Friday, March 25, 2011

Is the Church Even Remotely "Christian"?

Bell correctly notes (many times) that God is love. He also observes that Jesus is Jewish, the resurrection is important, and the phrase “personal relationship with God” is not in the Bible. He usually makes his argument by referencing Scripture. He is easy to read and obviously feels very deeply for those who have been wronged or seem to be on the outside looking in.

Pastor Kevin DeYoung
from his blog post: A Review of "Love Wins"

I read an interview with a scholar recently in which he talked about the patronizing concept of the Jewishness of Jesus. I’m not precisely sure what he had in mind as the interview did not get specific enough on this point and I have not read enough of this scholar’s work to be sure what opinions he holds. I do know one complaint he had: people who say their historical presentation of Jesus is a Jewish Jesus and then proceed to explain how Jesus is radically different from their notion of the Judaism of his time.

Derek Leman
from his blog post: Jewish Jesus.

A few days ago, I posted an article on this blog called Who Gets to Define Christianity?. It was my "rant" about how the argument over Rob Bell's new book Love Wins seems to have given Evangelical Christian pastors a license to define the particulars of the Christian faith for the rest of us, including those of us who aren't specifically attached to evangelicalism. Among other things this morning, I read Derek Leman's blog (one of them anyway...he has many) and started wondering if the actual, lived person we call "Jesus" would recognize anything about how we express our worship of him today?

That question may come as a shock to some of you, while others may just assume that the church today bears little resemblance to what the Jewish Messiah taught his disciples in the ancient Middle East 20 centuries ago.

What is Christianity? That may seem like a question with a simple answer, but it's not really. To answer the question, we have to take what the Jewish Messiah established as an expression of the living essence of God and the Torah, and then filter it through all of the defining acts and events that have occurred since the birth, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Once Jesus handed off the torch to his Jewish disciples, who then brought in just a boatload of non-Jewish disciples, who then established "the church", what has changed?

Not being a historian, I can't answer that question with any sense of authority, but I do know that we don't have an unadulterated and unchanged way of understanding and responding to Jesus from the time of the original Apostles. I know there are movements, such as the Eastern Orthodox Christian church, who believe they represent an unbroken chain of understanding and faith from the days of Peter and Paul, but I don't believe this is true.

If it were true, then Christian worship and belief as expressed in those churches, would look remarkably "Jewish"...and it doesn't.

There's no indication in the Bible (here's where I'm going to get into trouble) that there was a specific understanding of God as a "Trinity", yet the Eastern Orthodox church holds such a doctrine. There is also significant use made of iconic images and objects which, based on the commandment, You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (Exodus 20:4), would have made all of the original Jewish Apostles bristle. I really think Paul would have told all of the non-Jewish disciples to ditch the statues.

I don't want to hammer the Eastern Orthodox church or any other faith group, but I do want to illustrate that I don't believe any modern church institution can trace their worship and doctrine directly back to Jesus with absolutely no change in form or substance. In fact, I think there have been just a ton of changes.

Without going into a lot of detail, it seems that several centuries after Peter, Paul, and the rest of the Jewish Apostles had shuffled off this mortal coil, a bunch of non-Jewish guys got together and made some rather defining decisions about what Christianity was and wasn't. As early as about 150 C.E., a group of men we call "the church fathers" (Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and so on) generated various teachings and writings designed to "defend the faith" as it were.

Of course, the "biggie" as far as defining Christianity in the early centuries of the Post-Jesus era, are a number of "councils" instituted by the Emperor Constantine, most notably the Council of Nicea, which created the concrete "creeds" of the church. These are the "what we believe" parts of Christianity, much of which we still practice today. In 380 C.E., Emperor Theodosius, by law, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, pretty much sealing the deal, since the Empire (and a bunch of subsequent Empires) and the Holy Roman Catholic church would meld conquest, colonization, and evangelizing into one package and export it to the rest of the world.

OK, I know what you're thinking. What about the Protestant Reformation? True. Much of what we understand Christianity to be today was put into place by Martin Luther in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Like I said. I'm no historian and I don't want to try and list all of the details these various individuals and groups instituted over the long stretch of time, but I do want to make a simple point.

