Who was Jesus? I've begun to question how much light "pious" answers to that question actually shed on the subject. Some standard Christian responses might include God (in a man-suit?), "Son of God" (or, the second person of the Trinity), "Son of Man" (a reference to a character from a science fiction movie that Daniel wrote about), Savior (of what?), or perhaps Messiah (a Jewish term, meaning "anointed"--for what?). In all seriousness--I wonder if most Christians settle for a superficial, hazy vision of Jesus, turning to cliches and vague assertions to describe a person who they claim to know intimately.
Perhaps a better way of phrasing the initial question would be, "What did Jesus think about himself?" What did Jesus believe he was doing in the world? How did that vocation coincide with the vocation of first-century Israel? (Here's a crazy thought) How can we credibly fit Jesus with the world of Judaism, and within the early church that grew out of his following?
For a long time, the Jesus I knew was God, teleported to earth to found a new religion of inner spirituality and grace, in opposition to Jewish legalism. That religion essentially focused on the salvation of individual souls from a terrible punishment after death. It had things to say about this life, but only as an afterthought, and most of it had to do with a strict morality, that
frowned on a hundred sins I had never heard about, much less practiced.
I won't attempt to pose a complete alternative to that view in one blog post--N. T. Wright does a brilliant job in his massive tome, Jeus and the Victory of of God. However, I will pose some suggestions, and sketch an outline of a more promising Jesus.
First, consider what we could call the "trajectory of redemption." The Fall broke man's felowship with God, and wrecked the harmony of creation, spreading death and discord on the earth. In Genesis 12:3, God promises to bless Abraham, that he might be a blessing to all the earth. The Sinai Covenant elaborates on this--Israel will be a "kingdom of priests" (Ex. 19), and God will dwell with them in the Tabernacle. This begins the undoing of the Fall--God will have fellowship with men once more, and those men will inhabit a new kind of society, rooted in mercy, forgiveness, generosity, and love (if you don't believe me, read Deuteronomy).
For reasons too complicated for me to outline here (though Paul does a decent job in Romans), Israel utterly fails in her vocation. Ezekiel 16 describes Israel as an unfaithful wife, prostituting herself to everyone she meets. For her sins, God departs from among the people, and sends his chosen into Exile. The power of evil seems to have broken God's efforts at redemption. However, there is a coming end to the long night--again and again, the Prophets anticipate a time when God Himself will act to restore his covenant people, to defeat the powers of evil that bind the earth, and establish his reign over all creation. When this happens, everything will be made new--Isaiah 11 describes the reign of God forever ending death and destruction; Ezekiel 37 describes the coming redemption as a return from the dead, a second birth. (Read Isaiah 40-55, Jeremiah 31-33, and Ezekiel 34-37 for a fuller picture of the OT expectation for God's action.)
Jesus enters a world still waiting for these events to unfold: to most first-century Jews, the exile had not ended. As long as Rome still oppressed God's chosen nation, as long as creation remained fractured and divided, as long as the forces of paganism defied God's power, the exile could not have ended.
I would argue that Jesus claimed to be the solution to Israel's problems, the fulfillment of all the OT expectations. He came to announce, enact, and embody the renewal of the covenant, the defeat of the powers of darkness, and the return of YHWH to establish His sovereign rule over creation. His ministry offered distinctly Jewish answers to distinctly Jewish perceptions of the problems besetting the world, but, he redefined all the important pieces. His renewed covenant included all the wrong sorts of people, and demanded the wrong mindset (one of submissive love, rather than belligerent nationalism). He claimed to fight the wrong sort of enemy (Satan, rather than Rome), in the wrong way (on a cross, rather than with a sword), to establish the wrong sort of kingdom (the slow-growing, "among you," kingdom, rather than a restoration of Israel to political ascendency). His ministry reconfigured the covenant in terms of himself--the community would center around his presence, rather than that of the Temple; his teaching would fulfill and transcend Torah; his sacrifice would make the Temple sacrifices useless.
Jesus seemed horribly wrong to many of his contemporaries, but his ministry makes perfect sense in light of the prophetic anticipation. Just for fun, try reading John 3 in light of Ezekiel 36-37, or Mark 1:15 in light of Isaiah 40, and 52; or the crucifixion accounts in light of Isaiah 53, Daniel 9, and Zechariah 9.
This is by no means a complete portrayal of the mindset and vocation of Jesus. Again, Wright does a much more complete job in his brilliant work, Jesus and the Victory of God. If you have any questions, challenges, or clarfications, please post a comment, or email me (bcase@tkc.edu). I'd love to get together with you to discuss Jesus and the gospel of the Kingdom.
Christ is risen!
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Choices
Jesus makes a startling claim in John 5--"The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise."
