GroshLink

Our second class began with a conversation regarding how the world/our culture understands Who is the Christ? and slowly moved in the direction of how we, as the people of God address the question of Who is the Christ?  Below are some notes which I took on the responses given by those in attendence followed by quotes from SoulSearching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passion of the Christ (InterVarsity Press, 2008) with which I wrapped up the class.  Next week begins a two session exploration of The Character, Person, and Story of God as a Proper Lens for Christmas, setting up a class focused on The Nativity Story.  As for the whole class schedule click here.

1.  The world/our culture's read on Who is the Christ?
-a cute baby born in the stable, i.e., the nativity scene
-Christ as a last name for Jesus, i.e., Jesus Christ born to Mr. & Mrs. Christ?
-a man with mythical proportions, i.e., a good man who did great things about whom we read stories beyond reality
-one who can help with problems, i.e., one who can fix-it, but not one with whom we have a relationship. Examples were given of prayer during tests, sporting events, health concerns, fiscal emergencies. At times this paradigm becomes let's make a deal.
-a good man who did great things and who is a model for us to strive after
-Jesus (historic human being), the Christ (the one to whom mythical proportions are given)

-the Quest for the Historical Jesus typifies the Jesus only perspective
-New Age spirituality has streams of modern gnosticism which embraces the cosmic/mythological Christ without respect for the historic, human person of Jesus

-when we climb to the top of spiritual mountain in world religions and/or reach heaven, we'll find Jesus among the various spiritual leaders around whom religions were created by their followers who attempted to systematize their natural life/teaching. Examples of others include Buddha, Halle Sallasie (Rastafaranism), Mohammad, Moses

2.  The people of God on Who is the Christ?
-The beyond reality aspects of Jesus the Christ, i.e., the Anointed One/Messiah, are embraced by faith. Jesus the Christ is real as in Scripture as taught by the Church.
-Jesus the Christ is fully man and fully God.
-Jesus is a model, e.g., of love. We only evidence life like Jesus through the transformation given by the Spirit when in relationship to the Father through Jesus.

With these 2 lists next to one-another, I quoted from Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton's SoulSearching and Stephen Nichols' Jesus Made in America. SoulSearching provides an insightful reflection upon moralistic therapeutic deism, i.e., the combination of the Divine Butler and the Cosmic Therapist, which informs much of our culture. Below are the doctrinal points of moralistic therapeutic deism (pp.161-162), note the lack of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is need to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

From Jesus Made in America I shared how this Lancaster Bible College Professor raises concerns about various aspects of the consumer Christian subculture, one example which I highlighted was the good/bad of using VeggieTales to teach Biblical stories to children.  Then I read a quote by J. Gresham Machen used in the opening of Chapter 4 on Jesus, Hero for the Modern World: Harry Emerson Fosdick, J. Gresham Machen and the Real Meaning of Christmas,

Liberalism regards Jesus as the fairest flower of humanity; Christianity regards him as a supernatural person.

From there I turned to the end of Chapter 4 (pp.120-121):

The American evangelical church of today needs to consider whether or not it can still identify the difference between the two [liberalism and Christianity as used in the quote above] and, having done so, see the dangers in the one. It is not enough for us to assume that a foundation of orthodox Christology is in place when we look to the Christmas story for a lesson on selfishness or to the life of Christ for the marks of godly manhood or for deep insight into human experience. Before such criticisms of Christian children's fare are dismissed as the nitpicking of theologians, we should be reminded of what is at stake. Jesus is not merely or supremely the man from Nazareth of ideal character and virtue. He is not the mere exemplar of selfishness for a self-absorbed world. He is that and so much more, infinitely more. He is Lord and Savior, the God-man who died for us. That is the real meaning of Christmas. Even the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) reveals that we at least have to quote Luke 2 if we're attempting to tell the true meaning of Christmas. Above all (again the Peanuts gang helps us out here), we have to show that Christmas is ultimately about the miracle of Christ's birth. That, Charlie Brown, is the real meaning of Christmas.

The crucial foundation of two-nature Christology must be explicitly, must be elaborated on and, in some cases, must be taught in the first place. Such an understanding of Christ is all the more important when we consider the seeming ability of contemporary evangelicals to recognize the problem with the way Jesus is appropriated in our own subculture. It should not escape notice that what got checked at the door as liberalism in previous generations of evangelicals now finds a home in the current generation.

I closed the class in prayer, praying for the Spirit of God to enable us, as the people of God, to fully embrace the Life and Kingdom Work of the Jesus the Christ each and every step of the way, that all we do would bring honor and worship to God the Father.