Jesus as technologist rather than object of belief

I had an image of Jesus providing us with the technology of salvation...

This technology is not dependent on what we believe about the technology. It depends on how we use it. It does not depend on one's uttering a particular statement of belief about it.

For example. My five-year-old might say a car goes on its own, or might spin a terrific story about magic powers making it go. I "know" it goes because of internal combustion. I've never seen it in action directly -- I have faith it's there. And whatever either of us believes about the engine, it works! I can guide the car to take us places far faster than we ever could do on foot.

Similarly, whatever guides the universe -- whether God is singing each present moment into being, or whether it's a simple logical and causal unfolding from the Big Bang (whatever caused the Big Bang in the first place being beyond the reach of present investigation) -- is sort of beside the point for me.

Rather the point is twofold.

First: Do we live in the present awareness of the Kingdom of Heaven among us? Do we love That which brings forth this state among us, That Which Will Be What it Will Be?

Second: Do we love our enemies? and our neighbors as ourselves?

If I do these things, the universe begins to open up in unexplained ways. And I can imagine a far better world, and live my life into that world. It could be "imaginary," in a sense, and also it is true to my vision, my dreams, my desires, my very soul. (Just as one can't say John Lennon's "Imagine" is true or untrue... Yes, including the line about God!)
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I also imagine that this was just a half-formed thought. It's not a master's thesis! :)
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One of my favorite quotes ever is from Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn, to the effect that: "I am so glad Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life,' rather than, 'I KNOW the way, the truth, and the life.'" [I can't find my copy of that book. Robin thinks I might have loaned it to someone. If you're reading this and you have it, can I have it back? :)]

Rachel Muers and The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning

Another find I made from the comments on Wess Daniels's post An apologetic for a Quaker theology:

Rachel Muers is a British theologian at University of Exeter and a Quaker. She has written a book entitled Keeping God's Silence: Towards a Theological Ethics of Communication, which looks interesting. She contributed to Towards Tragedy, edited by Pink Dandelion.

She also was the guest editor of a special issue of The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning on poverty and debt-release: Linked here.

Here's a section of her essay in that journal; written in an academic style, I found it insightful:

It is important to note, finally, that the connection between forgiveness and daily bread, and between both of these and forms of discourse about God, is, as the work of scriptural reasoners reflected elsewhere in this journal issue suggests, not merely metaphorical. A shortage of forgiveness is materially connected with a shortage of daily bread, and vice versa. This becomes particularly apparent when we consider, with a critical and troubled eye on the contemporary world situation, the unsustainability of debt....

It is possible that, if most people in the world know this about debt, and yet things continue as they do, the logical and also (for theologians) rather unsurprising conclusion is that most people most of the time do not desire life enough to choose it above death and/or the fear of death. And hence that, if there are people who do desire life, enough to say prayers like this or to recite suras like this, the fostering of that desire - discourse on the past and future "bounty of the Lord," speech about the Kingdom of God, the singing of songs of ascents [eg The Lord's Prayer or Sura 93 in the Q'uran] is itself a crucial step towards a different economics.

Lord, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.