Be Amazed by God's Weakness... Not by His Divine Power!



Cirque of Unclimbables, Nahanni National Park, Northwest Territories, Canda



I am not familiar with today's author, David Henson. Not his beliefs. Not his theology. However, in today's article I felt he has touched upon a subject that we have looked at before. A subject that asks how we are to imagine God's power in relationship to God's creation. A creation which appears all-powerful, and oft times, out-of-control, or unsubmitted, to God's rulership.

 

I say "all-powerful" because many of the astronomers, cosmologists, and physicists of the world become geeked-out over the depth, the wonder, the strangeness of our infinite universe (or universes!). In the eyes of a godless science it only sees unending power stretching across the vast voids of time and space. But for the Christian scientist, s/he sees the God of the bible who stands behind the universe's emptiness and amazing wonders. Who Himself had cast its beginning from the span of his hands and very heart. Who has shared Himself through a universe and creation which we sometimes tremble before in its displays of deadly power and terrible acts of random destruction.

 

Certainly we know God's creation to be out-of-control.... Are we ourselves not the essence of this statement by our heads, hearts, souls, and spirits, as we strive against one another instead of with one another? Are we not unsubmitted to the Creator God of the universe who fills our hearts with timeless wonder before the ant or sun, the rainstorm or rolling expanse of mountain, desert, and saged prairie? Before endless meadows, the violent turbulent seas, and endless icy plains of snow and tundra?

 

And yet, in the sublimity of God's holy creation He would empty Himself of His omnipotence and share this power to His handiwork... to we ourselves as even to the created realm we find ourselves... to use, work, and live within, by His allowance, will and divine submission of power. To wield His creative majesty as would please ourselves and not Himself (not that I would ascribe existential willfulness to mortal-less matter... ). For this is the essence of creative indeterminacy and human free will. To exert power at the behest of the created thing or man. To allow the wind to become a deadly storm. The water a fatal force. Or man a wicked thing.

 

More simply said, when God did create, He created at the same time the freedom that we find in ourselves and observe within our ecosystems, sun, moon, and stars. This "creaturely freedom" the bible calls "sin." For in the granting of indeterminacy to nature, and of freedom to man, God did allow for its immediate affects and causations. But, God did also immediately begin exercising His divine sovereignty (how could He not by being who He is!?!?) by implementing His plan of redemption back to all. This we have observed in the progressive evolution of the universe, and of nature, and of man. However, within this redemption is the purposefulness that is held in what can be known as the "weakness" of God.

 

And it is to this biblical expression of God that I have found today's article quite helpful. So rather than asking the wrong question of "Why isn't God all-powerful?" Or by making the incorrect statement that foolishly asserts "God isn't all-powerful!" Let us behave our theological tempers and learn to appreciate the "weakness of God" emanating pervasively throughout His creation. And to likewise discover what this means to us, most implacably. That God has granted to man the use of His power. That it is we ourselves who must bear God's divine responsibility of using our freedom aright. That it is we who bear His divine accountability. Who must seek to behave our human willfulness. To learn God's heart of grace and merciful forgiveness so that we might more ablely share some small portion of God "Power" back with one another. And to the ecosystem that we live within.

 

To me, this is the better question to ask. Questions that we should ask of ourselves. Of our responsibilities within the larger redemptive scheme of things. And to pay attention to the smaller nuances of the biblical record as pertaining to Jesus who not only was God's representative to us on this earth. But was very God Himself come to show to us God's "weakness' in the wisdom of His purposeful creation. To show to us what it meant to "empty" Himself of His divine power in submission to the flesh through Incarnation; to the powers of this world; to the cross of redemption; and to the sinful freedom of man's willfulness.

 

This then is the ultimate example bourne by God's "servitude" to the redemption of both man and cosmos. That in the re-ordering of all things according to His will, mind and heart, it is God's purposeful "weakness" that we most find God. Not by demonstrations of His creative power (not that we haven't observe this in the biblical record). Nor by His amazing feats of coercive miracle (again, something we have also observed within biblical passages). But by His willing submission of His power to redeem all. Be amazed at that... and not by God's subjective use power demonstrations for we-of-little-faith. Rest then in the sleep of Jesus, wearied upon a boat at sea, thrashed by violent waters, and know even then that our God reigns!

 

R.E. Slater

May 29, 2013

 

 

 

Sleeping Through Storms: Rethinking Theodicy, Natural Disasters and God’s Omnipotence

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidhenson/2013/05/god-doesnt-control-the-weather-theodicy/

 

David R. Henson

May 28, 2013

Comments

 

God is not all-powerful.

 

At least, not in the ways we tend to define power.

 

For us, power means that we get our way, that we can impose our will upon the world around us, that we can conform others into our images in order to achieve unity and security. In our minds, we equate power with control, sovereignty.

 

So, when the world spins out of control as it did in Oklahoma this week, and at the Boston marathon a month ago, and at Sandy Hook Elementary six months ago, we begin to wonder what happened to this all-powerful God to whom the skies and seas and nations are supposed to bow.

 

Are the heavens really declaring the majesty of God when an E-5 tornado destroys an entire town?

 

Only the most deranged and pathological of leaders suggested in the tornado’s wake that God was in control of the situation or was somehow, ultimately, responsible for the deadly twister. That includes, apparently, folk like John Piper and our own president, who seemed to imply that the tornado was a part of God’s plan. I’m sorry, but tornadoes are not part of God’s plan. Most of us can admit that without losing our faith, just like we can admit that God isn’t really calling the shots when it comes to jet streams, weather patterns and 200-mile-per-hour winds.

 

Instead of attributing the destruction to God, we tend to reassure ourselves that, in spite of it all, God is with us in the destruction, with us in the suffering, weeping with us. What we imply in this, but don’t often say, is that, deep down, we know God is not in control. And secretly, we give thanks for that. Naturally, we then ask where exactly is God in the midst of tragedy and suffering. This existential question doubles as an unconscious and fragile prayer of thanksgiving and relief. While we may feel desolation and alienation from God in the midst of great natural disasters, we also feel grateful — hopeful, even — that God isn’t orchestrating all the pain and destruction in the world. It is a relief not to be worshipping a God who sends tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, disease, and pestilence. It is a relief not to pray to a God who indiscriminately kills children with the same heavens which declare God’s glory.

