Jesus was tempted like all humans but did not sin. Since you can sin with your thoughts, I find the idea of temptation without sin impossible to understand and this makes Jesus seem inhuman to me.
I think the difference between temptation and sin of thought lies in entertaining or encouraging the thought of committing sin in your mind - whether or not you are actively fantasizing about committing a sin.
But the way my mind works, this still doesn’t make sense. My mind is like the movie that Alex was forced to watch in A Clockwork Orange but much worse. I hear other people say that they don’t think about horrific things all the time but I have trouble believing them. I think the difference between people with OCD and those without it are that people with OCD are bothered more by the horrible thoughts that everyone is having at every moment, and that being bothered by them and trying to find ways to cope with being bothered by them inhibits our ability to function.
So if everyone has thoughts of both petty and unspeakable cruelty, selfishness, and hatred all the time, I don’t think there is any way to not cross over into actively entertaining these thoughts or fantasizing about the content of the thoughts, for at least a moment, so very often that it’s almost impossible to say when a conscious adult human being is *not* sinning.
But Jesus managed to be fully human, and have all these thoughts all the time, without ever encouraging or liking these thoughts? I just don’t understand that.
And I’m also terrified that there ever was a human being subjected to the horror show of human consciousness that also had unlimited power. He could have done whatever He wanted, erased everyone’s memory of it, and possibly even gone back in time so that his commission of atrocities could be deleted from the historical record. And since He was God, he could have even decreed that whatever He wanted to do was moral just for enough time for Him to do it, and then returned morality back to how it had been before he had a hankering to do something terrible.
Now Christians believe that Jesus didn’t do any of that, because God, no matter which person of the Trinity you are talking about, is omnibenevolent, immutable, impassive, etc., so even when incarnate in a temptable, changeable, feeling and hurting human body, God won’t do ungodly thinks like change, react, feel, think, decide, etc., even if just to scratch a (metaphorical) itch that the human Jesus feels. All of which makes Jesus the body, brain, and human soul seem not human in any way that I can understand.
Well, first, I'd say re "But Jesus managed to be fully human, and have all these thoughts all the time, without ever encouraging or liking these thoughts? I just don’t understand that," it is literally beyond our mortal imagining, so you're not at all alone in having trouble imagining--even beginning to imagine--what it would be like. I'd also that that God can't make actual transcendent morality different--being Love is literally Who He Is. He's literally Goodness Himself.
You sound like you've got the kind of OCD I've had.* I'm really not sure that ordinary human beings are plagued with horrible thoughts quite as badly as people with this type of OCD--I think the frequency and severity is turned up for us, and the obsessive nature of them means that not only can we not escape them, but we have more than the usual tendency to confuse suffering from them with agreeing to them, and therefore we have massive guilt--which isn't really ours in God's eyes at all.
I don't think Jesus had this--it would have made it nearly impossible for him to carry out his ministry. But if he did have it, it wouldn't have made him a sinner, just completely miserable.
* A primarily mental form of OCD, where horrible thoughts intrude on you, the more horrible, the more often repeated and impossible to dismiss, and we have unbearable compulsions to make up for those thoughts by doing things (like confession or ruminating or self-examination, generally through mental acts). My particular subtype is hereditary and peaks in early adulthood, and slowly turns into general anxiety (thank God, what a relief!) in later adulthood.
I have sometimes a milder version of that. I don't think it occurred to me that others did too. "This horrible thing could happen" or even "I could do this horrible thing--wouldn't that be horrible?" I don't plan on doing it, it just pops into my mind. I think I've had it forever.
C. S. Lewis (oh you knew I'd have a relevant quote, didn't you?) has helped comfort me in this, since I first became a Christian, in Mere Christianity:
But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school.
Consider the last few minutes of Martin Luther King's last speech
.
You need to show that the gospels are a sufficiently similar genre to Martin Luther King's speeches before this is relevant.
Jesus's parables are a similar genre: I think only the most doctrinaire fundamentalists would assert that the Good Samaritan reports a historical incident (though they will insist that references to Hell in the parables are factual). But to say the Gospels as a whole are a parable seems to be a step motivated by the desired conclusion.
The best analogy for the argument would be Plutarch's Lives; historians concur that Plutarch tweaked events in the service of his moral lessons. But even there Plutarch is adapting things that actually happened.
They resemble a modern midrash.
My understanding is that Jews find the invocation of Midrash by modern Christian writers profoundly misleading.
Which is why I qualified it with "resemble". Though I originally found this "My Jewish Learning", though it is no longer there.
The point is that we don't have to take them literally in order to find truth, even today with the obsession with literal truth by both Christians and anti-Christians.
Again, as St. Paul says, if Jesus is not raised from the dead, our faith is in vain.
A non-sequitur!
If it’s a non sequitur… So are you saying, then, “Yes, the Gospels are accurate about Jesus dying and rising again, just not necessarily about some of the other things they say He said and did”? Because the matter of how accurate reportage in the Gospels are, whether or not it was a different genre than some might suppose, is pretty relevant to that. I certainly think it’s easier to believe that He gave the Sermon on the Mount, as written, or even some of the more “ordinary” miracles, than God becoming human, and dying and coming back to life—which is the central doctrine of the Christian faith, and arguably the whole point of the thing.
