D L Henderson
2 min readFeb 28, 2024

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I was drawn to your essay by your premise, "Some of the most important aspects of Jesus' teachings were repressed from the beginning. The Hebrews started the repression. The Roman Catholic Church expanded it. And by and large the Protestants followed."

Yes. True enough. But then, you quickly followed with many incorrect assumptions, repeating a process just like the one you are so thoroughly protesting!

One common error is how people living at the time referred to Jesus and how He referred to Himself, which included the Son of Man (a genealogical lineage reference to the Promise given to Eve), the Son of David (a governing reference to the Promise to King David that one of David's progeny would sit on his throne forever), and Son of God (referring to his rank, authority, power, and dominion which not only Peter but a crucifying Centurion declared).

Perhaps by rote, in your essay, is the fallacy, "God is in every man!"

Hardly. Mankind only at one time had a godlike nature. No longer. That is easily observed in the behaviors clearly seen all around.

However, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and did not have those negative tendencies which He would have had if Joseph was His father. When "He was tempted just as we are" as the Son of Man, "yet without sinning" as the Son of God...

You take quite the Olympian leap over logic to say Jesus reflects Man. No. Jesus reflects God. Humanity lost that image a long, long time ago!

You also go on writing as if Christianity is just another ethereal and mystical fable. Nevertheless, the entire Bible as a meat and potatoes, exhaustive study of reality, lived out by ordinary human beings, including Noah.

The world we live in is not some kind of dreamscape.

I apologize for being so direct, but you really went off the Biblical rails in the paragraphs starting with "What we experience..." and is a deflection exiting onto a railroad siding more apt for boxcars carrying Far Eastern mysticisms and psychological babblings - which you seem to consciously embrace.

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D L Henderson

Born 1950; HS 1968; Born again 1972; Cornell ILR; Steward, Local President/Business Agent; Husband, father, grandfather; winner/loser/everything in between