In recent months there has been much public focus on the question "Who is Jesus?" The moderator of the United Church of Canada, the Rev. Bill Phipps, has been at the centre of the controversy. He has stated "although Jesus represents all of God that could be poured into a human being, Jesus was not God." His views on poverty were also forthright. "Your soul is lost unless you care about people starving in the streets."

Costly Faith

My immediate reaction to these statements was to wonder whether or not his audience recognized that there might be a connection between the doctrine and the social problem he identified. Many people regard Christian doctrine as some dry, academic, irrelevant exercise. In fact, it can be demonstrated in Christian history again and again that what we believe conditions our actions.

The Creeds state that Jesus is "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God." These articles of faith were not produced by a group of scholars who delighted in the finer points of philosophical debate, neat little paradoxes, or a turn of phrase. For the Apostles, faith was far beyond intellectual assent, far beyond listening for an innermost truth. These are important considerations, but for Peter and Paul, and those who followed them, faith had to do with a personal transformation process. That process was centred in Jesus, in his death and resurrection, and in the power of His Spirit. This faith was worth dying for.

The famous Council of Nicaea was attended by people who had suffered because they knew the value of this faith. Two of the bishops from Egypt were minus one eye and the hands of Paul from Mesopotamia had been paralysed by hot irons. They were not going to be satisfied with regarding Jesus as some sort of demi-god of a man with special gifts. Athanasius went into exile five times because he would not compromise on the expression "of one substance with the Father." The Creeds were written in the blood of the saints and martyrs.

Distorted Beliefs The distortion of beliefs was discerned through the suffering and sorrow which they conditioned in an individual Christian, in the church fellowship and, as the centuries passed, in a Christian society. Whenever Jesus has been understood as "only divine" or "only human," the resulting life experience has been disastrous. In society people have long worshipped possessions, power and pleasure. When the balancing factor of Christian trust and faith withdrawn, Hell breaks loose.

What the Rev. Bill Phipps and other church leaders tend to ignore is that the motivation and sustaining power of caring for the underprivileged is based on God who cares enough to come among us in the most meaningful manner. Without the love of the living Lord Jesus Christ renewed in our hearts daily, the cause of caring for the needy is doomed to failure.

Heresy's Heartache

To appreciate the heartache associated with heresy I suggest we remember times when we moved out of the Eucharist, and related to some vague conception of a creator god, or a god whom we sought within ourselves. For a short time or for special prayer sessions this may do little harm. However, if we stay with those concepts invariably our sense of morality dulls, close relationships deteriorate, and we lose the sense of inner peace. Written large the same deep distress can be produced by families, church communities and society, when those responsible for keeping the focus on the incarnate God drift into generalities.

When I visit Canterbury Cathedral, I always try to spend some quiet time in the Chapel of St. Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury who wrote "Why the God-Man?" Anselm put forward a definition of God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." Well, a god who simply implants the idea of love in creation without taking any direct risk or responsibility for it is hardly our highest concept of goodness or beauty.

Love always has to be incarnated; love is more than a thought process. In coming to faith the Archbishop stated, "I believe that I may understand." There are many in the church today who reverse that order to their great detriment. Anselm saw that the perception that God's love lacked down-to-earth commitment to other people. It grew into disrespect and abuse of others, as he saw so clearly in the society which produced the Crusades.

Why were so many ordinary people enthused about fighting a war in the Holy Land? They had been taught that something more than the cross of Jesus was necessary for atonement. All of their sins could be written off if they joined a Crusade. No more penance of fasting on bread and water for moths each year for twenty years, no purgatory if they died in the Crusade. When the power of Jesus to atone is limited, the church is incapable of incredibly iniquitous conduct.

My Opinion? Church's Teaching? Many recent Christian authors and columnists are content with the question "Who is Jesus for you?" It is possible to pose this question in a very self-centred manner, as if I have options which I should assess from time to time. Such a light approach could be understood to mean that my opinion is more important than what the church has discerned again and again over the centuries. Every Anglican deacon, priest, and bishop promises at their ordination, by word and by a signed document, to "conform" to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the church.

Century of Cruelty

Over the last one hundred years in Christian nations the question of the twofold nature of Jesus as human and divine has been questioned, assailed and diluted. The twentieth century has also witnessed the greatest suffering the world has ever known and most of it wrought by countries in which the Christian faith has been long established. The attempts to have people sing "glory to Man in the highest" simply do not ring true.

