Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? It all Depends on How we Understand "Same-ness" and Why John Hick is a Helpful Interlocutor

First let me note that I speak as a theologian, looking at the broader sweep of traditions and communities, rather than a biblical theologian who seeks moral meaning through appeal to biblical narratives in an effort to guide us to those morals.

Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God: What do we Mean by “Same God” and why we should Consider where that position points us.

There has been a lot of blog posts and Facebook posts going around in recent days about the dismissal of a Wheaton College professor who wore a hijab. It has ignited a debate about whether Christians and Muslims worship the same god.

While well-intentioned evangelicals have attempted to come to the aid of professor Larycia Hawkins, there is still a notable problem with many of the responses I’ve seen, the primary error being that these Christian intellectuals cannot move into the bigger picture of how communities shape personal identity and what it means for an outsider to accept the grace and honor of upholding their identity through another community.

A few blogs have compared the situation to Paul’s speech on Mars Hill and in which he grants some semblance of knowledge of God to the Greeks but ultimately reproves them for their insufficient understanding of God.

Another blog brings up a similar story in Jesus’ meeting of the woman at well who is a Samaritan. Here Jesus has no quarrel with telling her that the Jews, and not the Samaritans, also know who their God is because they are the chosen. Though he ends the conversation saying that one day nobody will worship from either mountain but in spirit and truth, this has served some to make a point about relations between Christians and Muslims, who while having different customs and practices, serve the same God.

Of course the problem is that systematic theology has cast an ominous shadow over both traditions, and more conservative pundits find that the essential meaning of God in Jesus cannot be given up for a more “watered down” view of God’s essence.

I think what is more important is that John Hick answered a similar objection against Karl Rahner who labeled all those who seek after certain “positive” core values in their religious traditions to be anonymous Christians, given the realization that the God of Jesus simply doesn’t reach everyone in every place and at every point in history. While Rahner’s argument was an honest attempt to bring everyone into the sphere of Christian salvation for lack of its genuine geographical reach, Hick moved that this was an insult to all those who were well-embedded into their own religion, and a meaningless gesture. Consider this: How many Christians think of themselves as gar toshav or of Noahide righteousness? There is an entire strain of Jewish thought set aside for righteous gentiles that we have no interest in learning. In fact, we would much rather be validated by the means of our own religious rituals and practices and beliefs, then by the gestures of another community. A Christian would say I am saved by Christ, not I am a gar toshav! He would say, "I am sufficient in my salvation, and nothing lacks!"

Why? This is because  gestures meant to say Muslims and Christians and Jews are all alike are meant for those who manufacture them. When they originate in the faith community to validate another faith community, they are self-reflexive in nature, and are not intended for the Other for whom this grace appears to be extended. They continue to treat the Other as a thing to be honored because it is structured within their religious compass of righteous activity, not as someone who is honored for their own sake. And perhaps this is the problem of my tradition. Christianity can only go so far in saying Muslims worship the same God without giving something up of their position. Thus, this gesture to reach out to the Other proves only to turn the Other into an object of curiosity that must be met with pedantic moralism rather than true genuine immersion.

Perhaps it would be better to say we are different, not just in practical matters but epistemological-ontological-theological understanding and we must find a way to avoid mutual destruction.

But there is  another way I want to offer... 

Perhaps it’s time to get back to the ineffability of God and stop fighting so hard for theological and metaphysical truth. We probably don’t worship the same God, but each according to his own expression. Of course, any concept brings up the problem of meaning. What do we mean by “same God”?

If we are speaking according to God’s actions, we know that everyone from Aquinas (Christian) to Maimonides (Jewish) to Averroes (Muslim) understood that God’s essential nature was unknowable. These thinkers therefore appealed to analogy to understand his action on earth extracted from his nature on high. There was a tacit understanding that language was an insufficient tool to completely decode revelation.

Ineffability, while it fits in some contexts, certain runs counters to the kinds of biblical passages being thrown around on the internet these past number of days. Like the story of Paul on Mars Hill and the Samaritan at the Well, Paul and Jesus take comfort in knowing that they are the bearers of a revelation that lacks no deficiency.

Returning to a language of ineffability means that we allow some doubt, some room for expansion or contraction in our understanding, primarily because we understanding the ineffable nature of God, not because we claim to know of an irreducible core to God’s being that all of us share in common. That is our commonality.

The Persecuted Majority: Examining Two of the Most Popular Ancient Claims for Defending One's Religion

Auctoritas maiorum is a fancy Latin phrase associated with the tradition of ancestral authority. Appeals to ancient authorship are no different than we find today. When I write a paper or present at a conference, I often support my thesis by appealing to others who have agreed with me. In the tradition of the great religions, this was important.

I thought it interesting that when making their cases for the seminal origin events that helped conceive of Christianity and Judaism, Paul the Apostle and Judah HaLevi appeal to this concept. In these cases, there is an appeal to numbers. Defending one's position became a matter of how many followers one could boast.

Speaking about the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, Paul concatenates a list of followers who saw the risen Lord. Including in this list, he writes, "After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep." (1 Corinthians 15:6)

In another passage, not entirely different, but more theologically sophisticated, the gospel writer of Matthew records that "the tombs of were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many..."  (Matthew 27:52)

Again, we see the apologetic emphasis on sheer numbers.

Judah HaLevi, in the famous medieval work, the Kuzari, puts on the mouth of his antagonist Al Khazari, the admission that the Exodus story was "irrefutable" because "a thing which occurred to six hundred thousand people for 40 years," is not easily undone. Top that Paul! (The Kuzari, 60)

Earlier, Al Khazari admits that agreement among the Jewish people in a similar Jewish calendar was an amazing show of unity. "Not ten people could discuss such a thing without disagreeing, and disclosing their secret understanding. (The Kuzari, 50)

In 2011,  Miroslav Volf wrote an article for the Huffington Post about the continued need for Muslims and Christians to work together. Interestingly, he appealed to the very argument we've been looking at here, noting, "Christianity and Islam are today the most numerous and fastest growing religions globally. Together they encompass more than half of humanity. Consequence: both are here to stay." Certainly, this was not an apologetic meant to argue for divine truthfulness, but the responsibility to do what is right seems to originate from a meaning often used for this very purpose.

Certainly, there is a completely "other" strain of religious self-perception in the world. The "truth" of one's religion, while supported by numbers, in some way or another is put up in contrast to the persecution of that religion in the world. Muslims complain about their persecution in Western countries and Israel. Christians complain about their persecution by their own secular culture. And Jews have historically complained about their persecution everywhere and for just about everything perceived as Jewish. Surprisingly, persecution is ALSO considered a top-tier contender in ancient religious apologetics. "My religion is persecuted; therefore, God is on my side," has been a particularly effective campaign platform to bring in converts, at least where conversion is important.

