Starbucks
today i sat at starbucks talking with a student from a local seminary. we had set up the time to get a better understanding of each other's respective views of jesus. jesus according to my friend is someone who welcomes us into god, moves us toward god, and provides us with an example of one who has encountered god. he becomes the means to an existential end.
what of the cross i asked? the cross? that was merely jesus being true to himself. he followed the path he had to because that's the way the path went. the cross was arbitrary. jesus could have been left alone, but he wasn't left alone. instead, for whatever reason jesus threatened the establishment proclaiming his radical message of egalitarianism and equality. And because of that they had to get rid of him.
Now this argument has been around. That really, the only thing that jesus was doing was instituting a radical social program based on equality and egalitarianism. John Dominic Crossan makes this argument quite eloquently, and sadly quite inaccurately, in his work The Historical Jesus. Crossan calls him a jewish peasant cynic. but i think that is a bit tame. really what we ought to call jesus is the first french existentialist. Let’s be honest. The man was a philosophical pioneer. A fronch-man before the baguette. Quite impressive on jesus’ part. Apparently, those first century folk were quite unfamiliar with the work of foucoult, sartre, and camus. but not jesus. No. that is why it took another 1900 years before existentialism and notions of encounter entered the theological and philosophical fray once more.
Okay. what of the resurrection i asked?
the resurrection? he supressed a giggle. do you really believe in the resurrection; do you find that you need it for your faith? he returned.
yes i do.
why, why do you feel like you need it? he asked.
first it seems to me that the early church took it quite seriously, they seem to think it really happened.
but it's not in paul. paul never mentions the resurrection. (i think what he meant here was Crossan's argument that paul never mentions an empty tomb - the prototypical reason why i think crossan is a bufoon. Paul spends nearly an entire chapter explaining the importance of a bodily resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, so if you have a bodily resuurection that more than likely means the tomb is empty. I don’t see how not explicitly mentioning the “empty tomb” is an argument when it is stated implicitly with his discussion of a bodily resurrection. anyway.)
“yes he does”, I said. “1 corinthians 15.” paraphrasing i said “if christ has not risen bodily from the dead than our faith is in vain and we are to be pitied above all. Paul clearly speaks of the resurrection really happening. it seems to me that if your starting point is, dead people don't rise from the dead, and then you decide whether or not the resurrection happened, you have cooked the results and your investigation, far from being objective, isn't even honest with itself. regardless of what your conclusion on the resurrection is, the least one ought to do is suspend judgment on whether or not it could have happened.”
yeah i understand, but see paul, paul had his experience of god through jesus. and he was telling all those people, he was saying, see get rid of your paradigms and your social stratification and your roman citizenship. there is a new kingdom, and you can experience this jesus who is resurrected every time we remember him. he called us to meet god through him. all you need is that encounter that existential moment of experiencing god.
At this point I must digress from my retelling of our encounter and tell you that I really enjoyed my conversation with my friend, despite being utterly bewildered by how he has come to his decisions. At one point he told me that we all make decisions. In other words his decision and my decision on how to take a passage of scripture or on how we view god are equally valid because they are equally volitional. I had to disagree, gently. It is true that we are all engaged in interpretation. I am not so naïve as to think that I come to scripture without any preconceptions. But it is not even good logic to say because we both make decisions, both of our decisions must be valid. It is entirely reasonable and rational that one of our decisions is better than the other, or more accurate, especially since we are making decisions regarding the same material.
what of the cross i asked? the cross? that was merely jesus being true to himself. he followed the path he had to because that's the way the path went. the cross was arbitrary. jesus could have been left alone, but he wasn't left alone. instead, for whatever reason jesus threatened the establishment proclaiming his radical message of egalitarianism and equality. And because of that they had to get rid of him.
Now this argument has been around. That really, the only thing that jesus was doing was instituting a radical social program based on equality and egalitarianism. John Dominic Crossan makes this argument quite eloquently, and sadly quite inaccurately, in his work The Historical Jesus. Crossan calls him a jewish peasant cynic. but i think that is a bit tame. really what we ought to call jesus is the first french existentialist. Let’s be honest. The man was a philosophical pioneer. A fronch-man before the baguette. Quite impressive on jesus’ part. Apparently, those first century folk were quite unfamiliar with the work of foucoult, sartre, and camus. but not jesus. No. that is why it took another 1900 years before existentialism and notions of encounter entered the theological and philosophical fray once more.
Okay. what of the resurrection i asked?
the resurrection? he supressed a giggle. do you really believe in the resurrection; do you find that you need it for your faith? he returned.
yes i do.
why, why do you feel like you need it? he asked.
first it seems to me that the early church took it quite seriously, they seem to think it really happened.
but it's not in paul. paul never mentions the resurrection. (i think what he meant here was Crossan's argument that paul never mentions an empty tomb - the prototypical reason why i think crossan is a bufoon. Paul spends nearly an entire chapter explaining the importance of a bodily resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, so if you have a bodily resuurection that more than likely means the tomb is empty. I don’t see how not explicitly mentioning the “empty tomb” is an argument when it is stated implicitly with his discussion of a bodily resurrection. anyway.)
“yes he does”, I said. “1 corinthians 15.” paraphrasing i said “if christ has not risen bodily from the dead than our faith is in vain and we are to be pitied above all. Paul clearly speaks of the resurrection really happening. it seems to me that if your starting point is, dead people don't rise from the dead, and then you decide whether or not the resurrection happened, you have cooked the results and your investigation, far from being objective, isn't even honest with itself. regardless of what your conclusion on the resurrection is, the least one ought to do is suspend judgment on whether or not it could have happened.”
yeah i understand, but see paul, paul had his experience of god through jesus. and he was telling all those people, he was saying, see get rid of your paradigms and your social stratification and your roman citizenship. there is a new kingdom, and you can experience this jesus who is resurrected every time we remember him. he called us to meet god through him. all you need is that encounter that existential moment of experiencing god.
At this point I must digress from my retelling of our encounter and tell you that I really enjoyed my conversation with my friend, despite being utterly bewildered by how he has come to his decisions. At one point he told me that we all make decisions. In other words his decision and my decision on how to take a passage of scripture or on how we view god are equally valid because they are equally volitional. I had to disagree, gently. It is true that we are all engaged in interpretation. I am not so naïve as to think that I come to scripture without any preconceptions. But it is not even good logic to say because we both make decisions, both of our decisions must be valid. It is entirely reasonable and rational that one of our decisions is better than the other, or more accurate, especially since we are making decisions regarding the same material.
posted by John Jack at 6:33 PM
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