Christian Scholar's Review
Volume 30, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 265-288
Looking For a Jesus To Follow
James Callahan
Driving through the northwest side of Chicago offers many opportunities to observe
differences—in housing, shopping, eating, and the variety of traditional churches and generic
places of worship. Similarities amidst this diversity are seemingly coincidental. At least I
thought so until the other day. The sign in front of a conservative, baptistic, evangelical
church—a sig usuall
o e ed ith se
o titles, ti es of hild e s
eeti gs, a d
seasonal messages to motorists advertising the destiny of the lost—this week offered the
i itatio to o side the uestio : What ould Jesus do? Coi idi g ith hat has ee
g eeted as a esu ge t
o e e t
a kete s a d pu lishe s a o pa ied
jewelry, study bibles and study guides, T-shi ts, a d
usi , this
a array of
otto see s to e a
ost
popular expression of an American evangelical piety with a corresponding economic subculture.
Driving just two blocks further, past a similar sign but this one belonging to a Roman
Catholi
hu h, I ead the ad e tise e t of
ass ti es, a d the title of the pasto s ho il :
What ould Jesus do? Coi ide e? Yes, I dis o e ed. A pho e all o fi
no intent of rallying Catholics to the piet asso iated ith e a geli alis
theolog . But the e as so ethi g a out the
ed that the e as
s su ultu e o
o al that e ou aged the p iest to add ess, i
a completely positive light, what Catholic Christian life would look like if one stopped to ask,
hat Jesus ould do toda ? E a geli als do ot o
the uestio , as I as e i ded
the priest, even though they have utilized it most profitably (both economically and spiritually).
1
The question has routinely and persistently been part of how Christians have pursued their
spirituality. What are we to make of these seeming coincidences?
My suggestion is that these samples are more than coincidences. They represent the
perennial convergence of cultural, spiritual and theologically hermeneutical interests in what I
ill efe to as i itatio spi itualit . B this ph ase I efe to the u io
ide tit a d ou
et ee ou Ch istia
otio s of Ch ist s ide tit . I o de to speak Ch istia l i a
pa ti ula so ial
and historical circumstance we bring together the questions of our identities as Christians with
the lo g a d ta gled a d ofte
e shall see, o te po a
iti al a gu e ts o e i g Ch ist s ide tit . I es apa l , as
Ch istia ide tit sig ifi a tl i flue es ho o e ie s Ch ist s
identity, and vice versa. One is often explained in terms of or in spite of the other.
By looking through the often critical and dismissive critiques from academics we
discover we are in the midst of a time of renewed interest in imitation spirituality. Academic
critics and popular exponents of the WWJD movement both enjoy a hearing when we pay
attention to a postcritical understanding of the Gospels. Such readings of the Gospels entail an
admission of their place in the matters of spiritual life and its consequences beyond the times
of Jesus. Solidarity with Jesus Christ is essentially and necessarily Christian, and imitation
spirituality is best understood by means of our effort to realize our identities in Jesus Christ.
But we must also be aware of the caution that it is e
ide tit
ea s of ou o
eas to o fuse the
atte of Jesus
. As Paul Lakela d suggests: Thus, follo i g Ch ist is salvation
and not merely the way to sal atio , e ause the follo i g of this di i e othe is hu a
acquiescence to our place i the di i e s he e of thi gs.
1
So instead of dismissing the
possibility of imitating Jesus, we are reminded that the quest for a Jesus to follow is to be a
1
Paul Lakeland, Postmodernity: Christian Identity in a Fragmented Age (Minneapolis, Minn.:
Fortress Press, 1997), 110.
2
cautious as well as earnest pilgrimage.