 

God is not in control of the weather. Thanks be to God, God is not in the business of controlling anything.

 

But if God isn’t in control in the midst of such destruction, then who is? Something more sinister? Maybe something more dangerous than a sinister being. Perhaps no one — and nothing — is in control. It is a scary and disorienting thought to begin to consider God isn’t our bodyguard protecting us like the divine Secret Service from the suffering and tragedy in our world.

 

We find this idea jarring because I think we misunderstand what divine power is. God doesn’t control the weather, because that isn’t the nature of God’s power. God’s power is something stranger, more paradoxical.

 

God’s power is in the giving up of power, in the act of disarming divine omnipotence in favor of covenant and relationship with creation.

 

God’s power is in the act of becoming empty (kenosis), in becoming one of us.

 

God’s power is in incarnation and immanence, not omnipotence and distant transcendence.

 

In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us that when we see him, we see God. There’s a popular aphorism based on that notion, suggesting the radical nature of the Christian faith is not that Jesus is like God, but that God is like Jesus. And Jesus is in the business of emptying himself of power to the point of utter alienation and forsakenness by God. So what if God is indeed like that, like Jesus?

 

But, you might argue, there is a story in the gospels about Jesus and his power to control the weather. And it’s true. In the gospel of Mark, a terrible storm rises on the sea, threatening to swamp the disciples and the boat they are in. They are terrified, undone at the prospect of capsizing and drowning. They are baling water from the boat, struggling with wind-whipped sails, hanging on for their lives.

 

Jesus, meanwhile, is sleeping.

 

“Don’t you care that we are perishing?” they finally shout at him to wake him.

 

Jesus rebukes the wind and commands it to quiet down. “Peace! Be still,” he says, and it is a rebuke directed as much at the disciples as it is at the wind.

 

The disciples marvel at his power, asking, “Who is this, then, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

 

We are like the disciples. We want God to calm the wind and seas. We want to shout at God, “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see we are perishing? Don’t you see so many of us — children, even! — have already perished? Wake up, God! Stop sleeping when we need you most!”

 

Like the disciples, we believe the power — the divine — is in the ability to control things. We assume, like the disciples, that the miracle is in Jesus rebuking and calming the storm.

 

But if you notice, Jesus only reluctantly uses his power. He doesn’t seem to want to do anything. He wants to keep sleeping! He goes so far as to rebuke his disciples for even asking for his help. He calls them faithless. This storm-calming power isn’t the kind of power Jesus came to demonstrate. Rather, it is the exact kind of power Jesus came in order to give up, to empty himself of. It is the same power he rejects when he refuses to throw himself from the pinnacle when he is tempted in the desert, the same power he turns down when he refuses to kneel before the Adversary, that same superficial power that controls earthly things.

 

As much as we might like, this isn’t a story, I don’t think, about Jesus’ ability to control the weather. He is bothered to do it and is bothered that his disciples even asked. This is a story, rather, about how little we believe God to be with us in the midst of an overwhelming storm. It’s about how, deep down, maybe we don’t really believe that a God-with-us is actually enough. It’s about how what we really want is a God who is in control. And it is an indictment of the disciples and of us.

 

I don’t really think the miracle in this story is about Jesus calming the storm and taking control. The miracle in this story is that Jesus with the disciples in the water-logged and weatherbeaten boat, experiencing the same terrible storm, the same terrible waves, the same terrible danger.

 

And that alone should have been enough.

 

God’s power isn’t in the control of creation or of people, but in being in covenant and relationship with them. It isn’t in imposing the divine will or insisting on its own way but in sojourning with us as we fumble around and make our way in the world. God’s power is not in miraculous interventions, pre-emptive strikes in the cosmic war against suffering and evil, but in inviting us to build a kingdom out of love, peace and justice with God. God’s power is not in the obliterating of what is bad in the world, but in empowering us to build something good in this world — even if that is something as small and life-changing as constructing storm shelters at every public school on the tornado-strewn plains.

 

And isn’t this true power? Instead of enforcing control and solutions onto the world, God’s power is revealed in coming alongside us, journeying with us, suffering with us, and even staying with us in the boat when the storms come.

 

The omnipotence of God isn’t about having all the power. That’s would turn God into an insecure narcissist. Rather, the omnipotence of God is in the sharing of power.

 

 



 





 

Shane Clairborne - "Show Me the Real Jesus!"

This past week we've looked at the Pharisees and why the emergent movement is significantly different from its evangelical predecessor... now let's put it all together and talk about a Jesus theology that has shoe leather... one that leads out in love and fascination....

 

R.E. Slater

February 7, 2013

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?

http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2009/shane-claiborne-1209?src=soc_fcbk

 

By Shane Claiborne
Shane's website - The Simple Way

November 18, 2009

This radical Christian's ministry for the poor, The Simple Way,

has gotten him in some trouble with his fellow Evangelicals.

We asked him to address those who don't believe.

 

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

 

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

 

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn's Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn't quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don't know Jesus.

 

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, "God is not a monster." Maybe next time I will.

 

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.

 

At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, "I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ." A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That's the ugly stuff. And that's why I begin by saying that I'm sorry.

 

Now for the good news.

 

I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice.)

 

The Bible that I read says that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it... it was because "God so loved the world." That is the God I know, and I long for others to know. I did not choose to devote my life to Jesus because I was scared to death of hell or because I wanted crowns in heaven... but because he is good. For those of you who are on a sincere spiritual journey, I hope that you do not reject Christ because of Christians. We have always been a messed-up bunch, and somehow God has survived the embarrassing things we do in His name. At the core of our "Gospel" is the message that Jesus came "not [for] the healthy... but the sick." And if you choose Jesus, may it not be simply because of a fear of hell or hope for mansions in heaven.