Recently, a good friend told me resignedly, "I'm just not as spiritual a person as you." By this, she meant that I study the Bible more than her, that I go to church more, that I curse less than her (out loud, at least), etc. Her world divides neatly into two realms, one material, base, pragmatic, the other spiritual, invisible, somehow "holy." She flits back and forth between the two, though she spends most of her time on earth, leaving us (she assumes) separated by a gulf of experiences that I cannot identify with. In the divided realms, the spiritual negates the material.
Yet, Jesus makes this interesting remark, and changes everything. "The Son," he insists, "can do...only what he sees the Father doing." He says this in defense of a controversial healing that he carried out on the Sabbath, to the outrage of the Pharisees. This simple statement weights every moment, every action, with the question--"Am I doing what the Father is doing?"
AJ Sherill once remarked (to a crowd of a thousand people), that, to him, the most spiritual aspect of any person's life is choices. We live in world infused with spiritual significance; we bask in the constant glow of divinely-ordained moments. Every choice we make either brings the Kingdom, or hinders it. We either do what we see the Father doing, or we don't.
There is no dualism, no spiritual realm. Jesus told us to pray for the Kingdom to "come, on earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6). He insisted that the world would know us as his disciples, not by our knowledge, or our "spirituality," but "by [our] love for one another," (Jn. 13:35) a love evinced by laying down one's life for friends (Jn. 15:13). Paul commanded the Colossians to "set [their] minds on things that are above," (3:2) so that they could "put on...compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" (3:12). He later insisted, "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Col. 3:17). I have merely snatched at a few straws from the haystack that is the story of God's redeeming all of creation, that he might again dwell with men on earth (if you don't believe me, read Revelation 21). Check back in the next couple of days for a follow-up post, considering the nature of the Kingdom of God, especially as it deconstructs the dualism embedded in Western thought.
Please don't join my friend in shrugging off spirituality as a distant realm, removed from "real life." You might as well claim that true spirituality resides in Calcutta, or at the bottom of the ocean, and you have the bad luck of living thousands of miles out of its reach. When you curse the driver who cuts you off, smile at a stranger, give generously, slap your child, slack off at work, recycle, surf, write, eat, laugh, dance, you undertake spiritual actions, actions that resonate throughout all creation, actions that either redeem creation, or warp it.
The choice lies with you. Do you do what you see the Father doing?
Recently, a good friend told me resignedly, "I'm just not as spiritual a person as you." By this, she meant that I study the Bible more than her, that I go to church more, that I curse less than her (out loud, at least), etc. Her world divides neatly into two realms, one material, base, pragmatic, the other spiritual, invisible, somehow "holy." She flits back and forth between the two, though she spends most of her time on earth, leaving us (she assumes) separated by a gulf of experiences that I cannot identify with. In the divided realms, the spiritual negates the material.
Yet, Jesus makes this interesting remark, and changes everything. "The Son," he insists, "can do...only what he sees the Father doing." He says this in defense of a controversial healing that he carried out on the Sabbath, to the outrage of the Pharisees. This simple statement weights every moment, every action, with the question--"Am I doing what the Father is doing?"
AJ Sherill once remarked (to a crowd of a thousand people), that, to him, the most spiritual aspect of any person's life is choices. We live in world infused with spiritual significance; we bask in the constant glow of divinely-ordained moments. Every choice we make either brings the Kingdom, or hinders it. We either do what we see the Father doing, or we don't.
There is no dualism, no spiritual realm. Jesus told us to pray for the Kingdom to "come, on earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6). He insisted that the world would know us as his disciples, not by our knowledge, or our "spirituality," but "by [our] love for one another," (Jn. 13:35) a love evinced by laying down one's life for friends (Jn. 15:13). Paul commanded the Colossians to "set [their] minds on things that are above," (3:2) so that they could "put on...compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" (3:12). He later insisted, "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Col. 3:17). I have merely snatched at a few straws from the haystack that is the story of God's redeeming all of creation, that he might again dwell with men on earth (if you don't believe me, read Revelation 21). Check back in the next couple of days for a follow-up post, considering the nature of the Kingdom of God, especially as it deconstructs the dualism embedded in Western thought.
Please don't join my friend in shrugging off spirituality as a distant realm, removed from "real life." You might as well claim that true spirituality resides in Calcutta, or at the bottom of the ocean, and you have the bad luck of living thousands of miles out of its reach. When you curse the driver who cuts you off, smile at a stranger, give generously, slap your child, slack off at work, recycle, surf, write, eat, laugh, dance, you undertake spiritual actions, actions that resonate throughout all creation, actions that either redeem creation, or warp it.
The choice lies with you. Do you do what you see the Father doing?
