Why Does the Head of the Church Give Such Confusing Interviews?

A consideration of how some critics of Pope Francis might have responded to our Lord’s ”difficult sayings” 2000 years ago

Fritz von Uhde (1848-1911), “Christ and Nicodemus”
Fritz von Uhde (1848-1911), “Christ and Nicodemus” (photo: Public Domain)

Though they will no doubt try, the Chris­to­la­tors will not be able to spin these lat­est reck­less and irre­spon­si­ble words from the carpenter’s son. It is clear, apart from any so-​called “nuance” or “con­text” (words the neo-​Jews love to use), that Jesus, whom they call “Christ,” rejects 2000 years of defin­i­tive teach­ing on can­ni­bal­ism. The sacred text of Moses is clear:

If any man of the house of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that per­son who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his peo­ple. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atone­ment for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atone­ment, by rea­son of the life. There­fore I have said to the peo­ple of Israel, No per­son among you shall eat blood, nei­ther shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. (Leviti­cus 17:10–12)

Blood is for sac­ri­fice and not for food. This is from God and can­not be changed. There is no get­ting around this.

Of course, I know what the Chris­to­la­tors will try to say in their efforts to parse this lat­est out­ra­geous state­ment from the rabbi. They will point to these words of their Christ: “Think not that I have come to abol­ish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abol­ish them but to ful­fil them” (Matthew 5:17). Then they will try to lec­ture faith­ful Jews about the hermeneu­tic of con­ti­nu­ity and tell us we must inter­pret this dis­gust­ing “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood” abom­i­na­tion with the tra­di­tion and not against it.

And yet how can that pos­si­bly be done? It is too hard a say­ing. Who can accept it?

“Ful­fill­ing the law” has long been code lan­guage for chang­ing tra­di­tion de facto, even though the strict let­ter has been affirmed. Chris­to­la­tors and Mes­siah apol­o­gists can say the law of Moses has been affirmed, even though no one any­where actu­ally fol­lows it any­more. This is the game the neo-​Jews love to play.

If only Jesus would speak clearly to begin with, he would not have to go out of his way to try and assure us he is not chang­ing the law and the prophets. Every­one would know. But this rabbi Jesus has always been full of con­tra­dic­tion and confusion—particularly in these reck­less inter­views he insists on grant­ing.

Con­sider that on the one hand he says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Then he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:38–39).

Well, which is it? It can’t be both! Either Jesus is a reck­less lib­eral paci­fist or he believes Israel has a right to self-​defense against the enslav­ing Romans. The Chris­to­la­tors have no cred­i­ble answer for this one.

Face it: Every time this man opens his mouth, he causes con­fu­sion and con­ster­na­tion among faith­ful Jews who are look­ing to be built up in the faith, not dri­ven from it in despair. Who knows what he will say next. Will he tell us he is the Son of God?

He gives a ser­mon up on a moun­tain, break­ing with the tra­di­tion of hav­ing it at tem­ple dur­ing liturgy. Are a bunch of Roman clowns from the pagan the­ater going to show up next? And he very explic­itly sets up a con­trast between “you have heard that it was said” and “but I say to you.”

If that is not clear enough that he means to change the law and the prophets, I con­fess I do not know what will con­vince the Christolators—these Jesus dis­ci­ples and apol­o­gists who are run­ning around as though they have real the­o­log­i­cal knowl­edge when they are just a bunch of fish­er­men.

He even tells us he has “new wine” (Matthew 9:17). Is this a ref­er­ence to some novel doc­trine? Who knows?

So much con­fu­sion these last three years! But judge not! (Matthew 7:1). Isn’t that what we are told? Rel­a­tivism is okay now, I guess.

In one inter­view, he was asked: “Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truth­fully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the posi­tion of men. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it law­ful to pay taxes to Cae­sar, or not?”

This was a very cour­te­ous and respect­ful ques­tion. The inter­viewer praises Jesus. And yet Jesus, who loves to be nasty to faith­ful Jews, because it is painfully obvi­ous he hates them, accused the inter­viewer of being a “hyp­ocrite.” One Chris­to­la­tor, who con­stantly engages in despi­ca­ble attacks on the good chil­dren of Abra­ham, even says that the inter­viewer had “mal­ice” and was try­ing to “trap” Jesus.

And then Jesus got petu­lant, demand­ing that the interviewer—who is a well-​respected Pharisee—show him some money. “Whose image and like­ness is this?” he said in a bul­ly­ing way.

“Caesar’s,” the good Phar­isee said.

Here was Jesus’s answer: “Ren­der there­fore to Cae­sar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:15–22).

Which means what? Pay taxes or no? Jesus doesn’t answer the ques­tion; he just gar­bles out some hazy, fortune-​cookie, New-​Age type answer. The Chris­to­la­tors love that kind of stuff.

