The Unclad Soul

A fundamental truth in the teachings of Jesus was that the wicked are not as dangerous as those who pretend to be righteous. In fact, the only group that Jesus ever publically rebuked, and he did it more than once, was the Pharisees. Their self-righteousness and religious intolerance of anyone breaking their rules angered Jesus because he saw it as a mockery of the love God had sent him to live and share. The recent vote at the global United Methodist Church conference, which affirmed and tightened its ban on same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian clergy, is, in my opinion, a sad continuation of the Pharisees of old who used their faith to exclude and judge others. Let’s not forget that Roman emperor Constantine, who converted to Christianity and hailed himself as bringing it to Rome, was a more than compromised leader. He had his own son killed and boiled his wife in hot water. And yet he remains in history an icon of Christianity. The Crusades, which lasted 200 years,...

There is a scene in the first episode of the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie" where she consoles a young unmarried girl whose boyfriend, a bike courier, had just died of injuries in a bike accident on his way to work in the crushing traffic of New York City. The girl—poor, pregnant, wearing a stained t-shirt and asking what she is going to do, that she doesn’t even have money to get a cab home—sits on a bench in the hallway outside the chapel in All Saints Catholic Hospital. Jackie, a morally complicated, fiercely dedicated nurse but who is herself addicted to pain killers and whose personal life is a disaster, stands next to the girl and gently puts her hand on the girl’s head and draws her to her. Nothing is said. Just that moment of tenderness. As the scene ends and the camera pulls away from them, we see behind them at the end of the hallway set into the wall, a beautifully sculptured figure of Jesus with his arms extended.   I don’t know what Christianity is anymore....