Jesus Freaks

What would Jesus do?  Talk about a loaded question...  Just hearing it invokes all of the answers I've heard following it - agendas for peace, justifications for war, for conservative ideology, and liberal ideology, for helping immigrants, for rebuking gays.  So much of how people experience "Jesus" in our world relates to how He is used and symbolized by any number of these agendas.  But, how much of  people's experience with "Jesus" is based on their actual personal relationship with him?  I believe it is entirely a person's choice to believe what they will about Jesus.  However, I have a stronger opinion about when people hijack Jesus, or people's relationships with Jesus, for unrelated agendas.  Instead of lifting His name on high, they take the low road by judging others or preaching guilt to control the intensely private relationships that people have with Spirit.

As a disclaimer, I'm a Jesus freak of sorts myself.  I think the guy was pretty cool, and I'm pretty much 100% on board.  I believe that His message of pure, unconditional love for others is about our only chance for survival as a species.  I like that he told people to detach from the love of wealth, or social standing, or power, or ego, so that we all might know the endless power and rejeuvinating Spirit of God.  I am floored by his ability to discern authenticity in people and connect us with legitimate sources of power within ourselves and with God.  I believe that he saw in all people a perfect spirit, an absolute potential of God, that we only needed to unlock - something that to Him was so easy to acheive.  And yet, He still had so much patience with us.  He realized that we fell short - often - in our walks of Faith.  He forgave us, and in doing so taught us to forgive ourselves.  He wept, for the tragic consequences of our ignorance, and He smiled, for the thousand of miracles he found each day from the most unlikely places.  He freed us from the Law and the distant God of old, and united us with freedom and life through Faith.   When I feel the hope of Jesus, these are the things that light my path.  Saying all of this, that is only my path, and I won't freak out about yours.

There are many types of Jesus Freaks, and many are, in my opinion, harmless.  Just like when people get excited or passionate about anything, they have different ways of communicating that, often through their own selective lenses or insecurities.  They may project this excitement onto you, assuming that you feel the same way about Jesus that they do, or that you should.  Or they may simply just go on and on about how great Jesus is like someone who just won't stop talking about a really great band they just discovered.  Or, fearing being alone, they may encourage you follow their same path to Jesus to accompany them - and it's a way to connect to a friend.  I think that all of this is fair game, and even if people who get excited about something that you are not can be annoying, that's really your issue  - not theirs.  If you are judging someone else's choice of a path, you are diminishing them as a person and taking away their power.  More on this below...

However, there is a more extreme form of Jesus Freak who do not play fair - those who use judgement and guilt to manipulate and control others.  Even more dangerous is that some people abuse the power of Jesus and Christianity as a moral justification tool and use it for a narrow selfish agenda. I don't begrudge passion, or people's independent spiritual/religious choices.  However, it violates every thread of my spiritual world view for people to annoint themselves as God and use that position to undercut the power and legitimacy of others.  That is abuse, and is the polar opposite of what Jesus taught about unconditional love. In short, it is NOT what Jesus would do.  This type of Jesus Freak is a false prophet, and a deceiver, and is doing more to diminish and disenfranchise people from the message of Christ than anything I can imagine.