His Name Is The Word of God: The Importance of Seeing Jesus From Scripture (Part 2)

With the dawn of the age of enlightenment in the 18th century, a shift in thinking occurred in which people began to trust the popular scientific theories of the day which denied the existence of miracles and anything that did not conform to the concept of natural laws, in this way they began to distrust the Scriptures which lay claim to many supernatural events and miracles.

In addition to that, philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Soren Kierkegaard began to question how we perceive truth itself, rather than pursuing truth objectively, reasonably, and rationally they argued that because of the limits of reason one must take a non-rational leap into the unknown and pursue truth subjectively, since no one can really know anything with absolute certainty. Therefore, all truth is relative to the individual mind, and nothing can really be known for certain (of course, according to this philosophy, none of these ideas can be known for certain either). This thinking has both enabled some to believe what the Bible says about Jesus without obligation to provide evidence for its claims while leading others to dismiss the Bible on purely personal or emotional grounds without the need to justify their dismissal with evidence or reason.

This is only a small glimpse of the kind of social and philosophical climate out of which the United States was birthed, amidst the struggle for independence from Britain during the revolutionary war and the Christian revival known as the first Great Awakening led by men like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards who spoke of the personal power of the Christian experience, a nation was founded that highly valued freedom and individualism. This kind of idealism forged a Christianity tailored to the individual as churchgoers and clergy alike began to consider less what God has done for all people but instead, what God has done for the individual sinner.

Out of this grew an intense focus on Jesus humanity and his communicable attributes; his mercy and grace, how he was a suffering servant who was tempted just as we are and a man who can relate to the individual sinner, in place of an emphasis on his divinity and incommunicable attributes; his justice and wrath, his holiness, his sovereign kingship and judgment of mankind. This change in thinking became most evident around the time of the Second Great Awakening which featured such voices as John Wesley and Charles Finney who placed a greater emphasis on human free will, the individual's own salvation and personal relationship with God, and were known for working people into the kind of emotional fervor we see today in Christian charismatic circles in order to incite a massive altar call. As Christianity in America by and large became more man-centered, it subsequently became less God-centered and lost its trust in the supernatural elements of the faith.

With the arrival of Charles Finney’s “new measures” churches began to take a more pragmatic approach to Sunday services, rather than looking to the power of the Holy Spirit to create new hearts and transform lives, they began to consider innovative strategies they might implement to fill their pews, many of which involved neglecting or dismissing altogether the doctrines that were most offensive to unbelievers such as hell and the atonement. Teaching centered itself around political and social activism and the Bible began to be considered more and more passé or even obsolete as modern evangelicalism and liberal Protestantism emerged.

The United States stands today as a nation that is celebrated for being multi-racial, multi-religious, and multi-perspectival; the relativistic non-rational ideals of philosophers like Kant and Kiergegaard are the rule, rather than the exception and now even the most far-fetched religious or philosophical claim may be accepted as truthful under the banner of “tolerance”. These forces combined with American consumer capitalism have led to a pick and choose variety of religion where any person may choose from a buffet of religious beliefs and practices without regard to its veracity, since truth is no longer considered objective, but is instead defined for and by the individual.

What is ironic about all this is that while those who subscribe to moral and religious relativism condemn dogma, since, according to their view, the truth can not be known, their claim to have an understanding of ultimate reality as essentially unknowable is equally dogmatic and is, in fact, an incoherent hypothesis contrary to fact. The claim that truth is unknowable is a truth claim in itself which inherently contradicts itself. Relativists somehow manage to slip past the religious radar and lambaste Biblical Christianity for its claim to have an absolute understanding of God and truth, all the while staking their radically dogmatic claim that ultimate reality is unknowable.

With this view in mind, it is not difficult to understand how such an exhaustive variety of contradictory conclusions about Jesus could be formed, entertained, and sustained. What is amazing, however, is that while the teachings about Jesus found in Scripture have been ignored; the name of Jesus still holds authority in every cultural setting. In each case, a particular group of people are calling on the authority of Jesus name to support their cause and they wield his name to gain respect that they otherwise might not have had. This is because they acknowledge, perhaps subconsciously, that Jesus is the greatest, most important, and most influential man who ever lived. But this can only be true if what the Bible says about him is true. I'll explain why in the next installment of this four part series.


Recommended Reading and Sources Used:

The Bible (choose a reliable and coherent English translation such as the New International Version or English Standard Version, NIV quotations were used for this blog, however, the ESV is known to be a more literal translation).

American Jesus by Stephen Prothero
Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll