Christ set out on his Ministry, convinced that his vocation was to save the world; there was no doubt about it. The kingdom of heaven was at hand; and the cohesion of his kingdom depended on each subject’s loyalty and devotion towards himself. He was very much concerned with the affairs of this world. His ministry of healing was for men and women here and now; and it was the greater part of his Ministry. Men were only angered and misunderstood him, because his kingdom of love was here and now: not in a world after death. They wanted to manipulate him, just as so many people want to manipulate God, for their own ends.
What he did not do was give guidance on political matters; he left Caesar’s affairs to Caesar, and the tenor of his guidance on social matters was not to offer resistance to violence. He left behind no political philosophy; and indeed he may have had none. But when he did not come back as soon as expected, the consequence of the failure of his followers to cope with the problems of secular power, and think out a political philosophy, was that Christian states fell down like ninepins before Islam, and were never reconquered. Nor has the Church to this day evolved a political philosophy; despite the shame of the 4th Crusade in the Middle Ages which attacked and sacked a Christian city, instead of the infidels, despite the near annihilation of civilization in two world wars, our political philosophy is still Locke, Hume, John Stewart Mill. So when sections of the Church try to interest themselves in liberation theology, the probability is they do not know what they are talking about, or that they are not talking as churchmen. Christianity is firmly on the spiritual side of life.
The Church teaches that in Jesus, God became man. It is a wonderful myth, and probably a truthful one. If it is true, then another metaphor is to say that in Jesus immortality dawned, in either a literal or metaphorical sense. I keep an open mind which it was. But suppose it was only in a poetic sense. In science and in the law one often considers the hypothetical case. In a scientific problem all sorts of hypotheses are considered; and choosing the correct one is often as much a matter of inspiration as of inductive reasoning. In planning a prosecution, one has to consider all the possible stories open to the accused, in preparing one’s cross-examination. Let us then dismiss out of hand the suggestion that Christ had to be crucified; and regard this doctrine as the device of those who want to brand everyone as evil as Annas and Ciaphas. After all the sheep were scattered when the shepherd was smitten; they did not turn traitor. So let us keep an open mind; and regard Christ in the flesh as mortal man, however much he was incarnate God in spirit. If then he had not been crucified, he would have grown old, and died in his bed. Did he realize this? Or did he think he was immortal here and now, in this world; although this was only an illusion? He never reached an age to find out in fact which it was.
Much therefore depends on what Christ thought of himself and of his vocation. If he thought he was immortal, and could found an everlasting Kingdom, very much as the Jehovah’s Witnesses think that the 1000 year rule of Christ is about to begin, then it makes sense that he condemned Bethsaida and Capernaum for not repenting when they saw his mighty works. They were throwing away a priceless opportunity. They were throwing away not only their own future and the future of the Jewish nation, they were letting down the whole of humanity, born and unborn. Jesus was offering them the one perfect life, he was offering them immortality in either a literal or metaphorical sense; and all Bethsaida and Capernaum could do was turn it down. And his kingdom being spiritual would have posed no threat to Rome. But then on our supposition that he was going to die anyway, this belief of his was an illusion. Maybe it was a comforting illusion; but an illusion it remained. If he thought he was immortal, but was labouring under an illusion, then one has little option but to