Try to imagine a situation in which you would agree with the statement above. Try hard to come up with a scenario in which that sentence could be an accurate description of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Try as hard as you can to construct a plausible circumstance in which that could be a true statement about God’s behavior.

Can’t do it? Neither can I. Yet in a class I was teaching recently, somebody actually said that. More than one person said it. It was, in fact, the majority opinion.

The class was a study of the Old Testament, and that day we were talking about the book of Joshua. In case you spend as little time in the book of Joshua as I customarily do, I’ll give you a recap. The Israelites have completed their wandering in the wilderness. They cross the Jordan, do their dance around the walls of Jericho, emerge triumphant, and then settle down to the serious business of conquering the land of Canaan. They institute a blitzkrieg against the various Canaanite tribes, killing all the men, women, and children as they spread out to claim the land of promise. According to the text, this happens at God’s instigation, and with God’s blessing.

Which led to my question: “Why would the Israelites do such a thing?” The answer: “Because God told them to do it.” I pushed back; “Really? God told them to kill children and babies?” At this some members of the class trotted out the traditional answers to this conundrum: the Canaanites were especially wicked and deserved their fate; God needed to guarantee the purity of the Israelites’ worship, and hence had them remove all Canaanite influence; the Israelites gave the Canaanites an opportunity to convert, which they rejected. But while most folks were unable to come up with a justification, they didn’t back down in their conviction that God had instructed the Israelites to do this thing, because the Bible says that’s what God did.

And here we arrive at the heart of the matter: the Bible says. The folks in my class believe, as I do, in the authority of Scripture. In this case their conception of how that authority works has painted them into a corner. They rightly recoil at the book of Joshua’s description of a leader who claims that God has instructed God’s people to “utterly destroy” another group of people. Put that claim on the lips of anyone else, throughout history or today, and the class members would say that the leader was at the very least grossly mistaken, and probably murderously sinful. Yet put it in the Bible and it’s o.k. because, once again, the Bible says.

By approaching the authority of Scripture in a simplistic, all-or-nothing, “God says it, I believe it, that settles it” manner, Christians lead themselves into such theological absurdities as divinely-sanctioned genocide. Like I said above, I believe that the Bible is the authoritative guide to Christian belief and action. Yet admitting that the Bible is a deeply complex book, we should be willing to recognize that biblical authority is a complex matter as well. The model for those who seek to place themselves under the Bible’s authority should be Jacob at the fords of the Jabbok. If we wish to understand Scripture we must be prepared to struggle with it (even all night!), and to emerge not only blessed, but broken by the experience.

So how then should we approach biblical narratives like the book of Joshua? Let me make just a couple of suggestions. First, we have to do our biblical studies homework. The authors and editors who compiled the book of Joshua lived during or shortly after the Babylonian Exile. They believed that God had allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed largely because of the Israelites’ failure to worship Yahweh alone. They wanted to make the point that idolatry was a big problem for God. They chose to put the book of Joshua together as they did to insist that God holds final and exclusive claim to our worship. Does this justify or excuse the book of Joshua’s depiction of the killing of innocents? No. Does it make it easier to see why the authors and editors put it there? Yes.

Second, when we come upon individual passages and books that raise difficulties like this, we need a vantage point from which to approach and consider them. Martin Luther said that for Christians the gospel–by which he means God’s grace as seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ– provides that vantage point. If a biblical passage or story doesn’t make sense according to what we know of God in Jesus, then we’ve got to ask other questions about how that story functions as God’s word for us. Simply put, if we can’t imagine Jesus condoning the mass killing of the Canaanites (and let’s agree that we can’t imagine that, please), then we have to give up trying to find excuses for why God would order such a thing; admit that God, in fact, didn’t say that; and then ask what the story has to tell us if this is the case.

When I said above that I believe in the authority of Scripture, I meant it. When we approach Scripture with an expectation that it will speak a word from God, I believe we will hear that word. How an individual verse, passage, or book speaks that word is going to differ. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” is pretty straightforward; this verse might challenge our commitment, but it doesn’t tax our understanding. But when it’s something like the book of Joshua, we’re going to have to wrestle the angel a good bit more if we hope to receive our blessing.