 

Don't get me wrong, I still believe in the afterlife, but too often all the church has done is promise the world that there is life after death and use it as a ticket to ignore the hells around us. I am convinced that the Christian Gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and that the message of that Gospel is not just about going up when we die but about bringing God's Kingdom down. It was Jesus who taught us to pray that God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven." On earth.

 

One of Jesus' most scandalous stories is the story of the Good Samaritan. As sentimental as we may have made it, the original story was about a man who gets beat up and left on the side of the road. A priest passes by. A Levite, the quintessential religious guy, also passes by on the other side (perhaps late for a meeting at church). And then comes the Samaritan... you can almost imagine a snicker in the Jewish crowd. Jews did not talk to Samaritans, or even walk through Samaria. But the Samaritan stops and takes care of the guy in the ditch and is lifted up as the hero of the story. I'm sure some of the listeners were ticked. According to the religious elite, Samaritans did not keep the right rules, and they did not have sound doctrine... but Jesus shows that true faith has to work itself out in a way that is Good News to the most bruised and broken person lying in the ditch.

 

It is so simple, but the pious forget this lesson constantly. God may indeed be evident in a priest, but God is just as likely to be at work through a Samaritan or a prostitute. In fact the Scripture is brimful of God using folks like a lying prostitute named Rahab, an adulterous king named David... at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Some say God spoke to Balaam through his ass and has been speaking through asses ever since. So if God should choose to use us, then we should be grateful but not think too highly of ourselves. And if upon meeting someone we think God could never use, we should think again.

 

After all, Jesus says to the religious elite who looked down on everybody else: "The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom ahead of you." ... And we wonder what (or who) got him killed?!?

 

I have a friend in the UK who talks about "dirty theology" — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man's eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)

 

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay "out there" but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, "Nothing good could come." It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society's rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

 

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors... a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.

 

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, "I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you."

 

If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.

 

Your brother,

Shane

 

Celebrating Advent, It's Timeless Meaning and Discovery

 

 

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived,
reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. - Anon

 

 

Advent season begins each year on the fourth Sunday before December 25. By its name "advent" means coming and refers to Christ's first coming (or First Advent) as the baby Jesus beheld by the church as God in Incarnate Deity. Advent then progresses towards Lent and Easter where Jesus becomes man's atoning sacrifice for our sins and God's sealing promise of redemption to all repentant through His resurrection.

 

Jesus' Second Advent (known as His Second Coming) will be at a day and an hour that no man knows when He shall return to rule and reign to establish His Kingdom among men. Until that time we live within the tension of the already/not yet (known as the upside-down Kingdom) empowered by the Holy Spirit to testify of Christ Jesus' redemption by hearts and tongues, through deeds and acts, until He returns in final deliverance and completing redemptive promise.

As such, Advent is held during the Christmas season and is similar to a mnemonic practice placed into the Christian liturgy of annualized observance and worship. It began in the early church under the Church Fathers and has progressed into a rich tapestry of Christian interpretative religious practice found throughout the branches of Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Latino, Hispanic, and and American churches, to name but a few.

Accordingly, each Christian faith has appealed to the Christmas story of the Gospel of Jesus in some manner to appropriate some element of faith, or practice of belief, that has become meaningful to the journey of the follower of Christ by liturgical observance or confessional creed, by hallowed deed or truant prayer. Why? To reflect the deeper meaning of Christ's birth and the preparedness of the God's people Israel for His coming (as evidenced by John the Baptist's parents found in Luke 1) to the long-awaited divine event of salvation that led to Jesus' Cross of Atonement and the empowerment of the Church for ministry in place of His abstinence (Acts 1-3). Hence, on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after Christ's resurrection, came God's Holy Spirit to empower the Church to bear witness to Jesus' life, passion, death and resurrection until He returns in His Second Advent to rule and to reign as King and Lord over a new heavens and new earth (Rev 1-18; specifically, Rev 19-22).

 

Until that time, the church is to minister to all men everywhere - to reclaim faith to the lost; to help in works of grace and salutation; to seek a living faith that is found in the substance of works and deeds and not simply on the lips of merciless hearts and faithless men; to refuse sinful temptations; to deny the idolatrous practices of fleshly worship (as found in the extremes of self-denial on the one hand, and the excesses of hedonism on the other); to bind the wounds of the heart and body; to care for the needs of the sick, the dying, the impoverished, and despised; to preach a gospel of love and good will, peace and assurance that are founded on the promises and testimonies of God in both the Old and New Testaments. These are but some of the ministries of the church until Christ returns again.

Into the rich traditions of the Church has come the integration of the Jewish-Christian calendars of observance to the liturgical practices and observations of Christian churches. But rather than refuse our Jewish brethren's desire to behold their Lord and Savior within their own Jewish Calendar year (which is unlike the Gentile/Julian Calendar (*sic the Roman calendar we use today) of Advent-Lent-Easter), the orthodox Church is learning to embrace and appreciate its earlier Jewish roots that may enliven previously set practices and traditions perhaps become historically mundane or exhausted. Originally, because of its nearness to both time and location of the Middle East, the early Church followed the Hebrew calendar until it grew beyond its Jewishness into the Gentile practices of the Romans and then worldwide.

To God, the Christian practice of faith is transcultural, transnational, and transtemporal.  That is, Christianity does not need to be centralized within one cultural distinctive or another. It was ever meant to be global. To be all, and one, and more, as the nations worshipped God with one another. That is, there is no religious advantage (or biblical advantage) of worshipping God as a Jew or as a Gentile where all are one in Christ Jesus. True, Judaism has the advantage of prior OT customs and traditions, but as we know from reading the OT, they were little observed and oftentimes were desecrated by Israel in continuing cycles of failure and judgment. As well, were the early Church customs initially based in Jewish traditions but over time leavened out within the customs and traditions of other lands and cultures. But the gospel of Jesus allows this. Jesus saw it coming when speaking of wineskins, mustard seeds, and mountains. That all would change in Him.

