Does Jesus Kick Ass?

I'm still plodding through John Stott’s “The Cross of Christ”. I didn’t think it would be easy but I didn’t want this to be a lesson in futility. I decided to do a little supplemental reading to get a more colorful approach to the same perspective. I turned to the more culturally relevant style of Mark Driscoll. Mark shares Stott’s view but he is always good for an entertaining presentation and he shows us what it might look like to live out this barbaric view of God. “The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World” is a collaboration of several fundamentalist authors dedicated to John Stott. You can read more of it online. In the section written by Driscoll, he contrasts his reformed view of Jesus that focuses heavily on the exaltation (divinity) of Jesus with the emergent view that focuses more heavily on the incarnation (humanity) of Jesus. He suggests a balance, but he feels the only valid reason for choosing Christ as Lord is Jesus' divinity. He also goes further to diminish our attempts to admire the beauty of Jesus’ humanity.

“Without a robust recognition of the corresponding deity of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus has the propensity to leave us with a marred false image of Jesus – little more than a limp-wristed, marginalized, hippie-esque, unemployed Galilean pacifist in a dress with feathered hair and open-toed sandals – a guy that the average man would be remiss to worship because he could beat up that Jesus.“
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“Perhaps my favorite picture (and that of my young sons) of the glorious exaltation of our great God Jesus Christ is what we like to refer to as Ultimate Fighter Jesus. In Revelation 19:11-16, Jesus rides into town on a white horse, with his steely eyes blazing red like fire and a tattoo down his leg that says “King of kings and Lord of lords.” He is wearing white like a gunslinger from an old western and carrying a sword, looking for some bad guys as the blood of a ready-fallen enemies drips to the ground below. Simply, Jesus was, is, and forever will be fully God; he is not someone anyone would want to mess with.” - Mark Driscoll “The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World”

The historical Jesus was not potent enough to suit some Christians so they invented their own version of Jesus. The biblical stories of divinity contain provocative literary imagery. This imagery was used to speak about the importance of Jesus through the culture of Greek and Roman theology (divine beings visiting and interacting with people on Earth). I agree with these ancient myth makers that Jesus is important, he causes the blind to see (reveals wisdom), he heals the sick (restores outcasts to community), and he is the son of God (he was expected to be the replacement for Caesar and king of the Jews). But, I don’t feel that being Christian has anything to do with confusing those symbolic stories with historic past or future events. The imagery of Jesus' violent return to earth was a result of revenge minded violent zealots. These zealots were clearly part of Jesus' following, but as far as I'm concerned, they were not speaking for Jesus. Unfortunately, this view of Jesus has become the dominant view among modern Evangelical Christians. I feel it was inevitable given the acceptance of violent atonement theology by people like John Stott.

Repent and Believe

My recent reading has forced me to reconnect with a time in my life when I was brainwashed by biblical literalism. I do realize that at the heart of fundamentalism is a sincere desire to please God and follow Jesus. That should be applauded even though we forgot to consider if God would really want to be pleased (as if he was a human). Many have mistaken what it means to follow Jesus.

N.T. Wright makes a great point about how biblical interpretation keeps growing as our understanding of its ancient culture expands. Wright points to a phrase in Josephus’ work (Life of Flavious Josephus; 110) when he confronted a rebel during the Jewish / Roman War, Josephus wanted to convince this rebel to stop the futile attempts of attacking the Roman Empire and look for other ways to achieve his desired results. Josephus told the rebel to “Repent and believe in me”. In Greek that is, “metanoesein kai pistos emoi genesesthai”. There is no doubt that what Josephus was attempting to do for this man was save him from obvious peril. Josephus had seen the carnage left by previous attempts at rebellion against the Empire.

Wright goes on to explain that going back to Jesus' call for repentance and examining it in context is what allowed Martin Luther to re-examine the medieval Catholic doctrine of penitence. Luther realized it was off base. He recognized that this concept of repentance wasn’t consistent with the process of individuals confessing and being forgiven by a priest. He realized these words used in the first century meant a call to stop your misguided actions. Wright points out that Luther only got the exegesis half right. What Luther missed was that the call to belief (pistos) was not a request to adapt to a new set of spiritual beliefs Instead, it was a request to change your entire approach. It was about believing Jesus’ methods were better than the methods of “this world”. It meant agreeing to follow Jesus’ example by stopping the attempts to change the world using the ways of the world (violence, coercion, and war) and using the powers of God (love, forgiveness, justice, and mercy).

