebel wanted God brought low, but not like this.
The purported words of Jesus seem pretty unambiguous to me. I don't see how the following can be interpreted to mean anything other than that a "Christian businessman" is like a "communist businessman". You can be a Christian or communist businessman, but only with the understanding that this is a temporary state that is inferior to the ideal one and if you were more virtuous, you would not be a businessman.
Just got back from bible study where we happened to discuss a similar story that makes it obvious Jesus here was yanking the guys chain and having a laugh with his buddies. "All these I have kept" is obviously not true - the dude tried to tell God to His face that he had never told a fib or disrespected his parents. So Jesus tells him "well if you're so perfect, drop everything and come along with me." Jesus is calling his bluff.
"Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle" is a joke. It's funny. Jesus is pretty clearly saying "rich people tend to be so consumed by their wealth they have no room in their heart for Me."
One of the things we discussed in fellowship this morning was the story of Zacchaeus (https://www.bibleref.com/Luke/19/Luke-chapter-19.html), a rich tax collector who told Jesus he had given away half his possessions to the poor. Jesus told him he was good to go, clear for takeoff. So obviously the camel thing was a joke.
Do you understand how, to somebody who is not a Christian and who is not invested in believing in the most favorable possible interpretation of your faith, this just seems like extra-special pleading? Surely there are a great many things which Jesus is recorded has having said which you consider deeply profound insights and statements of Jesus’ - and, by extension, God’s - true beliefs. Why, then, should we take seriously your contention that this particular statement - one which just happens to present an extremely inconvenient dilemma for your other non-religious philosophical and material commitments if taken literally and seriously - is just obviously a joke and Jesus didn’t really mean it, unlike all the other stuff he said that you agree with?
Sure, I understand completely. I used to be a fairly militant atheist and used to sometimes bring up the camel quip myself.
That said, I'm not interested in 'the most favorable possible interpretation' of the scriptures, I'm interested in using my mind to test and discern what interpretation is most pleasing to God (Romans 12:2).
Funny enough, not really. The first time I sat down and really read the gospels, most of the stuff was kind of nod along, "yeah that makes sense," but there's no earth-shattering revelations on the surface level. You have to study for those insights.
This is the question I just answered, tho. You're never going to understand the gestalt of a man/God's philosophy from isolating a single sentence. You have to look at all the parts in conjunction to get a sense of the whole. In this case, Jesus spoke more than once about rich people and getting into heaven. Yes, he did say the camel thing. He also told Zacchaeus - another rich guy - that he was going to heaven. Therefore, since it is impossible for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, but demonstrably possible for a rich guy (Zacchaeus) to get into heaven, Jesus was obviously not being literal or completely serious when he said the camel thing.
And again let's remember the context in which he said it: He had just called out some rich poser. The guy was skulking away with his tail between his legs. "Then Jesus said to his disciples" aka he turned away from the crowd to make an aside to his buddies (Matthew 19:23). Sometimes when people say things to their friends that are not completely serious, it is called a joke.
Finally let's look at the disciple's response: "The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked." Clearly they did not get the joke. But Jesus lets them off the hook, "look[ing] at them intently and say[ing], "Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” Clarifying that 1) He was not being literal about the camel thing 2) rich people can indeed go to heaven 3) He had a playful sense of humor.
Okay, but there are tons of examples of Jesus telling those same people that he is God incarnate, that eternal salvation is only possible through following him and taking seriously his commandments and proclamations. Given this, don’t you think that if he really had been God incarnate and really was intent on leading his followers to salvation, he would have, I dunno, been a bit more responsible about speaking clearly and not making muddled and seemingly-contradictory statements?
Joking around and making statements which seem to be literal imprecations about the correct way to live - with, again, the stakes having previously been established as whether or not you will receive eternal salvation, or suffer eternally - but which are actually jokes, or flippant statements, or intentional obfuscations… this seems much more like the behavior of a normal mortal human man, a charismatic but narcissistic cult leader with both the standard human failings and additionally the failure modes particular to that specific personality type.
All true
This is an excellent question. The short answer is yes, the longer answer is not only is this common for basically everyone to think today, Christian or otherwise, but that it was common when Jesus was walking around doing His thing. Bugged the shit out of people, especially all his friends, that he wouldn't just give a straight answer.
But the even longer answer is that He actually did both, and he explained why he usually spoke in parables. He did sometimes give straight answers (in fact in the example that started this conversation about the rich guy and the camel thing, Jesus answered his questions about what to do). And one of the last things he did (at supper) was to just lay it out plain: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34)
As far as why he wasn't usually more clear about everything, it was so "they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven." (Mark 4:12) "They" being "us" in that sentence, as in, he didn't want to make it too easy for us or we'd just go along and our 'belief' wouldn't have much if any value.
Remember that for thousands of years and many generations God tried the whole "talking man in the sky" thing - often explicitly telling people "do not do that or I will smite you" and they'd fuckin do it anyway every single time! Speaking clearly had, historically, limited value in teaching things or getting people to think about them. I'll say again that we are (now) called to use our minds to think through and discern what's actually true (Romans 12:2) and for me, this sequence (God tried just telling people -> didn't work -> Jesus tried asking us to think for ourselves instead) tracks.
Yeah that's a perfectly fair point, but that's Jesus for ya. He could be snippy (called his best friend Satan when he got upset at the thought of him dying lol Matthew 16:23). He had a temper ("I come not to bring peace..." Matthew 10:34). He could be jealous (“Anyone who loves their father/mother/son/daughter more than me is not worthy of me" Matthew 10:37). He got nervous (Luke 22:44). He got sad ("Jesus wept." John 11:35). He loved his friends (John 15:13). He loved his mama (John 19:25). He was both human and divine.
One of the universe's greatest mysteries, maybe the greatest, because Christ already existed at the moment of creation (Let us make man in our image, after our likeness Genesis 1:26)
It’s only a mystery if you decide, based on faith, to accept the divinity of Christ, based on factors other than his behavior and statements. Otherwise it’s not mysterious at all: he acted like a normal human man because he was a normal human man.
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