New Book in Progress - Excerpt #3

And He Walks with Me: Jesus 2.1 – Interactive Edition

New Thoughts about Jesus & the Christ for the 21st Century
by Thomas W. Shepherd

[#3 - Continuing the excerpts...]

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TEDDY BEARS AND STARSHIPS

Even for a relatively new species, human beings seem to have elected that subject as their major in the divine university of the cosmos. People love to love and be loved. Human love seems capable of projecting its warmth on all sorts of objects. People love teddy bears and national emblems and sweet melodies. A baby’s smile stirs us deeply; even the child of strangers touches the love chords in our mind-heart organ. Men and women are able to love irrationally, deeply, sometimes with a degree of steadfastness to surpass the loyalty of angels. It is not surprising that humanity would turn its love-light onto the collective personifications of human goodness—the gods and goddesses, divine power, however understood. The religious literature of humanity teems with declarations of devotion, loyalty and affection for the Divine. People need a divine teddy bear, an image to love and cling to and trust when the Cosmos goes mad, as it always does from time to time.

Jesus was a man, so he makes an even more convenient target for the cupid arrows of spiritual adoration, a manageable package of divinity, colored and shaped by the changing tides of world consciousness. Nuns call him husband; millions call him Lord. The biblical Jesus blesses everyone’s inner child; the believer eagerly climbs into his lap and feels secure in the divine embrace. Martyrs in the Roman arena loved him, as did medieval peasants, Renaissance artisans, free-thinkers of the Enlightenment, nineteenth century super-literates and revolutionaries, veterans of the world wars and moon-landing astronauts.

Someday, when starships sail the corridors of space at faster-than-light velocities, they will leave Earth orbit with Bibles in their prayer chapels. Doubtless there will be churches on the Moon and Mars and unknown worlds beyond Orion’s belt, along with an assortment of temples, mosques, and synagogues, too. Humans are irrevocably religious. It is not impossible that someday the great-great-great-whatever-grandchild of someone reading this book join an alien religion as soon as humans begin encountering them, and perhaps—turning Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill in a direction the Apostle never envisioned—become the first human-born priests or priestesses of a truly Unknown God.

Jesus 2.1 – Interactive: Post-modern Paradigm

Although Jesus Christ has been a thoroughly interactive figure throughout history, the post-modern age has finally produced a paradigm to explain this phenomenon: the computer program upgrade. Arriving after the initial software has been installed, an upgrade builds on the platform already laid down and modifies the program to improve basic functions or add new features which were unimaginable when the first edition hit the market. Later upgrades will continue the process. This is, of course, exactly what has happened to the “program” built on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

The premise of this book is that Jesus as experienced today is an interactive work in progress, co-created by people from the raw materials provided by scripture, tradition, life experiences, and your powers of intellectual reasoning and creative intuition. It is a solid, historical fact that humans have made and re-made the Nazarene in their image—physically and emotionally, politically and culturally—throughout the centuries since he walked the dusty streets of Roman Judea. Every generation has tweaked the Jesus model until it harmonized with the issues and requirements specific to the times.

At first glance, some might call this a cynical attitude. One could reasonably argue that the goal should not be to remake Jesus in our image but to discover his authentic message and conform ourselves accordingly. Of course, every church believes this is exactly what they have done, but the crazy-quilt landscape of Christendom shows otherwise. While sympathizing with people who are devoted to the search for a historical Jesus, many of whom are respected biblical scholars and theologians, nevertheless the inescapable conclusion from a study of Jesus as an interactive figure will show that embedded theological assumptions, which scholars inevitably bring to the Bible, will shape the results of their quest. Even if one were to allow that the Jesus Seminar has actually discovered some of the “authentic” sayings of Jesus through scholarly review of the gospel texts, all the mechanics of post-modern socialization come into play as soon as the question moves from “What did he say?” to “What does that mean for us today?”

Calling this study Jesus 2.1 / Interactive underscores the theological process which continues unabated into the 21st century. An interactive Jesus is not only unavoidable, the model also has great advantages. It allows humanity to project the highest and best attributes of its character on a recognizable figure and follow the leader in the direction which most people already know they should be traveling. Although Jesus has been portrayed as a lofty king with groveling subjects—a divine emperor who has no problem with subjugated servants or even slavery itself—today it is possible to say that Jesus loves humanity because he is humanity, the best example of what it means to be human and divine. In twenty-first century humans have learned, by and large, that subjugation and slavery are not acts blessed by godly sanction.