The more I criticize fundamentalism the more I realize I need to repent from using the ways of the world (ridicule, mockery, verbal attacks, etc) and believe that Jesus’ methods of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and mercy are better tools to accomplish my goals. This is a hard lesson for me and I recognize that I’m effected by the disappointment of learning I was brainwashed most of my life. I feel cheated that much of this information was available but intentionally hidden from me by the ignorance of Christianity in the deep south. I feel there is a path forward within Christianity. We can find common ground but it starts by ending the demonization of anyone outside our own viewpoint. Liberals must begin to realize fundamentalists are good people who have real fears about the immorality surrounding them. Fundamentalists need to stop using their particular interpretations of the bible (fundamental doctrines) as if they were the actual texts. It might even be good if they learned what the word “liberal” really means. If they did, they might even start using that term to describe Jesus.

Divine Child Abuse or Cosmic Suicide?

This is the last post about my disagreement with the basic assumptions of John Stott’s book “The Cross of Christ”. After this, I'll try to wrestle with ways to build bridges between Christians with different theological views.

John Stott doesn’t describe how the divinity of Jesus could physically happen so I’m left to try and guess how he might imagine it. I guess he wants us to imagine that God is a physical being (atoms, molecules, flesh) or that God must be able to temporarily become physical matter and interact and possibly even mate with a human (a type of shape-shifting to human form as needed). This is again something commonly found in Greek and Roman mythology as the gods from time to time intervene in sexual relationships with humans to produce divine sons leading their people to victory. Both Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar had divine birth stories defining them as sons of god and they had corresponding religious narratives created to honor and immortalize their political achievements. Most modern religions have correctly labeled that type of thinking as ancient symbolism rather than historical facts. Fundamentalists insist on hanging the validity of their faith on the historical accuracy of these stories which often leads to missing the more than literal meaning. I don't want the validity and fate of my Christian faith to hinge on something that will not last much longer. I think there is a better solution.

Finally, Stott wants us to assume that any statement made by any biblical author is actually something said by God. This is more than saying the bible is “God’s Word”. It is saying that the bible is "God’s words" (plural). Even most modern Evangelicals wouldn’t take this hard line literalistic approach. This means that if one of the gospel writers has his Jesus character say something, then Stott wants us to assume that the historical Jesus said it and phrased it exactly as the character in the story said it. Even highly symbolic language in books like the Gospel of John are supposed to be historical accounts. That is a huge stretch and it forces us to do intellectual back flips in order to fill in the resulting holes in the theory. It eliminates the important factor of the author's intent which is actually the most valuable aspect of any story.

We are left with a choice between divine child abuse or cosmic suicide. Stott favors the suicide option by stressing the fact that it is God himself who sacrifices his own life on the cross. The biggest problem I've had in getting through this book is that it makes too many metaphysical assumptions and concerns itself mainly with arguing for one formula of cosmic atonement over another. These types of doctrines reduce Jesus to the level of a silly comic book character and I feel like this book spends page after page trying to decide if kryptonite will kill Superman or simply render him ineffective. At least it reminds me of an interesting song...

Vampire Theology

Just in time for Halloween, I’m continuing my thoughts on the classic theory of atonement described in “The Cross of Christ” by John Stott.

I’m beginning to realize that maybe instead of a sci-fi movie or Greek mythology, the appropriate analogy for his description of atonement might be a B-grade horror flick. To make his theory work, you must make another assumption borrowed from Greek philosophy. In order for atonement to have its purpose of securing a preferred status in afterlife (heaven vs. hell) their must be a dualistic separation between physical bodies and spiritual souls. In other words, there needs to be something immortal which could be “alive” or “animated” outside of our physical body and then “saved” or “condemned”. It is a clever but very ancient way of explaining human intelligence and emotions. We can thank Plato for this mind/body dualism but it may not have been applied to the life of Jesus until Christianity began spreading outside the ancient Jewish world.

Most people today would understand “soul” as a symbol for our passion, hopes, and purpose and we would recognize our highly refined intellectual skills as a product of evolution. But for fundamentalists, atonement theory requires an ancient application of the word “soul” as a ghost-like being living within our body and surviving after our death. It is debatable if Jesus would have had that view given his setting in 1st century Jewish culture. Jesus lived in a time where the worldview of his people was shifting to embrace the Greek philosophy so it is possible but not probable that he embraced that shift. That logic had not been deeply absorbed into the Jewish religion. Even if Jesus did embrace this dualistic philosophy, most modern biblical scholars find it hard to imagine that he would have understood an otherworldly aspect to the system of sin and forgiveness. For Jews, sins are clearly actions that have their origin and resolution here on earth so the idea of sin and forgiveness playing out in a cosmic battle with stakes that are beyond our sight seems to be out of context for Jesus. This might explain why the application of atonement theories on top of Jesus’ life forced Christianity further and further from its Jewish roots. Early Christian theologians like Paul were quick (and probably correct) to adapt his message to fit this growing gentile worldview. If messages don’t adapt to the overriding worldview of a population then they most likely die. This ability of these early Christians to adapt the message of Jesus into the worldview of other cultures may be a huge success factor in the spread of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. Maybe we should learn from that approach.

