I am currently reading a 2024 book by British historian Catherine Nixey, provocatively titled Heretic: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God. This is not a book of theology. Nixey is not trying to prove or disproved anything that the historical Jesus said or did. Rather, Nixey is comparing the biblical stories with the stories about similar figures in the ancient world from about the same time as Jesus (there’s a lot), as well as other stories and beliefs about Jesus that didn’t make the official cut (a lot of those, too).

There is a common perception that ancient critics of Christianity viewed the Jesus’ story told by early disciples as being too outlandish: a poor, obscure Jewish man performs amazing miracles, teaches profound truths, then is crucified and rises from the dead, ushering in the salvation of the world from its imminent destruction. “We’ve never heard of anything like this!” But Nixey shows that this wasn’t the case. Rather, the reaction of Christian skeptics was more likely to be, “Oh brother. Here we go again.”

As Nixey says, while Christianity was uniquely successful, Christianity itself was far from unique. The ancient world was generously populated with tales of people who were prophesied to be the world’s savior, born to a virgin, spoke profound truths, performed all types of healings, raised the dead, and were themselves raised from the dead. Nixey retells stories strikingly similar to ones found in the gospels, some nearly word-for-word, coming from about the same time as the gospels were written, or even before them. Coincidence?

Nixey’s other focus is on the variety of Jesus stories within the early Christian movement itself. The divergent tales and beliefs of the noncanonical gospels are now increasingly well known. Nixey explores these and many others to show the remarkable diversity that existed within early Christianity. “Heretic” comes from a world meaning choice, and this is exactly what, as it became in the 4^th century, “Catholic” (meaning universal) Christianity sought to stamp out. There was to be no choosing but rather acceptance of one officially sanctioned body of beliefs and doctrines, enforced with Roman imperial authority.

The rejection of heresy, the freedom to choose, has been a hallmark of Christianity every since. For nearly 1500 years imprisonment, torture, and execution were employed regularly to suppress ideas contrary to official church teaching. Even Protestants, who would presumably have supported religious freedom, used such methods to enforce their new set of required beliefs. Heresy trials of clergy occurred as late as the 20^th century. To this day, traditional churches still retain the use of ancient creeds and in some fashion expect their clergy and lay members to believe them. Evangelical Protestants, who have mostly dropped such creeds, nonetheless have statements of beliefs often more restrictive than the creeds (check the website of your neighborhood megachurch under “What We Believe”).

Why has Christianity been so afraid of freedom of thought? The answer to that question shows that Christianity’s purpose has always been more complicated, and insidious, than usually recognized. For centuries, conformity of belief and behavior gave churches a cultural power that was unmatched. While pain and violence were used against the most extreme or public nonconformists, psychological pressure kept the masses inline. The threat of damnation in hell kept people coming to church for centuries. When that didn’t work, ostracism from the community (“excommunication”) was employed, a practice still followed in many evangelical churches.

But even in churches where there is little overt pressure to conform to orthodox beliefs, millions still do. Why? Laziness mostly, I think. As I’ve written many times before, the leaders of mainline churches all know that their own theologians have turned their doctrinal edifice into Swiss cheese, so many holes have been knocked into it. Yet they continue officially to espouse it because to do otherwise would mean, well, a lot of hard work. Who wants to tackle the job of remaking Christianity? Most are focused on staunching the membership bleeding, patch budget deficits, and make it to retirement.

Among folks in the pews, the situation isn’t much different. The largest age group of church members now are Baby Boomers. They are the last to remember full and prosperous churches, which were often their primary social outlet. For them church was baptisms and confirmations, weddings and funerals, overflowing sanctuaries on Christmas Eve and Easter, Sunday School, potlucks, women’s circles, and men’s softball leagues. Church today is trying to maintain the pretense that this is still what church is about, and to do whatever is necessary to keep the lights on and the doors open.

What church wasn’t about for these Baby Boomers was asking questions. A mass hypnosis, agreed upon by both clergy and laity, maintained the notion that despite the now centuries-long modern era, nothing had really changed as far as Christianity was concerned. Occasionally, younger clergy would drop into their sermons a few tidbits of what they had learned in seminary, suggesting the Bible’s miracle stories need not be taken entirely literally. (That the feeding of the 5000 thousand might have happened because Jesus’ example of generosity encouraged the crowd to share their own food was a popular and “safe” reinterpretation.)

But overall, it was maintained, nothing had changed. The church was sticking to its story of sin and salvation through Jesus. It’s what people wanted, wasn’t it?

I love to tell the story; ’twill be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

How many times did I sing that vintage hymn growing up? The first stanza includes this line: “I love to tell the story, because I know ‘tis true.” But that was the unspoken problem: we didn’t know it was true. Nobody did. We had all just told each other it was true, and so we believed it. Nor was the next line working for many people: “It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.” In the post-war world, people’s “longings” were becoming too deep and too complicated to be genuinely satisfied by that old, old story. For a growing number it was, well, just old.

So, to my fellow Baby Boomers, especially, I say: It’s time to grow up and become heretics. To become people who make choices for ourselves. Who don’t believe things just because it’s what we were told and what we’ve always believed because it’s easier that way. The church of “belonging and believing” is coming to an end. Now the church (if we still want to use that word) has to be about knowing and being.

It’s very tempting for church people (myself included) to think we need to study the matter, read and write books, and issue new statements of belief. While that may be of some value, I’ve come to realize that we each need to do our own work: our own pondering and reflecting, our own experiencing and learning, our own meditating and creating.

We need to make the effort and have the courage to ask: What do I actually know? Within myself, in my own heart, in my spirit, however you want to put it. How and what do I know of God from my own experience and in my own world? And how does that help me to know what it means to “be” in this world, in all my various roles and relationships?

The “old, old” stories of Christianity and the other ancient world religions can still give valuable ideas to ponder and language to talk about all this, in our heads and with each other. But they can’t prove anything or tell us how to think or behave. That we have to discover for ourselves in our new lives as heretics, as “choosers.” But in doing so, we will find a genuine satisfaction, and come to a real peace, by living lives that need no explanation or defense. For then we will know we are simply being who we truly are, living in the world as it truly is.

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