Politcally Correct Christ

Excellent description of the issues, crashfrog. That took some time. Thanks.Translation involves making choices in a situation where no one set of choices will catch everything. One can think of other translations of that French title crashfrog mentioned. Some will better catch this or that aspect of it in English. But none will catch everything.I met the translator Everett Fox once:
Everett Fox - WikipediaHe made a translation of the Pentateuch that is very much worth having on your shelf. Really pulls you into the text. Fascinating.Fox compared the art of translation to the art of performance. It's like being a musician and you perform a work composed by someone else. You bring out this aspect of the music, that aspect, but in doing so you always forego other choices that could show something else.That's why a really good work of music allows so many different interpretations. There's a lot to explore and no single interpretation is going to get it all.A translation is a performance of a text. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Ringo writes: I appreciate the efforts people make to be inclusive. My complaint with most of the attempts I see is that the people doing it have tin ears. They need to leave the writing to the writers.It's not about inventing new lingo and hoping others will pick it up. It's about using English--a flexible, versatile language--to show what you want to show. Plenty of words exist.'Father-Mother' sounds contrived right off the bat because it isn't real English. Referring to God as 'Parent' sounds appropriately expansive at the cost of being abstract. 'Father' or 'Mother' gives a sharper image but a more restricted one.No single rendering gets it all. But I agree with a poster I saw once in an Anglican book shop:

When talking about the Deity
no language is inclusive enough.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

This famous quote overlooks more choices that are equally valid.It is entirely possible to believe that Jesus was indeed a good moral teacher--and that the reports we have about him are not to be trusted naively in their entirety.You don't have to believe this. But it remains a valid, rational option.We know about Jesus through documents. In presenting his proposed dilemma Lewis treats these documents as if they were not there at all. He expects us to take everything written about Jesus in the canon at face value, as he does.Nothing forces a person to do this. The pictures we have of Jesus in the Gospels far more resemble a series of paintings than a single photograph. The writers are part of the equation.The author of the Gospel of John clearly had an agenda, whatever one thinks of that agenda. His Jesus is very unlike the Jesus we find in the Synoptics. If you give more credit to the Synoptics (these are earlier reports anyway) the portrait of a wise teacher, Yeshua the Rabbi, is exactly what emerges. John's Jesus tells no parables, makes cryptic speeches, and forces confrontations about his divinity. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, and Luke is far less interested in himself and far more inclined to turn any spotlight that comes his way onto the poor, the imprisoned and the sick. He does this nearly every chance he gets.And the tendency of people--especially fervent believers--to put words in their Deity's mouth is a matter of record. When I was last in the USA the tendency was epidemic. Billboards were springing up all over the landscape with messages like this:

Come over to my house next Sunday. Bring the kids. -God

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I love you, I love you, I love you! -Jesus

These 'quotes' of God and Jesus are drawn from no Bible passage. Each is an unremarkable bumper-sticker slogan invented by a mere mortal who attributes it to the Deity to give it more heft. Maybe they wish God would say it and feel no restriction on acting out their wish. The message gets into print and is put on display--with a false attribution.When we see zealous believers today treating their Deity as a ventriloquist puppet for their own messages, it's reasonable to conclude that zealous believers in any age can behave the same way. It would be easy enough for a scribe to insert some point into the text that he thinks Jesus didn't make well enough, knowing that insertion would be subsequently copied by more scribes. Who would know? He doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. He's just helping God out, like the designers of the billboards.So it is not Jesus who restricts our choices to the three presented by CS Lewis. It is Lewis who does this.Another choice exists: Jesus was indeed a wise teacher, and the written reports about him may not all carry equal wieght.You don't have to like this choice or agree with it. But it is every bit as valid and rational an option as the others..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Brevity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Format.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

You follow the Rosh Hoshana law while you are sleeping? Interesting. This is exactly the kind of inconsistency you, Faith, and Robin claim to find so annoying about Jar.You New Age sentimentalists you..Edited by Archer Opterix, : No reason given.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Behavior is interpretation. Life is performance art.But why do you care? You're a nihilist, remember?Do you know how laughable it is for a self-proclaimed nihilist to keep getting huffy about 'correct interpretation of scripture'?Nihilism says no correct interpretation exists. How could it? There is no message. No meaning exists to discern. Every view has an equal claim because all points of view are meaningless anyway. All is absurd.So why do you keep acting like a fundie? Real nihilists act like nihilists. Anyone who is really in on the cosmic joke will get the punch line.Relax. Enjoy the chaos.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I asked iano: You had said in response to Brian that you follow all the laws he asked you about, but usually when you are sleeping. I asked for confirmation of what you really agreed to. Do you indeed follow the Rosh Hoshana law while you are sleeping?It's a strange picture.Here's what you said instead of answering: You agree with Jar yet again! Isn't that amazing?Jar does quote this formulation by Jesus and says being a Christian is as simple as that. Simple does not mean easy, he is always careful to note--another point on which you also clearly agree with Jar. But he does say that this summary catches it all (you agree) and that living by it is the work of a lifetime (you clearly agree).How refreshing to see you finally joining hand in hand with your beloved neighbor in true Christian concord. Lovely picture!You New Age sentimentalist you.And such a pretty color of Jell-O you bring to the wall.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

But you don't talk like a nihilist at all. I know the real thing. You're not it.Every time I open one of your posts you are talking vintage fundie. Very literal, very concrete, all the same prejudices and blind spots. Showing not the slightest concern with flights of creo fancy like 'super-genomes' but very frustrated with Episcopalians (those radicals!) for not walking the straight and narrow according to you.I submit that the professed nihilism is false advertising. I submit that Robin is a fundie.The nihilist thing is a pose. One purpose it serves is to get Ian, Faith and the other members of your Fundie Family to chase Bad Little Robin around the board in an effort to save his immortal soul. Kind of like holding your breath until you turn blue. Sends Mom and Dad into a tizzy, doesn't it? One twitch of your eyebrow gives them hope, then you dash it by sweeping your food onto the floor. So much attention for Bad Little Robin! It must be quite the control trip.But it's kid stuff. You're not a nihilist.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Putting words in God's mouth is a practice that is hardly limited to the sentimental.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Like most people I would call Nietzsche an existentialist. Nietzsche disapproved of nihilism. He considered it an unhealthy mentality and proposed remedies for it in his philosophy. (That's a good definition of an existentialist, in fact. One who faces nihilism but doesn't embrace it. One who finds meaning.)But--this will interest you--Nietzsche would have considered you a nihilist.Nietzsche considered the Christian religion, the Buddhist religion, and the music of Richard Wagner (among other things) to be nihilistic thought forms.Nihilism is nearly always a charge leveled at someone else's ideas. Few people walk around claiming to be nihilists. Far, far fewer mean it.And that's good. I have known people who said it and meant it. I'm with Nietzsche on that point: not a healthy way to be.Robin's not in that category. His misanthropic attention-seeking is to nihilism what holding one's breath until one turns blue is to anoxia.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

robinrohan: iano: But all that love-bombing stops once someone signs up, I notice. Then Ian disavows 'sentiment' and gets down to the business of deciding which of his brothers and sisters are real Christians and which are not, which have a clue and which do not, which are merely backslidden and which are truly hellbound. He starts cheering on anyone who attacks the Christians he doesn't care for, regardless of how rudely the attackers do it and whether they profess any religious beliefs at all.Robin does much better to keep Ian chasing him around the board with his empty hand out. It ensures far more respectful treatment.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.