Worldwide Discussion: The People Join In
WAS JESUS A VITRIOLIC ‘FANNER’
OF ‘THE FLAMES OF FEAR?’

Was Jesus a fanner of the flames of fear? Did Jesus use “vitriol” and “quippy rejoinders” to make his points?

I ask this because following my last entry in this headline space — a story about how America is returning to its own Wild West, where everyone packed a six-shooter and the question was not, who is carrying a gun, but who is quickest on the draw? — a reader posting as Rian Dean entered this response in the Comment section below…

Neale, I Love You. Your work has inspired me to make changes in my Life I would never have dreamed possible 20 years ago. You have lead me to a place where fear has no hold on my Life or on the manner in which I choose to express my Divinity. Please do not choose to lend your voice to fear.

I have read and watched the message you bring to us change over the last few years and it seems, from my limited viewpoint, that some of what you write on these pages is increasingly coming from a place of fear.

The Loving, gentle urging of our Souls toward Love has been slowly replaced by ever more strident descriptions of the injustices you perceive in our World today. Less often do I see solutions based in Love. More and more often now these articles hold a sarcastic, snarky tone that definitely spurs conversation, what seems to be missing is the Love-based solution to those perceived injustices.

The Global Conversation website is a treasure. It is an opportunity to expose a fear-based Society to a message of Divine Love in a manner that is unique to our times. The number of posts that rally behind your clarion calls against injustice is impressive, but no more so than every other political site where battle lines are drawn on every issue and people whip out their most quippy rejoinders to defend or attack any given issue.

Please, please, may we use this opportunity to trot out solutions to the issues rather than engage in heated exchanges of vitriol? May we offer solutions to the fear that so grips our Country and our World rather than fanning the flames of that fear?

Remember, we will not solve all of these problems at the same level of consciousness by which we created them.

======================
I am grateful to Rian for posting his comment, because it brings up what I think is a very important discussion of a very important topic: Is it spiritual and loving to use sharp words — even harsh words sometimes — to make a point?

To find my answer to this question I decided to do a little research on the life of Christ. Whatever their religion, whatever their sacred beliefs, few people would deny that the man called Jesus made a huge impact on this world, and was and is considered by many to be one of the most spiritual, loving human beings who ever lived.

How is it, then, that Jesus repeatedly used the words “brood of vipers” and  “hypocrites” to describe those whose behaviors reflected views other than his own? And how is it that he used those words in statements that were very direct and very energy-charged? Utterances such as: “You brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things?”…and: “You say in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times!”…

…and elsewhere: “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?” And again, elsewhere, he actually called forth bad things upon certain of those who opposed him, saying: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.”

How could Jesus speak with such “vitriol”?

But wait. It’s worse. When he found the money changers in the Temple, he actually made a whip out of a rope in which he tied knots…and then he overturned all the tables of the traders in the Temple and drove the sellers and buyers out, waving his whip and shouting: “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!”

What happened to… “we will not solve all of these problems at the same level of consciousness by which we created them”…? Was Jesus “offering solutions,” or was he just expressing his anger?

Is there a place for anger in the words of spiritual messengers?

Let that be our question for the day. Rian? Your thoughts? Others? Your thoughts?