Churches recently raise questions about Jesus
Date
12/31/2024 4:41:41 AM
(MENAFN) The story of Jesus' birth is well known: born in a manger because there was no room in Bethlehem, Jesus' family fled to Egypt to escape the government's threat to his life. But what if Jesus were born today, 2,000 years later? How would society receive him and his family? Would we recognize his humanity and divinity, or would we treat him as the Roman Empire did? If his family had been forced to flee violence and seek refuge in our lands, what kind of welcome would they have received? A few churches have recently raised these questions and depicted them in nativity scenes, where Jesus and his family are shown separated and imprisoned in cages, surrounded by barbed wire. These scenes serve as a reminder that Jesus' birth story speaks to the modern world—a world where his life and teachings have been overshadowed by politics, secularism, materialism, and war, all influenced by powerful, unseen forces.
In today’s church, there has been a shift away from applying Jesus' teachings to contemporary issues like war, poverty, and migration. However, throughout history, individuals have asked, "What would Jesus do?" Dietrich Bonhoeffer questioned how Jesus would respond to the atrocities of Hitler, and he paid with his life for resisting the Nazi regime. Alexander Solzhenitsyn pondered what Jesus would have done in the Soviet labor camps, and he used his voice to speak out against government repression. Martin Luther King Jr. wondered what Jesus would have said about the Vietnam War, and he risked his life to publicly oppose it. Despite the popularity of the question "What would Jesus do?" in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect between Jesus' teachings and the modern church's response to suffering, particularly that of the "least of these," as described in Matthew 25. Jesus was clear in his views on giving, mercy, war, tyranny, and love, and his teachings remain a challenge for today's world.
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