This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

The Many Faces of Jesus

Albert Schweitzer long ago famously noted that the so-called quest for the historical Jesus was bound to fail. That quest was little more than a mirror image of those seeking the historical Jesus, and hardly a referendum on the “true” Jesus. That, of course, did not stop the renewal of the quest for the historical Jesus in the mid- and late-twentieth century. But Schweitzer's criticism, it seems to me still stands. Not just for the "historical questers" but for all those who come to us declaring that they have the "real Jesus."

One hears much of different sorts of Jesuses out there, outside the rather academic and esoteric quest for the historical Jesus. One that has a lot of play right now is a view that pits the Jesus of the Gospels over against the Jesus of Paul. The Jesus of the Gospels, it seems, is a pacifist, more loving, more radical, more anti-establishment, more concerned about the poor, is inclusive, non-judgmental, and so on. The Jesus of Paul tolerates a government that uses the power of the sword, is more institutional, is exclusive, homophobic and judgmental. In short, the Jesus of the Gospels is the perfect sixties-liberal Jesus. The Jesus of Paul is the bizzaro Jesus.

But these aren't the only Jesuses out there. There's the guru Jesus, who's all about helping you evolve into your higher person. There's the self-help Jesus who is out to ensure you achieve your potential. There's the hippie/slacker/gen-x/cool Jesus with whom we just hang out, who's our “bud,” and ain't into this institutional, structural, formal oppressive religion thang. There's the pomo Jesus who's all about story and alternate narratives, and isn't concerned about whether or not there's an authoritative metanarrative to which we all must adhere. There's the Democrat Jesus who thinks, so we're told, that President Bush is a bonehead. There's the Republican Jesus who thinks everyone should have capitalism and tax cuts. There's the mainline Jesus who is pretty much one among many religious leaders and not too worried about whether he's the only way to God or not. There's the evangelical Jesus who has a special plan for your life. But don't forget the vegetarian Jesus. And of course, everyone knows that the green Jesus would never own or drive an SUV.

And so it goes.

The obvious problem here is that each of these Jesuses are self-referential: the Jesus we want, the one that makes sense to us. But this is not, if I may be forgiven for using a typically trite phrase, the “real Jesus.”

The Jesus who bid those without sin to cast the first stone at the woman caught in the act of adultery is the same Jesus who bids the Church to treat the unrepentant brother as a tax collector or sinner. The Jesus who mocks our hypocritical judgmentalism is the same Jesus who bids us demarcate false prophets by their fruit and know whom are the swine so as not to cast our pearls before them. The Jesus who frequently pulled the beards of the Jewish religious establishment is the same Jesus who bids us with grievances to take them to the Church. The Jesus who bids us turn the other cheek is the same Jesus who “opened a can of smite-arse” on the merchants in the Temple. Twice.

But none of us were alive when the Incarnate Christ walked this earth. The only Jesus we know is the Jesus that has been given to us. The only Christ we have is the Christ of the Church. There is no use looking for the “real” Jesus if we do not begin and end with the Church's Jesus. We either take him whole, or not at all. We take the Jesus who said not even to resist an evil person, along with the Jesus who overturned the livelihoods of simple Jewish merchants making a living as best they knew how.

Nor will it do any good to resort to a personal Jesus, a Jesus of our own individual experience. We do not have Jesus apart from the Church. There is no such thing as an experience of Jesus apart from the Church's experience. So any experience of Jesus that would depart from the Church's Jesus is, if I may be so blunt, a false Christ, and one that cannot save us. Our only hope is to find the Jesus the Church proclaims and submit to him; letting that Jesus, the real Jesus, drive out all our false Christs and transforming us by his grace through the struggle of faith.