WWJD and extreme divinization

Albert Nolan wrote brilliantly on how Jesus is not merely the object of our spirtuality, but was also a subject that stood in relation to God, and from whom we can learn about spirituality. The basic thesis of Jesus Today was the historical Jesus research has enough to offer that we can reconstruct the spirituallity of Jesus. Andries van Aarde built his book, Fatherless in Galilee, around the assumption that Jesus found a Father in God, since he didn’t have an earthly father, which also say something about Jesus’ spirituality.

But while this quest for finding Jesus, that prophet, the human guy, who walked around Galilee and Jerusalem roundabout 30 AD, goes on both in the academic world, and also with a growing group of Christians in pews, coffeeshops and slums, another group of Christians is opting for an extreme divinization of Jesus. As someone told me earlier today, in response to my saying that we can learn from Jesus how to live in relationship with God: “Jesus had an unfair advantage, he was divine”.

This is not a new idea, and probably we’ll find this underlying an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) which says that the Sermon on the Mount was never meant to be followed, but to show us that we are unable to live as we should, only Jesus could follow that – it should remind us how sinfull we are so that we’ll turn to God, to Jesus. Out of fear that we’ll turn Jesus into just another moral teacher, we divinized Jesus up to the point where both the life Jesus had with God, and the way he lived, is something totally undervalued, ignored, and rather exchanged for a Jesus which is purely the object of faith.

I remember Tony Jones saying back in 2006 that our generation is the WWJD generation. Thinking back on my primary school days I could see where he was coming from. Although on the other side of the world, and definitely less extreme, Adam at Pomomusings probably did an accurate description of the WWJD culture of the time (I never wore more than one, but basically everyone in our school had one). Critique can be delivered against the idea, but in our 12-year old minds we were opposing the idea that Jesus was merely divine, that the way of Jesus couldn’t be lived, and that he’s teaching was impossible to follow.

How we’ve come to this point I don’t know. How we got the church so polarized I don’t know either, maybe it’s always been like this. But somehow I can’t seem to think that the early church ever thought other than that we were supposed to follow the example of Jesus. They talked about the son of God, and about us being children of God. They said that our minds should work in the same way as that of Jesus Christ, we should hold the same view (Phil 2:5). Trying to live life in the way of Jesus is not denying the divinity of Christ (oh how I hate having to qualify things like this, but I’ll do it since I know that some tend imply this), it is simply trying to reconnect with the thinking of the early church. I guess this is part of my attempt at a “Christology from the side“…

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus – Outside the Church there is no Salvation

The Latin phrase Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus means: “Outside the Church there is no salvation“. This expression comes from the writings of Saint Cyprian of Carthage, a bishop of the third century. The axiom is often used as short-hand for the doctrine, upheld by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, that the Church is absolutely necessary for salvation (cf. “one true faith“). The theological basis for this doctrine is founded on the beliefs that (1) Jesus Christ personally established the one Church; and (2) the Church serves as the means by which the graces won by Christ are communicated to believers.

sourch: wikipedia - Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one for whom this sounds somewhat strange.

• Firstly, any New Testament scholar, and many critical readers of the New Testament, will tell you that Jesus did not personally establish the church. He did not start a new faith either.
• Secondly, the idea that the church serve as the means by which grace is won obviously won’t hold ground if the first foundation doesn’t hold ground.
• However, to be honest, most of us probably had to change our minds because we had friends who simply don’t attend church. These doctrines won’t hold in a post-Christondom environment, because the concept of “church” and it’s place in society has changed completely.

The environment within which these doctrines developed worked with this structure:

God

|

Church

|

King and Nobles

|

People

|

Animals, Plants, and Objects

But this has changed. Or so we would think.

Andrew Root has done a brilliant study on how we made the relationships of relational youth minitry an end to a means, the end being getting kids into heaven. But getting kids into heaven doesn’t even seem enough of an end anymore. We gotta get them into church. So even though we talk about missional churches all the time, we structure entire youth ministries around getting kids into church. Yeah, they do short-term outreaches and community projects, but in the end we add these to a growing list of “church-stuff” that our kids have done.

