Fragment -- #198

[January 2002 journal entry]

When I first saw the Francis of Assisi film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, I could empathize with Francis’ inability – short of violating his integrity – to satisfy his father’s deathbed entreaties to leave his witness to a radically simplified life and return to his father’s business/fortune. When I first read the agonizing letters Adolph Harnack exchanged with his father – a respected 19^th-century conservative theologian/churchman – re Adolph’s critical historical interpretations and his liberal theological proposals, I could empathize with his/their pain.

Fragment -- #197

[January 2002 journal entry]

I value and enjoy four types of music – i.e., classical (esp., Shostakovich, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky), 60s (esp., Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears, The Beatles, Three Dog Night, Mammas and Pappas), jazz (esp., Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Marian McPartland, Diane Schuur), blues (esp., B. B. King, Aretha Franklin, Albert King, Billie Holliday, Eric Clapton, Keb Mo’, Norah Jones). (If I were to pick a ‘religious’ musician, it would be Rich Mullins.) Each genre has deep links with my ‘non-religious’ experience/views – e.g., classical puts me in awe of the artistic potential of the human geist and symbolizes hope for order/symmetry to triumph over chaos, 60s provides a wide-open forum from a revolutionizing decade, jazz illustrates the attempt to integrate individuality and community, blues breaks through from beneath the societal glitter.

Fragment -- #196

[January 2002 journal entry]

The lives of the five most seminal/pivotal thinkers/examples for my ‘non-religious’ approach to ethics and spirituality – i.e., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Albert Camus, Martin Buber, Nicholai Berdyaev, Michel Quoist – all crossed the Nazi years.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #52

Propositions:

‘Jesus’ was deeply spiritual (i.e., a centered and thoughtful life).

‘Jesus’ was not very religious (in the organized/institutional sense).

‘Jesus’ was radically ethical (e.g., a Sermon on the Mount ethic).

‘Jesus’ was not very righteous (in the self-conscious, tradition-driven, or ‘religious’ sense).

‘Jesus’ was very reflective (e.g., his ‘God’ language, his trust in sound judgment).

‘Jesus’ was not very dogmatic (in the ‘religious’ sense).

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #51

[August 2002 journal entry]

Was ‘Jesus’ envisioning/anticipating ‘Christianity’ (as institutionalized from the time of the apostle Paul forward in increasingly non-Jewish forms?) No, in my judgment.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #50

[March 2002 journal entry]

The nearer I draw to ‘Jesus’ (i.e., historie), the further I find myself removed from ‘high’/‘from above’ Christologies. Two resolves have contributed most substantially to my position/angle re ‘Jesus’ and orthodox Christologies – i.e., (1) to sustain a radically critical historiography and (2) to pursue the implications of having Shelly Korones and subsequently a number of other Jewish physicians among my core spiritual relationships.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #49

[February 2002 journal entry]

Proposition: The disjunction between ‘from below’ and ‘from above’ views of ‘Jesus’ was most pronounced in the Apostle Paul among the first generation of Christianity’s leaders. He claimed/referenced no personal experience (i.e., historie) with ‘Jesus’. He sidestepped this liability as he aggressively promoted his ‘from above’ theology, thus freeing him from historical restraints and freeing him to engage the dualistic cosmologies widespread in the Greco-Roman world. Paul saw no need for ‘from below’ historie, especially since he was convinced the end of historie was imminent. This gamble is analogous to the short life of a cut flower. To look ‘from below’, to invest in historie, was for Paul to revert to ‘the flesh’, to the past, to the ‘old’, to the ‘dead’. Paul’s extant writings leave no suggestion he would have encouraged a historie investigation of ‘Jesus’. Peter, James, et al could not go ‘toe to toe’ with Paul. His education, his travel, his ease with Greek and Roman culture, his evangelistic successes (and probably his energy!) would have overwhelmed them. The Synoptic Gospels are themselves ‘from above’ interpretations of ‘Jesus’ in that they center on the crucifixion and resurrection narratives. However, they are not similar to Paul’s dismissal of ‘Jesus’ in favor of the ‘Christ Jesus’ he considered sufficiently/profoundly experienced as present in the churches he was founding. Perhaps the Synoptic Gospels were written in part to ensure that the ‘Jesus’ who lived would not be forgotten, just in case time did not end as soon as Paul was confident it would.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #48

