Master Chef: How to cook up a personal Jesus

It's amazing what little masterpieces one can create with a a few gods and a blender. It's like mixing paint pigments to design a new fashion color, except these colors are themselves powerful antioxidants, neutralizing fundy radicals. Blender recipes are an excellent addition to a healing, cleansing or weight loss program. Don't be afraid to experiment; you will be delighted with the results. Deepak and I have decided to share our favorite blender recipe with you. It has evolved over time, a little tweaking here and there. One of my favorite fast foods, this recipe is packed with nutrition and is surprisingly filling. Enjoy.

Your Own Personal Jesus

1 perfectly ripe Jesus
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup folk wisdom
1 gospel of Thomas
1/2 cup assorted gods
2 tsp. astrology
1 tsp. yoga sutras
1/2 tsp. maya prophecies
1/2 Buddha, juiced

Seriously though, syncretism, the blending of religions, is a significant challenge for Christians living in consumer oriented cultures. Surveys may indicate receptivity to Jesus, but scratch below the surface and the Jesus that emerges is little more than a roschat blot, a blank screen on which to project personal hopes, dreams and struggles.

Syncroblog on Syncretism

This month a bunch of us have decided to synchroblog on syncretism. The synchrobloggers so far:

• How to Cook Up a Personal Jesus by Matt Stone
• How to be a Syncretist by Ellen Haroutunian
• Our Uncomfortable God by Susan Barnes
• Synching on Syncing by Phil Wyman
• Does interfaith dialogue lead to syncretism? by Liz Dyer
• The man in the moss by Steve Hayes

Comments

[Susan]

Quote: Jesus...a blank screen on which to project personal hopes, dreams and struggles.

Yep, so many seem to view Jesus this way.

[Matt Stone]

The flip side of this is, we can only be sure we're encountered the real Jesus when he begins to challenge us in ways we don't expect, in ways that make us uncomfortable, in ways that stretch and transform us.

[Liz]

Syncretism is certainly something that we have to guard against but I find that the distortion of Jesus goes beyond syncretism. Within Christianity - without the influence or infiltration of other religions - I find that we try to make Jesus be a person that hates those we hate and loves those we love and fights for our causes and is on our side instead of being concerned as to whether we are lining up with who he already is, was and will always be.

I have my contribution to the synchroblog up now at http://gracerules.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/does-interfaith-dialogue-lead-to-syncretism/

[Yewtree]

I think everyone does this to Jesus, even people who try to be faithful to the gospel accounts, because there are so many different ways to interpret the stories - both the stories that Jesus tells and the stories about him. Your recipe made me laugh though! Maybe for balance you should come up with a recipe for a fundamentalist version of Jesus?

1 slightly sour Jesus
6oz Old Testament prophet
1 Gospel of Matthew
A handful of chopped logic
8 oz literal interpretation

Mix together and bake in the desert sun for 40 days.

[Matt Stone]

Liz, I've now linked you.

[Matt Stone]

Yewtree, is that spicy enough? You may need to add some Sodom And Gomorrah to bring out those Old Testament flavours.