Sitting on the Edge of the Fence

By: Fred Plumer

At the risk of letting this blog page become a message or discussion board, I feel compelled to respond to publicly to Adrian's comments since his questions are so well written, and so universal. I believe that the vast majority of people who quietly refer to themselves as Christians today, like Adrian, are also sitting and the fence. And as I visit congregations all over the country, I have discovered that many of them are trying to function with a fence down the middle of the sanctuary that is much like the ignored "elephant in the room."

Actually this fence that he refers to has been there for nearly two thousand years although ignored by the vast majority of Christians over the years. At one point, by the end of the second century, it was divided into two large camps-those who believed that Jesus was God or and those who believed he was an angelic human who had a godly nature. It turned into a battle between the followers of Bishop Athanasias and the very popular Greek priest and theologian, Arias. The divide was clearly defined at the cost of many lives in the Forth Century when Constantine demanded a unified Christianity. Over a period of several decades Bishops were called together to vote on who and what Jesus was. As it turned out, the defining moment occurred in Nicaea in 325 when the Athanasias followers were able to get a majority vote for what became the Nicene Creed. The Arians were defeated and the power-brokers bishops who favored the God/Jesus began to clean out the Arian followers. The were deemed heretics and the fully human Jesus disappeared into the mist of mythology.

Most Christians today are totally unaware that the vast majority of things they believe about the person-hood of Jesus of Nazareth are the result of a huge political struggle between the followers of Arias and politically savvy Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria. Probably one of the best accounts of this often ignored piece of our church history is covered in an excellent book by Richard E. Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God.   According to Rubenstein and others there were several votes taken in different parts of the empire, before and after Nicaea that were a very close. The struggle between these factions continued for decades in spite of the arrests, the deaths and the torture that the Arian followers faced before going underground.

What would have happened if the Arians had won the battle? What would Christianity look like today or would it even exist? That of course is a very interesting question. I would suggest that it would have been difficult to build a church institution without a Savior whose access was controlled by that same institution. But of course we will never know. 

The real issue is, what can Christianity be today? I believe the primary reason that our Christian churches are failing today is because they do not know what they believe, or more importantly, why they are in existence except to be a church. What is the purpose of the church today?

In my opinion scholars have done a pretty thorough job of deconstructing the myth of the one and only God/Jesus over the last half a century. The historical legs of Triune God have been systematically kicked out from under the stool, and most students of religious courses in our universities and seminaries are well aware of that. Scholars like Robert M. Price, Burton L. Mack and Tom Harpur among others have so thoroughly deconstructed the historical Jesus that they have even questioned if there really was a historical Jesus.

Harpur posits that the story of Jesus is no different than the story of Osiris and Horus of Egyptian mythology, right down to the virgin birth, the suffering servant, the god/human savior and the death and resurrection in three days. (The Pagan Christ) All of this information is available today to anyone who wants to do a little research. Certainly most serious clergy and seminarians have read some of these books.

The result is that a lot of main-line clergy and church leadership really do not know what to teach or why they are teaching it. The are uncomfortable teaching things they no longer believe in and they are even more uncomfortable talking about real change in positions with which people have become comfortable in their congregations. So they sit on the fence and muddle. The talk about social justice and teach about the historical Jesus but seldom confront the most serious flaws in their belief system. So the prayers stay the same; the rituals stay the same; the sermons are evasive and uninspiring and the people who were spiritual hungry, go away feeling even more hungry.

So what do we do with all of this. We get off the fence and look to see what is really there. Together we recreate a new and compelling Christology and a viable theology. What is there is a profound and beautiful path that can help us realize and actualize the truth of our tradition-that all living creatures are a spark of the divine and we have the capacity to incarnate that divinity through our faith, our mind and our actions. If we take the Christ path seriously and joyfully, we can incarnate the divine from within and begin to see the divine in others. We have both the power and destiny to deify the world. Now that is something that we can get excited about.

So what is this path. It is a way of being, of seeing and hearing our reality differently. It is contemplative and engaging. It is all right there in front of us, in spite of the efforts to bury it in depths of the early church's biases. But the one thing that I am certain-it does not start with a Savior but rather with a teacher. A very special teacher, I believe, who has been there.

Comments

[Adrian Gibb]

Hi again,
I wont reply in a post but in this comment, so will try and keep it short.
To fully appreciate how much an obstacle this fence is I can say categorically that I agree with about 99% of what was said in the above post, yet still cannot and could not hold this to be the extent of my Christian faith. I NEED what I guess I will call the 'metaphysical' Jesus to find, within the Jesus story, that 'oomph' that makes me devote myself to Christianity. I could go on for hours as to why I need that, but for this comment let me just say that without the metaphyisical aspect of Jesus, I doubt I would be a Christian. As many of you who have read my posts will know, I am a passionate progressive, but I am one who has within my faith outlook a metaphysical element. I think what the above post and my comment may show is that there is, perhaps, a divide within the progressive movement between those who see Jesus as a wisdom teacher and nothing else (as powerful as that is), and those who add onto that notion a metaphysical aspect. What concerns me is that many Christians, who may have a progressive mindset and who may passionately hold to all 8 points of TCPC, yet also hold to a metaphysical aspect of Jesus, may perceive within the progressive community either an expressed or implied orthodoxy which rejects this notion. So, what can be done?
Perhaps the way to get rid of this fence is to make it a moveable one? Perhaps a simple addition to the first point of TCPC may find a common ground for those progressives with and without a metaphysical aspect? At the moment the first point reads: "By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus." But what if this was changed to:
"...we are Christians who have found an approach to God through Jesus. We emphasis the life and teachings of Jesus. Belief in any metaphysical aspects of Jesus is left to the individual."
Of course I have no right to foist my own opinions of the points onto anybody else, but perhaps the above wording could be that common ground. Emphasise the wisdom teacher and his message, but allow each individual to have that metaphysical aspect if they so wish. Tony Campolo says we should stop worrying about "pie in the sky when we die by and by" and concentrate on what Jesus wanted us to do. Absolutely! But we all know that Campolo would never reject the metaphysical aspect of Jesus. Anyway, I have raved enough. Any thoughts?

