An imagined conversation between a random post-modern Protestant and Christ

Here's an imagined conversation between a random post-modern American Protestant and Jesus Christ- on things Christ Got Wrong:

First off I’d like to thank you Jesus for saving me by dying on the Cross. I know you suffered a lot for me. Of course those silly Catholics think that just because we’re supposed to be like you suffering has a purpose.

Which reminds me I think it’s time that we rebooted your franchise. It’s been 1500+ years and your brand could use a refresh.We’ve grown a lot since your time and so we’ve come up with Christianity 2.0, those Papists call it Protestantism, which fixes the problems with the old Christianity.

Like that eat your flesh thing. I mean really. Did you have to say it so many times? What were you thinking? You can’t have really meant it because after all we’re not cannibals. Clearly your Apostles got it wrong when they taught everyone that the Eucharist was really you. But then they weren’t as educated as we are.

Even you admit that a lot of your disciples went away over that whole eat my flesh thing. So we’re going with the less offensive symbolic interpretation of Communion. Help grow the brand for sure. And if we don’t have to do anything to be saved other than accept you who needs a continual source of grace anyway?

I mean when you boiled the law down to two rules, love God and love your neighbor, the second part was just to keep the crime rate down right? Clearly how we treat our neighbor doesn’t have anything to do with being saved it’s all about loving you.

Also this race we’re running thing and having to be ready all the time is hard on people. We don’t want to have to work for salvation after all. You did it all for us right? Doesn’t every good parent do everything for their children even when they’re grown up?

That line in James; he put that in when you were tied up with some crisis right and with no white out yet what could you do? Having to work for salvation is going to put off a lot of people and we can’t have that.

Which leads me to the whole confession thing. I mean it’s really too much to ask people to reveal their most embarrassing failures to some stranger. I know you said that you gave the power to forgive sins to the Church but come on. Sure talking to a priest makes you really confront your failures but in the modern world we can’t let anyone feel like they’ve made a mistake can we? Anyway once we accept you there’s no need for forgiveness since we’re saved no matter what right?

That’s why we’re changing your position on divorce. It’s so two millennia ago. Look we’re no better than the Jews and without the Sacraments we don’t have any sources of grace they didn’t so how can you hold us to a tougher standard? Besides if marriage isn’t a Sacrament then you’re really not putting anyone together right?

As to that Church you established. We’ve learned that diversity is good so I’m sure you’ll be happy with our new concept of Church. Sure it’s hard to find any two denominations that agree on much of anything but that’s the beauty of diversity! Certainly you’ve got to be happier with everyone following their own version of what you said rather than what those lockstep Catholics are up to. After all you wouldn’t want to stifle anyone’s creativity would you?

We’re really glad that another Christianity 2.0 concept, Sola Scriptura, does such a bang up job fostering that diversity. Clearly your words are sufficiently unclear by themselves that there’s no way that people can get forced into a uniform set of beliefs. After all even though the Bible says that most of what you did isn’t in the Bible it seems obvious to us that if you didn’t bother to have someone write it down what you did it couldn’t have been very important.

Further we know that we’re smart enough on our own to figure out anything you said. It’s not like your word is so deep that it isn’t always intuitive. In any case I’m sure that when you sent your followers out to teach all the nations you really meant they should just pass out Bibles, er well at least once there was a Bible to pass out.

Finally in order to ensure that Christianity 2.0 is always fresh we’ve decided that morality should grow with society.

Artificial Birth Control and Abortion were wrong even in Christianity 2.0 until 80 years ago but with the new adaptability we’ve built into the core of Christianity 2.0 we can change on a dime and declare them to be great!

Women ministers and active homosexuality are other examples of how you have to update your teachings to stay relevant.

If you keep sticking with this absolute morality thing you won’t have anyone listening to you.

Well this has been great. I’m glad I could take this opportunity to explain how we’ve improved on what you left us. We love you a lot and we’re glad we can be of assistance!