Shuck and Jive


Monday, October 16, 2006

The Once and Future Jesus


I am still working on Sophia and Creation. While you browse in patient anticipation, here is something interesting. In 1999, the Jesus Seminar voted on several statements regarding the historical Jesus and the future of the church. I thought you would be interested in how they voted. I would be curious as to your response. How would you vote?

Here are the questions and results taken from the web site:

Voting results are from balloting at the panels of the Once & Future Jesus Conference, October 20–23, 1999

Panel Discussion: The Future of Jesus
 Thursday, 21 October 1999
Panelists: John Dominic Crossan, Sanford Lowe , Robert J. Miller , Daryl D. Schmidt, Bernard Brandon Scott, James A. Veitch

Topics:

  • What unresolved issues remain in the current quest of the historical Jesus?
  • What is the next stage in the quest?
  • What is at stake in the quest of the historical Jesus?
  • Does the historical Jesus matter? In what ways?
    [E.g., does it matter whether Jesus was a sage or an apocalypticist?]
  • Does the historical Jesus have a future in the next millennium?
  • What impact will his restored memory have on religion in the years ahead? On the churches? On the relationship of Christianity to Judaism and other religions?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. The historical Jesus matters in important ways for understanding the Christian faith.
    2. Fellows : .97 RED Associates: .95 RED
  2. The quest of the historical Jesus attempts to separate the historical figure from the mythic overlay imposed on his memory by his early followers.
    3. Fellows: .87 RED Associates: .93 RED
  3. The quest of the historical Jesus attempts to isolate his message from Christian interpretations of it.
    4. Fellows: .78 RED Associates: .82 RED
  4. The future of Jesus does not depend on exclusive claims made for him, such as his status as God incarnate or as the Jewish messiah.
    5. Fellows: .90 RED Associates: .87 RED
  5. The future of Jesus lies in his wisdom as a sage.
    6. Fellows: .78 RED Associates: .75 RED
  6. The message of the historical Jesus has little relevance for contemporary believers.
    7. Fellows: .51 PINK Associates: .44 GRAY
  7. Jesus will return someday and usher in a new age.
    8. Fellows: .00 BLACK Associates: .07 BLACK
  8. The world will come to a cataclysmic end in the near future as a direct act of God.
    9. Fellows: .00 BLACK Associates: .03 BLACK
  9. The memory of Jesus of Nazareth demands that Christians acknowledge and condemn the persecutions and oppressions carried out in his name.
    10. Fellows: .88 RED Associates: .89 RED


Panel Discussion: The Church of the Future
Friday, 22 October 1999
Panelists: Marcus Borg, Gerd Ludemann, Lane McGaughy,
John Shelby Spong, Hal Taussig, Walter Wink

Topic A: The relation of the historical Jesus to the church

    How is the quest for the historical Jesus related to the institutional church? Have the churches kept up with, and adapted to, the advances in historical knowledge of Christian origins?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. Jesus intended to establish an ongoing movement that would carry on his ministry.
    2. Fellows: .34 GRAY Associates: .37 GRAY
  2. The future of Jesus' vision and influence in culture is tied to the survival of the church as we know it.
    3. Fellows: .34 GRAY Associates: .35 GRAY
  3. The future of the church depends on its recovery of the historical Jesus.
    4. No vote taken.
  4. The symbol of the cross should be reinterpreted to avoid connotations of the blood atonement.
    5. Fellows: .80 RED Associates: .85 RED
  5. The ancient creeds perpetuate a mythological worldview and should be replaced with a summary of Jesus' vision for the world.
    6.  Fellows: .52 PINK Associates: .59 PINK

Topic B: Worship

    Since religious rituals testify to a complex mix of each particular community's social setting and ever-changing symbols, what symbols, social indicators, and worldviews do the rituals of the churches of the future need to incorporate? What changes in traditional symbols are called for? What social styles of leadership and participation need to be evoked? How has the work of sociology, anthropology, psychology, and the arts changed our understanding of what ritual accomplishes? What kinds of new rituals and worship patterns do these contemporary understandings point to?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. The historical Jesus' practice of open commensality directs the churches to welcome all to its communion celebrations without regard to creed, race, sex, sexual orientation, or church membership.
    2. Fellows: .92 RED Associates: .95 RED
  2. New music, art, worship forms, and ways of praying need to be created to free the churches for creative expressions of community like that experienced in many early Christian communities.
    3. Fellows: .83 RED Associates: .81 RED
  3. God intervenes in history in response to petitionary prayer.
    4. Fellows: .06 BLACK Associates: .22 BLACK
  4. The intense social interaction of Jesus' prayer life calls the churches of the future to abandon an otherworldly prayer vocabulary and to relate their prayers to the world which they inhabit.
    5. Fellows: .62 PINK Associates: .69 PINK

Topic C: Church leadership and training

    Are traditional job descriptions and seminary training adequately preparing ministers and priests for the challenges of the new millenium?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. Ministers and priests are not special brokers of God's grace.
    2. Fellows: .82 RED Associates: .92 RED
  2. A primary function of ministers and priests should be that of teaching.
    3. Fellows: .78 RED Associates: .86 RED
  3. Churches and their leaders ought to show more respect for the intelligence of their members by speaking more knowledgeably and candidly about Christian origins and the history of the church.
    4. Fellows: .92 RED Associates: .94 RED

