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Primitive Christianity Revived, Again
(from my blog, wanted comments)
I remember once being bothered by some guy's remark that he was taking the Bible "as story"--which I thought threatened to evade an absolutely crucial issue: "Is this story the truth?--or merely a fiction I happen to like?"
And now I'm slogging through NT Wright's The New Testament and the People of God. And one consideration I find compelling there is that we live in 'stories'--mental/emotional structures of intentions and outcomes--so that we make contact with physical "reality" within those structures, rather than having our stories determined by physical 'given's as people commonly assume. "... we find that human beings tell stories because this is how we perceive, and indeed relate to the world."
Normally we meet the physical world in a context where we're trying to accomplish some object, while various elements of "reality" help or hinder the effort. If we're trying to start a car, the state of the spark plugs may or may not be a physical 'fact', but we meet that fact in a process of interaction, making and testing hypotheses by trying 'this' and having 'that' happen, until we've arrived at some successful or unsuccessful outcome, and can get on to the story of our next subgoal.
But all this goes on within some larger story.
For the Jews of Jesus' time, the larger story was as follows:
"
1) Who are we? We are Israel, the chosen people of the creator god.
2) Where are we? We are in the holy Land, focused on the Temple, but paradoxically, we are still in exile.
3) What is wrong? We have the wrong rulers: pagans on the one hand, compromised Jews on the other, or, half-way between, Herod and his family. We are all involved in a less-than-ideal situation.
4) What is the solution? Our god must act again to give us the true sort of rule, that is, his own kingship exercised through properly appointed officials (a true priesthood; possibly a true king); and in the mean time Israel must be faithful to his covenant charter.
"
Of course, as Wright says, the high priests and other rulers of Israel would have rejected items 2-4, but the bulk of the nation would have more or less taken them for granted, reinforced by frequent communal services with prayers and psalms within that context.
I haven't read on to what the early Christian version of this would have been. What I've been meanwhile thinking about: What about us?
Some form of the Christian scenario served as backdrop for most of our previous 2000 years, but at some point we had people like Nietzsche observing that "God" (as a social fact in people's 'practical' lives) was "dead". And in this country, the official "American" story of triumphant capitalist-democracy getting better-&-better took its place. Among the pious, we have the AntiChristian "Jesus is going to airlift me & a few of my friends away to where we can watch the rest of you go to Hell" perversion of the story--but what about us?
It seems to me, that the core of the christian story--is that Jesus, despite the apparent failure of himself and his work, was preserved and vindicated by God, who is still in the (long, alas!) process of bringing it to fruition. This, despite my difficulties in understanding and observing it, is what must be true.
But I don't think I'm alone in finding it difficult, and my impression is that most Americans have found it literally impossible, are busy clinging to the "better-&-better" myth in a desperate attempt to fend off the "worse-and-moving-towards-unlivable" scenario we get from an unblinking look at the secular world.
What will you say?
And now I'm slogging through NT Wright's The New Testament and the People of God. And one consideration I find compelling there is that we live in 'stories'--mental/emotional structures of intentions and outcomes--so that we make contact with physical "reality" within those structures, rather than having our stories determined by physical 'given's as people commonly assume. "... we find that human beings tell stories because this is how we perceive, and indeed relate to the world."
Normally we meet the physical world in a context where we're trying to accomplish some object, while various elements of "reality" help or hinder the effort. If we're trying to start a car, the state of the spark plugs may or may not be a physical 'fact', but we meet that fact in a process of interaction, making and testing hypotheses by trying 'this' and having 'that' happen, until we've arrived at some successful or unsuccessful outcome, and can get on to the story of our next subgoal.
But all this goes on within some larger story.
For the Jews of Jesus' time, the larger story was as follows:
"
1) Who are we? We are Israel, the chosen people of the creator god.
2) Where are we? We are in the holy Land, focused on the Temple, but paradoxically, we are still in exile.
3) What is wrong? We have the wrong rulers: pagans on the one hand, compromised Jews on the other, or, half-way between, Herod and his family. We are all involved in a less-than-ideal situation.
4) What is the solution? Our god must act again to give us the true sort of rule, that is, his own kingship exercised through properly appointed officials (a true priesthood; possibly a true king); and in the mean time Israel must be faithful to his covenant charter.
"
Of course, as Wright says, the high priests and other rulers of Israel would have rejected items 2-4, but the bulk of the nation would have more or less taken them for granted, reinforced by frequent communal services with prayers and psalms within that context.
I haven't read on to what the early Christian version of this would have been. What I've been meanwhile thinking about: What about us?
Some form of the Christian scenario served as backdrop for most of our previous 2000 years, but at some point we had people like Nietzsche observing that "God" (as a social fact in people's 'practical' lives) was "dead". And in this country, the official "American" story of triumphant capitalist-democracy getting better-&-better took its place. Among the pious, we have the AntiChristian "Jesus is going to airlift me & a few of my friends away to where we can watch the rest of you go to Hell" perversion of the story--but what about us?
It seems to me, that the core of the christian story--is that Jesus, despite the apparent failure of himself and his work, was preserved and vindicated by God, who is still in the (long, alas!) process of bringing it to fruition. This, despite my difficulties in understanding and observing it, is what must be true.
But I don't think I'm alone in finding it difficult, and my impression is that most Americans have found it literally impossible, are busy clinging to the "better-&-better" myth in a desperate attempt to fend off the "worse-and-moving-towards-unlivable" scenario we get from an unblinking look at the secular world.
What will you say?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on
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Yes, I'd say I've seen that at work--but it's like being in the midst of a famine, where the delivery-ravens bring us our little platters of Enough--while there's fear and hunger around us. It's really only acceptable when I can see myself as doing God's will to mitigate the state of things; while none of the things I can imagine doing seem adequate to the depth of the wound.
