Christocentric?
I can sympathize with the many folk who would not mind Jesus half as much if it just weren't for all those darn Christians. Was this really the best of all possible Christian religions? It just goes to show how strongly this religion was overdetermined by the very large scope of its role in history.
You will notice, however, that I am referring to this religion in the past tense. It is a fact of messianic life, that the only way to get around the historical obstacle that is the Church is through the eye of the needle that is the Second Coming. Bless its heart. The other fact of messianic life is that those fellow travelers will be the very last to accept these messianic facts of life in the cosmos. They are only doing more or less what they were told.
There is no way we can avoid the Second Coming, so we might as well enjoy it.
But was Jesus really necessary? And what about all that magic business?
If we take teleology quite seriously, Jesus has not existed yet. Jesus, and all of us for that matter, are just a twinkle in the eye of the Eschaton. If he exists at all it is in the logic of creation. If the Eschaton is a love tsunami, and God help us if it is anything else, then its historical focus, either before or after the fact, is undeniably to be found in the X-event. The Eschaton is a big fat cosmic given, kind of like the Monster group. But If I were God, and I wanted to have maximum leverage with minimum effort, I would put all my eggs in the X-basket. That is just a fact of God's life.
The X-event was the death of God. She poured her entire Self into that one spot, because there was no logical alternative. This was the necessary self-sacrifice. We are that eternal resurrection. There can only be one supreme sacrifice. The X-event is to the geodesics of of the Spirit, rather as Angkor, Giza, etc., are to the geodesics of the Earth.
And what about the Muslims and other folk? Well, just as soon as the the Christians become more transparent to the sacrifice, everyone will be able to understand it. In fact, the Muslims will probably end up having to explain it to the Christians. But it is not really rocket science, is it? If you believe in Tinker Bell, all you have to do is clap your hands. It is the children and not the rocket scientists who inherit the Kingdom. So much for magic, and so much for rockets.
5/30/02