The Christian Humanist

There is considerable disagreement among historians about how much of the New Testament record can be relied upon as history in the ordinary sense in which we understand history* [see the work of the “Jesus Seminar,” an organization of the leading biblical scholars, http://www.westarinstitute.org/index.html], given the fact that a fairly long time passed from the days in which Jesus lived and taught in Palestine until the traditional stories about him and his teachings that were circulating among the early Christian communities began to be collected from the oral tradition and eventually acquired their present form as the canonical gospels.

It is clear from the surviving historical record that something happened following the crucifixion of Jesus that led his followers to take up his message and teachings. When their leader was arrested and executed by the Roman authorities Jesus’ followers were discouraged, disappointed and frightened. They feared for their safety as they contemplated the fact that they too might be arrested and killed. They abandoned Jesus to his fate and ran. However sometime after his arrest and crucifixion, the crushing sense of disappointment, frustration and defeat the disciples experienced at the death of their leader suddenly gave way in the face of what is called “the Easter Event.”

That “something” that “happened” after the crucifixion is described in the Gospels in mythological terms as Resurrection. We have learned to demythologize these accounts so that we can understand and interpret their significance to us without resorting to mythological language.

Once we get beyond the mythological language, it is clear that the disciples had a life-transforming experience that resulted in a re-ordering of their priorities toward a new way of thinking about what was seriously important and led to their commitment to carry on with Jesus’ teachings.

They interpreted this life-transforming experience to mean that the spirit of Jesus did not die with him but was alive in them challenging them to continue what he had started. It was a life-transforming awareness. They understood this to mean two things: they were to model their lives after his life and they were to carry on his teaching about the kingdom of god and what that implied for the people of Palestine.

Once we have worked our way through the mythological and theological baggage that has accumulated through the ages, we are left with a fundamentally important truth that those who met this itinerant teacher and who heard his teaching were sufficiently captivated by his personality and his message that they were compelled to follow him and his teaching.

At its core, being a Christian means exactly the same thing for us as it meant to his first disciples: consciously choosing to be a follower of Jesus and his teachings. It involves what the medieval theologian Thomas A Kempis called Imitatio Christi, the imitation of Christ. It means to live as Jesus lived and to teach as he taught, to honor truth and show compassion, to stand with the victims of this world against their oppressors, to stand with the weak and the powerless against the abusers and the comfortably powerful, and to maintain one’s integrity no matter the cost. In short being a follower of Jesus meant then and now to be faithful to the spirit of Jesus and his teachings. That is both the meaning and the cost of Christian discipleship.

It is that timeless challenge that continues to captivate and motivate us. It is the challenge accepted by the Peace Corps volunteer, the builder of homes for Habitat for Humanity, the volunteer in the homeless shelters and prisons, those who bring joy to a young child, and the Mother Theresas of the world. And there is nothing in that challenge that requires us to believe in any particular notion of a divine being.

This challenge to Christian discipleship seems to have escaped the notice of much of contemporary Christianity, particularly the so-called “mainline Christian churches” that muddle along with a comfortable conformist Christianity that challenges no beliefs, raises no issues and makes no demands serious enough to change one’s life.

This is the fundamental issue over which I part company with those traditional Christians who take the position that being a Christian essentially means having the right theology, that is, believing a particular set of theological propositions. My argument with them is not with their beliefs or with their confusion between mythology and history, but rather with their premise that affirming a particular set of orthodox doctrinal beliefs rather than striving to emulate the life of Jesus is what essentially defines what it means to be a Christian.

Those who claim they are Christians should be measured against the ultimate test of Christian values – and that means comparing how their words and their actions hold up to the standard of Jesus’ words and actions (so far as we can know what they are) rather than whether they hold correct theology. If their claim is to be understood as more than a claim to believe particular propositions about Jesus that may or may not be true and that cannot in any case be verified, their claim is subject to the litmus test of their decisions and actions.

We’ve now come full circle on this issue of whether it is possible to be a Christian without a concept of God; and if so, what that Christianity would look like. The test is a simple one: anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus should be seen standing with the weak against the powerful, feeding the hungry, comforting the sick, bandaging the wounded, holding the hand of a child, standing with the oppressed against the oppressor. It means humility rather than arrogance and pride. It means becoming fully human.

This is a view of Christianity that makes sense to me. It is a de-mythologized Christianity, a Christianity without the necessity for god and freed from the theological baggage of the centuries preceding us, a Christianity that challenges us regardless of our view of god to model our lives after that of Jesus. Being a Christian is not any more complicated than that.

