21st Century Theological Commitments

In the 11 years as an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I have dutifully upheld the authority of the scriptures, the creeds, the Ten Commandments, the Lutheran confessions, and presided with integrity over baptisms and Holy Communion. I have also maintained a profound respect for my vows to be diligent in study and prayer, and in leading by example. These duties and diligence as an ELCA pastor have led to over a decade’s worth of meaningful conversations and relationships with Christians of all ages. My persistence for historical and theological truths has also led me to uncover innumerable books, articles, and scholarly commentaries unavailable to previous generations of Christian preachers and teachers. What is a pastor to do when that information challenges or refutes ancient tradition? Am I to honor my vow to diligently study the scriptures or am I to honor my vow to uphold the authority of the scriptures? This is my predicament.

For example, let’s consider the conception of Jesus. The Christian tradition teaches that Jesus was “conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” Was Mary truly a virgin, or was her alleged virginity a word choice—a byproduct—born from the early Church’s discomfort with sex and sexuality? Was Jesus historically born of a virgin or was his origin story in Matthew merely written that way? One doesn’t have to dig very deep to discover many reputable Biblical scholars having concluded that the author of Matthew relied on a Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14 (which was originally written in Hebrew) to “predict” Jesus’s arrival. The Hebrew text stated that a “young woman” will give birth to a son and will name him “Immanuel” which in Hebrew means “God is with us.” Historians are also in near consensus that Matthew’s Gospel was likely written near the end of the first century and therefore his insinuation that Jesus came to the earth in such a miraculous manner was the first of its kind to suggest such a thing. No other document retained before Matthew’s Gospel can back up his claims, especially not the Apostle Paul’s letters which far precede any of the Gospel writers’ accounts. This is the same Paul who had an answer and response for everything and whose words formed the backbone for much of Christianity’s theology and liturgy. Here was that same know-it-all Paul never so much as mentioning Jesus’s birth story.

The truth is that I don’t think about Mary’s alleged virginity all that much anymore, and frankly, I am tired of Christians who continue to stress something along the lines of: all of these things literally happened as written. In fact, I doubt that any of the Gospels are historically accurate about Jesus. It’s not that I don’t think Jesus was legitimately awesome, but I doubt Jesus would want to be remembered for the manner in which he was born or how he spent his last moments on earth (just as I prefer to think of my deceased loved ones by the way they lived rather than the way they died.) I’ve spent my livelihood amplifying what Jesus accomplished in his thirty-some years. But I have gotten to a point where I am skeptical about those accomplishments—doubtful of what the Bible said he said, wary of the way he is often depicted, and deeply curious of the historical context behind these ancient publications. Much as I want to believe Jesus embodied enlightenment through compassion, forgiveness, and non-judgmental love, my studies have cast significant doubts on the veracity of the New Testament’s intentions and methods. I cannot shake the possibility that what we think we know about Jesus isn’t accurate and that inaccuracy keeps me up at night with questions. Who wrote the Gospels and why? Did the New Testament produce Christianity, or was it the other way around? Is there an open-minded and religion-free way to be Christ’s Church? Are legit followers of Jesus better off without Christianity? Is there anything we ought to hold onto? What needs to go?

I think it’s time to embrace Matthew and Luke’s imaginative recounting of the immaculate conception and Jesus’s arrival narrative as mythological stories not historical facts to proclaim every Sunday. The details make for a fun and festive children’s Christmas pageant and Lord knows we would have made Matthew and Luke into billionaires in hymnody royalties from our Christmastime anthems! At the very least I wish more people would recognize that most of the Gospels are steeped in the theological imaginations of its anonymous authors—writers like me who no doubt hoped to inspire and inform readers about their hero Jesus. So it’s not that I doubt Jesus was heroic. I trust he had to be a level or two above the average person to have lasted this long in our collective consciousness. And if I could leave it at that, I would. But shutting off my curiosity is impossible. And if my only alternative course of action is ignorance and closed-mindedness, that would make for a very lazy and boring spiritual life, in my opinion. To avoid that fate, I choose to discover what else is awaiting my learning from the buried depths of antiquity and in the unknown heights of our mysterious Universe—and then all there is left to do is write about what I find!