Saturday, June 9, 2007
What's next in the Iraq War
The story of the Iraq War consists of wave after wave of unfulfilled promises, unrealized hopes. The latest bubble to pop is the "military surge" tactic adopted by Central Command, a plan that, to begin with, was desperate in its simplicity--overwhelm the insurgents with a massive influx of troops. That plan has failed to achieve its goal--US forces currently control only 146 of 457 Baghdad neighborhoods (cf. BBC News, 6/9), and casualties continue to mount. The current administration has treated this war as though it were a simple regime change, casting America as the mighty liberator, uniting the joyful masses against a minority of violent insurgent groups. The situation in Iraq defies any such classification--by any reasonable measure, America now finds itself embroiled in a bloody civil war, in which the various factions neither desire political compromise, nor see any reason for it.
Is the Iraq War primarily a civil war? The answer is, increasingly, "Yes." First, some background...The tensions in Iraq cut across multiple fault lines, particularly religious (Sunni vs. Shia), and ethnic (Arab vs. Kurdish), with immeasurable internal strife fragmenting those larger categories, as well. How did such chaos find itself bound into a nation? The responsibility (and, perhaps, the blame) lies with imperialistic arrogance--after WWI, at the Paris Peace Accords, the Western powers simply drew lines on the map, creating "spheres of tutelage" under the administration of colonial powers. In Iraq's case, the British were to help prepare the former Ottoman territory for independence. Unfortunately, Europeans did not understand, nor care to learn, the intricacies of Middle Eastern cultural realities. The Sunni/Shiia bitterness transcends any national concerns; the Kurds have long cherished hopes for a Kurdish state to free them from Turkish/Arab/Persian oppression. Thus, to a great extent, Iraq is a nation without a people--if we had forced Capulets and Montagues to live together, would we have felt shock when fighting broke out?
Iraq's conception left tensions simmering beneath the surface; Hussein's dictatorship brought them to a boiling point. He turned the Shiite majority into second-class citizens; he carried out ethnic cleansing against the Kurds. Hussein's dictatorship was like a dog-fighting ring: bloody, gruesome, unspeakable. Yet, imagine the chaos if the master leaves, and the cages are opened. We Americans plaintively demands that the fighters, their wounds fresh, with hate in their eyes, sit quietly, and make friends. History suggests that this third option, which we insist on pursuing, does not exist.
What began as a limited operation bent on the overthrow of a corrupt dictator has become a bloody civil war--the American troops did not realize just what they were freeing. The Sunni insurgentsa fight against the American occupation, but they fight to establish a radical Islamic state, a state of renewed Sunni hegemony. Thus, their guerilla tactics target both American soldiers, and Shia civilians; they bomb armored trucks, and crowded mosques. Shias have responded by forming militias to defend themselves by intimidating Sunni communities with thug tactics. The Shia-dominated government headed by Maliki is increasingly complicit in the street-level violence: militiamen often arrive at Sunni mosques in government trucks, or attack people in the streets wearing police uniforms.
There have been more than 50 civil wars since 1945 with a death toll of 1000+/year; by that conservative figure, the Iraq War is the 9th deadliest civil conflict since 1945. Moreover, the average duration of a civil war is 10 years: if Iraq is only typical, it is not even halfway into its bloodshed.
Civil wars are very rarely ended by political compromise, and even less frequently by outside intervention. Generally, one side must wear out another by attrition, or achieve an outright military victory. Over time, the balance of power shifts in such a way that the losing faction grants concessions to the winning.
Right now, America can accomplish little by sheer military force: the Sunni insurgents can likely sustain their guerilla war almost indefinitely, especially supported as they are by al-Qaeda. (As a side note--the current division within the insurgent ranks between pro- and anti-al-Qaeda fighters likely bodes ill, not well, for American forces. Iraqis display an almost infinite ability to fracture; the mere fact that the most divisive elements are currently our enemies does not bring Iraq any closer to unity.) Further, in its support of the current Iraqi government, America is increasingly in danger of complicity in an ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis of Baghdad and elsewhere. Ironically, our alliance with a pro-Shia regime in Iraq aligns our interests in Iraq with the likes of Iran and Hezbollah; we could find better company to associate with in the region.
America ought to begin an immediate, phased withdrawl of its forces from Iraq--our military operations only force our soldiers to confront a faceless, nameless, cowardly enemy, while serving as a crutch for a corrupt, unrepresentative government. A measured withdrawl would provide America with some diplomatic leverage over the Iraqi government--we could promise military assistance in return for real improvement on the part of the government towards working out some sort of political compromise, for real efforts to strengthen the military and the police. Currently, our response to Iraqi military and diplomatic incompetency is to send more American soldiers to fill the gap; this policy rewards corruption and ineptitude, and pays for it with American lives. This cannot continue...
Withdrawing from Iraq will allow America to concentrate its efforts in Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban, and a re-organized al-Qaeda pose a much greater threat than Hussein ever did. It will improve America's image in the eyes of its allies, ensuring greater international cooperation in fighting Islamic extremism. It will force Iraq to come to terms with itself--a puppet regime, planted by American bayonets, will not flower. Above all, it will save American lives.