The vast, vast majority of changes made to the original practices and understandings of who God is and who we are as disciples of the Jewish Messiah were made a long time (on the order of centuries) after Jesus ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father. The vast, vast majority of these decisions were made by guys who weren't Jewish and who, given the schism that occurred between Gentile Christianity and Judaism, probably didn't even like Jews (Martin Luther for instance, was a rabid anti-semite). Taking all that into consideration, what makes you think that what we have today as Christian worship, theology, and doctrine, even remotely resembles the original intent of the Jewish Messiah for his Jewish and Gentile disciples?

I know this isn't exactly the first time this question has been asked, but given recent developments in modern, American Christianity as far as defending their position and their teachings in relation to, for instance, Rob Bell's book, I think it's a point that needs to be stated again (and again and again).

I don't think we're "getting it".


The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

10 comments:

Just Me said...

My thinking is that we are witnessing a separation within the Gentile Christian church (which I personally find incredibly exciting!).
To put it in a visual sense...

Once Christ ascended; a path began. Over the years, this path has split off in a variety of directions, but all continuing to venture further from the starting point (some much faster than others). What we are witnessing now is that some of those paths are circling back around and heading back to the starting point.

This has resulted is the tension between post-modern Christians and orthodox Christians (not limited to Eastern) to escalate rapidly & intensely.

However, at the same time, you are beginning to see the coming together of those paths that have turned around.

So the simple answer to your question is both/and; yes & no.

James said...

Thanks for the interesting and well considered response. I'm probably a tad more pessimistic than you are right now. It seems like many churches feel so correct about their doctrines and theologies, that they won't even take a second to stop and consider that they might be wrong, even on a few points.

I spend a lot of my time wondering where I'm wrong and where I can find the answers to all of the questions that are rattling around in my head. Like most people, I have my biases, and I tend to bias toward a more "Jewish" way to trying and understand the "Jewish Messiah.

I've recently taken the first steps in trying to view the teachings of the Jewish Messiah from a more mystic and chassidic perspective, but my understanding in those areas will be years in the making.

I agree that, in the end, we'll all come full circle and meet up with the Jewish Messiah again. Then, he'll straighten us all out and show us where we've managed to stub our toes along the way. I really need to arrive at something like Micah 4:4. I hope I make it there.

Just Me said...

I think we're close to that "end"; from my experience over the past few years, I honestly believe that Good Shepherd is gathering His flock.
Now just how long that takes is a whole different question. ;-)

Antonio said...

James,

Let us stop to consider what you are arguing here: you are arguing that a first-century Jewish teacher is better understood in the context of eighteenth-century Jewish mysticism from Poland derived primarily from a thirteenth-century work of Jewish mysticism from Spain than in the context of his students' (John) students' (Polycarp) students (Iraneus) ninety years later.

If you cannot trust the people who put together the New Testament, the people who wrote, compiled, redacted, and maintained the texts how can you trust the New Testament itself? If you cannot trust the movement that originated organically from the life and work of Jesus and the experience of his resurrection to interpret him and embody him in the present, how can you claim to follow him? Would that not mean that the church failed Gamaliel's test, that it was destroyed in its infancy and replaced by a counterfeit other? That the promise "the gates of Hades will not overpower it" was as false as John 14:12?

My point is: is it really possible to separate "Christian" from "the Church"?

May God be with you on the journey.

Antonio

Anonymous said...

Is the Church Even Remotely Christian?
No I don't think we are. If we are doing the works of Christ then yes.
But the Bible says we we will do greater works than Jesus. How many Churches are the hands of God extended? Recoverey of sight to the blind, heal the sick, raise the dead, mend the broken hearted, feed & clothe the hungery? We are just sitting around in our Churches, talking & singing worship songs while the rest of the world suffers. Who is really in darkness? I say the Church is in gross darkness, They are miserable wanderes, poor, blind & naked and don't have a clue.
I am one of them and trying to find my way, slowly one step at a time.

James said...

Hi Antonio.

Are our modern views on Christianity only or even mainly based on late 1st century or early 2nd century church fathers?

What I'm arguing for, at least from my humble perspective, how we are supposed to view the Jewish Messiah. While you can argue that Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and the other church fathers were closer historically to the teachings of Jesus, from what framework were they conceptualizing those teachings? Did their perspective preserve the Jewish "mindset" of the Messiah, or did their world view as Greek-thinking Gentiles "morph" those teachings into a form that they could more "organically" understand but that changed their fundamental nature?

