A Change of Allegiance:
Who is this Christ we claim to follow?
by Pierre Gilbert
Who is Jesus Christ? This question, which has been on the backburner for some
time, is making a comeback, particularly as a result of the release of the Mel
Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ. Whether one likes the movie or agrees
with its reconstruction of Jesus’ final hours, the fact remains that this event,
more than anything else in recent history, has put the issue of who Jesus Christ
is, back in the public sphere.
The Christology question has always been, and
still represents, a watershed issue for the Church. What we believe about Jesus
Christ tends to determine the health and vitality of the Church.
The reason is
remarkably simple. Fundamentally, the Church of Christ is composed of those men
and women who have recognized their desperate natural condition as human beings,
have chosen to believe in the living Christ as the answer for their need and
have been transformed by his power. The Church is an organism brought together
and maintained by the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit. Without a clear
recognition and affirmation of these truths, churches will inexorably dwindle
into mere human institutions or to put it mildly, religious social clubs. These
"social clubs" are only viable to the extent that they appeal to a broad
spectrum of people and fulfill some sort of social function in the community.
Needless to say, in an increasingly secular and pluralistic society, religious
clubs will not do well.
Losing the Vertical
The tragic demise of the main-line churches in Canada and the United States
is a prime example of what happens when a religious intellectual elite opts for
and actively promotes an understanding of Christ and of the Christian faith that
strips it of its vertical dimension and its absolute claims on what constitutes
ultimate reality. Although Church historians often define the issues that were
at stake during the fundamentalist liberal controversy in the early 20s in terms
of the conflict between those who promoted caring for the person (the so-called
social Gospel), and those who were described as caring only for the soul,
essentially the debate centered on the nature of Christ. Rudolph Bultmann
focussed the matter when he proposed demythologizing the New Testament and gave
us a Gospel devoid of all supernatural elements and a Christ drained of his
deity.
To think that we are somehow immunized against this threat is a delusion.
The kind of Christ we hold on to and preach will, above and beyond any other
issue, ultimately determine the fate of our churches in the coming generation.
Not only will evangelicals have to face the challenge of maintaining and
communicating a sound view of Jesus Christ in an increasingly secular and
pluralistic society that has little stomach for religious absolutes, even
Mennonites will have to answer the question of what is most central about the
person of Jesus Christ.
Sin and Mission
Right now, I am willing to wager--and my readers are
certainly free to disagree with me on this one--that the debate will probably
reveal itself in our definition of sin and mission. If sin, as is often the case
in Anabaptist circles, is reduced to the construct: violence/use of
force/conflict and nothing more, it follows that redemption will be defined in
terms of conflict resolution and social peace. Then Christ will ultimately be
presented not as the person who demands a change of allegiance, but primarily as
a peacemaker. In such a model, Christ logically becomes no more than a glorified
Gandhi.
Not too long ago, I had a conversation with Gordon Nickel a graduate of
MB Biblical Seminary and a former Mennonite Brethren missionary who teaches
missions at the ACTS seminary consortium in Langley, BC. In October 2003, he
participated in an Anabaptist consultation on Islam. His comments were very
interesting in terms of getting a picture of where Mennonites are on mission and
the nature of Christ.
He observed that Mennonites are divided into two groups in
regards to what it means to do mission. On the one hand, some say that the
missionary enterprise is essentially a dialogue exercise designed to help those
with whom we interact discover the Gospel of peace in their own culture. They
reason that peaceful co-existence and "reconciliation" are the most important
needs of humanity. They suggest that this can be achieved by somehow showing
that all religions have a peace teaching and by trying to coax it out. As Gordon
pointed out to me, this approach is often condescending and paternalistic, since
not all religions encompass peace as a basic value.
Those on the other side of
the divide state that, while dialogue is certainly an intrinsic part of the
missionary enterprise, ultimately the missionary’s most basic task is to present
the person of Christ as the answer to human sin. The fundamental mandate is not
simply to help someone discover those peace elements that might be compatible
with the gospel. The central focus of the proclamation of the gospel is a call
to help men and women recognize their desperate condition without Christ and to
turn to him for personal redemption.
The Scandal of the Cross
While I do not deny the importance of engaging in
meaningful and sensitive dialogue, evangelism cannot be reduced to inter-faith
dialogue; that would be confusing strategy and substance, approach and
objective. Whereas dialogue and cultural sensitivity must be intrinsic to the
communication of the gospel, the missionary enterprise will always entail a call
to commit oneself to the person of Jesus Christ. It will always call for a
change of allegiance! This is the scandal of the cross.
Whether we like to admit
it or not, we don’t all see it this way. It is too often much easier today, and
more socially acceptable, to present a sanitized Christ, a politically correct
Jesus, who by his example will teach us to get along with one another.
A
missionary enterprise that is essentially reduced to showing others how virtuous
we are as human beings, in the hope that they will be impressed by our goodness
and move away from their violent ways, is ultimately a powerless and futile
enterprise. I know from experience that friendly dialogue will never, in and of
itself, truly displace hatred. As a French Canadian teenager who took great
delight in hating the "English," as I called them, it took much more than
exhortations of tolerance to change my heart. Only a radical conversion to the
person of Jesus Christ could and did accomplish that.
While violence is
certainly a tragic expression of human sin, and while we must as a peaceful
church seek to promote peace and reconciliation wherever we can, this is not the
whole story. There is more to sin than violence and social conflict, and there
is much more to redemption than conflict resolution. Sin is a terminal cancer
rooted in the deepest recesses of the human soul. The only cure for that
terrible ailment is redemption in Jesus Christ. Ultimately, this is the only
true source of reconciliation with God, the only source of real peace. Anything
else is nothing short of offering sugar pills to a dying man.
"I certainly don’t need to choose between peace and Christ," said Gordon
Nickel, "but I need to choose between a peace that is independent of Jesus and a
peace which comes only from his shed blood".
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