From George Fox to Today
Jesus’s role and ministry was centered on teaching us that we are all one family of God and that God is calling us to care for and love one another. When he was asked in Matthew 22, “What is the greatest commandment?” he replied, “To love God with all your heart, soul, and mind . . . and love your neighbor as yourself.” When asked, “Who is my neighbor?” he insisted that this love is required to go beyond religious, national, cultural, racial, and economic divisions. Jesus challenges these divisions, and he makes it absolutely clear that they are not acceptable in God’s family. Bigotry, hatred, and fear have no place here, as he shows in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. He is the original founder of the “Hate Has No Home Here” movement; in fact, he was speaking of it in terms of the heart!
These divisions are our issues, and Jesus completely dismantles them in his teachings. They have no place in his uncompromising vision of God’s Love for the whole family. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was—and continues to be—a living demonstration of that love. To present it in any other terms is “fake news.”
The Sermon on the Mount, found in the Gospel of Matthew, is widely considered to be the most accurate summary of Jesus’s teachings as recorded in the scriptural writings of his first followers. It is the best “true news” we have about his beliefs and values, and it is the closest thing we have to an actual comprehensive Christian message. As such, it was—and continues to be—a very clear and genuine representation of how God wants us to live and treat each other. It is a radical and direct call to come out of the old way of seeing things and into something completely different and new. He is taking us from old ways of manmade divisions to a new way toward love: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5).
The Sermon on the Mount, found in the Gospel of Matthew, is widely considered to be the most accurate summary of Jesus’s teachings as recorded in the scriptural writings of his first followers. It is the best “true news” we have about his beliefs and values, and it is the closest thing we have to an actual comprehensive Christian message.
Instead of heeding this radical call out of the old and into the new, and seeking to follow it, we have continued to listen to and even believe in a lot of the fake news about Jesus. We have come to believe that he represents and supports all the things that he himself spoke against. Things like discrimination, bigotry, and judgment of other cultures and values. What did Jesus really say? As recorded in Matthew 7:
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Jesus is constantly misrepresented and misquoted with sound bites taken totally out of context. He continues to be falsely portrayed in so many harmful and false ways: as a White European Savior, as the Great Promoter of a greed-based economy and lifestyle, as the End Times Agitator of man’s violence and destruction.
Do we really believe that Jesus was a self-righteous promoter of religious and racial discrimination and violence? That he wants to see the Apocalyptic end of the world so he can “return in glory” and send all the “non-believers” to hell? These are dangerous and distorted manmade messages full of hate, oppression, revenge, fear, and bigotry. There is no semblance of true news or good news in them! Yet this is what many professing Christians have come to believe. What did Jesus really say? Again in Matthew 5:
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
You have heard it said, “an eye for an eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.
In fact, the ones who Jesus actually speaks against and even condemns are those of us who have forgotten how to care for one another and refuse to see one another as all part of the family of God. It is all of us—when we try to divide ourselves from others—who see others somehow as “the problem,” and ourselves as better than “them.” Jesus has no tolerance for this! What did Jesus really say about how we will be judged? Look to Matthew 25:
For I was hungry and you wouldn’t feed me; thirsty, and you wouldn’t give me anything to drink; a stranger, and you refused me hospitality; naked, and you wouldn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me. Then they will reply, “Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?” And I will answer, “When you refused to help the least of these my brothers, you were refusing help to me.”
This is the “real news,” and he urges us all to take it very seriously. We are called to take care of all of God’s family, and he warns us that there is a great deal of trouble ahead if we don’t. Why aren’t we taking this seriously?
This is the “real news,” and he urges us all to take it very seriously. We are called to take care of all of God’s family, and he warns us that there is a great deal of trouble ahead if we don’t. Why aren’t we taking this seriously?
Jesus has been misquoted, misused, and maligned for so many centuries that we have come to believe it as true. In comparison, there has been very little real news about him seen or heard. Yes, there have been and continue to be many examples of Christian lives devoted to service to others, but this is presented as the exception and not the rule. It was not presented that way by Jesus. He is clearly the originator of the “#LoveThyNeighbor (No Exceptions)” message—the name of a recent campaign by Friends Committee on National Legislation.
