Jesus at home
Palestine in the first century of the common era was a dynamic social world. It was a region of many interacting peoples and the inhabitants could not escape the many and diverse cultural strains. This is the kind of world in which Jesus and his followers lived. If we are to understand Jesus, his message and his followers, we must understand their world.
Let us begin with the observation: Jesus was not a Christian. This is a biblical position since the term Christian did not appear until many years after the death of Jesus.

Jewish cultural influences
Conceptions of Monotheism and Messiah were at the core of their (Jews) lives. The meaning of the Messiah was uncertain. In the priestly tradition, there was an expectation of a supernatural intervention to reestablish a Jewish state. In the prophetic tradition, the Messiah was perceived as a messenger of ethical concerns.
The people of God, according to these prophetic materials, are those people who reject exclusive status and all forms of sacrifice. All the notions of being a special people, in a special land, with a special political destiny are wiped away. What is left is a special quality of life. The people of God are those who live a life of justice, kindness, love and humility.

Greek-Aramaic cultural influences
Among the many categories of myths in this period, six were of particular importance in the formation of Christianity. These are: myths of divine/human cohabitation; myths of divine-human beings; myths of physical resurrection; multiple myths related to sacrifices; myths related to purification; and myths indicating transitions to the supernatural world. The essential elements of these myths impacted early Christianity and were increasingly imbedded in the theological formulations of the ante Nicene church.

Roman cultural influences
These features of the Roman Empire: hierarchical order of authority, bureaucratic structure, legal requirements and coercion became the model for the organization of the church as it matured in the Western world. The converts to Christianity grew up in this ordered system.

The disciples and followers
Jesus, in his positive proactive spirit of love, exposes the utter folly of injustice and violence. Surely such teaching and such a life are the work of a divine giant. In historical perspective, Jesus life of practical love preceded his divinity, not the other way around.
Those who had penetrated most deeply into the message of Jesus understood this call to an ethical social revolution. Thus, the movement could go on, for it was larger than any leader. This spiritual movement needed no physical resurrection, for it was resurrected in every person who dared to forsake past security and join in redemptive social interaction.
It was a social movement independent of any cultural heritage, for it was a way of life for all humanity. It was a call to all human beings to forsake their tribal and ethnic exclusiveness. It was a call to a radical ethic of personal and social renovation It was a call to join the human race and experience its potential.

The transition from Jesus the man to the mystical Christ
Jesus, after his death, was decreasingly an influential factor in the development of a religion, which has come to be called Christianity. By the time of the writing of the four gospels, which appear in the New Testament, the distorting effects of Greek, Roman and Jewish religious thought were already prominent and formative.
How did the essential facts of Jesus life and his ethical teachings come to be obscured and pushed into the background? Why did mystical and miraculous elements come to be attributed to him? How did three years of ministry and the work of his life disappear, and a few incomprehensible supernatural intrusions take center stage?
His word and work were replaced by fantastic interpretations of five events. These eventsthe annunciation, the birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascensiongrew large in the minds of church leaders and theologians. As they worked on these themes they created a mythical Christ and essentially discarded Jesus.
The mythical Christ of Christianity thrived and spread. But so did the controversies surrounding the interpretations of that Christ. These were so widespread and so intense they threatened the stability of the Roman Empire. Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and demanded that the church bishops resolve the key points of the controversies. The result was the Nicene Creed.
Constantinian and fundamentalistic Christianity
The many variations of Contemporary Constantinian Christianity trace elements of their belief and faith systems to creedal statements of the fourth and fifth centuries. The Christ of these documents had a message quite different from the message of Jesus. A message, in fact, at odds with Jesus in almost every respect.
Constantinian Christianity teaches us to serve God in some symbolic, mystical spiritual way. Jesus Christianity teaches us to serve our fellow humans in practical, redemptive wavs.
Constantinian Christianity makes fear of the supernatural world a tool to control people.
Jesus Christianity rejects fear and espouses love as the means of influencing people.

Societal consequences of Constantinian Christianity
Salvation and freedom have come to be equal, if not identical, in the American mind. In this system of thought, salvation and freedom require violence. This is the American mantra; it is the American ideology. Devotees of American national religion and American religious fundamentalism believe their society and their religion were founded in acts of violence sponsored and blessed by God himself.
Violence is thus sacralized. It is the defining act of the creedal God in relation to the human race. It is Gods solution to evil in this world and the supernatural world. It is a sacred act, which the devotees of God may engage in to deal with the problem of evil as they see it -regardless of where it occurs in the world.

Truth and redemption
In no way should beliefs or revelations be confused with facts, and most assuredly they should not be equated with truth.
Truth, for Jesus, was relational not ideological. Truth lies in the processes of redemptive, creative relationships, not in dogmas, doctrines, creeds, or any mental constructs, which claim to have a grip on the unknowable universe.

The thread of Christianity
However, having made these critical observations of contemporary Christianity, one must recognize the continuing thread of Jesus ethical work. It is a remarkably thin thread in many cases but can be found. It can be found in the life of people who rise above their Creeds or Confessions and actually engage in works of redemptive love. Here, where the contemporary incarnation of Jesus is found, we will find him still doing his ethical work and teaching.