Good Friday: The Empire Killed Jesus
I had wanted to write a blog post examining the various depictions and understandings of Jesus’ death that have cropped up throughout Christian history and how these depictions portray God and Jesus but because of some personal issues, that will have to wait until things settle down.
Instead, I am just going to briefly point out how the popular Christian understanding of Jesus’s death, is not only horrifically abusive but contributes to violence and oppression. The idea that God sent Jesus to die a horrific death so that individuals can say a magic prayer and avoid an eternity in hell presents God as a violent and abusive deity. This deity’s notion of “justice” is warped.
Let me get this straight: we are sinners from the day we are born, yet we are powerless to overcome our sin and atone for all the harm we are done, so although we had no say in being born, we are worthy of spending an eternity in eternal torment. And this god, who apparently is powerless to simply just forgive us because of some arbitrary notion of justice that God came up with but apparently cannot change, decided to have an innocent man tortured and murdered.
And like a blood-thirsty cannibal, this God thirsts for the blood of an innocent and perfect man, (who is somehow also God), in order to forgive humanity and help some avoid hell. (But only those who say a magic prayer)
I’m sorry, in addition to being logically incomprehensible, why would anyone want to worship a god that seems to thrive off of the torture and death of an innocent person? Furthermore, this understanding of Jesus’ death disregards the majority of Jesus’s ministry.
Jesus, who had advocated and ushered in a new kingdom to nonviolently overthrow the kingdom of the world, is reduced to a sacrificial lamb. The promise of liberation for the poor and marginalized in this world, because a vague promise of redemption in the next life. Instead of advocating for an end to the oppression and violence in this world, many Christians who hold onto this view, end up perpetrating violence against the marginalized.
This understanding of Jesus’s death feeds into the myth of violence as redemptive-a myth that benefits empire since all empire knows how to sow seeds of death and destruction. This understanding of Jesus’s death asserts that violence and the death of innocents can lead to a more just world.
We see this horrific theology play out during the War in Terror. The War on Terror was justified using language of bringing terrorists to justice and military action was presented as being able to usher in a new world where terrorism is no more and democracy reigns supreme
Hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered, but their deaths rendered as necessary for the greater good. The myth of redemptive violence, perpetrated by this understanding of Jesus’s death enables oppression and injustice, it doesn’t end it.
I’m not interested in worshiping an abusive, violent god who thrives on the torture and death of the innocent. The god that sacrifices Jesus in order to offer conditional forgiveness and redemption is a cruel abuser and murderer.
Instead, I don’t believe God killed Jesus, rather the forces of empire did. The forces of violence, oppression, and hatred killed Jesus. Jesus died because the forces of empire decreed it and needed it, not because God did. Did Jesus have to die?
According to the systems of injustice and domination yes. But these systems promise death and destruction to all those who dare push against them. In fact, these systems continue to kill and destroy: we see this in the continued murder of Black and brown people by law enforcement whose only crime is daring to exist, we see this in the continued oppression of members of the LGBTQ+ community who, by simply existing and loving, challenge the gendered and heteronormative status quo.
Jesus’s death is unique in how normal it is. Being murdered by the empire, both in the 1st century and today is commonplace. And what Christianity teaches is that Jesus, or God incarnate, loved humanity so much that God sought to open our eyes to a new reality: one where justice and liberation could be had for all. And in the process ended up dying a death reserved for the marginalized. The banality of Jesus’s death is what makes it so powerful.
God through Jesus didn’t die a spectacular, heroic death, that emphasized God’s power, but instead a death that emphasized the empire’s stronghold. But by dying that death, God paradoxically exposed the limitations and weaknesses of the empire.
Jesus’s death doesn’t bring us liberation from a hell created by God, instead it brings us liberation from the forces of evil whose only purpose is to oppress.
