Amiri Baraka’s “When We’ll Worship Jesus”: Deconstructing the Bourgeois Image of Jesus Christ

Abstract

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth. I did not come to bring peace on Earth but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in law. And a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.”- Matthew 10:34, 35, 361 The above mentioned lines which have been quoted from the chapter of Matthew in the Bible may shock the general people, as most of them have been born and brought up in a bourgeois system which by the training delivered to their subjects through the ideological state apparatus have been familiarised with an image of Christ as someone who wants to bring peace through reconciliation. This image or the caricature of Jesus is made very carefully by the ruling class since to call Jesus a revolutionary figure speaking out for the oppressed masses against the grasps of tyrannical rule may often serve as an inspiration for insurrection. Jesus was in fact a revolutionary figure in that age pointing out that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) and not within one man. This is a direct call for revolution against the tyrannical Roman Monarchy. However, today, the present system (capitalism) will have the people believe through their religious teachings that the best thing to do is to close your eyes whenever you are in a problem and pray to the image of ‘peace’ symbolised in the figure of Jesus. The people are told by the various institutions that it was Jesus who had sacrificed himself on the cross for the good of mankind whereas in actuality he was crucified by the Romans on the basis of of being a delinquent, along with two other people who had