“’I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father, but by me.’ (John 14:6.) ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. . . . I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.’
Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation.”
~ The Barmen Declaration
The thesis of this essay that Progressive/Liberal Protestant[1] ‘Christians’ must eschew all retaliatory violence if they claim Jesus as Lord, applies mutatis mutandis to the Evangelical tradition.[2] For 30 years I have challenged the theological model of that tradition in nine books and numerous essays. These books have been lauded by notable Progressive Christian leaders. This is the first essay where I have examined the Progressive Christian view. It should not be supposed that I am an Evangelical except in the Barthian sense.
This essay raises a theological question. This question arises in the sphere of the ‘ecclesia’ as the conversation around which it began: a discussion of the character and message of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, the examination of a tradition does not eo ipso entail rejection of that tradition, nor does it imply that there are not significant race issues plaguing American Christianity. The author is well aware that certain readers will remain unaware of these authorial ‘recognitions’ and may misread both the intentionality of the author and the thread of the argument. However, if there is to be real conversation and not just one-sided intellectual colonization, this issue, among others, must be addressed within the sphere of the ‘ecclesia.’ In the church there is one Lord and external voices (‘natural theologies’) have no authority here.
Followers of Jesus are in a unique position to blaze a trail through the American culture wars. The conversation cannot be one sided; listening must be done by all, healing nurtured by all, and faithful witness to Jesus lived by all, Evangelical and Liberal/Progressive. As I have watched this conversation develop, I know of some who listen carefully on all ‘sides.’ Listening is crucial in order for the pain of the present to be exorcized. It is the manner by which the Christian fundamentalist deals with their pain in relation to the Gospel and the Lord they claim that is addressed here. As Denny Moon said, “sin is the destructive way we handle our pain.” If the Liberal/Progressive wishes to know why their message falls on deaf ears to their ‘other’ Christian members of the Body of Christ, rather than excoriating the ‘other’ as blind, they might look to the way that discourse is conducted by the vocal minority within their movement which causes alienation. This is a difficult topic to address in the sphere of the ecclesia, dangerous to navigate and fraught with both peril…and promise.
American Protestant Christianity is at a crossroads. In all its forms, conservative and liberal, Evangelical and liberal/progressive, an old question looms large and, by and large, the solution that is being arrived at is the exact same position of Jerusalem Christianity and its identity politics, a politics the Apostle Paul observed and critiqued as the most significant issue facing early Christianity. Identity politics in both its racial and national forms has plagued Christianity from the very beginning. It is not a theological solution but a theological problem.
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[1] This essay only engages Protestantism in the United States.
[2] Germane to this essay is the problem known as the ‘curse of Ham’ which originated in late antique and early medieval Jewish circles, and formed a crucial argument for slavery in America among conservative Southern Christians. It is this destructive interpretation which is still taught in Sunday Schools in Conservative Protestant churches. I recall ‘learning’ it when I became an Evangelical Fundamentalist in 1975. A decent historical survey can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham.
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