Cy Kellett - A Teacher of Strange Things: Who Jesus Was, What He Taught, and Why People Still Follow Him

A Nonfiction Book by Cy Kellett

A TEACHER OF STRANGE THINGS

Who Jesus Was, What He Taught, & Why People Still Follow Him

2021 Cy Kellett

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For Missy, who else?

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are (1 John 3:1).

With gratitude to my parents, Jo Anne and Cyril, for my life, for my six brothers and sisters, and, more than I can ever say, for handing on to me the Faith as they received it, in the one Lord, Jesus, who makes all things new.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:25).

INTRODUCTION

Modern life includes this strange realityin the midst of it are millions of people who claim that they have a personal relationship with a man who died 2,000 years ago.

These people are treated as a normal part of the world. They are acceptable as movie stars, politicians, schoolteachers, doctors, and so on.

In courts of law, their testimony is considered as reliable as anyone elses.

And yet they say that this ancient man, Jesus, was raised from the dead, is still alive (is, in fact, alive forever), and is their friend.

We can see why this sometimes drives atheists and secularists to exasperation. They must ask themselves, Am I the only one bothered by this? Doesnt anyone else see how weird it is that all around us are people who claim to know a dead man of the ancient world?

Certainly, part of the reason that this claim of friendship with Jesus is acceptable even in the modern world is that it is not a new thing. People tend to be respectful of things that have been around for a long time. And, what is more, even the secular person has to admit that Christians generally behave themselves. For the most part, they contribute to civic life and go along with progress.

They are only dangerous (to the secularist way of thinking) when they get in the way of progress. In the eighteenth century, for instance, the complaint was that Christians got in the way of political revolutions. In the early twentieth century, the complaint was that they got in the way of economicespecially socialistrevolutions. More recently, especially with the broad acceptance of evolutionary biology and with medical innovations in birth control, abortion, and embryonic research, the complaint has been that Christians get in the way of science.

Still, for the most part, Christians dont go out of their way to make trouble, and, because their beliefs are ancient, they get a pass when it comes to their head-scratching ideas about Jesus.

I suspect that its also the case that, recently, secularists have comforted themselves with the notion that belief in Jesus is on its way out. This strange situationa modern world filled with so many people who cling to the pre-modern claim that Jesus is alivecant go on forever.

To some extent, they have been right. A good portion of the world has undergone or is undergoing a process of de-Christianizing. But even this de-Christianizing hasnt entirely done the trick. Every day, new people are claiming that Jesus lives and that they know him, and in some places where de-Christianizing had looked quite successful, there are signs of re -Christianizing.

And wherever people claim to have met Jesus, they also report that their life has become more contented and more peaceful. They are happier.

No, life as a follower of Jesus does not suddenly lose its frustrations, nor do evils disappear, but even amid the hurts and wrongs of the world a new thing becomes present in the follower of Jesus, at least if their testimony is to be believed. This new thing lightens hearts and opens new possibilities.

To the propagandists of the modern world, this happiness must be a great lie or at least a delusion, and so they caricature Christian joy as if Christians were actually secretly creepy or twisted. Likewise, the real history of Christian culture is often distorted by those who cannot accept that followers of Jesus are really as happy and at peace as they claim. They exaggerate the violence and venality of Christian society and excuse the far harsher violence and venality of pre-Christian society in order to deny a reality that is obvious to any sane person: in countless families and tribes, nations and cultures, wherever the story of Jesus took root, a new element appeared in the alloy of culture, giving it new potentials.

This, too, is part of the strangeness of the story of Jesus. Wherever it takes root, society becomes manifestly less violent, more educated, and generally happier; but somehow the world spends a lot of time saying the opposite. It is almost as if there were a spirit loose in this world of resistance to Jesus.

But even in a society, like ours, that refuses to recognize its own history, the name of Jesus does not fade. Even as our society reduces Christianity to a marginal role, the story of Jesus risen from the dead is still shared, and people continue to claim that they have met him, that he has changed their lives, and that he is their friend.

You simply cannot claim to be an open-minded and rational adult without, at least once, giving this strange reality fair consideration.

Likewise: given the claims made about Jesus, his extraordinary teachings, and his towering place in world history, a reasonable adult really cant go through life without giving these things open-minded consideration, at least once.

Yet many try. Why?

Part of the reason may be that there is so much emotion and cultural strife surrounding him. Even those who develop an interest in finding out about Jesus might remain silent about their interest in order to protect themselves from the avalanche of other peoples feelings and opinions that will surely fall on them if they ask even the smallest question about Jesus.

There is something reasonable about this. Modern society is constantly being swept by fads and movements, which is tiring. The person who does not jump at every claim is often the most prudent.

But Jesus is not one of those fads or movements. He far predates all of that, and his influence has persisted for so long that it calls upon us to overcome our reluctance and think the whole thing through, as I said, at least once. The Jesus phenomenon is strange in its origins and in its consequences. Whatever happened in Judea around the year 30, it is utterly unique. Nothing like it has happened before or since.

And although we can also see plainly that Christians have become corrupt again and again, and that the name of Jesus has been abused by preachers, politicians, and prudes, the allure of the man himself (and of the saints, artists, thinkers, and ordinary people whom he inspired) presses each of us for a response.