Nevertheless, we can see the problem. Appealing to mass numbers and claiming you are persecuted by those around you who do not hold the power to do so creates an awkward intellectual relationship. Progressive thinkers in the United States often scoff at the travails of Evangelicals this time of year who decry a "War on Christmas."  This is true of Muslims in some Arab countries who must look to the "temptations of the West" as a power too strong for them to resist, as propaganda that is destroying their culture. But this marriage of sheer numbers and a persecution mentality shows us that where there would seemingly be illogic, a logic of its own can form. A persecuted majority rises up against the power of the Other.

The Cave Paintings Associated with Jesus and Amaterasu

Ever in search of comparative religious realities, I came across this painting of Amaterasu, one of the founding deities of Japan and a worshipful god in Shintoism. According to the Kojiki, Amaterasu, goddess of the sun, hid herself in a heavenly cave to avoid the wrath of her brother Susanoo. After Susanoo was banished from heaven, Amaterasu emerged from the cave. In the painting below, you can clearly see the radiant beams coming off of the goddess as a rock is rolled away from the face of the cave. Amaterasu is often depicted as the center of the Japanese flag in deference to the Land of the Rising Sun. The cave depiction certainly reminds one of another story…

Amaterasu Emerging from the Cave

Jesus Emerging from the Tomb

More Christian Parallels in the Gospel of John to the Jewish festival of Sukkoth

We are once again approaching Sukkoth. In a former post (dated October 8, 2012), I noted why it was important not to rely entirely on the witness of the New Testament since it seems to mix up its Jewish holidays, namely Sukkoth and Pesach (Passover).

Something I neglected to mention, but is particularly important to the argument that Palm Sunday happened during Sukkoth September-October and not on Easter March-April-May (as is commemorated in the Christian calendar) is again from the historic ritualism associated with Sukkoth and the Gospel of John.

Orthodox Jews commemorating Sukkoth with Lulav and Etrog.

In John 12:13-14, Jesus is depicted as riding into Jerusalem on a donkey six days before Passover (John 12:1). The gospel reads:

“They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the king of Israel!"

To take the palm branches (lambanō) only means to carry them out. There is nothing too interesting going on in the Greek here, just the act of carrying (non-violently, it should be mentioned).

Now in the Jewish ritualism of Sukkoth, there is a very specific idea associated with the holiday.  Four species of plants are identified, one of them being palms (lulav).  This, we are told by the Talmudists, is based primarily on Leviticus 23:40

“And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.”

Would palms have been readily available on Sukkoth during Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem? You bet! Even the Talmud mentions the waving ceremony known as na'anu'im – נענועים in which participants waved the branches in the Temple. Myrtle and willow were also used, but the bundle was often referred to collectively as lulav. A possible reason why the church retained only the palm branch in its ritualism without the collective meaning implied by lulav was that the reference was most like not Talmudically sourced and was biblically sourced, e.g., temarin used in the Jewish Bible was the Hebrew for palm trees. Because this was also an agricultural festival, there is a sense that the selection of fruits and trees had to do with honoring God’s power over creation. There are movements involved with the Jewish festival. Not so much with Palm Sunday. Had the author of John added that those who went out to see Jesus were waving their branches at him, Jesus might have been stoned on the spot, given the implication. But the crowd does say something just as controversial, and the author of John is no amateur to creating drama in his gospel.

Like John, the tradition of Sukkoth also kept the word Hosanah. Jews today still walk around the synagogue reciting “Save us.” In John, Hosanna is left untranslated as Ὡσαννά. Most Christians read it as a name, and not as an action “save us.” Now you see why the author of John goes far, but not far enough as to be specific, to create the circumstances that will increasing rile the powers-that-be against him.

Like the chicken and the egg quandary, it is unclear if Christians are borrowing from Jewish lore or Jews are taking something from the Christians, namely the word Hosanah and adding it to their own ritual. It is interesting that Tractate Sanhedrin (see my previous post in October 2012) does in fact try to answer the gospel directly on the charge that Jesus was tried and sentenced in one day. Learned Jews were mostly likely not unfamiliar with the stories being told, and so it is not unthinkable that one who heard the word Hosanah incorporated it into the larger holiday. At best, what we can say is that the parallels do not seem coincidental or forced.

Incidentally, Sukkoth’s last day of celebration is traditionally called Hosanah Rabbah (or perhaps best translated as the “Great Salvation” – some translate it as “Great Supplication,” but this doesn’t fully grasp what the word implies).

Hosanah Rabbah is not placed here coincidental to what comes next. On the tail end of this great salvation is the holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Why is this so important to Christians? Because John’s writer understands that Jesus enters for both the salvation of the people and as atonement for their sins. Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is the time of self-judgment. How perfectly all this fits into the Christian theological narrative of death and life! To have Easter occur at any time other than Sukkoth would be strange, except that this is precisely what the author of John tells us happens! Despite all the ritualism and intrinsic meaning of these three holidays, Jesus is said to enter at Passover. Passover? Perhaps John was just trying to cram as many Jewish festivals into one time frame to hint at how Jesus is the fulfillment of them all, or at least the ones dealing with themes of salvation. In any event, the festival of Passover is likely misplaced. And scholars of this gospel since modern times have faulted John for his problematic timelines as well as the number of times Jesus’ visits Jerusalem. If this is all true, John most likely wasn’t the best timekeeping historian, and the theological, not historical, information was more important. As you think on Sukkoth this year, it might not be a stretch for Christians to do their Easter celebrating a little earlier this year.

Ancient Astronaut Theory, Theology, and the Work of Creative Imagining

As our knowledge expands into ever-greater areas of scientific discovery and as we take our search for the elemental foundations of life to the stars, pop philosophies like the ancient astronaut theory (AAT) have gradually prevailed over our popular imagination. While there are some who would hold that AAT is the byproduct of a media generation out of control, it is worth considering how the philosophical musing that bring us to think on the supposed origins (Ursprung) of our religions according to our sacred stories come very close to the way ancient peoples carried on oral traditions, sat around campfires, told stories of anthropomorphic gods coming down to earth.

