Darryl said,
You guys will start chasing your tail by asking whether or not some form of Christianity is truly Christian or not.

I think it is critically important to research and understand the origins of Christianity. A very valid argument can be made that Christianity as we know it didn’t start with Jesus but with the Gospel authors. They merged some previously existing disjoint religious concepts into a unified theology which was more potent and easier to relate to than anything previously existing. In political terms, it was pure genius. In ontological terms, though, it was no different than the alternative pagan ideas at the time.

Yes most definitely like Rome, but if you are going back to the setting of Jesus, that was more Judaism than Christianity

Yes, exactly my point. Jesus ought to first be understood in terms of 1st century Judaism, before interpreting him through 2000 intervening years of Christian theology. Jesus was a Jew who thought he was reforming and fulfilling Judaism, and his first followers (including Paul) likewise still thought of themselves as Jews who were following the Jewish Messiah. Jesus through that lens looks far less traditionally “Christian” and far more politically subversive in my opinion.

(And I don’t think first century Jews – or any ancient near eastern culture for that matter – would have even been able to conceive of such a thing as “separation of church and state”. Those terms didn’t exist as discrete categories; it was all interwoven to them. For instance, the original Greek word for church “ekklesia” is itself a political word.)

For more on that, I’d highly recommend Richard Horsley’s “Jesus and Empire”, Dominic Crossan’s “God and Empire”, or Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat’s “Colossians Remixed”. Or for the less academic, Reader’s Digest version, Brian McLaren’s “The Secret Message of Jesus”. Or check out my post here on “Was Jesus Political?”

Darryl said,

January 20, 2008 at 10:17 pm

You guys will start chasing your tail by asking whether or not some form of Christianity is truly Christian or not.

Darryl, that was not the question and I tried hard not to insinuate that or say I was making that judgement call. You totally misunderstood the question.

Kate said,

Mandy – Hemant’s e-mail is friendlyatheist@…..

Claire said,

Is it ok to just send things like that? I saw the same article and thought the same thing, but didn’t know if it was quite the done thing.

Kate,
My understanding is that spambots cruise the internet looking for email addresses (like Hemant’s, as you posted it above) & therefore it’s advisable, and current etiquette, to write them out in a way understandable to people but not computers, for example: friendlyathiest at friendlyathiest dot com

Mike, I do have one question, though. There is a wide range of beliefs among Christians. Exactly where does a group stop being RR and considered on the “Emerging” side? Is it possible to keep that true spirit of Christ alive, as long as we hang onto the organized religion?

Contrast that then to the politics of today’s Religious Right, in their lack of concern for the poor, their rubber stamp support for Bush’s wars of conquest, and their rabid pursuit of political power and demand of absolute allegiance to their (Republican) President. In all of these ways they are much closer to the gospel of Rome, IMO, than to the gospel of Jesus.

Secondly, Mary was called in Greek (and please do excuse the spelling) his quinenos, kwinenos- which means companion, friend, confidant- my older son astutely pointed out once, this could mean a number of things even the possible misconception of his wife, BUT rather his widowed sister or sister-in-law. It is possible since she is considered a widow and according to the time a woman could not be without a male relative, that when she became a widow, she fell under his supervision. So, she might not have just supported his ministry because she was a rich widow, but she could have been a rich widow who are related to him. In the process, she not only followed him around, but became emotionally close to him, which could easily be mistaken for having a physical relation, but in reality could have been JUST an emotional closeness and nothing more- like a sister or possibly a sister-in-law.

Thirdly, he did not turn women away as a rule, even though we disagree on his level of respect for women. They were there and they spoke to him freely- even when he broke all the social rules of the time and spoke to the woman at well, who appeared to be alone at the time in the story.

The list goes on and on as to what the early Christians may have been, but the bottomline, it seems to me the RR has created something totally new in the spectrum of Christianity. Looking at all the varieties of the past- Docetism, Gnostism, Donatism, Hermetics, etc, none of them fit the RR. I think, if all the views were allowed to develop and evolve with human progress, we’d find something more in line with Religious Humanists, Christian Humanists, Liberal Christians, and Progressive Christians. (Please don’t ask me which on became which though, because I’m not sure it’s that easy. )