The Gospel of Failure

   

I'm a loser, baby - -

  Last weekend, I watched my kids in a production of "Godspell." I always liked the score, although it is stylistically inconsistent. It occurred to me that the young performers didn't know that it was originally a hippy musical.  As I recall, a lot of the hippies had grown up without any real knowledge of scripture or christian philosophy, and the production was supposed to be "jesus freaks" turning us on to His peaceful message of love and kindness. Back then, being a freak was not a bad thing - everybody was a freak of some kind and it was OK. The original show wasn't preachy, is was groovy.
  Anyway, after the show, I felt like writing a musical.  every time I see any kind of musical concert or production, I want to write one of whatever it is I just saw. So I'm thinking, how would one write an Atheist "Godspell?"
  Well, one would first point out that there is no heaven other than a certain feeling we have while alive.  A feeling that comes from altruism, giving, and harmony with Earth. A feeling which does not come after death but must be experienced while we are sentient.
  One could dramatize the same point as the gospel of matthew: that hypocrites and street preachers who mangle the message and commercialize spirituality miss out on heaven. Being disconnected from humanity, they have uncomfortable feelings throughout life, as if  burning.
  Then the play could explain that the slavery and misogyny in religious texts only insult humanity at this point.  Also that prophesy is now referred to as science. Which doesn't make it any less cool, or eliminate the beauty of mysterious, unknown things.

so why dont you kill me

  Finally, one would point out that Jesus failed. He screwed up his relationships and was betrayed by his best friend, Judas.  He was alone, with no family; he left no sons or daughters. The religious leaders dumped him, and the political activists he befriended lost interest after he renounced violence. He was arrested and executed as a traitor, a criminal who turned his back on his people.

  He didn't get rich, powerful, popular, or published in his own time. He was a failure, a loser. He defeated nothing.  He accomplished nothing. He was nobody's king or leader. There is no record of his carpentry skills, which means they must have been average, at best.*
  And that's the point.  The truth of the gospel message is that even inconsequential losers can know heaven WHILE THEY ARE ALIVE because altruism, kindness and love are available to everyone.  The meek, the poor, the oppressed, the sick, the cheesemakers, they can all know "heaven," but the rich can't buy their way in. Their obsession with benjamins keeps them from ever getting that amazing cosmic feeling of Enlightenment - Redemption - Nirvana.
  The original authors of the bible were trying to explain this abstruse philosophy to dumb people, so they made up the puppet show of ghosts, angels, invisible pink unicorns and a big daddy in the clouds.  The puppet show is still popular; the truth, not so much.
  It's a good show, in its own little way, the gospel. The character and/or person Jesus came into a world spiritually paralyzed by religious bureaucracy.  The jews had stupid rules for everything.  He simplified it to two - (a) love truth, (b) love each other. Ignore politics, ignore religion, ignore class, ignore power, ignore money and love truth.  Even criminals (sinners) and whores can "get into heaven" if they just embrace honesty and compassion. Screw the rules and do the right thing.  Timeless.  Excellent.

even this guy is actually jesus

   The thing is, it's 2011 - we can handle the actual message at this point, that we are, each of us, the entire universe observing itself. Christianity became an embarrassing cult of personality about Jesus.  You and I are Jesus - you and I are god - I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.
  How can there be separate religions?  Why would anybody be excluded from enlightenment, from "heaven?" Jesus ran around trying to convince everyone he met that they were in the club - that the universe was like a family with a father that rejected none of his kids.  
  Every parable attributed to christ says the same thing:  that everyone's love is acceptable - that love is always pure, perfect and excellent, and that the profanity of power, lust and avarice blocks the way to paradise on earth.
  But the theocracy, the exclusivity, the power structure built up around this innocent hippy, yecch! Those parts aren't in the book, just the made-for-capitalism movie. Somewhere along the way it was decided that the gospels could not survive as an anti-materialist rant.  Mais non! The gospel became an instrument of repression; divine instructions for the working class on how to be obedient slaves to their lord, their master, their "betters," their bosses, their bankers.
  So much baggage, oy. Religion can't be fixed, only discarded.  We have figured out a better way to give the poor and wretched a shot at redemption.  It's simple: masses of workers hold a gun to the heads of the rich haters and demand that they share.
  Say what you want about socialism, it works a lot better than prayer.



*Can you imagine what one of his chairs or armoires would go for on Antiques Roadshow? "I can see by the stamp on the bottom of this table that it was made by jesus christ. At auction, I'd say it would bring about 5 billion dollars"