The sophistication of theological scholarship through which one imagines the person of Jesus, his work, and his life's mission may push to the back the mythologies of ancient humanity in an effort to keep us free from charges of rank superstition, yet at its root, discovering someone like Jesus means discovering the culture of this period, even if theologians like to pretend that the prevailing culture is a transitory or ephemeral backdrop to some greater truth. As an example of this, I remember how William Lane Craig in a speech given to students in England scoffed at the “fantastic and bizarre interpretations of the Church Fathers.” The motivation behind his clarification was an attempt to get at a truth buried by myth. And so in our present day efforts, theology tends to clean up its act much better than the world that first claims to have inherited Jesus’ words. Yet, that backdrop, however whitewashed it has become teases us with a story in which a god come-down-from-heaven inhabits the life of a man. The full force of this fact is difficult to fully subdue in our present secular and scientific age. And so some elements must be retained.

What is left to those in certain circles is to give science the license to explain it all. And that’s where AAT comes in. While the sciences have attempted to illumine the biblical world for us in the last century’s worth of work, whether it be through medical explanations for the blood-turned-water miracle in Jesus’ body, the parting of the Red Sea as explained through tidal and evaporative explanations, etc., a philosophy of science as a narration of the past has unfortunately only taken hold in more popular media. This is primarily because the question of a "truth behind" the narratives or the reality of G-d is not as important, or perhaps credible subject matter, as is the origin of Paul's letters. The goal of science is to give us physical explanations using the tools it has available. Yet a "philosophy of science" stays within the parameters of debunking super-naturalistic explanations with possible natural alternatives.  This should not be confused with the academic discipline, which generally asks questions of ethics or epistemology. So perhaps calling it “philosophy of science” is not wholly accurate. But nevertheless, it adopts meaningful approaches that are built into the scientific language of our day to approach religion. Gods become ancient alien travelers. Temples become shrines not to unseen gods but testaments to the visitation of other-world explorers. Human origins are explained not by the breath of God but by the seeding of asteroids or meteors (a theory known as panspermia). Traveling to another planet, once thought an impossibility (primarily because planets and stars made up the literal heavens) is now, according to the scientific community, within reach. Probe and satellite launches are only a beginning.  

 

Salvador Dali, “Sacrament of the Last Supper” (1955)

Scholarly theology of course attempts to chase out science suggesting that miracle stories, mythologies have to do with the social sciences. Genre issues are important, for example, because a proper reading somehow carries our inquiry to its truer meaning. True scientists, however, do not give ancient people that benefit of the doubt. It is after all, hard to sophisticate a knowledge of God held, for example, by Paul, while many theologians (like our Church Fathers) fell victim to the base superstitions of their day. One such view, held by Augustine, was that the faraway stars and planets were actually demons. Augustine came three hundred years after Christ.  Even Paul, perhaps reading from Enoch, a popular piece of apocryphal literature during his time, though angels might be tempted to have sex with women, and so the latter must cover their heads to repel such predatory indiscretions.

AAT looks at the response of ancient peoples to perceived supernatural, or even paranormal , events.  One such reaction, as mentioned above, was to build temples to commemorate some grand visitation.  Some ancient astronaut theorists assert that Hindus built stupas after seeing the ancient space crafts that transported aliens around the skies. The Vimana in the Mahabharata, for example, are depicted as spaceships that transported the gods around the skies. As further evidence, these theorists point to paintings with strange objects that resemble the kind of witness testimonials given support today. Further, they point to testimony given by actual people. Reports that the Indians of South America thought the white men to be gods are thought to be references to previous encounters with beings coming from far away.  A newer area of interest for AAT is in the capacity of weapons of mass destruction to destroy the world. Mentions to the Brahmastra, a weapon described in the Mahabharata of great destructive force is considered one such example of supposed modern technological efficiency known to the ancient Indus River Valley civilization that should not have been known to them given what we know of ancient people. Interestingly, as a precursor to AAT, the Christian prophetic movement since at least the 1970s has attempted to marry the social situations of our day with biblical verses - and not just political views, but technology that would have the manifest capacity to fulfill the kinds of  world-encompassing events found in Revelation, such as the establishing of a one-world government, a system of applying a "666" number to each individual throughout the world, or even the destruction of the earth by fire as pictured in 2 Peter 3:10, an event thought impossible except for divine intervention, except that today, we now know that a nuclear holocaust has such power.

And what of the building of temples? One such reaction might be in the New Testament. When the Apostles see Jesus transfigured, they want to build three tabernacles in Matthew 17. Jesus rebukes them for it. While theologians might point to the building of the golden calf as a sign of disobedience that may loosely tie this event to the giving of the Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai, ancient astronaut theorists, who summon the mechanics of a historical-critical approach into their own philosophy believe that the meta-story behind each of these can be found in the type of event itself. A supernatural visitation, thus, requires the building of something. If Jesus was being visited upon by God so that his true glory was made manifest, a tabernacle or physical structure seems appropriate.  

Late in my graduate studies program in Theology, I did an independent study on the question of the Incarnation and other possible worlds, and found a wealth of material. I read C.S. Lewis, but also other established theologians like Brian Hebblethwaite  (Queens College, UK) and Thomas Morris (Notre Dame, USA). As I continue to see television shows on science fiction and religion or AAT and religion, I think we will find in the days ahead how these areas of concern continue to amaze us with their parallels.

 

Lost in Translation and the Problem of a Pure Christian Message: How "Christianity" Assimilates and Changes Among Christians in Other Parts of the World.

We all know that the formation of Christianity happened in the Greco-Roman world under the influences of Judaism. Indeed, it is often demonstrated that concepts that are not found in Judaism, such as the gospel of John’s use of the Stoic concept of logos, found their way into important doctrines of the Christian Church through the intimate relationship the Church’s writers had with their own Greco-Roman culture.

Western Christianity regularly forgets that Christianity is a world religion that penetrates many cultures. And when enculturation of beliefs occurs, like the foundational integrations between Judaism and Hellenism, Christianity also never survives an unadulterated introduction into the culture it seeks to entice into conversion. Here are just a couple of examples where the “pure” message of Christianity is hybridized into some cultures that approximate Christianity, but lend new meaning and practice.

Yomi no Kuni is the underworld in Shinto Japan. Unlike Christianity’s hell, it is not a place of demons and devils but a final abode for all the dead, and the place where the primordial god Izanami first went to die after her fight with her fire-god son.  The kanji for Yomi no Kuni (meaning “yellow springs” from the Chinese) is 黄泉.