But what we should not miss in the midst of all that haze is this key ques­tion: What on earth is Jesus doing med­dling into eco­nom­ics and tax pol­icy? These are mat­ters of pru­den­tial judg­ment, about which no Mes­siah should have any­thing at all to say. His job is to talk about sin. There is infan­ti­cide going on all around us, and yet Jesus never says any­thing about it, as though it does not mat­ter to him. Let the babies be killed while I tell you what to do with your money and lec­ture you to turn the other cheek. Such is the dis­pro­por­tion and insan­ity into which “social jus­tice” and “con­sis­tent life ethic” have led us, while all around us the pagans slaugh­ter our peo­ple and this so-​called Mes­siah says noth­ing about it but love your ene­mies!

Here is another case in point. The doc­trine of mar­riage has been dis­cussed much of late. There is a fac­tion that wants to change the clear Mosaic teach­ing. One time, Jesus was asked about this.

“Is it law­ful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”

This is a straight­for­ward ques­tion: Yes or no. This was the per­fect time for Jesus, if he does not mean to change the law or the prophets, to reit­er­ate the clear Mosaic teach­ing. But as is typ­i­cal, he stum­bles about and fuzzes it up.

“Have you not read that he who made them from the begin­ning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this rea­son a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’? So they are no longer two but one. What there­fore God has joined together, let not man put asun­der.”

This is not the way the Mosaic law has always been under­stood, and the inter­viewer calls the “Mes­siah” on it: “Why then did Moses com­mand one to give a cer­tifi­cate of divorce, and to put her away?”

And Jesus answered, “For your hard­ness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the begin­ning it was not so. And I say to you: who­ever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and mar­ries another, com­mits adul­tery; and he who mar­ries a divorced woman, com­mits adul­tery” (Matthew 19:3–8).

So this reck­less Jesus, as is typ­i­cal, first lashes out at faith­ful Jews, accus­ing them of “hard­ness of heart.” He has already called them white­washed tombs, hyp­ocrites, fools, blind guides, and a gen­er­a­tion of vipers. What will he call them next? Fun­da­men­tal­ists? Self-​absorbed Promethean Neopela­gians?

Then he gives an obscure ref­er­ence to some non-​Mosaic law which existed “from the begin­ning” that some­how changes the law of mar­riage and divorce. And yet, we are told, he is not chang­ing any­thing.

Con­fu­sion and uncer­tainty like this is not what the chil­dren of Abra­ham need right now. Jesus has even expressed a kind of uni­ver­sal­ism in say­ing that even stones can be made chil­dren of Abra­ham (Matthew 3:9), thus deny­ing extra Israel nulla salus. It might even be some weird sort of gen­der the­ory or iden­tity pol­i­tics applied to “Mother Earth.” We are all one with cre­ation, or some­thing. Rocks and Jews are the same. Who knows with this guy?

The man has a short tem­per, tak­ing a whip to faith­ful Jews try­ing to make an hon­est liv­ing at Tem­ple, as though he is a social­ist and hates cap­i­tal­ism and the free mar­ket.

One time a brave reporter con­fronted him about his con­fus­ing words, and he even admit­ted he is con­fus­ing and that it is delib­er­ate! The Chris­to­la­tors have been silent about this. “To you,” he said (refer­ring to his neo-​Jew syco­phants), “has been given the secret of the king­dom of God, but for those out­side every­thing is in para­bles; so that they may indeed see but not per­ceive, and may indeed hear but not under­stand; lest they should turn again, and be for­given.”

So he admits he is try­ing to keep some peo­ple from sal­va­tion! I guess faith­ful Jews, good chil­dren of Abra­ham, just don’t deserve it.

And now, in the most dis­gust­ing exam­ple of this kind of con­fu­sion and reck­less­ness, so bad I can barely bring myself to print it, Jesus sug­gests that his fol­low­ers may even vio­late the law against can­ni­bal­ism.

“I am the bread of life,” he says. Bruce Jen­ner is a woman; the Mes­siah is a loaf of bread. Is that what is going on here? Is this what reli­gion has come to? This is all very con­fus­ing. “If any­one eats of this bread he will live for­ever” (John 6:51).

There it is! Smok­ing gun! This is can­ni­bal­ism. We are sup­posed to actu­ally eat Jesus, who is really bread. Is that the escape clause to con­vince us that it is not cannibalism—we are really just eat­ing bread?

How can we ever know with this con­fus­ing man? Why can’t he just speak clearly?

The Chris­to­la­tors will not be able to spin this. Peter, whose name really is Simon but goes around under a pseu­do­nym (as if we do not know who he is), says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eter­nal life” (John 6:68). This is blind Chris­to­la­try. Will noth­ing con­vince such people—nothing—of the dan­ger this man is to Israel?

Many have left Jesus after this lat­est inci­dent, includ­ing our good and faith­ful brother Judas. If this so-​called Christ can­not speak clearly, if he must con­stantly con­fuse and worry peo­ple that he is over­turn­ing what we have always known to be so, then he should just shut up for the rest of his life and stop giv­ing all these inter­views. If he will not, I don’t think any of us can will­ingly sit by while the whole nation per­ishes. He has become a clear dan­ger. He must be deposed.

Abra­ham and Moses, Eli­jah and Isa­iah, with the help of our high priest Caiaphas, save the nation of Israel!