Maybe Jesus should just get himself another ‘parrot’...

People like Gordon John Manche should really consider themselves ‘lucky’, not to be living in precisely the sort of theocracy they seem to admire so much: you know, where ‘the Law of Religion’ also doubles up as the ‘Law of the Land’... and where ‘to contradict religious orthodoxy’ – in any shape, manner, or form – is to be instantly branded a ‘heretic’.

In fact: Manche is incredibly lucky to have been born at almost any time in human history, after around the late 18th century (when games such as ‘football’, ‘rugby’ and ‘cricket’ slowly started to replace ‘torturing heretics to death’, as the number one spectator sport throughout most of Christendom.)

Consider, for a moment, the interview he gave to The Times last week: which ended with his (oh-so-modest!) claim that, “It’s not me. Don’t say I’m saying this. It’s not Gordon, it’s God. It’s Jesus Christ. I am Jesus Christ’s parrot...”

Erm... YIKES! I shudder to even imagine the reaction, had that interview been published – not in 2023: where Manche enjoys the protection of the same ‘fundamental right to freedom of expression’, that he himself is trying to undermine for others...

... but in, say, 1600: when a certain Giordano Bruno was publicly burnt at the stake, at Rome’s Campo dei Fiori, merely for having declared... well, a whole bunch of things, really. Including (to paraphrase a few of the more famous charges brought against him):

1) That ‘the universe expands in all directions, and is filled with innumerable different planets and stars’ [!];

2) That the Church was wrong about its doctrine of the Holy Trinity (among other deviations from official Church teaching), and;

3) That Gods are actually created in Man’s image, and not vice versa (complete with an argument to the effect that: ‘If crocodiles had the same intelligence as human beings, they would probably worship a Crocodile God’...)

Now: I am aware that there is some debate, to this day, about which of those three ‘blasphemous’ views actually got Giordano Bruno convicted, in the end. The current academic consensus, I believe, favours a combination of ‘Options 2 and 3’ (i.e., Bruno was executed more for ‘contradicting the Church’s theological dogmas’, than for ‘propounding cosmological views that were at least 400 years ahead of his time’).

Either way, however: Giordano Bruno’s heresy still falls far, far short, of the ‘blasphemous’ claims made by Gordon John Manche in that interview. After all, Bruno never claimed to be a ‘walking, talking, human embodiment of... God Almighty Himself, no less!’ (I mean: for Christ’s sake! Literally, this time!)

And I could say the same for most of the ‘heretics and/or martyrs’ who were likewise tortured to death, on similar grounds, at various points in history. When, in 1314, Jacques de Molay became the last of the Order of the Knights Templar to be immolated in an ‘auto da fe’: it was because of accusations that his Order had ‘reverted to pagan idolatry’; and for adopting suspiciously ‘Masonic-like’ initiation rites...

That, in a nutshell, was the sort of thing that would get you ‘tortured to death’, throughout most of the Middle Ages. And as you can see: those historical heresies simply pale into insignificance, compared to the one which Gordon John Manche so glibly committed last Sunday... when he actually arrogated unto himself, the direct authority to (quite literally) ‘speak on Jesus Christ’s behalf.’

Indeed, the last person who had the audacity to make such a claim – and who was likewise eventually executed for it, too – was arguably...

Why, none other than Jesus Christ himself: who famously started his entire mission, by proclaiming – at the end of his first (and last) Scripture reading, in a Nazareth synagogue – that his own presence there had ‘fulfilled’ a certain Prophecy of Isaiah (specifically, the one that spoke of ‘the coming of a Messiah’...)

And guess what? It didn’t work out too well for Jesus at the time, either.  We are told that: “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him [Jesus] out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” [Luke 4: 28-30]

See what I mean? In those bygone eras, people didn’t take too kindly to individuals who just suddenly ‘popped up out of nowhere’: only to announce that they themselves were henceforth to be regarded as ‘official mouthpieces’ for the One True God: you know, the ‘Supreme Deity’, to whom all earthly powers owe their eternal allegiance, loyalty, and unquestioning obedience: now, and for ever and ever, Amen....’

