DR. CUMMINGS: David Mann's ideal Christian
During this past week, David Mann, who is an excellent writer, wrote two Your Say articles in which he claimed that I am not a Christian, and in fact, that I'm anti-Christian. And for all I know, he might be right.
Mann's litmus test for a Christian follows the Nicene Creed: to be a Christian I must believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God and that he was born of the Virgin Mary, that he died to atone for all of our sins, and that he rose from the dead on the third day. These four concepts were all written in the year 325 when "Christian dogma" was finally defined by the Emperor's Council of Nicaea. You remember, for nearly 300 years, the followers of Jesus could not agree on one Christian church (sounds like today, doesn't it?) So Constantine forced the bishops to come up with one.
Let's look at all four criteria:
1. Jesus is God. The Nicene Creed uses the term: "consubstantial with the Father" to describe the divinity of Jesus. I confess I don't understand this terminology and I much prefer the Apostles' Creed, which doesn't make Jesus "one with the Father."
2. Virgin Birth. Besides the miraculous pregnancies of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, and many more in the Old Testament, we see virgin births in Greek, Roman, Mithraic, Laozi, Aztec, and many more cultures. I think they're all good stories, including Matthew's and Luke's. Many good "Christian" scripture scholars (i.e. Crossan, Borg, Spong and Cummings) read them as parables or metaphors — but not as history. Mann might call them symbolic.
3. Atonement. There are at least four atonement theories; none of them make any sense to me.
4. Resurrection. Jesus rose; there is no doubt about that; the question is how? Physically? I agree with Paul (1Cor. 15:8) in thinking that it was a "vision-type" thing that keeps on keeping on.
Based on this test, I probably come close to flunking. But am I anti-Christian, too? I am certainly anti-Christian in regards to Christian fundamentalists and biblical literalists, but it seems Mann is too. He obviously doesn't consider them worth talking about. But how about all other Christians?
I can think of three ways to look at this:
Jesus ID. Do I carry a "Jesus ID?"
Dogma. Do I believe what Jesus taught and believed?
Morals. Do I act and live like Jesus did?
Jesus ID: No, I do not carry a Jesus ID, I'd have to be Jewish. Jesus was a Galilean Jew who never converted to Christianity; it didn't exist then. If we could have asked Jesus for his identity, he would have pointed to his synagogue and replied: I'm a Jew. His total personality was bound up and packaged by his complete adherence to Judaism. The very idea of leaving it would have been abhorrent to him. Improve it, yes; leave it, never. In my humble opinion, Matthew's later insertion (16:18) of establishing a "church" (ecclesia) on Peter could never have been said by this Galilean Jew. But that's just my opinion.
Dogma. Yes, I believe the core message that he taught: "Love your neighbor as yourself" which he quoted from Leviticus 19:18. His sayings, his parables, his stories — all build on this and carry this same Jewish theme. His message becomes very clear but also very challenging.
Morals. Yes and no. Do I live and act according to his core message? Sometimes. This is the hard part. How can we take the poverty-stricken life of a Galilean peasant in the 1st century and replicate it today? Our present pope, Francis, tries to show us what this might mean in today's world by living outside his opulent Vatican quarters, cooking his own meals, and driving around in his Jeep Wrangler. But is this enough?
No, it's not enough. I know that over 1 billion people in the world are living on less than $1.25 a day, and that 2.8 million children die from hunger each year. But what do I do about it? Nothing. Oh, I belong to a community-conscious Rotary Club in Macon, and I live in the most giving and charitable country in the world, and I donate every year to my favorite charities, but I do not act every day to feed the poor and comfort the suffering and live as I picture Jesus must have lived.
So, no. I can't ID myself as a Christian because I'm not Jewish; I don't believe everything the Christian churches teach, (of course, they don't all teach the Nicene Creed, do they?) and I certainly don't act every day like a man on fire with a love for his less fortunate neighbors, helping them in every possible way he can. So in that sense, I guess Mann is right: I'm really not a very good Christian.
How about you?
Dr. Bill Cummings is the CEO of Cummings Consolidated Corporation and Cummings Management Consultants. His website is www.billcummings.org.
This story was originally published December 5, 2015 at 9:12 PM.