“To the extent one takes responsibility for the shape of one’s own life as a Christian…one must take responsibility for what one thinks Christianity is all about.”[1]
“Now you say, ‘How shall I proceed to think of God as he is in himself?’ To this I can only reply, ‘I do not know.’ Thought cannot comprehend God.”[2]
I. Introduction
The genesis of this paper springs from the effort to hold the above two statements in tension. The first, from Kathryn Tanner’s Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, is a 21st century expression of a belief within Christianity that goes back at least as far as I Peter 3:15, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.”[3]
This is a project that many great scholars and believers have attempted throughout history, producing volume upon volume of texts, and crafting in some cases very beautiful visions of what Christianity has been, is, and ought to be. Tanner and the author of I Peter suggest that faithful Christians should, to the degree they are able, follow suit.
But a nagging concern remains. For these explanations, these accounts, rarely agree. Any who attempt to elaborate a foundation for their own beliefs are struck not only with the diversity of historical understanding, but the realization that they may carry a set of beliefs independent of that expounded by any one author or any one body of believers.
Thus, the second quote, from the 14th century text The Cloud of Unknowing, underscores an equally powerful claim within Christianity – for all we may know of God, there is an infinity that is beyond our knowing. To claim otherwise is to somehow lessen the divine otherness of God, to lay claim to what we as humans can only believe we possess by way of delusion and hubris.
Given the central role of Jesus to Christianity, and given all that we know and do not know about this figure, how does our understanding of these two positions impact our understanding of Christ? Is reconciliation of the two possible, or even desirable? This exploration will center on this tension, asking along the way questions that may assist in the process – questions such as, “Who is Jesus?,”“Who is Jesus to us?,” and “Who is Jesus to others?”
“Now you say, ‘How shall I proceed to think of God as he is in himself?’ To this I can only reply, ‘I do not know.’ Thought cannot comprehend God.”[2]
I. Introduction
The genesis of this paper springs from the effort to hold the above two statements in tension. The first, from Kathryn Tanner’s Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, is a 21st century expression of a belief within Christianity that goes back at least as far as I Peter 3:15, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.”[3]
This is a project that many great scholars and believers have attempted throughout history, producing volume upon volume of texts, and crafting in some cases very beautiful visions of what Christianity has been, is, and ought to be. Tanner and the author of I Peter suggest that faithful Christians should, to the degree they are able, follow suit.
But a nagging concern remains. For these explanations, these accounts, rarely agree. Any who attempt to elaborate a foundation for their own beliefs are struck not only with the diversity of historical understanding, but the realization that they may carry a set of beliefs independent of that expounded by any one author or any one body of believers.
Thus, the second quote, from the 14th century text The Cloud of Unknowing, underscores an equally powerful claim within Christianity – for all we may know of God, there is an infinity that is beyond our knowing. To claim otherwise is to somehow lessen the divine otherness of God, to lay claim to what we as humans can only believe we possess by way of delusion and hubris.
Given the central role of Jesus to Christianity, and given all that we know and do not know about this figure, how does our understanding of these two positions impact our understanding of Christ? Is reconciliation of the two possible, or even desirable? This exploration will center on this tension, asking along the way questions that may assist in the process – questions such as, “Who is Jesus?,”“Who is Jesus to us?,” and “Who is Jesus to others?”
II. The psychological roots of our image of the divine
Each of us carries within some image of God – whether positive or negative, and whether or not we choose to follow that image. For any exposed to Christianity, this is also true for Jesus. Whether through film or flannel board or written text, that with which we have come in contact shapes the way in which we think about Jesus and the image we form of him. As a result, our psychology has bearing on our religion.
