Liberal Christianity

Lesson 3: Jesus: History, Mystery and Doubt

The Christ of Faith- Did He Live or was He a Myth?

In our current modernity in which we tend to be, as Borg puts it, "fact fundamentalists," this issue seems to possess greater criticality to Christian literalists more than Christian liberals. Fundamentalists/literalists find themselves precariously close to an "all or nothing" stance and in almost knee-jerk fashion, they actively resist anything that suggests the Jesus is not exactly how Catholic and Protestant doctrines have portrayed him.

The question seems to devolve into a positive/negative, either/or and "all-or-nothing" position that reflects just how shallow are the waters of literal thinking. So long as you remain in shallow water you can stand and splash but are forced to remain in the confines of shallow water. Gnostics, among others, contended that the mortal Jesus showed them how to spiritually swim, thereby escape shallow waters, and come to know and understand the ocean.

Referring again to Borg's student who said that some people believe more in the lens (the Bible) than what the lens focuses on, we can also make the case that upon encountering Jesus, some people have remained so focused on a literal Jesus that they fail to perceive or move in the direction in which Jesus pointed - to God our Father.

Exercises:

1. Do you believe that the prime purpose of Jesus was to preach a God of monarchy with strict requirements for obedience, a scoreboard of good and bad deeds upon which punishment or reward would be based? Elaborate please.

a. Which do you feel is of greater priority, the Spirit of the Law or the Letter of the Law?

2. The concepts of Jesus as presented in the Sermon on the Mount, The Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son surmount any need for divine authorship respecting whether or not they are good policies by which to live and govern.

a. Agree or disagree and why?

3. God is a monarch, a benevolent Julius Caesar requiring total obedience and loyalty and who is in an eternal spiritual warfare with evil.

a. Did a mythical or actual Jesus teach such a concept? Explain your answer.

4. God is a God of Compassion, the Father of Compassion who is revealed to each human being by internal perception and in outward acts of kindness, forgiveness and love. God's objective for humanity is not the proliferation of an obedient army of souls to combat evil. Rather, mortality is God's schoolroom, laboratory and field trip by which mortals learn about their relationship to God through practice, trial and error, sin, repentance and mercy.

a. Did a mythical or actual Jesus teach such a concept? Explain your answer.

5. Does it matter whether Jesus is mythical or actually lived? Explain your answer.

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