I start from the proposition that an educated person strives to learn from great books.
Regardless of your religious or spiritual bent there's some wonderful things to read in the Bible. You don't have to read the whole thing, believe or have faith that it's true. Take it with a grain of salt, bounce it against you own philosophy, take what you like.
If you don't like any of it at least you will have a better educational background that may help understand the Judeo/Christian background threaded through our society. I'd start with the New Testament and maybe the Old Testament Psalms and Proverbs. If you get too far into some parts of the bible, say the Book of Revelation for example, you probably need a guide which sort of spoils it for me. I like to read things that mean something to me (without someone having to tell me what they are supposed to mean).
Many non-Christians treat Jesus as a great historical teacher. If you just take a look at the New Testament with that perspective it can be educational and sometimes moving.
For example in the New Testament, Paul's letter to the Ephesians is beautifully written -
"Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
Paul lived in the first century and although referred to as an apostle, he was not a contemporary of Jesus. His birth name was Saul. He is also referred to as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul. He was born in Tarsus, an area in present day Turkey, in 3 A.D.
In the first part of his life he was generally an unholy terror, persecuting early Christians and having them thrown into prison. He had a revelation on the Road to Damascus so dramatic that he converted to Christianity and became a strong advocate of the teachings of Jesus.
After his conversion he was known as Paul and created some of the most loving words ever written, presented as a series of letters to various early congregations of Christians.
Paul story is one of
redemption and the redeeming power of love
In chapter 13 of his first letter to the people of Corinth he writes -
Love,
1: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2: And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4: Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5: it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6: it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8: Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9: For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13: So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Source: Great Books.org
Speaking of Great Books, I took a Great Books class years ago at Eastern Montana College, to give me something to do at night while I was in cooking school during the day. For lack of better words, that class was great.
I highly recommend a Great Books discussion group/class to anyone who has an opportunity. It's one thing to read and think by yourself about great books...another thing altogether to do so with a group of people.
We didn't talk about Jesus in that class but we did talk about Leo Tolstoy, another Christian of interest when it comes to redemption. Leo was a rambling gambling wild man early on in life. He went through a period of severe depression and came out the other side with a different point of view. He evolved to became a pacifist, vegetarian, anarchist, Christian.
After his redemption he spent the rest of his life helping those who needed help by giving them food/money/shelter, developing comprehensive philosophical worldviews, and writing some of the greatest novels and short stories of all time. I'm not an expert on Tolstoy, having read only a few of his shorter works, but from what I have read I'd agree he's in the top ten or so as far as making us think.
He died at the age of 82 shortly after he had decided to abandon all his wealth and take up the life of a wandering ascetic.
Leo Tolstoy's book The Death of Ivan Ilych is a story of redemption. You may recognize the quote concerning the central character who it was said lived a life "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible."
Ivan Ilych was a common man, educated at a school of law, who became a magistrate in the civil service. He had a fairly ordinary life, married, and was not particulary happy or unhappy. At the fairly young age of 45 he was diagnosed with inoperable, terminal, cancer and died after a fairly prolonged period of suffering. At the very very end of his life he has a revelation and is redeemed. I won't spoil the story for you...
Leo Tolstoy was a major influence on Mahatma Gandhi.
I like these quotes attributed to Gandhi,
"The only people on earth who do not see Christ and His teachings as nonviolent are Christians."
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
"There are many causes I am prepared to die for but no causes I am prepared to kill for."
Source: The Story of My Experiments with Truth - Mahatma Gandhi
Wrapping this up I have to say it's surprising how "radical" Christianity in the form of Paul, Leo and Mahatma is. It may amaze some people (like me) that Christianity and Anarchism can be connected.
If someone says the word anarchist we tend to think wild eyed-Starbuck's-windowbreaking-bandana wearing-WTO protestor. Maybe that's just me that thinks that :-)
Some Christian Anarchists have ideas that ring true. For my money if thinkers like Henry David Thoreau, Soren Kierkagaard, Leo Tolstoy, Daniel Berrigan, and Thomas Merton saw some merit in these ideas, they are worth consideration.
The Catholic Worker Movement page has a nice summary of the philosophy of this particular form of Christian Anarchism and this page some history of the movement.
The things these guys are teaching are very radical, very dangerous.....
to governments, banks, businesses, warmakers and a lot of organized religions.
I love to hitch my wagon to the great ones though. The Christianity of the televangel or the politician is generally not my cup of tea. Anyone who proposes divisiveness, hate, violence, or killing as justified or a solution, would be well served to review what these thinkers have to say.
Peace
Redemption Song
from
and a very sad but courageous story about war