Yesterday--at a prayer-&-press-conference of the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice: Clergy-folks in their costumes calling for the Governor to repent, stop threatening to cut the funds for essential poor-person services. There was some pretty good drumming at the start & at the end of the program. Meantime, some information about the state of the legislative drama taking place--and many nice speeches asking God to make people do the right thing. I suppose this is the "Will of God" for a clergy-person, much more so than just staying home polishing the candlestick. But something feels wrong about it, a futility that reminds me of the bit about "taking God's name in vain," because the "power" they're "speaking truth to" isn't the real "Power" and they don't dare break conventional "wisdom" to the extent of calling a filthy rotten system a "filthy rotten system."
I am starting to appreciate an inconvenient friend, who died sometime last year, who liked to say, "I ain't marchin anymore." I just don't know what I am doing, just that this "nothing" is what there is for now. Because, as you say, Christ ain't gone away nowhere!
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Well, I could stand in line to "feed the poor" at a local Lutheran church, but that isn't what we're talking about. When I remember to ask, "What should I do next?"--I'm not told to smite my iniquitous neighbors; generally I do some little bit for a few poorsouls that get sent my way, which maybe means a $10 loan until next month when this particular person will repay and then borrow the same $10. Or I go with a friend who was supposed to die of AIDS, viral hepatitis & diabetes to protest cutting funds from the program that probably saved his life (for now.) Mostly these days I'm hearing "Sit still, relax, don't fuss yourself" and that suits me, too well perhaps.
I've got to insist, to some extent, on the original Jewish meaning of that kingdom (Wright again): " 'The kingdom of God,' historically and theologically considered, is a slogan whose basic meaning is the hope that Israel's god is going to rule Israel (and the whole world), and that Caesar, or Herod, or anyone else of that ilk, is not." That is, a person can strive to put himself under God's orders, by asking and paying attentive, thoughtful attention to what is presented. This is a better thing, to my mind, than simply figuring out ways to submit himself 'heroically' to some worthy ideal (which leads to struggling, with finite wisdom and energy, to resolve an endless heap of undoable-but-essential tasks, none of which we were necessarily made nor equipped to accomplish!) But that, too, is less than seeing God's intention for the world fulfilled; instead it's like hearing the engine turn over, but not having it start... for 2,000 years since we were truthfully told, "It's here!" It's like being in a movie theater where they show Doris Day and Caligula on adjacent screens while the audience tries to interpret it all as one strange movie!
And I am supposed... at least I've accepted a grant--to find a scruffy-person-friendly office in a heavily gentrified downtown, then restart the factual monthly newspaper on poverty issues I founded 11 years ago. I'm not just kvetching; I'm bewildered!
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I'm going to be real contrary and ask that you please continue "bothering" me with whatever comments you are patiently willing to offer!
That incident in the Temple has got to have been much clearer to Jesus' contemporaries. Modern explanations are all over the map, and we'd really need to dig into the gospels to sort out the possibilities! I disagree with your interpretation, but I think we can get along with that fact just fine!
What Jesus was doing here--what role people think he played/plays in the universe--will tend to dictate how they read these particular events. Since I have a hard time pinning down precisely what he was doing, I consider it risky to insist that his life didn't mean what someone sees in it! (The Jews at P'nai Or Synagogue were like that about Torah interpretations--and while I appreciated and admired that trait--I think it was due to a very similar reason. Where there's this much meaning, where God is this much involved, the only meanings to exclude would be those blatantly "out of character" for God.)
Anyway, it sounds like you favor a very "spritualized" interpretation in which Jesus is "merely" a spiritual "teacher" rather than being also a prophet & failed king. I don't doubt that he was solidly spiritually connected, or that he taught spiritual lessons--but the woods were full of holy-men, in those days.
John the Baptist got his head cut off, and Jesus was hung on a cross; and I don't believe either of these fates were accidental or mistaken. John was criticizing Herod's political love-life; and something about Jesus (like, in my notion, his having been anointed for the job) made people consider him a Messiah, as in de jure "king."
Your story... if I've got this right: The Israelites were led to expect a Messiah to liberate them as Moses had done; only God gave them a bait-&-switch and tried to direct their attention towards spiritual matters instead. Some of them got it; others felt that this was disappointing, even heretical. I don't find it plausible myself, as a historical event, but that's beside the point.
You'd tend to say, if I understand, that the point of human life is to enter that "spiritual realm", and all the physical history and mayhem people have been doing instead is simply mistaken. Hmmm, how do our physical lives fit into this?
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~"That Spirit gave birth to flesh, is a great miracle. But for flesh to give birth to spirit would have been a greater wonder!"
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Where my "bait-&-switch" phrase seemed right to me... was in reference to the idea that the people in Jerusalem that day had necessarily yearned for a physical king, while God was about to give them something 'better.' As in a Father who gives his son bread when he'd wanted a stone(?)
From what I've been reading (See "What Christianity Means to Me" here) it wasn't clear to 'Jews' of Jesus' time, what they should expect in the way of divine intervention... except that the situation of living under Jewish authorities kept in power by Roman military force wasn't it. If the gospels are at all accurate as to event-dating, these crowds were in Jerusalem to celebrate the physical liberation of their ancestors from slavery in Egypt.
In one sense, the biggest "story" is the fact that "We are not people having a spiritual experience; we are spirits having a human experience." Ultimately, that is extremely liberating! But there's no good reason I can see, why God would have needed to wait thousands of years to tell us that.
Why did God 'harden Pharoah's heart'?
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