What is interesting is that when Christian missionaries first took their message to Japan in the 1500s and the age of bible translations flourished in the 1800s, the standard way of representing hell was as 黄泉. So in Revelation 6:8 for example, hell, which follows the pale rider of Death is represented as Yomi no Kuni. I don’t read Kanji (though I took a semester of Japanese in college), but here is the verse in Japanese. The kanji characters that are important are highlighted.

そこで見ていると、見よ、青白い馬が出てきた。そして、それに乗っている者の名は「死」と言い、それに黄泉が従っていた。彼らには、地の四分の一を支配する権威、および、つるぎと、ききんと、死と、地の獣らとによって人を殺す権威とが、与えられた。

The "actual" entrance to Yomatso Hirasaka (or Yomi no Kuni)

A striking and perhaps intentional parallel to Revelation 6 is the return of Christ in Revelation 19 who is followed by the armies of heaven riding on a white horse and dressed in white robes (just as a side note, the incarnation of Vishnu named Kalki is also pictured in Indian legend as returning from the clouds on a white horse). But unlike the angels, these are the saints of God….the believers. Yet the Japanese translation has taken the former understanding of Yomi no Kuni, and narrowed the meaning considerably. Yomi no Kuni becomes similar to a place like Abraham’s bosom (whatever this is) or Hades, where everyone goes, or Niraka in some forms of Hinduism. This is not the vision of Western Christianity, but it creates interesting problems for anyone trying to wrap their minds around the eschatology. Yomi no Kuni as a Shinto concept where all the dead go becomes Yomi no Kuni as a Christian concept where only the evil dead go. Why this happens is up for debate. One might argue those who welcomed assimilation loved to glory in parallels where they could be found, even if they were only approximations.  To find parallels was to create reassurances about the importance of one's own culture in the face of foreign ideas. Precision and accuracy were not as important as the comfort of taking foreign concepts that already had some shape or resonance in one’s culture (“you’ve got an underworld…we’ve got an underworld”), ignoring the finer points of detail, and making them your own without understanding how they “fit” into the larger picture.

When one looks at Hinduism, various ex-Hindu Christians have sought to assimilate their new faith in various ways. One such example is referring to heaven as Vaikuntha. The translation from Hindi, meaning “the paradise of Vishnu” becomes the abode of Jesus (Yeju Krista). Vishnu, of course, is one of the most important deities in bhakti (devotional) Hinduism, next to Shiva. Moksha (liberation) is often seen as the path of spiritual enlightenment, though it is very much part of the religious tradition of Hindu yoga (the four paths of marga) and Samkhya by self-attainment, but also Hindu philosophy, such as Vedanta, where it is reimagined among Indian Christians. As well as offering a means of liberation, Moksha is often equated with the Christian heaven as a place where Jesus is seated.

What is important is that for Indian Christians, losing their own religious verbiage within their new set of beliefs is often a non-negotiable condition. Unless there is specific and perhaps aggressive influence by Western Christians, Indians were permitted to attune Christianity into the natural flow of Hinduism, which is a religious of deep and rich polyphony. Even among the staunchest Indian Christians, like those of the Christa Ashram in Ponono, and excluding Charismatics and some Evangelicals, Jesus is still called Sadguru (or good teacher). Many depictions of Jesus in India place him in the position of sadhana (doing spiritual exercises) or resting on a lotus flower (imagery important to the sacred symbology of Eastern religions). While one linguist may say that Sadguru, for example, is simply a translation for “good teacher,” a philosopher or sociologist of religions might argue that words are often not disassociated from their cultural meanings.  By calling Jesus “Sadguru,” Indians look to keep Jesus in the mainstream of Hindu religious and cultural existence.

These are just some of the ways religious homogeneity remains a difficult task. Assimilations like these challenge a pure understanding of the faith we think we have or think we can recover, despite Paul's hope that we all come to one faith and one baptism. We haven't been able to do that in Western Christianity, and the task in Eastern Christianity is perhaps more difficult.

Are All Christians Moral Relativists? The Place of Faith in Moral Responsibility

There was a lot of talk about responsibility as a theological category in the last century. Much of this had to do with the changing socio-politics of the time including two world wars that left the religious moral center of Western society in ruin. Responsibility for the first time, especially in the writings of Rudolf Bultmann and Reinhold Niebuhr became a way to reconcile faith with moral behavior. Until then, there had always been the strain of “double activity” in Christianity. When one read Paul he was confronted with the prevalence of faith. However, when one read James or even the gospels, it was the moral behavior and obedience that keyed into the duty of man. Paul was often read uniquely, as more sophisticated of the lot, and whose theology made for more creative responses then elsewhere. James, an epistle that Martin Luther threatened to throw into the Rhine River for what he read as its insistence of a works-based salvation, never garnered as much popularity.

Where responsibility became important was in the conversation on absolute and relative morals. It was argued on the one side that moral absolutes created no requirement for self-investment, one only needs to follow and obey. Yet on the other hand, there was an appeal to faith as an individual investment, in which obedience was not seen as a construct of faith but rather its fruit. But it was nonetheless thought to be stale fruit so long as my faith was not provided a clear path through my works. Faith was invalidated outside of works, and was therefore remanded to “wishful thinking.” One could trust in God about the sickness of a loved one, but again, faith required no personal investment. We could fold our hands, pray, walk away, and leave the rest to God. Of course, such formulas exist, but they tell us nothing about the inner life of the ordeal we so desperately wish to understand.

Theologians of this time sensed that faith meant something more than a secondary function that could only be fleshed out by one’s works or obligations. Moral absolutes simply created no element of self-risk. Without risk, the imperative for faith was unclear. Bultmann made a point of this when he noted that Jesus’ rising from the dead was an inauthentic existential act, provided he knew he would rise from the dead. Jesus could be “obedient to the death of a cross,” but his obedience did not necessarily translate into the need to feel the terror of the grave, a feeling of not knowing where his obedience might lead. Faith was thought to be the missing component of obedience. Jesus’ moral response could only be validated by an act of faith that considered the possibility that he might not rise again.  Only when the possibility of failure existed does faith make any sense. This is precisely why obedience without faith is morally suspect as a Christian concept.

To “not obey” or “go the way of the flesh,” only suggests a problem of behavior. Yet responsibility grasped at the very heart of such disobedience as an existential problem that lined up more fully and more rationally with the Christian belief that man inherited his sin nature from Adam.  

Without a clear formula for obedience however, the charge became that such Christians were moral relativists, which was seen as the greater of two evils. In the case of such relativism, one risked the collapse of revelation, the inconsistency of the biblical witness, and finally the loss of the democratizing appeal of scripture that all men are created equal. If men are equal, then surely the situations as they attend them are no different in the interpretative lens of one man than they are for another.

