What lands for me here is the tension between the dangerous Jesus of history and the domesticated Jesus institutions keep manufacturing to stabilize power.

Because once empire gets hold of a prophet, the first thing it does is remove the sharp edges. The man flipping tables in the Temple somehow becomes the mascot for tax cuts, luxury branding, and “please do not disturb the existing order.”

At the same time, I’m cautious about drawing too hard a line between Jesus and Christ, because mystical and cosmic understandings of Christ existed very early and were not just Constantine’s PR department working overtime. The real issue is not whether Christ-language exists. It is whether that language transforms people or anesthetizes them.

A religion that never threatens greed, domination, cruelty, or empire is probably not following the Galilean very closely.