Demythologizing Jesus?

If we remove myth, what's left?  Without myth, what is Jesus Christ worth to us? All we would have left is what he ‘said’ to us, and as we have established earlier in this blog, and drawn from the efforts of biblical scholars, even Jesus Christ’s words are quite arguably the words of the gospel writers about what Jesus Christ said, not necessarily the actual words of Jesus Christ.

When we remove the mythology, much of the special romance and sacred trappings go right out the door with it.  The shepherds watching in the night of Jesus's birth, the guiding star, the Virgin birth; all of these sacred yet mythological stories go away.  What historical scholarship tells us is that a person was born and lived up to age 30, wherein the particulars of the story of his life begin.

What that leaves us theologically, is a man called Jesus appearing to John the Baptist in the River Jordan at around age 30, who according to his disciples’ writings, unites with his Christ like nature, and has varying experiences in his life for the next three years, until his death and resurrection.  The historical significance, sans myth, could be summed up to be: the life-changing impact of this man on the lives of his followers and on subsequent generations.

Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most controversial scholars in the European theological world, says, “We must realize that much of its (New Testament) thinking is in mythical terms. It pictures a three-layer universe: heaven, the earth, and underneath the earth Gehenna or Hades, as the case may be."[1] Bultmann proposed that when we demythologize the New Testament and Jesus, what we have left that is significant is solely the impact that Jesus Christ has on the individual believer, nothing more.

For me, I can appreciate the value of these particular myths, in their attractive nature and connective power in linking our lives to that of Jesus Christ; yet even without them, and even with just Bultmann’s harsh perspective, the life altering significance of Jesus Christ upon my life as an individual believer, is all that really matters to me.

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[1] Johnson, Sherman. “Bultmann and the Mythology of the New Testament.”  Anglican Theological Review, January 1, 1954, 31.

You can't get there from here.

Shall we pray to God's presence and power in the cosmos, opening ourselves to the infilling of Spirit, or, shall we pray centering on the Spirit within, and allowing it to emerge?

According to the Roman Catholic Church, which holds that God must prepare our souls to accept his blessings (ostensibly by bestowing the gift of faith via prevenient grace), God moves from the outside in, from the cosmos into ourselves (again, only with his assistance), and thus when we pray to God we are praying to an external presence and divinity, not to an indwelling spirit. As Dr. Tom points out, much of traditional Protestantism is based on this idea of prevenient grace, which itself came out of the Calvinistic concept of the inherent wickedness of mankind.

If man is inherently sinful and human nature is basically evil, the sole way to affect a change in mankind must fundamentally come from an external spirit, from an outward separate source, from a higher and inherently more powerful station. Thus, traditional Christianity holds that God is indeed “out there”, and not "in here," and our prayers are directed externally, out to the cosmos.

We begin to look from the opposite perspective when we understand that mysticism can be agreed to be the identification of self with and movement toward the Divine.  When we pray centering on the Spirit within we are following the mystical theology of Charles Fillmore, wherein he characterizes, "holiness is consciousness that God is not out there as a separate entity but dwells within as an all – pervasive spirit. If God is the very structure of reality, as Paul Tillich proposed, goodness and holiness must lie at the heart of all things. Individuals may distort that goodness by using their divine power of free will, nevertheless all mortals "live and move and have our being" in God's Spirit, "for we are his offspring." (from Glimpses of Truth, page 114)

One can make a simple argument and say that it is impossible for anyone to actually be separated from God, being that God is both omnipotence and omnipresence. And since there is no separation from God, one is inherently and unavoidably praying to Spirit within. One can also draw on the New Testament for support for this perspective in Paul's writings to the church at Corinth found in 1 Corinthians 6:19:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own.

We find further support for the spirit within perspective in Jesus’s words from the Sermon on the Mount: "Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." This instruction would have little or no usefulness if its goal was not attainable, and if we can pursue the perfection of our heavenly Father, we must certainly be like him in nature and makeup.

