American Jesus

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Foreign visitors to the United States are often surprised by the religiosity of Americans. A 2023 Gallup Poll found that 82% of Americans identify as religious, spiritual, or religious and spiritual. According to a 2021 poll by the Pew Research Center, 63% of Americans identify as Christians and must (I assume) have some opinion about Jesus, Christianity’s central figure.

In fact, we are fascinated by Jesus—a fascination that is easily seen in the popular culture. For example, Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, a graphic and violent depiction of Jesus’ last hours, made the front page of hundreds of newspapers and was turned into prime-time specials on several television networks. The Da Vinci Code, a best-selling novel by Dan Brown, touted the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were lovers. It spawned television shows and a film that titillated the American public. Then there is the Left Behind series of novels which describe Jesus’ Second Coming and the horrors of the Apocalypse. By 2004 the series had sold some 65 million copies and had even been turned into a video game!

Among the 210 million American Christians, there are—naturally—different views of Jesus, Christianity’s central figure. Marcus Borg, in his book Jesus: The Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, describes four ways that Americans have come to understand Jesus.

Perhaps the majority of American Christians see Jesus as the dying savior. Jesus has “died for our sins.” All human beings are sinful. God is a God of justice and must punish those sins. BUT God is also a God of mercy and wants to pardon sin. BUT someone must pay a price for the forgiveness of sins! Since Jesus is sinless, God can accept him alone as sacrifice and atonement for the sin of the world. And, so, God allows Jesus to be cruelly executed on a Roman cross. All who believe in this act of sacrifice, who believe in Jesus as God’s sin offering, will be saved from death—or, at least, their souls will be saved.

Another common American take on Jesus, in effect, removes him from the human race. Jesus appears to be human, but he is really God. So it is that Jesus can walk on water, turn water into wine, and feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. This Jesus can heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, walk through walls, and ascend into Heaven unaided by jet or rocket engines. He is also usually a sacrifice for sin as described above, but his main characteristic is his divinity. Adherents of the Jesus-as-God idea don’t always see the logical consequences of their thinking. If Jesus is God, he didn’t really suffer on the cross (God can’t suffer), and he can’t be a model for us humans to follow because we can never be divine and do what only a god can do.  

A third type of American Jesus is the apocalyptic Jesus. Believers in this Jesus may also see him as God and savior, but they concentrate on the end times when true Christians will be taken up to Heaven in the so-called “rapture.” These Christians will escape the seven years of “tribulation” that those left on Earth must endure. The sufferings of those left on Earth are imagined in the wildly popular “left behind” book series that culminates with Jesus’ Second Coming and a Last Judgment in which the majority of humankind is condemned to eternal torment. And where did this scenario come from? Well, of course, from a misinterpretation of the Book of Revelation in the Bible.

A fourth type of Jesus is the Teacher of moral wisdom. The Americans who adopt this model are usually unsure about Jesus the savior, the healer, or the miracle-worker. But anyone can believe in moral precepts like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is certainly nothing wrong with this image of Jesus; but, as Marcus Borg observes, it is a shallow understanding of a man whose wisdom was grounded in a deep spiritual life.

And what kind of Jesus do I, a Christian Quaker, believe in? I accept Jesus as teacher but I also see him as prophet. I believe Jesus was inspired by Spirit to preach, not only the Golden Rule, but also the Kingdom of God—what Martin Luther King would call the “Beloved Community.” This Kingdom of God is present now, in this life, in this present reality. While we are still alive, we can enter this Kingdom, in which morality is superseded by obedience to God—not that God would have us commit immoral acts, but our spiritual life transcends a simple morality. Or so I believe.

~ Richard Russell