"a wild ragged figure"

This is [part of] what I believe:

"If Democrats want to fight Republicans for the support of an institutional Jesus, they will have to...turn away from what Flannery O'Connor described as "the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus" and "a wild ragged figure" who flits "from tree to tree in the back" of the mind."

"He was never that thing that all politicians wish to be esteemed — respectable. At various times in the Gospels, Jesus is called a devil, the devil's agent, irreligious, unclean, a mocker of Jewish law, a drunkard, a glutton, a promoter of immorality."

"The institutional Jesus of the Republicans has no similarity to the Gospel figure. Neither will any institutional Jesus of the Democrats."

From "Christ Among the Partisans," a nice New York Times article by Garry Wills.

Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/opinion/09wills.html?ex=1144900800&en=29cfd3907279edaf&ei=5087%0A