Yes, Jesus Had a God Complex

According to an article by Patrick West in The Spectator, many young people find Jesus, well, annoying.

West pointed to a survey of UK teens aged fourteen to seventeen that was entitled Troubling Jesus.

This joint project of the Scripture Union and the Bible Society sought to understand how non-Christian kids thought about scripture.

According to the study's authors, and I quote here, "What they shared was sometimes deeply uncomfortable, unsettling interpretations we may be overly familiar with and offering fresh perspectives on God and Jesus that can sound almost heretical at first." End quote.

And not just at first.

These students had the impressions that the God of the Bible was really violent and aggressive, that He practiced mansplaining and had an unequal power dynamic.

God the Father came across to these young people as a bully.

God the Son was, and I quote, "arrogant, powerful, religiously motivated, and male." The most telling claim was that Jesus had a God complex.

Now, according to West, the reaction is understandable.

Quote, "Young people raised in a world without authority figures who command respect and a society bereft of didactism are naturally going to regard the teachings in the Bible as hostile and aggressive.

In a world where everyone's reduced to having their own truth, many will find the idea of Christianity simply incomprehensible." End quote.

According to an article by Patrick West in The Spectator, many young people find Jesus, well, annoying.

West pointed to a survey of UK teens aged fourteen to seventeen that was entitled Troubling Jesus.

This joint project of the Scripture Union and the Bible Society sought to understand how non-Christian kids thought about scripture.

According to the study's authors, and I quote here, "What they shared was sometimes deeply uncomfortable, unsettling interpretations we may be overly familiar with and offering fresh perspectives on God and Jesus that can sound almost heretical at first." End quote.

And not just at first.

These students had the impressions that the God of the Bible was really violent and aggressive, that He practiced mansplaining and had an unequal power dynamic.

God the Father came across to these young people as a bully.

God the Son was, and I quote, "arrogant, powerful, religiously motivated, and male." The most telling claim was that Jesus had a God complex.

Now, according to West, the reaction is understandable.

Quote, "Young people raised in a world without authority figures who command respect and a society bereft of didactism are naturally going to regard the teachings in the Bible as hostile and aggressive.

In a world where everyone's reduced to having their own truth, many will find the idea of Christianity simply incomprehensible." End quote.