Perhaps one of the more powerful examples of moral relativism came in the theology-meets-life case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Theologians may have felt that moral responsibility was subject to a context of not very well-defined goals, but Bonhoeffer lived this reality. When Bonhoeffer was faced with the decision of repudiating National Socialism and ultimately conspiring in the assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler, he was faced with a moral dilemma that was based not in interpretation but methodology.  

With the injunction of the commandment not to kill (technically, murder) hanging over his head, Bonhoeffer had to strive for a way past the blockade of moral absolutes and come to an understanding of morality that would ultimately shape his decision in the coming months. His answer was that ethics always occurring when one stands before the “face of God.” This understanding meant that the biblical witness had to be shaped through a different kind of looking glass, one encountered by a cacophony of different instructions and voices to experience how God was speaking to the church today. Much like a Charismatic Evangelical, who believes he is speaking a prophetic word might say that the word that comes to him does not resist the totality of scripture, but is emphasized in a living body of work, Bonhoeffer’s decision to look to Jesus was based upon a similar project. This meant that while one could affirm that absolute harmony of God’s word, since the Word was always ontological, the phenomenology of the words demonstrated that some words regularly manifested over others for the edification of the believer. As a people bound to the book, Christians like Bonhoeffer to Billy Graham, found that in “hearing what the Spirit was saying to the churches,” (Revelation 2:7) did not need to invalidate the body of scripture.

The question of whether one is a relativist depends largely on application ethics and not canonicity. If simply admitted that the canon is, we do not need to be harassed about questions of why it is and what it should have become since these are largely historical concerns. That it did become what it is, and that it has consistently been treated as a multi-colored spectrum of God’s interactions with humanity permits response. And how have the people of Christ responded? With many, many different voices drilling down to differences within the heart of each community, but more importantly down to the divided individual. This is not a lack of consistency. For consistency speaks to systematization and simply a cry to return to absolutism. Consistency, at any rate, lies in the continued engagement with the scriptures.

Reading Jesus’ Transfiguration and the Buddha’s Enlightenment: Supercessionism or Synthesis?

In the story of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha attains a place of enlightenment after intensely meditating under a Bodi tree. Achieving this new level of consciousness about life and the goal of humanity to untangle itself from suffering (dukkha), we find Buddha Siddhartha delivering his teaching to Indra and Brahma.

In the story of the historical Jesus told in the synoptic gospels, he takes his followers with him to the base of a mountain where they observe his miraculous transfiguration. His body illuminates with bright rays of light and the three disciples observe the appearances of Moses and Elijah.

What do both of these stories have in common? Certainly we don’t know the motivations of the writers, but both seem to have apologetic value for their authors. In both accounts, the old gods (Indra and Brahma of the Hindus) and the old harbingers of tradition (Moses and Elijah) are giving their stamps of approval to the newcomer (the Buddha and Jesus).

One way to read the stories is as examples of Supercessionism.

Supercessionism is the theological term used for the belief that the value of the old tradition can only be understood, fulfilled, or accomplished in the new tradition. Both of these stories then show that Jesus and the Buddha are teaching their respective “teachers.” It is the passing of a mantle from old to new, the inauguration of a new type of understanding, a new prophet, a new god, a new king. In any case, Supercessionism is held suspect by those outside the new tradition because it tends to invalidate the ongoing validity of the old tradition. The new tradition is thought to correct something about the old tradition, whether it be its theological content, its trajectory, its audience, etc.

Another way to read the stories is as examples of Synthesis (a term that is replacing the more traditional use of Syncretism)

This is a rather new approach in terms of theological approaches, but suggests itself as one possibility in the reorientation of pluralists and perennialists in our age of common religious interests. On this view, there is no new or old tradition, it is simply the continuation of the old tradition. To demonstrate this, its radical departure in both cases from the old tradition can be explained by the evolutions in the old tradition as part of its very makeup. One might point for example in Judaism to the move from Deuteronomic Law to Wisdom teachings which suggested the introduction of foreign elements. One might suggest that Kabbala as a substantive Jewish movement was influenced by its encounter with Christianity as a result of its strong delineation of heaven and hell and its emanation theology. In this way, the old tradition is “reverse engineered” to accommodate the new and also shows a symbiotic relationship that forms over time. We can see this in less radical attempts to find “the historical Jesus in his Jewish context” by scholars of the last century. Others would claim that in Buddhism we see the veneration of the Hindu deities redefined as bodhisattvas rather than gods. In these redefinitions, the break to redefine oneselves is better understood as a corrective whose sole attempt is not to leave its predecessor behind, but to integrate this knowledge as something recovered that was lost, rather than something completely new, foreign, or uncomfortable. 

In both cases, the Buddha and Jesus inhabited lands, cultural contexts, and a social conscience of a people who could identify them by their behaviors within the tradition. Even if they were saying things that caught them by surprise, the people could claim them as their own. Their languages, concepts, and ideas were not so abusive as to be jettisoned from dialogue with the religious teachers of their time. In many cases, the people recognizing them were not put off by the foreign nature of their agencies. This is an important point and worth considering.

Why I Spend Time Exploring Other Religions

Soren Kierkegaard once spitefully commented that the "very atmosphere of Copenhagen predisposes one to Christianity." Despite this recognition, he lived and died in Copenhagen, and remained true to his own form of Christianity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer criticized Karl Barth for not expanding his intellectual horizons for lack of travel to other countries where he felt British empiricism would lend itself to Barth's own entrenchment in continental theology. Kant never ventured beyond Konigsberg, yet he changed the world of philosophy forever.

One is predisposed to his religious creed or culture for any number of reasons. My challenge over the past five years has been to back away from those things that come easy to me, while considering as many different approaches to religious reality as possible. I make the points only to point out that  cultivating critical thinking does not necessarily require travelling great distances, though I've been indebted to my experiences in England, Finland and Russia (where I made a point of immersing myself in religious experiences in those countries - my only regret was the Buddhist Temple in St. Petersburg was closed when we arrived). This is why I study and practice (perhaps as a dilettante and nothing more - which some would argue create problems in itself), so that no one will say to me at the end of my life, you didn't consider all the options available to you. You didn't make the effort. You made truth a reflection of your own reality.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have been all over the map religiously. I grew up as a Roman Catholic, moved through Pentecostalism, the Churches of Christ, a Baptist church here and there, Evanglical Lutheranism, the UCC, and finally an Episcopal church. For those who think the break with Christianity was not significant enough, I also spent time in Mahayana Buddhism, and veered into atheism during my college days. I make no apologies for my experiences. I can't imagine standing in a tradition and exerting one's intellectual efforts tirelessly in its defense, with either little or much sophistication, to prove one has already and always known his way through this life.  One might not be "converting" people in such instances, but it certainly begins to look like apologetics, even if the audience is only as large as the person believing or researching the materials. Modification of one's tradition is not enough. Intellectual honesty is important to me. Emancipation from modification has been and is my path for the foreseeable future.

