B. U. G. S.

I stole the above title from the title of a book by CS Lewis that I have read several times.

I don’t mind stealing it from him because he stole it from Queen Elizabeth I.

Queen Elizabeth, who spoke fluent Latin, French, Welsh and a couple of other tongues, proudly referred to herself as “mere English.” Only if you understand the historical context do you understand what a radical statement this was.

All the other monarchs thought of themselves as monarchs first and monarchs only. The King of Spain was a King who happened to be in Spain. The King of France was a King who happened to be in France. Butit was taken for granted that the monarch was OWED loyalty fromt he state he ruled. He OWED a fellow Frenchman no more loyalty than he owed his subjects in Haiti.

Queen Elizabeth said she owed LOYALTY to the English because SHE was English. They responded by being fanatically loyal to her.

So when CS Lewis used the term “Mere Christianity” he did not explain it. He expected that those who could understand WOULD understand.

Peter and I have been discussing the difference between Christianity loaded down with all the baggage every church puts on it and the belief that Christ arose from the dead and gave us salvation.

So what if we cut all the crap and looked at what Jesus said. When I was young in the Bible Belt, the words of Jesus were in red.

Most of what Jesus said is lost. But what we have comes from a very carefully written first-century text, lost or burned, called “The Sayings of Our Lord.”

First, what if we cut the crap and read what he SAID.

Second, what if we cut the crap and read what he said for what he MEANT.

First of all, you don’t have to drive yourself nuts worrying about the fact that most of us are 99% atheist. Jesus kept urging us to have faith. When St. Thomas, the originial Doubting Thomas, had to stick his hand into the wound on Jesus’s side to believe in the Resurrection, Jesus didnot say, “Thomas you are damned for your doubts.”

Jesus said that Thomas was an Apostle, a SAINT, but that those who believed without putting their hand into their wound were even MORE blessed.

If I doubt, and I can’t put my hand into Christ’s wounds, am I therefore damned?

Not according to Christ. I am trying to be better than a saint. You don’t haev to be better than a saint to be saved, or Jesus will be very, very lonely up there.

Then you read the text for the things that Jesus HAD to say.

All the Old Testament fanatics keep quoting Jesus when he said he believed in the Old Testament.

When I point out that if he hadn’t said that, he would have lynched onthe spot, theologians say, That’s true, meanwhile….”

There is no “meanwhile.”

All my life in professional politics, in fact, all my life in society, I have had to repeat things that I either did not believe or did not care about. Seldom did I face people who would kill me onthe spot if I DIDN’T say those things.

So I sift through Jesus’s sayings, discounting what he HAD to say.

I get the idea that he wanted me to have SOME faith that he said I needed to follow TWO commandments.

There is absolutely nothing else THERE.

Jesus tried to tell us to be decent people and he wold save us.

If there is more to Christianity then I reject it totally.

Today in order to do unto others as I would have them do unto to me, there is nothing even vaguely in the same category as saving my race.

Not fetuses, not The Immaculate Conception of Mary, not Feeding the Hungry, who, UNLESS YOU USE WHITE TECHNOLOGY, we have with us always.

I am a Mere Christian.

If you ask for more, I will not give it.

If you ask for more, you do not understand the Faith.