Light, Not the Lamp

Understanding Jesus as interactive allows creative flexibility, and the outcome is never certain. Although hindsight clearly marks a chosen highway as the obvious choice, looking ahead where the road divides presents a traveler with live options. Often, as in Robert Frost’s great poem, both paths have advantages and disadvantages, a circumstance which behavioral scientists call a double approach-avoidance conflict.

In making initial adjustments to the recorded memories of a living, historical Jesus, the developing Christian church faced such a double approach-avoidance conflict, because both positive (approach) and negative (avoidance) results followed once someone decided to cast Jesus either as human or divine. The proto-orthodox party—those who would one day hold the majority opinion—avoided the dual temptations declaring Jesus neither exclusively divine or exclusively human. Too limiting, they insisted, because Jesus was both human and divine. To this day traditional theology insists Jesus Christ must be fully human so that his divinity is accessible to mere mortals. However, this addition proposition—the uniqueness of Jesus’ divine-human nature—is not a mandatory component in Christology. There are other alternatives which are far kinder to humanity and historically far more tenable. Post-modern men and women have generally given up on God as the old man in the sky of Renaissance art. They know there is no cosmic Christ who, according to memorized creed, “sitteth at the right hand of God the Father.” Mystics through the ages have found something better, an inner Christ enthroned in every man and woman, and from this inner repository men and women have discovered that God brings forth anew the perfect idea of what it means to be human and divine in all times and seasons of life. It is this inner, divine spark which poets and prophets have recognized throughout history, although the tendency has persisted to confuse the lamp with the light.

When addressing epistemology or cosmology, in fact when looking at all the grand questions of life, the starting point for post-modern Christian thought can be clarified by this vital distinction between external lamp of Jesus and the inner light, which is the Christ-presence in every sentient being. While Jesus 2.1 definitely allows people to modify their understanding of Jesus, some would rightly argue for an interactive model which requires communication in both directions. Modern interpreters have an obligation to hear what the authors of the Second Testament were actually saying about the primordial Jesus of scripture. This process of clarification brings up an important point, namely, the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive theology. We have been doing both in this study so far, describing what exists and prescribing possible choices or alternative points of view.

DESCRIPTIVE / PRESCRIPTIVE THEOLOGY

Fairly early in life, most people learn that it can be dangerous to discuss religion with friends and family. Many people have set beliefs and will brook no challenges to the world as they see it. Yet, life is growth, and growth means change, which is one of the reasons that former Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has written that Christianity must either change or die. Effective religion is always a work in progress, responding to the times and circumstances of real people in a real world. In this need for flexibility and responsiveness, religion is not unlike the other taboo subject which popular wisdom warns us against discussing—politics.

Ballot-Boxed in Georgia

True confession: In a previous incarnation—well, at least a few years ago—I ran in a partisan political election. I was the 1992 Democratic nominee for the majority-Republican 114th District of the Georgia House of Representatives. The local Democrats were graciously willing to let a carpet-bagger Yankee like me fall in battle against an incumbent who would have otherwise retained his seat in an uncontested election. I think the contest at least provided some comic relief for my fellow Georgians. Fortunately for the Peach State, the voters of the district chose the other guy—but I learned so much! The process of representative government really comes alive once citizens take the time to get involved in the elections. I eventually became an appointed member of the Richmond County Board of Elections and was able to serve all the people as an overseer of the elective process.

From my brief sojourn into the land of partisan politics, I learned that in the political arena people with highfalutin ideals—often originating from sincere but conflicting values—learn how to live in the real world by compromise, re-interpretation, and coalition. In a utopian world, whenever a problem presented itself, everyone would agree and their voices rise in harmonious finale. But until later in the program, people won't be living in utopia. Even in the best possible scenarios, progressively self-perfecting people will struggle to achieve worthwhile goals while operating as a check-and-balance on each other's excesses.

The same human dynamics were in play when Christianity was born. Hellenistic paganism and the new Christian faith quickly merged because they were never apart; they sprang from the same milieu. Although a cursory glance at church history might suggest the Christianizing process flowed from a Jewish Jesus who exerted powerful influence on the pagan world, in reality the communication was multi-sided. When Christianity reached out from its Jewish homeland, the mingling of various schools of Jewish Christian thought with Hellenistic ideas was unavoidable, even desirable, as the two worlds cross-pollinated.

