Dear Grapevine.
This is a response to Gabriel Jeroschewitz’ recent stories involving the historical figure Jesus as a kind of literary device.
I don’t know wha impression of Jesus other readers, if they are even many, make from this kind of writing.
But we are living at a time when, at the end of a long decline of Christian culture accompanied by all the disastrous effects the gospel predicted it would have; the greatest majority of us know little to nothing of Jesus, his historicity, his deeds and words, and his resurrection…
So adding to people’s scanty impressions of a man who claimed a unique central divinity to mankind and history, are someone’s words put in the mouth of Jesus – words he would never says they are in contradiction of what he said and did.
This to me, has the flavour of a vulture pecking at a corpse. But of course Christ is not that corpse. Because the resurrection of Jesus was well attested a the time I happened.
If I have a bone to pick, it is about the author making their Jesus and Nietzsche agree; because they really were diametrically opposed in their message. Nietzsche championed the glorification of one’s will, whereas Jesus said that he did nothing of his own accord, but only what his father would have him do. This is an important distinction in a world that has become sick with self-worship, a blueprint for society that big business and global institutions encourage.
I also wondered if the writer would show a similar lack of cowardice if they wrote about Mohammed to a Muslim audience.
But the central force of Christianity is a living sacrifice, a lamb that told his followers to forgive and even give their lives up to their antagonists.
That is a juicy carcass indeed…
Finally, to have Jesus say God is dead is the most perverse kind of misrepresentation. Jesus who said all power was given into the Son: who was transfigured on Mount Hermon; of whom when Thomas saw his resurrected Master, said, “my Lord and my God.” For more uninformed people, God is not dead nor is Jesus and they are the same person who loves us.
Sincerely,
Doug Rennpferd