One way to approach this psychological component of our religious experience is through object relations theory – an attempt to understand how we come to comprehend and relate to that which is external to us. Freud proposed in 1895 the basic idea behind object relations theory. He did so almost in passing, as a way to explain an infant’s understanding of itself in relation to its mother – the earliest object a child experiences. Later psychologists elaborated on this concept as they explored early childhood development. They suggested that these earliest relations form the foundation for an individual’s understanding of all subsequent relations, including those with the divine.[4]
“[O]bject relations theorists assume that in the earliest relationships individuals form subjective images of the object with whom they are in relation,” explains Michael St. Clair. “The individual’s early emotional relationships color and shape how the person forms an image of God and relates to God.”[5]
As such, early understandings of God and Jesus are often larger-than-life versions of parental figures, whether for good or ill. “[T]he representation of God each person produces is a compound image that results from all sorts of contributing factors,” he writes. “[F]eelings, relationships, the psychic situation prior to the oedipal period and during the oedipal complex, the characteristics of the parents, the predicaments of the child with each of his parents and siblings” all play a role.[6]
This representation, though, is subject to a certain degree of ongoing revision. St. Clair says that “ordinarily, by the end of adolescence, the God representation has acquired the basic traits that are to last for life [but].…Each life crisis offers an opportunity to revise the God representation or leave it untouched.”[7] As Ana-Maria Rizzuto explains,
…we can no longer talk about God in general when dealing with the concept in psychoanalytic terms. We must specify whose God we are talking about, at what particular moment in that person’s life, in what constellation of objects, and in what experience of self as context. The God representation changes along with us and our primary objects in the lifelong metamorphosis of becoming ourselves in a context of other relevant beings. Our description of a God representation entitles us to say only that this is the way God is seen at this particular moment of a person’s psychic equilibrium.[8]
Building on the work of Heidegger, Richard Grigg proposes the concept of a christological circle to explain this ongoing process: “I must approach an interpretation with a pre-understanding of what is to be grasped if I am to be able even to initiate the task. But, as understanding proceeds, my pre-understanding will be corrected or modified.”[9] According to St. Clair, “The pressure of living pushes all of us to work and rework over and over consciously and unconsciously the memories of those we encountered during childhood….Indeed, the process is never over.”[10]
Nonetheless, the encounter with religion “really only occurs AFTER the image of God has been formed.”[11] To the extent that Jesus is spoken of either as God or in relation to God, these images blend and overlap. As Rizzuto states, “No child arrives at the ‘house of God’ without his pet God under his arm.”[12]
Further, this initial conception continues to retain a hold on our psyche. According to St. Clair, a certain internal bifurcation takes place that allows us to develop an increasingly complex concept of the divine while never losing our original impressions. While further development and maturation leads to greater complexity than and further distancing from glorified representations of one’s parents, residual elements of these earliest understandings of the divine remain to color our perception of Jesus as loving friend, harsh judge, or any number of variations.
There is a conceptual God and Jesus that operates on a conscious level, as well as a representation of these figures shaped during our childhood. “This [representational] God, from its multiple causes,” he says, “has an emotional claim on us that the more conscious, conceptual God doesn’t.”[13]
Thus, from a psychological standpoint, there is no “pure” understanding of Jesus. The same is true of any figure we encounter, supernatural or otherwise. Our ability to relate to others and our understanding of how those relations are to proceed is in some part shaped by our earliest encounters. We may build upon that early understanding as we grow and mature, but it never loses its power as a foundation for that future construction. We cannot erase our past.
III. Choosing one Jesus among many
As we begin to spread our wings theologically, we are confronted with a multiplicity of theological understandings of Jesus. Richard Grigg identifies four major factors behind this development - the decline of creeds, the privatization of religion, historical awareness of pluralism over time, and an encompassing culture of pluralism.[14] This latter aspect is perhaps most evident in the U.S., where Harold Bloom concludes in his book The American Religion that the abiding rule is “if you do not like the churches, found your own.”[15]
The result is something of a feedback loop. Secularization and privatization leads to an erosion of specific and agreed upon universals, which in turn leads to pluralism, and back around again.
