end times and the historical jesus

So. One of my most admired NT scholars is Dale Allison, Jr. I just finished one of his more recent books, wherein he is more candid than usual about the implications of historical Jesus scholarship for theology.

For instance, he has this to say about how historical Jesus scholarship engenders theological dilemmas on all sides of the spectrum:

Those who subscribe to Nicaea should be anxious, for the historical Jesus did not think of himself what they think of him. To be sure, his identity, like that of the rest of us, cannot be restricted to his self-conscious evaluation, whatever we judge that to have been. Jesus must have been more than the sum of us own thoughts. Still, traditional, orthodox christologies have assumed that Jesus was fully aware of his own godhead and spoke accordingly, whereas modern criticism has, in the judgment of many of us, exterminated this possibility. The orthodox tradition thus needs to acknowledge that revisionist christologies of the last two centuries have been partly occasioned by advances in knowledge. There has been good cause to rethink some changes.

As for those who reject of radically reinterpret Nicaea and Chalcedon, a historical Jesus who placed himself at the center of a mythological end-time scenario is not likely to be regarded with affection. For such an individual conceived himself to be extraordinary and indeed unique, in a category all his own. As with the orthodox, so too, then, with their opponents: their evaluation of Jesus does not line up with his evaluation of himself.

The upshot of the foregoing pages is that the historical Jesus remains, in Schweitzer’s familiar words, a stranger and an enigma. As a Christian, however, I do not find this so dreadful. What good is Jesus if he does not trouble our theological dreams? Certainly the character in the Gospels combats complacency and self-satisfaction, and what but complacency and self-satisfaction can come from a historical Jesus who confirms us in our theological ways, whether those ways be liberal or conservative? A domesticated Jesus who sounds like us, makes us comfortable, and commends our opinions is no Jesus at all. (pp. 89-90)

lost lander, “cold feet”

Check out my new favorite song here. Also, I’m interested to hear interpretations of the video footage–for instance, what is the director/band trying to say by grouping certain thematic shots together (TV ads, explosions, politicians, etc.)? Is there any artistic intention behind the montage or is it simply random?

Comment below.

laika, space-dog extraordinaire

Not as funny as it initially sounds, but the ending makes all the details worth it.

a thanksgiving lesson in forgiveness

From the Nov/Dec edition of Orion. I’ll buy a beer for the commenter who can pinpoint my favorite line from this article.

In related news, our gov’ner here in Orygun declared today an indefinite moratorium on the death penalty. After a few moments of applause–after all, I’m an obedient anti-capital punishment pacifist like the rest of ‘em–I began thinking that this might be a more laudable move if it represented an attempt to institute a holistic approach to peace and the respect of human life.

As it turns out, however, it does not. Kitzhaber is pro-choice (see this article from the 2010 election here) and Oregon is one of the most lax states on euthanasia. (Ironically, it also has one of the highest suicide ratings.)

Allow me a few more paragraphs to drive this point home.

Kitzhaber’s decision to forestall the death penalty arrives two weeks shy of Gary Haugen’s scheduled execution. Currently, the only way to get executed in Oregon is by asking for it. Literally. You have to “volunteer,” relinquishing intentions to any future appeals and requesting–formally, before a judge–to be executed.

So what’s the State of Oregon telling its residents?

Well, it’s OK to request to be killed if you’re not in prison (euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are legal), but it’s not OK to request to be killed if you’re in prison (death penalty is on moratorium). Oh, and it’s really bad to kill yourself (suicide is frowned upon), but you can kill your unborn babies (abortion is legal).

All this comes to a head in Kitzhaber’s rhetoric when he claims that it was his physician’s oath to “do no harm” that led him to the decision about the death penalty. Hmm.. Where is that oath when you whitewash abortion as “women’s health”? Where is it when you enable physicians to help their patients kill themselves?

Let me be clear: I’m not arguing for a social ethic that ignores the complexity that each and every one of these issues harbors. There’s no “one answer” to everything. But I am arguing for coherence among the legislation that shapes us as a culture and as a community. I’d like to see a compelling vision of human flourishing govern the way we conduct ourselves in Oregon–not a patch-quilt of politically-motivated legislation to appease these constituents at one point in the cycle and these others and a different point.

Is that such a naive hope?

rick perry versus God

Is God really telling Rick Perry to run for president?

It’s interesting to note that his remarks at the Response are theologically sound and responsible. But we’ve been warned that the Antichrist will likely appear in the same fashion..

david brooks on socially acceptable inequality

This is genius.

jesus, the name of god

Lots of thinking has been done about Jesus as the logos or “Word” of God (notably, Jn. 1:1-18). But for a paper on naming God and the question of whether or not Christians and Muslims worship the same god, I’m doing some thinking about Jesus as the “name of God.”

Here are a few disparate thoughts…

What does it mean to say that Jesus is the name of God…? This makes God infinitely more universal as well as infinitely more historical and particular…

Universal because it if the man Jesus is the name of God, then there’s no need to utter the name—every word uttered from the mouth of a human participates and (in some mysterious way) honors and glorifies God, because God has in Christ sanctified all mouths and all words.* Yet particular because he did this through one man, living at one point in time—and then (mystery of mysteries!) not living at all, then living again eternally in some strange fashion none of us has ever experienced.

So the sort of exclusivity Christians enjoy by virtue of worshipping God through his very name is not the sort of exclusivity which is generally meant when someone claims to be worshipping a god by name. Jews have “Yahweh,” the sacred name of God given to them in the story of Moses’ encounter at the burning bush (Ex. 3). Muslims have “Allah,” given to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, though this is not considered by them to be a proper name (but merely the Arabic word for “God”–literally, “the god”).

Thus, each tradition implicitly claims exclusive access to God by virtue of calling God by his true or proper name.

*(This might be considered a parallel insight to the one undergirding the atonement theory commonly called “Christus Victor,” in which God redeems all men by virtue of becoming a man himself.)