Thus, the church is at liberty to revision and repurpose its faith in Jesus through a variety of worship styles, liturgies, calendars, practices of austerity or non-austerity (such is found at Lent), and on and on. It may adapt previous pagan practices and customs by Christianizing them (as we do in America with the idea of Christmas; or the Druids did in England; or the Scandinavians did with their Norse Mythologies). Or the church may backfill Jewish traditions within its practices where it might make sense to the land and people (sic, perhaps mid-Eastern cultures, for instance). These adaptations are allowable according to the Apostle Paul who preached the freedom of faith observance everywhere. Or the church may use some combination of the above. But whether by Jesus or by Paul, the church was understood to be free to create - that there is no wrong way to worship God nor His blessings of redemption. That all is sanctified in Christ Jesus.

And so, with the idea of "more" in mind, we are free in Christ to set forth any kind of Christianized version that comes to our hearts and souls. Ideally, it would hearken back to Scriptural precedent... but in hindsight, the only precedent the early church had in the New Testament was that of its Jewish precursors. Consequently, just as new wine requires new wineskins, so the Gospel of Jesus is free to transform and develop into variant traditions and customs meaningful to the receiving people group. Be it Hispanic or Latino, Asian or Indonesian, South Pacific or Korean, Muslim and African, or even within polyglot nations like America. The Gospel is wide enough - and deep enough - to embrace all the customs and traditions of mankind.

It is but left to us to root those same customs and traditions into the understanding of God's grace and redemption, and not necessarily towards the Jewish customs of the time (for they too were ever rooted in the grace and redemption of the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth!). This is the freedom that the Gospel brings with it. That the faith of Jesus can be trans-national, trans-cultural, and even trans-temporal, by which is meant "from age-to-age ever the same but ever changing, transforming, renewing, and enlivening." ... Not surprisingly, the gospel of Jesus does that you know.

As such, we might chose topics of hope, peace, joy, and love as pictured in the Advent candles of Christmas-time by some faiths. Or, we might seek releasing forms of worship, prayer, assembly and enactment together as practiced by other faiths. Or, we might take aspects of Jesus' life that epitomize His grace, mercy, ministry and sacrifice. As can be seen, there are many ways to regard this season of Advent. It may be in the spirit of Christmas which observes the spirit of our Lord wrapped around gifts of generosity, thoughtfulness, good will, and humor with one another. Or through the simple symbols of Santa Claus, elves, reindeer, Christmas trees, bright and coloured lights, singing and charitable giving.

It is a powerful statement that Christ Jesus has touched all things human - from our holidays, to our community life, to our governance with one another. There is no such thing as either secular or sacred in Christ. In God all are one lest we become too religious for our own good, and that of the world around us, whom we as Christians of faith should be ministering to and reaching out to. To debate a Christianized form of Christmas by saying we observe only its Advent form is to make a finer distinction that seems to be unwarranted within the spirit of the gospel (and of the Bible itself as we've shown). And perhaps in the statement discover its only appeal is to that of our flesh, our religious pride, and spirit of human insolence (for isn't the base of sin man's pride of legalism and refusal of Jesus' atoning provision?).

Consequently, every church is free to imagine its own customs and traditions according to its corresponding beliefs in the bible and of God Himself. And it is to this point that we would all do well to appreciate all the customs and traditions of the church, and in doing so learn to appreciate from one another the global beauty of this time of year. Be it in the form of the spirit of Christmas or of that of the Church's Advent observance. Much can be gained when listening to one another. This is the beauty of the gospel. Herein in wisdom.

However, the rhymes and rhythms of this holiday season can never be more poignantly expressed than through the opening lines of this article. That, "People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." When centering on Jesus we soon discover that He centers all things in our lives around the Story of His birth, life, witness, and sacrifice. That it becomes our larger story of faith relinquishing us from ourselves and from life's haughty demands. That the essence of Christ's First Advent is found in the ideas of restoration to God, renewal in God, revival through God, reclamation by God, and redemption because of God. In all things is God our Redeemer. Our Savior. Our Immanuel come to bring eternal life that begins in our here-and-now. Not later. But today. Reveal in Christ's birth. It was for this reason He came.

 

And because Advent is a time of restoration, renewal, revival, reclamation, and redemption, we now know that it's time has come to us today. Not simply during the Advent season of Christmas, nor that of Lent and Easter, but each and every day of our living faith. This is the great, good joy of our Christian celebration. It is Jesus who is our own advent, epiphany, second coming, and Lord. No wonder the angels sang, and the shepherds rang out the bells on Christmas morn to one and all.

Ring out the Bells!
Ring out the Bells!
Let them Peal,
To One and All!
Sing Out in Hail,
Sing Out in Fellowship!
In Wonder and Awe,
In Beauty and Grace!
The Christ Child Comes,
Christ Comes this Day!

 ...And He has Come to the Heart of every man and woman and child in the swaddling cloths of divine humility and glorified grace. May God's peace be with you this day, as on every advent day of this coming new year. Amen.

 

R.E. Slater

December 3, 2012

 

Advent Poems for Christmas

http://reslater.blogspot.com/2012/12/advent-poems-for-christmas.html

(click to enlarge any picture)

 

 

 

Sampling Advent Customs & Traditions

 

The Christian Liturgical Calendar - Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Christians, and traditional Protestant communities frame worship around a liturgical calendar. This includes holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus or the saints, periods of fasting such as Lent, and other pious events such as memoria or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. A few churches make no use of a liturgical calendar. - Wikipedia

 

Advent - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent

Advent's Origins - http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/ReardonAdvent.php

Catholoic Observance of Advent - http://www.catholic.org/clife/advent/advent.php?id=5

Catholic Understanding of Advent - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01165a.htm

Eastern Orthodoxy Liturgical Calendar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_liturgical_calendar

Antiochian (Eastern) Orthodoxy Customs - http://www.antiochian.org/1132082814

Greek Orthodoxy Calendar - http://www.goarch.org/chapel/calendar/

Greek Orthodoxy Customs - http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/adx/advfood.html

Lutheran Observance of Advent - https://www.elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Worship/Planning/Advent.aspx