“The basic rubrics of Nicea and Chalcedon once played a major part in laying out the boundaries of Christological orthodoxy,” argues Grigg. “If those rubrics are dismantled by theologians and are unknown to ordinary Christians, versions of Christ will appear on the scene that would have been impossible in the past.”[16] We come to expect the ability to choose that image that most closely matches our personal sensibilities. Indeed, our choices are not limited to varieties of Christianity alone, but also include a host of other religious options.
“If I do in fact choose the Christ, the version of the Christ that I embrace will nonetheless have been influenced by my encounter with all of the other religious options arrayed before me,” states Grigg. “This choice as to how the believer unites with Christ necessarily affects whoChrist is for the believer.”[17]
Again, though, it is important to distinguish between our theological concept of Christ and our representation of Jesus. The former is subject to greater change as we pass through developmental stages and expose ourselves to the concepts of others. The latter can become buried deep within under layers of theology, or left unexamined and therefore out-of-touch with the ongoing development of the person in other areas.[18]
In fact, part of the work of object relations therapists can involve uncovering a cast aside representation or shedding external layers to discover, come to terms with, and revise as necessary the more closely held representation beneath. “Generally speaking,” says St. Clair, “the integration of the conceptual God with the representational God requires considerable soul-searching, self-scrutiny, and internal re-elaboration of the representation.”[19]
Along similar lines, it is equally as important to recognize how beholden we are to our surrounding culture as we are to our developmental past. “[H]uman perception of God is very much shaped by social and cultural environments in which human beings live,” explains C.S. Song, “and that perception in turn shapes their worldviews and religious beliefs.”[20]
Why is it that so few of us today relate to Christ Pantokrator, for instance, or Christ as bridegroom? The image of Jesus as emperor or romantic figure fits poorly into the social and theological frameworks we entered into as 20th century residents of a democracy. “[K]nowledge of the diversity of Christian self-understandings highlights the ambiguities of theological achievements, their often limited relevance to particular times and place, and their tendencies towards obsolescence,” cautions Tanner.
According to Grigg, “It is undeniable that a Christ who appeals to one epoch of the Christian tradition may be unattractive to Christians of another time…the mores of the surrounding culture have altered how Christians imagine Christ.”[21] Thus, despite feeling ourselves fully free to follow a path of our choosing, in many ways we are conditioned or pre-disposed to a particular understanding of Jesus. Just as our childhood is in many ways beyond our control, we are shaped in subtle ways by the environment around us. We cannot ignore our surroundings.
IV. The historical roots of Christological pluralism
This pluralism, however, is far from an entirely new phenomenon. Indeed, as Gregory Riley comments, the process began almost immediately: “There was at the core one Jesus, but as soon as the people who followed him as leader began to try to understand what he was, they created a bewildering array of answers – they produced many Christs.”[22] To say that modern Christians experience a pluralistic Christianity, then, is simply to state that modern Christians experience Christianity.
“[W]e should note that no singular New Testament ‘Christology’ exists,” states David Jensen. “What is apparent, rather, as one surveys its varied literature of Gospels, letters, and apocalypse is an abundance of Christologies, some complementary, some dissonant with one another.”[23] According to Grigg, this dissonance led to the creeds:
the Christological controversies of Christianity’s first five centuries show a church struggling with genuinely different interpretations of the person and nature of Jesus Christ. The pronouncements of the great ecumenical councils such as Nicea and Chalcedon attempted to bring order to the Church’s faith about Christ, but as the eminent church father Athanasius recognized about Nicea, such pronouncements had the relatively modest goal of determining what could not be said about Jesus Christ. In other words, they merely set negative boundaries for the church’s faith and teaching. Plenty of room remained for different positive formulations about the Christ, and this christological elbowroom has been thoroughly exploited down through the ages of Christian history. Many versions of Christ have found their way into Christian life and practice.