This is one of the points which Jihadists of today—whether Muslim, Hindu, Christian, or whatever—fail to recognize, i.e., the interactive nature of world cultures. As the human population becomes more aware of this cultural dynamic, the evolutionary penalty for religious worldviews which try to fight this movement toward higher consciousness might very well be extinction. Although theology is no longer called “the queen of the sciences,” theologians attempting to discuss a subject as deep and far-ranging as Christology can only command respect for the quality of their work by establishing ground rules and clarifying the methodology they will follow. Most theology contains these two basic elements, descriptive and prescriptive.

Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Theology

A descriptive analysis tries to explain what a particular belief or practice means. This is best illustrated by biblical theology, where the task of scholarship is to determine what the author of a particular passage was probably saying to his ancient target audience. However, a descriptive analysis of the sacrament of baptism might also attempt to clarify the practices of initiation into the Christian community and the beliefs which this or that group has held about baptism. Depending on the theological background of the group being addressed, even basic terms may have to be described. In some traditions, calling baptism a sacrament (rather than an ordinance) requires an explanation, and if the goal is to illustrate rather than advocate, the process is descriptive.

Prescriptive reasoning attempts to push beyond clarification about the way things are and to articulate underlying causes, discover connections, and arrive at new possibilities. In its most radical form, prescriptive theology says, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (MT 5:43-44, NRSV)

Descriptive and prescriptive theology can be objective or subjective, although describing what exists is ostensibly more impartial than prescribing new connections. Frequently these two methodologies are mixed haphazardly by artless commentators, so the reader bumps along over description and prescription without realizing the road has been cobbled together with incompatible materials. The reason for this amalgamation is clear. For theologians, both amateur and professional, it is exquisitely tempting to favor one’s point of view by discovering it embedded in the words of Jesus, St. Paul, Thomas Aquinas, or Gandhi. And the more deeply people hold a certain conviction, the more easily they can “discover” authoritative support for that idea elsewhere.

An honest respect for methodology requires a beginning point within a self-consciously objective, descriptive model of the sources—facilitated by studying the Bible, non-canonical scriptures, and other historical documents of the faith; reflecting on the beliefs and practices of Christian and other religious communities throughout the ages; and surveying other resources now available due to the explosion of knowledge in this computer-enhanced world society—then to advance prescriptively by offering new insights for students of theology today. Although this does not require a rigid formula— first descriptive, then prescriptive—it obliges religious thinkers to be aware of the perils of unsubstantiated speculation and to acknowledge when the line between explaining and advocating has been crossed, as it will be in almost any theological work, present volume included.

With so much already written about Jesus of Nazareth, one might wonder about the need for yet another book about his life, teachings and the meaning of his “work” for Christian theology. However, the orientation of this study is somewhat different from most other works on Christology written to date. Jesus 2.1 continues the pattern established in my volume on systematic theology, Glimpses of Truth. While attempting some degree of objectivity, especially when doing descriptive theology, this work does proceed from a point of view within the Metaphysical Christian circle of faith. Having said that, I will nevertheless attempt to apply some degree of intellectual rigor to the study of Christology and place the insights of New Thought Christianity in touch and in context with mainstream theology of the early twenty-first century.

Because the subject is Christology and not systematic theology, this work will assume readers have a basic grasp if New Thought Christianity or can infer enough from the context of these discussions to understand the issues. Those who are totally unfamiliar with the New Thought/Metaphysical Christian view of Reality might want to take a crash course by reading the works of writers like Eric Butterworth, Nona Brooks, H. Emilie Cady, Johnnie Colemon, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, Emmet Fox, James Dillet Freeman, James Gaither, Joel Goldsmith, Ernest Holmes, or Emma Curtis Hopkins, just to name a few.

With these first thoughts and observations in mind, we begin our journey into a deeper examination of Jesus and the Christ. This work is unevenly divided into four parts, all of which are grounded in the model of Jesus as an interactive work-in-progress. Part I, New Thoughts about an Old Story, provides an extended discussion of the issues and possibilities for additional new ways to look at Christology. Part II, Looking Back to See Forward, wades into the historic controversies, the hotly debated ideas about the nature and ministry of Jesus, from the early church, Apostles, and Paul through the Christological controversies of the late ancient period. Part III, Jesus Christ Today, investigates the many possibilities for practical Christology in the twenty-first century. Finally, Part IV presents a brief discussion of popular stories which New Testament authors attribute to Jesus, the Thirteen Favorite Parables.

We begin with a look at the guy under the halo, which I have subtitled, “Dream a little dream with me…”

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