[February 2002 journal entry]

Proposition: I find no compelling reason to think that the first leaders of Christianity understood ‘Jesus’ any more clearly after his death than during his life (the Synoptic Gospels indicating they understood very little during his life), their self-certifying claims – e.g., appeals to miraculous confirmations and to immediate revelations from ‘God’ -- after the death of ‘Jesus’ notwithstanding. They lacked an approach to ‘Jesus’ that would call for radically critiquing their various institutionalizing tendencies. Reconstructions and interpretations of the life and thought of ‘Jesus’ by representatives/guardians of Christianity then or now were/are bound by and serve/d the interests of Christianity as a ‘religion’. The reconstructions and interpretations tone/d down and sift/ed out the radical (i.e., to the root) edges of ‘Jesus’.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #47

[February 2002 journal entry]

Proposition: The first leaders of Christianity were not centered on ‘the gospel of Jesus’ or anchored in historie, but ironically created and worked off of new versions of the fundamental characteristics of the ‘religion’ opposed by ‘Jesus’ (e.g., hierarchical organization, infighting, otherworldliness, inequities, marginalizing of women, . . .). How would ‘Jesus’ have reacted to a reading of each writing in what became the Christian canon of scripture (including the Synoptic Gospels, but especially Acts through Revelation)? How would he have reacted to the ‘religious’ institutionalizing done in his name? Would he conclude, “They got it!”

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #46

[February 2002 journal entry]

Proposition: The first leaders of Christianity retained interest in the historical ‘Jesus’ as the backdrop to the ‘from above’ (or ‘looking back’) angle created by the resurrection narratives and by the subsequent immediately present guidance from ‘God’ they claimed. To use Karl Barth’s categories, geschichte replaced historie. ‘From below’ perspectives were quickly left without representation in what eventually became the official record of the first years after the death of ‘Jesus’. Variations – historical as well as theological -- within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, to be approved, had to build off this ‘from above’ methodology. My ‘non-religious’ approach (1) gives priority to historie over geschichte claims and interpretations, (2) considers historie as building material, (3) has reservations about geschichte claims/interpretations both as credible language and as a credible methodological starting point.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #45

[February 2002 journal entry]

It is striking to me that ‘Jesus’ (i.e., the actual person who, if accessible to historical reconstruction, is known almost exclusively through the Synoptic Gospels with minimal contribution from the Gospel of John and a few sources outside the Christian canon of scripture) is virtually absent in the other early writings (Acts through Revelation) that became canonical for Christianity. There are, of course, allusions. But there is no biographical information (other than references to his death), no episodes from his life (other than Paul’s reference to ‘the last supper’), none of his teachings (other than the one quotation in Acts that is not paralleled in any of the four Gospels), no use of his parables (or the story-telling method, for that matter), . . . . No reconstruction of the life of ‘Jesus’ is possible from these writings.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #44

[January 2002 journal entry]

The more critically informed/shaped one’s view of Jewish scripture and Christian scripture, the more diminished the finality and authority of the theologies advocated within those writings. At some point across the Christology spectrum from ‘high’ to ‘low’, a threshold is crossed/passed beyond which the lack of finality and authority re the methodology, theology, cosmology of ‘Jesus’ must be admitted and incorporated into one’s approach to ethics and spirituality.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #43

[October 2001 journal entry]

I cannot read the four Gospels or Acts any more literally than I can so read Genesis 1-11.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #42

[September 2001 journal entry]

The lower my ‘Christology’, the more ‘Jesus’ becomes typical of his time re worldview and, thus, subject to criticism from a ‘non-religious’ perspective.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #41

[April 2001 journal entry]

I am very far removed from understanding the ‘give us this day our daily bread’ prayer to imply there is no need to bake the pita, trusting that the baking will occur due to direct and intentional divine intervention. First, the pita simply will not be baked without a baker getting the work done. Second, most ‘God’ language offered as commentary on ‘give us this day our daily bread’ ignores, goes around, is unaware of the anthropomorphic and sociomorphic meaning/limitations of such ‘God’ language.