Imitation spirituality is a close companion to Christian spirituality generally within
Christian theological history and moral contemplation, but their association varies significantly
within that history. This demonstrates the tensions of faithfulness (to Christ and the Gospels)
and relevance (to cultures and sensible understanding). We begin with a brief description of
why the question of imitation is being raised anew by a seemingly unlikely source—The Jesus
“e i a . F o
the e e e a i e the WWJD
o e e t s sig ifi a t pla e i e a geli al
Christianity, and look further into the persistence of the ideal of imitation spirituality by
comparing the Imitation of Christ
Tho as à Ke pis s ith Cha les “heldo s idel
ead
work, In His Steps. What makes these examples of imitation spirituality so dubious in the
contemporary academic setting is in large part attributable to the nature of the various
uests fo the histo i al Jesus. The i fa ous uests e e a d a e the sel es su stitutes o
correctives to supposedly uncritical or nonhistorical imitation spirituality. But instead of
invalidating the question of WWJD altogether, contemporary quests seek to refashion the
possible answers. In response we also find a renewed interest in the attempt to recast
imitation spirituality in terms of solidarity, theologically demonstrated and justified. This leads
us to ou
o lusio : i itatio spi itualit is a effo t to ha a te ize ou li es i te
life— Ch ist i
ou, the hope of glo
Colossia s :
s of Jesus
. It is ot that “heldo s uestio f o
In His Steps is no longer relevant, but one century later our evaluations of what makes the
question What Would Jesus Do? relevant requires more explanation.
Reasons for Our Interest
For many of us imitation spirituality is at least associated with the vast supply and variety of
WWJD pa aphe alia. The i itatio of Ch ist, efe ed to as the at h o d of the Middle
Ages, lo g ega ded as the sine qua non of Christian piety, and routinely disdained by religious
3
academics, has seemingly survived the ministrations of our modern world.2 It has been
reformed by two centuries of lives of Jesus research, and reclaimed by social gospellers and
fundamentalists alike in this century. And it has recently surfaced in circles unexpected by
those who would wear a WWJD wristband; namely, Robert Funk and The Jesus Seminar
sponsored by the Westar Institute of Sonoma, California. These academics have captured the
attention of contemporary Christians and non-Christians through the pages of Time,
Newsweek, and any newspaper interested in repo ti g the effo t to u o e
o e ed up
the hu h s so- alled
the eal Jesus
o fessio .
The hea t of the uestio has to do ith ho it is that Jesus is thought to e a ole
odel. Fu k easo s:
The tendency to take Jesus captive for this reason or that, to confiscate his name as
slogan for one crusade or another, belies a hankering to know the real Jesus, the Jesus
no one knows, to get around and behind the Jesus that is paraded on television in
ideological chains and heralded in cheap paperbacks as someone held hostage by
objectives militantly prosecuted.
Fu k asks, h is it that Jesus is
ot disti guished f o
God i
a
i ds ut . . . has also
been reduced from a genuinely transcendent being to something more accessible and
2
The uote, the i itatio of Ch ist e a e the at h o d of the Middle Ages, is attributed to
C. E. Luthardt, History of Christian Ethics (1888-93) and is cited in R. E. O. White, Christian Ethics:
The Historical Development (Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox Press, 1981), 91. Observing the different
shapes the imitation of Christ has taken in Christian ethics is the sub-te t of White s olu e; it is
a highly recommendable survey of this theme in Christian history.
4
personal—a f ie d a aila le fo a st oll i the ga de i the ool of the e e i g ? 3 His
for the real Jesus is the alter- e sio of the
Jesus Do?—its e ed , its efo
uest
uest of popula piet s uestio : What Would
atio . I Fu k s o ds I ha e a esidual hankering to free my
fellow human beings from that bondage [to a mythical Jesus conjured up by modern
evangelists to whip their followers into a frenzy of guilt and remorse—and cash contributions],
which can be as abusive as any form of slavery known to hu a ki d. Fu k o ti ues:
The real reason for rediscovering the historical Jesus is to allow an ancient Jesus to
confront the many faces of the modern Jesus. The Jesus we begin with is the Jesus we
have enshrined in our images and creeds, our reconstructions and convictions, our
hopes and our fears. The Jesus that lies at the end of the return to Nazareth is someone
we do not yet know. Whatever he turns out to be, he will subvert the Jesus we think we
know, the Jesus we venerate and cherish. We must be prepared for the potential
emotional and intellectual turmoil that discovery will produce. 4
The Jesus “e i a s popula it
a
e e plai ed, i pa t,
its atte tio to the
atte s
of imitational spirituality—its intentional revision (but not rejection) of that spirituality. The
titles of The “e i a s o ks lea l i di ate the o e
ith uestio s su h as What Did
Jesus Really Say? and What Did Jesus Really Do?5 The explicit effort is to displace popular or
3
Robert W. Funk, Honest To Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (San Francisco, Calif.: Harper San
Francisco, 1996) 3, 17-18.