You should stop trying to put words in my mouth of what you (mistakenly) imagine I am saying.
That’s can be avoided by saying more than “a non-sequitur.” People are less likely to speculate on what you mean if you say why you think it’s a non-sequitur
Or the poster should explain why it has anything to do with that part of the discussion.
“It”? What “it” are you talking about?
I don’t see how what @ChastMastr said was irrelevant or not responsive to what you said about not having to take the Gospels literally in order to find truth. If you thought it wasn’t responsive, you could clearly said that.
But there’re really no grounds to complain when people respond to a two-word answer like “a non-sequitur” by trying to figure out what you meant and figure incorrectly.
I can;y read his mind to know what it is he is objecting to.
I’m sure there are residual elements of the “non-shitty-nappy” view of Jesus in the minds of quite a lot of Christians today. It’s possible to recite the Creeds and yet somehow believe that Jesus was “above all that”. There may be a surprising example in the carol “Away in a Manger”.
“But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes”.
Have you ever asked yourself what that really means?
Yes. It come across as "Children (babies) should be seen and not heard." Some English value of the previous century or two.
You sound like you've got the kind of OCD I've had.* I'm really not sure that ordinary human beings are plagued with horrible thoughts quite as badly as people with this type of OCD--I think the frequency and severity is turned up for us, and the obsessive nature of them means that not only can we not escape them, but we have more than the usual tendency to confuse suffering from them with agreeing to them, and therefore we have massive guilt--which isn't really ours in God's eyes at all.
I don't think Jesus had this--it would have made it nearly impossible for him to carry out his ministry. But if he did have it, it wouldn't have made him a sinner, just completely miserable.
* A primarily mental form of OCD, where horrible thoughts intrude on you, the more horrible, the more often repeated and impossible to dismiss, and we have unbearable compulsions to make up for those thoughts by doing things (like confession or ruminating or self-examination, generally through mental acts). My particular subtype is hereditary and peaks in early adulthood, and slowly turns into general anxiety (thank God, what a relief!) in later adulthood.
I have sometimes a milder version of that. I don't think it occurred to me that others did too. "This horrible thing could happen" or even "I could do this horrible thing--wouldn't that be horrible?" I don't plan on doing it, it just pops into my mind. I think I've had it forever.
C. S. Lewis (oh you knew I'd have a relevant quote, didn't you?) has helped comfort me in this, since I first became a Christian, in Mere Christianity:
But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school.
Chastmastr, I suspect OCD comes in various strengths, and there's probably a point at which low-level OCD blends into normal. Since I can't climb inside other people's heads, and can only make guesses based on descriptions they may provide, well, it's hard to know just what "normal" is when it comes to intrusive thoughts. I think SOME amount of intrusive thoughts is normal (though again, that raises the question of what is "normal" in a fallen species!). Where you personally fall on the spectrum from normal to severe OCD I couldn't say. I know my family is fairly severe, at least before middle age.
And yes, I love that quote. OCD is one of the things we look forward to leaving behind in the resurrection.
The fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon (451 CE) established Jesus was fully (totus) God and fully (totus) human. Since to be human means one has a sexual drive, was Jesus a sexual being? Can this be established in the accepted Scripture or do we have to look at an unauthorized scripture?
There are human beings who identify as asexual.
We don't know whether Jesus was one of them. But many people are celibate through vocation or because no relationship has worked out for them. Celibacy too is a way of being a sexual being.
As to whether Jesus was a sexual being, to my mind it makes sense to see Him as a teacher who acts ethically towards his students: he just isn't going to "go there" as that is not the kind of relationship he has with them. Desire might still be there but never to be acted upon ( though possibly still a temptation), neither in a standard human seduction sort of way, nor in a Greek god descending in a shower of gold because he feels an urge sort of way. He just won't go there because that's not the sort of person He is.
Not all human beings have a sexual drive! This is no comment on whether Our Lord was, it is a comment on the fact that there are people who identify as asexual. A sex drives does not seem to be essential for being a human being.
Yes, that would be the Orthodox position I think. Along with the idea that if Christ was tempted in every way that we are yet without sinning, then there is that possibility for the rest of us, by God's grace.
But no guarantee of course. 'If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves ...'
I'm no expert on these things but it does seem that both Buddhist and Christian monastics - and Jains? can sublimate sexual desires to some extent through ascetic practices.
Orthodoxy doesn't appear as prissy as some Western traditions about these sort of issues, but I'm sure plenty of individual Orthodox are.
Equally, plenty of Christians of all stripes aren't either but I think we all sit under the shadow of a kind of Victorian squeamishness to some extent or other.
Incidentally, I know @Gramps49 is conducting a thought-experiment but am I the only one here who's picking up on the irony of a minister in an ostensibly 'sola scriptura' denomination asking whether we should refer to unofficial or non-canonical scriptures for guidance?
The contradictions are immense.
Come on folks! Stick with Holy Tradition. You know it makes sense ...
Sola Scriptura never meant that we pay no attention to other sources, especially (God forbid) ecumenical councils. The Church-as-a-whole has the Holy Spirit, and what fools we would be to pay no attention!
Sure. What I'm calling out is the discrepancy in @Gramps49's apparent position, whereby he'd far rather look to sources that the Church collectively has not regarded as reliable - such as non-canonical gospels and so on, whilst overlooking what Holy Tradition (which includes the NT of course) has to say on this issue.
