The part of Jesus’s teachings that ended up in the standard canon was the most digestible portion. Take a look at other parts of the Q document — published as the Gospel of Thomas — and you’ll see another side of him. He must have had some serious charisma to attract so many followers while preaching so much weird shit. OTOH no weirder than a lot of the OT prophets, Daniel for instance.

But yeah, love your neighbor, feed my sheep, work for justice, keep forgiving, help the poor, don’t trust wealth, be humble. Not the kind of teachings that get any traction with the Republican Jesus-mongers.

Funny thing about the current pope — he seems to be on the right side of a lot of things, certainly far more so than the RWNJs over here. He won’t be able to turn the whole RC enterprise around — nothing that big is very maneuverable — but I give him a lot of credit for trying.

Ed