Talking About the Resurrection, Part 1--Jesus's Teachings Matter
On Sunday, Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times, continued a series of interviews he has done from time to time with Christian religious leaders and thinkers. This time, his conversation partner was Serene Jones, the President of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She said a number of things in this interview, some of which I agree with and many of which I do not, but the one that got the attention was her somewhat dismissive handling of the idea of Jesus's physical resurrection on Eastern Sunday (or, more accurately, Holy Saturday evening). When I first saw the criticism of Rev. Jones circulating on Twitter, I made the cardinal sin of online takes and fired off some Tweets without reading the article when I got home from Easter Vigil early Sunday morning. Rev. Jones and Union have said some, in my view, kinda dumb stuff in the past that I have dragged in this space, and I assumed this was more of the same.
Having now read the interview, I still stand by my Twitter take that the position offered by Rev. Jones and other similar thinkers has no meaningful answer to Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, a topic I want to take up later in this series. But I think there is a lot more to be said on this topic, much more to unpack here, and so I want to do that in a series of posts. But first, I want to deal with the question that Kristof asks at the end, which is really the focus of his whole series:
"For someone like myself who is drawn to Jesus’ teaching but doesn’t believe in the virgin birth or the physical resurrection, what am I? Am I a Christian?"
This is, I think, a critically important question, but I think Kristof is getting tripped up on the term "Christian" and the associated ambiguity over the meaning of that term. Because the term "Christian" is itself a contested term, and means different things in different contexts. In the broader 21st Century American cultural context, "Christian" is a marker of self-identification, and so on that level a Christian is anyone who says that he or she is a Christian. On another level, it is a marker of someone who believes in a particular set of historically grounded doctrinal points and related practices, points and practices that are themselves contested among different groups who claim (see the first definition) the label. For example, I would take the position that in order to be a Christian in the proper sense, you must subscribe to a set of positions that are pretty close to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral and conduct worship in a manner that is derivative of the historical forms practiced in the first Millennia of Christian history. By that definition, modern American evangelicals are not Christians, or at least are highly defective Christians (as they would not affirm points #3 and #4, and sometimes #2, of the Quadrilateral and have no historical liturgical forms). Similarly, many evangelical Christians would consider me to not be a Christian, as I (and Rev. Jones, though it seems for different reasons) reject a substitutionary understanding of Jesus's death on the cross--the idea that Jesus took on punishment from God that would have otherwise gone to the rest of humanity--which many evangelicals consider to be essential to the Christian faith.
But we can by-pass this morass, because I think Kristof is trying to get at a different thing with his question. It seems to me that Kristof is trying to get at the question of whether there is any value or self-consistency in affirming the moral, ethical, and social teachings of Jesus while rejecting (or, perhaps, being skeptical or agnostic about) the supernatural parts of the Jesus story. This question has a long pedigree, most famously addressed by C.S. Lewis with his "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" formulation--either Jesus's supernatural claims to being the Son of God are true and thus He is the Lord, or Jesus lied about being the Son of God, or He was crazy. And, if #2 or #3 are true, says Lewis, then we have no real reason to take any of the rest of the things He said particularly seriously, either. This is the answer Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City gave to Kristof, and reflects what I would say is the standard conservative Christian response to Kristof's query--if you don't believe in the resurrection, then you are at best just a poseur.
But, I disagree whole-heartedly, and would answer Kristof's reformulated question ("is there value in following Jesus's substantive teachings but not necessarily accepting the supernatural claims?") with an unqualified, unapologetic "yes." In a previous post, I quoted Public Enemy's Chuck D with my general thoughts on Lewis: "Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me you see." And nowhere was Lewis more wrong than he is with "Lord, Liar, and Lunatic." First off, it reflects an approach to the Gospel text in which I have called in the past "vocalist"--the idea that the Biblical texts are unmediated divine communications, and here specifically the idea that the Gospels reflect a stenographer's transcription of Jesus's statements. When Lewis says that the non-divine Jesus is either a "lair" or "lunatic" if He isn't "Lord," he presupposes that the contested claims are statements from the mouth of Jesus, and thus their falsehood goes to Jesus's credibility directly. What's crazy about this approach is that Luke begins his Gospel by telling you that he is relying on second hand accounts:
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. (Luke 1:1-4).
