{"id":6651,"date":"2014-08-04T16:13:05","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T22:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6651"},"modified":"2014-08-04T16:16:58","modified_gmt":"2014-08-04T22:16:58","slug":"postscript-to-the-danger-in-being-ministerial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6651","title":{"rendered":"Postscript to “The Danger in Being Ministerial”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I wrote my recent post, “The Danger in Being Ministerial<\/a>,” I omitted a couple of points.<\/p>\n

For one thing, the priest\/ess vs. pastor \u2014 or cultus <\/em><\/a>vs. social ministry \u2014 distinction is largely rhetorical. I do not mean to say that they cannot <\/em>overlap, only that often they do not.<\/p>\n

Also, I am surprised that no follower of Jesus pointed out a hole big enough to drive the First Baptist Church’s Sunday School bus through, to wit, for at least some Christians, ministry is in fact cultus. <\/em>But then not too many Christians read this blog.<\/p>\n

After all, a famous passage in the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus telling his disciples that to aid the unfortunate is to honor (or worship him)<\/a>: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And if you focus on that teaching, you can sidestep the theological problem that has haunted Christianity since the first century CE: exactly who or what was Jesus?<\/p>\n

Was he a mortal prophet? A would-be sacred king? A mortal prophet who was “adopted” and “exalted” by God?\u00a0 A preexisting angel who was made the Son of God? Or was he an aspect or persona<\/em> of the One God all along, since forever, sort of?<\/p>\n

As Bart Ehrman points out in How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee<\/em><\/a>, all of those viewpoints were common, even orthodox, at different times.<\/p>\n

And what was orthodox in one generation could get you excommunicated in the next \u2014 at least until the First Council of Nicea<\/a>, which under imperial patronage hammered out what they called a creed<\/a>, but which is easier to understand if you read it like a property lease.<\/p>\n

Just as your rental house lease tells you, for example, that you cannot store inoperable, unlicensed motor vehicles on the premises, the Creed tells you what ways of thinking about Jesus are permissible. Every phrase drives nails into some so-called heresy or unorthodox interpretation.<\/p>\n

Ehrman’s book is written for the non-specialist. <\/a>He avoids technical language like apotheosis<\/em><\/a>. He relies mainly on the accepted New Testament \u2014 the four gospels and those epistles of Paul that scholars think Paul actually wrote (not all of them) \u2014 with only occasional borrowings from the Gnostic gospels, etc.<\/p>\n

His arguments construct a chronology of Jesuses. For instance, Paul’s epistles, which can be dated fairly closely, were written down before the Gospels and the book of Acts<\/a>, even though the events in them postdate the gospels.<\/p>\n

Ehrman argues that Paul’s Jesus was an angel who took human form, which fits in with Paul’s own experience <\/a>\u2014 he never saw Jesus in person, although their lives overlapped and he met people who knew Jesus, but instead his claim to being an expert on Jesus came from a visionary experience that left him temporarily blind and disoriented.<\/a><\/p>\n

How someone could be both human and divine at the same time was and is a problem for Christians. Ehrman gives his view of how Christians wrestled with that problem, and of course his Christian critics cry, “He’s got it wrong!<\/a>”<\/p>\n

As a final criticism, Ehrman posits that the key to Paul\u2019s Christology is that he thought of Jesus as an (or the) angel (of God\/the Lord).\u00a0 That, says Ehrman, explains how Paul could ascribe \u201cpre-existence\u201d to Jesus, and how, as a devout Jew,\u00a0he could countenance worshipping Jesus.\u00a0 As the key basis for this notion, Ehrman invokes a peculiar reading of Galatians 4:14,\u00a0where Paul says that in his initial visit the Galatians received him \u201cas an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 Ehrman insists that this is to be read as a flat appositive construction, in which \u201can angel of God\u201d = \u201cChrist Jesus.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 But this isn\u2019t actually as compelling a claim as he thinks.\u00a0 Even Gieschen (on whose work Ehrman relies here) presents this reading of the construction as only a distinct \u201cpossibility.\u201d\u00a0 And most scholars (myself included) don\u2019t think it really works.\u00a0 The grammar certainly doesn\u2019t require it, and it seems more reasonable to take it as a kind of stair-step statement, \u201cangel of God\u201d and \u201cChrist Jesus\u201d as ascending categories.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You see, Christianity is easy. All you have to do is interpret 2,000-year-old documents written by people to whom Greek often was a second language,\u00a0 making sure that your sense of the words’ meaning and connotation is the same as theirs.<\/p>\n