Why Tertullian is the Coolest Theologian of the Ancient Church

Tertullian is my favorite ancient father of the scriptures. He must have been like the Donald Trump of the ancient church - radical, outrageous, and out of bounds. His furious outbursts and emotional writings are something to behold. He was the original St. Nicholas punching Arius in the face, but he did it with his writing!  Some of the cool things about Tertullian worth mentioning are as follows:

• “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” You’ve heard it before. It was coined by Tertullian.

• Tertullian was the first “born again” Christian.  Yes, I know Evangelicals think all real Christians were "born again," but Tertullian left the cultural Christianity of his day (i.e., the "catholic church" - here, meaning "universal church") and fell in with the Montanist movement whose leader, a David Koresh type, thought himself to be the incarnation of the Holy Spirit who spoke using two prophetesses. How very Eastern of him!

Building on this, it's not surprising-though I have never seen this connection made-that one of his beliefs mentioned in de carne Christi was that the Holy Spirit was an incarnation being. Much like God inhabiting Jesus, so Tertullian thought the Holy Spirit inhabited the dove when it appears to fall on Jesus during John’s baptism in the gospel.

Tertullian also had one of the most unique readings of Paul's mention of the mysterious "baptism of the dead" (a hallmark of Mormonism and the small and mostly forgotten modern-day Apostolic Catholic Church). Tertullian's interpretation of Paul here seemed ahead of its time for its cleverness in an age when exegesis seemed to come out of the mythology of one's cultural surroundings.  For Tertullian, who admitted that this practice of baptizing the dead was no longer around during his own days,  Paul’s motive for such a practice had to have been because the resurrection of the body was so important to salvation in Christ, that baptism of the dead was a way of sanctifying the dead to their bodies. When you think of funerary practices, there is always theology involved. During the medieval ages, Christians were to be buried facing Jerusalem. The worst thing an enemy could do was dismember or mutilate a body which could not then be given a proper burial (as if God could not reconstitute the body because he couldn't find a stray hand or limb!). It wasn't until the modern era that cremation became acceptable for some Christian Churches (because think of the mess God would have to deal with trying to find all those ashes to reconstitute a human body at the great resurrection!)

Tertullian also hated sports. He really hated sports! But the sport of his day was the gladiatorial games. He believed its brutality and violence was immoral, unbecoming of a Christian professing the Christian life. Football or MMA anyone?

Tertullian also gets early credit for using the word "trinitas" or Trinity.

And finally in every depiction, Tertullian always looks like Maimonides to me. Or is it Maimonides who looks like Tertullian?

If you ever get the chance, pick up Tertullian, read, and experience a Christianity you might not be familiar with.

The Different Doctrines of the Christian Afterlife Inscribed on Tombstones

 A couple days ago I was visiting a graveyard at the oldest AME Church in Maryland that still operates in its original location where a Civil War Union patriot lies in rest. As I started exploring the graveyard, I came across at least one inscription I thought demonstrated a point we often neglect in our contemporary Christian churches: There have always been different views on the Christian afterlife.

One such view is boldly inscribed on the tombstone in the photograph I took. It notes that the deceased is "Asleep in Jesus." The doctrine being alluded to, known popularly as "soul sleep" is one almost entirely ignored by many Christians today, but rose in popularity in the 1830s (note the dates on the tombstone) through the preaching of the Millerites and some Methodists like George Storrs. Later Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists picked up on a strain called Annihilationism.

The doctrine of soul sleep comes from a literal reading of 1 Thessalonians (considered one of the oldest epistles and most likely one of the seven written by the hand of Paul the Apostle according to NT scholars). In it, Paul tells us that the dead in Christ will rise first upon his return, not before, and those remaining on earth will be caught up with the Lord in the sky. The soul and body therefore go through a sort of hibernation period. The soul and body are never extinguished. The body is eventually reified. Some, who felt this did not sufficiently answer the question of what happens to the soul in the interim between death and eternal life, claimed it had to be in the presence of Christ. And there certainly is this strain in Paul as well. “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” he tells us. At least for Paul, aside from what appear to be contradictions, the human is a complicated body of eternal and temporal principles. He is an inward man, an outward man. He is spirit. He is soul. He is raised to a spiritual body, all depending where you read Paul. But if the soul is the essence of who we are, 1 Thessalonians doesn’t give us more than the “we” as a body in the ground awaiting the Lord. To try to resist soul sleep by saying that soul is somewhere else while it awaits final union with its body then seems an impoverished view given that the believer is identified with that body in Paul’s message!  At the least, soul sleep challenges the idea that the soulical Christian goes to heaven immediately after death.

What is the Function of the Seminary? A Reflection on Daniel Kirk and Seminary Pedagogy

The blogosphere has been active with the news that Daniel Kirk will be leaving Fuller Theological Seminary after next year.

One issue that has arisen from this news is about how invasive should an institution of learning be with its faculty and how does this affect a professor’s freedom to develop his thoughts. Some respondents have suggested that the seminary has a distinctive function, perhaps even different than the academy. This neat compartmentalization seems difficult to negotiate and suggests to me how often the seminary suffers an identity crisis: On the one hand, being an institution of higher learning with accreditation that invites debate and intellectual stimulation while on the other hand, maintaining and safeguarding the integrity of ancient creeds and customs.

It should be noted that in many corporations, an individual can be terminated stemming from actions he or she takes outside the workplace. These scenarios usually result from criminal activity. Conversely, one’s ideological freedom is a much more tangled web.

For those who do not know the situation affecting Kirk, his ruminations on homosexual unions in the church were met with resistance from other senior faculty members of FTS who informed him that his petition for tenure would most likely be opposed as a result.  For his part, Dr. Kirk has been graceful in his handling of the situation, and has allowed many responses to develop naturally without trying to direct or steer the conversation to a plea for personal justice.