So, which way is it? From my life experience, I identify with an inclusive theology that contains both perspectives, or allows for a paradox of the two perspectives to be sensible as a way of walking in faith. And thus I believe that this theological question is not a subject for a definitive answer, but actually a milepost or bridge along the way that must be crossed in walking the path of becoming more heavenly perfect, while at the same time embodying and expressing outwardly "the imprisoned splendor within."

The Depths of Faith

What do I do now, how do I think and feel now; now that I know that the presentation of Jesus Christ as a human – divine being as found in the Bible, is just a literary characterization?  For me, the bubble of looking at the Bible as literary truth had burst long, long ago; yet I find this new (to me) theological perspective that the "words of Jesus" are really the "words of Matthew about Jesus" or the "words of Luke about Jesus" a little disheartening and requiring of more introspection of the basis of my beliefs.  For it certainly makes sense (of the old dirt-farmer common sense breed) that the basis of my faith hold up to scrutiny both from my intellectual and feeling natures; to live by what Emilie Cady termed "an understanding faith."

So, is Jesus Christ really in the Bible? For me the answer is still yes, and the way that I work with the literary characterization question can be depicted as looking at the difference between a biography of a person versus the autobiography of a person. It is pretty clear from Dr. Tom's class that we're dealing with the biography of a person, which is inherently a literary characterization, in contrast to the literal words of Jesus, which would be suggestive of true autobiography. Yet, to use the example of Abraham Lincoln, we do have some of his writings, yet most of what I know about Abraham Lincoln has actually come from others writing about Abraham Lincoln, as opposed to my personal reading of the letters and writings of Abraham Lincoln. So, do I still believe in Abraham Lincoln and in what he stood for? Yes I do. In a similar manner, do I still believe in Jesus Christ and what he stood and lived for? Do I still believe that Jesus Christ is really present in the New Testament? Yes, I do.

Another aspect of my description of my beliefs that may need to change because of this new perspective was my calling of myself to be a "red letter Christian." Thus, the use of the "actual words" of Jesus as the summarizing characterization of my beliefs needs to be used more judiciously, depending on the theological perspective of a particular conversation or audience.

And again, what if one of my favorite biblical stories is not real? The story of the adulteress, who was being chased out of the city and about to be stoned to death for her sins, wherein Jesus is reported to have said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." It troubles me to let go of my attachment to this story, yet what this story has meant for me in the development of my faith still remains, because the productive results of working with my faith and my personal experience of the changes and transformations in my life have provided for me substantial evidence of the reality of my Master Teacher.

Thus, Jesus Christ is still present for me in the New Testament stories, perhaps now even more deeply, as my faith drawn from these biblical stories shifts a little more from the external words to the internal experience of my being.

Our churches need some theological help!

The description of theology that Dr. Tom gives in his Glimpses:

Theology: organized, rational reflection on ideas and practices pertaining to the Divine, God and Ultimate Concerns, evaluated from within the boundaries of a chosen circle of faith, is a more satisfactory and complete statement of definition in comparison to the simplistic, Theology: the study of God, that I grew up with. In looking at the six functions of theology as given by Dr. Tom we have the following purposes ands meanings:

One) Ongoing re-interpretations of the faith. One arena where it is easy to see the importance of the reinterpretation of accepted ideas and theories and the practices that stem from those is the arena of science. And science practiced true to its nature is tasked with the objective of discovering what is really true, regardless of any prevailing theory. Theological reflection provides the same ongoing interpretation, and shows us we must be open to and available to learn what is actually true regardless of our prevailing spiritual understandings, doctrines, and cherished beliefs. In the churches that I have attended I found that re-interpretations of the faith were supplied by the method of contrasting traditional Christianity against New Thought, and there was no mention or concept of re-interpreting New Thought itself. It seems that for so many people New Thought religious beliefs were newly encountered, such that most of us were beginners, and probably even if asked would not have been able to sustain any real discussion or new interpretation of New Thought itself. I myself was too busy trying to understand it in the first place. And even after many years in the movement, the trainings I received and the class and experiential work I was involved in was designed to deepen my experience and understanding of the current beliefs and introspection to better prepare myself to be of service to others.

