Musings on the Teachings of Jesus as a Universal and Common Word of Faith

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., December 14, 2024

Church doctrine continues to limit salvation to Christians who profess belief in Jesus Christ as a Trinitarian form of God.  Jews and Muslims reject the divinity of Jesus, but they accept his teachings as God’s common word.  Christians should consider whether salvation requires worshiping Jesus Christ as God, or following Jesus as a prophet of God’s Word.

Jesus was a 1st century Palestinian Jew who never advocated a new religion, only reforms in Judaism that put God’s love over Mosaic Law.  His teachings are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors of other races and religions as we love ourselves; and it’s a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Christianity has long been the world’s largest religion, but now it’s declining--likely because exclusivist church creeds and doctrines never taught by Jesus limit salvation to Christians.  Reform is not likely since exclusivist Christian beliefs are sustained by the inertia of an institutional church as the one true faith.

Thomas Jefferson considered the teachings of Jesus “the most sublime moral code ever designed by man,” but he disdained exclusivist church doctrines never taught by Jesus.  While his Jefferson Bible affirms God’s will as universal and his universalist views have been praised by theologians in the Jesus Seminar, no church has affirmed Jefferson’s Jesus as God’s Word.  

In the 1830’s Alexis DeTocqueville observed that moral values are needed to sustain a healthy democracy, and asserted that religion is the source of moral values.  The Civil War underscored the lack of moral unity opposing slavery; and the reconciling altruistic moral values of Jesus have remained corrupted by materialism, hedonism and polarized partisan politics.

Since 2016 most white Christians have supported Donald Trump’s divisive radical right partisan politics and ignored the reconciling universal moral values of Jesus.  The Christian religion has become the handmaiden of the Republican Party with Trump promoting demagoguery in democracy as a divisive antithesis to the reconciling moral teachings of Jesus.

There are doctrinal differences in the wide variety of churches in America, but all share exclusivist beliefs in Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation.  In a world of increasing religious diversity, religious reconciliation requires eliminating exclusivist doctrines of salvation; but that seems highly unlikely given the prevalence of exclusivist Christian doctrine in America.

Christian Universalism was a Christian denomination until it merged with the Unitarian Universalists in 1964.  Since then no denomination has advocated following the teachings of Jesus as God’s word for salvation rather than worshiping Jesus Christ as God. My Christmas commentary next week will suggest an alternative: promoting Jesus as a universal Logos, and the light of God’s word in a dark world.  

     

Notes:

Richard Rohr is a universalist who describes “the horrible impact the doctrines of original sin and blood atonement of Jesus have had on Christian faith, including how God is depicted as a sadistic deity that needs payment before He can love His creation, and that nothing Jesus said, did, or taught in his lifetime means anything because his death is all that matters for our salvation.”  Rohr asserts that “we must reject any theory of salvation that is based on violence, exclusion, social pressure, or moral coercion.” See Christian Universalism, meet The Universal Christ at https://christianuniversalist.org/2021/02/christian-universalism-meet-the-universal-christ/ 

On the Greatest Commandment as a Common Word of Faith, see

http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/01/the-greatest-commandment-common-word-of.html.

Universalism can reconcile progressive Christians, Jews and Muslims.  While universalists are a minority in those competing religions, they can be a reconciling voice promoting a universalist common word of faith.  On universalism, see Universalism: A theology for the 21st century, by Forrest Church, November 5, 2001, at Universalism: A theology for the 21st century | UU World Magazine.

The Teachings of Jesus and Muhammad on Morality and Law is an interfaith study guide based on the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad taken from  the Jefferson Bible.  It’s  posted in its entirety in the Resources at  https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com.

Thomas Jefferson considered “the teachings of Jesus as the most sublime moral code ever designed by man,” and detested exclusivist church doctrines.   https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com.

In 1831 Alexis deTocqueville toured America and observed that its many Christian sects shared a “Christian morality” that produced common standards of political legitimacy that defined what is right, and imbued American politics with its moral authority.  On the views of Thomas Jefferson and Alexis deTocqueville on the moral values of religion in American politics, see Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy (July 1, 2017) at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/07/religion-moral-authority-and.html. See also Musings of a Maverick Methodist on a Universal and Altruistic Jesus, August 19, 2023, at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/08/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html.

Carl Krieg has distinguished between The Political [exclusivist] Jesus and The Real [universal] Jesus at https://progressivechristianity.org/resource/the-political-jesus-and-the-real-jesus/.

The title of Robin Meyers’ book says it all: Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus (HarperCollins Publishers, 2009).  Meyers spoke at the Barnes Symposium at the University of South Carolina on April 12, 2019 on From Galilean Sage to Supernatural Savior (or, How I Became a Heretic with Help from Jesus). While Meyers is critical of the church, he was pastor of Mayflower Church, a large UCC congregation in Oklahoma City, for over 30 years.  

On the belief that God saves only Christians and condemns all unbelievers to hell, see Hell No! at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/07/hell-no.html.  Maybe a minority of Chrstians can still save the church from its divisive doctrines that were never taught by Jesus.  Next week my Christmas commentary will be Musings on Jesus as the Logos and the Light of the World.