While you can say that Jewish mysticism as we understand it today, had its origins in the 13th century, some think the basis for those teachings stretches back close to the time of the apostles. If you consider that "Jewish Christians" like Levertoff, understood the Gospels as being intimately connected in style and theme to Chasidic stories, then it may be reasonable that the Gospels are more understandable from even a later Jewish perspective than a more ancient Gentile viewpoint.

Each people group and each faith perspective interprets Jesus and what he said in their own manner. People without a born and lived Jewish religious and mystic perspective are going to miss many of the subtleties in what Jesus said and did that will seem immediately obvious to someone who has a born and lived Jewish experience, especially if that experience includes a mystic tradition that is related to what the Gospel writers, particularly the writer(s) of John's Gospel, were trying to communicate.

Do I know I'm absolutely right? No, of course not. But so far, based on what I've read, it's the perspective that has the closest map to the territory.

I'm reading Hurtado's "How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God" now, so we'll see how his presentation modifies my understanding.

@Anonymous: I think there are many in the church who are visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the "naked", and loving their neighbors as themselves. While I may have a bone to pick with some Evangelicals or other specific churches who seem to think they have the corner market on truth, I believe there are many people in many different churches in the world who are doing the will of their Father with sincere hearts.

Our doctines and theologies may have dents and holes in them, but if we are loving God and loving other, and are acting out that love in tangible ways, we are part of bringing the Kingdom to earth.

Antonio said...

James,

Unless you have a different New Testament lying around, or you think that the Nag Hammadi documents are a more accurate portrayal of Jesus than the canonical gospels, then yes, yes it does.

Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah. The Jewish Messiah is a political figure who restores the Davidic monarchy, brings in the exiles, and rebuilds the Temple. Some Christians believe that Jesus will be the Jewish Messiah one day, some not. Jesus' legacy did not endure as the Jewish Messiah, "Yeshua ha-Mashiach"; it endured as "Jesus Christ the Lord". "Christos" became nothing more than "Jesus' last name" to Christians very, very, very early on.

"Did their perspective preserve the Jewish "mindset" of the Messiah, or did their world view as Greek-thinking Gentiles "morph" those teachings into a form that they could more "organically" understand but that changed their fundamental nature?"
The latter. Because that shift occurred, Christianity exists, we have a New Testament, and people care about Jesus enough to write and talk about him. There would not otherwise be a Christianity. This (patristic) Christianity is the only Christianity that survived, and no other; not the Gnostics and not the early Jewish Christians.

The mind can draw neat parallels between almost anything. At the end of the day, where are Levertov's children? The Anglican parish of converted Jews he led? The church.

Antonio

James said...

Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah. The Jewish Messiah is a political figure who restores the Davidic monarchy, brings in the exiles, and rebuilds the Temple.

Yes, I'm aware of the modern and traditional Jewish perspective of the Messiah, having read such anti-missionary books as Rabbi Hershel Brand's On Eagles' Wings.

You have made a delibrate and thoughtful decision to walk away from Christianity and to convert to Judaism and I respect your decision, but you're lack of faith in Jesus does not mean I must take your decision on as my own. While part of me finds the idea of converting to Judaism attractive, I cannot get past Matthew 10:32-33:

Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

We have each made our personal choices of faith because we think they are right and we believe they are the ones that most clearly reflect who we are and how we understand God. I pray that you find peace in your decision Antonio, and I continue to pursue peace in mine.

Derek Leman said...

Antonio:

I think James' point about Levertoff and the gospels can be refined. Levertoff, through the lens of Hasidic mysticism, gave James a biblical insight. He helped James to consider that there is a biblical emphasis on the mediated Presence of God (especially in Torah, wisdom lit, and Ezekiel). He helped James to conceive of the possible ideology of the Jewish disciples of Yeshua through a neglected biblical theme.

Meanwhile, the early church fathers had other influences, not least of which was a rabid anti-Judaism. Their understanding of the gospels and Paul was pretty poor in some areas. I do not dismiss the value of Christian tradition in saying this anymore than I dismiss Jewish tradition when I say that the sages were quite prejudiced and wrong about certain things and that the medieval exegetes, especially Rashi, were (understandably in light of persecution) racist.

Derek Leman

James said...

I couldn't have said it better myself, Derek. ;-)

Seriously, it is sometimes difficult for me to articulate what is going on in my continually evolving understanding of the Jewish Messiah and what he taught, especially given the relative speed at which I'm absorbing new information. I guess I'll have to keep banging into walls until things begin to gel better for me (or at least until I develop a better vocabulary in this realm).