So, if the word of God from this biblical book isn’t “tough luck if you’re a Canaanite and God wants your land for someone else,” then what is it? Perhaps it’s this: The human tendency to mistake the “devices and desires of our own hearts” (as the Book of Common Prayer calls them) for the voice of God isn’t a recent development. It stretches all the way back through history, even into Scripture itself. Perhaps the word of God comes to us saying, “Shortly before the book of Joshua opens the Israelites had stood at the foot of God’s holy mountain and listened to God thunder out the covenant. If even they could make this mistake, then watch and pray that it not happen to you, gentle reader.” Perhaps this book speaks a powerful message about violence done in the name of religion, if we but have eyes to see that message’s contradiction to what lies on the book’s surface.

The Bible is a divine book because it is such a human book at the same time. It places all of human life–its highs and lows, its foibles and graces–firmly in the presence of God. It will tell us everything God has to say to us–if we’re willing to listen carefully.

Only one reason presents itself for why you shouldn’t ignore theology: you can’t. It’s not possible.

Huh?

Theology is nothing less than looking at life through the lens of Christian faith. Any time you reach out in sympathy to someone who is hurting, recoil at the news of a senseless tragedy, or reflect on the joy of being alive, you are doing theology. Any time you wonder about what something means, why something happened, or why someone is the way they are, you are being a theologian. If “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” then any question about life is, inevitably, a question about God. And if that’s the case, then theology is unavoidable. As my very first theology professor told us, the question isn’t whether you’re going to be a theologian or not; it’s whether you’re going to be any good at it.

But theology isn’t just necessary; it’s desirable as well (or, at least, it can be). Elsewhere I’ve written about why we must never think we can substitute theology for personal experience of God. Yet it is equally true that theology clarifies, focuses, and makes that experience more real. Remember when Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and then, “Who do you say I am?” (emphasis added). Peter answered with a theological statement: “you are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.” This wasn’t simply repeating something he’d always heard, or spouting conventional wisdom; he was reflecting theologically on what he’d been experiencing as he traveled with Jesus. In so doing, he also shifted that experience to a new level. By making the theological judgment that Jesus is the Messiah, Peter was in essence committing himself more firmly than ever before to follow him.

And sometimes serious, hard thinking about God and the world–in other words, theology– is the only proper response to a particular situation. Ten years on now I still remember a story I heard in the days immediately following 9/11. A middle-aged emergency room nurse, a grizzled veteran of inner city trauma units, was among the rescue workers trying to locate victims among the rubble. After a long and difficult day she happened upon a couple of the chaplains at the scene, a Protestant pastor and a Roman Catholic priest. Looking intently at the them she said, “I need you to tell me something. Those people who jumped from the Towers; was that suicide? I need to know the answer.” Lying behind her question was the widespread (and mistaken) belief that suicide is an unforgivable sin. In the midst of all that destruction, as she sought to care for the victims of the attack, she wanted to know what God was going to do about the ones beyond her care. Without hesitating the priest replied, “They were trying to save their lives, not end them. Right now God is enfolding them in his arms and wiping away their tears.” That answer remains one of the most profoundly pastoral and theological things I’ve ever heard.

Do people want to hear tired, trite, irrelevant theological platitudes? No. Do they want to hear a living word from the Lord? Yes. When they do, they need a good theologian. Want to apply for the job?

A good friend of mine who is a professional pastoral counselor let me in on the dirty little secret of times like this: “whatever happens, God will be with you” doesn’t cut it. When it’s your loved one being wheeled off to the operating room, that statement strikes you as weak and inadequate. You don’t want assurance or comfort; you want certitude. You want to know that everything is going to be o.k. You want God to say “I’m going to fix this,” meaning make everything the way it was, arrange things the way you would if you were in charge.

Except that doesn’t happen. Now, I’m a theologian, so it’s my job to ask why that’s the case– but I’m not going to do so. Much, much better theologians than me, going all the way back to the author of the book of Job, have tried and failed to answer that question adequately. More importantly, when you’re in the middle of a situation like this, knowing the answer wouldn’t help. For whatever reason, we cannot know without question or doubt that what we want is going to happen. God doesn’t work that way. Ask me why later.

