On Palm Sunday 2025, the New York Times published an article by Rev. Andrew Thayer, an Episcopal priest. The article, “Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession”, argues that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was not a triumphal procession but a “parody of imperial power, a deliberate mockery of Roman spectacle.” Jesus comes to Jerusalem to subvert Roman power and authority.

To elaborate his theme, Rev. Thayer describes another procession entering Jerusalem at the same time. He writes, “From the west came Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, riding a warhorse and flanked by armed soldiers bedecked in the full pageantry of an oppressive empire.” Pilate’s entry is a dramatic counterpoint to the more humble arrival of Jesus. The message is clear: the kingdom of Caesar is being directly challenged by the kingdom of God. 

I have heard the story about the entry of Pontius Pilate into Jerusalem a number of times. Clergy often recount it when preaching on Palm Sunday. However, there is one problem with this story: it is entirely fictitious. There are no scriptural accounts of it, nor are there any non-scriptural accounts in the writings of say, Philo or Josephus. It is a story created to support a narrative: that of Jesus the political freedom fighter challenging existing systems of oppression. 

Where did it come from? I traced the story to the 2006 book The Last Week by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan. The book contains a detailed analysis of what, in the authors’ view, really happened in the days leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. There isn’t space for me to cover all the points in the book. However, the more one reads, the more the authors’ intentions become clear. They are are attempting a radical re-interpretation and re-imagining of Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection.

When discussing the resurrection, for example, Borg and Crossan entreat their readers to think of it as a parable. That’s like saying, “don’t worry if this isn’t true; think of it as something abstract.” They use words like “factuality” instead of the plainer word “fact”, as when they question the “historical factuality of the empty tomb.” In another book, The First Paul, the authors actually deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus. 

In Borg and Crossan’s view, Jesus comes not to die for our sins, but to resist Roman rule. The disagreements between Jesus and the Pharisees are relegated to a minor role in the primary power struggle between Jesus and the Romans. Borg and Crossan see Jesus as an oppressed insurrectionist fighting the Roman “domination system”, a term they borrowed from the French philosopher Michel Foucault.

The chief problem with their revisionism is that it relies upon a selective use of scripture and of made-up stories, such as Pilate entering Jerusalem at the same time as Jesus. The villains in the book are the Roman subjugators. Jesus comes to overturn the cruel Roman system of governance. But the authors’ thesis lacks nuance. While the Pax Romana could be brutal, at the same time it allowed Jews considerable freedom, for example to own businesses and to worship in the synagogues and temples. There were, of course, a small minority of Jews known as the Zealots who took up arms against the Romans. Jesus could have joined them, but chose not to. Where Rome was concerned, Jesus did not advocate resistance. He said, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21)

There are other scriptural examples which undermine Borg and Crossan’s black and white view. In Matthew 8:5-13, a Roman centurion approaches Jesus and asks him to heal his paralyzed servant. After a conversation between the two, Jesus praises the centurion, saying, “in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” And when Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate for questioning, the Roman governor strongly advocates for his acquittal; hardly the action of someone wishing to eliminate a political rival.

It turns out that Borg and Crossan have a contemporary agenda, which emerges in the latter part of the book. They consider the gospel an “anti-imperial” document, and ask which country might be the equivalent of Rome today? The authors point their fingers at the United States. In their opinion, it is time for this country to adapt itself to “God’s dream”, which means changing to a world of “distributive justice in which everybody has enough and systems are fair.” 

One wonders which country they had in mind when they wrote that last sentence? Cuba? North Korea? The implied solution - Borg and Crossan are too coy to name it - is for the USA is to become a socialist/communist country.

In his NYT article, Rev. Thayer rather predictably draws upon Jesus the insurrectionist as a stick with which to beat President Trump. Jesus opposed Caesar: Trump is like Caesar: therefore Jesus opposes Trump. However, this projective logic depends upon a deliberate misreading of scripture. Jesus was not raising up soldiers for the “resistance”, however much a left-wing priest would wish it were so. Jesus avoided political confrontation. When arrested, Jesus says, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a rebel?” (Mark 14:48).

What Borg, Crossan and Thayer are doing is creating a new Jesus, one whose miracles can be reduced to metaphors, whose political and psychological views match their own. This Jesus is one they can champion on their own terms, without the need to follow traditional Church doctrine and teachings.

Where does it leave us? Unfortunately, with a large number of people - clergy included - who have been misled and misinformed. What can be done? It isn’t enough to say, “I’m sorry, but this isn’t Christianity.” “Borgians” I have met are convinced their man is right. However, the gospel is not written as a manifesto for political change, nor does the resurrected Jesus appear as a “vision” in the imagination of his followers, as Borg and Crossan claim. There is more to heaven and earth than we can know or understand. Heavenly kingdoms are real, but not as human-engineered utopias. The road to salvation is a personal one, not a collective march to a socialist upland. 

The answer is for the Church to be prepared to call out false teaching when it appears, even if it means giving offense. A Church that fails to check the growth of secularism and politicization within itself will inevitably decline or simply become a partisan group, with a bit of Jesus thrown in for good measure. Carey Nieuwhof’s warning seem particularly germane: “If God has all the same opinions your political party does, you’re probably not worshiping God.”

Unlike secular institutions, the Church has a transcendent origin and purpose: to lead us toward a “new Jerusalem”, a city without need for “sun and moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” (Rev. 21:23) Anyone who professed the resurrected Jesus Christ as Lord has, in the words of Rev. Owen Chadwick, “an optimism that, despite chains which bound him to hell, God could raise him up, to mount towards heaven as the eagles fly, to run and not be weary.”

The antidote to Christian revisionism is a closer reading of scripture. That means considering scripture as a whole and asking what it has to teach us, even when it does not fit neatly into our world view. The ancient teachers of the Church remind us that, in the search for truth, reason alone is not enough. We are also dependent on Holy Spirit to reveal the mysteries of God’s kingdom. 

In each new age, there are those who seek to re-define Christian belief. The Church has a perennial duty to clarify and defend the mysteries of faith which have been handed down to her. By challenging false teaching, the Church can safeguard the truth of the Gospel message against those who would appropriate it for their own agendas.

Father David