There is no serious doubt among contemporary historians regardless of their religious faith that Jesus was a real person who lived in Palestine in the First Century. Historians agree that Jesus was an itinerant Jewish teacher who traveled and taught throughout Palestine, gathering disciples around him through the force of his personality and the compelling nature of his message. There is general agreement that Jesus was perceived by the Roman occupiers of Palestine as a dangerous religious radical and a disturber of the peace in consequence of which he was arrested by the local authorities and summarily executed by the Romans by public crucifixion, the standard method used by the Romans to deal with political troublemakers.  

There is considerable disagreement among historians about how much of the New Testament record can be relied upon as history in the ordinary sense in which we understand history* [see the work of the “Jesus Seminar,” an organization of the leading biblical scholars], given the fact that a fairly long time passed from the days in which Jesus lived and taught in Palestine until the traditional stories about him and his teachings that were circulating among the early Christian communities began to be collected from the oral tradition and eventually acquired their present form as the canonical gospels.

It is clear from the surviving historical record that something happened following the crucifixion of Jesus that led his followers to take up his message and teachings. When their leader was arrested and executed by the Roman authorities Jesus’ followers were discouraged, disappointed and frightened. They feared for their safety as they contemplated the fact that they too might be arrested and killed. They abandoned Jesus to his fate and ran. However sometime after his arrest and crucifixion, the crushing sense of disappointment, frustration and defeat the disciples experienced at the death of their leader suddenly gave way in the face of what is called “the Easter Event.”

That “something” that “happened” after the crucifixion is described in the Gospels in mythological terms as Resurrection. We have learned to demythologize these accounts so that we can understand and interpret their significance to us without resorting to mythological language.

Once we get beyond the mythological language, it is clear that the disciples had a life-transforming experience that resulted in a re-ordering of their priorities toward a new way of thinking about what was seriously important and led to their commitment to carry on with Jesus’ teachings.

They interpreted this life-transforming experience to mean that the spirit of Jesus did not die with him but was alive in them challenging them to continue what he had started. It was a life-transforming awareness. They understood this to mean two things: they were to model their lives after his life and they were to carry on his teaching about the kingdom of god and what that implied for the people of Palestine.

Once we have worked our way through the mythological and theological baggage that has accumulated through the ages, we are left with a fundamentally important truth that those who met this itinerant teacher and who heard his teaching were sufficiently captivated by his personality and his message that they were compelled to follow him and his teaching.

At its core, being a Christian means exactly the same thing for us as it meant to his first disciples: consciously choosing to be a follower of Jesus and his teachings. It involves what the medieval theologian Thomas A Kempis called Imitatio Christi, the imitation of Christ. It means to live as Jesus lived and to teach as he taught, to honor truth and show compassion, to stand with the victims of this world against their oppressors, to stand with the weak and the powerless against the abusers and the comfortably powerful, and to maintain one’s integrity no matter the cost. In short being a follower of Jesus meant then and now to be faithful to the spirit of Jesus and his teachings. That is both the meaning and the cost of Christian discipleship.

It is that timeless challenge that continues to captivate and motivate us. It is the challenge accepted by the Peace Corps volunteer, the builder of homes for Habitat for Humanity, the volunteer in the homeless shelters and prisons, those who bring joy to a young child, and the Mother Theresas of the world. And there is nothing in that challenge that requires us to believe in any particular notion of a divine being.

This challenge to Christian discipleship seems to have escaped the notice of much of contemporary Christianity, particularly the so-called “mainline Christian churches” that muddle along with a comfortable conformist Christianity that challenges no beliefs, raises no issues and makes no demands serious enough to change one’s life.

This is the fundamental issue over which I part company with those traditional Christians who take the position that being a Christian essentially means having the right theology, that is, believing a particular set of theological propositions. My argument with them is not with their beliefs or with their confusion between mythology and history, but rather with their premise that affirming a particular set of orthodox doctrinal beliefs rather than striving to emulate the life of Jesus is what essentially defines what it means to be a Christian.

Those who claim they are Christians should be measured against the ultimate test of Christian values – and that means comparing how their words and their actions hold up to the standard of Jesus’ words and actions (so far as we can know what they are) rather than whether they hold correct theology. If their claim is to be understood as more than a claim to believe particular propositions about Jesus that may or may not be true and that cannot in any case be verified, their claim is subject to the litmus test of their decisions and actions.

We’ve now come full circle on this issue of whether it is possible to be a Christian without a concept of God; and if so, what that Christianity would look like. The test is a simple one: anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus should be seen standing with the weak against the powerful, feeding the hungry, comforting the sick, bandaging the wounded, holding the hand of a child, standing with the oppressed against the oppressor. It means humility rather than arrogance and pride. It means becoming fully human.

This is a view of Christianity that makes sense to me. It is a de-mythologized Christianity, a Christianity without the necessity for god and freed from the theological baggage of the centuries preceding us, a Christianity that challenges us regardless of our view of god to model our lives after that of Jesus. Being a Christian is not any more complicated than that.