Or just do what the man in the pulpit tells you to do.<\/p>\n

Mythic or esoteric explanations are missing, because this is a book about small o-orthodox Christianity pointed at educated readers-who-probably-were-raised-as-Christians \u2014 like Ehrman, who says that his own journey runs backwards compared to christology, from Jesus as an aspect of a Trinitarian God to Jesus as mortal prophet.<\/p>\n

Read How Jesus Became God <\/em>to be up to speed on the history of christology, and given the complexity of the subject, maybe you will understand why many Christians do not even want to think about it, preferring instead to make statements like this:<\/p>\n

If you understand that most people are controlled and compelled by fear, then you will understand how hard it is to keep a church going that doesn’t teach about “paying for your sins in hell,” but rather how we bring God into our everyday a…<\/span>cts [sic<\/em>], how God can be here and now, not some nebulous, angry entity who is waiting to judge you when you die, how Jesus didn’t come to die for all of us horrible people, but to teach us about a radical way of loving unconditionally and all-inclusively and that Love is the answer to heal a broken world.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is one of my former students writing on her Facebook page about her church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A lot of the clergy actually don’t think that Jesus was divine anyway, if you pin them down. So where does that leave the cultus<\/em> angle? Do you need a divinity for that? I would say yes, but there are ways to talk yourself out of that corner.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I wrote my recent post, “The Danger in Being Ministerial,” I omitted a couple of points. For one thing, the priest\/ess vs. pastor \u2014 or cultus vs. social ministry \u2014 distinction is largely rhetorical. I do not mean to say that they cannot overlap, only that often they do not. Also, I am surprised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-6651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Jh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1027,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1027","url_meta":{"origin":6651,"position":0},"title":"The Theoi Project","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Theoi Project is a site for \"exploring Greek mythology and the gods in classical literature and art. The aim of the project is to provide a comprehensive, free reference guide to the gods (theoi), spirits (daimones), fabulous creatures (theres) and heroes of ancient Greek mythology and religion.\"Want a family\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4608,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4608","url_meta":{"origin":6651,"position":1},"title":"Evidence of Jesus’ Wife?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"You don't think a good Jewish boy from a peasant culture got to be thirty years old without being married, do you? Now there is textual evidence that suggests that he was. \u201cThis fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married,\u201d Dr. [Karen] King said.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3550,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3550","url_meta":{"origin":6651,"position":2},"title":"Mojo and Materiality: 300 Goddesses","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"After Isis Oasis and Lucky Mojo, the final stop on the pre-AAR annual meeting \"Mojo and Materiality\" tour was the home of Oberon and Morning Glory Zell of the Church of All Worlds. They contribute to Pagan \"materiality\" through through their business, Mythic Images, which features Oberon's and other designers'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/GoddessCollection_sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5538,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5538","url_meta":{"origin":6651,"position":3},"title":"St. Georgia, Maker of Art, Pray for Us","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here in the city whose patron is St. Francis (more about that later), I keep thinking that the new pope of the same name might as well go ahead and canonize \u2014 or at least beatify \u2014\u00a0 Georgia O'Keeffe. Yes, there are some obstacles. 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Not because Ms. Jones is running for office, but the use of the term \"minister.\" Immediately I thought of John Michael Greer's recent column in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3622,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3622","url_meta":{"origin":6651,"position":5},"title":"Last Yuletide News Bits","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 This is your brain. This is your brain on Christmas. \u2022 \"How the Lawyers Stole Winter\"\u00a0 \u2014 are we raising kids who can't cope? No, it's not Yule-related, directly. Indirectly, yes, I would argue. You have to embrace all of the wheel. \u2022 No matter how \"imagistic\" it may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"childhood\"","block_context":{"text":"childhood","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=childhood"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/SantaPickuptruck1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6651"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6661,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions\/6661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}