If our entire youth ministry goes about to get the next generation into church, aren’t we then still holding to “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus”? If we measure our success against how many kids we got to church how frequently, what is the theological presupposition underlying that?

so I’m naive

There is this old blessing, which supposedly goes back to saint Francis (but then again, so does a lot of sayings), which I often use when preaching. It’s my favourite. I only have the text in Afrikaans, but the last part goes something like this:

and may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a differance in this world, so that you will be able to do the things that others believe to be impossible

I remember reading this post at The Jesus Manifesto a few months ago that was a reminder that contrary to modern liberal thoughts, the way of Jesus is not the utmost thoughts in ethical and social thinking, as if common reason would bring us to the same place that the teachings of Jesus brought us. Reality is that sometimes I simply feel like I’m naive to actually think that the way of Jesus will change the world, sometimes the grand scemes of poitically correct capitalist welfare programs look much more effective. Seems like large companies investing millions into Africa has a better plan than me trying to get myself to a place where I’ll actually house the stranger, sell my stuff, and give to the poor.

But that’s the journey that the teaching of that prophet from Nazareth is getting me onto. I’m getting more and more aware that it’s probably naive. But then again, I must be naive to still believe that God’s kingdom is actually coming, and that I can be part of bringing that into existance…

homes for the homeless

Today I heard about a single mother and her only child, who spend more than half her small salary on housing for herself and her child. And I did nothing.

Today I heard about a child for whom there is no place in the childrens home, looking for a room for the night.

Everyday I see those without homes all around me.

Tonight one room in our house is empty. Tonight 3 matrasses in our house don’t have anyone sleeping on them. But yet, I struggle to open up the place I live to the homeless.

Whether I should I don’t know. But there is still much that need to be worked on in this persons spirituality and wisdom before I know what to do when I hear this news.

extreme fundamentalism and extreme relativism

The more I think about it, the closer extreme relativism and extreme fundamentalism seem to be together:

• Both is entirely subjective, and do not even seek to be objective, in it’s extreme forms neither to recognize their own subjectivity.
• The individual caught up in both will hold to their already-found believes come hell or high water, and wouldn’t even consider the possibility that it might be they who are wrong, since it isn’t needed to even consider that they might be wrong.
• Both approaches give it’s proponents the amazing ability to percieve their worldview as absolutely consistent even when it clashes with all of reality.

In the end both approaches adhear to the same basic idea: their is no truth except for the truth which I hold.

they’re rebels, and they’re everywhere!

I love the time I live in! And I love the people I get the opportunity to connect with! Not just the high-profile type, but mainly the little rebels. Not necessarily those who shout their rebel voices out on blogs and T-shirts, but those who slowly but surely create a world that is different from the one they inherited. And it’s happening. They’re all around us. People who are changing the world. Many of them on the non-written side of history, not the heroes or the big leaders. But those who are shaping a new way of living.

Some of them are academics, some of them not.

Some of them are extroverted, some of them introverted.

Some of them are loving and kind, some of them are harsh and critical, some of them are all of the above at once.

Some of them you’ll find in institutions, some of them prefer to do it the cowboy way.

Some of them are religious, some of them are not.

Some use words to label themselves, some will never give a name to what they are.

Some know that they are rebels, and recreating the world they live in, and some don’t even realise it, but change are happening when they are around.

Most won’t call themselves rebels, but I see the status quo of the world, I know they are rebels.

Will they change the world? To me, eschatology mean that I believe that the world can change, no matter what the odds! And I’m willing to believe that at least some of the people I know are changing the world right now.

demilitarizing the kingdom of God

A few needed thoughts on the kingdom of God by Gerd Theissen in The Religion of the Earliest Churches:

This myth (the kingdom of God) is simply consistent Jewish monotheism: God will finally be the one and only God, alongside whom there will no longer be any other powers to limit his rule …

In Judaism this includes the rule of the one and only God. Now Jesus combines this talk of the kingly rule of God, i.e. a political metaphor, with a second, family, metaphor: the image of God as father…

It is striking that Jesus always speaks only of the kingdom of God, of God’s basileia as an objective entity, but never of God as ‘king’, of basileus as a personal role. This produces a void for him which he fills with the metaphor of father: in God’s kingly rue God comes to power not as ‘king’ but as ‘father’. As familia dei, the ‘family of God’, his sons and daughters have a privileged relationship to him and take part in his rule. Therefore in the Our Father the central message of Jesus is summed up as ‘Our Father, your kingdom come… ‘ In every respect this message is this a revitalization of the Jewish sign world in the light of two basic metaphors which come into the centre. However, for Jesus this ‘myth’ of the coming kingly rule of the Father takes a form which is characterized by two special features. In both cases the mythical world is extended or transformed in a unique way: by a historicizing, poeticizing and ‘demilitarizing’ of myth.

Just a note, when Theissen refer to Jewish thoughts, he specifically do not refer to Pharasaic thought.

Second note. Maybe this demilitarization of the kingdom of God need to be kept in mind when modern metaphors for the kingdom of God is looked for.