JC Did Not Say
Jesus had no good word for War. Jesus never said, "give to the rich, and they will care for the poor." Jesus never commented on the "American way of life." Jesus was the radical thinker of his day, and if Evangelicals, and Christians at large want to get Jesus, they must look outside the large and profitable institutions called churches to find Christ. I think we place to much emphasis on the divine nature of Christ, and deny Jesus His humanity.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by J. Christopher LaTondresse on -
In the words of Jim Wallis, my former boss, "How did Jesus become pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro American?" As mentioned under the 'Misplaced Jesus' tab on the right side of the screen:
Evangelicals in America have serious image problem. Many people see us a hypocritical, too judgmental, to after-life oriented, too political, too unconcerned with the biggest issues facing the world today.
But ask people what they think about Jesus and you get a different picture entirely. They remember that he hung out with sinners, empowered the marginalized, confronted injustice, promoted peace, and started a revolution of love that remains to this day.
This distance between these two pictures is breathtaking.
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Hollingsworth on -
Good point. It seemed that Jesus' harshest words and most biting critiques were reserved for two main groups: the political powers of his day, but even more to the religious and "moral" leadership in his own community. We miss most of the power of this truth if we think Jesus was merely correcting Judaism (planning to replace it with Christianity). Jesus was challenging how those with power, money, and/or status in the religious community defined the "good" way of life. To be faithful to his message, I think we must continue to think critically about what messages the church preaches. After all, we "Christians" may be closer to Pharisees and Saducees than we like to think! Thanks for the post, Joseph!
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Permalink Reply by dlw on -
Mark Noll is right that traditional USAmerican evangelicals lack a structural savvy that has led for us to be first-and-fore-most "common sense" adapters to a culture defined by others and so with the decline of USAmerican culture into a hyper-individualism, greed-is-good, neo-imperialism, we've been pulled further away from our true roots.
It's not so much the nature of Jesus, just a whole lotta ignorance on reading the Bible well and failing to appreciate the historical controversies of Christianity.
dlw
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Permalink Reply by Joe Smart on -
I am quite certain Jesus would not have chosen a trickle down economy as the best way to help the poor, but I also don't think he would have aligned himself with any government party to solve these problems through welfare either.
What we don't want to hear is that it is ultimately the church's responsibility to serve God's children whether they have been reconciled or not. On top of that, the government is a very ineffective agent of help. Come to Hope, Arkansas sometime and I will show you the sea of trailer-housing that FEMA never got to New Orleans for people to live in because of bureaucracy.
We are seeing what happens right now when the church aligns with the Republicans in lock step. As Upton Sinclair said once, "When fascism comes to America it will carrying a Bible and will be wrapped in a flag."
All I am saying is Democrats don't hold the answers either and we should be careful who we align with politically (if anyone).
ps Thanks for letting me join your group, as I am working through my church issues and this site was recommended to me. It helps to know that I am not the square peg I thought I was.
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Permalink Reply by Kristine on -
I dont think you can put too much emphasis on the divine nature of Christ or his humanity...he was equally both, and both are equally important to our understanding of his nature. I personally believe the problem lies in the church in America having become an "institution", a "building", a "religion", and ceased being "the body of Christ".
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Permalink Reply by Fred Holland on -
I am incouraged when I read an imphasis on being the "Body of Christ". What does that make our identity? We are His body, we have His mind, and in His spirit we have our being. Who are we really? I am not reffering to those who have a great religion, but to those who have faith>whose vision of things that don't yet exist could be held as evidence in a court of law.
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Permalink Reply by Fred Holland on
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And I believe we deny our devine nature in order to excuse our inhuman activities. We look at Jesus as an impossible human that we are to try to imitate(yet are told that we can never be like). I believe that Jesus is what is the probable outcome of the life of faith. We are to stand up to the religious leaders who use the power of faith to harm others. We are to push for absolute equality for all, and we are to love the unlovable. Jesus proved that a human could do it. He did not come to show how great He was, but rather to show how great we are.
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Permalink Reply by dlw on
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What do you mean by absolute equality or "power of faith"?
I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the final judgement, as I also believe in the pervasive reality of the tragic in our world and that following Christ is the only thing that can stop us on the vicious cycle to self-annihilation.
dlw
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Permalink Reply by Fred Holland on
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In my view no human, no matter what station they hold in this world, has no more or less value to any other(with the exception of those that harm others). In my simplistic view, if I need someone to clean my work are in order for me to effectivley do my job then the outcome of our combined work is equaly dependent on both. I believe that in order for equality to exist we must learn to value a human the way our Father does. Not by what a human does or achieves, but by his humanity.
When I wrote "the power of faith" what I should have wrote "the power of the notion of faith". Religious and political leaders who use the notion or claim of faith to rally people behind them or to cover an evil they are entrenched in.
More later, gotta go to work. Fred
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Permalink Reply by dlw on
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In God's eyes, yes.
And yet we face the problem of imputation and how it seems some skills/abilities are scarcer or more critical than others.
I think the Church can value people apart from their earning abilities and accomplishments and I also believe we can help to implement changes in fiscal policy that will reduce income inequality thru social insurance and derive more of its tax revenue from sources like a Land Value Tax, a tax on non-renewables, pollution emissions, commercial advertisements, donations to politicos and so on...
I believe that teaching authority does not imply administrative authority and that the elevation of ecclesial leaders has tended to do more harm than good over the arch of Church History.
dlw
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Permalink Reply by Fred Holland on
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This is where my simplistic point of view raises eyebrows. Anything that needs a human in order to have it's value is by it's nature, worthless. Only God and humans have intrinsic value. Everything else is nothing until God or us touches it. We create the idea of money and descide it's value. We dig up some minerals, melt them and make gold rings, necklaces etc. Until we touch it, gold is just sparkely dirt. Money is nothing more than a means to exert cheap power over others. How does one compare all the money in the world to that of an hour of human existance. The money can always be replaced. But an hour of the Garbage man's life cannot. As long as we value money higher than humans then we are setting up the world in some sort of class system ultimatly, the haves and have-nots. This does not work for me anymore. Problem is, I have no way out of the system. The best I can see for me to do is to say the alarming things and hope for enough discussions that real change can eventualy take place.
At the risk of being seen as argumenative, are we not literaly God's children? Or is it as we have been taught. Not real, just fanciful ideas to control other peoples behavior. If I am actually a son of the most high, then whose eyes am I supposed to see my fellow man? I believe I have my Fathers eyes(but not His spelling knowledge).
I am very glad to have someone with knowledge that will question my ramblings. I do have some formal Biblical education and sometimes I can think I know what I'm talking about. I am grateful for you.
Fred
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Permalink Reply by dlw on
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I agree that humans have intrinsic value that stems ultimately from God, but I think that also allows us to impart value to stuff. The problem is that we've majorly messed up and believe that our value comes from our possessions or access to power/violence.
I believe we can make the center of our lives communities of faith where we try as much as possible to live according to what is true. I also believe we can accomodate the world's falsehoods somewhat with the intent of not inviting persecution and providing for ourselves opportunities to form relationships where we can eventually draw others in to our communities.
I also believe we can change the rules that govern us in ways that testify to our higher ideals. Jim Wallis has some good ideas in this regard, but I try and take a less-is-more approach, particularly focusing on making our political system work better for more people on more issues thru the incorporation of proportional representation into state elections. You can read more about this at my blog: A New Kind of Third Party.
dlw
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