It has often been observed by readers of this blog that I have a tendency to be a bit down on Jesus.

Today I'm going to give the guy a break. Being Jesus must be like being the bloke who answers the phone when you dial one of those "How Am I Driving?" numbers on the back of badly-driven vans and lorries: he's genuinely trying to make the world a happier, safer place and all he gets is aggravation.

So just for today, let's forget all the crusades, pogroms, persecutions of heretics, burnings, bastinado, the rack, tithes, censorship, banning of books, beating of children, indoctrination, weird sexual mores, limitation of education, oppression of women, hounding of gays, saying that condoms are useless against AIDS, encouraging of large families in third-world countries and preaching while the poor starve. Let's choose to ignore, just for one day, all the bits of the Old Testament that advocate murder and genocide, the bits of the New that don't add up or are contradictory, the hypocrisy, the suppression of science, the Inquisition, the propping up of dictatorships, the civil wars, the colonialism, the years of academic brilliance wasted on theological minutiae (monophysitism, anyone?) and the social and intellectual respectability given to otherwise intelligent people who choose to believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Let's give Jesus a break. The boy done well. He busted a gut rising from the dead, and we should should make an effort to be grateful.

Good effort, Son.