a link from, of all places, yahoo. It's Christian propaganda of course but very well written indeed. Here is one section - things I have often thought but not as clearly as this:

Even Jesus’ harshest critics rarely have called him a liar. That label certainly doesn’t fit with Jesus’ high moral and ethical teaching. But if Jesus isn’t who he claimed to be, we must consider the option that he was intentionally misleading everyone.

One of the best-known and most influential political works of all time was written by Niccolò Machiavelli in 1532. In his classic, The Prince, Machiavelli exalts power, success, image, and efficiency above loyalty, faith, and honesty. According to Machiavelli, lying is okay if it accomplishes a political end.

Could Jesus Christ have built his entire ministry upon a lie just to gain power, fame, or success? In fact, the Jewish opponents of Jesus were constantly trying to expose him as a fraud and liar. They would barrage him with questions in attempts to trip him up and make him contradict himself. Yet Jesus responded with remarkable consistency.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York

 from this week's "tablet":

While the world rejected so much church teaching, the archbishop said, there was one truth that it always accepted: “It might seem, brother bishops, that the world wants us to forget every church teaching except for the one truth our culture is exuberantly eager to embrace and trumpet: the sinfulness of her members,” he said. “With contrition and deep regret, we acknowledge that the members of the Church – starting with us – are sinners!”

from the group:

What we must avoid is the fear of not being worthy to work with the Spirit of Christ in spiritual transformation and union. Nothing is beyond the power of grace to transform us. Even the remnants and memories of our sins and mistakes, of our handicaps and disabilities become the prime material of our transformation. All can be overcome in the grace of Christ Jesus. We must not be like the third servant who hid the master’s investment capital and lived only in his fear.