Jesus Against Christianity

There are many reasons to celebrate the New Year. Among them is the new site for TKR. The interface should be more aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly than AOL; it should also be more accessible from the general Internet search engines. Hopefully, we'll be seeing comments from some new people during 2006 (not that we don't warmly encourage our regulars to keep posting their reviews and comments). Secondly, a new contributor, Justin D'Agostino, has sent in an interesting piece on Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer's Jesus Against Christianity (Trinity Press International, 2001) that challenges his methods while conceding some of his points. Hopefully we'll see more from Justin in the future. - RD

Every now and then some self-proclaimed prophet comes along with the assumption of having discovered a great and noble truth, which humanity up until that point had yet to discover, and has the audacity to blatantly reject commonly held beliefs in search of another theory or idea. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer makes no mistake in doing so within the pages of his highly controversial book entitled Jesus Against Christianity: Reclaiming the Missing Jesus. In what seemingly begins as an innocent attempt at the age old idea of the "historical Jesus," he turns into an extremely critical and somewhat skewed attack on the current belief system of the Christian Church. Nelson-Pallmeyer, who teaches Justice and Peace Studies at the University of St. Thomas, believes that the “true” Jesus disappeared from Christianity a long time ago, leaving the Church with a highly ideological and “blind-faith” approach to the message and person of Jesus Christ. His approach is provocative and well-thought out, and brings the reader to a place of dismissal or acceptance throughout the unfolding polemic of his book.

The introduction to his book begins with a sort of disclaimer, which seems really to be a cushion that allows him to jostle and turn some commonly held beliefs in hopes that we can uncover the “mystery” of the teachings of Jesus, which were lost through the centuries via untraceable historical events and institutional arrangements. He begins by appealing to the reader’s emotions by illustrating how he has “always loved mysteries” (vii) and how it has led him to rethink what has traditionally been taught in the Church. He makes several large claims from the get go, which the reader may find unsubstantiated until they uncover his reasons later on in the text. He cuts no corners affirming his unorthodox approach and newfound doubts in the virgin birth, miracle stories, and resurrection of Jesus. He duly concerns himself with the uncritical theology of the brainwashed American Church and how it has sold itself out to mainstream culture and media, and with the apparent “glossing over” of many definitive texts found in the Gospel accounts by theologians and scholars. He craftily intertwines the two and believes that the Christian community needs to return to common sense and reason, and honestly assess what Jesus is trying to get out in the Gospel narratives. He affirms that this book is for those “who may be sitting on a reservoir of unasked questions and who are following their faith down new pathways” (xiii).

Drawing on many ideas proposed by the likes of John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, he begins his proposal with a brief survey of the old Marcion controversy, which he believes was never settled and still needs to be dealt with today. He believes that the God of the Bible is best identified as a God of “violence” (1). From start to finish we see a God who is bent on being merciful up to a point and then looses his cool and is bent on destruction and violence. Nelson-Pallmeyer even points out how the Passion Event has often been interpreted throughout history as “satisfying God’s wrath for humanity.” The first half of his book is dedicated to unveiling the “contradictory and confusing” images of God as portrayed in the Bible. He uses many Biblical examples of how our conscious is at odds with the character of God portrayed in various Bible stories. Such examples are found in such as Leviticus 20:1-2, where God commands Moses to tell the people of Israel that any who curse their father or mother shall be put to death, or in Genesis 6 where God kills everyone with a flood save Noah and those in the ark, or in Zephaniah 1:2-3 where God declares that he will “cut off humanity from the face of the earth”. Nelson-Pallmeyer also brings up stories which display God as a “land thief” (Gen 15:18-21; Deut 7:1-2; Judges 11), God as a “pathological killer” (Num 21:31-35, 31:1-18; Josh 6:20-21, 11:20; Jer 21:3) and many other depictions of God that seem contradictory to the image Jesus gives us in his ministry. To the unaided intellect he suggests that there can be a great amount of confusion. He believes that we should reassess these images and see them as distortions, rather than as truth.