German Observance of Advent - http://www.german-way.com/christmasAdv.html

Hispanic Traditions - http://www.hispanic-culture-online.com/hispanic-christmas-traditions.html#axzz2E00ACree

Reformed Church of America - https://www.rca.org/advent

Christian Reformed Advent Devotionals - http://www.crcna.org/pages/osj_adventdevotions.cfm

The Hebrew Calendar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar

Jewish Calendar (complete) - http://www.hebcal.com/holidays/2012-2013

Jewish Holidays - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_holiday

Jewish Holidays - http://urj.org/holidays/jcal/

Jewish Holidays Cheat Sheet (to understanding all things Jewish) - http://www.interfaithfamily.com/holidays/other_holidays/Jewish_Holidays_Cheat_Sheet.shtml

Comparison of Church Liturgical Calendars

Western
Advent Christmastide Ordinary Time Septuagesima/Pre-Lent/Shrovetide Lent Holy Week Paschal Triduum Eastertide Ordinary Time
Eastern
Nativity Fast Christmastide (Ordinary Time) Septuagesima/Pre-Great Lent Great Lent Eastertide Apostles' Fast (Ordinary Time)

The Jewish Calendar

Holiday	Hebrew Yr 5773	Description
Rosh Hashana	Sep 17-18, 2012	The Jewish New Year
Yom Kippur	Sep 26, 2012	Day of Atonement
Sukkot	Oct 1-2, 2012 Oct 3-7, 2012	Feast of Tabernacles
Shmini Atzeret	Oct 8, 2012	Eighth Day of Assembly
Simchat Torah	Oct 9, 2012	Day of Celebrating the Torah
Chanukah	Dec 9-16, 2012	The Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the Festival of Lights
Purim	Feb 24, 2013	Purim is one of the most joyous and fun holidays on the Jewish calendar
Pesach	Mar 26-27, 2013 Mar 28-31, 2013 Apr 1-2, 2013	Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread
Shavuot	May 15-16, 2013	Festival of Weeks, commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai
Tish'a B'Av	Jul 16, 2013	The Ninth of Av, fast commemorating the destruction of the two Temples

The Origins of Advent

(An Antiochian View of Advent)
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/ReardonAdvent.php

 

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

 

In the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian churches of the West, the several weeks prior to Christmas are known as Advent, a name from a Latin word meaning "coming." It happens that the beginning of Advent always falls on the Sunday closest to November 30, the ancient feast day (in both East and West) of the Apostle Andrew. Among Christians in the West, this preparatory season, which tends to be slightly less rigorous than Lent and often involves no special fasting at all, always begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Thus, from year to year it will vary in length between 3 and 4 weeks, but always with four Sundays.

 

The observance of the season of Advent is fairly late. One finds no sermons for Advent, for instance, among the liturgical homilies of St. Leo the Great in the mid-fifth century. About that time, however, the season was already emerging in Spain and Gaul. A thousand years later, the time of the Reformation, Advent was preserved among the liturgical customs of the Anglicans and Lutherans; in more recent years, other Protestant groups have informally begun to restore it, pretty much as it had originally started--one congregation at a time.

 

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the corresponding penitential season of preparation for Christmas always begins on November 15, the day after the Feast of the Apostle Philip. For this reason it is popularly known as St. Philip's Fast. A simple count of the days between November 15 and December 25 shows that this special period lasts exactly 40 days, the same as Lent.

 

More recently Christians of the Orthodox Church have begun to call this season by its Latin name, "Advent." One now finds the term standard in publications of the Antiochian Archdiocese, for instance. The adoption of the word "Advent" by Eastern Orthodox Christians is inspired by the same reason that prompted the adoption of other Latin theological terms, such "Sacraments," "Incarnation," and "Trinity." Very simply, these are the recognizable theological terms that have passed into Western languages. They also happen to be theologically accurate! If the Christian West can adopt Greek terms like "Christology," it seems only fair for the Christian East to adopt Latin terms like "Incarnation."

 

(On the other hand, one finds some Orthodox Christians, especially among recent, hyperactive converts from Western churches, who resist the adoption of the word "Advent," preferring to speak of "Winter Lent" or some such anomaly. One is hard pressed to explain this eccentric, lamentable preference for Anglo-Saxon over Latin on a point of theology.)

 

Several other features of Advent deserve some comment:

• First, in the West the First Sunday of Advent is treated as the beginning of the liturgical year. (In the East, the liturgical year does not begin with Advent but on September 1, which bears the traditional title, "Crown of the Year." Its historical relationship to the Jewish feast of Rosh Hashana is obvious.)
 
• Second, during the twentieth century there arose the lovely custom of the Advent wreath, both in church buildings and in homes. This wreath lies horizontal and is adorned with four candles. The latter, (symbolic of the four millennia covered in Old Testament history), are lit, one at a time, on each Saturday evening preceding the four Sundays of Advent, by way of marking the stages in the season until Christmas. This modern practice has already started in some Orthodox Christian homes, where the longer season requires six candles on the Advent wreath.
 
• Third, because of its emphasis on repentance, Advent is a season of great seriousness, not a time proper for festivity, much less of partying and secular concerns. Advent is not part of the Christmas holidays, and Christians of earlier times would be shocked at the current habit of treating this as a period of jolly good times and "Christmas cheer," complete with office parties, the trimming of Christmas trees and other domestic adornments, the exchange of gifts, caroling, and even the singing of Christmas music in church.

 

All of these festive things are part of the celebration of Christmas itself, which lasts the 12 days from December 25 to January 6.

 

The seasons of the liturgical year involve more than liturgical services. The liturgical seasons is supposed to govern the lives of those who observe them. For this reason, anticipating these properly Christmas activities during Advent considerably lessens the chance of our being properly prepared, by repentance, for the grace of that greater season; it also heightens the likelihood that we will fall prey to the worldly spirit that the commercial world would encourage during this time.

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.


 

A Review of the Historic v. Canonical v. Creedal Jesus of the Church

McKnight has listed 5 criteria as necessary guidance on the historical vs. canonical vs. creedal Jesus debates.This is especially relevant to the Church's hermeneutical emphasis upon Jesus in today's current revelatory studies.