Recognizing that fact, yet still wanting with all my being to know beyond question that God was going to make Joan all better, that nothing would go wrong, has been my struggle. Admitting that struggle has brought me the only modicum of peace I’ve known throughout the last couple of weeks. When I told God, “look, I know you can’t promise what I want, but I’m going to tell you anyway . . . ,” I felt better. Did that feeling last? No. Did I have to repeat that prayer time after time, knowing that God wasn’t the one who had to keep hearing it? Yes. Has God sustained me in ways that I will never understand and can only barely recognize? Unquestionably.

On the morning of the surgery our pastors Carol and Mark were sitting with us as we waited for Joan to go back to the OR. I thought about their care and concern for her, as well as my own and that of all our friends and family. Then I realized that “God is with you, whatever happens” means that God, too, felt all that love, concern, and worry for Joan, and so much more beyond. God is experiencing that same thing every moment for anyone who is going through pain, worry, or grief, all across this sad little globe. From the moment I heard those two ugly words, “brain tumor,” I wanted the anxiety and worry to go away. Yet God willingly accepts that same hurt for each of us all the time. We must be inexpressibly precious to God for God to go to all that trouble and grief for us. I cannot imagine how that can be the case, how God can take on the suffering of the world that way.

But sitting in a quiet room in ICU, with my bandaged and beloved one resting, I’m trying to learn.

Why is that? For one thing, you have to figure out what it means to be Christlike. Does it entail extraordinary wisdom, kindness, or love, and if so, isn’t that the same thing as being an especially good human being? Or does it require a particular action, usually one of self-sacrifice? And if that’s the case, does every cinematic act of sacrifice qualify a character as a Christ figure?

Much of the answer lies in the eye of the beholder, of course; someone I would include in my list of examples might never make it on to yours, and vice versa. One of my professors in college talked about those Christians who want to see a foreshadowing of the Cross in every stick of wood in the Old Testament. In much the same way you can discover a reflection of Christ in any film character if you look hard enough.

In what follows I want to look at some different kinds of Christ figures in the movies. First, though, let me lay out some rules for how to find them:

• The best Christ figures are the least obvious ones. Luther talked about Jesus as the “deus absconditus,” the hidden God. Christ figures are often similarly hidden from our sight, which is why the title character from Cool Hand Luke is a better choice than Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, largely because the latter is just so unceasingly noble.

• Conversely, the more a writer or director intends to create a Christ figure, the less authentic and effective that portrayal often becomes.

• The best way to recognize a genuine Christ figure is to look for transformation. Whether it’s one person or an entire community, Christ figures change the lives of others decisively.

• Oh, and one more thing: No. Star Wars. Ever.

Types of Christ Figures:

A. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”: Movie Messiahs

I’m using the term “messiah” here in a specific sense, as a figure with a particular destiny to fulfill. Often when somebody violates my second rule above a movie messiah is the result. Sometimes the movie messiah just shows up out of the blue, as in Superman and Superman II. Other times the character is much anticipated, as happened with Neo in the Matrix trilogy. In both of these cases the focus falls on the characters’ special status or extraordinary abilities; these are what render them messiah figures.

But the gospels don’t focus that much on Jesus’ special status as the Anointed One (although, to be fair, they do mention it); rather, their first concern is to tell the story of his exemplary life, sacrificial death, and miraculous resurrection. The gospel writers make it clear that everyone who focused on Jesus as the “promised Son of David” pretty well missed the point of his ministry because they brought along a lot of false assumptions of what that ministry should look like. Likewise, when movie makers set out to portray a “Chosen One,” they do a lousy job of pointing to the Jesus story.

B. “To lay down one’s life for one’s friends”: Sacrificial Christ figures

Perhaps the most recognizable characteristic of cinematic Christ figures is a sacrificial death. This brings up the problem mentioned above of whether any act of sacrifice makes a character a Christ figure. It’s often a hard call to make; laying down one’s life that others might live is the supreme act of charity, and it stands at the heart of the Jesus story. But a difference exists between purchasing another’s continued existence at the expense of one’s own, and doing so in a way that the other might “have life, and have it more abundantly.” The key is redemption; does the sacrifice renew or transform the lives of those who are left?

