The Alchemy of Belief

How inherited truths are broken open and made sacred again

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When I went through my fundamentalist phase, it didn't last long. Only a couple of years really. Still, looking back makes me cringe. I am embarrassed and ashamed at how deeply I dove in. I said absolutely terrible things to people I care about, things I can’t ever take back.

Case in point…

Back then in the late '90s, I embraced hardcore Calvinism. Meanwhile, a friend came from a Wesleyan background. We constantly butted heads. Heated debates became shouting matches.

As a champion of “orthodoxy”, I insisted that right belief wasn’t just important, but essential for salvation. Why? Because the Bible was the Word of God for us, and to accept God meant accepting the Bibles truth.

We stayed friends, but I wonder how much closer we might have been without all the theological hostility.

So, yes, I am embarrassed and ashamed. Truth be told, I would like to lock away that part of my life in a box and tuck it back into the recesses of my closet, never to be pulled out again.

But that wouldn't be healthy. Growth requires learning facing one’s self. Part of becoming a healthy human being is owning every version of ourselves, including the ones that make us wince.

Believe “in Jesus” versus belief “of Jesus”?

I no longer think “right doctrine” is required for salvation from Hell. But that doesn’t mean I think belief is unimportant. On the contrary, I believe our beliefs are central to our spiritual growth and maturity.

After leaving fundamentalism behind, I discovered a new idea. You may have heard it: It's not about having belief “in Jesus”, but about having the belief “of Jesus”. Or, to put it another way, it's not about having faith in Jesus, but about having the faith of Jesus.

Perfect timing! It was the stepping stone I needed to launch me forward. Belief still mattered, just in a different way. This filled my new void.

So, what did Jesus believe?

Well, let’s look at what he primarily preached about in the Gospels: The Kingdom of God. Whether he said it was near, within, or among us, the point remains that this was his core message.

• Caring for the poor

• Visiting the imprisoned

• Embracing nonviolence

• Choosing compassion over judgement

He upheld certain principles and values as divine. Anyone reading the Gospels will quickly see these and other themes rise to the surface. This was Jesus’ vision of possibility. This is what he believed in.

Right?

Well…

The problem with “what Jesus believed”

Here’s where things get problematic.

The Gospels were written half a century after Jesus’ death to address issues faced by early Christian communities. Could those stories about Jesus have originated with Jesus and been passed down through the decades? Perhaps. But, it may be more accurate to say that the “beliefs of Jesus” in the Gospels are more likely the beliefs of the Gospels’ authors.

You see, the problem with the actual “beliefs of Jesus” is that it’s hard to pin them down. And, this is where Historical Jesus scholars come in.

Historical Jesus scholars, like other academic biblical scholars, recognize that the Gospels are not literal history. They were written much later to instruct early Christian communities. They not only tapped into some traditions about Jesus, but also created some of their own when needed. Historical Jesus scholars use historical critical tools to reconstruct who Jesus really was as an historical figure.

So, who was Jesus, really?

Well, it depends on which scholar you're reading. He may have been a revolutionary, and apocalyptic prophet, or even a Jewish mystic. Different historians paint different portraits. And as one more conservative scholar has noted (Luke Timothy Johnson?), their portrayals of Jesus conveniently look a lot like them.

And now we have a problem.

If the Gospels aren't necessarily reliable histories, and Historical Jesus scholars tend to paint pictures that are at least in part self-portraits, then how do we know what Jesus actually believed?

And, if we don't know what Jesus actually believed, how do we believe the same things he did? Sure, we can say he proclaimed the Kingdom of God and that the belief in the Kingdom of God fueled his ministry. But what exactly did that mean for him as an historical person?

Ultimately when we say we are promoting the “beliefs of Jesus”, we’re actually promoting what we believe were the beliefs of Jesus, with no guarantee that our beliefs about what he believed are accurate.

That said, I want to emphasize that I value scholarship and take it very seriously. While I do not think it's going to be perfect, I do think that scholarship gets us in the ballpark. When you have a majority of scholars portraying a general picture of Jesus with a lot of overlap, I consider that to be significant. More than likely, you're on the right path.

So, it's important to listen to scholars say. But for our purposes right now I want to emphasize that our beliefs about what Jesus believed are framed by our own beliefs. So we have to ask, what is “a belief” and where do beliefs come from?

Postmodern culture is experiencing a meaning crisis.

Why have we lost sight of Meaning?
Is there any hope of getting it back?
Better yet, is the loss of Meaning really a bad thing?

If you long for a path forward, my theology book Drinking from an Empty Glass: Living Out of a Meaningless Spirituality is the book you’re looking for.