Nelson-Pallmeyer critically evaluates these powerful images and conjectures on why it is that we think God must substantiate his power through violence and intimidation. Just as the Jews saw their salvation as the defeat of their enemies, we often as Christians think that God must conquer and display his aggressiveness towards evil for him to truly be God. He questions, “Is God’s violence a necessary component of God’s justice?” (53) Even within the New Testament we see evidence of this belief carried out in the hope that God will ultimately bring the proud to destruction and cut off the evil people from the good (see Luke 1:46-53; Matt 3:7-12; Rev 11:17-18). Much of the apocryphal writings of John carry these themes of destruction and annihilation. Nelson-Pallmeyer consistently reminds his readers to think of this not as truth but as a human perception of how God operates in this world. He draws large conclusions from small bodies of text and makes statements such as “God feeds on fear and is willing and capable of destroying humanity; God is a powerful, violent, vengeful judge” (59), when talking about the Biblical/superstitious mindset. His approach to Scriptural interpretation is almost naïve, taking what the text says at face value. This straightforward approach informs his belief that we must cast Scripture in light of reason, intellect, and human consciousness. He believes that these difficult illustrations of God’s character not only raise questions about our understanding of Him, but “serious questions about Scriptural authority” as well. (61)

After providing numerous examples of how the Bible seemingly contradicts our understanding of God’s character, he supposes that the Bible is often dead wrong about God. He does not fuss about making this claim. He explicitly states: “either God is a pathological killer because the Bible says so, or the Bible is sometimes wrong about God.” (63) He then goes on a rather long and drawn out survey of the “EPJDR” theory of text production and how probably much of our contradictory views on God come from the fact that the Bible was written by many different people with many different agendas. Because the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures were products of their culture, Nelson-Pallmeyer suggests that these cultures viewed God in light of what they needed or saw fit and disregarded revelation or consciousness. Thus, we must interpret Scripture anew, so as not to confuse two different worldviews. Nelson-Pallmeyer suggests that if we begin to allow “space” and new insight into Scripture we can safeguard against the “deadly precipice of violent destruction rooted in our distorted images of a violent God.” (85) This is where Nelson-Pallmeyer begins to lose his footing. He is essentially saying that much of the world’s violence and evil stems from a misconceived view of God’s character. This is a large leap that many scholars and theologians would have a hard time making. Nonetheless, he continues his polemic, offering up brief historical suggestions for how the Church has “wreaked havoc” because of its poor doctrine.

His next area of attack focuses on his belief that as Christians we must pay attention and even emphasize the humanity/Jewishness of Jesus. Nelson-Pallmeyer believes “that Jesus’ life and faith are the best criteria Christians have for” discerning between revelation and distortion. (137) He writes that because our own religious experience often leads us to commit acts of violence, oppression, or ignorance, we must constantly seek to be inspired by the personality and character of Jesus. His humanity should compel and guide our humanity. He believes that we have lost the Jewishness of Jesus because of the Church’s intolerance and subjugation of the Jewish community throughout history. As contemporary Christians, we should look to the Jewish heritage of Jesus as something that aids in our own estimation of the human person. It is evident that Jesus was immersed in Jewish oral tradition and Hebrew Scripture. He would be first and foremost concerned with the plight of the Jewish community and the oppression brought on by the Roman government. Nelson-Pallmeyer conjectures that Jesus would have been surrounded on all sides by a cultural milieu that reeks of violence and discrimination. He states, “Jesus’ divinity has so triumphed over his humanity that we rarely notice how frequently Gospel interpretations of the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection conflict with Jesus’ own understanding of God.” (140) Nelson-Pallmeyer then begins to explore “what really happened” on the cross and how the misinterpretation of this act of institutional violence has led the Church down a path of idolatry and detachment from the true message of the cross. Nelson-Pallmeyer interprets the cross as first and foremost a statement of non-violence. It is a direct affront to the governmental control and establishment that so oppressed the marginalized groups of society. Jesus made a statement about how we should live. The theories of salvation, atonement, and reconciliation are all highly Greek and highly “experimental” – meaning that the development of such ideas depended upon speculation, not upon anything Jesus did or said directly. He believes that Christianity started out as a “Jewish reform movement” (153) which eventually morphed itself into a Hellenized salvation cult. The only reason the name of Messiah or Christ attached to Jesus was because the oppressed community that he connected with needed an outlet for their psychological and emotional distress.

Jesus Against Christianity concludes with the admonishment to model our lives after the character of Jesus, not the Christ of faith. The case for nonviolence and passive resistance is a cornerstone of Nelson-Pallmeyer’s polemic. The only way to stop the “spiral of violence” is by rejecting any form of violent behavior or action. As Christians, we must be people of peace and tolerance, seeking understanding and compassion in all circumstances. His training in liberation theology weighs heavily on his belief that the only way to make any sort of social progress is by rejecting the mechanisms by which the problems arise. He concludes that we find the greatest power in compassion and mercy. God’s character is confirmed through his concern for all peoples. Nelson-Pallmeyer holds that our personal desire for abundant life should influence us to consider that a reality for others as well. If we are really be disciples of Jesus, we must loose the shackles of prejudice and hate, and bind ourselves to self-sacrifice and consistent compassion. His attempt to reclaim the missing Jesus is really an attempt to salvage the Christian message for a world that seems to have reached the end of its rope.

- Justin D'Agostino