Sunday, February 26, 2006
(5:33 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Scattered Theological Thoughts
I'm reading Hans Küng's On Being a Christian -- a huge and hugely presumptuous book -- and this has spurred some thoughts. First of all, it occurs to me: if you are concerned that your particular branch of Christianity has declined into a kind of petty legalism and think that's a bad thing, just say that -- leave the Jews out of it. There is no reason why the Jews should be subject to critique for the failings of the Code of Canon Law, for instance. An empty ritualistic religion seems to be undesirable in itself, without any need to add, "because then you'd be like those damn Jews."Secondly, as regards "the historical Jesus": just admit it, you're making him up. Küng in particular seems to have an almost spooky knowledge of the historical Jesus -- for the good of humanity, he needs to reveal the time-travel method he used to go out and personally listen to the Sermon on the Mount. Hanging too much on the deeds and mission of Jesus seems to me to be really wrong-headed, for reasons I can't fully articulate. I know that many have critiqued the creeds for leaving Jesus's ministry out, and I can see what they mean, but I ultimately don't agree. Of course, all of my ideas are based on a more or less hallucinated version of early church history, and I'm not a Bible scholar so I'm not allowed to comment anyway -- but I think that just knowing he was born, that he died, that he rose again, that he was the messiah, is enough. He needs to be something of a cipher, something of a formal element.
Yes, part of the formal structure of the Christ event would be an opening of everything to radical critique, so that the (more or less artfully concealed) attempt to father one's own critique of culture on Jesus is moving in the right direction -- but I'm just not satisfied with the argument from authority, ultimately. Take responsibility for what you're saying, for your opposition to the authorities -- don't be a coward who says, "Oh, well, I'm just sharing with you the results of the finest and most recent historical scholarship...." It's okay to be a smart-ass and say that just to piss people off (if you're conscious of what you're doing), but it's not okay to disavow your own convinctions and claim to be serving the mere facts. Take responsibility.
