John Dominic Crossan

Katie D.

February 22, 2009 - 10:30 PM

Allow me to begin with a quote: "The normalcy of civilization is not an inevitability of human nature."

Good one liner, right? Pretty countercultural stuff, with a kind of great revolutionary ring: that we should not make claims that the way our culture works now is inevitable or natural. People can choose to act outside of society and it works just fine for them, so we know that society as a whole can also be changed. Examples: people who live non-violently, people who live purely on local produce, people who live in silence.

I didn't pick up this "departure from normalcy" quote from some kind of hippie meeting. It was at my church, First United Methodist. And the quoted speaker is a respected (and controversial) theologian and Biblical historian, John Dominic Crossan. He is a member of the Jesus Seminar, a controversial group of Christian scholars who are re-examining the life and times of Jesus to interpret his teachings in the modern church. John Dominic Crossan is a scholar interested in the contemporary implications of Jesus's life and teachings, and has studied the history and context of the Bible for many, many years.

I love this side of my religion. The side that goes back to Jesus as a radical thinker who said that the immigrants should be welcomed, the poor should be fed, the prisoners visited, and that the untouchables, un-save-ables, of the day should be welcomed as equals and as friends. I love the Jesus who had little good to say about the established church, who was so intense in his challenge of the established order that he died for it.

I love looking at the Bible with someone who has studied the context and original content of Biblical writings. As I am not myself any kind of authority on ancient Jewish and Roman culture, much of the Bible is lost on me without someone to explain. Crossan's most recent book, and the subject of his lectures, is a new look at the Apostle Paul, an early church leader who has been frequently misunderstood and misquoted, from Biblical times until now. As Crossan told us, Paul wrote letters that were answering specific concerns and questions of Christian communities at the time. He was not writing to us as 21st century Christians: when we read Paul's letters we are literally reading other people's mail.

John Dominic Crossan's interpretation is that the original Paul believed that all were equal in following Jesus. Paul's statement that there is neither man nor woman, slave nor free, was not just something pretty to say: it was his idea that, although people are different, there could be no hierarchy in the fellowship of Christians. This meant, for Paul, that there could be no Christian slaves held by Christian masters, and the question of women's place was not even worth a letter: it was simply a fact that in listing the respected Christian Roman leaders he included many women.

Crossan also spoke repeatedly to the violence in our world: the violence we do to each other and the violence to our world. Many images of God in the Bible essentially amount to a household: that a well-run household is one in which everyone has enough, the people who need help get it, and people work together. When this is applied to God, then Earth is God's household and we have done one hell of a job keeping things running smoothly. Basically, in this interpretation of the Bible, we're making God look bad, and getting closer to blow ourselves up in the process.

I could write on and on about this event: about the idea of non-violence and non-compliance with the "normalcy" of society. I could talk about the idea of distributive justice and again about the idea that the world we are supposed to be working toward is one in which everyone gets the help they need and no one goes without. To hear some church leaders talk, the biggest issue facing the world today is that of homosexual priests. Or homosexuals in general. I don't think so. Crossan doesn't think so, and I find it hard to imagine Paul or Jesus thinking so as hierarchies continue to mean that the household of humanity is founded on degradation, lack, and desperation.

So that's my church message of the day: that the current state of the world is not moving in accordance to any kind of rational or sustainable plan. If humanity continues along the current route we will probably end in blowing ourselves up. I happen to be a Christian so I imagine a Christian plan. But that's not really the most important thing here: what is important is that there are huge problems in our world, and that enough thoughtful, compassionate (and radical) people getting together at the same time can change the world for the better.