Nonetheless, many still desire confirmation of at least some core historical truths. With the modern desire for “facts” came a renewed urgency to discover just who the real “historical Jesus” was. Perhaps the first serious attempt along these lines was the German scholar Hermannn Samuel Reimarus’ 1778 attempt to show “that the actual Jesus of history bore little resemblance to any version of Christ that could be preached by the church.”[24]
The effort to resolve the matter flourished in the 19th century, but ran up against strenuous opposition in the form of Albert Schweitzer’s 1906 The Quest of the Historical Jesus. “Schweitzer made it clear that most of the nineteenth-century attempts to write a historically accurate biography of Jesus were anything but objective historical efforts,” explains Grigg. “Instead, the authors usually projected their own contemporary cultural sensibilities upon the figure of Jesus and recreated him in their own image.”[25]
Schweitzer, however, put forth his own explanation of who Jesus “really” was, and therefore came under the influence of the very problem he himself had diagnosed. Since his time, efforts to locate the Jesus of history have re-emerged every so often, never truly overcoming Schweitzer’s basic objection. This leads Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza to conclude:
Whether they imagine Jesus as an existentialist religious thinker, a rabbinic teacher, an apocalyptic prophet, a pious Hasid, a revolutionary peasant, a wandering Cynic, a Greco-Roman magician, a healing witch doctor, a nationalistic anti-Temple Galilean revolutionary, or a wo/man-identified man, the present flood of Historical-Jesus books and articles documents that despite their scientific positivistic rhetoric of facts and historical realism, scholars inescapably fashion the Historical-Jesus in their own image and likeness.[26]Indeed, as the list of depictions above indicates, the historians can rarely agree on the histories they develop. It is impossible to reach the objective account they desire in part because of limited data and in part because they bring with them their own preconceptions and histories.
“Reality is not simply given to us, unadulterated, if we only have eyes to see it,” explains Jensen, “rather, what we perceive as ‘real’ is filtered through a complex sediment of inherited interpretation and our own cherished presuppositions.”[27] Or, as Crystal Downing acknowledges, “We all have biases, and to claim that they don’t exist is to bind ourselves all the more to their power.”[28]
Each successive “Quest of the Historical Jesus” therefore does little to provide the sought-after clarity to anchor either secular understanding or religious belief. As Grigg notes, “On the contrary, it simply provides a new pluralism of its own; it offers us a host of historical Jesuses.”[29]
This seems to be where we run into the limits of our comprehension as suggested in The Cloud of Unknowing. We simply do not have the information that would allow us to construct an accurate image of Jesus unaffected by what we bring to the construction. In the words of John Caputo, “The faithful need to concede that they do not cognitively know what they believeby faith in any epistemologically rigorous way” (emphasis original).[30] We cannot escape our present.
V. Jesus, atomic structure, and the power of imagination
This hardly means Jesus is unreal or unimportant. “Since the details of this life are comparatively thin,” explains Jensen, “the task of each generation of Christians is to ask Christological questions anew, to reconstruct this figura in faithfulness to the memories and traditions of those who gathered in his name before us” (emphasis original).[31]
This faithful reconstruction is, if we are honest, an act of imagination. Grigg and others, however, wish to erode the stigma associated with this process. “Imagination is the creative, constructive element in thought,” he argues. “All of our thinking about the world involves some degree of imaginative construction.”[32]
Physicist Richard Feynman once commented that “if you had to reduce scientific history to one important statement it would be ‘All things are made of atoms,’” for atoms “are everywhere and they constitute everything.” But, at the same time, he acknowledged that “Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difficult to get used to and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyone, both to the novice and to the experienced physicist.”[33]Indeed, the most important truths may be beyond our ability to fully possess.