One of my favorite Christ figures is the title character from The Iron Giant, a story about a huge robot who falls to earth and befriends a young boy and others in a small Maine town. Set during the Cold War, the robot’s presence inspires an escalating fear and paranoia among many in the secluded community and beyond. At the climax, the giant machine chooses his own destruction in order to save the humans from the consequences of their fear, opening their eyes to that fear’s pointlessness. I see in this story an echo of one of the classic explanations of the Atonement, in which God must become incarnate and die in order to shock us out of our frozen indifference to the divine love.

C. “The substance of things hoped for”: Hopeful Christ figures

In spite of the fact that prisons are the last place you want to be, directors like to make prison movies because “life inside” reminds us that life itself can become a prison, a place where hope goes to die. When Christ figures show up in these hopeless little worlds they do so as incarnations of hope. Such is the case with Luke Jackson in Cool Hand Luke and Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption. Both characters refuse, in their different ways, to give in to the prison’s despairing world view; both remain free in spite of their chains and walls. More importantly, both communicate that sense of freedom and hope to their fellow inmates: Luke through his death, and Andy through his “resurrection” in the world outside the prison walls.

D. “This is my body”: Sacramental Christ figures

If you were paying attention that day, at some point in a high school English class you learned that most of the world’s stories can be boiled down to a handful of story “types.” One of these is known as “A Stranger Came to Town,” in which someone from the outside shows up in a community and, for good or ill, changes the social dynamics of the place forever. The Jesus story bears resemblance to this story type (“he was in the world . . . yet the world did not know him”), so it’s no surprise that a couple of cinematic Christ figures show up as strangers coming to town. In Babette’s Feast and (the better known) Chocolat the main characters are women who arrive in small communities, each bringing along a mysterious past and extraordinary culinary skills. Both wind up using that skill to prepare marvelous gifts of food for their new neighbors, many of whom start off as deeply suspicious of the extravagance and self indulgence of these meals. Yet in the end the food serves as a powerful means of grace, breaking down barriers and creating fellowship among those who partake. These Christ figure cooks remind us that the Jesus story is not simply in the past, but continues in Christ’s sacramental presence throughout the world, most especially wherever we accept his invitation to table.

So, did I miss your favorite Christ figure? Did you see one of mine and say “No way!”? Let me know about it in the comments.

One way to approach this subject, it seems to me, is to remember the purpose of symbols in the sanctuary or worship space. Our worship is directed toward God; its intent is to offer our sense of gratitude, awe, and purpose to the one who created us. Sacred space–the worship sanctuary–exists to focus our hearts and minds on the worship of God. Whether it’s a medieval cathedral whose architecture, stained glass, and statuary immerse our senses in the Christian story, or a plain New England congregational meeting house whose stark simplicity inspires a quiet reverence, every symbol in that space should point us toward the worship of God.

And here is where the problem with flags arise. A country’s flag (ours or anyone else’s) exists as a symbol of that nation’s sovereignty and identity. Its purpose as a symbol is to draw the mind toward the allegiance one owes to one’s country. Its presence in the worship sanctuary introduces a second, and competing, object toward which one’s loyalty and devotion are directed.

All human beings struggle with balancing the different things that compete for their attention and loyalty. Work, family, hobbies, political parties, even sports teams–all these and so many other things want us to devote more of our time and attention to them. As Christians we seek to subsume all of these competing loyalties under our loyalty to God, to love all of these good things as part of our love of God who is the greatest good.

But worship is different. Here we seek to set aside all other thoughts, all other loyalties and attachments, and lift up our hearts to God alone. As Scripture tells us, God is a jealous God, which is simply another way of saying that the one to whom we owe everything deserves our full attention. Throughout the week we engage in the struggle to place all our competing objects of devotion under the sovereignty of God. During worship we set that struggle aside and attend only to God, offering our whole selves to our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

To introduce the symbol of one of our secondary loyalties into the worship space is to enter right back into that struggle, and hence to compromise our worship. Outside worship, devotion to country can be an expression of our devotion to God (it can be other things, too, but that’s another story). When worship is taking place, however, reminders of our devotion to anything other than God, no matter how important, are objects of idolatry. Bring that flag into the sanctuary and that’s what you’ve made it.