4
Ibid., 19.
5
Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the
Authentic Words of Jesus New Translation and Commentary (San Francisco, Calif.:
5
straightforward or traditionally Christian readings of the Gospels with its own version of
imitation spirituality.
In Jesus’ Steps
It as Cha les “heldo s
o k In His Steps, subtitled, What ould Jesus do? that framed
the question of imitation spirituality for Christianity in this century. In “heldo s fi tio ,
Reverend Henry Maxwell invited the congregation of First Church of Raymond to consider the
following:
I want volunteers from the First Church who will pledge themselves, earnestly
and honestly for an entire year, not to do anything without first asking the
uestio , What ould Jesus do? A d afte aski g that uestio , ea h o e ill
follow Jesus as exactly as he knows how, no matter what the result may be....
Ou
otto ill e, What ould Jesus do? Ou ai
would if He as i ou pla es.... I othe
ill e to a t just as He
o ds, e p opose to follo Jesus
steps as closely and as literally as we believe He taught His disciples to do. 6
“heldo s all to ask the uestio ,
supposi g Jesus
as i ou pla es, is a poi ted
reminder that Christian spirituality has always had something to do with the desire to be like
Jesus. The incessant questioning of motives and outcomes, the troubling dissimilarities and
hopeful dete
i atio to add ess the dispa ities et ee Jesus life a d ou o n lives, leaves
us to continually face the question of just how that is to be the case. As the popularity of
HarperSanFrancisco, 1993); and Robert W. Funk, and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus (San
Francisco, Calif.: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998).
6
Charles Sheldon, In His Steps, The Christian Library (Uhrichsville, Ohio: Barbour, 1984) 15.
6
What Would Jesus Do? pa aphe alia i di ates, e a e o e agai
o f o ted ith the
necessity of addressing the union of moral and christological themes in a most sincere effort to
e hi it
o al esol e ot o l
o siste t ith ut ased upo Jesus ide tit .
“heldo s si ple a d su tle
a
odel of spi itual app aisal as
ea t to e o e
iguities a d u e tai ties. Whe asked What if othe s sa of us, when we do certain
thi gs, that Jesus ould ot do so? ‘e e e d Ma
ell espo ded, We a
ot p e e t that.
But we must be absolutely honest with ourselves. The standard of Christian action cannot vary
i
ost of ou a ts. Co siste
ho est , o jectivity, and self-assurance must characterize
the Ch istia s ha its. A d “heldo s piet
as
ea t to halle ge
a e e e sha e the
nominal religion of too many Christian people. As the novel comes to a close, Reverend
Maxwell had this vision:
He thought he saw the church of Jesus in America open its heart to the moving of the
Spirit and rise to the sacrifice of its ease and self-satisfaction in the name of Jesus. He
thought he sa the
and
itte o e e
otto What ould Jesus do? i s i ed o e e e
hu h
e
hu h doo ,
e s hea t.7
We should not neglect the power of this sentiment, this vision. Imitation and flattery are
wedded, and the imitation of Jesus the Savior embodies our highest aspirations to be like him
in glory and our deepest emotions to be unlike ourselves in sin (for example, 1 John 2:28-3:3).
Christian identity is described as conformity with Christ (Romans 8:29), Christian existence is to
be characterized by approaching the likeness of Christ (Romans 13:14; Philippians 3:8-11), and
Christ himself is (obviously) to be an example of such existence (Matthew 20:26-28; John
13:15; and 1 Peter 2:21-23). How, then, can we justly complain about the sincere desire to
imitate Jesus Christ? But criticism comes easier than not. Imitation spirituality has had its share
7
Ibid., 241-242.