Another famed scientist, Werner Heisenberg, responded “Don’t try,” when asked how to envision an atom. Nonetheless, students and scientists throughout the world use diagrams of atomic structure.[34] This is in part because some image is necessary to even begin to grasp the more difficult conceptual understanding that the atom is beyond our ability to envision. As Rizzuto notes:
Reality and illusion are not contradictory terms. Psychic reality – whose depth Freud so brilliantly unveiled – cannot occur without that specifically human transitional space for play and illusion…Men cannot be without illusions. The type of illusion we select – science, religion, or something else – reveals our personal history and the transitional space each of us has created between his objects and himself to find ‘a resting place’ to live in.[35]
Thus, it may be necessary to not only acknowledge the existence and roots of our representation of Jesus, but to embrace the image we develop for what it is – the best effort on our part to approach, to understand, to live in relationship with and to be guided by the Jesus that exists beyond our imagination. “The cognitive tools we use to grasp the ordinary world must be imaginatively stretched,” says Grigg, “in order to approach the notion of the infinite God manifesting Godself in the form of the Christ.”[36]
It is along these lines that Grigg therefore develops his concept of “imaginary Christs.” Far from being a dismissive label, the term instead serves as an acknowledgement of the role we play within our minds in attempting to reach out toward the divine.
He illustrates the point by explaining how the phrase “imaginary unicorn” does not make sense. According to Grigg, “This phrase strikes us as misguided not in that it is simply redundant, but inasmuch as it suggests that there must exist at least one real unicorn, if we are to pick out others as imaginary.” In contrast, the phrase “imaginary Christs” implies the existence of a real Christ, while still granting space for imaginative work.[37]“‘Imaginary Christs’ are not unreal Christs, then,” explains Grigg, “but the constructions through which faith imaginatively approaches the reality of Jesus as the Christ.”[38]
Imagination, far from being a barrier to attaining the factual or historical Jesus, actually serves as a bridge. It allows us to avoid becoming mired down in the morass of a historical certainty that threatens to bring our journey to a halt. Song, in fact, makes the point that imagination is not so much “daydreaming” as it is an active method of discernment. “[A] symbol – any symbol – is a creation of human effort conditioned and limited by historical cultural realities,” he states. “We have to develop power of imagination to expose the lies a symbol inadvertently tells us as well as to appropriate the truths it may convey.”[39]
Further, if Grigg is correct in asserting that we cannot help but imagine, then embracing that imagination as something useful instead of as a distraction means coming to terms with our humanity as a whole. We cannot ignore what it means to be human.
VI. Testing our Christs against tradition, within community, and through the Other
Does this translate into a chaos of Christs? Grigg argues that it need not when he states that “some imaginary Christs may truly reflect the figure of Jesus and his role as manifestation of the divine, while other Christs may distort those things.”[40] This is where tradition can serve an important role. “[U]nless one is open to the effect that the Christ of faith has had in the long experience of the Christian tradition,” he explains, “one will miss a crucial part of the reality of Christs of faith.”[41]
Jensen makes a similar point when he argues that “Theology can never begin de novo, but continually draws upon the wisdom of previous voices, learning from their mistakes and acknowledging their shortcomings.”[42] Grigg does admit that there is a danger of this turning into a game of “telephone,” though, where each generation reflects upon the previous generation’s understanding in forming their own, moving further and further away from the Jesus of history in the process.
Tradition, therefore, requires supplementation. “The process of Christ-formation is best protected from this danger by responding not only to the imaginary Christs of the preceding generation,” he explains, “but by seeing to it that one’s Christ of faith is always a response too to the Christs of the New Testament.”[43] We may not be able to pinpoint the precise historical Jesus, but “something like consistency with the Christs of the New Testament might be taken as at least suggesting proximity to the historical Jesus on the part of all of my Christs.”[44]
Jensen warns, however, that the regulative function of doctrine leaves our process of imagination incomplete.[45] We construct our image of Jesus not simply in conversation with tradition and text, but also in conversation with community.
