Some of the best humanitarians I’ve met or heard about were/are atheists or agnostics who, quite ironically, would make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings than too many institutional ‘Christians’ — the ‘believers’ apparently most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, genuine compassion, and non-wealth in particular. Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout believers/preachers of fundamental Biblical theology.

There’s too much guilt-tripping and especially anger within that institutional or conventional Christianity. … The Biblical Jesus’ quite unconventional nature and teachings were said to have troubled even John the Baptist, who believed Jesus to be the messiah. Like other Jews, John had been raised/schooled with the apparently contradictory Hebraic version of Messiah.

Perhaps most perplexing was Jesus’ revolutionary teaching of non-violently offering the other cheek as the proper response to being physically assaulted by one’s enemy. He also most profoundly washed his disciples’ feet, the act clearly revealing that he took corporeal form to serve, which of course included saving. As such a hopeful example of the humility of the divine, Jesus joined humankind in our miseries, joys and everything in between.

In large part, Jesus was viciously killed because he did not in the least behave in accordance with corrupted human conduct and expectation — and in particular because he was nowhere near to being the vengeful, wrathful and even bloodthirsty God.

Followers of Islam and Judaism generally believe that Jesus did exist but was not a divine being [albeit Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet]. After all, how could any divine being place himself/itself down to the level of humans — and even lower, by some other standards? How could any divine entity not be a physical conqueror — far less allow himself to be publicly stripped naked, severely beaten and murdered in such a belittling manner? Yet, for many of us this makes Jesus even greater, not less.

Like those of Islam and Judaism, followers of institutional ‘Christianity’ (i.e. those seemingly most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion, and especially non-wealth) generally seem to insist upon creating their Creator’s nature in their own fallible and often angry, vengeful image (for example, proclaiming at publicized protests that ‘God hates’ such-and-such group of people).

I can imagine that many of those ‘Christians’ likely find inconvenient, if not annoying, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the Biblical New Testament’s messiah Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s Creator. And especially so if they prefer the latter.