7
of dissenters, and the complaints about imitation help expose our vulnerabilities (in isolating
imitation from other, proximate themes such as salvation and christology).
For all its ability to capture the wonderful aspirations (and the painful guilt) of North
A e i a Ch istia s at the tu
of the e tu , “heldo s uestio
as posed i o de to
provide an answer that may have been too easy, too straightforward. That is, what sounds so
ight a out “heldo s uest
a also e its greatest weakness; at least this is the argument of
his strongest critics both then and now. Sheldon provided a spirituality that was unrealistic,
impractical, impersonal, and ahistorical, precisely because it was so realistic, so practical, so
individualistic, and so historical. The charge reads: What Sheldon advocated was more a model
of duplication than imitation. One result is that the characterization of Jesus is thin or
supe fi ial e ause it is deta hed f o
the a tual lo atio of Jesus life i the gospels. The
Ch istia s goal as e ulatio i the se se that a spi itual life as a life e ual to Jesus life.
One hundred years after Sheldon read the story In His Steps, chapter-by-chapter, to his church
in Topeka, its spirituality fashioned by the uest afte What ould Jesus do? has e du ed.
One hundred years of looking for a Jesus to follow has left us both richer and poorer for the
effort.
A History of the Ideal
One could argue that Sheldon was merely providing an Americanized version of the
longstanding notion that Christianity has to do with the Imitation of Christ (the ever-popular
early fifteenth-century work attributed to Thomas à Kempis). As the Imitation draws to a close
the Dis iple offe s: I desi e to app op iate Thee ith the
8
ost ehement desire, and the most
o th
e e e e, that a
of the sai ts e e had, o
as a le to feel.
8
Similar sentiments are
present in Bernard of Clairvaux and Meister Eckhart within monastic spirituality. They
represent a sense of dissatisfaction with Ch istia it s o plia t elatio ship to a d ultu e
that motivated their search for the Christian moral life in religious communities. Such desires
focused upon the earthly life of Jesus (with particular emphasis upon self-denial and love of
God inwardly, and poverty, celibacy, and vows of obedience outwardly). In Eckhart the life of
the Galilean or the way of the humanity of Jesus Christ was to be followed by all, but the life of
God o the a of the Godhead i Jesus Ch ist is p ope to the
sti as God begets his son in
e. 9 Imitation of Christ is Christian salvation in this sense. By virtue of the emphasis upon the
union of salvation and Christian identity their relationship is unmistakably acute. The
culmination of imitation spirituality in the Imitation reconfirms that it is the immediate
e pe ie e a d a a e ess of Jesus, ot Jesus histo i al e a ple alo e o the a of Jesus
hu a it isolated as the Ch istia s e e pla , hi h figu es p o i e tl i i itatio
o
simply, Christian) spirituality.10
Granted, there is a jump involved in moving from the 15th to the 19th century, but it
seems to be more of a well-measured gait than a blind leap. In the late nineteenth-century we
see a resurgent interest in a variety of texts on ethics, morality and modern life that featured
8
Of the many, many reprints of The Imitation of Christ, I use one of the most widely read editions
in North America (while also referring to the Book/Chapter for general reference): Thomas à
Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Chicago, Ill.: Moody Press, 1982), 253 (IV/17).
9
Cited in White, Christian Ethics, 91-92.
10
James M. Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life (New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1968).
9
the evaluation of present motives based upon a comparison with the life of Jesus, in part as a
espo se to the dis o fo t of Ch istia it s elatio ship ith ultu e. Mode izatio , ith all
its benefits, also brought the stark realizatio of dista e a d diffe e e et ee Jesus
o ld
and our own. So a modern ethical design sought ways to understand how Jesus himself would
have understood and interacted with the newly modern world of history, science and
technology, world religions, the economic effects of industrialization, and democracy itself.
Questions were plainly framed, and similarly unassuming: Would Jesus sing? dance? be a
prohibitionist? a capitalist? a pacifist? (or in our own day) a Democrat or Republican? what
would Jesus do about abortion? welfare and welfare reform? Simply asking such questions
exhibits a virile preoccupation with Jesus as our contemporary. He is not a figure lost in history.