As a result of this long history of misrepresentation of Jesus and his teachings, we have been fooled into believing that we either need to accept and believe all the lies we have been taught or reject Jesus all together as some sort of a tyrant and try to find other solutions to address our condition and the condition of our world.
This presents a great predicament for Quakers and for people of faith all over the world. Are these really the only choices we have?
George Fox grew up in a religious culture full of fake news about Jesus. He was deeply disturbed and troubled by the Christianity of his day. He found its obsessive focus on heaven and the next life as totally inadequate. It had no power to address his own needs and the confusion and upheaval of his time. It was deeply tied into the power structures and manmade divisions of his time. The Christianity of his day all but ignored the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, relegating them to heaven and viewing them as impossible to follow in this life. It presented Jesus primarily as a ticket puncher: the one who could get you into the right waiting line for the next life.
There was no hope of finding a present power that could move humankind toward goodness. It presented a very hopeless picture of humanity as stuck in an endless cycle of violence and failure until we finally find peace in the next life. What a silly, poor wreck of a misrepresentation of Jesus’s teachings, yet clearly most people believed it, and many millions still do.
Thank God George didn’t buy it! He began a search for a different religious faith, one that could actually help him in his own struggle against evil, despair, and hopelessness. He looked for answers among the most learned of the church leaders and got a lot of useless advice. He left the established churches and looked among the emerging separatist religious groups and eventually gave up on them as well. He could find no answers in organized religion and no answers outside of it.
When he heard the Voice within, he was at the end of his own resources and any help from those around him. He recognized this Voice as coming from a Source greater than himself, calling him to an encounter with a very different Jesus. This was not a conversion to the Christianity of his day. In fact, it had the total opposite effect: requiring him to challenge everything he had been taught and proclaim a completely new and genuine message of hope and transformation.
It was new because it had been lost in all the centuries of fake news. It was new because he found it to have all the power he needed to be changed inside. And it was genuine because it called everyone into God’s family, here and now. It was primarily a message of love. Fox had an encounter with the real news Jesus, whom he found to be alive and present within him. As recorded in Fox’s Journal:
So he it was that opened to me when I was shut up, and had not hope nor faith. Christ it was who had enlightened me, that gave me his light to believe in, and gave me hope, which is himself, revealed himself in me, and gave me his spirit and gave me his grace, which I found sufficient in the deeps and in weakness.
He recognized right away that this was something completely different, and it needed to be shared with others, with everyone. It had the potential to change everything.
I have had some of this same experience myself, and it has led me to embrace a completely different message from what I have heard presented by the church today. I used to often walk by an old, historic stone church on my way to work. For many months, their sign presented a quote from the book of Revelation and a dire warning: “Jesus is coming back soon. Get saved before it is too late.”
As a Friend, I have come to believe in a very different message. I have not given up on Jesus (far from it), but I am no longer looking for his outward return to save me or our planet. I have come to know and experience (as did the early Friends) that he has returned in our hearts and can continue to teach us his true news of God’s love, if we will listen.
I wanted so much to write to the church and tell them how I felt. Six months later (without my help), they changed their sign to simply say: “All Are Welcome Here.” Now that seems to me to be a lot closer to the true news.
This is fabulous! More.
Thank you so much Joe. I am working on part 2!
Thank you, Chris. This needed to be said. For me it started with my mother saying that my best guide in life would be that ‘still, small voice within me and my experience has not proved her wrong. It was later in life that I was led to make the connection between it an Jesus, when hearing his words in John’s Gospel: “For this I came, to be witness to the truth; all who are of the truth hear my voice.”, in the aria in the St, John’s Passion by Bach, where it rings out sharply in the tenor voice. I was more recently struck by a book by Marcus Borg and and other whose name I’ve forgotten, who pointed out that in one of Paul’s letter the phrase ‘our faith IN Jesus Christ is a mis-translation, as the Greek grammar construction would best be rendered as ‘the faith OF Jesus Christ’, which drastically alters the whole picture. By the way, I remember you from one of the last New Foundation Seminars at Camp Neekaunis, Canada, so many many years ago.
Hi Ellen,
Yes I remember you well. I am glad you liked the article.
