Re: Cage Match Christology

Peter -

Hard words for some hard (bodied) Christians. First, I have to take offense that you would use that picture of my father in his twenties to represent your tough guy Jesus. Not cool.

I guess I’m just enamored with the simultaneous concretizing and exaggerating that’s happening here. We use the word “fighting” pretty frequently in our culture. Now it does not always have to do with actual fighting, i.e. fists, roundhouse kicks, and as the Cobra Kai were fond of saying, “SWEEP THE LEG!”  We use the word “fight” simply to mean to be involved in a struggle. We use it lightly, like, she’s fighting for a place in line, or I’m fighting to open this mayonnaise jar. But we all know that when we use fighting in those contexts we are being hyperbolic.

We’re not really fighting, as fighting intends violence. The thing is, maybe we have learned to be hyperbolic all the time, even with regard to our religiosity.  John Stewart and the Daily Show hysterically point out the exaggerated language of blogs - all of which connote acts of physical violence.

My question is, what happens when we forget that we’re being generous, metaphorical or exaggerative with our language? Do we end up living and acting in an exaggerated fashion also? Do we literalize and embody the exaggeration?

A second thought that I have is that fighting, moreover, is not, strictly speaking, a Jesus component; it’s a survival component. When someone’s survival is threatened, fighting is a human reaction. These ministers are using violence as a means to attract younger men, but they’re doing it out of a my “back’s against the wall” sensibility, I would judge. Not because it is at the core of the Gospel.  When one’s life is in question, its fight or flight time. These ministers have just chosen to indulge in the most rudimentary instinct for survival, literal fighting. So, they are not wrong in making the claim Jesus was a “fighter,” but they may want to take a step back and ask themselves, what was Jesus, the fighter, fighting for? What has always drawn me to Jesus, particularly through the parables, is the way he moves away from reactive, less admirable human instincts toward teachings of grace, forgiveness and wisdom – those things that I suppose are as feminine as Sophia, herself.

With regard to the Christology question, I’d agree with you. This is more eisegesis than exegesis. But a jacked up Jesus or muscular messiah isn’t new, especially in America. Last year, media was rife with the comparability of Jack Bauer, who would nobly withstand torture, with Jesus. This seems like another derivative of that masculine moral.

More on Fighting Faith:

NYTimes: “Who Would Jesus Smack Down?”
Evander Hollyfield beats wife for not tithing (enough)