As a graduate of a seminary/university myself, I wanted to focus a little bit on how we should be considering or perhaps re-examining the function of the seminary. One respondent on Fuller Theological Seminary's facebook page suggested, somewhat derisively, that intellectuals like Kirk who perhaps cannot find gainful employment in a secular university come to the seminary hoping to walk the line between dogmatic repetition of religious education and the kind of free-thinking that stimulates debate and conversation. I think this is a little misleading as it suggests that the seminary has only ever been a place that reproduces rank-and-file dogmatists. We certainly see traditions develop and challenged from within the seminary and significant changes in the last century would not have been possible had it not been for thinkers coming out of seminary educations who thought on numerous issues thoughtfully and reflectively.

Still there is something of a problem when seminaries resort to defensive posturing against the sometimes unwelcomed influences deriving from secular culture. My own experience perhaps deserves some attention. I attended the Ecumenical Institute of Theology, a project of the Roman Catholic Church through St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, MD that derived from Vatican II polity in an attempt to open the lines of communication within the Christian church and to invite those wayward Protestants back into fellowship. In perceived progressive settings like EI, where the motto is “Faith Seeking Understanding,” it was perhaps ironic that the program attracted so many fundamentalist conservatives (such as myself at that time).  One such reason was that the EI was the only game in town, and so Christians going in had expectations that they would be fleshing out opinions they already held close with intellectual support. While there was no shortage of faith-committed professors, there were also those who challenged us to think beyond the Mass or Sunday service to find a Jesus that was much  more human. If faith was to seek understanding, there was an implicit understanding of transformation. Unfortunately, no one told you what that transformation was supposed to look like. Would I come out a super saint or a skeptic?

As intellectual transformation was left unchecked, we were moved to bear all the various kinds of information back into the mold of our faith. Having a plethora of information and not knowing what to do with it is not unique to any academic program, but I would argue it is problematic for a seminary, and perhaps even more so for those with confessional creeds. A typical example would be that one evening I could take a class on the historical Jesus and meet with a cacophony of opinions from liberal professor Z only to return the following evening to sit in on a spirituality class ministered by conservative priest X.  I regularly watched students confuse lines of information, especially given that so many came in with only a basic understanding of his or her tradition and perhaps a bachelor degree to make his or her entrance into the program possible. Leaving with a master’s in Theology, I came out harder, more skeptical, and less ready for the task of assuming a faith that was now bedridden by so many questions. When I gave my exit interview, I could tell that my truthfulness was not especially a welcomed revelation, as the administrator seemed more and more impatient with my concerns, especially the one I voiced about EI being very concerned with numbers but giving no direction beyond their own walls about what to do with one’s intellectual development. I still might have aimed a similar accusation at a secular university, but for the EI, a place so enmeshed in the faith, where talk about discipleship as a lifelong journey is rote, it seemed more critical and more imperative that I was guided in the right direction. The advice I was given concerning my own intellectual aspirations:  All the jobs are gone, the PhD programs are filled with Ivy leaguers who can’t get jobs, your chances are slim. What was the point of EI then for someone in my shoes? Certainly not to waste thousands of dollars in pursuing a PhD I would never use. I was to a head to count for so many professors who were fighting to keep their jobs amid years of under-enrollment.

What seminaries, at least my seminary, did not do very well, was to help the student make sense of all the stimuli coming at him. There is a kind of hands-off response since while the Church makes disciples, the seminary makes disciples who are supposed to think more deeply about their faith. John Calvin once wrote that "None will never be a good minister of the word of God, unless he is first of all a scholar." But I often found that scholars didn't make good ministers. This is perhaps not entirely there fault as there is a line they were most likely directed to respect - different belief systems, different students coming from a variety of different backgrounds, etc. It might have been more honest to relinquish the discipleship talk, but then I can imagine some clever deflection: "discipleship must be internalized. What it means will be different for each person."

Still, students with only four years or less under their belt, and predictably so, often bastardized the influences they are vulnerable to at a seminary. The synthesis required to compartmentalize is not so much a talent as it is an arduous task, one that requires constant refinement.  In my own experience, seminary destroyed my virginal concepts of the untouchable nature of the Christian witness and taught me to challenge everything.

Which brings me to the interesting run-in I had on the issue of homosexuality. I wrote about this in a previous blog, but I want to recontextualize the situation for the moment.  As I continued my education, now in a Master’s program in Jewish Studies, I also was busy writing papers and presenting at conferences. When I decided that I wanted to touch on homosexuality as a topic, I contacted the administrator responsible for the alumni news at the EI. In the past, they have always included my news pieces and thanked me for taking the time to include something. So when I submitted the title of the presentation on a topic I had given about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and homosexual unions as responsible marriage, I received no response. When the newsletter arrived, my news was not included.  I contacted the administrator and received a rather terse response: “Sometimes things make it in and sometimes they don’t.”  Of course, space issues couldn’t have been the concern. EI deals in an electronic format newsletter. Space restrictions are therefore relic complaints of hard copy editors. No, the reason I was being dismissed was the topic. I ran this by another professor at the EI, and he agreed. I had been discriminated against based upon what was perceived to be an affirmation of homosexuality simply by a reading of the title. Let’s not forget how I got to this point. I was strongly conservative in my reasoning before entering the EI. After spending seven years at the institution (I did not spend consecutive semesters there), I was in essence being told that despite what I got out of my classes, the conclusions I came to, and the way those classes shaped my thinking, I had gone too far. Nevermind that the EI deteriorated my once-polished faith, homosexuality was taboo and incapable of being synthesized. In effect, homosexuality was worse than skepticism and the unbelief fostered in a number of the classes I took while attending.

This is why I understand the reaction to Dr. Kirk’s own coming to terms with same-sex unions as a conversation worth having, and yet at the same time shuddered to think about what’s going on here. If a student who is a lifelong seeker of coherence is meant to pull together all the information thrown at him, why do we think the plight of the professor is any different? It would be easy to say that the student is less equipped because of the level of his education, but then how much does that underscore the fact that scholarship is an even more tangled conversation as much as it is a debate. A professor working under such constraints cannot be thought to have arrived at some mythical totem of belief. He too is also a constant seeker. Sure he has a good portion (he would think) under control, but questions breed questions -- we constantly refine and measure.

