I wonder. Would the current government’s crackdown on non-violent extremism have silenced the founder of Christianity? How difficult would it be to construct a case against him in terms of the new counter-extremism strategy? Not that hard, I suspect.
For the man you know as Jesus Christ was radicalised at a desert training camp in the mountains of Judea by an extremist preacher called John, or “the Baptist”. It was from these notorious mountains that guerrilla resistance to the remnants of Alexander the Great’s empire had been successfully launched 200 years before. But now the occupying enemy was the Romans. And “the Baptist” preached the importance of readiness. Soon God would come and drive the hated and heretical foreign invaders from God’s land. Baptism was spiritual preparation for battle. “The ax is already at the root of the trees,” he said. Get ready, God is coming. John was beheaded by the authorities sometime in AD28/9.
Read Full Article »