(Much of my information on this subject came from an illuminating essay, titled "Iraq's Civil War," by James Fearon, published in Foreign Affairs in April of this year.)
Is the Iraq War primarily a civil war? The answer is, increasingly, "Yes." First, some background...The tensions in Iraq cut across multiple fault lines, particularly religious (Sunni vs. Shia), and ethnic (Arab vs. Kurdish), with immeasurable internal strife fragmenting those larger categories, as well. How did such chaos find itself bound into a nation? The responsibility (and, perhaps, the blame) lies with imperialistic arrogance--after WWI, at the Paris Peace Accords, the Western powers simply drew lines on the map, creating "spheres of tutelage" under the administration of colonial powers. In Iraq's case, the British were to help prepare the former Ottoman territory for independence. Unfortunately, Europeans did not understand, nor care to learn, the intricacies of Middle Eastern cultural realities. The Sunni/Shiia bitterness transcends any national concerns; the Kurds have long cherished hopes for a Kurdish state to free them from Turkish/Arab/Persian oppression. Thus, to a great extent, Iraq is a nation without a people--if we had forced Capulets and Montagues to live together, would we have felt shock when fighting broke out?
Iraq's conception left tensions simmering beneath the surface; Hussein's dictatorship brought them to a boiling point. He turned the Shiite majority into second-class citizens; he carried out ethnic cleansing against the Kurds. Hussein's dictatorship was like a dog-fighting ring: bloody, gruesome, unspeakable. Yet, imagine the chaos if the master leaves, and the cages are opened. We Americans plaintively demands that the fighters, their wounds fresh, with hate in their eyes, sit quietly, and make friends. History suggests that this third option, which we insist on pursuing, does not exist.
What began as a limited operation bent on the overthrow of a corrupt dictator has become a bloody civil war--the American troops did not realize just what they were freeing. The Sunni insurgentsa fight against the American occupation, but they fight to establish a radical Islamic state, a state of renewed Sunni hegemony. Thus, their guerilla tactics target both American soldiers, and Shia civilians; they bomb armored trucks, and crowded mosques. Shias have responded by forming militias to defend themselves by intimidating Sunni communities with thug tactics. The Shia-dominated government headed by Maliki is increasingly complicit in the street-level violence: militiamen often arrive at Sunni mosques in government trucks, or attack people in the streets wearing police uniforms.
There have been more than 50 civil wars since 1945 with a death toll of 1000+/year; by that conservative figure, the Iraq War is the 9th deadliest civil conflict since 1945. Moreover, the average duration of a civil war is 10 years: if Iraq is only typical, it is not even halfway into its bloodshed.
Civil wars are very rarely ended by political compromise, and even less frequently by outside intervention. Generally, one side must wear out another by attrition, or achieve an outright military victory. Over time, the balance of power shifts in such a way that the losing faction grants concessions to the winning.
Right now, America can accomplish little by sheer military force: the Sunni insurgents can likely sustain their guerilla war almost indefinitely, especially supported as they are by al-Qaeda. (As a side note--the current division within the insurgent ranks between pro- and anti-al-Qaeda fighters likely bodes ill, not well, for American forces. Iraqis display an almost infinite ability to fracture; the mere fact that the most divisive elements are currently our enemies does not bring Iraq any closer to unity.) Further, in its support of the current Iraqi government, America is increasingly in danger of complicity in an ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis of Baghdad and elsewhere. Ironically, our alliance with a pro-Shia regime in Iraq aligns our interests in Iraq with the likes of Iran and Hezbollah; we could find better company to associate with in the region.
America ought to begin an immediate, phased withdrawl of its forces from Iraq--our military operations only force our soldiers to confront a faceless, nameless, cowardly enemy, while serving as a crutch for a corrupt, unrepresentative government. A measured withdrawl would provide America with some diplomatic leverage over the Iraqi government--we could promise military assistance in return for real improvement on the part of the government towards working out some sort of political compromise, for real efforts to strengthen the military and the police. Currently, our response to Iraqi military and diplomatic incompetency is to send more American soldiers to fill the gap; this policy rewards corruption and ineptitude, and pays for it with American lives. This cannot continue...
Withdrawing from Iraq will allow America to concentrate its efforts in Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban, and a re-organized al-Qaeda pose a much greater threat than Hussein ever did. It will improve America's image in the eyes of its allies, ensuring greater international cooperation in fighting Islamic extremism. It will force Iraq to come to terms with itself--a puppet regime, planted by American bayonets, will not flower. Above all, it will save American lives.
(Much of my information on this subject came from an illuminating essay, titled "Iraq's Civil War," by James Fearon, published in Foreign Affairs in April of this year.)
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