Well, Sorcha, you know I love you dearly, but I guess I ought to say something about this statement of yours:

Problem is that modern Christianity has moved VERY VERY far from what Jesus actually did say, if MMLJ can be believed at all. They are even at odds with each other, let alone the Apocryphyal gospelists, such as Thomas.

• I don't know what you're saying about the Gospel of Thomas. As far as my sources can tell, it was written in about 150 AD, so it was certainly not the writing of the Apostle Thomas. It was not accepted into the "canon" of writings which became the New Testament, which means it was not considered essential to the faith of those who called themselves Christians. It has some nice stories, but they're kinda weird. People have written weird religious stuff since the beginning of writing. All that is a long way of asking what the Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas has to do with the price of tea in China.
• What's MMLJ? I'm bad at acronyms.
• If Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker and Oral Roberts and Bob Jones and a host of other television preachers who call themselves Christians - if they preach a gospel that hovers somewhere between bigotry and idiocy, do I have to be lumped with them and do I have to defend or excuse them? These people call themselves Christians, but they don't fit my idea of Christianity. Same with the popes who were corrupt - and a number of them weren't - but I see no reason why I should have to identify myself with the bad ones.
• You say that "modern Christianity has moved VERY VERY far from what Jesus actually did say." I dunno. My heroes are Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez and Desmond Tutu and the Berrigans and my grandmother (who loved every person she ever met). All of these people did things from a Christian perspective, and I think they accomplished wonders. I prefer to be lumped with them, and not with the Swaggarts and the Bakkers. I feel very much at home and comfortable with atheists and Jews; but Swaggart and Bakker are not my people and I have a very hard time being polite when I am with their ilk, so please don't lump me with them.

...but I still love you, you rat!
-Joe Offer-