JC and Me: A Dialogue on Nonjudgemental Love

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In an emerging 21st-century pattern, the foreword warns the reader that
the author is not be to criticized, for he tells us that the “JC”
(Jesus Christ) presented here is “my interpretation,” and this book
“is meant as a wake-up call to all those individuals who would use
their positions of power and knowledge to force their beliefs on
others.” Ted Mouradian wants to be free to construct his own
pseudo-Christianity without question or criticism from religious
scholars even though he, through his puppet JC, tells us early in the
book that “if the truth can be questioned, discussed and argued over
and over again, then I believe that the real truth will evolve.”

Mouradian’s Jesus is “a nonjudgmental, nonviolent, pure-love
being” who tells the author, “[I] did not die for the sins of man. I
was executed because I was a social activist who was gathering
momentum.” Organized Christian religion and its leaders have presented
only the ideas those in power wish presented and “any evidence that
did exist has either been destroyed or guarded so well that the general
public will never know what happened in the past.” For Mouradian, all
religions are a personal construct and thus any deity is not an
objective Personal Other, for “they all come from the Mind God.”
“We humans are all God” for we create our own religions.

The Christian life and faith that the author builds around his JC is an
eclectic mix of ideas in which the superstitions of the past are
answered by the technologies of today, and past taboos (e.g.,
prostitution) are swept away. Yet dreams and visions are acceptable, for
through them “the other dimension is sharing the wisdom of the ages”
with us, and animals and plants “understand much more than humans do,
for they tap into the pure energy of the life soul.” So, in the end it
all boils down to this: Mouradian’s superstitions are good and all
other superstitions are bad.