Epistemic reality for Christians in the union of telos and eschaton

The Reformed tradition within Christianity has generally started any theological inquiry based upon a christological understanding and the circumstances in the world at any given time -- Christ as the center of the Christian religion...however, more recently even this has been questioned since keeping Christ at the center has proven to support a indoctrinated static position that allows injustice to flourish within the church as well as without the church. If there is anything that the Kingdom of God is not in the temporal, it would be that it is not static. The realized and the not yet fulfilled Kin_dom attests to the mysterious tension that requires the constant and continuous attention of all persons to interpret the will of God within a given time. A brief remark on the Christian view of history following Augustine. Christian history has Christ at its center unifying both past, present, and future. In this history, eternal life is not something in the future, not future events as such, but where the past, the present and the future meet. Each moment is a glimpse of the eternal but it is then washed away in the ambiguities of history, self-integration, self-creativity, and self-transcendence (Tillich). But where the cosmic, the communal, and the personal are in unity the Kingdom of God breaks into the world.

Continuing with what I started about traditional indoctrinated Christianity, the church itself, since blindly accepting dogmatic theology from tradition without questioning the very use of dogmatics, the very language of them, the very cultural understandings of such images...in fact Christ as the center of attention, though perhaps rightly placed, has historically contributed to oppression and victimization of different peoples, races, genders. Christ as a male figure solely concentrated on does very little for women who have been oppressed by men who have wrongly utilized the Christ symbol as a means of justifying the victimization of women and the defining of what gender means. Christians have long fallen into this particular pit-fall which was never fully questioned even by more recent feminist theologians. Though I think Elizabeth Fiorenza has it correct when identifying the problem as being deeply embedded in the Reformed tradition which holds in high regard Christ as center. Fiorenza proposes to hold Mary, the mother of Jesus in high regard to counter the symbol of Jesus -- she has been interpreted in terms of the perfect servile woman throughout history, but perhaps this isn't enough. What about the fact that she was single and carrying a baby -- this cries scandal! Why is this not cited? Why is the reality that she was perhaps a sexual being who was tempted by Joseph or perhaps raped (which was not an uncommon occurrence) not mentioned? Sorry...tangent...back to the point.

Christ, as I've mentioned is thought to be the center of history uniting both past and present. He is thought to usher in the Kingdom of God which will continue to break into the world until Jesus comes again. It is the mission of the church to do the will of God with the help of the Spirit in Christ's absence and to spread the news that Christ died for humanity and will come again; to love others, to contribute to positive relationships, to be just, to be involved politically. World history is not the same thing as Christian history, since Christian history is merely a part of world history. Christians live in the world, are subject to the laws of the temporal. They are to actively take part in the world doing the will of God rather than just passively sitting on their butts claiming to believe in God. Believing in God is true only if that belief produces the fruit of labor. Works righteousness is not the road to heaven, but faith without works is no faith at all. Again, I'm straying a bit. Christians then hold to this belief that Jesus will return again to judge and to finish the redeeming work already begun at the crucifixion.

Now my point: this Christian hope in this future coming of Christ is precisely what underlies the epistemology of many Christian thinkers. It is a hope that arises from the union of the Christian understanding of telos and eschaton. The telos of the Christian is to do the will of God, while the eschaton refers to the coming again of Christ. Liberation theologians especially hold to this. Drawing on the experiences of oppression and marginalization within their own context, the concern that theology addresses is that of liberation from injustice...freedom. The Christian message is interpreted through this lens and so the hope a liberation theologian and oppressed peoples has comes from the hope of a reality where Christ liberates people from oppression. Christ died to redeem the world and so the Christians with this experience of oppression, actively participate in the goal of liberating the oppressed. One does not merely wait for Christ to come back. A good way to understand the necessity of activity in the Christian life is in the interpretation of the resurrection of the body. Many subscribe to a Platonic dualistic notion of the soul and body (not apparent in Judaism) though this message is not biblically accurate. Jesus himself rose bodily from the dead. The Apostle Paul speaks of a "new body." The point being that what we do in this life matters and perhaps to some extent carries with us into the next. Jesus himself had scars. Some theologians refer to this as essentialization -- as we live in history, when the eschaton arrives, what we take into unambiguous life is the positive while the negative is merely exposed for what it is -- nonbeing. Thus what we do in history that has an impact in history is carried with us into the Eternal Life. This may posit degrees of Eternal life that one receives though this is proceeding too much into the realm of speculation. What is certain is that eternal life at the crossroads of the past and future is to be lived out in the temoral, though the ambiguities within the temporal hinder action when all are not held in check -- for instance individualization and participation -- the tension of our individuality and our positions within communities. Both need to be balanced and will be in unity within the Eternal life. It seems common opinion that what matters is the community while the individual merely plays their part within -- the betterment of the whole. But perhaps this can best be interpreted when some remnance of the individual is retained in eternal life with the knowledge that the individual does not exist alone apart from the community.

