Senile Jesus
Turning Jesus into a senile grandpa?
There is a movement within the church to turn Jesus into a senile grandfather figure who just wants everyone to get along and be nice. Senile Jesus doesn’t care about sin, your past or even about other religions he can’t remember why any of those things are important. This is the new Jesus being taught by some churches in America. The most dangerous aspect of this terrible theology is that it is coming from within the church. That is right, Satan is up to his old tricks, attempting to take down the body of Christ from within.
Here are a few examples of how the new senile Jesus thinks:
Here is a quote from my online source that is pushing the above historical revision of Jesus’ theology,
“Joshua ben Adam (the title the author uses for Jesus) would reject any religion that advocates hatred, violence, and division against others. He once said that merely speaking a diminishing term against another person is a violation of his way. And yet too often modern Christianity has fashioned a gospel that is built on demeaning humankind by asserting the idea that people are bad at the core, repulsive to God, and deserve eternal torment.”
To be fair, in some ways I want to agree with the author cited above. Too many people who claim to follow Christ seem to have missed the transforming power of grace and are missing the ability to treat others with compassion, patience and care. When compassion and grace are absent from how we interact with others, we do not represent Jesus well.
On the other hand, the same logic Satan used in Genesis three when the serpent said to Eve, “Did God really say…” is being used here. This makes sense because the best lies are cleverly bound with strands of truth to effectively deceive. At the core of the senile Jesus movement is a universal Jesus that is ok with everyone, and all behaviors. There is no longer anything that Jesus does not approve of or even delight in. There is nothing against the will of God since Jesus just wants us all to get along. But this was not and is not the message of Jesus.
A passage often used by the “Senile Jesus” pundits is from John eight. The account is of a woman caught in adultery and Jesus prevents her being stoned by asking, “Those who have never sinned throw the first stone.” I love this passage as it is consistent with Jesus’ teachings, in Matthew 2:2-5 where Jesus warns about judging. We must be slow to judge others, but most “Senile Jesus” campers never make it to the last part of the passage where Jesus invites us to take the plank out of your own eye, so that we can “see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
But let us return to John eight and the woman caught in adultery. When Jesus says to the woman he does not condemn her, that is not the end of the story. Jesus instructs the woman to “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
The key there is that there are things that are against the will of God. There are behaviors that love does not accept, embrace, or celebrate. Jesus was not just about helping us all get along. Jesus was all about how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. To accomplish this, we are called to “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy,” (Lev. 19:2 and 1Peter 1:15).
For Jesus happiness was not the goal, at least not the real Jesus, though it might be for the “senile Jesus.” For Jesus, the direction of our lives was to be holy, (which by the way is the only way to experience true joy). No life built upon deception can have lasting peace and that is the danger of the lies being taught and the picture of “senile Jesus” being presented.
When we are taught that “senile Jesus” and the message “conceived by the theories and doctrines of Paul,” are in conflict, the echoes of the serpent should be heard, “Did God really say…” When we are told that we have the power of Christ or “Christ-consciousness” within us and therefore there is no separation between us and God as a consequence of sin, alarm bells should be going off in our skeptical information filters. This theology isn’t about making us holy; it is about making God unholy. When God becomes unholy then “anything can go.” Ahh… we now arrive at the goal of the “senile Jesus’ movement, where we can behave and believe anything we want because God is no longer God, we have become like God knowing right and wrong. (sound familiar?).
Paul’s apostolic authority is well documented in Scripture, from his dramatic Damascus Road conversation to the rejection of his Pharisaism into the New Covenant of grace. Paul did not write decades after the disciples had all died. He was doing ministry with the disciples, all of whom had the courage and ability to stand against false teachings as attested to by their martyrdom. The goal of this deception is to remove all of Paul’s teachings on holy living so that “Senile Jesus” is promoted and God can be remade in our image. Once sin is no longer a barrier separating us from the holy God and the boundaries of love are removed (Senile Jesus can’t remember right and wrong) there is no need for Jesus’ atonement on the cross. If we can remove the sacrificial act of Jesus death upon the cross, then all religions can be harmonized and the goal of creating “senile Jesus” is almost complete. The only step left for this lie to be believed is to couch it in nuggets of truth and make it sound more loving than the actual words of Jesus.
Followers of Jesus, beware, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing spreading bad theology that sounds good, (see Matthew 7:15-20).
New International Version
In Matthew 25:41, Jesus “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
There is a movement within the church to turn Jesus into a senile grandfather figure who just wants everyone to get along and be nice. Senile Jesus doesn’t care about sin, your past or even about other religions he can’t remember why any of those things are important. This is the new Jesus being taught by some churches in America. The most dangerous aspect of this terrible theology is that it is coming from within the church. That is right, Satan is up to his old tricks, attempting to take down the body of Christ from within.
