Jesus had a relatively small band of followers that abandoned him at the first sign of unpopularity with authorities, pissed off more people than followed him, and was murdered by the public authorities at the demand of the local population. He got a bigger posthumous following after (actually or in a myth created by people seeking their own influence) rising from the dead.
Says a lot more about the respect for miracles than respect for humility, however much one might read what is written about him as calling for humility from his followers. Meanwhile the list of historical figures whose rise to influence was fueled by the exact opposite of humility is...not short.
> every president before Trump,
Very many of the Presidents before Trump were...not known for humility in their time. Some have had that added to their popular myth afterwards, but, I mean, plenty not even that, and probably the most recent one that was (I'm...not young, and Carter is probably the only one in my lifetime you might make a case that it was something he was particularly known for.)
> Very many of the Presidents before Trump were...not known for humility in their time.
Who? What did they do? Nobody like Trump or other people I named.
You might want to reread the upthread context: I was discussing the role of humility “in concrete terms of actual people in terms of attracting a contemporary following” and distinguishing that form backward-looking regard (since we are comparing to how Trump is currently viewed, where we can see only the contemporary regard and not what future generations will think of him in retrospect.)
What has happened after the time of Jesus ministry with respect to the impact of works written about him is irrelevant.
Jesus is certainly far, far more influential than 2000 years ago. Christianity was an obscure religion and probably nobody had heard of Jesus outside the immediate region.
Parable of the sower comes to mind: hear the word, but did not follow it.
Except the popularity in that era was due to all the powerful people saying it proved their right to absolute power and sometimes made other religions (including denominations of Christianity) illegal, and popularity waned rapidly as it stopped being required.
Actually reading the bible is a big part of why I switched from Catholic to Wicca as a teen before deciding it was probably all ahistorical anyway.
As I understand it: Humans are complicated, as Jesus depicted them. They are both terminally weak and flawed, and there is also good and justice and mercy in them - the many angels of our natures. Jesus ministered to the weak and flawed, not the good and just, certainly not to the perfect. It's a message of love to people who sin, which is pretty much everyone; Jesus didn't expect differently. His message was to love the sinners and for the sinners to accept his love.
All human institutions are flawed and to a degree corrupt; they are run by sinners. I'm not defending the Catholic Church or any church or religion, my point is that if we throw out the good when there are flaws, major flaws, we are left with nothing. Not even ourselves.
FALSANI: “What is sin?” OBAMA: “Being out of alignment with my values.”
https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/obama-sin...
I don't think that's true: Confucious, Jesus, George Washington, Lincoln, MLK ... Eisenhower, every president before Trump, the New England culture of looking down on ostentation and displays of wealth, .... I read a New Yorker article several years ago about a culture of Wall Street leaders in the 1980s who purposely wore cheap watches, had homes with low fences, etc.