Jesus did not really intend to die for us or our sins.

Jesus died for others, he died for us!

Um, no he didn’t.

People have died in war, died for others. In WWII millions died to set others free, soldiers and resistance both. In the Civil War thousands died to set others free.

People die every day on the job, for others. Policemen and firemen die to save others. Every year miners die to give us electrical power. Marie Curie gave her life exploring the medical uses of radioactivity.

People die to help their people: Cicero in ancient Rome, Gandhi, Joan of Arc, Benigno Aquino in the Philippines, hundreds in Tiananmen, countless dead to free Ireland, Anna Politovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko fighting Russian tyranny.

People die to secure rights for others: Martin Luther King, Medger Evers, the freedom riders, the early union organizers, Harvey Milk, Alan Berg fighting white supremacists, George Tiller protecting reproductive rights for women – neatly enough, all the folks that the Jesus people hated. Rosemary Nelson died for human rights in Ireland; Bint al-Huda was killed by Saddam Hussein while trying to educate Iraqi girls.

Anwar Sadat died for peace; Yitzhak Rabin too. Leo Ryan died trying to investigate the Jim Jones cult.

These people died for others.

Jesus did not die for others. Jesus died because he showed up at the holiest site in Israel and began whipping and beating people with a rope, overturning tables as he went: he trashed the place in a premeditated attack. He pulled a nutty and did something really stupid, right in the middle of a Roman army which was already paranoid because thousands of Jews were flooding into Jerusalem for the Passover events. An army commanded by a Roman governor with a known track record of liberally applying the death penalty for people who irritated him, especially the endless stream of Jewish “messiahs”. And Jesus saved no one, because God, heaven, hell and original sin don’t exist -- they are tools which priests use to terrify ignorant people into obedience.

So, you want to emulate Jesus? Emulate his life, helping the sick and the poor, preaching tolerance and humility. It is his admirable life, not his stupid death, which gives his name any meaning. 


A truly striking text occurs in the first epistle of Peter, Jesus’ chosen successor. Peter admits that that whole story of Jesus rising from the dead, so people could see him and touch him and feed him food, and then flying off into the sky – never happened. Peter admits that Jesus was dead, and only his “spirit” lived on. 1 Peter 3:18.  

And as for his intent....

Jesus had a few anger issues. He was constantly bickering with the priests, he told the whole town of Capernaum to go to hell, he used his Jesus Powers to kill a fig tree for no sensible reason, and of course he trashed the temple in a fit of rage, a key factor in his execution. Perhaps Jesus was angry because, at least according to the gospels, he was regularly in danger. Like John before him and Paul after him, mobs and priests regularly tried to attack him. In his own hometown the locals tried to throw him off a cliff.

Notwithstanding the doctrinal belief that Jesus fully intended to be executed in accordance with God’s will, Jesus went to great lengths to stay alive: he fled from scary crowds, he ran away to Galilee when he heard of John the Baptist’s execution and then again when the priests tried to kill him, he tried to avoid his destiny in the garden of Gethsemane, he played word games with Caiaphas and Pilate to avoid execution, and then on the cross he complained that God had forgotten him. If Jesus had really intended to be martyred, he would have walked right into Jerusalem and blasphemed right in front of Caiaphas and Pilate: there would have been no need to hire a spy for thirty pieces of silver, to smoke him out.

Or perhaps Jesus’ anger stemmed from post-traumatic stress. When he was a child, on a road trip with his family, he wandered off to preach in the temple. His parents left unwittingly him there and spent a day travelling back toward home, before they realized he was missing. The future Messiah was….misplaced by the Virgin Mary.

So if Jesus wasn’t really divine, and didn’t really die for our sins….what is left of Christianity?