This is excellent writing about the real Jesus vs. who Babylon has created Him to be. I'm so thankful I have a pastor who preaches about the dangerous, uncompromising One.
There is a lot that is good here but there is more to see. The Lord didn't overturn tables and cuss out Pharisees because He wanted us to overturn tables and cuss out Pharisees.(I don't do those things because it is part of some plan, I just do it because I like it.) He did those things for one specific reason:To goad a lot of institutional 'conservatives'(in the worst possible use of the word) into doing something more dramatic and radical than anybody else can get a bunch of dramatic radicals to do, murder Messiah. The Prophets being murdered isn't a bug, it isn't even a feature, it's the whole point. If He wanted His servants to fight the system and prevent what has been done to Him then that would have happened. He was very clear with Pilate that that was miles away from what He was doing. Putting the enemies in charge of the church's business is a tradition with the most excellent provenance going back to Jesus Christ Ministries Inc. first CFO Judas Iscariot. It is no accident. It is good that you are offended at the institutional Jesus I am too. But we must both go farther and see that the radical Jesus offends us no less.
Rocka, you are pointing at something very real: a great deal of contemporary Christianity has turned Jesus into a mascot for institutional comfort and cultural respectability. You are right that the Lord of the Gospels is not a tame therapist who blesses every status quo. He did confront religious hypocrisy, greed, and cowardice. He did overturn tables, call out “whitewashed tombs,” and refuse to trim His message to keep donors or authorities happy. If people never feel disturbed or challenged when they read the Gospels, they are not paying attention.
But in exposing that problem, you often replace it with another distortion: a sharp opposition between “Jesus” and “the institution,” as if the very existence of visible structure, doctrine, sacraments, and authority were proof of Babylonian capture. The same Christ who overturned tables also told people to “do and observe whatever they tell you” when the scribes sat on Moses’ seat, even as He denounced their hypocrisy. The same Christ who challenged the temple economy also went up to Jerusalem for the feasts, taught there, and submitted to the Father’s will on the cross. And after His Resurrection, He didn’t leave behind a loose network of free agents; He entrusted authority to apostles, gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter, sent the Twelve to teach and baptize all nations, and promised to be with His Church “all days, even to the end of the age.” The New Testament Church has bishops, elders, councils, discipline, and doctrine. That is not a later betrayal of Jesus — it flows from His own commands.
When you describe Jesus as “ungoverned,” it’s easy to slide into the idea that real discipleship means becoming ungovernable by any concrete Church. But Christ was not ungoverned in the sense of being self-created; He was perfectly obedient to the Father. And the apostles were not “ungoverned”; they were taught, sent, and accountable. The problem in every age is not that there is authority, but that authority can be exercised badly. Abuses and compromises are real, and they need to be named and resisted. Yet that does not justify treating every doctrinal boundary, every ecclesial structure, and every pastor who resists a new “radical” reading as a chaplain to Babylon. The remedy for corrupted practice is not an anti-ecclesial stance; it is reform in continuity with the Church Christ actually founded.
You are right to criticize a Christianity that has made peace with secular power at the price of truth. But it is not accurate to say “the system doesn’t run on the Holy Spirit, it runs on funding” as if that were a universal description. There are parishes, religious communities, missionaries, and pastors quietly preaching the hard sayings of Jesus, hearing confessions, visiting the sick, caring for the poor, and losing members and money precisely because they refuse to dilute the Gospel. They, too, are “inside the institution.” The line is not simply between “inside” and “outside,” but between fidelity and infidelity. Some who rail against “systems” end up building new, personality-driven movements with less accountability and more invisible power than the churches they condemn.
The true test is not whether someone makes you feel alienated from “the system,” but whether they hand you, whole and undiluted, what Christ and the apostles actually preached: repentance, faith, sacramental life, the cross, moral conversion, love of enemies, and obedience to the truth. A Jesus who never confronts your comfort is false, as you say. But a Jesus who never binds you to a real community, never calls you to submit to anything larger than your own discernment, and never sends you back into the Church He founded is also false. The Lion of Judah is not the mascot of Babylon — but neither is He the mascot of permanent rebellion.
You are right to call people to examine which Jesus they are following. My concern is that, in opposing the “stained glass” caricature, you risk offering another: a Christ abstracted from His Church, stripped of the concrete, sometimes unglamorous ways He actually sanctifies people through sacraments, doctrine, and humble obedience. The saints who most resembled the “dangerous” Jesus—Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, countless martyrs—did not flee the Church as Babylon. They loved her, suffered for her, and reformed her from within, precisely because they believed Christ really had united Himself to this flawed, visible Body.
If your words awaken people from complacent religiosity, that can be a grace. But if they lead them to despise the Church rather than purify their love for her, they are no longer aligned with the Christ who died for His Bride. The question is not only “which Jesus are you following,” but also “which Church are you rejecting.” If it is the Church that confesses the Creed, guards the sacraments, and hands on the apostolic faith, then you may be swinging the whip at the wrong tables.
Absolutely outstanding article! Entirely relevant to these times, our current situation, which I still fully believe (without any lie) can be salvaged. A must-read!