Nobody's saying you shouldn't read this other material, but why try to find answers there which are already there within the Tradition? And within small t tradition too?
I mean, your comment about Christ's sexuality @Lamb Chopped is entirely consistent with both Big T and small t tradition on this point. That's good enough for me.
How is a Gnostic gospel or some other interesting but non-canonical source going to add to our understanding on this one?
Particularly when some of that material seeks to downplay the humanity of Christ?
If I've misunderstood what @Gramps49 is saying then I apologise.
Oh, by the way Ecumenical Councils are also part of Holy Tradition. We have seven. How many do you have? 😉
More seriously, no, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but I do find it bizarre that Gramps49 is apparently advocating seeking guidance from non-canonical sources when canonical ones already answer them for him.
Well, I'm not going to answer for Gramps49, that's between you and him. But you shouldn't put the viewpoint you're concerned about down to sola scriptura, it never has and never will be (please God) that we ignore everything but the Bible, that's not the point of sola scriptura.
But I do have a few reactions to what has already been said.
First of all, who said sex is a sin? I simply asked a question, do you think Jesus had a sex drive. If he was like 99.9% of all of us, he was a sexual being.
Looking internally at the Scriptures, we see he said some very provocative things about adultery, he had a soft place for women who were forced to be prostitutes, he knew of people who chose to be eunuchs (was he one). He did seem to have a special relationship with Mary of Magdala.
Looking externally, especially at the Gospel of Mary, there is a very strong suggestion that relationship was much more than a platonic friendship.
You have to look both at the inside, and the outside to get a fuller picture of who Jesus was, in my mind.
What the Nag Hammadi find has shown us, is there were other scriptures floating around at the time our canon was established. The Gospel of Mary was not in the Nag Hammadi collection, btw. It was found elsewhere.
One objection I have heard to this idea is as God and Man Jesus loved everyone equally. That is true, but does that exclude his ability to love someone uniquely?
One last thought, in Jesus Christ, Superstar we have the Magdala character singing, "I Don't Know How to Love Him." Beautiful song, but there are a couple of problems. The song implies she was a prostitute. I have come to the conclusion May of Madala was not a prostitute--again, more later, and the song implies Jesus was only human. Now, maybe at one time Mary was still struggling with what type of person Jesus really was.
I am going to have to get out that album and listen to it. Maybe that would be a great discussion thread in and of itself.
Of course, there is no scriptural reason to believe that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. That tradition* arises from a mis-identification of her with another woman in the gospels. Even the song in Jesus Christ Superstar does not necessarily imply that she was a prostitute – just that she was sexually experienced.
The song does imply that she saw Jesus as “just a man“, but in my opinion there is a degree of dramatic irony here in that the production overall acknowledges, but does not claim to answer, the question whether Jesus was, in fact, more than just a man.
I can't have made myself clear as the point I'm making about 'sola scriptura' is a different one, @Lamb Chopped.
But I keep being told I misunderstand or misrepresent that position when plenty of posts here aboard Ship incline me to think that I've got the measure of it. That it's an untenable and inconsistent position. That it makes little sense in Big T Tradition terms, even though it may have some logical internal consistency for those who hold to it - or fondly imagine that they do.
But that aside - and I was being provocative there - the particular issue is my response to @Gramps49.
Ok. Who said sex was sinful? Well, I don't think anyone here is saying that it is. @Lamb Chopped citing the reference that Christ was tempted in every way that we are and suggesting that this may have included sexual temptation doesn't mean that such temptation in and of itself is sin. It may lead to sin, though.
Whatever else we may say about Christ from the Gospel accounts is that he did appear to adhere to what we might a very high standard of sexual ethics. Even to look at a married woman lustfully was as bad as the actual act, it would seem.
Of course there were other gospels and other writings circulating in the early centuries of Christianity. Nobody is saying otherwise nor is anyone saying that there's no point in reading them because they weren't eventually canonised.
Heck, we Orthodox still base certain Feasts, beliefs and observances on the Proto-Evangelium of James even though it's not canonical scripture.
The Shepherd of Hermas and other texts continued to be read and referred to alongside what became canonical scripture for some considerable time.
All this begs the question, of course, as to why the Church of those early centuries chose to use some texts and not others. Why wasn't the Gospel of Mary included, for instance?
Nasty, evil, wicked patriarchy?
Or because there was common consent that it wasn't 'authoritative'?
Or some other reason?
Sorry, @Gramps49, but I do find it odd that whilst you claim to hold a 'sola scriptura' position - however loosely - that you'd probably be iffy about the 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils for instance- whilst broadly accepting, I presume the first 4 or 5, and yet you're happy to consult texts that no Christian Church considers authoritive in any way, shape or form.
I'm sure the Gospel of Mary is very interesting but I'm not sure what light it can shed on the sexuality of Christ - particularly when you already seem to accept that Christ was one of those who had made themselves as 'eunuchs' for the Kingdom of God.
Where do we get that idea from?
From the canonical Gospels and the Tradition of the Church.
If the Gospel of Mary indicates otherwise and we accept that then we need to amend out Tradition or tradition accordingly.