So my advice to pastors and other church leaders is to feature the flag of their country, but do so somewhere other than the worship space. Whether it’s the fellowship hall or the pastor’s office, place it where it can be seen and appreciated–just don’t put it where worship will happen.

If you love that flag, don’t make people choose between it and God.

To recap the previous blog, the term “Jesus figure” refers to a depiction of the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. While film makers produce Jesus movies for a lot of reasons, their principal motivation, it seems to me, is to reveal something about the life of Jesus we hadn’t properly understood before, to arrive somehow at the “real Jesus.” This desire is hardly surprising, as it seems to be true for any movie about a historical person. Yet obviously more is at stake in a movie about Jesus. Consider the following:

1. Jesus is the most important figure in the lives of millions of people
2. The gospels leave out way more information about Jesus’ personality and inner life than they reveal.
3. The movies are our culture’s preferred way to explore the life of an individual.

These facts combine to mean that movies about Jesus are practically begging to be made. What better way to deal with the ultimate “larger than life” figure than this, our most outsized medium?

So why are the ones that have been made so bad?

Oh, they’re not all terrible (although some some are). Most of them are largely unobjectionable. As a whole they’re reverent, responding to their particular subject matter with dignity and decorum. They try really hard to account for Jesus’ humanity, while remembering his status as Son of God. At least the mainstream films try to remain faithful to the biblical picture of Jesus, while striving to shed new light on him as a person.

But as movies, they stink. In spite of their subject matter and inherent interest to the audience, they plod along, never managing to capture the drama, tension, or, well, weirdness of the gospels. The more mainstream (read: inoffensive to Christian sensibilities) they are, the more boring they become (King of Kings and The Greatest Story Ever Told embody this problem). Paradoxically, the more they try to strike out and explore new facets of the Jesus story, the more arbitrary they feel, invoking difference for its own sake (think The Last Temptation of Christ here). I’ve made a search of several of the top 100 ( or more) movie lists, and not one of the Jesus movies appears on any of them. O.k, Ben Hur is on the IMDB top 250 list, but while Jesus appears in that movie, it’not actually a movie about him.

So, the question becomes this: is it just that we’re still waiting for the really good Jesus movie to be made, or is it that a really good one can’t be made? Ive got three thoughts on this subject.

First, there is tremendous pressure for Jesus movies to stick closely to the actual words of the gospels, due to all the experts out there in the theaters just waiting for the film makers to add or subtract something from the mouth of Jesus (and hence denounce the film). But doing so renders the film artificial and (frankly) boring because the words of the gospels were never intended to form a screenplay. Drama, tension, conflict; these all show up in the four gospels, but most of the time they are accompanied by long stretches (in the Gospel of John, very long stretches) of dialogue or monologue. This suits the gospels’ intended purpose well, but sadly, makes for a slow-paced movie.

This fact means that, second, if a good Jesus movie is to be made it will have to depart from the letter of the gospels, and seek instead to capture their spirit. We all know successful and unsuccessful attempts to turn well-known works of literature into movies. Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings suceeded because the director remained faithful to the spirit and the tone of the book, while feeling free to shift around and even remove characters and story lines. The 2006 film adapted from Robert Penn Warren’s classic novel All the King’s Men failed because, in spite of its terrific cast, it couldn’t find a shred of the original characters’ emotions and motivations.

I chose those two examples because a high degree of agreement exists on the books’ essential qualities, as well as on the movies’ success or failure in capturing those qualities. And here’s where the problem comes with Jesus movies. No such agreement presents itself about the message that lies at the heart of the gospels. Ask ten lifelong Christians what the the gospels are really about, and you’ll get fifteen answers. Toss in all the other folks who have heard this and that about Jesus over the years (which means just about everybody), and(once again) you’ve got an audience of experts, each with his or her opinion on what lies at the heart of the gospel story. No one could ever agree that a particular interpretation of the story of Jesus got it right, because when it comes to this story there is so little agreement about what “right” is.