 

Basically, what is meant by the phrase, "the Historical Jesus of the Gospels," is that historians are attempting to discover the real Jesus behind the Gospels. That He has been technically lost "historically" and must be found apart from the early first century Church's description of Him. To which redactory endeavor I submit can, and cannot, be done having already become seamlessly integrated with the Gospels of the Bible by the Church through its canonization of the Gospels of Jesus. Meaning that, what we see in the Gospels is mostly the canonical Jesus of the Church. To find the historical Jesus is largely an endeavor in futility. It's like trying to write a history of ourselves apart from the legacy of ourselves developed around us. We see this in the many biographies of Winston Churchill or Theodore Roosevelt as biographers attempt to encapsulate "the man behind the myth." Each biographer's viewpoint is an interpretive viewpoint of the person they have met or studied - in this case Churchill or Roosevelt. Likewise we find this same "dilemma" in the many interpretive viewpoints of Jesus contained in the Gospels by (1) the Gospel writers themselves (Matthew, Mark/Peter, Luke/Paul, John). As well as (2) the many vignettes of Jesus given to those writers from their interpreted "sources" of eyewitness within the many Gospel stories collected and compiled by each author for their Gospel recount.

 

Right from the start we understand the difficulty of trying to unveil and discover "the man behind the myth," or, in this case, the historical Jesus of the Gospels. Now nearly everyone of us will have an interpretive view of our friends just as everyone who came into contact with Jesus will have thoughts of the same. To attempt to reduce who a person is from a collection of sources might describe a generalized account of that person (to some degree true, and to another degree untrue, based upon authorial repute or eyewitness veracity) but mostly this attempt becomes lost in the annuals of time as the decades and centuries roll by. What we are left with is the canonized story of Jesus found in the Gospels as upheld by the Church's historic councils directed to the purpose of preserving biographically true stories of Jesus (mostly found in the Gospels of the New Testament; as well as in the other books of the NT in another sense) as versus less biographically true stories of Jesus (known as the Gnostic Gospels of the NT). This then is what is meant by the canonical Jesus of the authorised NT (as authorised by the early church in the century or two afterwards), or the canonical Jesus of the Gospels, as versus the historical Jesus of the Bible. It's nearly an impossible task to find the historical Jesus, so that what can be said of Jesus can only be sanguine, mostly generalized statements, about Jesus. Things like, "Jesus was a good child," or "Jesus knew labor as a carpenter," or "Jesus grew up in a family," and was "an (biologically) adopted child in a sense" because of his unique birth to Mary, or "Jesus knew hunger and pain because of His humanity." However, it was Jesus as the incarnate Person of the Trinity, as God come to live and minister amongst men, as the Spirit-filled man, as the perfect revelation of God in both Godhead and humanity, that we glean from the biblical accounts, memoirs, and essays of the New Testament. This is the theology of Jesus from which we get from the canonized NT books of the Bible, and especially from the Gospels themselves. And this then is what we mean by the canonized Jesus. It doesn't mean that Jesus is any less historical, just that His personage bore an interpretive meaning behind (and within) it that superseded mere commentary on His lifestyle.

 

So what do we mean by the creedal Jesus then? Simply this... as the Church grasped Jesus' mission and gospel it developed an ensuing theology of Jesus (mostly redemptive in orientation). As example, for some bodies of believers they didn't understand Jesus' intermix of divinity and humanity - a common problem going back to the misunderstanding of one's theology about sin and materiality (is sin corporeal, is it spiritual, is it some combination of both, and if so, to what extent?). Which then required studies in harmatology (sin), theology proper (God), anthropology (man), pneumatology (the Holy Spirit), and so forth. Each area impacting the other area (much as I am attempting here in this blog by interweaving various doctrinal positions into a holistic version of Emergent Christianity). As a result various doctrinal ideas were propagated by the church - some believed Jesus less than divine. Others that Jesus was fully divine. Some that Jesus was sinless while others thought Jesus bore sin either spiritually or because of His corporeal body.

 

Consequently, how a church fellowship understood other parts of theology, philosophy, biblical doctrine and human endeavor was how they understood the Jesus they read about in the Bible. This is known as a believer's "frame of reference." In today's terms this means that we can be products of our environment formed by experiences in our church, by our religious background, even from our geographical era and family values, creating a very personalized frame of reference. A frame of reference that makes us, us - but a frame that is not easily circumvented beyond our own opinions upon subjects. As an example, generally, for older adults growing up in the mid- to late- 1900s they will have a modern, and not a postmodern, mindset. But within those large philosophical sets are additional "-isms" and "-ologies" that have influenced one's dispositional make-up as can be seen below by this societal map:

 

 (click on map to enlarge)

 

"The Century is Over" - Evolutionary Tree of Twentieth-Century Architecture with its attractor basins,

by Charles Jencks, Architectural Review, July 2000, p. 77 - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/10/charles-jencks-look-at-modernism.html



Hence, one may have a Catholic orientation, a Baptist, agnostic or atheistic orientation, so that what a person's frame of reference is will be that person's depiction of Jesus to him or her. This is the same with a local or regional fellowship of believers. Their environment of societal variables determines what Jesus may have meant to them (as witnessed to by Rob Bell's Love Wins book - it was reviled by some parts of the country, and hailed in other parts of the country). So that today, many American denominations will behold Jesus differently from one another, having come from differing philosophical backgrounds. While in another sense many denominations and churches may be described as a common "societal class of congregants" bearing similar values, belief structures, and dogmas with one another as evidenced by whether one is a Protestant, a Catholic, Roman Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, liberal, progressive, moderate, evangelical, or even emergent Christian. Which is then reflective of that church's doctrinal positions of the Bible, theology and even of Jesus Himself. This then is what is meant by the creedal Jesus (as opposed to the historic Jesus and canonical Jesus).

