I am not a Christian.

A fervent believer in God and the extant importance of higher order and morality, I have not been a Christian (or a devotee of any organized religion) since late 1992 or early 1993, when I had a religious crisis in the midst of a Catholic mass while attending Catholic school on the north coast of Oregon. I believe I’ve discussed this on this webpage (this or Introspection) before, but the catalytic event was the internalization of the cross being a symbol of execution, the corresponding revelation that had Jesus been shot, the silhouette of a firearm would hang in the front of and atop the rooftop of every church in Christendom. Suddenly my many misgivings with Christian theology seemed entirely manifest in this grave miscalculation in emphasis and focus. The rest was history, and I rapidly became unable to deal with churches or Christianity for a good long while.

But I’ve always loved Good Friday, one of the few remaining redeeming* observances of the Christian calendar. I’ve often thought of constructing a calendar of my own patchwork faith, and Good Friday and Yom Kippur would be highlighted holidays… perhaps the only two to survive from widely regarded modern religions.

You can see in those two particular days a pretty distinctive theme… there is something to be said for religion’s ability to evoke passionate* sadness and soul-searching in the lives of its individuals. Organized religions, by the very virtue of their attempts to be popularly appealing, tend to shy away from this kind of reverent introspection and focus on suffering at all times. But single moments, a single day carved out of the bulwark, are reserved for the solemn observance of life’s sorrows and a corresponding rededication to doing what one can to limit them.

Much of Christian theology tries to backtrack from this seemingly original intent of Good Friday… even the name “Good” Friday indicates a problematic attempt to wash over the sadness of Jesus’ death with the “long view” and heavy foreshadowing of the Easter to come. Maybe it’s a little like the stock market and its infinite faith in endless rebounding resurrection of value and confidence. Not to make light of Jesus’ plight, but then again, I have qualms with the resurrection story and certainly don’t believe that Jesus was more than an extremely compassionate leader who offered hope before being killed tragically. Which is no small accomplishment – few individuals live such lives and they are frankly the most valuable and important people in our planet’s history. But they are not uniquely divinely chosen… they are instead exemplars of what any of us could accomplish with the right dedication: what we should all be attempting. My strong belief is that Jesus, like Gandhi (the other prime person in this hallowed company), personally rejected any attempts to deify him. Tragically, the world may never know.

The tragedy is removed from the “good” interpretation of this annual Friday. The reinterpretation imposed by those who were in the business of making a religion was that everything was foreordained and that it was a deliberate, calculated sacrifice. There tends to be little examination of what this would actually imply holistically and theologically in Christianity, and the focus is usually shifted instead to an examination of Jesus’ incredible fortitude in willingly initiating such a sacrifice. Granted, this focal point is extremely compelling and one of my favorite aspects of Good Friday. But it overlooks the larger implication about what sort of God would be doing this.

It’s really hard to imagine what sort of point God would be trying to tease out of a foreordained intentional sacrifice like this. Obviously martyrdom is a pretty good way of inspiring people and gathering followers to a person and their beliefs. But much of the strength of martyrdom is that it cuts short a life intended to be lived in full. Most martyrs (Gandhi being a notable exception) are young and have their brightest accomplishments ahead of them. The tragedy and outrage of their being taken is that their incredible leadership and good work is stolen. And thus those who remain to mourn are charged with taking up the work that was done. Even older martyrs, like Gandhi, usually have some intrinsic value to offer whatever process they were leading in the first place. It is hard to imagine, for example, that he could not have had a hand in smoothing tensions which ensued between India in Pakistan subsequent to his passing.

So Jesus as a deliberate martyr achieves much of this (and indeed, the legacy is Christianity, which is a pretty extensive story of people attempting to take up Jesus’ work, with extremely mixed results and intents), but in a very calculating and even devious way. If we are presented with this as being the plan from the beginning, then God comes across, at best, as a conniving strategist. Willing (indeed designing) to sacrifice his own lone offspring to a tortuous end that cuts short his potential for good work in order to create some sort of visceral parable for people to agonize over. Imagine, if you will, a report coming out that agents behind the Civil Rights movement actually planned Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination with MLK’s personal knowledge and consent. Or that Gandhi, or maybe John Lennon, were covertly set up by their own supporters so their message might resonate more loudly with the people. Would this strengthen or hinder your reverence for such individuals? For their cause?

I don’t believe that Jesus was uniquely chosen by God, but I do believe he was a person who chose to develop his relationship with God at a quite advanced level. He notably spoke as being the “son of man”… I’m not familiar enough with the interpretations and translations and history and have little interest in devoting my energy to Biblical scholarship, but everything I’ve deduced seems to make it clear to me that his message was that we are all the children of both God and humans, that we all are capable of this relationship, that we all can strive for the highest moral achievement. And his preaching and teaching seems to embody much of what such achievement would look like.

And so I mourn this man’s death… not because some coldly mathematical deity drew up this chess move, but because his death was untimely and tragic (and went on to create so many misunderstandings).

The story of the day of death itself is tortured, troubling, and likely clouded over the years by political motives which corrupted original accounts. Some say he answered no questions, refusing to acknowledge the authority of those attempting to judge him. Others say that he insisted upon being the son of God (though again, my interpretation of this holds that he would say this of anyone). The depiction of the Jewish masses in their treatment of Jesus is almost certainly a reflection of Christian founders’ aims in competing with Judaism on the religious playing field, though there is something to be said for concepts of desertion and betrayal from one’s own people. After all, Gandhi was shot by a Hindu, a man sharing his faith. The complicity or outright force of the Roman Empire is also minimized in most accounts from what we can imagine Empire really doing to a dangerous threat to their authority and control. (And again, motives come into play when considering the eventual Roman conversion to Christianity.)

Still, there are compelling images of the account that offer those little introspective tidbits of somber reflection. The many insults and mockeries, from his own people and/or government. The irrationality of a mob, the inefficacy of retributive justice. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. The beseeching of God in times of crisis, recognizing that God is not an interventionist at any time. A support, a powerful baseline reserve of spiritual energy, but never an interventionist. Perhaps the most powerful (and accurate) statement of a compelling image of God and God’s role in human existence that Christianity ever achieves is embodied in the fact that God does not directly intervene to save Jesus. Sadly, the only way that doctrine can interpret this is the grandmaster strategist angle. But the truth embodied there is really about the fundamental predicate of free will and the resulting conclusion that God never intervenes directly in human affairs, no matter how dire.

That’s a harder lesson to swallow. Maybe you’d rather believe in a God that connives and manipulates but is at least intervening somehow. You’d be in good (“Good”?) – or at least larger – company. But in my opinion, you’d be making a mistake. Better to recognize the incredible respect God bestows in all of us in granting us the power to do literally anything, no matter how good or bad, harmful or helpful, tragic or calculated.

A good Friday to you.

*-indicates pun intended