If you want The United States of America to truly be a Christian Nation, you need to let go of the past.
Accept Jesus as a Fictional Character, and develop that Character in the context of 21'st Century America, for an American Mythos that is just as Unique to America as the Gods of Olympus were to Greece.
Look at The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
They represent a more healthy American Mythology than Jesus Christ because the story of Jesus Christ doesn't have any connection with North America. You need to re-invent the Character of Jesus and carry forward the Meaning through Character Development.
Superman and Green Lantern qualify for this as well.
Fiction is vitally important for establishing Morals and Ethics in Human Society, and we have been messing up.
More focus has been spent on justifying the Bible for the sake of Superpowers. If Superpowers are so important, then we design them through fiction. "The Word" is an Information Virus that carries forward inter-generationally. It was Authoritarianism that forced The Word to stagnate and solidify when it was meant to be Fluid.
Don't even call him Jesus. If you must, then pronounce it in the Modern Tongue of "Hey-Zeus" not "Gee-Zuss."
The Core Character Dynamic can be attached to any Name, Gender, Nationality, or Ethnic Group.
Field-Strip Jesus as a Fictional Character, and define his Light. Give that Light to someone born in this Century, and in America.
If you don't want the same problem to re-occur, make sure that Character can't be confused with any Person Living or Dead. Evade the Dynamic of chased Lineage, or people generations hence will make the exact same mistake of trying to prove he or she was a real person to justify their Faith.
Fantasy in this aesthetic is more important than Reality. Fantasy forms a Blueprint for Reality, and a Mythos is the Infrastructure of Morals and Ethics that can only truly be instilled through Emotionally Moving Storytelling.
jthrash
Wow, uh, good luck with that, especially with older Evangelical Americans. It’s definitely a fascinating thing to think about, especially considering my own constant struggle with reconciling with the fact that I do think the Bible still has some good ideas (not just for fantasy concepts, but morals that still hold up today like the story of the Good Samaritan) with the fact that Christianity (in the US, at least) seems laser-focused on pushing regressive ideas in the Bible that were not even acceptable or realistic values to hold when the Magna Carta was first introduced, let alone in modern society.
Like, I read and study the Bible as I have been since my Catholic high school years, but I just don’t feel comfortable going to Church anymore if, instead of teaching me to be a kinder person and to be more charitable with my money, they’re just ranting against modern society, still blaming things that obviously didn’t exist when Genesis was first written like video games for all the problems they see in modern society, and worse seemingly worshipping specific politicians and Presidents that are most likely to help in their goal of turning the US into a theocratic “Christian Sharia Law” state.
Something needs to change if churches truly care about religion declining in the younger generations. Again, I still think the Bible’s ultimate goal is to make us kinder people, but I get an opposite, more politically-motivated goal when I actually go to Church, and their Evangelism actually pushes me further way from Jesus rather than towards him. Fascinating ideas from your post, but I can just see more religious people bristling at the mere suggestion of Jesus being compared to the Greek Gods and especially popular characters like Super Man. Then again, if you’re a Christian who wants to avoid being aroused by “graven imagery,” then what the heck are you doing on Newgrounds??
Mindblade16
I'm a Mad Scientist with Dangerous Ideas. The Bible isn't misinterpreted as Authoritarian. The Character of God in the Book is a Tyrant. If God is Good, then Tyranny must be Good. I'm not tolerating that. America is still a superior form of Government to a Dictatorship. If the Universe is a Dictatorship according to the Bible, then Lucifer was Morally Correct in his Rebellion. He didn't trick a large fraction of Angels into joining his cause without some kind of Objective Point. The whole mess stinks of a Political Smear Campaign.