My book, The Primacy of Stewardship: The Handbook for Christians Who Believe in Democracy, is unique for many reasons, one of which is that I restrict my focus and purpose upon the goal of evaluating the teachings of the Gospel "message" itself, without getting bogged down in disputes over the true identity of Jesus. I stick to the issue of whether the teachings of Jesus are scientifically credible. To be fair to Jesus, and treat him with the same courtesy that we would any other person, let's ask him who he is and hear his response.

When the disciples asked Jesus how to distinguish between a true prophet (teacher, advisor, spiritual guide or scientist) and a false prophet (Matthew 7), he said "By their fruits you will know them," which means that Jesus taught us to evaluate or judge a person by the results (fruits) of their work or of their ideas or of the programs or projects they design and implement.

When John the Baptist sent a small group of disciples to talk to Jesus and ask him "Are you the one we are looking for [the Messiah], or should we keep looking?" (Matthew 11) Jesus did not respond by saying, "Yes, I am the Messiah." He said to the delegation or "deputation" from John: "Report to John what you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, the poor have the gospel preached to them [the poor are educated without being charged a fee]." Each person must decide for themselves who or what they believe Jesus is, but this is the statement made by Jesus himself about who he is.