“No matter how much the truth may set us free, the self is not what guarantees that truth,” he says. “For knowledge emerges not in the isolated machinations of the individual mind, but in the continual interaction with others of difference.”[46] Our “christic sisters and brothers…check the more idiosyncratic and potentially self-serving impulses of my imaginative constructions,” according to Grigg.[47]
Differing Christian communities, however, hold significantly differing accounts of the nature of Christ. This can lead to divisiveness and struggle when such beliefs are held in opposition to one another. “It is clear that this struggle has often been harmful to the overall health of Christianity,” says Grigg. “Even in the best of times, it has fostered self-righteousness and parochialism; in the worst of times it has resulted in outright warfare.”[48]
But there is a positive aspect to such diversity of belief, if held in a non-combative manner. Indeed, Grigg sees in this competitive environment a relationship where subtraditions rise and fall depending on how far they stray from a central Christian heritage. “It seems plausible, then, that any Christ that deviates significantly from the common heritage of the larger Christian tradition will, in the end, effectively be shown wanting by the other subtraditions and, as a result, eventually either be withdrawn from competition or substantially modified.”[49]
It would be a mischaracterization, however, to define this relationship as solely one of restraint. It also involves a give and take, for the development of Christs within various subtraditions inevitably has an effect on the larger tradition itself. “The great Christian tradition is an abstraction,” says Grigg, “it is essentially the sum of the subtraditions that make it up, minus the practices and tenets that divide them.”[50]
Again, though, it is Jensen who pushes us further. He seeks to take us beyond the borders of our own faith and unto the ends of the earth along with Christ himself. “Certainly, doctrines help Christians hold each other accountable, but because they draw Christians into encounter with others, doctrine also calls others to hold Christians accountable.” he tells us. “We need others not so we can be religiously eclectic, but so that we might become better Christians, better respondents to the new life in Christ” (emphasis original).[51]
Making these moves forces us not only to be accountable to those within and without of our tradition, but also to step back from laying claim to and/or imposing a particular image on others. “After all, no single imaginative construction can adequately grasp the reality of Jesus the Christ,” says Grigg. “The more vantage points upon which we are able to draw, the more profound will be our grasp of the reality of the Christ.”[52]
“If a Christian prays ‘Come’ to Jesus, as we are enjoined to do, then we should be aware of what we are doing,” cautions Kevin Hart. “It is important for us to mark the otherness of Jesus Christ, not to believe that we already fully know who he is.”[53] Jensen explains the matter along these lines:
If we attempt to absolutize truth according to what we ‘know,’ whether in the form of religious pronouncements or pet philosophical themes, we claim that truth is something we ‘possess.’ If, on the other hand, we acknowledge that we can never attain the truth by ourselves, that we must continually seek it, that we need others in this search, then we will recognize truth as something that emerges in bits and pieces, in practice and solidarity, whenever we empty ourselves of the pride that would claim truth as ours alone, and recognize the call of others in our midst (emphasis original).[54]
Such a stance transforms our approach from one of defending our constructed image as the only valid truth and seeking to convert others to that view to one of truly valuing the other not only for what they might offer but for who they truly are. “One of the consequences of recognizing truth as something that emerges along the way with others is that we recognize those others not only as real, but also as beautiful in themselves,” says Jensen.[55]
Thus, it seems clear that our understanding of God, our understanding of Jesus, is not something we develop in isolation. We are absolutely dependent on those who have come before us, those who worship alongside us, and those who experience the brokenness of the world and the grace of God as members of the wider community of humankind. We cannot ignore our neighbor.
VII. Embracing both the known and the unknown
“[T]he language of faith is a human language with its possibilities and limitations," says C.S. Song. “In the case of the language about God, its limitations are far greater than its possibilities.”[56] It seems that as humans we have a responsibility to strive toward, to attempt to comprehend in our limited way, that which is beyond comprehension.
