Humanists of the world unite—rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, because the man from Galilee singly praised you.

Did you know that Jesus reduced religion to morality and minimized the importance of belief in God? Did you know that Jesus praised the morally active nonbeliever over the morally in-active believer?

To the proof texts:

Consider a slim parable from chapter 21 of Matthew’s gospel. It’s the simplest of tales. A father, Jesus says, asks two sons to perform a task. One son says in effect, ‘I’ll get right on it, dad,’ but he never does the task. The other son says, ‘I ain’t gonna do it, dad,’ but after a while he ends up doing it anyway.

It’s clear that the father in this parable is God and the sons represent humanity.

We could garnish this little story with a guess that the two sons are teenagers. Any parent of teenagers could imagine the vocal delivery, the facial expression, and the gesture of each son delivering his respective lines. The first son, ersatz smile, thumbs up, chirpy manner. The second son, moody, grumbling, waving the order away.

Then Jesus, in typical form, asks a question that demands only one answer. ‘Which son did the bidding of the father?’ Comes the reply, ‘The last son, the one who said he wouldn’t do the task but did it anyway.’

Let the interpretation begin.

The first son represents those true believers in God who say ‘Yes’ but never actually get around to doing anything good. The second son signifies those humanists and agnostics and atheists and secularists and freethinkers who say ‘No’ and do good anyway.

It is the doing that is important in this modest parable, not the claim of doing, not the assertion of doing. The humanist is like the son who says ‘No’ to God and then does God’s bidding anyway, through acts of kindness and morality.

There is a second proof text:

In Matthew 25 Jesus yet again reduces religion to morality.

Jesus tells a story of the final judgment of humanity. Every one who has ever lived is assembled before the judgment seat of God—billions of people.

Here’s the shock: Only ethical criteria determine afterlife destinations. There are no religious criteria at all in the judgment.

‘Go to hell,’ says God to those who never did anything for ‘the least,’ who are enumerated as the sick, the imprisoned, the thirsty, the hungry, and those too poor to own clothes.

‘Come to heaven,’ says God to those who helped ‘the least,’ enumerated as the sick, the imprisoned, the thirsty, the hungry, the ill clad. ‘Whenever you helped the least, you helped Me,’ says the cosmic Judge.

What is conspicuously absent is anything to do with belief in God, belief in church, belief in saints, belief in dogmas, belief in angels, belief in bells, books, candles, or anything supernatural.

Equally noticeable is the lack of required religious duties, like church going, fasting, and prayer.

The only criteria for judgment is ethical behavior toward life’s unfortunates, whom Jesus calls ‘the least.’ The only way to get into heaven is to treat ‘the least’ well, and the only way to stay out of heaven is NOT to treat ‘the least’ well at all.

The least might not only refer to the least of people. A clever wag could say animals are ‘the least.’ And then moral behavior toward lowly animals would be the height of morality. God would say: ‘When you were kind to the cat, the bat, dolphin and dog, koala bear and hog, the fox, the ox, giraffe and shrew, echidna, caribou—you were kind to Me.’

(Isn’t creative exegesis lovely under the influence of ‘They Might Be Giants’?)

In any event, belief and religious duties come nowhere near Jesus’ judgment story.

The Judge in this gospel scene doesn’t say, ‘Those who believed in a virgin birth, those who believed Jesus was God, those who believed they ingested the blood of Jesus, those who believed in twenty-seven canonized books, those who prayed, fasted, and never missed a Sunday sermon—come to heaven.’

Nor does the Judge say, ‘Those who disbelieved in a virgin birth, those who disbelieved anyone ever ingested the blood of Jesus, those who disbelieved in twenty-seven canonized books, those who failed to pray and fast, those who missed all Sunday sermons—go to hell.’

Only ethical and unethical behavior is actionable for the Jesus of Matthew 21 and 25. Neither mental assent to religious doctrines nor the regular practice of religious rituals and duties counts at all in either of these stories.

Rejoice Humanists, and be exceedingly glad, because the man from Galilee singly set you apart for praise.

Jesus might just as well have said, ‘A moral atheist tops an immoral theist any old day of the week, especially any old judgment day.’

Featured image ‘Jesus’ by Matthew via Flickr