Where is ‘Jesus’ (as represented in each of the four Gospels and, to the degree possible, as distinguished from these representations)? I want to say that ‘Jesus’ would have much to teach us re understanding the anthropomorphic, sociomorphic, and cosmomorphic meaning/limitations ‘God’ language. However, I realize that seeing ‘Jesus’ in this way cuts against the grain of the way ‘God’ language is used in Jewish scripture/thought, in Christian scripture/thought, and in today’s ‘religious’ sphere. And viewing ‘Jesus’ as essentially human diminishes the likelihood that he sensed/valued this language limitation.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #40

[January 2001 journal entry]

I have recently been thinking about ‘Jesus’ as leaven, the point being that ‘Jesus’ -- and not just his followers/students -- disappears and is indistinguishable in the way leaven disappears and is indistinguishable in baked dough. ‘Religion’ emphatically opposes this proposition.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #39

[January 2001 journal entry]

‘Jesus’ becomes less and less orthodox as I imagine writing him into the story/play Job as the missing character in the story/play – i.e., a character who can be with the ‘scrapheap’ Job without harming further or disrespecting him.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ from below #38

[December 2000 journal entry]

In a conversation with the senior pastor for Nashville’s 2^nd Presbyterian Church (USA) re my views of ‘Jesus’, he observed, “Your approach to Jesus gets to the essence. I agree that so much about the ‘religious’ Jesus – heaven, hell, deity, resurrection, . . . – is extraneous to the Jesus who lived 2000 years ago.” He then asked, “Why did you get it when so few do?” Prefaced with an admission that in the final analysis I do not know, I mentioned the following – (1) studying history, (2) being exposed, through my first wife’s illness, to human frailty and old-age conditions as a young adult, (3) the inner drive for thorough analysis and for consistency, (4) . . . .

I am convinced one must either move more deeply into or move out of the ‘religious’ Traditional/Orthodox (T/O) paradigm. Most professional guardians of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm have too much invested in the ‘religious’ sphere to do other than draw individuals inward.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #86

[March 2003 journal entry]

In a recent conversation, a burdened friend observed --

How can behaviors and consequences be attributed to ‘the will of God’ when, if a human being were responsible for such, we would call it crime or mental illness. What kind of person would I be if I could do something to prevent such suffering for an individual and did not do so? And yet the ‘God’ talk in churches proceeds to honor ‘God’!

I expressed agreement with his analysis/concern and shared with him at least four decisions I have made in dealing with such conflict – (1) I am resolved to orient my life toward such suffering and toward alignment with such sufferers, (2) I am resolved not to embrace ideas that claim to make sense of or to justify such suffering, (3) I am resolved not to embrace ideas that marginalize or distract from such suffering/ers, (4) I am resolved not to embrace ideas that encourage such sufferers to suppress their raw/honest reactions.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #85

[February 2003 journal entry]

In a recent conversation with a Roman Catholic lay pastor/friend re the common ground shared by ‘sacramental’ (e.g., a Rahner or a Teilhard de Chardin) and ‘immanentist’ (e.g., a Schleiermacher) approaches to spirituality and ethics with which he expressed affinity, I suggested that the anchor/context should be the raw realities of human suffering. I proposed that such proximity and focus result in the discrediting of ‘religious’ T/O paradigm nuances re ‘God’. I also proposed that ‘sacramental’ and ‘immanentist’ approaches to spirituality and ethics face two risks/pressures – (1) to drift away from and, therefore, weaken the force of the raw realities of human suffering in order to retain a hopeful vision/message and (2) to redefine/nuance the term ‘God’ in ways that may appear to leave ‘God’ (language) irrelevant to those existentially engaged (by lot or by choice) in the raw realities of human suffering.