Here are a few examples of how the new senile Jesus thinks:
- That the religion bearing his name was conceived by the theories and doctrines of Paul, instead of the truth Jesus lived and demonstrated.
- That the gospel says his death solved the problem of humankind's separation from God, instead of accepting that his life revealed the truth that there is no separation from God.
- That the religion that claims his name, teaches that his wisdom and teachings are the only legitimate way to know truth and God.
- That people think there is magical potency in uttering the name of Jesus, rather than accessing our own natural powers and capabilities to effect change.
- The idea that humankind stands condemned before God and deserving of Divine wrath and eternal conscious judgement, requiring the death of Jesus to fix it.
Here is a quote from my online source that is pushing the above historical revision of Jesus’ theology,
“Joshua ben Adam (the title the author uses for Jesus) would reject any religion that advocates hatred, violence, and division against others. He once said that merely speaking a diminishing term against another person is a violation of his way. And yet too often modern Christianity has fashioned a gospel that is built on demeaning humankind by asserting the idea that people are bad at the core, repulsive to God, and deserve eternal torment.”
To be fair, in some ways I want to agree with the author cited above. Too many people who claim to follow Christ seem to have missed the transforming power of grace and are missing the ability to treat others with compassion, patience and care. When compassion and grace are absent from how we interact with others, we do not represent Jesus well.
On the other hand, the same logic Satan used in Genesis three when the serpent said to Eve, “Did God really say…” is being used here. This makes sense because the best lies are cleverly bound with strands of truth to effectively deceive. At the core of the senile Jesus movement is a universal Jesus that is ok with everyone, and all behaviors. There is no longer anything that Jesus does not approve of or even delight in. There is nothing against the will of God since Jesus just wants us all to get along. But this was not and is not the message of Jesus.
A passage often used by the “Senile Jesus” pundits is from John eight. The account is of a woman caught in adultery and Jesus prevents her being stoned by asking, “Those who have never sinned throw the first stone.” I love this passage as it is consistent with Jesus’ teachings, in Matthew 2:2-5 where Jesus warns about judging. We must be slow to judge others, but most “Senile Jesus” campers never make it to the last part of the passage where Jesus invites us to take the plank out of your own eye, so that we can “see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
But let us return to John eight and the woman caught in adultery. When Jesus says to the woman he does not condemn her, that is not the end of the story. Jesus instructs the woman to “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
The key there is that there are things that are against the will of God. There are behaviors that love does not accept, embrace, or celebrate. Jesus was not just about helping us all get along. Jesus was all about how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. To accomplish this, we are called to “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy,” (Lev. 19:2 and 1Peter 1:15).
For Jesus happiness was not the goal, at least not the real Jesus, though it might be for the “senile Jesus.” For Jesus, the direction of our lives was to be holy, (which by the way is the only way to experience true joy). No life built upon deception can have lasting peace and that is the danger of the lies being taught and the picture of “senile Jesus” being presented.
When we are taught that “senile Jesus” and the message “conceived by the theories and doctrines of Paul,” are in conflict, the echoes of the serpent should be heard, “Did God really say…” When we are told that we have the power of Christ or “Christ-consciousness” within us and therefore there is no separation between us and God as a consequence of sin, alarm bells should be going off in our skeptical information filters. This theology isn’t about making us holy; it is about making God unholy. When God becomes unholy then “anything can go.” Ahh… we now arrive at the goal of the “senile Jesus’ movement, where we can behave and believe anything we want because God is no longer God, we have become like God knowing right and wrong. (sound familiar?).
Paul’s apostolic authority is well documented in Scripture, from his dramatic Damascus Road conversation to the rejection of his Pharisaism into the New Covenant of grace. Paul did not write decades after the disciples had all died. He was doing ministry with the disciples, all of whom had the courage and ability to stand against false teachings as attested to by their martyrdom. The goal of this deception is to remove all of Paul’s teachings on holy living so that “Senile Jesus” is promoted and God can be remade in our image. Once sin is no longer a barrier separating us from the holy God and the boundaries of love are removed (Senile Jesus can’t remember right and wrong) there is no need for Jesus’ atonement on the cross. If we can remove the sacrificial act of Jesus death upon the cross, then all religions can be harmonized and the goal of creating “senile Jesus” is almost complete. The only step left for this lie to be believed is to couch it in nuggets of truth and make it sound more loving than the actual words of Jesus.
Followers of Jesus, beware, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing spreading bad theology that sounds good, (see Matthew 7:15-20).
New International Version
In Matthew 25:41, Jesus “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
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