Don’t ask me why: but that sort of thing got the official religious authorities of the time, all kind of... ‘jumpy’, if you know what I mean. It was for this reason that they crucified Jesus Christ, 2,000 years ago; and it was for a whole lot less, that people like Giordano Bruno– and countless other ‘heretics’ – were subsequently burnt at the stake (or otherwise gruesomely dispatched), in his name.

And yet, today - in Year of Our Lord 2023 – someone like Gordon John Manche can freely come along, and so casually utter a handful of words that would have been instantly considered ‘blasphemous’, until only a couple of centuries ago (while he himself would most likely have ended up ‘hung, drawn and quartered’); and...

Nothing. No lynch-mobs; no ‘Trial by the Inquisition’; no ‘confession extracted under torture’... and no ‘public execution for heresy’, either.

Strange, huh? It’s almost as though – from the late 18th century, onwards – Christians the world over started to belatedly understand, at least one small part of Jesus Christ’s overall message. Namely, the part that goes something like:

> “Love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39)

> “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” {Matthew 6:12)

> “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44)

And lastly (in chronological order, anyway):

> ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.’  [Luke 23:24]

All of which, by the way, raises another charge of ‘blasphemy’ that can conceivably be levelled at Gordon John Manche: only this time, not against ‘God Almighty’... but against ‘Logic’, and ‘Common Sense’.

Look at this way: if Manche really is correct, all along – and Jesus Christ really DID choose him, specifically, to be his own official mouthpiece (or his ‘parrot’, as Manche puts it) – then... erm...

... sorry, but can anyone out there explain why these two individuals - Gordon John Manche, and Jesus Christ - happen to be saying things that not only ‘fail to match up’, on any logical level... but which also flatly contradict each other, at every turn?

Starting with the argument that Manche was actually defending, when he declared that: ‘It’s not Gordon saying this; it’s Jesus Christ’. Specifically, he was referring to his own personal view, that ‘homosexuality’ constitutes some kind of ‘aberration’, which – by an entirely unsurprising coincidence - God himself happens to find just as ‘abhorrent’, as he does...

Hmm. Yes, well that kind of ‘figures’, doesn’t it?... given that Gordon John Manche evidently sees no difference whatsoever, between his own private opinions, and those of The Supreme Creator of the Universe (a fact which - in and of itself - already constitutes ‘blasphemy’, right there.)

The much bigger problem, however, is that: nowhere, in the entire New Testament, does Jesus Christ ever utter even a single word of condemnation – indeed, there is not even a single, solitary mention, of any kind whatsoever – aimed at either ‘homosexuality’, in general; or ‘homosexuals’, in particular.

Naturally, this doesn’t automatically prove that Jesus Christ himself somehow condoned homosexuality’, in his own day. It is, in fact, highly unlikely that he would have: given that Christ tended to agree with orthodox Judaism, on most other ‘sexual proclivities’ (‘fornication’, ‘adultery’, and so on - and yes; I imagine that would almost certainly have included ‘sess fil-patata’, too...)

But still. Jesus Christ never actually mentioned ‘sess fil-patata’, in as many words; still less did he ever condemn homosexuality as an ‘aberration’.

So if he himself was so unbothered about it, so as to not even allude to the phenomenon, in any tangible way... then why the bleeding heck does the same ‘homosexuality’ bother Jesus Christ’s flipping ‘parrot’ so much, that it seems almost incapable of squawking about practically anything else?

And that’s not the only contradiction, by the way. What was it again, that Jesus Christ consistently told us he expected all his followers do, whenever they are ‘reviled, spat upon, and persecuted in [His] name’?

I stand to be corrected, of course... but last I looked, it wasn’t exactly : ‘Report every last motherf****ing one of them to the police, and make them PAY!!”

No, it was more along the lines of: ‘Forgive, and forget’; ‘Turn the other cheek’; ‘Love Thy Enemy’. You know, that sort of thing...

But, oh well. All it really means, ultimately, is that Gordon John manche isn’t exactly doing a very brilliant job, in his self-proclaimed role as ‘Jesus Christ’s parrot’.

So... well, maybe Jesus should just consider getting himself a new one, that’s all (and preferably, one that actually quotes what he himself said, this time... instead of just ‘projecting its own prejudices’, onto Jesus Christ himself.)

Just a thought...