This was published in the Wednesday Journal 3/6/02.
This month I’ve been taking a course offered at Unity Temple called “Jesus for Unitarian Universalists and other Modern Persons”. I’m not a Unitarian so I guess I must be a Modern Person, whatever that is. It sounds flattering, anyway.
I actually belong to a very conservative Church in Oak Park where a few people have expressed a combination of shock and concern that I am attending such a course. Perhaps the rest of them are blissfully unaware that I am. Certainly the initial reactions didn’t encourage me to be especially open about it. To be fair, I know the reactions are out of concern that it will not be ‘good’ for me spiritually, to subject myself to the teachings of this course. And I do appreciate that concern.
I really don’t want to think I’m going just to get a reaction out of conservative Christians; I hope that’s not why. I think I’m going because I genuinely want to know more about what some other people are saying about Jesus.
The particular views shared in this course are those of the Jesus Seminar members – a group of academics whose studies, speculation and yes, perhaps also personal biases, have led them to certain conclusions. They believe that there is a core of historical truth in the New Testament gospels but much of what is contained in them is myth and legend that developed around Jesus after he died, rather than being descriptions of the actual events of his life and his actual words.
The most frustrating thing to me about a course like this is that there’s little time to present much more than the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar. I’m the sort of Modern Person who always wants to know how and why people come to the conclusions they do. I don’t know how to begin to assess their validity otherwise. I suppose one answer is to read the source books for the course and I am doing some of that. Another is to read the conservative Christian books that tell me how tenuous what the Jesus Seminar says, is. They will find every loophole there is. But when it comes to personal bias I don’t believe the conservative Christian writers are any better than the Jesus Seminar at being objective. It’s hard to step outside one’s own belief system – it’s hard to even see a reason to, in fact.
And trying to walk through what the Jesus Seminar says, for many conservative Christians, is probably a bit like being invited to the post-mortem dissection of your best friend. It won’t change the friendship you had and it’s certainly not how you would want to remember them. Although that analogy falls very short since conservative Christians believe Jesus is very much alive, even though he is not present in a physically material sense. Anyway, that’s probably why I’m the only conservative Christian taking this course – to my knowledge – and I wouldn’t expect others to rush into it.
I think my church would argue strongly against the idea that Jesus (as taught about and worshiped there) is not for Modern Persons. After all, do we not have contemporary worship music and powerpoint? But more importantly, don’t people have the same basic needs and problems that they always had? Has the solution for those changed? Do we need a different Jesus today from the one proclaimed by the church since the writers of the ancient creeds took their stand on who Jesus is? Does the underlying message of traditional Christianity really need ‘updating’?
My church would say, in the strongest possible terms, definitely not! But the Jesus Seminar would deny that they are going forward from what traditional Christianity teaches into something new. They would say they are rather going back to look at who Jesus the person ‘really’ was, before the beliefs developed that coalesced by late into the first century, into Christianity.
Their search is for Jesus’ original teachings, they might say. They are impressed enough with their picture of Jesus that many of them call themselves Christians, although many conservative Christians find that claim absurd. Anyone can say they are a Christian but according to conservative Christians you aren’t really one unless you believe Jesus is God, his death was for you personally, his resurrection really happened and he’s the only way you can have a relationship with God. And you are going to hell if you aren’t really one – hence the vital importance of teaching ‘the truth’ about Jesus and not the ideas of some group of people whose starting premise is that the Bible is full of made-up stories.
It seems fascinating and ironic to me that both my church and this course want to ‘set people free’ by teaching them ‘the truth about Jesus’. My church offers God’s forgiveness, salvation and eternal life through a right understanding of Jesus (and acceptance of him as Lord and Savior). One main goal of the course at Unity Temple is to encourage people who had dismissed Jesus when they decided Christianity was not for them, to take another look at him. To ‘give him his due’, as it were, as a great and influential person who is worth studying.
I don’t feel comfortable saying to other people “you’re wrong!” when it comes to things I can’t prove either way. That doesn’t mean that I never comment or ask questions. In fact it’s possible that my comments/questions during this course might have revealed a little skepticism about some of the content.
But I also ask questions or comment at my own church, regularly. Trying to do it with appropriate ‘gentleness and respect’, since that is one Biblical admonition about how Christians are to interact. I would hope that asking questions and commenting at least shows I am listening to what I hear and thinking about it. It seems to me that that’s the most likely way for me to find ‘the truth’, whatever (or Whoever) that may be.
And besides, isn’t that exactly what a Modern Person like me ought to be doing?