Third, I don’t think a really excellent Jesus movie is possible because the source material defeats the movie’s purpose. As I mentioned earlier, the reason to make a movie about a historical figure ( as opposed to a fictional character) is to say something about that person’s identity and personality we’ve not known before, to shed new light on her or him, to show us the “real” Joan of Arc or Elizabeth I or Malcolm X. To do so, the movie has to access information that allows us to see that historical person in a new way. All we have to rely on regarding the historical Jesus is the gospels, and I don’t think they’re going to reveal any new information about him of the kind Hollywood is looking for.

More importantly, though, is the fact that in the end the gospels aren’t about Jesus in the way that a standard biography is about its subject. The point of the gospels isn’t to provide us in-depth information about Jesus; the early Christians already had all the information they needed. Following Peter’s confession they knew that he is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The point of the gospels–what they’re “about”–is to confront us, the readers, with what we’re going to do with this Jesus. A movie that faithfully captured the gospels’ true purpose would, in essence, be an evangelistic tool. And which of us pays money to see a movie we know is going to try to convert us?

So no, I don’t think movies about Jesus are such a good idea. Now when it comes to movies about Christ figures, that’s another story altogether. What’s a Christ figure you ask? Stay tuned . . .

First, the term Jesus figure refers to a portrayal in film (or literature or theatre) of the actual, historical person of Jesus. Since pretty close to the dawn of the movies, film makers have been trying to depict the life of Christ; a short series of French films showing scenes from the gospels were made in 1902-1905, for example. Dozens of these cinematic portraits of Jesus exist, but over the years a few have stood out. Cecil D. DeMille’s last silent picture was King of Kings, in which the director brought his love of big-budget excess to the story of Jesus’ life (this film is not to be confused with the 1961 movie of the same title, sometimes known as “I Was a Teenage Jesus.”) 1965′s The Greatest Story Ever Told starred Max von Sydow as a calm, perhaps even slightly boring, Jesus. And in 2004 Mel Gibson wanted to make certain we all really understood the concept of blood atonement in his movie The Passion of the Christ.

Now, the term Christ figure is a little harder to define. Christ figures are not intended to dramatize the actual life of Christ, as Jesus figures are. Instead Christ figures are characters within a movie (or novel or play) whose lives reflect in some way the life and character of Christ. Usually, Christ figures are not overtly religious, nor are the films in which they appear.  The best Christ figures are flawed and fallen creatures like you and me, and hence don’t represent Christ’s fully loving life. Yet something about their story–often the way they die–mirrors Jesus self-emptying, self-giving love, and this is what makes them Christ figures.

Some examples of Christ figures? Ah, well, that’s where things get tricky, because the best Christ figures are sometimes the less obvious ones. Throughout June and July, as I teach a Sunday School series at Christ UMC in Franklin, TN on Jesus figures and Christ figures in film, I’ll post some of my thoughts on which characters in film are Christ figures and why. This time I’ll leave you with the most obvious recent example: John Coffey, the gentle giant wrongly convicted of murder in The Green Mile. This movie is based on a novel by Stephen King, and like every other one of King’s attempts to discuss religious themes, it’s kind of heavy-handed. Yet the movie is a great introduction to the idea of the Christ figure, and we’ll be discussing it, along with several others, in the weeks to come.

For an extra treat: Check out this list of the ten best Jesus movies, and this one of the ten worst. Can you spot the film that appears on both?

Stay tuned!

Early on in the life of this blog, I wrote an entry on why most Christians rarely use the term theology, and why, when they do, it’s almost always in a negative or disparaging sense.    Something my pastor said in last week’s sermon makes me want to revisit that subject.

The sermon was drawn from John 9, the story of Jesus’ healing of the man blind from birth, and all the controversy that accompanied it. Our pastor Carol pointed out that from the get go characters in this story focus on theological discussion to the exclusion of seeing what God is actually doing. Jesus and the disciples are walking along when they encounter the man who had been born without sight. The first thing the disciples do is try to get Jesus to render a theological verdict on the guy: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In one of those enigmatic answers Jesus liked to give, he replied “‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” That could mean a lot of things, but I think it’s Jesus’ polite way of saying “That stuff’s all fine and good, guys, but let’s focus on what matters here”–which Jesus promptly did by healing the man’s blindness.