Political theory, economics, theology and public opinion are not isolated subjects. What is believed about God and His purpose for the world bears heavily upon the values of society. The First World War was extremely popular in all countries when it began. Nationalism evolved as an extension of the conviction "How great I am." Darwin's contention of the survival of the fittest saw competition of the survival of the fittest saw competition and force as normal laws of life. Democracy forced leaders, if they needed convincing, to pay attention to public opinion however belligerent or narrow-minded.

To contain these forces the Church needed to be centred on the depths of love revealed in Jesus. What was the focus of the major Christian theologians of that era? After nine chapters describing twentieth century religious thought in terms of Idealism and Naturalism, John Macquarrie makes a statement which demands our contemporary reflection. "The idea that the Gospels tell us more about the beliefs of the first Christians than about Jesus himself was carried by some to the extent of denying that there ever was a Jesus, and of explaining Christianity as simply a development out of the mythical and religious images of the ancient world."

In that warped mileau, intellectuals and writers, even church leaders, shared the eagerness for war, when the opportunity arose. Before long, however, the plea to heave was "God help us." The cruelty of heresy once again contributed to the destruction of human life on a massive scale.

Have we learned?

Wouldn't you think that we would learn from the experience of the last century? Not likely. Just this week I read of Bishop John Spong introducing his new book which is about to be published. The book focuses on the inadequacy of atonement theology and alternative visions of the meaning of Jesus. "The image of Christ as a rescuer is an image that must go. Jesus' ability to maintain his creative, loving selfhood under highly stressful conditions was a characteristic which led many to believe that the life of Jesus went beyond the boundaries of normal human life."

The bishop is quoted as saying that God, while intensely real to him, "was no longer conceivable as an external being, but rather as present in the depths of human experience. Where Jesus differs from other people is not by being a hybrid mix of divine and human, but in the higher degree of his consciousness of God."

Such teachings are not going to lead persons to the life transforming experience of the Spirit of the living Lord Jesus Christ. In the last decade, the number of Anglicans in North America has dropped dramatically. Churches cannot grow where there is a lack of focus on the divinity, or on the human nature, of Jesus. If this claim is maintained it can lead to further deterioration of moral values, to disunity of the church, to less concern for the needy, and disregard for social evil.

Why preach Jesus as a special person?

Why would Anglican and other church leaders wish to represent Jesus as something less than the fully divine, fully human person of the traditional faith?

Some cannot accept the faith as traditionally presented. This position must be respected. People can move out of a full faith for many reasons, some intellectual and others personal, and so they deserve to be heard and loved. In these to listen to love, and to witness to them of the power of the living Lord. With time and changing circumstances the Holy Spirit has moved and will continue to move people to rediscover Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

Others claim they desire to communicate the faith in terms that will make sense of moderns. From their perspective, traditional Christianity had no contemporary cultural credibility, and thus, for numerical growth and acceptability, new versions of Christianity are necessary. The urgent plea is "adapt Christian teaching to modern culture or we perish." The weakness of this solution is that the churches which are growing numerically are precisely those who hold to the fullness of faith in Jesus as both human and divine.

The last twenty years has been described as the "Me Generation." As the name suggests, life is centred on the needs and demands of the individual. The cries of "I'm number one" and "I'm doing my own thing" are still with us. Ours is an age of self fulfilment, often expressed in hedonistic self-centredness. To be accepted, ethical and religious values would have to comply with what conveniently fits our sense of need.

The claim that the Church must adapt its teaching to modern culture or perish is misguided. It fails to appreciate that it is possible to adapt the means of presenting the Gospel to make it culturally acceptable without changing the fundamental faith.

From earliest times, the Church has struggled with the challenge to be relevant. Yet when the Gospel message has been compromised the results have been painful. Today's church is challenged to find effective means of communicating the age old Gospel.

In facing the future we can be encouraged that dilute Christology does not and cannot reproduce itself. It is merely a cause that some person or other may choose to champion for various reasons, but there is nothing inherently productive about it. How can there be when people are left with the impossible task of imitating the perfect life the human Jesus, without the divine power to do so?

There is need for great concern but not for despair when false teaching is being promulgated. God is faithful. Two thousand years have shown that heresy will eventually burn itself out.

Bishop Eddie is a missioner of ARM Canada, is on the ARM board, and was formerly the diocesan bishop of Central Newfoundland.
August 2001

Anglican Renewal Ministries