Furthering my comments, it is important to realize that actively participating in history means making sacrifice. The more one makes a difference the more sacrifices a person has to make. But this sacrifice is not merely a self-destructive act, but a self-fulfillment as this positive character is taken with a person to unambiguous life. What does this say about the artist from a Christian perspective? An artist then when writing a score, painting a picture, writing a novel does so to contribute to human understanding, to make a mark in history. It is a self-sacrificial act, which may lead to drunkenness or drug-use, however the self-sacrificial act in itself is self-fulfilling to the true artist. It is precisely this sacrificial character that leads many times to an abrupt life, though eternally self-fulfilling. An artist's endeavor to do this then is a good model for essentialization and gives a glimpse of Eternal life within the temporal. But the ambiguities of the temporal make an artist's work never a completed work, but a work in progress, in process until the end of time. At that end, the artist can rest assured. It is the persistent activity of the artist then that Christians should look at when addressing sociopolitical matters or matters of injustice. Not paining is never an option. A true artist must paint to end injustice. A true Christian must act to end injustice.

Christology and Politics

There are those in America who support the separation of church and state; there are those who don't care too much as long as they are left alone to their own business; and then there are those who radically believe that religion and the state should not be distinguished as two separate entities (though perhaps in a rather naive sort of way). Christians fall all along this spectrum holding onto varying values inherent within the confines of the meaning illicited by the term "Christian." Some hold on to biblical inerrancy (though perhaps this too does not grasp the historical ambiguity that this phrase has drawn in the past century and a half); some perhaps value the individual family unit characteristic of the late 19th century and early 20th; some may value the example of Jesus' life as recorded in the gospel narratives. Behind the "Christian" values that a person holds, these values originate from the interplay of individual experience, the gospel narratives, and an interpreted christology that comes out of this interplay. Because the religion of the Christianity centers around the person and work of Jesus who is considered the Christ, then the Christ becomes the criterion for normative action. But how does any particular Christian view Jesus as Christ? Not in the same way for sure due to the plurality of individual experience and the interpretation of the gospel. For many the Christ could be atoning figure who makes the ultimate sacrifice fulfilling a messianic function and allowing all humanity the possibility of escaping sure death. This is perhaps well documented and argued. There may be others who interpret the Christ-figure to be merely an ethical example for all of human-kind -- more of a Buddha figure, which inherently lends Jesus' actions before his death as significant, though perhaps not his actions afterward. Depending upon a Christian's christological understanding of Jesus, their values may shift. Again, some may, within their interpretation of Scripture and in their personal experience understand violence to be a necessary maneuver in counteracting evil. And on the other hand there are others who find backing for pacifism within Scripture and in their personal experience. Is either one right or wrong? For the Christian to do christology, he or she must ask how Jesus fits the role as Christ and what that means within the biblical narrative. Within the narrative the atoning work of Jesus is surrounded by a particular environment at a specific time in history within a particular governing structure. This last comment is important for those taking the gospel seriously. Looking at Jesus' life as a whole, he was never truly politically successful while he was alive in terms of Roman governance. Jesus' ways were not the ways of Pax Romana as is evident in his confrontation with Pilate and (flawed trial). His ways were not the ways of the world. Everything Jesus did worked against him from the very beginning until eventually he met his demise. Jesus as the Christ was not a figure who had material wealth, who aligned himself with the government of the time, who befriended the prestigious. The Christ that Christians proclaim was on the road to the cross his whole life. To live according to a politics that is not the politics of the day (in this case that of the Pax Romana) is to invite violence and suffering into one's life. Does Jesus fight the world as other Jews envisioned the Messiah to do? Jesus does not go into battle, he merely goes to the cross. Whether a person's christology involves a purely ethical Jesus or salvific Jesus or Jesus as Son of God, the highly political nature of Jesus' life and ministry cannot be ignored. The Christian Right has it right in this regard! There is no separating the church and politics for Christians. Karl Barth wisely put that one should read Scripture in one hand and the Newspaper in the other. For a Christian merely to ignore the politics in their own country is, I would suggest, to misread Scripture. I am not a proponent of the Christian right recognizing its many flawed actions and naivete in politics, though I wanted to point out that it does recognize this connection. Contingent upon one's christological interpretation is one's interpretation of the church and its function. And the function of the church, as the body of Christ, is to act as the actual body of Christ, doing the will of Christ on earth. What is known of the will of the Christ is witnessed in Scripture and their to be interpreted -- upbuilding of the community, spread of the message of Christ, social justice, aid to those in need. In these interpretations I find it hard to locate the calling for violence in the Christian life. In my own exegesis, what stands out as being Christian (but not solely a Christian notion), what stands out in my christological interpretation of the biblical narrative and my own personal experience is the notion of agape -- not just in the sense of a pure love, but a pure love that exists to build up positive relationships between people and people, people and nature, people and God, God and nature...thus my criterion for normative action derived from exegesis, experience, study, etc is asking whether or not what I do contributes positively to relationships -- not a positivistic notion or utilitarian slanted standard. The Christ died for us means that the Christ died to save us from a broken relationship with God once divided by "sin" (to use another loaded term). To the non-Christian, perhaps one can gain a bit of a sociological or anthropological insight into the ambiguous and plural religion that the Christian holds to. To the Christian, perhaps doing Christology can help render normative guidelines that might be helpful in life and in the political sphere in which one lives.