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Jesus Mortal

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Saint Francis of Assisi

Italy’s povorello (“li’l pauper”) is Christianity’s most beloved medieval saint, Francis of Assisi (early 1200s). He has such a reputation for piety and peacemaking that even Protestants like him, and they’re not big on the whole “saint” business. Francis is so popular in large part because he identified closely and dramatically with Jesus the man. Consciously imitating Jesus, Francis lived as an itinerant preacher with a band of penniless disciples. For the bishops, Christ was the mighty judge who justified their wealth and power; but, for Francis, Christ was a human being and a teacher of peace. Francis followed Christ not only by assenting to creeds but by living his life like Christ’s. He even one-upped Jesus a little by adding the virtue of compassion toward animals, never one of Jesus’ themes. In 1223 at Greccio, Francis seems to have installed the first “Christmas crib,” a life-size model of baby Jesus in the feeding trough, now common in the western church. Forcefully representing God as a newborn might have been one of Francis’s most successful deeds. By the 1200s, Mary had largely replaced Jesus as the merciful god in heaven to whom one could appeal. Jesus was portrayed more often as the stern judge, with Christians imploring Mary to plead with Jesus rather than asking Jesus for mercy directly. In the long run, the repeated and adoring presentation of baby Jesus helped re-humanize Jesus, emphasizing, with Luke, his humility. Ever since, this Christmas crib has been the focal point of the nativity scene, which takes ancient imagery and displays it as models or even as live actors. Francis’s Christmas crib was the forerunner of today’s Christmas pageants, in which children dress up as angels, sheep, the holy family, and the rest.

Of all the saints that have aspired to holiness, Francis is the one who most famously imitated Jesus himself. He even reportedly developed the stigmata, wounds corresponding to the wound that Jesus suffered during his passion.

 

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table of contents you're already looking at it

introduction for the inquisitive reader

biographical overview who he was and wasn't

 

afterlife not Jesus' concern

animal sacrifice bloodless religion

apocalypse did Jesus preach hellfire?

baptism sin wash for Jesus and others

beatitudes Jesus' words and others' words

beloved disciple witness for the un-gospel

bible scripture old and new

bishop the unjesus

body focus on the physical

Buddha Jesus' close kin

charity key Christian virtue and legacy of Jesus

The Da Vinci Code secret (and false) messages

divorce women's status

dreams convenient literary device

Elijah Jewish prophet with his own second coming

equality ancient source of modern egalitarianism

exorcist Jesus and demons

failure reinterpreting Jesus as a failure

faith from trust to blind belief

father Jesus on titles of honor

Francis of Assisi the most Christlike Christian

Gandhi the 20th century's most Christly holy man

Galilee Jesus' inauspicious homeland

gentiles Jesus' inadvertent audience

god how Jesus became god

golden rule key to Jesus' success

gospels competing accounts

heaven from sky to spiritual home

hell revenge fantasy

humanism Jesus' legacy

inerrant Christian treatment of scripture

Thomas Jefferson ethics of Jesus

Jewish guilt Christian libel

John's gospel the un-gospel

John the baptist, see John the washer

John the washer Jesus' apocalyptic mentor

Judaism libeled religion of Jesus

kingdom of god what Jesus promised

Lao Tzu poet of the cosmic way

logos jesus as the word of god

C. S. Lewis famous, flawed trilemma

little drummer boy Luke beats Matthew

logos Jesus as the divine word

LORD Yahweh transitioning to the one god of all

Luke's gospel the all-around best gospel

Mark's gospel the gospel that lost its point

Mary of Magdala women, visions, and sex

massacre of the innocents bloodshed starts early

Matthew's gospel best gospel for church reading

Mormon, see Joseph Smith

Moses Jewish lawgiver

Muhammad a prophet who got it right

mystery Orpheus and transubstantiation

oppression origin of Jesus' compassion

The Passion of the Christ Luke as buzzkill

Paul revealer of the revealer

private and public public Jesus and secret Christ

relativism the secret power of the golden rule

sacrifice Jesus' death and Christian sacrament

Albert Schweitzer Jesus as a failure

sheol dark pit of death

show Jesus' deeds as put-ons

slavery abolished by Jesus' efforts

Joseph Smith flesh-and-blood Jesus

Socrates secular Jesus

son of god on close terms with the man upstairs

soul, see body

synoptics three gospels that agree

temple center of Jewish religion

trinity unifying and divisive doctrinre

vision, see dreams

Yahweh, see LORD

Zoroaster Persian dualistic holy man