Thoughts on Love

Nietzche's French epigones...have decided that love simple is death. I have nothing to give my beloved but myself...So long as I have anything of myself left, I simply have not given all. But to have nothing of myself is to be dead...But Paul knew of God, who raises the dead. Leave this God out and love simply is to die and to call to die. - Robert Jenson, Thinking the Human, pp 77

The reason that love is never pointless is because even though truly loving the other might be self-destructive, the God of Jesus Christ is the God who raises the dead!

Agenda in Scholarship

I think when somebody accuses Christians of having an agenda when they interpret the Biblical texts and the life of Jesus, we should definitely just say, "Of course we do, we are Christians.  Why would we not have a bias.  We believe the bible is inspired by God to train Christians to love their neighbors as themselves, we will interpret it as such, and we'll use the best tools available to help us understand its message.  On top of that we will, as a matter of course, talk about the bible as if Jesus really is Lord.  We have an agenda to read the bible for the sake of obeying Jesus' commands to love our neighbor and our enemy and to teach others to do the same."

 

Jesus Cleared the Temple

I think that whole temple cleansing thing may be frequently misunderstood. There is no way that it justifies violence. Jesus, even in John's gospel when he makes a whip, does not whip any people. The Temple ground itself was roughly the size of a city block, to clear everybody out would take hours, and such a riot would probably require Jesus being violently disposed of imediately.  The first readers of the gospels would have been aware of these things.  It seems more likely that this event occurred on a small scale and was perhaps even an embarassing event.  Jesus judged the wrong people, Israel, used their own holy texts to do it, and then did not even win the day.  History shows no major disturbance of the temple operations until 70ad.  Jesus interupted commerce for a few minutes and theologized about it.  And according to John he did it with a whip which he constructed out of pieces of cord he found laying around, not an effective weapon.

This action led to more confrontations with the religious leaders which would later have him killed.  It lead to confusion on the part of his followers.  It even lead to criticisms of the early Christian movement according to Acts.  This was not the record of a triumphant act of religious violence to give muster to the early Christian movement, it was a record of an bewildering act of Jesus that could not be left out of his story because it taught something fundamental about his mission.  He would judge his people and then be their ransom.  He would play the fool to show that God's wisdom is above humanity's wisdom.  He would play the mustard seed so that the entire kingdom of God would grow from an undignified judgment that lead to an unseemly death, and burial in an insignificant tomb. 

Jesus did not destroy the temple, he did not seriously divert its misuse, and he did not kill anybody.  He demonstrated, as a prophet, the judgment of God upon their actions before the real judgment arrived.  I am forced to conclude that this story says nothing about violence being authorized by Jesus for Christians in religious matters, but instead demonstrates that God's judgment begins with warnings and a call to change before God himself takes responsibility for your actions.  Jesus later that week went to the cross and died for the sins of those who misused his Father's house.