I probably sound hopelessly fundamentalist on this point - and I can assure you I don't mean to be, but anything we believe about Christ if we are small o orthodox or Big O Orthodox Christians derives from Big T Tradition which includes the NT scriptures as recognised and authorised by the Undivided Church of the first millennium.
Our small t traditions ultimately derive from or were developed in response to Big T Tradition.
It's there. It's what we have. The canonical scriptures are part of that.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't read or refer to anything else. Heck, it's entirely legitimate to refer to 'David Copperfield' in a sermon, say, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, or a Wesleyan hymn or a Bob Dylan lyric or whatever else.
But when it boils down to it what we have to go on are the canonical scriptures as part of Holy Tradition - which includes the Ecumenical Councils - all 7 of them (Sorry RCs and Protestants).
Anything else may be interesting and instructive as far as they go, but they ain't canonical scripture nor Tradition.
Hee didn’t fall for a nun. He found himself in charge of re-homing a wagonful of them, and the last one as I understood it proposed herself as a wife for him or another fellow I can’t recall—and his parents were after him to marry—and any number of his fellow reformers were asking why he wasn’t taking the logical step and practicing what he preached re clerical marriage—and he finally decided to do it. But love came later.
As I heard the story of Kate and Luther, Luther tried to pair her up with several other men, but she kept refusing them. Finally, Luther asked her who would she marry. Her reply was him.
Luther was perfectly entitled to get married if that's what he wanted to do. There's a get out clause in scripture. This is a hard saying. Those who can accept it should accept it.
I'm not criticising him for not accepting it. But don't give me thos pious bollocks about the doctrine coming first.
More moderately, I get the impression with Luther that he tended to come out with definitive statements under pressure and when forced into a corner by his opponents.
Hence 'Here I stand ...'
I'm not suggesting he was only thinking with his dick on the celibacy thing. Of course not.
Luther was perfectly entitled to get married if that's what he wanted to do. There's a get out clause in scripture. This is a hard saying. Those who can accept it should accept it.
I'm not criticising him for not accepting it. But don't give me thos pious bollocks about the doctrine coming first.
You know, @Gamma Gamaliel, it’s possible to actually fact-check.
Luther preached the “eating and drinking” sermon you refer to in 1522. He met Katharine in 1523, and married her in 1525. He wrote in a letter that he had not considered marriage until he met Katharina.
Fair enough. But we all do it. Confirmation bias. If I wanted to shag somebody I'm sure I could find scriptural justification if I wanted to. 'It is better to marry than to burn' and so on.
But OK. In this instance I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He came up with the doctrine then his dick followed suit.
Fair enough but it seemed to arise naturally from @Gramps49's question about whether sex drives are sinful or not.
But yes, perhaps it's something for another thread rather than this one, although I'm not sure what else we can say on the matter. Luther had his doctrine. Luther had a dick. I'm not sure there's anything more to say. There'll have been some kind of symbiotic relationship between the two. Dick, meet doctrine. Doctrine, meet dick.
@Gamma Gamaliel except the account given above suggests he was arguing sex and such was natural before he married Kate!
Actually has anytime the church argued that sex in "unnatural"? Though I do think the Church has argued that "natural" is sinful, as a consequence of original sin. I believe the idea that "natural" is automatically pure and good has its roots in the nineteenth century but am open to correction.
I think Augustinian Christianity, at least, would distinguish between fallen nature and created nature. Created nature is good; fallen nature is not so much evil as good but damaged or corrupted.
In actuality, the church has traditionally said sex outside of marriage is sinful, but I would argue many people have extended that thought to all sex is wrong. Witness the lies of the Purity culture.
The medieval western church certainly had a strain that thought sex even within marriage was sinful or risked being sinful. It's traditional to blame Augustine but I blame Jerome more. (It's more complicated than just any one figure of course.)
@Gamma Gamaliel except the account given above suggests he was arguing sex and such was natural before he married Kate!
Actually has anytime the church argued that sex in "unnatural"? Though I do think the Church has argued that "natural" is sinful, as a consequence of original sin. I believe the idea that "natural" is automatically pure and good has its roots in the nineteenth century but am open to correction.
Sure. Which is why I've stood corrected and why I started a new thread.
IME Lutheran homiletics focus a lot on Jesus. Like, A LOT. This can be an over-focus to the detriment of preaching adequately on the other Persons, often lamely remembered on Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. (Let alone all other possible homiletical topics!) This focus is not exactly surprising, when you consider that liturgy and preaching are expected to "proclaim Christ" as their emphasis.
That is also the standard by which liturgy and preaching are measured. A local congregation has the responsibility and freedom to conduct worship however they see fit, as long as it proclaims Christ. Traditional liturgical practices and traditional commentators may be used - or not - depending on whether their use constitutes an effective proclamation of Christ in the local context. A bishop can commend worship resources, but unless some congregation is doing something really heterodox, a bishop is unlikely to care... as long as worship proclaims Christ appropriately in that congregation's context.
So for Lutherans, Jesus is front and centre.
However, liturgical design and iconography tend not to focus on the incarnate. I suspect that probably has a negative effect on grasping the humanity of Jesus. Crosses are plentiful but usually bare, to celebrate the resurrection: no corpus. (Contrast that with a near-neighbour Catholic church, with a larger-than-life-sized, highly coloured and brightly illuminated, crucified Christ, whose painfully bloodied knees are at eye level for the congregation.)