Your reference to John 18 certainly helps to connect Jesus to that inner voice and Light that continues to speak today. There is a lot that goes into discerning that Voice (from all the other voices) and I feel that this is best done within a group that is listening together. This was the foundation of the Quaker Meeting for Business. It is not an exercise in consensus! It is an exercise in putting aside our own agendas and trying to discern God’s agenda!
The strongest or loudest voice should not necessarily prevail. It is not the majority voice that is always right. It is not an individual leader. We all come together to listen and be guided by a Voice and Power greater than our own.
A way that I test this voice in my daily interactions with others is to ask myself, “Is this a voice that seeks to separate me from others? Is it trying to put up divisions, between us and make me think that I am somehow different or better? Does it put me or others down,?” This is not the Voice of Jesus! “Is it fanning the flames of anger, hatred, bigotry, revenge, and resentment?” This is not the Voice of Jesus!
If instead, this Voice is urging me towards compassion, patience, love, and understanding, well then, maybe this is the real Voice that I need to be listening to! In my experience, this Voice is often much harder to hear and I have to continually ask Jesus for help in both challenging the false voices and helping me find His real Voice, and follow it. Again, this is better done in a group, which is why I go to Quaker Meeting!
Thank you, Chris for this thoughtful article. Yes, the “fake news” about Jesus needs to be resisted in every generation of Friends. His good news, that Spirit is available to guide us and connect us to the Life, is too good to be forgotten.
What are Quaker Meetings like these days?
My Grandfather, Harry White, grew up in NJ and attended Woodstown Meeting. He said, the men sat on the one side; the women on the other. All was silent. If someone, I’m guessing, heard the inner voice, they would rise and speak. After a time (an hour?), the Elder(?) would end the meeting.
He would have been born around 1870s. Said he was barred from meeting when he married a Presbyterian, my grandmother.
Thank you George! You have given so much good service to Friends over the many years I have known you and have helped so many people, including my mom! I am very grateful. My faith has become very practical for me as I deal daily with powerful divisive forces that come from both within me and around me. I need daily/hourly help from a Power greater than my own to respond to these situations with love, patience, forgiveness, and caring, when my own resources seem so limited and easily depleted. Jesus is my Helper in these times and I often call upon him to “make a way, where there is no way.” When I call upon Him and listen for His inner Voice and Light, he is faithful and his Light is sufficient and cannot be overcome. (Jn.1. 5, my favorite verse) The Light helps to guide me and sustain me through each situation, when I have no answers of my own or ideas about what I should do. This is my testimony and for me, this is the real Jesus who lives within each of us and is available to all who call upon his name.
Jesus was primarily loving, yet also firmly against selfish sins. He drove the profiteering money changers out of the temple, and after saving a woman from stoning he was clear she needed to sin no more. Jesus’ radical equality proclaimed king and slave as equals, and would likely do the same for mother and fetus. Why can’t we figure out better solutions for 95% of abortions that would have been healthy mothers and babies, rather than bickering over the rare 5% of tough cases politicians love to divide us with? A better refundable child tax credit would greatly help keep single parent families and children out of poverty, as well as prevent some needless abortions due to fear of poverty.
Yet, we provide far more tax subsidies to middle class who don’t really need handouts via education, healthcare, home mortgage interest, solar, EV, and other tax subsidies. The rich get special huge tax loopholes like lower tax rates for capital gains and corporate income, lower tax rate depreciation, deducting paper losses, avoiding full income tax for medicare and social security, special energy business tax exemptions and grants, and many others dropped into very long must-pass laws by members of Congress to benefit a particular industry, company, or billionaire. The poor really only get a tiny fraction of token crumbs of help for homeless, healthcare, and education.
Thank you George. You clearly state that we have lost our way! For Friends, we often see our testimonies as a guide for helping to navigate our way back Home. However, it’s really important to recognize that these testimonies are not simply statements about how we should live. They resulted from a deep recognition that we have lost our way and need to return to listening for God’s Voice and Light within. They were/are a testimony to a Power greater than our own, and clearly state that we do not have the power to change ourselves or our world on our own. They testify to a Power that can and has changed us inside and called us forth to become active agents for change in our world. The Light of Christ not only points to the change that is needed both within us and in our world, but Jesus assures us that he will be with us and guide us on this journey. This gives me so much more hope than trying to do this all on my own!