[Tim]

Funnily enough I've just finished reading Rubenstein "When Jesus Became God" myself. I emerge with two strong feelings:
a) the argument was bloody and vicious, on both sides supposedly supporting Athanasius and Arius, in fact, it was not settled on its merits nor through discussion but rather with too much violence on all fronts so is actually still open for debate
b) it's funny how we still say the Nicene creed, normally thinking "it's just some ritual statement of the early church to show who's in or out", without much understanding of the history.

My previous readings, including Spong and Borg, have lead me to understand a clear separation between Jesus (a historical man) and the Christ (originally a Jewish concept of Messiah in the realm of myth, now taken into our own tradition as an eternal figure), to the extent that I now differentiate between "Jesus" and "Christ". *However*, having achieved such a separation, I can also make statements eg that God(liness) is in the Christ, that Christ was in Jesus, etc.

The prayers are valid because they exist to make people think and get their fingers out about what's being considered.
The rituals are valid because through them the liturgy is expressed. Indeed, it's precisely because low/liberal anglo-catholics can know the difference between myth, history and reality and yet *still* worship through liturgies that I have greatest respect for that tradition.

The sermons are "evasive" because there's every chance much of the congregation can't cope with the scholarly approach to exegesis, least of all in a 10-minute timeframe. Witness how much furore is caused when the mainstream media get their grubby hands on the previous bishop of Durham, +Holloway, or ++Williams making simple statements that merely require a little thought to understand.
I'm not convinced that the people go away hungry, however. They have every opportunity to go buy some good books via amazon as anyone else and to be as involved in the worship of the service as they want.

[[email protected]]

Adrian, I am not speaking for all progressive Christians by any means. In fact, to be completely honest- I am so far on the other side of the fence, that the fence is simply a blurry line in the distance. Now, this is not to say that I think I am farther along in any direction (I tend to run circles in the field, dance, jump, go backwards, forwards and most definitely enjoy being off the path more than being on it) However, I just wanted to say that for those of us that have taken the jump to the other side of the splintery fence- I think that you'll find that to us- you can call Jesus whatever you want- anything really- progressive Christians can not fight over definitions. To you, he is God and that is exactly what you need (as you said) in this moment in your life. To me- we are all God. And that is simply, how I need to look at the picture in order to be able to follow a path of compassion and non-judgment. So, if the fence still feels right to you, hang out there for awhile longer. Than maybe you can re-evaluate at some point. And of all the billions of people on this earth, don't you think its possible that God has manifested in more than one human?? When I saw the Dalai Lama- I saw God so clearly shining in his eyes. And then we get to the tricky question...what is God?

[Adrian Gibb]

Hi again Deshna,
Yeah it is a tricky question. But it comes down, I guess, your approach to God, well, to theism. One can be a Deist, seeing a creative intelligent design to existence but seeing that figure as being distant and not personal. One can be a pantheist, which I think you would susbcribe to Deshna, where God IS everyone and everything and we, in turn are all God (I should probably say here that I have explored this notion myself and for many reasons decided it is not for me. So, to carry on with the analogy, I have already hopped off the fence, walked in your direction, but decided to head back as it wasn't for me. Just important to say that as I don't think I need to re-evaluate at any point, I have already done, but who knows!). Then there is panentheism, which is the notion that everything is WITHIN God, but not necessarily fully Divine in of itself. The illustration often used is if you place a napkin into a glass of water, the napkin stays a napkin, but it is enveloped by the water. Anyway, I would say I am a mixture of all three of these. Yes, I absolutely see the divine in the Dalai Lama and yes, I truly believe that the divine has been manifested in more than one human, as I have said previously. But, again, for me Jesus takes up a unique place, not an exclusive place, but a unique place, in a metaphysical sense, and that is important to me. I think it is important that there isn't this perception that eventually we who adhere to a metaphysical Jesus will 'get over it', or, to quote Dawkins et al, 'grow up'. For me, and I would say for many others, we have reached this position after many many years searching, exploring all the notions and many of the books already mentioned here, and still have come to this conclusion in our faith journey. I guess what I am saying is this, the fence can be a negative construct, certainly, and part of me does wish for more certainty, but all one needs to do is called it a 'middle way' and it can become quite spiritually comforting. I think I am coming around to this mindset, a progressive Jesus whose teachings are emphasised, but a personal belief in a metaphysical side.
Hope this all makes sense, rambled a bit!

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

For me, it comes down to whether the power of Jesus lives on today, or He's just a dead teacher. Many progressive who follow Jesus feel there is a connection with His "being" in the present. That is not to say this is the only way to experience God or Jesus, but I hope it is recognized as a valid path for some progressives, rather than a crutch to be overcome.