Lutheran preaching - while usually perfectly orthodox - tends to shy away from Jesus's personal relationship with us. That too would have a negative effect on seeing the humanity of Jesus, I think. Singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" occasionally doesn't really fill that gap.
The medieval western church certainly had a strain that thought sex even within marriage was sinful or risked being sinful. It's traditional to blame Augustine but I blame Jerome more. (It's more complicated than just any one figure of course.)
I understand that Augustine was of the view that being sinful is condition passed down the generations through having sex, perhaps even if having sex isn't sinful in itself. ( I don't know Jerome.)
So, for Augustine, the idea Mary being a virgin provided a way for her to give birth to a human without sin. --- (That's just an idea. I don't mind if it's not correct.)
IME Lutheran homiletics focus a lot on Jesus. Like, A LOT. This can be an over-focus to the detriment of preaching adequately on the other Persons, often lamely remembered on Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. (Let alone all other possible homiletical topics!) This focus is not exactly surprising, when you consider that liturgy and preaching are expected to "proclaim Christ" as their emphasis.
That is also the standard by which liturgy and preaching are measured. A local congregation has the responsibility and freedom to conduct worship however they see fit, as long as it proclaims Christ. Traditional liturgical practices and traditional commentators may be used - or not - depending on whether their use constitutes an effective proclamation of Christ in the local context. A bishop can commend worship resources, but unless some congregation is doing something really heterodox, a bishop is unlikely to care... as long as worship proclaims Christ appropriately in that congregation's context.
So for Lutherans, Jesus is front and centre.
However, liturgical design and iconography tend not to focus on the incarnate. I suspect that probably has a negative effect on grasping the humanity of Jesus. Crosses are plentiful but usually bare, to celebrate the resurrection: no corpus. (Contrast that with a near-neighbour Catholic church, with a larger-than-life-sized, highly coloured and brightly illuminated, crucified Christ, whose painfully bloodied knees are at eye level for the congregation.)
Lutheran preaching - while usually perfectly orthodox - tends to shy away from Jesus's personal relationship with us. That too would have a negative effect on seeing the humanity of Jesus, I think. Singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" occasionally doesn't really fill that gap.
Interesting.
I know very little about the Lutheran tradition so thanks for sharing this @Leaf.
In some ways, it accords with how I'm finding the Orthodox tend to view Protestantism in general, as something that tends to be more Christocentric rather than more roundedly Trinitarian (if we can put it that way).
Not that we are suggesting that Protestants aren't Trinitarian, of course.
To be more precise, I've come across Orthodox clergy who tend to see evangelical Protestantism as being overly Christocentric, but there of course it's associated with more personal and pietistic emphases in terms of our relationship with Christ.
So I'm interested to hear about a Protestant tradition that is apparently Christocentric as it were without a concomitant pietistic 'Me and Jesus / Jesus and me' vibe.
Lutheran pietism did influence early Anglophone evangelicalism of course, alongside Puritan emphases and so on.
I've never been to a Lutheran service but have visited Lutheran church buildings in Denmark. The aesthetics there reminded me of things I'd associate with 18th and early 19th century pre-Oxford Movement Anglicanism.
Very plain, very serious and rational, without the 'lived-in' feel you sometimes get from nonconformist chapels from that era here in the UK. I daresay this was because most of them were 'civic' churches in city centre locations. It might be different in rural areas.
Anyhow ... the atmosphere wasn't unlike that of some synagogues I've visited.
So I'm interested to hear about a Protestant tradition that is apparently Christocentric as it were without a concomitant pietistic 'Me and Jesus / Jesus and me' vibe.
Yes! Your summary reflects my experience. Pietism is present, but in the minority, among the Lutheran churches I've known in North America. The "Christocentricity" tends to be intellectual and doctrinal in nature, rather than emotional and relational. I feel like it could stand to be a shade more of the latter but that can create its own problems.
I've never been to a Lutheran service but have visited Lutheran church buildings in Denmark. The aesthetics there reminded me of things I'd associate with 18th and early 19th century pre-Oxford Movement Anglicanism.
Very plain, very serious and rational, without the 'lived-in' feel you sometimes get from nonconformist chapels from that era here in the UK.
Interesting. I've never been to Denmark, but the vibe you describe resonates with my experience of the Danish diaspora in Canada. (A Danish clergy friend always presided in black robes and an Elizabethan-style full ruff collar.)
Lutheran worship styles have nearly as extensive a "candle" range as Anglican, so it's hard to say what you might encounter in terms of liturgical style at any given Lutheran service.
Thanks @Leaf. I do appreciate the time you have taken to explain more about your tradition.
There was a Lutheran church in Leeds, a large city in Yorkshire where I used to live. It was originally founded by German migrants who worked in the textile mills in neighbouring Bradford. Either they or their descendants eventually founded one in Leeds.
I often wish I'd visited as I often used to pass it. Sadly, it was close to the site of a notorious murder, the last victim of 'The Yorkshire Ripper'. 😞
There was a rather bizarre 'Scandi-Noir' style TV drama shown on late night British TV a few years ago which dealt with issues of faith- and this being a Scandi drama, gratuitous nudity and sex. It was about the family of a very traditional and controlling Lutheran minister - who was nevertheless having it off with a church employee - and explored Christianity, Islam, the War in Iraq, Buddhism in the Himalayas...
It was all over the place but did give some indication of the range within Lutheranism - everything from black gowns and 16th century ruffs through to some charismatic stuff which didn't go down at all well with the female Bishop and more liberal types.
Now this is a treatise on Lutheran Hermeneutics? Again, what does this have to do with the humanity of Jesus?
Happy to help!
Given that you, a Lutheran, posted the initial topic on the humanity of Jesus, I should have thought that the relevance of Lutheran hermeneutics would have been obvious. Shipmates of other traditions can post about the relationship between their denominational lives and their perceptions about the humanity of Jesus.
Given that Lutheran hermeneutics focus on the proclamation of Jesus Christ (Christocentric), what impact does that have on understanding the humanity of Jesus? You'd think it would be highlighted, but IME, that ain't so.
My take is that, as a subset of proclaiming Jesus Christ, Lutherans tend to focus on soteriology (the saving work of Jesus Christ) rather than Christology (the person and nature of Jesus Christ.) ISTM that when the latter does come into focus, the divine and resurrected nature of Jesus is emphasized.
I find that odd, but then, different experiences. We do emphasize the humanity and just in general the person way past the soteriology, though that’s certainly important. But that’s because we’re looking to the ongoing relationship between believer and Christ, rather than focusing on one past event aka conversion. And so in my experience his humanity gets the spotlight, because so often it’s more relatable.
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Well, first, I'd say re "But Jesus managed to be fully human, and have all these thoughts all the time, without ever encouraging or liking these thoughts? I just don’t understand that," it is literally beyond our mortal imagining, so you're not at all alone in having trouble imagining--even beginning to imagine--what it would be like. I'd also that that God can't make actual transcendent morality different--being Love is literally Who He Is. He's literally Goodness Himself.
I have sometimes a milder version of that. I don't think it occurred to me that others did too. "This horrible thing could happen" or even "I could do this horrible thing--wouldn't that be horrible?" I don't plan on doing it, it just pops into my mind. I think I've had it forever.
C. S. Lewis (oh you knew I'd have a relevant quote, didn't you?) has helped comfort me in this, since I first became a Christian, in Mere Christianity:
I can;y read his mind to know what it is he is objecting to.
Yes. It come across as "Children (babies) should be seen and not heard." Some English value of the previous century or two.
Chastmastr, I suspect OCD comes in various strengths, and there's probably a point at which low-level OCD blends into normal. Since I can't climb inside other people's heads, and can only make guesses based on descriptions they may provide, well, it's hard to know just what "normal" is when it comes to intrusive thoughts. I think SOME amount of intrusive thoughts is normal (though again, that raises the question of what is "normal" in a fallen species!). Where you personally fall on the spectrum from normal to severe OCD I couldn't say. I know my family is fairly severe, at least before middle age.
And yes, I love that quote. OCD is one of the things we look forward to leaving behind in the resurrection.
We don't know whether Jesus was one of them. But many people are celibate through vocation or because no relationship has worked out for them. Celibacy too is a way of being a sexual being.
But no guarantee of course. 'If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves ...'
I'm no expert on these things but it does seem that both Buddhist and Christian monastics - and Jains? can sublimate sexual desires to some extent through ascetic practices.
Orthodoxy doesn't appear as prissy as some Western traditions about these sort of issues, but I'm sure plenty of individual Orthodox are.
Equally, plenty of Christians of all stripes aren't either but I think we all sit under the shadow of a kind of Victorian squeamishness to some extent or other.
The contradictions are immense.
Come on folks! Stick with Holy Tradition. You know it makes sense ...
Nobody's saying you shouldn't read this other material, but why try to find answers there which are already there within the Tradition? And within small t tradition too?
I mean, your comment about Christ's sexuality @Lamb Chopped is entirely consistent with both Big T and small t tradition on this point. That's good enough for me.
How is a Gnostic gospel or some other interesting but non-canonical source going to add to our understanding on this one?
Particularly when some of that material seeks to downplay the humanity of Christ?
If I've misunderstood what @Gramps49 is saying then I apologise.
Oh, by the way Ecumenical Councils are also part of Holy Tradition. We have seven. How many do you have? 😉
More seriously, no, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but I do find it bizarre that Gramps49 is apparently advocating seeking guidance from non-canonical sources when canonical ones already answer them for him.
I will post something about this at a later date.
But I do have a few reactions to what has already been said.
First of all, who said sex is a sin? I simply asked a question, do you think Jesus had a sex drive. If he was like 99.9% of all of us, he was a sexual being.
Looking internally at the Scriptures, we see he said some very provocative things about adultery, he had a soft place for women who were forced to be prostitutes, he knew of people who chose to be eunuchs (was he one). He did seem to have a special relationship with Mary of Magdala.
Looking externally, especially at the Gospel of Mary, there is a very strong suggestion that relationship was much more than a platonic friendship.
You have to look both at the inside, and the outside to get a fuller picture of who Jesus was, in my mind.
What the Nag Hammadi find has shown us, is there were other scriptures floating around at the time our canon was established. The Gospel of Mary was not in the Nag Hammadi collection, btw. It was found elsewhere.
One objection I have heard to this idea is as God and Man Jesus loved everyone equally. That is true, but does that exclude his ability to love someone uniquely?