But that, of course, is when the theologizing really gets going, because once again Jesus has healed on the Sabbath, and so the Pharisees, the Jewish authorities, the crowd, and even the (formerly) blind man’s parents get drawn into a debate on how a Sabbath breaker like Jesus could perform such a miracle.

This story is one of the preeminent biblical examples of theology forgetting its place. As I said in that earlier post, theology always comes second–or at least it should. The stories reveal two glaring realities: first, that here is an individual in need; and second, that God has done something truly remarkable in that person’s life. The disciples’ idle theological speculation prevents them from perceiving the first; the Jewish leaders’ angry theological denunciation of Jesus blinds them to the second.

In its proper place theology is a  “second-order enterprise,” by which I mean that it helps us make better sense of our experience of God and God’s world. But in John 9, and especially in the authorities’ reaction to Jesus’ breaking the Sabbath, theology comes first, with disastrous results. Knowing that it was wrong to work on the Sabbath, the authorities seem incapable of entertaining the possibility that they had witnessed a miracle (hence all the suspicion that this individual hadn’t really been blind). Instead of witnessing the miracle and using theology to understand what it means in their lives, the authorities try to use their theology as a shield, denying that anything has really happened–and even if it has, God can’t have had anything to do with it.

So here’s where theology really is a dirty word. Throughout our history, Christians have repeated this error, insisting that if something didn’t have a place in their oh-so-carefully drawn picture of reality, then God couldn’t have anything to do with it. We’ve tried to use theology to limit God’s actions in the world, rather than allowing what God is doing to expand and refine our theology.

In short, thelogy becomes a dirty word when it prevents us from perceiving human need, and God’s surpising work in the world–the very things it was supposed to help us see.

The catch, of course, is that the same situation confronts those who pick up the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. The religious “Other” comes in for a pretty hard time in the book of Judges, for example, as the Israelites routinely displace and even slaughter their Canaanite neighbors. The tone of the Gospel of John toward “the Jews” (by which the author means the Jewish authorities, primarily in Jerusalem) is consistently disparaging.

By the way: If you want to learn more about the class I’m teaching in winter 2011 on this subject, click here.

So what gives here? Wright claims that all three sacred texts have “darker sides” that compromise their overall message of peace, acceptance, and harmony with God and neighbor. The trick, he says, is what we bring with us to a reading of these scriptures. If our worldview is a dark one, we’re going to focus on those parts of the Qur’an and the Bible that confirm that view. We’re going to see someone else’s religion as a threat, and our own as enjoining a strong (and usually violent) response to that threat. Hence jihadists and their Christian and Jewish counterparts’ consistent use of their own sacred text to justify religious violence. If our worldview is not dominated by that darkness, we’re going to focus instead on the parts (I would say the more numerous and important parts) of our scripture that promote love of neighbor.

So far, so good. I like what Wright says, but he fails to answer a crucial question: What is the role of our religious faith in producing those worldviews in the first place? In other words, if individual Jews, Christians, and Muslims are fundamentally peaceful and loving people, did their religion make them so, or was it something else? By the same token, did the haters among us learn to hate by reading their scriptures?

The answer is complicated, but I want to boil it down to couple of points. First,  the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an aren’t teaching those haters to hate. That hatred comes from another source; those people are simply using religion as a rationalization for it. Second, for different reasons and in different ways, all three religions place love of neighbor at the center of what they teach. I’m not qualified to tell Jews and Muslims how to reclaim that center, but I can offer an opinion to Christians.

We must see the cross, not simply as a tool God uses to forgive sins, but as the reality that shapes our whole lives as followers of the Crucified one. The love that God displays in the cross means that God chooses the way of self sacrifice, rather than coercive force, to bring about God’s will in the world. If we can live in the shadow of that reality, then perhaps we’ll have a better idea of what to do next time someone wants to build a mosque down the street.

By the way: to learn more about the class I’m teaching during winter 2011 about this subject, click here.