Blogging Around: If the mainstream media covered Jesus the way it covered Mother Teresa

“Why didn’t he heal everyone in Capernaum?” asked Rachel, echoing a question found in the new book The Ridiculous Messiah, a lacerating critique of Jesus by Cyrus of Caesaria, the popular Cynic. One of the most damaging charges from the bestselling book is what the author calls the “selectivity” of Jesus’s healing.

Rachel noted, accurately, that many others in Capernaum were known to be ill that day. “My mother has dropsy. My brother has a bad back. And I had a migraine. Jesus didn’t bother to ask if we wanted to be healed.”

Also, say critics, if Jesus was concerned about the sick, why would he not build a proper hospital or shelter?

“He’s a carpenter, isn’t he?” said Rachel. “Build us a hospital!”

Matthew, a former tax collector from Capernaum who follows Jesus as an “apostle” grew animated when he heard that criticism.

“That’s not what he’s here for!” he said. “Others do that. He simply helps people as he meets them.”

“That’s a common defense of him,” says Cyrus, contacted by this reporter through a messenger. “And it’s absurd.”

A classic piece from America magazine. Definitely go read the whole thing. Via Brandon Vogt.