One last thought, in Jesus Christ, Superstar we have the Magdala character singing, "I Don't Know How to Love Him." Beautiful song, but there are a couple of problems. The song implies she was a prostitute. I have come to the conclusion May of Madala was not a prostitute--again, more later, and the song implies Jesus was only human. Now, maybe at one time Mary was still struggling with what type of person Jesus really was.
I am going to have to get out that album and listen to it. Maybe that would be a great discussion thread in and of itself.
The song does imply that she saw Jesus as “just a man“, but in my opinion there is a degree of dramatic irony here in that the production overall acknowledges, but does not claim to answer, the question whether Jesus was, in fact, more than just a man.
(* a tradition the present Pope has rejected.)
But I keep being told I misunderstand or misrepresent that position when plenty of posts here aboard Ship incline me to think that I've got the measure of it. That it's an untenable and inconsistent position. That it makes little sense in Big T Tradition terms, even though it may have some logical internal consistency for those who hold to it - or fondly imagine that they do.
But that aside - and I was being provocative there - the particular issue is my response to @Gramps49.
Ok. Who said sex was sinful? Well, I don't think anyone here is saying that it is. @Lamb Chopped citing the reference that Christ was tempted in every way that we are and suggesting that this may have included sexual temptation doesn't mean that such temptation in and of itself is sin. It may lead to sin, though.
Whatever else we may say about Christ from the Gospel accounts is that he did appear to adhere to what we might a very high standard of sexual ethics. Even to look at a married woman lustfully was as bad as the actual act, it would seem.
Of course there were other gospels and other writings circulating in the early centuries of Christianity. Nobody is saying otherwise nor is anyone saying that there's no point in reading them because they weren't eventually canonised.
Heck, we Orthodox still base certain Feasts, beliefs and observances on the Proto-Evangelium of James even though it's not canonical scripture.
The Shepherd of Hermas and other texts continued to be read and referred to alongside what became canonical scripture for some considerable time.
All this begs the question, of course, as to why the Church of those early centuries chose to use some texts and not others. Why wasn't the Gospel of Mary included, for instance?
Nasty, evil, wicked patriarchy?
Or because there was common consent that it wasn't 'authoritative'?
Or some other reason?
Sorry, @Gramps49, but I do find it odd that whilst you claim to hold a 'sola scriptura' position - however loosely - that you'd probably be iffy about the 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils for instance- whilst broadly accepting, I presume the first 4 or 5, and yet you're happy to consult texts that no Christian Church considers authoritive in any way, shape or form.
I'm sure the Gospel of Mary is very interesting but I'm not sure what light it can shed on the sexuality of Christ - particularly when you already seem to accept that Christ was one of those who had made themselves as 'eunuchs' for the Kingdom of God.
Where do we get that idea from?
From the canonical Gospels and the Tradition of the Church.
If the Gospel of Mary indicates otherwise and we accept that then we need to amend out Tradition or tradition accordingly.
I probably sound hopelessly fundamentalist on this point - and I can assure you I don't mean to be, but anything we believe about Christ if we are small o orthodox or Big O Orthodox Christians derives from Big T Tradition which includes the NT scriptures as recognised and authorised by the Undivided Church of the first millennium.
Our small t traditions ultimately derive from or were developed in response to Big T Tradition.
It's there. It's what we have. The canonical scriptures are part of that.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't read or refer to anything else. Heck, it's entirely legitimate to refer to 'David Copperfield' in a sermon, say, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, or a Wesleyan hymn or a Bob Dylan lyric or whatever else.
But when it boils down to it what we have to go on are the canonical scriptures as part of Holy Tradition - which includes the Ecumenical Councils - all 7 of them (Sorry RCs and Protestants).
Anything else may be interesting and instructive as far as they go, but they ain't canonical scripture nor Tradition.
Here endeth the rant.
He changed his views on celibacy, arguing that sex was as natural as food and drink.
Fair enough.
But that in and of itself wasn't an argument against celibacy.
His falling for a nun was.
It wasn't the argument that sex is as natural as eating and drinking that convinced him to change his views on celibacy. It was marrying Kate.
I'm sure they were very happy together and am glad of that.
It wasn't Sola Sex-ola as it were. 😉
But sex came into it.
Post facto justification.
C'mon. Do you think I was born yesterday?
Luther was perfectly entitled to get married if that's what he wanted to do. There's a get out clause in scripture. This is a hard saying. Those who can accept it should accept it.
I'm not criticising him for not accepting it. But don't give me thos pious bollocks about the doctrine coming first.
Hence 'Here I stand ...'
I'm not suggesting he was only thinking with his dick on the celibacy thing. Of course not.
But we can't leave his dick out of the equation.
Luther preached the “eating and drinking” sermon you refer to in 1522. He met Katharine in 1523, and married her in 1525. He wrote in a letter that he had not considered marriage until he met Katharina.
But OK. In this instance I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He came up with the doctrine then his dick followed suit.
Happy now? 😉
BroJames, Purgatory Host
But yes, perhaps it's something for another thread rather than this one, although I'm not sure what else we can say on the matter. Luther had his doctrine. Luther had a dick. I'm not sure there's anything more to say. There'll have been some kind of symbiotic relationship between the two. Dick, meet doctrine. Doctrine, meet dick.
