Jesus was a community organizer, Pilate was a Governor

This sound bite has been floating around the 'net in response to Governor Palin's snarky and mean spirited comment about Senator Obama's service. I'll not rehash that discussion as it is pretty easy to find. My friend in life and all things Internet Winston had an interesting discussion on a blog about it.

He asked for my thoughts. I thought I'd put them here. I wrote this in the comments section of his blog, so the parenthetical comments are directly to him, I leave them so you can be overwhelmed by my sense of humor!

Interesting conversation. I think both of you had excellent points and I agree and disagree with both of you in just about equal measure. (Of course, you “win” you’re my best friend!!!!)

First. It’s proper title is The Revelation of God to John. So, in discourse it should be referred to as Revelation or The Revelation, not Revelations. (Just a little pet peeve of mine. and of course my NT professors)

As far as the meat of the argument, Jesus was a community organizer… is a wonderful sound bite. (That joke killed at seminary! What was the origin? John Stewart?) However, it is perhaps not entirely, technically correct. Organizing a community was probably not his primary mission on earth. I’m not sure what Jesus’ primary mission was. It isn’t possible to know what it is as Josepus is the only historian who even mentions a rabble rousing Jew in Jerusalem around the time in question and even he gets his info. thirdhand! Any argument about the historical Jesus, what he did or who he was, is a bit absurd because there is no way to determine who is right. Remember, the Gospels were written after everyone who had actually seen Jesus was already dead!

Now, it is possible to read the text and draw out of it, as you did, that Jesus was a community organizer. And that is fine, you can find things to support that argument, as you did very well. (I love it when you get accused of ignorance of the Bible!) To get that out of the text is, to my mind (as a Christian theologian), to miss the point. As my Christology professor Dr. Stephen Ray would say, you are reading the text as if it were a travelogue. The Bible does not exist to tell us about some first century rabble rousing Jew named Jesus who went around healing people etc. The Scripture is there so that we may understand the primary mission of CHRIST! What is important is that God so loved the world that he became incarnate in Christ! (Can I get an Amen?) And that’s what “Duane” was arguing. So, actually, you two were talking past each other. You were talking about Jesus, he was talking about Christ.
Amen.
/turns to congregation
“now turn in your hymnals to page…