 

So that, to a further extent, various branches of the Church went beyond basic interpretations of Jesus (for example, Jesus' redemptive ministry of salvation) to submit additional doctrinal interpretations about Jesus. For example, the controversies over the "hypostatic union of Christ" laid out a dozen or so positions about a fellowship's view of Jesus' humanity and/or divinity, about sin and materiality, about God, and so forth (see the historical charts at the end of this discussion). Many of these positions either didn't say enough about Jesus, or said too little. As a result, the Church accumulated continuing confessions about Jesus by adapting its reading of the New Testament to the times-and-circumstances of its societies, such that as regarding Christ's divine/human nature we see the Church's doctrine developing and maturing relative to this theology. A theology being played out in the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian, and Athanasian Creeds. Developing over time and place in response to its various (and vigorous) debates about Jesus' meaning for the Church's theological positions of the Bible.

 

Which is why a good biblical theology should also pay attention to (i) the historical creedal and confessional revisions of the church, as well as (ii) to study the historical eras the church worked and lived within - if not the very history of the church itself. It all adds up to a more complete study, and understanding, of the Scriptures, and specifically, of one's view of Jesus. Not that the past necessarily drives current discussions of theology, but seeks to inform theological discussion as it is pertinent or relevant to ideas and directions being discussed. As example, the postmodern direction of the early 21st Century is driving a resultant discussion of all things God, and the Bible, and is known under many names because of the many drivers contributing to the evolving discussion of Jesus. Myself, I prefer the edginess (and sometimes the impertinence) of Emergent Theology which seeks to maintain an orthodox relationship to the past while also pushing the envelopes of the theological future within a postmodern, post-Christendom setting.

 

Let me take a short commercial break here for several paragraphs ...

 

As such, Emergent Theology is still emerging (pun intended). And should not be defined by any one Emergent speaker or figurehead. Thus, I find hope in contributing to its evolving presence taking the best of my evangelical orthodox past and interrelating it to the best theological observations being made today. Which is why several new sidebar sections have opened up within Relevancy22 (sic, "An Open Faith and Open Theology," and "An Emerging Theology") as I take these past many months of emergent exploration and begin to interweave them towards larger conclusions.

 

Competing with Emergent theology is a neo-Reformed, neo-Calvinistic theology bearing the (safe) name Radical Orthodoxy. Each are dealing with postmodernism, but each are coming at it from differing directions and target audiences. Emergent Theology seems to be more free of church dogma and thus quicker to respond more relevantly towards a post-Christendom witness and mission. Its target audiences seem to be from all ranks of the church, plus the non-churched and unchurched masses of society who may have been abandoned, or set aside, by the church for one reason or another. As example, how many times do we read of Christian evolutionary professors removed from their posts by a Christian college? Do you ever wonder where these professors go? I would imagine they find work in another city and worship in another church. But these types of people are the would-be inhabitants filling the ranks-and-files of Emergent Christianity. Whether they use the name emergent or not. Because Emergent Christianity is a movement, not an organization. An attitude, not a doctrine.

 

Whereas Radical Orthodoxy is attempting to bring the fracturing churches of the evangelical movement along with itself while discovering similar ideological barriers to cross. Though past councils and creeds are helpful, the issues of postmodern society have changed requiring the postmodern church to respond with a theology that is relevant, contemporary, and meaningful. As such, to each-and-every theology that preaches Jesus we wish God's greatest blessings and Spirit-based inspiration regardless of name or structure. In the end, the bible must be made meaningful to today's generations. Not changed. Meaningful. And changed within our religious preferences and dogmas to become meaningful. Which is what Relevancy22 is attempting to do along with many other visionary prophets, preachers, theologians, writers, poets, organizations, and Christian media outlets.

 

Now back to our discussion...

 

This then is what is meant by the creedal Jesus of the Church to which the historical-Jesus redactors have attempted to strip away so that we may see (the enigma) of their own "real Jesus." Even as historical church theologians have attempted to strip away the canonical Jesus for their own church denomination's position on creedal propositions and statements.... Its hard not to think of these various redactory efforts not unlike Ezekial's "wheels within wheels within wheels," where one area leads to another area, leads to another area, which makes having a well-versed teacher, professor, set of books, or reference tools, important to one's discovery of the Christian faith. According to 1 John 1 we all have are own self-inflicted delusions to which we must attend. And pray to the Spirit of God that those delusions not harm redemption's resurrection of Jesus held within us.

 

Thus, I find I must reiterate McKnight's synthesized positions about the historic vs. canonized vs. creedal Jesus. Each point is found to be important. And each point is helpful to the task at hand. By way of summary he says that:

 

(1) historical Jesus studies are possible but the better effort is to be given to the canonical / creedal positional development of Jesus;

 

(2) each of the four Gospel stories of Jesus are four authorial viewpoints of the one historical personage of Jesus;

 

(3) historical revisionism of Jesus is of no use to the Church because it already has a canonical view of Jesus that supercedes all non-canonical (historic) views of Jesus;

 

(4) Jewish studies of Jesus will lead to important revisions of the Church's canonical and creedal views of Jesus.

 

This last sentiment is known as the "New Perspective of Paul" reinvigorating present Pauline studies using first-century Jewish theology while paying attention to the ancient Hebraic customs of the time. The idea is to recover the Church's doctrines backwards towards a more Jewish/OT flair and appreciation for its earlier Jewish times and settings. This does not mean that we are to become Jewish Christians and re-proselytize the Church. But that we are Messianic Christians who should try to better understand the deep Jewish culture of the New Testament through a re-orientation of our westernized theology backwards towards with an emphasis upon Jesus (aka Sanders, Dunn, Wright). But not towards any specific Jewish observance of calendar dates, dress, religious institutions, and the like, as evidenced by the well-meaning, and sincere, observations of Olive Tree Christians and the variant proselytized Gentile forms within Jewish Christianity.... This latter is yet another example of interpretive creedal difference just as we have discussed above between churches, denominations, and faith fellowships. Where Jesus is lifted up we are all one ecumenical body of Christ.

