{"id":1539,"date":"2006-11-10T02:20:36","date_gmt":"2006-11-10T02:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html"},"modified":"2006-11-10T02:20:36","modified_gmt":"2006-11-10T02:20:36","slug":"wwjvf-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html","title":{"rendered":"WWJVF? 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Obery Hendricks&#8217; <em>The Political Jesus<\/em>, chps. 1-2, we are treated to a survey of the socio-political context for Jesus&#8217; kingdom message. Let me ask this question for our conversation today: <!--more|inline--><br \/>\nHow significant are the socio-political themes of the Old Testament for setting Jesus&#8217; mission in context? Do we read Genesis 1-2 and then chp 3, and then skip to Jesus? Or, do we plow through the Exodus and the prophetic vision in order to set Jesus in context?<br \/>\nIs your Jesus sufficiently socially-shaped to have been a live, real, threatening figure in the 1st Century? What do we do with Paul&#8217;s understanding of what God is doing with what Jesus thought?<br \/>\nHere are Hendricks&#8217; points: he surveys the history of Israel and then shows how each is connected to Jesus&#8217; vision. Thus: exodus, the judges, Messiah, the prophets, the exile, the Maccabean revolt, the Herodian regime &#8212; and then looks at the theme of justice.<br \/>\nChp 2: political factors like occupation, Herod and the priests, economic factors like poverty, taxation, and debt, and social factors like crime, priestly elitism, the marginalization of Galileans, and the ammi ha-aretz.<br \/>\nHow did Jesus, then, become a meek and mild Jesus? Hendricks appeals to an old canard: most orthodox are docetic (Jesus only &#8220;seems&#8221; to be human). He redefines it: &#8220;It is the heresy of refusing to acknowledge the importance of the political circumstances of Jesus&#8217; earthly life and their influence on his person and ministry&#8221; (76). No, I&#8217;d say; this is not really docetism, but it is an expansion and extension of docetism. (Docetism is about personal anthropology, not social circumstance; but the former leads to the latter.)<br \/>\nHe speaks of political docetism &#8212; denying Jesus&#8217; political context. He was a spiritual leader; concerned with individuals only; crucified for personal not political reasons; his critique was not of structures but only of morals of individuals; he was nonpolitical but misunderstood as political; the Lamb of God evokes a meek and mild Jesus (not so; cf. Revelation).<br \/>\nHendricks blames Paul for the docetic Jesus. Paul was an urbanite; he was apocalyptic (looking for Jesus&#8217; return). He agreed with the content: kingdom of God, justice, etc.. But, Paul believed it would occur by a direct intervention by God; Jesus believed it was to happen now.<br \/>\nPaul is concerned with sinners; Jesus with the poor. Paul&#8217;s message is obsessed with the individual and personal piety and heaven.<br \/>\nNext he blames Constantine: politics and power and hierarchy and militarism and privilege are wedded to Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Obery Hendricks&#8217; The Political Jesus, chps. 1-2, we are treated to a survey of the socio-political context for Jesus&#8217; kingdom message. Let me ask this question for our conversation today:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-kingdom-of-god"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>WWJVF? 2 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WWJVF? 2 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Obery Hendricks&#8217; The Political Jesus, chps. 1-2, we are treated to a survey of the socio-political context for Jesus&#8217; kingdom message. Let me ask this question for our conversation today:\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-11-10T02:20:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"WWJVF? 2 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"WWJVF? 2 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"In Obery Hendricks&#8217; The Political Jesus, chps. 1-2, we are treated to a survey of the socio-political context for Jesus&#8217; kingdom message. Let me ask this question for our conversation today:","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2006-11-10T02:20:36+00:00","author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html","name":"WWJVF? 2 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-11-10T02:20:36+00:00","dateModified":"2006-11-10T02:20:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/wwjvf-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"WWJVF? 2"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}