So, even within the universe of the texts itself, it is perfectly logical and self-consistent to claim that some of the sources may have been mistaken or their accounts improperly rendered. I mean, if you read the claim "I heard that Mike Boyle can fly," and it turns out Mike Boyle can't fly, that doesn't really impinge on my credibility unless you are sure that I claimed I could fly. Again, I believe Jesus said the things about Himself that were attributed to Him, but my point is that it is not crazy to go through and parse the Gospel texts while maintaining a high view of Jesus's overall credibility.
But my bigger beef with Lewis's approach is that it necessarily denigrates and marginalizes the substantive content of Jesus's teachings. Lewis's framework sets up Keller to say things like "Jesus’ teaching was not the main point of his mission. He came to save people through his death for sin and his resurrection." And Keller, in turn, sets up a Christian praxis in which Jesus's teachings become either ignored or at best paid lip service to, a praxis which is pervasive in American Christianity, especially in its more conservative manifestations. I have a formerly evangelical friend who told me that she was taught that the Gospels were basically like kids stories--cute things to entertain the tykes, but not really worth focusing on if you are a "serious" Christian. And, if "loving your neighbor" and "it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God" are just cute things that we tell little kids and not the core of our faith and our life, then that's how you end up with 80% of American evangelicals cheering when the President they elected puts little kids in cages and takes from the most vulnerable to further enrich those that have more than they can possibly spend. After all, those are just kids stories, and don't matter so long as we hold on to the idea that Jesus is Lord.
No, no, no, no. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the endpoint and capstone on a total vision of the world, of humanity, and of our relationship to each other that is set forth in the Gospel accounts. Keller's framing ("So his important ethical teaching only makes sense when you don’t separate it from these historic doctrines.") is exactly backwards--only by drinking deep in what Jesus has to say to us in concrete terms about how the world is and how we should live can we possibly make sense of the end of the story. Jesus did not come to earth to die; He came to earth to show us what God is like and how we can live into that reality, the total commitment to which inevitably resulted in His execution at the hands of the political and religious authorities who had created a social reality that was violently opposed to that vision. Those are not the same things, and skipping over the content portion allows people to fundamentally empty Christianity of its meaning and radical potential, while allowing them to perpetuate all of the structures and attitudes that lead to Jesus's execution in the first place.
Even putting aside the supernatural elements, I believe that Jesus's account of the nature of the human social world and the optimal solutions for dealing with that social world are objectively correct. And, because they are objectively correct, it doesn't really matter how or why a person comes to understand them or believe them to be true. If someone tells me, as Kristof seems to be doing here, that they accept what Jesus is saying as a guide for living their lives, or even is open to that idea, then that too is objectively a good thing, no matter how that comes to pass. By hook or by crook, things would be better in this world if more people listened to what Jesus had to tell them about loving their neighbors, or at least I think so. Because, again, I think Jesus is right in what He says. And if you're right, you're right.
Now, and here is where the Nietzsche part comes in, I think the argument that Jesus's moral and ethical vision is nonsense on its own terms, and does not in fact reflect the world as it really is, is hard to refute and address without taking on board the supernatural component of Jesus's message. But, I don't think it is impossible, and if someone for whatever set of reasons (maybe they haven't read Nietzsche) decides to embrace Jesus's moral message in their lives, then that's great. Nothing should be done to discourage this. And nothing should be done to denigrate the parallels to Jesus's message in other religious and philosophical traditions (particularly Judaism, which has all of Jesus's stuff in there in a slightly different formulation). A half or three-quarters of a loaf is way, way better than no loaf.
