|
Everybody in the Christian world has their own personal Jesus.
Of course, this doesn't mean there are infinitely many spiritual Jesuses or anything like that; nor does the historical Jesus, or the Jesus of the New Testament, change from person to person.
The meaning is to understand in a psychological sense. All of us have been presented with Jesus as an important figure, a morally noble man, perhaps a deity, with perfect teachings of wisdom. As a result, we each form a mental image of Jesus, and these images differ from one another. For Tolstoy, Jesus was a kind of pacifist teacher of peace. For Albert Schweitzer, Jesus developed a moral system of selflessness, despite initially being an apocalyptic Jew who believed the end times were near. For Nietzsche, Jesus was a nearly psychopathological case of oversensitivity, someone who couldn't cope with injustice and pain in the world.
This image of Jesus reflects, at least in part, the wisdom, morality, and life circumstances of the person who holds it.
|
