By JULIAN RODRIGUES*

Jesus of Nazareth was the creator of the secular State

“The Pharisees set a trap to catch Jesus in some word. First, they begin by praising Jesus, saying that He is true and does not allow himself to be influenced by the opinions of others. Afterwards, they ask Jesus whether it is lawful or not to pay the tax to Caesar. Caesar was a governor and belonged to the Roman Empire at the time and, as we know, the Roman Empire ruled Israel. As always, Jesus used great wisdom to give his answer and did not say anything that would compromise him or his disciples. If Jesus responded that he should not pay the tax to Caesar, they would say that He was against the Roman Empire. And if He said He had to pay, they would say He was on the side of the government and not on the side of the people. In any case, they wanted to catch Jesus in the answer he said. So, Jesus asks them to present him the coin and asks what figure is on the coin, and they answered: Caesar's. To this, Jesus wisely responds “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mateus 22, 21). In this response, Jesus subtly means that everyone must fulfill their obligations, whether to the government or to God.”

sign of the times

Above all, non-Christians and left-wing Christians have a very urgent mission: to defend the progressive nucleus of the supposed teachings of an illiterate Jewish peasant (INRI) of Aramaic origin who supposedly lived in the 1st century of the Common Era – better known as the year XNUMX after Christ .

The existence of a certain Jew from Galilee, a Messianic preacher, who was executed by the colonial authorities of the Roman Empire, has long been established. The influence of the official Christian religion in Europe and America would have begun around the 4th century of the Common Era – and remains firm and strong to this day, for good and for bad.

The fact is that “in these strange days” when the dust no longer bothers to hide in the corners, it ends up being left behind. we: atheists, Cartesians, rationalists, Enlightenmentists, Newtonians, Darwinists, feminists, existentialists, Marxists, Nietzscheans, Leninists, punks, skeptics, agnostics and admirers of Bergoglio (the Peronist Pope) a trivial task: rescuing, defending and publicizing the progressive legacy of new testament.

It is necessary to dispute Jesus with the fascists, modern Pharisees, merchants of faith. A bunch of ugly, rude, sexist, racist, homophobic, authoritarian men – and, above all, cynical.

“To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's.” Nothing more current. Religious freedom, a pillar of any democratic regime, is inseparable from the principles of secularism, pluralism, the guarantee of individual freedoms, equality, the defense and promotion of human rights.

History records: the secular State is an achievement of the struggle of the subaltern classes, political minorities, women, communists and scientists. From Christians persecuted by the Romans, from Muslims crushed by Christians in their “crusades”, from women charred in fires, from Jews hunted for hundreds of years, forced to hide, change their name, deny their faith, stigmatized from the Inquisition to the Nazi camps – today, sadly and ironically, the State of Israel does similar things to the Palestinians as the Nazis did to the Jews 80 years ago.

Even before considering myself a Marxist, I became a fan of Ludwig Feuerbach: “it was not god who created man, but man who created god in his image and likeness”. (By the way, Caetano was always right, and who would deny that “it is only possible to philosophize in German”.

Returning to the topic of the article: it is time to teach Christianity to Christians. In defense of religious plurality and the secular State. Yes life is hard, but, between us, also a lot of fun. Real and bias.

* Julian Rodrigues, journalist and teacher, he is an LGBTI and Human Rights activist. Political training coordinator at the Perseu Abramo Foundation.

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