Topic D: The church and ethical issues

    What is the impact of the quest for the historical Jesus on ethical issues and the nature of religious community? Do certain understandings of gender and sexuality inherited from the ancient and medieval worlds need to be rejected?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each one is.
    2. Fellows: .86 RED Associates: .88 RED
  2. The Bible contains a consistent, external, timeless standard of ethical behavior.
    3. Fellows: .11 BLACK Associates: .19 BLACK
  3. The content of Jesus' example and teaching is something to be discovered and reinterpreted for each generation.
    4. Fellows: .89 RED Associates: .80 RED
  4. The offices of the church should be open to all regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
    5. Fellows: .93 RED Associates: .96 RED
  5. The churches should review and revise the canon of scriptures.
    6. Fellows: .48 GRAY Associates: .50 GRAY

Topic E: The church and other religious traditions

    Does the church have a responsibility to confront those who perpetuate violence against other ethnic and religious groups, often in the name of Jesus? Can the church still make exclusivistic claims in the face of the global community in which religious traditions are interacting with each other on a daily basis?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. The task of recovering the historical Jesus includes the need for the church to confess and disown the history of oppression and acts of violence perpetrated in his name.
    2. Fellows: .83 RED Associates: .87 RED
  2. The church should acknowledge that it does not possess the only access to the sacred by regularly dialoguing and cooperating with other religious traditions.
    3. Fellows: .94 RED Associates: .95 RED


Panel Discussion: The Future of the Faith
Saturday, 23 October 1999
Panelists: Robert W. Funk, Lloyd Geering, Roy W. Hoover,
Karen L. King, Thomas Sheehan, John Shelby Spong

Group I. The message of Jesus

  • Topic A:
    •  Can Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God be a gospel in the 21st century?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God can be the Christian gospel for the twenty-first century.
    2. Fellows: .75 PINK Associates: .78 RED
  2. The gospel of Jesus intends to divert us from evil and aimlessness, and summons us to commit ourselves to truth and integrity, compassion and justice.
    3. Fellows: .77 RED Associates: .85 RED
  3. The gospel of Jesus is an ideal vision of the good life. It cannot be fully realized in actual human experience. [God's will cannot be done on earth as it is done in a mythical heaven.]
    4. Fellows: .63 PINK Associates: .46 GRAY

Group II. The role and status of Jesus

  • Topic B:
    •  What is the importance of the historical Jesus for Christian faith in the 21st century?
  • Topic C: If the death of Jesus was not a divine sacrifice to take away the sins of the world, what is the significance of the cross in a modern understanding of Christian faith?
  • Topic D: If the resurrection of Jesus was an affirmation of faith by his followers, not a supernatural act of God that restored Jesus to life, what is the meaning and significance of the resurrection for contemporary Christian faith?
  • Topic E: Is the affirmation of Jesus' resurrection a promise of life after death, or does it actually serve to validate Jesus' faith in God and the hope of personal and societal transformation in this life?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. Christian faith in the twenty-first century can function very well with Jesus as prophet and sage. It does not require a God incarnate or a Jewish messiah.
    2. Fellows: .57 PINK Associates: .74 PINK
  2. The cross symbolizes Jesus' willingness to die for his gospel, not a sacrifice for sins.
    3. Fellows: .62 PINK Associates: .80 RED
  3. The resurrection means that what Jesus stood for—the kingdom of God—outlives him, not that his corpse was resuscitated.
    4. Fellows: .67 PINK Associates: .80 RED
  4. The affirmation of Jesus' resurrection does not entail the promise of life after death.
    5. Fellows: .60 PINK Associates: .73 PINK

Group III. Theology and tradition

  • Topic F:
    •  How should we think and speak about our relation to tradition?
  • Topic G: If supernaturalism is no longer tenable, what remains of the Christian faith?
  • Topic H: Does the future of the faith require a revised canon of scripture?
  • Topic I: If the old concept of God is no longer tenable, what are the contours of a new and viable concept?
  • Topic J: How should we regard the Bible, if it furnishes us with neither fixed standards of behavior nor with the unchanging forms of an orthodox faith?

Ballot items (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. God intervenes in history in response to petitionary prayer.
    2. Fellows: .19 BLACK Associates: .24 BLACK
  2. Since supernaturalism is embedded in a pre-scientific world, it lacks credibility both as a view of the world and as an understanding of Christian faith.
    3. Fellows: .80 RED Associates: .70 PINK
  3. Learning to think historically about Jesus and Christian origins is an essential element of a modern Christian faith.
    4.  Fellows: .83 RED Associates: .80 RED
  4. We need a new concept of God, one that correlates with our modern experience and understanding of the world.
    5. Fellows: .78 RED Associates: .83 RED
  5. The Bible is neither the inerrant word of God nor the only word of God.
    6. Fellows: .93 RED Associates: .97 RED
  6. The Bible is a record of the origins and mythology of the faiths of Israel and the orthodox Christian movement. It should be supplemented with documents representing a wider range of early Christian options.
    7. Fellows: .81 RED Associates: .81 RED

Group IV. The Christian faith and world religions

  • Topic K:
    •  How should we understand the relation of Christian faith to the other world religions?

Ballot item (for an explanation of the voting color scheme, click here):

  1. People of Christian faith should affirm the aspect of the holy that appears in every great religion.
    2. Fellows: .82 RED Associates: .89 RED

Voting color scheme

Red

Strongly Agree

.7501 and up

Pink

Agree

.5001 to .7500

Gray

Disagree

.2501 to .5000

Black

Strongly Disagree

.0000 to .2500

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