The Metaphor of Incarnation

For Christianity, this is where the rubber meets the road. To be Christian in any way means that you somehow feel Jesus incarnates God. I affirm that statement, but it is simply too ambiguous to have any significant meaning on its own. Albert Mohler would also affirm this statement, but we would likely mean very different things. The issue for me is not “if” Jesus incarnates God. Instead, the issue is all about “how” that happens and what exactly we mean when we say it.

John Hick is an internationally read and discussed philosopher of religion and theologian. His many books have, between them, been translated into seventeen languages. I read his book “The Metaphor of God Incarnate” last year and it helped me to crack open the doctrine of Christology like no other book I’ve read. This had been something I avoided. Born and raised as a conservative Evangelical, I was taught not to ask such questions. These doctrines about Jesus’ divinity were supposed to be off the list of acceptable topics. It was never important what it meant, but only that you repeat it as often as possible and with as much emotion as you could muster. At some point in my journey, that shallow denial of reality was just not enough. I could no longer participate in a faith that required me to “check my brain at the door” and ignore the 300 lb gorilla in the room. I’ve learned in my lifetime that when people are afraid of questions, it is always because they know deep down that their answers are inadequate. Still, I'm not ready to give up my faith tradition.

John Hick has done a wonderful job of opening this language of incarnation without loosing its power to change our lives. Conservatives have treated the incarnation as a rare bottle of wine, hidden away in cellar, possessed, revered, showcased on Sunday morning, often treated as an object of pride and boasting, but rarely opened and enjoyed. However, Jesus is not an exhaustible resource. There is no reason to fear opening this bottle up and enjoying it. To follow Christ is to open the best bottle first and let it be enjoyed by all because this wine will never run out. A believable understanding of incarnation is necessary for the survival of Christianity in the 21st century and offers great hope for the end of divisive competitive religious polarization and war.

You can read a short essay by John Hick called “Believable Christianity” on his website. Here is a quote:

Am I suggesting, then, that we should drop the language of incarnation? No, I'm suggesting that we should understand it in a different way. The idea of incarnation is a powerful metaphorical idea. It means to embody some ideal or conviction in one's life. We all know what is meant when someone says that, for example, Nelson Mandela, after the triumph of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, incarnated the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. He embodied this in his life and actions. And the metaphor of divine incarnation, according to which Jesus embodied an overwhelming awareness of the goodness and love of God, is intelligible, believable, and morally challenging. The official dogma, on the other hand, is neither intelligible, nor believable, nor morally challenging. For if Jesus, as number two in the Trinity living a human life, was sinless and perfect, what sort of a role model is that for we ordinary human beings? We are not God incarnate, we are sinful, frail and imperfect, and we need a human model whom we can follow and by whom we can be challenged. And the human Jesus of Nazareth was just that. We can take him as our lord in the sense of - to use an eastern word now much in use in the west - our guru, someone whom we try to follow as our role model. - John Hick, 2006

I recongnize this is "too far" for many Evangelical rooted Emergents. They would prefer to keep a cork on this topic, but there is so much to be gained here. Many of the painful frustrations felt within the Emergent groups are due to an unwillingness to have this discussion. The result is often ambiguity, division, and confusion. It doesn't have to be that way. We've made theology so much harder than it has to be by attempting to literalize our metaphors and myths to the point that they become incomprehensible and bizarre. Incarnation is a beautiful story. Let's open it up and let it breath.