Monday, March 7, 2022

Jesus De/Constructed for Lent - Introduction




JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT
AN INTRODUCTION


The class will cover two books. Diana’s Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence and Tripp’s  The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic . . . Or Awesome?. If you are super nerdy you may want to check out Tripp’s Divine Self-Investment. 

***UPDATE*** Tripp’s book has proved hard to find for many of you. HERE is a PDF of the book. We just ask you don’t share it and if inspired purchase a delayed or digital copy.


Class Outline

We will have 6 weekly sessions each Thursday at 5pm ET. In addition to these sessions, there will be a special visit from the author of  After Jesus Before Christianity: a Historical Exploration of the first two centuries of Jesus Movements.

3/3 SESSION 1: De/Constructing Jesus & the Lenten Journey

Reading: the introduction to Freeing Jesus and chapter 1 of the Guide to Jesus

3/10 SESSION 2: the Consequences of C.S. Lewis’ Worst Idea

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 2-4

3/17 SESSION 3: from Executed Prophet to Cosmic Christ

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 5-7

3/24 SESSION 4: Freeing Jesus from Christendom Capture

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 1-3

3/31 SESSION 5: One Jesus, One Story, & a Multitude of Christs

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 4-6

4/7 SESSION 6: De/constructed Jesus & the Journey of Holy Week

Reading: Freeing Jesus conclusion & Guide to Jesus ch 8

SPECIAL BONUS SESSION: After Jesus Before Christianity

We are excited to have our friends at the Westar Institute supporting this class. As part of the partnership, we will have a special bonus session with the authors of an exciting new book – After Jesus Before Christianity: a Historical Exploration of the first two centuries of Jesus Movements.


Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp


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 JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED RESOURCES


Amazon Link

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.
Christianity has endured for more than two millennia and is practiced by billions worldwide today. Yet that longevity has created difficulties for scholars tracing the religion’s roots, distorting much of the historical investigation into the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. But what if Christianity died in the fourth or fifth centuries after it began? How would that change how historians see and understand its first two hundred years?
Considering these questions, three Bible scholars from the Westar Institute summarize the work of the Christianity Seminar and its efforts to offer a new way of thinking about Christianity and its roots. Synthesizing the institute’s most recent scholarship—bringing together the many archaeological and textual discoveries over the last twenty years—they have found:
  • There were multiple Jesus movements, not a singular one, before the fourth century
  • There was nothing called Christianity until the third century
  • There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became centralized in Rome, not only regarding the Bible and religious doctrine, but also understandings of gender, sexuality and morality.
  • Exciting and revolutionary, After Jesus Before Christianity provides fresh insights into the real history behind how the Jesus movement became Christianity.
After Jesus Before Christianity includes more than a dozen black-and-white images throughout.


Amazon Link

The award-winning author of Grateful goes beyond the culture wars to offer a refreshing take on the comprehensive, multi-faceted nature of Jesus, keeping his teachings relevant and alive in our daily lives.
How can you still be a Christian?
This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind.
In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life’s challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.
Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.


Amazon Link

Christology is crazy. It’s rather absurd to identify a first-century homeless Jew as God revealed, but a bunch of us do anyway. In this book, Tripp Fuller examines the historical Jesus, the development of the doctrine of Christ, the questions that drove christological innovations through church history, contemporary constructive proposals, and the predicament of belief for the church today. Recognizing that the battle over Jesus is no longer a public debate between the skeptic and believer but an internal struggle in the heart of many disciples, he argues that we continue to make christological claims about more than an “event” or simply the “Jesus of history.” On the other hand, C. S. Lewis’s infamous “liar, lunatic, and Lord” scheme is no longer intellectually tenable. This may be a guide to Jesus, but for Christians, Fuller is guiding us toward a deeper understanding of God. He thinks it’s good news—good news about a God who is so invested in the world that God refuses to be God without us.


Amazon Link

When muttering the word “God” doesn’t come easy, what does it mean to call Jesus “the Christ?” Fuller offers a robust constructive Christology that engages three theological registers - historical, existential, and metaphysical.

Beginning Christology not from above or below but from within the Disciple’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, Fuller constructs a powerful Open and Relational Christology. At the heart are three pairings of contemporary thinkers who share a thematic center with distinct trajectories. Fuller weaves each into a vision of God’s self-investment in history and the person of Jesus. The constructive proposal not only uses an Open and Relational vision but reshapes it in light of God’s self-investment in Christ. The significance of Fuller’s proposal is wide-reaching, engaging revelation, divine power, evil, the cross, hope, the imago dei, and the Spirit.

What They're Saying...

“This ambitious Christology marks Tripp Fuller as one of the most significant young systematic theologians to emerge on the scene in recent years. One can profitably read this book as an introduction to Open and Relational Theology; as a refresher on Logos Christology, Spirit Christology, and the quest for the historical Jesus; or as a primer on his six theological discussion partners. But the brilliance of the volume is actually the blending of biblical, classical, and process insights into a single moving vision of God’s self-investment in creation, Israel, and Jesus. Rarely have I encountered a young theologian who writes with this level of systematic depth.”
-- Philip Clayton, Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of Theology

"Tripp Fuller masterfully engages the crucial Christian question: Who do we say Jesus is? Engaging history, philosophy and theology, Fuller offers a vision of Jesus that weds evangelical convictions with progressive insights. His work stands alone side that of John Cobb, David Griffin and Elizabeth Johnson for required reading in Christology."
-- Monica A. Coleman, Professor of Africana Studies, University of Delaware, author of Making a Way Out of No Way: a Womanist Theology


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