Two) Provide critical analysis of religious ideas. Simply put theology certainly includes religious analysis, or as Dr. Tom purely put it, "in short, effective theology is critical." Theological analysis looks at religious ideas in a different way; that is, not in a devotional or inspirational way, but in a practical critical (in the non-negative sense or analytical meaning of critical) methodology. This particular function of theology is one that has been severely limited at the churches that I have attended; in that the analysis or presentations of religious ideas that I experienced have been trainings to further the understanding of one's own religious tradition (in this case New Thought). Where I did find this function was in the process of contrasting and comparing our religious beliefs against other traditions in a way to determine what was most useful (with an embedded bias to New Thought). I guess one might say that the process of deepening my understanding involved analysis in that I was applying my understandings of the beliefs onto my experiences, and sifting through the wheat and chaff to embrace and hold onto what had value to me personally, but I didn't think of it as re-interpretation. For me it was application of principle and introspection, but through utilizing my newly minted lens of thinking theologically (albeit a novice lens), I now see that I was actually engaging with and employing the tools of theological reflection and theological analysis.

Three) Integration of religious ideas with everyday life. It is important that our religious ideas and traditions have a worldly effect and are applicable to our everyday life. We may use theological reflection to help with that process and to look at areas of everyday life, such as healing and prosperity, in addition to the older traditions applications of religious ideas as pastoral care giving and comforting and compassion. This is an area in which all of the New Thought churches that I have been involved with over the years emphasize, for is a strong part of the heritage of metaphysical Christianity. It is one of the aspects of the Unity movement that I first admired and embraced as helpful and life-sustaining practical information on my spiritual journey.

Four) Establish dialogue within the theological circle. It is important for practical Christians to engage in theological dialogue with other Christian traditions. As Dr. Tom says, "we have much to learn from each other," and the way to facilitate this exchange of ideas is with mutual respect and openness to new understandings and religious perspectives and beliefs. I have seen a growing evidence of this through interfaith services and local interdenominational activities, yet I have not experienced anything that truly meets the definition of theological discussion and reflection fostered in the churches that I have been involved with. This may be occurring at the minister peer-to-peer level at Interfaith councils, but I have not been party to these.  At a distance, they appear more focused on fostering cooperation and establishing better relations rather than fostering theological dialogue.

Five) Interpretation of symbolism. Lao Tzu in his poetic language of the Tao calls God "the name that cannot be named." Thus are all of our mental constructs and the language used to structure and convey them symbolic and an attempt to bring the Infinite into finite symbol in order to facilitate understanding. A favorite way that New Thought practitioners ‘interpret’ symbols or ideas is through the process of creating new acronyms, such as saying that when one hears (or certainly feels) the word fear, one should know that it just stands for false evidence appearing real.  This ‘artistic license’ application of New Thought principles to current and embedded ideas has been a regular feature of many of the ministries that I have known.

Six) Raise new issues and suggest answers. "Theology carries a divine mandate to seek, understand, and speak the word of God to each new generation" says Dr. Tom. There must be enough openness in our practice of living as the divine to allow for new answers and new attitudes and even the re-emergence of ancient attitudes, and an openness to seek, find, and implement new answers. At my home church in Beaverton, Oregon, there is a large congregational emphasis on the earth and on environmental concerns, and a very active Earth Care team has been in service there for many years.  This team has its own defined Earth Care covenant, actively promotes and facilitates restoration and maintenance work in the local city parks, and offers sustainability education and resource management information to the congregation and its team members on a regular consistent basis.

Overall, in the ministries that I have been involved with, some of the functions of theology have been applied and are in mainline use, yet there are still too many gaping voids that need to be filled with more profound and sharper applications and understandings of today’s practice of theology.