 

However, this latter effort also is a response to the Protestant Reformation itself, to its Westernized and Easternized elements of Christianity, and to Catholicism itself, resulting from each's interpretive imprint upon the early church's canonical and creedal views of Jesus that have become distinctly less appreciative of the Gospel's Near-Eastern, Semitic/Jewish cultural roots. If one is to properly read the Gospels and the New Testament, then one must pay attention not only to the Aramaic/Hebrew language but to its surrounding Hebrew culture latent in the Gospel and New Testament settings. If not, then we do an injustice upon the biblical texts by forcing our own Western, Eastern, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or Evangelic doctrinal interpretations upon the text while missing the prevalent teachings of the NT writers about Jesus. Giving to us an unbalanced Gentile view of Scripture as versus a more-informed Jewish understanding of Scripture.

 

(5) And lastly, the Gospels are already interpretations of Jesus, who was thus canonized by the Gospel writer's simple act of reporting their observations of Jesus, and of the meaning of His ministry and resurrection for us. Thus giving rise to a variety of creedal versions about Jesus which have arisen through the Church's continual reassessment of the Jesus of Scripture, and of Scripture itself. In historic response, there then arose from the Church various acclaimed "creeds and confessions" for the guidance of fellowship and community life. (A small list of these can be found here on this blog under the section "Notable Creeds and Confessions of the Church. Whereas the charts below are just one instance of a creedal history pertaining to one theological development within the church. Hence, there are many more denominational/orthodox distinctives should one begin to consult the general historical development of the Church since its first century origins out of Jerusalem and Judea.)

 

At the last, the canonical Jesus and the creedal Jesus is the Church's Jesus. The historical Jesus endeavor is not realistic for if it could be done it would simply discover the Jesus we know from the Bible. No more and no less. Thus, this historic redactory effort is not theologically informative. For its intent is to strip away Jesus' divine personage thinking to find simply a fleshly man dressed in religious garments bearing a passionate, universal message. To find Jesus no longer God Incarnate. Nor as man's Redeemer-Savior. But become like a Buddha, a Mohammad, or even a Joseph Smith, the Mormon, each of whom were significant figures to their religions. But of no importance to the revelatory salvation of God incarnated in Christ Jesus as portrayed to us by the first century Church's canonized record laid out in the New Testament. I think they got it right. And I trust we will too. I hope this helps.

 

R.E. Slater

October 15, 2012

rev. January 25, 2013

 

 

A simplified chart of historical developments of major groups within Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity#Creeds

Church Councils and Doctrinal Divisions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_theology#Hypostatic_union

 

 

A Christological Flowchart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_theology#Hypostatic_union

 

 

Historical Jesus Contrarian

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/10/10/historical-jesus-contrarian/

 

by Scot McKnight

October 10, 2012

Comments

 

Well, I didn’t get to attend the Historical Jesus conference last weekend led by Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne, but I’ve seen a couple reports taking me to task for my view, which was part of the book published, though I’m not sure the posts are taking my definitions seriously enough, so let me clarify. I do realize my view of historical Jesus studies is contrarian, but it’s hardly new. It’s a bit like Martin Kähler and a bit like Jimmy Dunn, but not identical to either.

 

What I say emerges from my own work in historical Jesus studies, and you can read my own approach to historiography in Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theories, published by Baylor University Press. It also emerges from more than five years of working in the Historical Jesus Seminar of the SBL at the Annual Meetings.

 

Point 1: My contention is that historical Jesus studies are all about reconstructing what Jesus was really like. They are the attempt to get behind the Gospels (and the Creed) to the real Jesus, the one who walked and taught and ministered in the Galilee and Judea.

 

Point 2: My contention is further that this reconstruction occurs over against the church’s Jesus, which is found in the Gospels (four presentations, not four “gospels” — not four “Jesuses” either, but four gospels presenting the Story of the one Jesus in four ways) and then developed even more in the Creed. The point of departure for historical Jesus studies is that the church either got Jesus wrong or said too much. The historical Jesus will be the real Jesus over against the church’s more theologized Jesus.

 

If you don’t accept these two premises, we have no discussion. If you do, we’ve got one. Again: it’s about reconstruction over against what the church thinks. Historical Jesus studies are decidedly contrarian to orthodoxy and the church and even the Gospels, if I may say so, and that is why they subject the church’s Jesus to criticism.

 

Point 3: And my contention is that historical Jesus studies, because it is all about reconstructing Jesus over against what the church has always believed, are of no use to the church. Why? Because the church knows what it believes about Jesus: The Gospels are the first source and then the Creed will be the second source for what the Church believes. [I want to avoid the Creed vs. Canon debate for this post because I'm intent on explaining what it means to do "historical Jesus studies."]

 

My contention is not that it is impossible to do historical Jesus studies — in other words, I do think historical methods, when folks stick to the methods, can discover what the method permits for discovery. (That’s the historical Jesus as reconstructed on the basis of methods, and my Jesus and His Death is that kind of historical Jesus book.) Some have said it is impossible to do historical Jesus studies because we don’t have any brute facts to interpret in another way. I disagree; I do think the methods are useful for historical purposes.

 

Point 4: My contention, further, is that “examining the Jesus of the Gospels [canonical Jesus] in his Jewish context” is not the same as “historical Jesus studies.” Canonical Jesus study sets an interpreted Jesus [canonical Jesus] in his Jewish context while historical Jesus study gets behind the canonical Jesus to the (less interpreted) real Jesus and sets that reconstructed figure in his historical context. I’m all for historical study of the canonical Jesus.

 

Point 5: And my contention is that the Gospels are already interpretations of Jesus, that is, the Gospel writers were “historians” in some sense and strung together facts about Jesus into a narrative that was designed to “gospel” Jesus to its readers. That is the church’s Jesus, the canonical Jesus, and that is the Jesus the church believes in. The creedal Jesus develops the canonical Jesus, and even if many think the creedal Jesus said too much, that does not change that the creedal Jesus is also the church’s Jesus.

 

If the church opts for the historical Jesus, it must choose to disregard the canonical Jesus for a reconstruction of Jesus on the basis of historical methods.