BroJames, Purgatory Host
Actually has anytime the church argued that sex in "unnatural"? Though I do think the Church has argued that "natural" is sinful, as a consequence of original sin. I believe the idea that "natural" is automatically pure and good has its roots in the nineteenth century but am open to correction.
Sure. Which is why I've stood corrected and why I started a new thread.
That is also the standard by which liturgy and preaching are measured. A local congregation has the responsibility and freedom to conduct worship however they see fit, as long as it proclaims Christ. Traditional liturgical practices and traditional commentators may be used - or not - depending on whether their use constitutes an effective proclamation of Christ in the local context. A bishop can commend worship resources, but unless some congregation is doing something really heterodox, a bishop is unlikely to care... as long as worship proclaims Christ appropriately in that congregation's context.
So for Lutherans, Jesus is front and centre.
However, liturgical design and iconography tend not to focus on the incarnate. I suspect that probably has a negative effect on grasping the humanity of Jesus. Crosses are plentiful but usually bare, to celebrate the resurrection: no corpus. (Contrast that with a near-neighbour Catholic church, with a larger-than-life-sized, highly coloured and brightly illuminated, crucified Christ, whose painfully bloodied knees are at eye level for the congregation.)
Lutheran preaching - while usually perfectly orthodox - tends to shy away from Jesus's personal relationship with us. That too would have a negative effect on seeing the humanity of Jesus, I think. Singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" occasionally doesn't really fill that gap.
I understand that Augustine was of the view that being sinful is condition passed down the generations through having sex, perhaps even if having sex isn't sinful in itself. ( I don't know Jerome.)
So, for Augustine, the idea Mary being a virgin provided a way for her to give birth to a human without sin. --- (That's just an idea. I don't mind if it's not correct.)
Interesting.
I know very little about the Lutheran tradition so thanks for sharing this @Leaf.
In some ways, it accords with how I'm finding the Orthodox tend to view Protestantism in general, as something that tends to be more Christocentric rather than more roundedly Trinitarian (if we can put it that way).
Not that we are suggesting that Protestants aren't Trinitarian, of course.
To be more precise, I've come across Orthodox clergy who tend to see evangelical Protestantism as being overly Christocentric, but there of course it's associated with more personal and pietistic emphases in terms of our relationship with Christ.
So I'm interested to hear about a Protestant tradition that is apparently Christocentric as it were without a concomitant pietistic 'Me and Jesus / Jesus and me' vibe.
Lutheran pietism did influence early Anglophone evangelicalism of course, alongside Puritan emphases and so on.
I've never been to a Lutheran service but have visited Lutheran church buildings in Denmark. The aesthetics there reminded me of things I'd associate with 18th and early 19th century pre-Oxford Movement Anglicanism.
Very plain, very serious and rational, without the 'lived-in' feel you sometimes get from nonconformist chapels from that era here in the UK. I daresay this was because most of them were 'civic' churches in city centre locations. It might be different in rural areas.
Anyhow ... the atmosphere wasn't unlike that of some synagogues I've visited.
But I'm wandering off the point ...
Yes! Your summary reflects my experience. Pietism is present, but in the minority, among the Lutheran churches I've known in North America. The "Christocentricity" tends to be intellectual and doctrinal in nature, rather than emotional and relational. I feel like it could stand to be a shade more of the latter
Interesting. I've never been to Denmark, but the vibe you describe resonates with my experience of the Danish diaspora in Canada. (A Danish clergy friend always presided in black robes and an Elizabethan-style full ruff collar.)
Lutheran worship styles have nearly as extensive a "candle" range as Anglican, so it's hard to say what you might encounter in terms of liturgical style at any given Lutheran service.
There was a Lutheran church in Leeds, a large city in Yorkshire where I used to live. It was originally founded by German migrants who worked in the textile mills in neighbouring Bradford. Either they or their descendants eventually founded one in Leeds.
I often wish I'd visited as I often used to pass it. Sadly, it was close to the site of a notorious murder, the last victim of 'The Yorkshire Ripper'. 😞
There was a rather bizarre 'Scandi-Noir' style TV drama shown on late night British TV a few years ago which dealt with issues of faith- and this being a Scandi drama, gratuitous nudity and sex. It was about the family of a very traditional and controlling Lutheran minister - who was nevertheless having it off with a church employee - and explored Christianity, Islam, the War in Iraq, Buddhism in the Himalayas...
It was all over the place but did give some indication of the range within Lutheranism - everything from black gowns and 16th century ruffs through to some charismatic stuff which didn't go down at all well with the female Bishop and more liberal types.
Happy to help!
Given that you, a Lutheran, posted the initial topic on the humanity of Jesus, I should have thought that the relevance of Lutheran hermeneutics would have been obvious. Shipmates of other traditions can post about the relationship between their denominational lives and their perceptions about the humanity of Jesus.
Given that Lutheran hermeneutics focus on the proclamation of Jesus Christ (Christocentric), what impact does that have on understanding the humanity of Jesus? You'd think it would be highlighted, but IME, that ain't so.
My take is that, as a subset of proclaiming Jesus Christ, Lutherans tend to focus on soteriology (the saving work of Jesus Christ) rather than Christology (the person and nature of Jesus Christ.) ISTM that when the latter does come into focus, the divine and resurrected nature of Jesus is emphasized.