Basic Understanding
March 30, 2009 • By John Sutter, The Breeze
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Author takes historical perspective on religion
HARRISONBURG, Va. — Jesus doesn’t have to have the “baggage” of religion attached.
Rick James, the author of “Jesus Without Religion,” told this to a crowd of around 300 JMU students while explaining the teachings of Jesus and the Gospels on Thursday. Campus Crusade for Christ brought James to gain a different perspective on Jesus and what his teachings mean.
“It really isn’t rocket science, you should be able to understand what [Jesus Christ] said,” James said.
James, a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, decided to enter the ministry after a career as a television advertising developer. He said he left the field of advertising after he realized he was creating and selling deception. James said he noticed people began marketing Jesus about 10 years ago and decided to try and simplify the meaning of Jesus.
“When I started, it had gotten increasingly difficult to understand the basics of Christianity,” James said. “What sells magazines are crazy and controversial stories about Jesus Christ.”
Through his book and his lectures, James tries to make Christianity and the teachings of Jesus easier to understand. James said he is not trying to convert people or preach to those who aren’t searching for God, but rather show those who are searching for Jesus the simplicity of his teachings.
“I came in tonight looking for a different twist on how he was going to present Christ,” said Rusty Bays, a sophomore history major.
Ben LoPresti (’06), JMU Campus Crusade for Christ staff member, said that it’s very easy to attach religious and moralistic baggage to Jesus.
“His vision is to strip the baggage away and look at who Jesus Christ was apart from what Christians may say now,” LoPresti said.
James, who was speaking to a homogenous crowd of Cru members, primarily discussed why Jesus does not come across clearly as being God and why faith is always the issue in Christianity. According to James, Jesus never says he’s a human God in the Bible. If it were obvious that Jesus was God, humans wouldn’t have free will to make their choices and would rely on Jesus to make all decisions.
“If Jesus were here and he was a glowing 500-foot fireball wearing a jersey saying God, we would not have any free will,” James said.
In order to make his points more understandable, James created an analogy between abstract art and the teachings of Jesus. James argued that Jesus is not an exact photograph of God and his purpose is not to be God, but an abstraction of God.
“People who have a heart for truth will look and say, ‘you know what that is? That’s the essence of God,’” James said.
James closed his lecture by comparing Christianity with other major world religions. He pointed out that Christianity is the only religion in the world that works on the principle of first being forgiven and then going out and doing good things.
“God does for us what we could not do for ourselves,” James said.
Members of the audience received the lecture well and some said that his talk further strengthened their beliefs.
“It was very much along the lines of what I believe and he reinforced what I believe and gave further information to back it up,” said Shelley Pierce, a junior interior design major.
Mike Benoit, a sophomore psychology major, felt that James presented a good, unbiased point of view of what Jesus preached and what he spoke about.
“Definitely reinforced what I already believe as a Christian and it was a nice, simple way of looking at the Gospel message of Jesus Christ,” Benoit said.
Contact John Sutter at sutterjj@jmu.edu
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