‘Seven: The Way of the Cross’
Part 7 of our reading through ‘Did God Kill Jesus’ by Tony Jones
Read Part 7 ‘The Way of the Cross’ of ‘Did God Kill Jesus’. Read the short reflection below, then comment about either Part 7 or the reflection!
Here, we move from the purely theoretical, heady space of theology and philosophy into the practical, lived theology. Living our belief and the experience of living with the presence of God: the true vision of God as one in (reciprocal) relationship with humanity.
Peace
Violence haunts us. It stalks us.
The fundamental question Tony Jones began with, (the title) is born out in the two inquiries he has made in every theory of atonement: how does it jibe with peace and with the belief that God is love? These two are not only linked but bound. Peace and love are intertwined, making them essentially the same.
For God to be love, God must be love. In every way. Ends cannot justify these means because ends and means both reflect that love. A relational and present God experiences our love and helps us see God in our experience of love.
Solidarity
The question of Jesus’s love for the poor and the outcast has been a source of great conflict, particularly from those of us who are not poor or cast out. And to make things even more complicated for many Americans, there is a changing sense of who is poor and cast out.
Many of us have heard of the Catholic teaching of the 20th Century which speaks to God’s preferential option for the poor. We can see in the gospels a constant focus on the poor and the outcast. Then we also have teachings which challenge the wealthy. And there is a glaring omission of teachings many of us would want to hear from Jesus: “blessed are the middle class”.
What I’ve seen in the gospels is a constant teaching to me and you and every reader of them to love and show solidarity with the poor and the outcast. The measure of our love and devotion is found in our solidarity with people who may or may not be like us. While this is a personal concern, it is an outward focus.
In this way, the more we locate Jesus in the gospels, finding his presence with those who need him and how, the more we are likely to relocate ourselves from a place of privilege and into that space of solidarity and relationship with them. Much like we’ve heard in recent years that the more people make friends with people unlike them or have minority groups in their families, the more they empathize with their position.
The more they love them.
Love and Presence
It seems the greatest struggle for Christians is synthesizing the intellectual belief with the actualized belief. Or walking and talking the talk.
We do this when we talk about issues of “politics and religion” and when we believe whole-heartedly in a resurrected Christ while thinking killing is a necessary evil. This isn’t just the times people try to convince each other that red-faced screaming at them is really an expression of love. It happens whenever we see belief as something that happens in our heads and hearts.
And that’s it.
This is what exposes many of the atonement theories as insufficient for us as they require an internal logic, which make sense only when not exposed to the real world. Or that rarified air of talking with another person at a coffee shop.
There is something about the presence of God which forces us to confront the boundaries of our minds and hearts, the silos of our solo-spirituality and our “only in community” ideologies. That the essentializing of our beliefs has been a problem from the very beginning.
From the Greek “omnis” to open theism, we are forced to wrestle with a belief that is both fluid and structured, personal and corporate, anchored and loose, mistaken and trustworthy. That God can be bigger and smaller than all that.
