Towards the end of last year, I posted on the subject of my spiritual journey and how I have come to believe that both the destination and process by which we travel are equally formative on our lives.This discovery, of course, was only possible because I had previously rejected the idea of an intimate involvement with God on a daily basis, and had tended to focus solely on God as my destination. The main reason for this shift was my growing anxiety surrounding the language of personal relationship.
Professor John Suk has recently written a great article about the problems with having our own personal Jesus. While I agree with most of the commentators that it is probably not a case of either/or, Professor Suk has put into words everything that makes me cringe about the relationship metaphor. The first two comments by Mark Goodyear have also helped me identify what troubles me most in this area.
Thanks to Maggi for the link.
6 comments:
like it. kind of makes me a bit sad. the whole 'Jesus is my Boyfriend' thing really appealed to me when I was younger, so I almost feel that I mourn for something I'm not sure I ever really had.
but, is there ever any kind of personal relationship we can have with God, or is it all esoteric?
I agree that there are sections of the church that over-do the relationship part at the expense of some of the aspects that Prof Suk mentions. I think this has been a reaction, especially by some of the "new churches" away from the dry/dead religiosity that came before them. But I think that when we first notice the new imbalance and react against it (both as individuals and corporately) we have to be careful tthat the pendulum doesn't go too far back the other way. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; you can't do that impersonally. Otherwise all you're left with is religion. (and the cycle continues)
Dan I don't know you,
but I agree with you.
The article sums up so much of what I find/found difficult about church,
memories abound of sitting on the ground at the very back of church listening to people talking about Jesus hugging them and feeling completely detached from the whole thing.
However the pendulum analogy is the first thing that sprang to my mind also. I increasingly see that God speaks to people differently and that people's personalities play a huge role.
We know so little about how this works that i'd be really slow to undermine anyone who says that they feel Jesus personally.
Jesus was a affectionate guy at times, crying for Lazarus and
all.
I didn't like the use of the quote at the end,
the quote dan use is much more appropriate for summing up the ministery and person of christ,
Jesus said to love God first and then love others.
Loving others is not enough and I feel that the pendulum swing can make you think it is,
i remember feeling "I don't really understand God but I know he wants me to love other people so I'll do that", I've been challenged that that isn't enough.
oh this is very very long,
so sorry.
one of my favourite verses talks about seeing God with my own eyes and God not being a stranger. yet in the same book Job is confronted by an ultimate mystery, and God actually telling him he can't begin to understand... yet all in all, it is an encounter that satisfies Job.
christian language is a funny thing, and has caused me to cringe on numerous occasions on varying topics. does it even mean anything nowadays, all that jargon we put in? i often find i never get past the overly rigid and familiar words and end up missing the beautiful meaning they were trying to express in the first place. i'm sure the metaphors must of worked at some point, but personally many of them are extremely distracting to me.
i wonder what a new kind of language would look like...?
Thanks for the comments guys. I am moving house at the moment so I haven't really had the time to sit down and think this through further. Basically, I think I am in agreement with everyone.
I like Dan and Luke's comments about being careful of our reaction. I am also in agreement with Ben, Kiera, Karen, Maria and Scrivner that the metaphor of relationship is badly used and can cause many more problems than it solves. The biblical picture seems to be much bigger and more inspiring than the idea of 'personal relationship'.
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