The Pharisees substituted religious trappings for actual discernment of the Holy Spirit. Too many churches today operate in that mode.
This is excellent writing about the real Jesus vs. who Babylon has created Him to be. I'm so thankful I have a pastor who preaches about the dangerous, uncompromising One.
There is a lot that is good here but there is more to see. The Lord didn't overturn tables and cuss out Pharisees because He wanted us to overturn tables and cuss out Pharisees.(I don't do those things because it is part of some plan, I just do it because I like it.) He did those things for one specific reason:To goad a lot of institutional 'conservatives'(in the worst possible use of the word) into doing something more dramatic and radical than anybody else can get a bunch of dramatic radicals to do, murder Messiah. The Prophets being murdered isn't a bug, it isn't even a feature, it's the whole point. If He wanted His servants to fight the system and prevent what has been done to Him then that would have happened. He was very clear with Pilate that that was miles away from what He was doing. Putting the enemies in charge of the church's business is a tradition with the most excellent provenance going back to Jesus Christ Ministries Inc. first CFO Judas Iscariot. It is no accident. It is good that you are offended at the institutional Jesus I am too. But we must both go farther and see that the radical Jesus offends us no less.
Rocka, you are pointing at something very real: a great deal of contemporary Christianity has turned Jesus into a mascot for institutional comfort and cultural respectability. You are right that the Lord of the Gospels is not a tame therapist who blesses every status quo. He did confront religious hypocrisy, greed, and cowardice. He did overturn tables, call out “whitewashed tombs,” and refuse to trim His message to keep donors or authorities happy. If people never feel disturbed or challenged when they read the Gospels, they are not paying attention.
But in exposing that problem, you often replace it with another distortion: a sharp opposition between “Jesus” and “the institution,” as if the very existence of visible structure, doctrine, sacraments, and authority were proof of Babylonian capture. The same Christ who overturned tables also told people to “do and observe whatever they tell you” when the scribes sat on Moses’ seat, even as He denounced their hypocrisy. The same Christ who challenged the temple economy also went up to Jerusalem for the feasts, taught there, and submitted to the Father’s will on the cross. And after His Resurrection, He didn’t leave behind a loose network of free agents; He entrusted authority to apostles, gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter, sent the Twelve to teach and baptize all nations, and promised to be with His Church “all days, even to the end of the age.” The New Testament Church has bishops, elders, councils, discipline, and doctrine. That is not a later betrayal of Jesus — it flows from His own commands.
When you describe Jesus as “ungoverned,” it’s easy to slide into the idea that real discipleship means becoming ungovernable by any concrete Church. But Christ was not ungoverned in the sense of being self-created; He was perfectly obedient to the Father. And the apostles were not “ungoverned”; they were taught, sent, and accountable. The problem in every age is not that there is authority, but that authority can be exercised badly. Abuses and compromises are real, and they need to be named and resisted. Yet that does not justify treating every doctrinal boundary, every ecclesial structure, and every pastor who resists a new “radical” reading as a chaplain to Babylon. The remedy for corrupted practice is not an anti-ecclesial stance; it is reform in continuity with the Church Christ actually founded.
You are right to criticize a Christianity that has made peace with secular power at the price of truth. But it is not accurate to say “the system doesn’t run on the Holy Spirit, it runs on funding” as if that were a universal description. There are parishes, religious communities, missionaries, and pastors quietly preaching the hard sayings of Jesus, hearing confessions, visiting the sick, caring for the poor, and losing members and money precisely because they refuse to dilute the Gospel. They, too, are “inside the institution.” The line is not simply between “inside” and “outside,” but between fidelity and infidelity. Some who rail against “systems” end up building new, personality-driven movements with less accountability and more invisible power than the churches they condemn.
The true test is not whether someone makes you feel alienated from “the system,” but whether they hand you, whole and undiluted, what Christ and the apostles actually preached: repentance, faith, sacramental life, the cross, moral conversion, love of enemies, and obedience to the truth. A Jesus who never confronts your comfort is false, as you say. But a Jesus who never binds you to a real community, never calls you to submit to anything larger than your own discernment, and never sends you back into the Church He founded is also false. The Lion of Judah is not the mascot of Babylon — but neither is He the mascot of permanent rebellion.
You are right to call people to examine which Jesus they are following. My concern is that, in opposing the “stained glass” caricature, you risk offering another: a Christ abstracted from His Church, stripped of the concrete, sometimes unglamorous ways He actually sanctifies people through sacraments, doctrine, and humble obedience. The saints who most resembled the “dangerous” Jesus—Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, countless martyrs—did not flee the Church as Babylon. They loved her, suffered for her, and reformed her from within, precisely because they believed Christ really had united Himself to this flawed, visible Body.
If your words awaken people from complacent religiosity, that can be a grace. But if they lead them to despise the Church rather than purify their love for her, they are no longer aligned with the Christ who died for His Bride. The question is not only “which Jesus are you following,” but also “which Church are you rejecting.” If it is the Church that confesses the Creed, guards the sacraments, and hands on the apostolic faith, then you may be swinging the whip at the wrong tables.
Absolutely outstanding article! Entirely relevant to these times, our current situation, which I still fully believe (without any lie) can be salvaged. A must-read!