history and faith transcended by mystery
George Demetrion
Thanks Roger
I am still not getting CC emails, though I can send them. So I go to the archives, copy and paste them into Word documents which then allows me to respond to whatever may be posted, such as the following rich text from Roger:
So what if we could prove the historical Jesus to a greater extent than has already been do BUT their was no witness of the experiential witness of the thousands upon thousands who claim to have had one! Those who after such person “meetings” in their great variety have been transformed by repentance and faith! Those who have at the extreme died as martyrs or who have served in myriad capacities out of gratitude for liberation? The subjectivity of all this personal salvation and it’s resulting communal action weighs so heavy in its historical accumulation what more is required? To me the evidence of goodness and love that the Body of Christ shines forth should be light enough to bring the world to its knees in faith but amazingly it does not! Not yet anyway! As you know I am a late life convert so I take Jesus command to be born again as no mere suggestion. The driving spiritual force the Holy Spirit creates at the hearing of the Word is a self defining witness that God’s uncreated energy is sufficient to bring about “Kingdom” reality! As well for me—besides witnessing the work of the church does in all its variety—- the gushing forth and sustenance of new life in the natural world IS irrefutable evidence of God’s sovereign presence and power! Nature in and of itself is not benevolent but the Creator is on our behalf! Should we all not weep in gratitude at the sight of it! The Liturgy and the Sacraments are also designed by the Spirit to disorientate us from what distances us from God and reorientate us to his immediate and personal love! One drop of blood saves the universe George but He pours out gallons from the store house of grace!!! Only Jesus can disappear the distance from a sinful man to a Holy God! Praise his wonderful name! ALL history belongs to him alone! Love and love to all the sweet believers in Confessing Christ!!! AND bless God for the great teachers who have left us!!!
That is an incredible reflection, Roger, which I could not begin to come close to matching your heartfelt eloquence. This is as rich as a statement as I have ever heard. At some level, I wish I felt anywhere near as strong in my faith as do you (and this is no faint praise), though I am in one of those places where I’m interested in a lot else and simply cannot do God 24/7 as I said to a friend a while ago. I don’t say this lightly or in any snarky way. That said, I’m still engaged in a faith journey that has now expanded over 45 years, and like yours, mine is rooted in a very distinctive born-again experience (June 20, 1972 between 6:00-8:00 pm). In this, I'm still God obsessed, sometimes despite myself.
I agree that history, in its current form, as a secularized academic discipline, can neither prove nor disprove anything fundamental about Jesus Christ in his primary role as the source of inspiring and life transforming faith, and there very well may be some gaps between the NT depiction and the historical personage who lived and died in 30 CE in Palestine. This is at least an open issue when examining the claims and counterclaims of two of the reigning scholars in the field of contemporary the Jesus of history studies, Domic Crossan and N.T. Wright, as reflected in their respective magisterial work. Crossan thinks there was not an initial burial nor a literal resurrection, as depicted in the gospels, while Wright argues there is a very close correspondence between the lived experience of Jesus of Nazareth and his initial disciples and the events depicted especially in the synoptic gospels.
Given the seemingly unsolvable nature reality of this matter and the lack of primary sources going back to circa 30 CE, I cling to Paul’s key theological insight that God was in Christ reconciling the world (2 Cor 5:19) as my primary hermeneutic in grappling with the relationship between faith and history. I believe God did act in history in a unique way in elevating Jesus as the Christ through the mystery of the Incarnation. I also believe that that mystery is embedded throughout the Gospels and the entirety of the New Testament. I am willing to say something along the lines that the NT depiction of the risen Christ is a symbol of what happened in actual real-time history while taking your key point that all history belongs to God. In this respect, the symbol is a greater reflection of the reality that which is conveyed through the historical iconography the New Testament text.
Best wishes,
George