So, is Nicholas Kristof, skeptic of the physical resurrection of Jesus, a Christian? Perhaps not, at least according to what I consider the strict definition of the term. Is it good and praiseworthy that he is attracted to Jesus's moral and ethical teachings? Absolutely. Would I recommend Kristof stop worrying about whether he fits into the label? Yes. It's not everything, but it is something, a big something.
Having now read the interview, I still stand by my Twitter take that the position offered by Rev. Jones and other similar thinkers has no meaningful answer to Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, a topic I want to take up later in this series. But I think there is a lot more to be said on this topic, much more to unpack here, and so I want to do that in a series of posts. But first, I want to deal with the question that Kristof asks at the end, which is really the focus of his whole series:
"For someone like myself who is drawn to Jesus’ teaching but doesn’t believe in the virgin birth or the physical resurrection, what am I? Am I a Christian?"
This is, I think, a critically important question, but I think Kristof is getting tripped up on the term "Christian" and the associated ambiguity over the meaning of that term. Because the term "Christian" is itself a contested term, and means different things in different contexts. In the broader 21st Century American cultural context, "Christian" is a marker of self-identification, and so on that level a Christian is anyone who says that he or she is a Christian. On another level, it is a marker of someone who believes in a particular set of historically grounded doctrinal points and related practices, points and practices that are themselves contested among different groups who claim (see the first definition) the label. For example, I would take the position that in order to be a Christian in the proper sense, you must subscribe to a set of positions that are pretty close to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral and conduct worship in a manner that is derivative of the historical forms practiced in the first Millennia of Christian history. By that definition, modern American evangelicals are not Christians, or at least are highly defective Christians (as they would not affirm points #3 and #4, and sometimes #2, of the Quadrilateral and have no historical liturgical forms). Similarly, many evangelical Christians would consider me to not be a Christian, as I (and Rev. Jones, though it seems for different reasons) reject a substitutionary understanding of Jesus's death on the cross--the idea that Jesus took on punishment from God that would have otherwise gone to the rest of humanity--which many evangelicals consider to be essential to the Christian faith.
But we can by-pass this morass, because I think Kristof is trying to get at a different thing with his question. It seems to me that Kristof is trying to get at the question of whether there is any value or self-consistency in affirming the moral, ethical, and social teachings of Jesus while rejecting (or, perhaps, being skeptical or agnostic about) the supernatural parts of the Jesus story. This question has a long pedigree, most famously addressed by C.S. Lewis with his "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" formulation--either Jesus's supernatural claims to being the Son of God are true and thus He is the Lord, or Jesus lied about being the Son of God, or He was crazy. And, if #2 or #3 are true, says Lewis, then we have no real reason to take any of the rest of the things He said particularly seriously, either. This is the answer Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City gave to Kristof, and reflects what I would say is the standard conservative Christian response to Kristof's query--if you don't believe in the resurrection, then you are at best just a poseur.
But, I disagree whole-heartedly, and would answer Kristof's reformulated question ("is there value in following Jesus's substantive teachings but not necessarily accepting the supernatural claims?") with an unqualified, unapologetic "yes." In a previous post, I quoted Public Enemy's Chuck D with my general thoughts on Lewis: "Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me you see." And nowhere was Lewis more wrong than he is with "Lord, Liar, and Lunatic." First off, it reflects an approach to the Gospel text in which I have called in the past "vocalist"--the idea that the Biblical texts are unmediated divine communications, and here specifically the idea that the Gospels reflect a stenographer's transcription of Jesus's statements. When Lewis says that the non-divine Jesus is either a "lair" or "lunatic" if He isn't "Lord," he presupposes that the contested claims are statements from the mouth of Jesus, and thus their falsehood goes to Jesus's credibility directly. What's crazy about this approach is that Luke begins his Gospel by telling you that he is relying on second hand accounts:
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. (Luke 1:1-4).
