JESUS - The Disturbing Prophet
We live in a world full of inequality, where half of our human family go to bed hungry each night and most of us who live in the Wealthier West eat and consume far too much. In many ways this has been the perennial truth for most of the past 8 thousand years. Those who hold power are mostly invested in keeping power and only 'share' whenever it is expedient.
I was reflecting on this and the consequential slow march of progress for the majority. I came across some notes I made whilst attending an event with Diarmuid O Murchu late last year. He had mentioned a South African Theologian , Albert Nolan OP , a Dominican Priest . Nolan , has written many books about Jesus and has focused on the similarities between 1st Century Palestine and late 20th Century South Africa. He sets Jesus in a context before Christianity and calls Jesus ' The Subversive Prophet ' As a Christian , I found the following quote from Nolan very powerful and compelling.
The Disturbing & Subversive Prophet
' It would have been impossible for the people of Jesus' time to have thought of him as an eminently religious man who steered clear of political action. They would have seen him as a blasphemously irreligious man who, under the cloak of religion, was undermining all the values upon which religion, politics , economics and society were based. He was a dangerous and subtly subversive revolutionary' Albert Nolan OP
It seems ironic and , to me, sad that the followers of Jesus could so readily become part of the Establishment and fail to both remember and live out his teachings on Social Justice, particularly for the poor, the stranger and the marginalised.
Seeking Together - Helping to Create - A Planetary Vision and a Universal Heart of Compassion
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