As Caputo sees the matter, “we do not know the name of what we desire with a desire beyond desire. That means leading a just life comes down to coping with such non-knowing, negotiating among several competing names that fluctuate undecidably before us, each pretending to name what we are praying for.”[57]
Far from meaningless personal fancy, our task is to unite that which we can know with that which we cannot, and to do so in conversation and solidarity with all in this world – all of whom possess that of God within. To live in the play and the tension of Tanner’s call to responsibility and the humility the author of The Cloud of Unknowing encourages us to recognize. “[T]he Risen Christ goes on ahead of us, challenging us to follow him.”[58]
Albert Schweitzer – who questioned the efforts of humanity to ignore our limited understanding – perhaps best sums up our situation. He leaves us with a charge and a sense of the grace necessary to undertake that charge while treading lightly enough not to trample the love and light of him whom we seek:
He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the
lakeside, he came to those men who did not know who he was. He
says the same words, ‘Follow me!’, and sets us to those tasks
which he must fulfil in our time. He commands. And to those who
hearken to him, whether wise or unwise, he will reveal himself in
the peace, the labours, the conflicts and the suffering that they may
experience in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery they will
learn who he is…[59]
[1] Kathyrn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), xvi.
[2]The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. by William Johnston (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1996), 54.
[3]Michael D. Coogan, ed., The New Oxford Annotated Bible: Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), 398.
[4] Michael St. Clair, Human Relationships and the Experience of God: Object Relations and Religion (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994), 7-8.
[5]Ibid., 20.
[6]Ibid., 22.
[7]Ibid., 46.
[8] Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 52.
[9] Richard Grigg, Imaginary Christs: The Challenge of Christological Pluralism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000), 25.
[10] St. Clair, 21
[11]Ibid., 23.
[12] Rizzuto, 8.
[13] St. Clair, 23.
[14] Grigg, 30-31.
[15] Quoted in Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo, The Future of Religion, ed. by Santiago Zabala (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2005), 70.
[16] Grigg, 30.
[17]Ibid., 32.
[18] St. Clair, 24.
[19]Ibid.
[20] C.S. Song, Jesus, The Crucified People (Lima, OH: Academic Renewal Press, 2001), 59.
[21] Grigg, 24, 26.
[22] Gregory J. Riley, One Jesus, Many Christs: How Jesus Inspired Not One True Christianity, But Many (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 99.
[23] David H. Jensen, In the Company of Others: A Dialogical Christology (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2001), 32.
[24] Grigg, 7.
[25]Ibid., 7-8.
[26] Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (New York, NY: Continuum, 2000), 6.
[27] Jensen, 187.
[28] Crystal L. Downing, How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith: Questioning Truth in Language, Philosophy and Art (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2006), 44.
[29] Grigg, 9.
[30] John D. Caputo, On Religion (New York, NY: Routledge, 2001), 111.
[31] Jensen, xii, n. 2.
[32] Grigg, ix.
[33] Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2003), 133, 142.
[34]Ibid., 141, 145.
[35] Rizzuto, 209.
[36] Grigg, ix.
[37]Ibid., 18.
[38]Ibid., ix.
[39] Song, 225.
[40] Grigg, 19.
[41]Ibid., 23.
[42] Jensen, 37.
[43] Grigg, 45.
[44]Ibid., 99.
[45] Jensen, 133.
[46]Ibid., 158.
[47] Grigg, 103.
[48]Ibid., 27.
[49]Ibid., 28. Interestingly, Adam Smith held a similar view with regard to competition among denominations. Smith was a proponent of religious freedom for many of the same reasons he was a proponent of markets. He felt that competition would restrain passions. “The relative weakness of each denomination,” explains author Jerry Muller, “would prompt it to seek the tolerance of others and would thus create a disposition toward tolerance in society at large.” SeeJerry Z. Muller, Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1993), 157.
[50]Ibid.
[51] Jensen, 183.
[52] Grigg, 18.
[53] Kevin Hart, Postmodernism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004), 105.
[54] Jensen, 168-169.
[55]Ibid., 169.
[56] Song, 33.
[57] John D. Caputo “Jacques Derrida (1930-2004),”Cross Currents, Winter 2005-06, Vol. 55, No 4. Available at: http://www.crosscurrents.org/caputo200506.htm.
[58] Jensen, 104.
[59] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, ed. by John Bowden (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), 487.