Note: this is part two of a four-part journal entry exploring and evaluating the Frontline series, "From Jesus to Christ" available for free online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/
I have altered the publication dates so the first entry is listed as the most recent publication, to help facilitate reading order.
Prompt: What was most surprising to you about the years following
Jesus' crucifixion and the origins of the Christian religion?
The documentary talks about the struggle of the early
Christians trying to understand Jesus' crucifixion- specifically, how could the
Son of God have been tortured and executed? It sounds like the early
followers went back to the Hebrew Bible and found the prophecies about the
Messiah closely reflected the experience of Jesus at his death, and so they
(the followers) decided it was not just possible that the Messiah could be
tortured and executed, but that it was required, and therefore, clearly, Jesus
was the Messiah. This surprised me because I never considered the
possibility that the disciples thrust Jesus into the Messiah role after his
death. Not being very conversant in Scripture, I always had a vague sort
of impression that Jesus preferred to let others interpret his actions and
teachings as works of a Messiah, rather than self-proclaiming them. I feel
pretty confident that the Gospels depict a cagey and noncommittal Jesus with
Pontius Pilot. Combined with the extensive efforts taken to create the
Gospels and the multi-century evolution of the canon of Christianity, I find
myself wondering if Jesus became the Messiah because the earliest disciples
needed him to be. I'm surprised to find myself wondering…how can I still
consider myself a Christian?
Prompt: How is spreading the message of Jesus today different than
for the first followers? In what ways should we imitate the first followers? In
what ways should our evangelization be different, and why?
Ultimately, the call of the evangelist, whether
ancient or contemporary, is to convince an audience of the veracity of
their claim of Christ. The goal remains the same, but the challenges faced by
evangelists have changed.
Since the earliest Christians were Jewish first, and
members of the Jesus Movement, the Jewish Diaspora helped move the early
Christians throughout the region. Since there were far more Jewish
communities outside Israel than inside Israel, this early impetus helped fling
the first Christians across the empire. The community-center function of
the early synagogues also helped spread the Christian teachings, as even
Gentiles were permitted in the outer areas of the synagogues, and no comparable
structure or organization existed in the pantheon religions to challenge the
conversations about Jesus. Once the Christians split with
Judaism, the presence of a highly developed road systems enabled the early
followers of Jesus to disperse and engage with a far-flung population.
The ease of travel made it possible for early disciples to rapidly disperse
from the center of their movements out to other populations, including those
outside the Jewish faith, which greatly increased the potential pool for
conversion. At the same time, all of the conversations and missions
were forming and developing the canon of Christianity. The roles of men
and women were not completely set, and there was no religious hierarchy or
authority. The early Christian world was fluid and open to discussion.
The challenges of the earliest Christians were to get the Word out there, but
even more than that, to define what the Word was. In many ways, the journey of
the earliest Christians parallels the efforts of the ancient Israelites and the
Jews during Babylonian Exile, to create and codify a religious identity
separate and distinct from the other options in the world.
Today, there are only minimal challenges related to defining the
place of Christianity within Judaism- the two religions are widely recognized
and accepted as separate, though related. Physical travel is faster, and the
advent of global, instantaneous availability of information means ideas spread
at an uncontrollable rate. The fundamental canon of Christianity is
pretty set, and feels ancient to a contemporary viewer. Two thousand years is a
long time, even if it pales compared to the historical age of Judaism.
And yet, the details of Christianity continue to face major changes and
evolutions- perhaps due to the rapid acceleration of intellect and inventions
in the past millennia, perhaps because Christianity became the first global
religion, perhaps because the advent of intellectualism encouraged Christians
to place their beliefs in their lives, rather than patterning their lives on
their beliefs. The massive advances in scholarly endeavors into the
ancient Biblical world and the ability to find and accurately date evidence in
the artefact records bring skepticism into the faith conversation. Where
the first Christians sought to ground the Messiah in the familiar teachings of
the Hebrew Bible, contemporary Christians must ground the Messiah in a world of
science, contradictory evidence, and skepticism.
A contemporary evangelist must help the audience
reconcile academic contractions to the Bible, and help find a balance between
one's faith (which perhaps cannot be quantified) with the world.
Contemporary American culture demands that religion be separate from the other
major components of life. Balancing the needs of a faith and religion
against the civic duties and privileges is difficult. The contemporary
evangelist must find a way to make Christ relevant to audiences who have never
seen the Holy Land, whose exposure to fundamentalist religions is negative
(thanks, religious terrorism) and whose attention is constantly under assault
by digital technology. I'm typing this in a coffee shop, looking at a
poster advertising a vacation bible camp called "Under God's Big Top"
and the irony that the appeal of a circus is being used to attract youth into
an evangelical environment is strong.
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