the romans were interfaith pioneers

the jews were intolerant and close-minded. and yet jesus chose the latter

people like to use jesus to bolster their own worldviews. people who have never read the bible say things like: ‘jesus would never have done X’ or ‘jesus would have done Y’. but once you start reading the bible you realize the picture is much more complicated than complete acceptance of everyone’s choices.

here is one common take: ‘jesus would have loved all gods, religions, and cults of pagan worship. jesus would not have rejected paying respect to anyone’s god.’

this is what people like sadhguru and igor kufayev think. this is what deepak chopra thinks. this is what people in the new age think.

they say: love jesus. great guy. lot of good wisdom in the bible. i just don’t like the whole christianity thing. very oppressive. intolerant. backwards. bizarre.

we all believe the most accepting answer is the correct one. we don’t like conflict. we don’t like telling people they’re wrong. we believe in “live and let live”.

but what we want to be true is not always true.

so what is true? it’s hard to determine, but we should at the very least apply a sincere effort of investigation to see what we can find.

if we are going to say we “LOVE” jesus, or admit that there is “a lot of wisdom in the bible”, shouldn’t we at least read a bit of the bible? or a bit of the perspectives of those who knew jesus personally, in real life? or a bit of the history of the time and place that he walked the earth?

one very interesting bit of history around the incarnation is the constant religious conflict between the jews and the romans. the jews at the time of christ were under roman rule.

the romans were surprisingly respectful when it came to religion. when conquering a new territory, they would beseech the local deity to come and join the roman pantheon.

they were also a practical people. they cared more about law and order than this god vs that god-- as do many people today. for the most part, they let people worship as they pleased, and this kept things peaceful.

this worked fine for most groups. but not for the jews. there was this one aspect of the jews that was difficult to reconcile with romanism. monotheism.

the romans saw monotheism as intolerant. everyone else in the empire worshipped all kinds of different gods. everyone else in the empire had no issue worshipping the emperor as a god alongside their cult deities. why were these jews so stubborn? why were they so arrogant? why did they think their religion was better than everyone else’s?

why couldn’t these annoying monotheists would not just chill out, grow up, and realize the wisdom in all ancient pagan cultures?

this difference was the source of much conflict. it is very similar to hindu-muslim or hindu-christian conflicts today. hindus see abrahamic religions as intolerant. abrahamic religions see hinduism as idolatrous. it was the same with the romans and jews.

at one point, the romans wanted to build a statue of an eagle at the entrance to the temple of jerusalem. just at the entrance! not even inside! can you not be the least bit patriotic?! meet us halfway?

but no. the jews would accept no secular modifications to their temple. they revolted.

eventually, the jews and romans reached some kind of stable state. the pragmatic romans said: ok, you’re exempt from worshipping pagan gods, but you have to at least worship the emperor.

the jews said, we will not sacrifice to the emperor, but we can sacrifice to yahweh on behalf of the emperor.

the romans said fine. whatever.

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from a modern perspective, the romans seem much more enlightened than the jews.

the romans understood religious pluralism. they understood intersubjectivity. an integral theorist might say that they were at a higher level of the STAGES ego development, up in the teal / turquoise regions, while the jews were down in amber, clinging to their limited cultural perspectives.

from a modern perspective, jesus should have preferred the romans for their tolerance, magnanimity, and interfaith cultural appreciation.

but no. jesus chose the jews as his people. the intolerant, monotheistic, culturally insular, problematic jews.

and this was not accidental.

of course jesus loved and wanted to save all the nations. but the beginning of his ministry was very much for the jews. all the apostles were jewish. when a gentile begged jesus for her daughter to be healed, the first thing jesus says to her is “it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppies”. the children are the jews and the puppies are the gentiles. the immense hardships endured by the jews prepared them for this honor, to be the first children. of course, two verses later, jesus still heals the woman’s daughter, showing that his plan is not to be exclusive.

it seems to me that the initial rebuff is meant to show us that judaism was special. it was important. the whole old testament was not for nothing. the jews were not just divas, they were doing something right. yes, it devolved and was corrupted. but jesus did not come to abolish hebrew scripture, but to fulfill it.

and think about this: after jesus was incarnated, did he tell the apostles to lighten up? did he tell them to be more respectful to pagan worship? no. the apostles were not at all syncretic, and the early christians would rather be slaughtered by beasts than burn incense to a roman god.

did jesus ever tell them: bro, you’re being way too uptight. this worship stuff doesn’t matter. it’s all love brother let’s hit this j.

no. actually, many of these early pagan-god denying martyrs experienced miracles while being tortured and executed, making it seem that god approved of their denial.

of course, the close-mindedness of the jews backfired on some of them. especially the ones who crucified jesus. but this is an issue for another time.

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religious “uptightness” is something most of us don’t understand because most of us are so materialist. we don’t understand why worshipping this or that is such a big deal. we do not see the power in worship. we see it all as light-hearted theatre.

but what if it’s not?

if worshipping other gods was nbd, why was it such a massive deal in the old testament? why was it such a massive deal to the martyrs? to the apostles and early church fathers? why couldn’t they just incorporate pagan gods into christianity? why couldn’t they just respectfully pay homage while still being christian? why did they prefer death?

what if the martyrs didn’t die at the fangs of beast because they had religious OCD and missed the the essence of christianity, instead getting caught up in silly infighting and technical details? but what if they preferred torture and death to compromising the purity of their worship because that is what jesus called them to do?

surely, what we worship has some effect on us. else it would not be so important. surely it is not just symbolic, but affects us in some way we are still too insensitive to recognize.

postscript:

the following is my own opinion, so take it with a big grain of salt. but what if “worship” meant something like: for what sake do you act?

if we worship jesus, we act for his sake. if we worship indra, we act for indra’s sake. if we worship money, we act for money’s sake. if we worship our own desires, we act for the sake of our own desires-- wherever they came from.

let’s say you’re a database administrator. a database administrator for the red cross would do very similar work, i would imagine, as a database administrator for ISIS. both might be doing very virtuous, honest, straightforward, work. but it would be ridiculous to think these posts are equivalent. their work is consecrated to two very different forces.

why do we do what we do? for whose sake? for what ends? if scripture is any guide, these often neglected questions are more important than we think.