For nearly two millennia, practicing Christians the world-over have regularly recited, memorized, and attempted to heed Jesus words. His life of sacrifice and self-giving has been held up as the model for every disciple. He has been the object of devotion, the subject of both creed and sermon, and the recipient of countless prayers. Simply stated, Jesus has been and continues to be the cornerstone of Christianity. Each of these shifts is crucial.
People are hungry for inner peace and are discovering it in all sorts of places.
Jesus is seen by many outside the church as one potential way and simply one way among many for finding this peace. However, the Jesus that most attracts the attention of the general public is one stripped of his potentially offensive Christian features. Jesus is valorized as a, if not the, quintessential spiritual guide. This tendency to universalize Jesus is curiously mated with an obsession for certainty. People want to know, with high a degree of confidence, what really happened and who Jesus really was.