The questions and observations below come from an address Hauerwas gave to graduates of Princeton Theological Seminary. If you have never been exposed to Hauerwas, get ready.
http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/default.xqy?img=1&src=PSB2007282.xml&div=8
Many Christians have never thought of Jesus' life and message as political. Rather, if one says Jesus is political, we here in America jump to issues on the left and right. Jesus is not political in this way. Jesus came proclaiming access to a new reality (the Kingdom of God). This is the gospel. This new reality is foolish to the wise, confounds the scholar and elevates the socially marginalized to a status of honor. Hauerwas says:
Jesus is the politics of the new age, he is about the establishment of a kingdom, he is the one who has created a new time that gives us the time not only to care for the poor but to be poor. Jesus is the one who makes it possible to be nonviolent in a violent world. After all, Mary's song promised that the proud would have their imaginations "scattered" , the powerful would be brought down from their thrones, the rich would be sent away empty, The lowly would be lifted up, the hungry would be filled with good things. Is it any wonder that the world was not prepared to welcome this saviour?
After reading the address consider the following:
- How have we tamed the gospel? Have we reduced it?
- Have you found that 'American' presuppositions have colored the way you read the Bible?
- In light of Jesus offering a different way of seeing the world, why are we not doing it?
What say you?
Posts
2 comments:
1. Of course we've tamed it! I think the moment you can boil the gospel down to a 2-minute "witness" on someone's doorstep, it can be assumed that the still-hard-to-digest message of Christ has been oversimplified.
2. Because of my upbringing, the American perception of exactly who the Bible is pulling for is always the first and hardest filter I have to remove when reading scripture.
3. Maybe it requires more than we as a society are willing to give...
Still hard to digest? What do you think the message is?
Post a Comment