Recently, while discussing topics in the philosophy of religion during my introductory course in philosophy, a student claimed that Jesus was \u201ca rebel.\u201d\u00a0 Although this judgment of hers is not without some truth, it is decidedly false in the sense in which I am sure she intended for it to be taken.<\/p>\n
The idea that Jesus was a rebel or radical is certainly an improvement over the \u201cmeek and mild\u201d Jesus of the popular imagination.\u00a0 The latter is a neutered Jesus, a Jesus that functions as a blank screen upon which anyone and everyone can project his theological, moral, and political idiosyncrasies.\u00a0 The former, in contrast, is a being with passion and conviction.\u00a0 Also, this reading of Jesus at least has some<\/em> grounding in the Biblical text.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, in the sense in which it is commonly used, the sense in which my student used it, the image of Jesus as rebel is as much of a fiction as is that of Jesus meek and mild.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many contemporary New Testament scholars have labored hard to promote this depiction of Jesus as a radical or rebel.\u00a0 While I lack their professional expertise, as a Christian, I can confidently reject their reading of the Scriptures.<\/p>\n The problem with the words \u201crebel\u201d and \u201cradical\u201d lies in their connotations. More often than not, they are explicitly political.\u00a0 <\/em>And even when they aren\u2019t explicitly <\/em>political, they are implicitly <\/em>as much, for they suggest a figure whose critical eye is forever set upon a culture.<\/p>\n Those scholars and laypersons who are fond of referring to Jesus as \u201ca rebel\u201d or \u201cradical\u201d know this.\u00a0 This is why they do it.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n By casting Jesus as a \u201cradical,\u201d those students of the Bible whose sympathies lie with the politics of the left\u2014i.e. most<\/em> of those who characterize Jesus as a \u201cradical\u201d\u2014hope to link Him with their own ideological causes and commitments.\u00a0 For example, Jesus, they say, was a champion of \u201csocial justice.\u201d\u00a0 Those who do not consciously subscribe to leftist politics, on the other hand, have their own reasons for seeing Jesus as a \u201cradical\u201d: they want their Christianity\u2014and, thus, their Christ\u2014to have political relevance.<\/p>\n In any case, if <\/em>we insist on viewing Jesus as a rebel, then we must be clear as to what He was and was not rebelling against.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jesus was not an \u201canti-imperialist\u201d rebelling against imperial Rome. \u00a0Nor was He an \u201cegalitarian\u201d interested in \u201cdeconstructing\u201d those \u201csocial structures\u201d designed to perpetuate \u201casymmetries\u201d of \u201cpower<\/em>\u201d between \u201cthe haves\u201d and \u201cthe have nots.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus was not in the least concerned with dismantling \u201cpatriarchy\u201d or \u201cclassism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n If Jesus was a rebel, it was against sin <\/em>or evil <\/em>that he railed.\u00a0<\/p>\n To put this point another way, any portrait of Jesus that isn\u2019t theological <\/em>is not <\/em>a portrait of Jesus.\u00a0<\/p>\n Only in light of Jesus\u2019 cosmic <\/em>vocation do both the Gospels as well as the rise of Christianity become intelligible.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jesus did indeed want to change the world\u2014but one heart at a time.\u00a0 For utopian political schemes of the sort that were all too common during His day\u2014and ours\u2014Jesus had no use.\u00a0 Not only did He repudiate those who envisioned the Messiah as a figure who would wrest all power away from Rome and restore Israel to some idyllic condition.\u00a0 Jesus said remarkably little about Rome at all, and what He did say wasn\u2019t remotely subversive, or even angry.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recall that when Jesus healed the centurion\u2019s servant, He did not first demand of Him that the soldier relinquish his duties.\u00a0 He praised the centurion for his faith.\u00a0 He criticized neither the centurion nor the Roman Empire of which he was an agent.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, unlike\u2014radically unlike\u2014those contemporary leftist activists who style themselves inheritors of a prophetic tradition of advocating on behalf of the oppressed and subjugated, Jesus was not infrequently as harsh with His most devoted disciples as He was His enemies within the Jewish ruling class.\u00a0 But I suppose that this is the point: Jesus had disciples; <\/em>today\u2019s activists have constituents. <\/em><\/p>\n Jesus never would have permitted\u2014never did permit\u2014His disciples to invoke their poverty or their condition of living under Roman occupation (or the occupation of any <\/em>foreign power) as justification for impiety\u2014much less the sorts of egregious conduct that many of today\u2019s \u201cpoor\u201d engage in and for which they are excused by their self-appointed champions.<\/p>\n No, Jesus was no radical or rebel.\u00a0 He was not a visionary or champion of \u201csocial justice.\u201d\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t interested in dissolving all class distinctions and ushering in a property-less Eden on Earth.<\/p>\n Jesus was the Son of God.\u00a0 He was interested first and foremost in prevailing over sin and evil, through violence, yes, but the violence that He would permit to be inflicted upon Himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, as Peter said.\u00a0 He became one of us so that He could redeem humanity and transform us into the adopted sons and daughters of God the Father.<\/p>\n No other understanding of Jesus is adequate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, while discussing topics in the philosophy of religion during my introductory course in philosophy, a student claimed that Jesus was \u201ca rebel.\u201d\u00a0 Although this judgment of hers is not without some truth, it is decidedly false in the sense in which I am sure she intended for it to be taken. The idea that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n