Exclusive Jesus?

"...I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

-John 14:6-

This, almost certainly, is the most misquoted saying of Jesus. Christendom misquotes these words left right and centre when defending it's exclusivist religious views.

First of all, this quote above is not a statement, it is an answer to a question. In context, Jesus is telling his disciples that he must go away, but that they know where he is going, and they know the way to get there. Thomas says to him, "We don't know where you are going, how can we know the way to get there?" Jesus answers with the above quoted words.

Think about this for a minute, you ask someone: "Where are you going? How can I get there?" and they respond with, "I am the way to where I am going." Is that a straightforward answer? If you ask me the way to Toronto and I say, "I am the way to Toronto", is that a clear answer? Obviously not. It would cause you to pause, and ponder what I am trying to say to you. So, why is it then, that Christendom takes this puzzling answer of Jesus to Thomas' question, and quotes it as if it were some straightforward saying of Jesus? Because it wishes it was. Jesus said it to cause the disciples to ponder deeply the implications of the words. Christendom would do much better to ponder deeply this answer to Thomas' question, rather than spout it to the doubtful as if it were some self-explanatory statement.

But what DID Jesus intend to convey with these words? Maybe we should ask: How can a person be a "way"? Doesn't the way you live your life, isn't your lifestyle, the path that leads you into your future destination? Jesus stated that he was leaving and going "to the Father". He had been living in a self-sacrificial way in the presence of his disciples for some time. This lifestyle, this path, brought about a closeness to God, and now Jesus would make the final steps of that journey with his physical death. The way he lived was, in itself, "the way to the Father".

The problem for the disciple is not that they do not know how to get to the proper destination, it is that they refuse to put into practice the proven method the master has revealed and exemplified for them.

Christendom wants to be the exclusive path to God. It wants to have a Jesus who is exclusively superior. This is the ego at work. Christendom, by failing to lay down it's life/ego to find God, tries to find God with the ego. It is no surprise that due to this, it sees Jesus as also making such egoistic and exclusive statements.

What happens then, is that a statement that essentially means: "Die to your ego like I have demonstrated for you", becomes: "I am the only one who can fix your relationship with God".

Christendom thinks that it is plausible that Jesus would make such an ego filled statement because it itself, though blind to it, lives it's life under the control of the ego.

What happens here is not that Christendom loses it's ego in submitting to the ego of Jesus, no, it bolsters it's ego by masking it with his (supposed) ego. He, in this type of Christianity, is like the leader of a street gang. Everyone who joins submits to his power, and so their ego merges into the gang-ego. The gang itself becomes one's identity, one's protection, one's validation. This fact that the member does not lay down his ego, but instead bolsters it by hiding it with the identity of the leader, is made plain by an easily observed fact: non-members see members not as humble people, but just the opposite. If becoming Christian was really about following the core teaching of Jesus (humble yourself), then humility would be the distinguishing feature of a Christian. Seeing that humility is not the distinguishing mark of a Christian in the world's eyes, and in fact the opposite is the distinguishing mark, an honest person will admit that there must be something rotten in Denmark. Let's be honest with ourselves, in the opening quote above, is Jesus essentially saying; "The path of selflessness that I have modeled for you is the only path to God", or is he saying, "My dad can beat up your dad"?

Christendom has been espousing the "toughest dad" theory for 2000 years. Maybe it is time to revisit this interpretation?

Yes, Jesus is the only way, because Jesus was/is the embodiment of selflessness and humility. This has nothing at all to do with adopting a belief system such as Christianity. CHRISTIANITY on the other hand is not the "only way", because it's distinguishing mark to outsiders is not humility and selflessness. Sadly, to those outside it, Christianity represents the very opposite: arrogance, hypocrisy, smugness, etc.

Being a Christian can often make it very difficult to follow Jesus. Following Jesus is essential to finding God, because "following Jesus" is following a way of life. A person can follow Jesus and be a Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, or whatever. In fact, I would argue that no one can be a good Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist without being a follower of Jesus. Being a Christian is not essential to finding God, because Christianity has divorced itself from the need for humility and selflessness. Christianity has dug in it's heels to proclaim it's belief system as holding the unique power of salvation for mankind. They didn't learn this from Jesus, because he did not promote any belief system whatsoever. Christianity claims to have a path to God that is exclusive, but by this very exclusiveness, it divorces itself from the core teaching of Jesus. Why so? Because exclusiveness cannot co-exist with true humility. If a Christian could stop preaching Christianity, and focus on imitating Jesus, maybe the world around them would find their witness more compelling.

A good strong dad doesn't go around beating up other dads, he befriends them for the sake of the children's future.