Which leads me to the same concern voiced by others:   Is seminary the proper place to receive an education if by education we posit the free-thinking atmosphere of our Western institutions? I guess the question all depends on the openness or lack of concern the seminary expresses to its faculty and students. If numbers are your main concern, the individual can easily get lost. If doctrinal conformity is your concern, perhaps you have no chance. If you put your trust in an administrator who is herself conservative in her faith commitment, is it healthy to let her run your communications office without some form of counterbalance or oversight? I decided not to bring my own concerns to the Dean of the EI, primarily because I had lost nothing and gained nothing either. But for someone like Daniel Kirk, who is at risk of losing his job, the situation is quite real. It means feeding his family, it means pulling up his roots in a community that loves and respects him. It means all the talk we here nowadays about “being Jesus” or “being the gospel” or showing love to those with whom we disagree, simply revolves us back to good ole dogmatic posturing.  When Jesus went to Matthew’s house, Matthew was being accepted into a sacred circle of trust despite his own social standing. How many of us desperately need our seminaries to take similar leads, so that we can believe that the message they are putting out there is not just rhetoric.

Is Faith a Part of Buddhism?

Buddhism is often identified with personal effort. I would go so far as saying that the attractiveness of moving Buddhism out of the supernatural and into the natural has more to do with the secularization of the West then with the factual nature of the development of Buddhism narratives, which, like their Western counterparts, are diversified by various beliefs and opinions.

I certainly understand the need for spiritualism. We hypothesize root causes. Personal effort appeals to a certain type of spiritual person who does not identify with naming a God and all the baggage this carries. It removes the responsibility of defending doctrinaire accounts of the faith and allows them to move fluidly through the tradition without having to deal with what they dislike. I get it.

Buddhism, at least in the form it is often received in the West, may siphon out factors that are not necessarily testaments to human effort. However, it is important to note that other forms of Buddhism do not. I was reminded of this in an exchange I had at the regional American Academy of Religions meeting. As I was speaking with Dr. John Thatamanil (Union Theological Seminary), he spoke of a kind of “protestant reformation” that occurs in Buddhism in about 9^th-12^th century and becomes the standard expression in Japanese Buddhism. It was something that I have been connecting now for some time. By "protestant reformation," we were of course thinking of the move from a works-based form of religious expression to one of confessional form. This is perhaps not the greatest expression of all the reformation addressed and leaves room for expansion, but it does get at a similar concept in Shin Buddhism: the ordering of jiriki and tariki.

There are three narratives that come to mind that suggest Buddhism is not consigned to the bank of merit it has often been romanticized in.

Shin Buddhism is the most obvious expression here. Here, the name of Amida Buddha is venerated. By recitation of the name, strength is found in the other (the practice known as tariki) as opposed to jiriki, the practice of inner-self concentration.

A second example is the story of the Buddha who comes to his friend Gopala. The latter begs the Buddha not to leave him for fear he will fail in his sadhana (spiritual exercises) and return to adharma. So the Buddha leaves the imprint of his shadow on a cave wall. This is supposed to infuse righteousness that makes Gopala’s ability to keep dharma possible.

A third form found in Tibetan Buddhism is the Sutra Pagpa Chulung Rolyay Do. It is a mantra that was written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and it is thought that merely casting one’s gaze upon it purifies one of negativity for many eons. There is a resemblance to the nehushtan in this manner of “faith” (the story of Moses and the bronze serpent). Certainly John thought it a faith-act, as the gospel writer records, “just as Moses lifted up the serpent, Jesus was also to be lifted up.” (John 3:14)

 

How You Should Read Matthew 26:11 in Relation to Deuteronomy 15:11. An Easter Reflection

The soon coming of the Lord Jesus beacons our attention as Easter is just around the corner! So I was thinking today on Jesus’ use of Jewish Bible passages relevant to his own teachings and Deuteronomy came to mind. The verse comes in the context of how to deal righteously with debts, debtors, and the poor. In Deuteronomy 15:11.

There will always be poor people in the land.

Jesus reported spoke similar words, “The poor you will always have among you, but me only for a short time.” (Matthew 26:11 - notice the fact that this comes as the 11th verse in both bibles is just coincidence!)

It is an interesting theological exercise to try to imagine what the writer of the gospel was thinking when he wrote these words. We know the verse occurs in the context of a woman anointing Jesus’ head with expensive perfume and the disciples arguing that it was a wasteful act. But the author reminds us that such things were done as a preamble to Jesus’ own burial.

The plain exegetical sense of the statement is hard to resist, especially when compared to its counterpart in Deuteronomy 15:11, another verse about money, the poor, and generosity.

Both verses tell us there will always be poor. And if we interpret this literally, always means always.  Really? But what about the age of the messiah, when all wrongs will be righted and all people will come to worship the one true God? Jesus doesn’t answer in this context, and so as some Christian scurry to claim that the last part of this verse is only in reference the end of his physical body (because, after all, Jesus is God divine), they conveniently do some interpretive gymnastics with the first part of the verse, consigning the always to the course of history…but not Jesus whom they parcel out in two natures!

Again, it is helpful if we go to Judaism and get an idea of what the Tannaim or Amoraim may have been thinking at the time when they also read such a verse. An early tractate in the Talmud called Berakhot, has an interesting take on the verse. Folio 34B reads:

There is no difference between this world and the days of the Messiah except the oppression of the heathen kingdoms alone, as it is said, “For the poor shall never cease from the land” (Deuteronomy 15:11)

So here we have the verse read as a gemara in a messianic context, precisely the kind of thing we’d want to see if reading about Jesus the messiah.

Yet the tractate specifically says, even in the time of them messiah, the poor will still be around. So is inequality, injustice part of the messianic reign? They are other verses that talk about an age of peace, but clearly the interpretive trend here was to read the verse literally. It means that Jesus too read the verse literally, and so to tag onto the second part of the verse, some rather forced sophistication about the separation of the two natures of Jesus, the body and soul, feels contrived to say the least. Jesus thought his end was coming. He thought he would die. End of story.

 

But now we are free to return to our theology!

If I interpret both ends of the verse faithfully, Jesus would be saying that the poor will indeed always be here insofar as the messianic age is concerned, and I will not. So, is he denying his messianic call? Denying is a strong accusation. If you are believer and looking to preserve the integrity of a faithful understanding of the verse in the tradition of a systematic theology that avoids problematic exegesis, one may simply plead that Jesus in the gospel is ignorant of the incarnation. In the garden he seems to be rattled. He seems to give up hope in various places, and in others seem sure about himself and his mission.

Furthermore, this story is shadowed in John at precisely the same time of his betrayal! In John, however, it is Judas, not the disciples who talk about wasteful acts of charity and giving. In both gospels Jesus rebukes them. John, where we would expect Jesus to say something like “you will have me for a short time, but I will rise again” – at least I this context, does not. I have a much easier time reading Matthew 26 without doing exegetical stunts, then say if it had occurred in the gospel of John the intermingling of Jesus’ two natures is obvious much more developed.