It is more probable to assume that the problems addressed by Jesus were the same sins of injustice spoken about in the prophetic voices of Jewish prophets like Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah. All of the Gospel writers linked Jesus to the Old Testament prophets in their narratives by having him quote specific passages which symbolized his desire to continue their prophetic critique of the wealthy elite in Jerusalem. It makes sense to think that since he quoted them, he (and his narrators) agreed not only with the words of those prophets, but also their political meaning. That meaning is clearly the end of oppression by corrupt leadership and domination by a foreign empire.

Placing hope in medieval atonement theories has about as much as a value as a mystical clove of garlic. Remember, these theories came from the same people that invented the idea of splashing around holy water to fight off evil spirits and that wasn't even a movie. Still more to come…

For The Love of Zeus

I’m half way into “The Cross of Christ” by John Stott and I have to say I have a much tougher assignment in the book swap challenge with Jeremy (ReverendRockstar). He has given me a weighty book about the classical theory of atonement. I held this view at one point in my life so for me it is less about gaining new information and more about reflection and reconciliation. My first impression is that I’m not sure I realized how bizarre the fundamentalist faith of my childhood appears when viewing it from the outside looking in. I have found some positive areas for agreement and I’ll expand on those in later posts, but first I need to make a couple of observations.

As with most religious viewpoints, there are a few assumptions and biases that must be accepted before anything downstream can make sense. The first assumption of John Stott is a very strict theistic view of the divine that reminds me of the gods in Greek mythology. In order for the classical theory of atonement to work, God needs to be something like Zeus who is a transcendent intellectual being consciously controlling, manipulating, and sentencing mankind from some other remote planet or maybe a parallel universe. Stott doesn’t go into these ontological assumptions in this book. Maybe that is something my conversation partner Jeremy can clarify. I know that in my past, the reason I held tightly to ancient anthropomorphic images of God is because I had just never thought about any other options. For fundamentalists, the whole point of being Christian is to train people to adopt an ancient view of the universe complete with ghosts, demons, miracles, and supernatural after-life. Depending on what century you live in, it may also include a flat Earth and an orbiting Sun.

The questions I have at this point are: How much of this ancient worldview does a Christian need to hold and would it be a problem if that changes again in another 500 years? In this version of reality, where is this kind of God? Do I need to have an opinion about “his” location or for that matter “his” gender?

I realize that what I’m doing in this post is beyond the scope of Stott’s book. He begins with all this as assumption and it isn’t fair to critique his book for not explaining how he got there. That isn’t his intended purpose but his argument makes no sense without this lens imposed onto the narrative. The more I read, the more I feel like Stott makes the Bible sound like a science fiction movie or one of my childhood favorites "Clash of the Titans".

I thank God that I have more choices than strict theism and atheism! For me, God is not a Jewish version of Zeus but instead God is the ground of all being. God is not an intellectual being but the essence of all intelligence. I do think Jesus is divine, but "divine" doesn’t have to mean that his molecular structure was different or that his DNA was not a derivative of his earthly mother and father. I see Christianity as people embracing Jesus’ model for the ideal way to be human and participating in a society based on peace through justice (the promised-land and/or the kingdom of God). The issue for us is how we can each be transformed into our full potential as humans (born-again, resurrected, reborn) and then how we can make this unique vision of life a reality right here inside the space and time that we can control.

Meanings of the Cross

In an effort to bridge the gap with conservative fundamentalist faith, I’ve agreed to a book swap with one of Mark Driscoll’s Acts 29 Network pastors. I am going to read a book of his choice and he will read one of my favorites. Jeremy and I are already friends and we have had enough conversations to know where we differ. He is leading a new church right down the street from my office and we both call ourselves Christian but I’m progressive, I view Jesus’ message as largely about peace, justice and community, and I don’t have a traditional theistic view of God. My current understanding of his faith is that he is a conservative Evangelical who feels the central theme of Christianity (and the entire Bible) is that God grants special status in afterlife to those who learn to believe the right doctrines about Jesus' death.

It should be interesting and I pray it will be productive. I hope the results will be that I’m better equipped and fair in my criticism of the religious right. My goal is to look for areas we can agree and to clarify the items that are merely superficial differences in linguistics. I know there are significant points of disagreement, but I have hope that bridges can be built.

I’ll be reading “The Cross of Christ” by John Stott and the book I’ve chosen for Jeremy is “The Last Week” by Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan. I had a couple of books in mind but this should be a nice compliment since the two books represent very different views of the purpose of Jesus life and the reasons for his death.

Stay tuned for more…