Knowing Jesus

By Credo Quia Absurdum

Have you met Jesus?

Do you have a personal relationship with Him?



Lots of Christians claim that they have and they do!

Even when I was a Christadelphian it was a concept that I found problematic – how can you have a personal relationship with a character who firstly may never have existed, and secondly even if he did exist is only known about from texts written by people who never met him compiled many years after his death?

You can’t actually meet him. You cannot communicate with him.

People will say that he speaks to them through his teachings in the bible, and that they can speak to him through the medium of prayer. Some may even go so far as to say that he speaks to them directly and answers their prayers. But if that weren’t such a popular and widespread notion it would definitely be certifiably insane!

In the 1990s there was a popular fad for wearing bracelets with the letters WWJD inscribed on them.

What Would Jesus Do?

The notion was that Christians should approach every situation in life with that question.

It’s a nonsensical question of course, because even if we thought that Jesus had something useful to contribute about the situations that occur in the 21st century world, there is NO WAY to communicate with him and find out what he would do.

What actually happens when people claim to know Jesus, or ask he would do, is that they apply the morality, compassion and love that they imagine Jesus taught and come to their own conclusions. Whether it is what Jesus would do can easily be judged on whether or not all Christians come to the same conclusions when they apply this question!

And guess what? They don’t!

Jesus is just and imaginary friend who is whatever any individual wants him to be. How can it be any other way when there are more than 40,000 different Christian denominations in the world ALL claiming to be guided by Jesus and yet all thinking that the others have got it wrong and don’t really know Jesus at all. The best you can say is that all but one of these 40K+ denominations is wrong. Is it not more likely they are all wrong?

Adults should grow out of having childish imaginary friends and judge things with the morality, compassion and love that comes from being an empathetic human being, knowing that we are all in this together and there is no hope of help from outside.

As the great philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote in his essay “Why I am not a Christian” –

“Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make the world a fit place to live.”