Christology

(I'm not going to attempt to give you a blow by blow account of the Allelon Summer Institute, as mp3's will eventually be available.)

Al Hirsch is here, and I really resonated with what he had to say yesterday.

Over simplified, here's a taste:

Our Christology leads to missiology which leads to ecclesiology

In other words, who Jesus is gives us our mission, and our mission prescribes what church should be. How many of us in the west have that exactly backwards? We need to reboot, as Al calls it. We need to return to our primary source documents--the Gospels--and figure out who this Jesus was. Or, as we put it in our faith community:

We need to get to know Jesus again for the first time

Comments

[anj]

yes, I think our mission does flow naturally out of knowing Jesus, and as we know Him deeper and wider, our mission also becomes deeper and wider. Or narrower too, as the case may be. I disagree though that our primary source documents are the Gospels; they are a source document, but to me the primary means, what I think you mean by documents here, will always be the Inner Light of Christ. It is only through reading these Gospels in that Spirit, thru that Spirit, that we can know the true ethos and personhood of Jesus.IMHO.

PS Sounds like your faith community has been reading Borg. Great book, that one.

[GKB]

Ah, but is Jesus the chicken or the egg?

How do we come to know Jesus apart from the his body, the church?

I have a very high Christology (although, I would prefer to talk about Jesus more than The Christ), but I also believe we haven't paid enough attention to our ecclesiology. I think communities like yours are good resources for people like me who still are part of an "institutional" church.

[Mike]

Good points both, but I don't want to move too quickly off my assertion.

One of the other slogans we throw around in our gang is "Read the red" as in, read the red letters (which obviously directs us to the Gospels.) Jesus (Christ) said some things that we (Christ-ians) completely disregard, if not downright do the exact opposite... and call it Christ-ianity.

How many of us take Jesus' economic advice? Or his parenting advice? In a session this morning, Al Hirsch said if we really understood who Jesus was and what he said, we'd never expose our children to him. And his tongue was only partially in his cheek.

[david]

I am so uncomfortable with the notion that we know Jesus through the Church. While that's a nice notion, it relies on us not totally screwing it up. Rely on the Church? Which version? During which period of history? And on whom does the burden of interpreting the Church's actions fall in order to find Christ within. I think we've made more of that historically than we ought to. It sounds to me a little like a power-hungry church trying to keep followers tied to the apron.

Another tangent - how come as Christians we assume that our good deeds ought to point irrefutably to God, while our bad deeds and failings don't argue against him. Furthermore, how come Buddhists are not given the same luxury? Deeds as apologetics is pretty dicey. I wish it bore greater weight but I take it on a case-by-case basis and "read the red" when I want to know about Jesus.

All that to say, I think Al Hirsch is onto something.

[Mark Petersen]

Say hi to the gang for me... have a good time.

[GKB]

I can see how the notion of Jesus being known through the church can make one uncomfortable. I would be even more uncomfortable with the idea if I didn't believe that God was somehow at work in and through his people, no matter the time, place or historical era.

"Reading the red" is a great idea, but we can't escape the fact that the red words came down to us because of the church. After Jesus left, the church, the gathered people of God, was pretty much the only vehicle through which knowledge of Jesus could be transmitted.

I hope it doesn't come across as a power play, but rather an acknowledgment that our experience of Jesus is nearly always mediated through the community of faith in different places, at different times, and through different lenses...

[Wes Roberts]

...please tell Alan Hirsch hello for me...thanx!

[david]

GKB - You're right. I wish you weren't, but you are. I didn't see it from that angle. Of course, now I can't read the red the same way anymore! :-)

[alan hirsch]

Mike, great to meet you and the others this week. In Toronto at the moment, about to have a few days with the YFC Canada mob.

Peace