Christ's imperfections is exactly what many people think Christianity has been trying to cover up for thousands of years. Just because you believe in Christ and worship him does not mean you have to think he was perfect. God sent his son down in the form of man which meant he would have to battle the same temptations, the same vices., etc. To me what sense would it make to lead men to the right path by sending your son to Earth when your son would not have the same capability of being tempted by evil like other men were? How could folks ever relate to such a guy and therefore how could they ever hope to think they could match his example if he was given, by birthright, such a major advantage like that? Folks could brush it off by coming to their own conclusion that the only way to always stay on the straight and narrow path was to be the spawn of the Almighty.
Sunday Bible classes would teach us that Christ never committed a sin from his time of birth to his death as a relative young man even though some historians and theoligians would argue earlier teachings of Christianity never tried to go that route in Disney-fying the man's life. But obviously Sunday Bible teachings often tried to break things down to a childlike view of history and society. But as adults doesn't that seem simplistic? Even if Christ wound up being the most perfect human being in history doesn't mean that he did not succumb to anger, hostility, jealousy, arrogance, etc at some time throughout his life. It just meant he overcame it during those times he had faltered or was close to faltering. At least that's how some people feel. You don't even need to read a Dan Brown novel to come across those who insist that Jesus had in fact taken a wife or a lover too. However the vast majority of Christians these days are intolerant even over the suggestion of this. But what else can you expect when the Bible presents everything in the world as being black and white when we ourselves know the world is and always has been a lot grayer.
So should it be hard to believe that folks who were running or promoting Christianity also tried to simplify how Christ lived his life? Your argument further backs me up when you suggest the Christian faith would go up in smoke if there wasn’t a belief by so many Christians that Jesus represented perfection. That implies that people of faith need its center “heroes” to be at an even more extreme level of nobility than the last son of Krypton. Anything less and their apparently fragile beliefs are crushed under a weight of uncertainty and despair. That’s sad. I would think a Christian (like myself) would be even more impressed and inspired by Christ if he at times did stumble and did display flaws but ultimately kept true to God’s ideals and died for his fellow flaw human beings regardless. Even as a Catholic in high school I was told to try to detect what may be bs in Christian teaching (like the ancient, male-centric concept that women were basically property of their husbands). Hell, I had enough common sense to not buy into the physical presentation of Christ as a pale, blond, blue-eyed hippie either. Nonetheless that image of Christ has been sold to the public for hundreds of years even though the idea of a "white" Christ was never presented to society until Michelangelo. Yet if you told many so-called Christians that Jesus may not have been white I believe their faith would erode just as quickly (if not more so) than if you told them he was not perfect and perhaps had felt lust for a woman or two.
