Role Your Own Jesus

Jesus was a really great guy. He said a lot of things with which it's hard to take exception, and He's got a lot of clout in spiritual circles. Everyone wants Jesus playing for their team; every religion seems to find some niche for Him in its theology. For Islam, He is a great prophet. For Buddhists, he is a Bodhisattva. For Hindus, He is a great swami or avatar. For the cults, He is "a god" or a special creation of God. And for liberal Christians, He is a great spiritual teacher and moral example.

If you can employ a biblical quote from Jesus to make your point in a religious debate, then you can imagine you've scored big points — especially against someone who holds to a more traditional view of Christianity. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work the other way around; a classical Christian can't get much leverage for their view by appeal to Scripture.

In a dialog with liberals and non-Christians you will often hear them say things like, "Jesus just wanted us all to love and accept each other" or, "I think Jesus was just an enlightened human, like Buddha." And then they will appeal to some snippet of the Bible in support of their case. But how is it that they know anything about Jesus from which to form such opinions?

Our only source of any detailed knowledge about Jesus is in the Scriptures. However, the very thing that unites liberals and those of alternative religions against historical Christianity is the rejection of the reliability of these Scriptures. In order to reject doctrines such as the bodily resurrection, the deity of Jesus, and the final judgment, they must first have convinced themselves that it is all just an allegory or that myth and error have invaded the texts. Unfortunately, this leaves them with a problem.

If you've rejected the reliability and historicity of the biblical documents, then how do you know which parts are corrupted and which parts hold the truth? What good are they to your portrait of Jesus if you can't count on them as a credible witness? But the antagonists of orthodoxy do quote certain texts to support their theology, as though such passages had escaped corruption and were to be taken literally. However, if you present clarifying or "competing" verses to them they will brush them aside as so much litter.

So, have these people with the "real" portrait of Jesus found the magic key for sorting the good verses from the bad? In a sense, yes: The "key" turns out to be their own personal opinions on the matter. They may have picked up their notions about Jesus from some imaginative books or religious leaders, but in the end it is their own thoughts and winnowing of these ideas which drives them. When approaching the biblical texts, it is those passages that support their original thesis which survive their credibility filter.

Unfortunately, short of divine revelation, there is no reasonable way of getting at what Jesus really said and thought if the primary witnesses — the Gospel writers — have made a mess of the job. At least Mormons and Muslims, with their supposed divine texts about Jesus, have some hope of playing in this field of competing claims. Most people, however, are leaning on nothing more substantial than their own feelings to justify their interpretive approach.

Could something like the Gnostic texts help us to get at the "real" Jesus? Well, I suppose they could, in theory, but how would you be able to know that? If one has issues with the canonical texts, which even many liberal scholars place in the First Century, then one has even worse problems making the Gnostic texts authoritative. That is because they didn't even begin appearing until the mid-Second Century.

But it's not as though those who appeal to such documents are seeking to be orthodox Gnostics; they don't really believe that this is "authentic" Christianity. If you were to start ascribing specific Gnostic beliefs to someone appealing to the Gnostic texts for their alternative Jesus, they would most probably be insulted by your presumption. In practice, such persons do nothing more than add these additional writings to the buffet from which they fill their spiritual plates. There is no divine and authoritative canon to which someone like a New Ager or liberal Christian may look in order to set boundaries upon their wild speculations.

So, the next time you hear someone making a claim like, "Jesus was all about loving people, not judging them," you could respond with something like the following.

How do you know what Jesus was like? You can have no clue, since you reject the reliability of the Bible and you have no authoritative and accurate revelation about Him to which you may appeal. Your view is simply based upon your own imagination and desire for what you want Him to be like. By that measure, my imagination is as good as your own. And since the earliest writings of the Christian community and the consensus of the historical church is on my side, then I feel quite comfortable sticking with my own "opinion," thank you.