Arise spiritual slackers and come forth to create your destinies in a world of mass confusion. Those devotees of the major religions call us atheists or secularists, but we must define ourselves if we wish to be accurately addressed. In conversations with others I often utter this phrase "I'm spiritual but not religious" and more and more people are agreeing with this description of their own deeper belief systems. It's too easy for major religions to see those souls not assigned to one of these clicks as somehow "Godless" or devoid of spiritual validity, they do the same to each other. We know that our default mode of spiritual orientation is not only valid but older and truer than any clubhouse style religion.
We are like Indigenous people in the summer Olympics, excluded from participating in the field of events. As though Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism were corporate sponsors for a spiritual Nascar race in which the winner gets to sit at the right hand of God. All of these religions are hierarchal institutions not unlike governments, and like governments the institution is only as strong, as moral, as righteous as it's weakest link. Institutions are just vehicles of power, all of the power of the institution becomes a weapon when the driver is intoxicated or just plain corrupt. Throughout history the crimes of both churches and states look so similar that it becomes necessary to delineate the true culprit: Institutions.
Needless to say you won't find a much more radical world view than that of the anti-institutionalist. Most people defend institutions giving them full credit for the deeds accomplished by people who fought against those institutions simply because the leaders of institutions sometimes cave in to sufficient public pressure. Satisfied with making baby steps in the arch of justice they see anarchists as people who would throw out the baby steps with the bath water for instigating revolution against oppressive institutions. But as soon as someone like George W. Bush sits in the driver seat he can put every progressive victory in reverse until all of the struggle is for not and more must fight and die for the same small gains.
It may be difficult to imagine a world without institutions but that was what John Lennon was asking of us and that is what another hippy, peace activist asked of us a long, long time ago: Jesus. It may come as a shock to many Christians but Jesus was not a Christian, he was born a Jew. And like many Jews he was unsatisfied with the institution of religion and began imagining something radically different. He didn't say "forget about god and spirituality because religion is tainted with corruption.", instead he spread a message of a God who could not be contained inside of church walls, and a spiritual authority that one needed no intermediary to interpret, a direct spiritual experience.
So why did a start up company called Christianity claim this radical, liberal, socialist, anarchist, peace activist, anti-institutionalist, Hippy, Pagan Jesus (The original Jesus freak?) as it's composite character, it's poster child, it's demented crucified logo? This was simply an attempt to cap a leaking well of spiritual individualism but it merely succeeded in confusing and dissembling an otherwise clear and powerful story of a man who saw the institutions for what they were: groups of corrupt individuals who would stop at nothing to increase their wealth and power. If they did not turn this man into a God, we would make obvious connections between him and others like him, people who dedicate their lives to bettering the lives of the down trodden, oppressed peoples of the world.
Because Jesus is "Lord" we don't think of him as an "activist", we don't see the epic struggle of a spiritual man in a land being crushed by a military empire. We don't see a "socialist" so we can be simultaneously preached "Jesus is Good" and teached "Socialism is Bad". We can't make that link between an angry Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers and protesters marching in the streets against corrupt corporations and banks. Jesus is a God afterall, those people out there are just a bunch of eco-terrorists and commies. The overwhelming double standard of those who claim to believe in Jesus as Lord but adopt values that directly contradict the word and deed of Jesus the man is frustrating to say the least.
This is the reason the WWJD (What would Jesus do?) movement is so popular, everybody knows what Jesus would do in any given situation and we can clearly see the hypocrisy of those who do not follow in kind. Who would Jesus bomb? The question is snarky but simple and powerful enough to make the point, Jesus would not bomb anyone. Who would Jesus preemptively strike? Didn't Jesus say that even when one strikes you, you are to turn the other cheek so that they might strike it as well? I don't think Jesus said that we are to do unto others before they do it on us. Though Jesus spoke highly and spoke often of "God" he was by no means a bible thumper, and his definition of "God" could be the same as mine as far as any Christian knows.
It's time for Pagans to take back Jesus, not as a "God" but as wise and passionate man.
...activist, protester, liberal, etc...
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