So, even within the universe of the texts itself, it is perfectly logical and self-consistent to claim that some of the sources may have been mistaken or their accounts improperly rendered. I mean, if you read the claim "I heard that Mike Boyle can fly," and it turns out Mike Boyle can't fly, that doesn't really impinge on my credibility unless you are sure that I claimed I could fly. Again, I believe Jesus said the things about Himself that were attributed to Him, but my point is that it is not crazy to go through and parse the Gospel texts while maintaining a high view of Jesus's overall credibility.
But my bigger beef with Lewis's approach is that it necessarily denigrates and marginalizes the substantive content of Jesus's teachings. Lewis's framework sets up Keller to say things like "Jesus’ teaching was not the main point of his mission. He came to save people through his death for sin and his resurrection." And Keller, in turn, sets up a Christian praxis in which Jesus's teachings become either ignored or at best paid lip service to, a praxis which is pervasive in American Christianity, especially in its more conservative manifestations. I have a formerly evangelical friend who told me that she was taught that the Gospels were basically like kids stories--cute things to entertain the tykes, but not really worth focusing on if you are a "serious" Christian. And, if "loving your neighbor" and "it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God" are just cute things that we tell little kids and not the core of our faith and our life, then that's how you end up with 80% of American evangelicals cheering when the President they elected puts little kids in cages and takes from the most vulnerable to further enrich those that have more than they can possibly spend. After all, those are just kids stories, and don't matter so long as we hold on to the idea that Jesus is Lord.
No, no, no, no. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the endpoint and capstone on a total vision of the world, of humanity, and of our relationship to each other that is set forth in the Gospel accounts. Keller's framing ("So his important ethical teaching only makes sense when you don’t separate it from these historic doctrines.") is exactly backwards--only by drinking deep in what Jesus has to say to us in concrete terms about how the world is and how we should live can we possibly make sense of the end of the story. Jesus did not come to earth to die; He came to earth to show us what God is like and how we can live into that reality, the total commitment to which inevitably resulted in His execution at the hands of the political and religious authorities who had created a social reality that was violently opposed to that vision. Those are not the same things, and skipping over the content portion allows people to fundamentally empty Christianity of its meaning and radical potential, while allowing them to perpetuate all of the structures and attitudes that lead to Jesus's execution in the first place.
Even putting aside the supernatural elements, I believe that Jesus's account of the nature of the human social world and the optimal solutions for dealing with that social world are objectively correct. And, because they are objectively correct, it doesn't really matter how or why a person comes to understand them or believe them to be true. If someone tells me, as Kristof seems to be doing here, that they accept what Jesus is saying as a guide for living their lives, or even is open to that idea, then that too is objectively a good thing, no matter how that comes to pass. By hook or by crook, things would be better in this world if more people listened to what Jesus had to tell them about loving their neighbors, or at least I think so. Because, again, I think Jesus is right in what He says. And if you're right, you're right.
Now, and here is where the Nietzsche part comes in, I think the argument that Jesus's moral and ethical vision is nonsense on its own terms, and does not in fact reflect the world as it really is, is hard to refute and address without taking on board the supernatural component of Jesus's message. But, I don't think it is impossible, and if someone for whatever set of reasons (maybe they haven't read Nietzsche) decides to embrace Jesus's moral message in their lives, then that's great. Nothing should be done to discourage this. And nothing should be done to denigrate the parallels to Jesus's message in other religious and philosophical traditions (particularly Judaism, which has all of Jesus's stuff in there in a slightly different formulation). A half or three-quarters of a loaf is way, way better than no loaf.
So, is Nicholas Kristof, skeptic of the physical resurrection of Jesus, a Christian? Perhaps not, at least according to what I consider the strict definition of the term. Is it good and praiseworthy that he is attracted to Jesus's moral and ethical teachings? Absolutely. Would I recommend Kristof stop worrying about whether he fits into the label? Yes. It's not everything, but it is something, a big something.
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