It has long been my belief that Jesus would findthe movement that bears his Name in the West virtually unrecognizable by comparison to His own words & works. Such is the disaster of Christendom. Now arrives a new book by Australians Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch entitled Re:Jesus which essentially begins with this premise in exploring our desperate need to recalibrate our lives, faith, and community around Jesus. Here is just a few bits of how Frost & Hirsch begin their book:
"The core task of this book will be to explore the connection between the way of Jesus and the religion of Christianity. We will attempt to assess the Christian movement in the light of the biblical revelation of Jesus and to propose ways in which the church might recalibrate its mission around the example and teaching of the radical rabbi from Nazareth. Where is the continuity? Why is what we experience as Christianity discontinuous with the way of Jesus?"
"Similarly, Jacques Ellul, the French theologian and philosopher, raises a disturbing historical problem for us to solve, a problem he calls the subversion of Christianity: The Question that I want to sketch in this work is one that troubles me most deeply. As I now see it, it seems to be insoluble and assumes a serious character of historical oddness. It may be put very simply: How has it come about that the development of Christianity and the church has given birth to a society, a civilization, a culture that are completely opposite to what we read in the Bible, to what is indisputably the text of the law, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul? I say advisedly 'completely opposite'. There is not just contradictions on one point but on all points. On the one hand, Christianity has been accused of a whole list of faults, crimes, and deceptions that are nowhere to be found in the original text and inspiration. On the other hand, revelation has been progressively modeled and reinterpreted according to the practice of Christianity and the church. . . This is not just deviation but radical and essential contradiction, or real subversion."
"While this might seem to be an overstatement, Ellul proceeds to back up his conclusions with some unnerving scholarship. To our thinking, no one has yet answered his questions in a satisfactory way. Yet they cannot be avoided if we are to re-establish ourselves as an authentic church in the twenty-first century. . . Erwin McManus takes up a similar theme in "The Barbarian Way" in which he rails against the transformation of Christianity from a dangerous and revolutionary spiritual force into a "religious civilization". And rightly so. Is such a civilization, with its associated civil religion, what Jesus intended for the movement he started? Was it his intention to produce a domesticated religion with a fully fledged mediating priesthood, cumbersome rituals with ambiguous connections to the surrounding society and culture? Is this what Jesus meant when he came pronouncing the arrival of the kingdom of God or the tearing of the veil in the temple at his death?
In this season of Advent on a break from working with my high school students, I can't help but find in these words the crux of my dilemma for it is precisely these questions that are so often derailing my students from considering Jesus. Quite honestly, all they know and/or have experienced is this"Jesus" of Christendom, a pale imitation of the real Incarnation, whom they find boring in the extreme and would therefore (and understandably) never give away their lives in submission to such a one. Tragically, they often do not know that they are rightly rejecting a false "Jesus" who is truly undeserving of apprenticeship. So, assuming that the Christendom "Jesus" is all there is, they are walking away from faith in droves in order to find adventure elsewhere. They do not know that the real Jesus holds the keys to their adventure of a lifetime and is fully worthy of celebration. . . and that the delusional "Jesus" is a not only a pale imitation but a complete bastardization of the One in Whom all freedom and adventure lies.