This is also an effort to re-associate Christianity identity and salvation with the imitation of
Jesus. In this light, Sheldon remarked of his piety and this theme:
I will allow no man to go beyond me in reverence for Jesus Christ, whom I honor and
love more than I honor and love any being ever born in this world. But I wish to utter
my tremendous protest against the attempt to keep Jesus out of daily human life on
the plea that it is sacrilege to bring Him into it. The real sacrilege consists not in asking
e e
da , What ould Jesus do i
the last e tu
atte pt to
has hea d e
pla e?
ut i not asking it. . . . The cry which
ofte , let the p ea he sti k to the gospel, a d ot
i gospel a d politi s a d usi ess, is the
of the spi it that does ot
reverence Jesus, and does not want to have him rule in the marketplace, or in any of
the daily money-making or power-making walks of life. . . . The real sacrilege of human
life is to e lude the “o of Ma f o
a s life. The eal e e e e fo Hi
10
is to pla e
Him humbly, unostentatiously, but firmly, on the throne of eve
da s o du t.11
It is hard to document the phenomenal influence of the spirituality captured in
“heldo s si ple
otto What ould Jesus do? “heldo s eed epito ized a u i uel
American version of the Christian experience: it was serviceable, offering straightforward
solutions to ambiguous difficulties. Most importantly, it showed that the way Christian people
lived was valuable, both in itself and within their circumstances. And there was a timeless
ualit to “heldo s Ch ist, a ualit
o e p a ti al a d ealisti tha a
e phasis upo Jesus
divinity seemed able to provide. Jesus was more than accessible to Christians, he was truly the
humanitarian (a quintessence image of Christ for evangelical social activism, in the 1890s as
well as our own day). The concern to understand Jesus is treated as the obligatory (and quickly
accomplished) task on the way to the more relevant concerns of our lives and times. We are
atte ti e to the e a ple of Jesus, Jesus
o ds, o the tea hi g of Jesus; these the es are
authoritative, provocative, and conclusive for Christians oriented toward imitation spirituality.
Rethinking the Imitation
But hile e a geli als ad i ed “heldo s ethi i pa t e ause of its legalisti piet , the
questioned its evangelical credentials, as they have sometimes doubted the character of The
Imitation of Christ. Either because, as in the case of Thomas á Kempis, a Pauline (as Protestants
are fond of asserting) notion of justifying faith was not emphasized as the prerequisite for
imitati g Ch ist. O , as i “heldo s ase, the li es of e a geli al o e sio
e e lu ed
the social gospel underpinnings of the activist message. When the goal of Christian existence is
11
Cited in Timothy Miller, Following In His Steps: A Biography of Charles M. Sheldon (Knoxville,
Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 99.
11
moral perfection, exemplified in Jesus Christ, then Christlikeness becomes a means to a greater
end, rather than an end in itself. Also, the inseparable union of imitation and salvation gives
rise to misleading caricatures, typical of the debates between Protestant and Catholic ideas of
salvation (that Catholic soteriology involves imitation without grace and Protestant are
concerned with grace without imitation).12
Historically the dissenting condition that mitigates against both Sheldon and the
Imitation concerns the contention that Christ crucified is first gift or sacrament (sacramentum),
as Luther cautioned, before he is example (exemplum). Missing this distinction meant the loss
of any significant or useful way to maintain that the imitation of Christ is a beginning of
Ch istia sal atio
hi h as Luthe s poi t .13 O e o se e
oted o e i g Luthe : The
passion of Christ was both sacrament and example. . . . The sacrament was a gift, the example
12
Ti sle o se ed that Luthe s ea tio to Ch istia se ts in Germany, and general suspicion of
the negation of grace by means of imitation, bequeathed an unfortunate legacy to
P otesta tis
s o side atio of i itatio spi itualit . He the offe ed that a et ie al of the
imitation of Christ must involve both the notions of conformity (conformitas as God s a ti it
th ough the “pi it o fo
i g the hu a to God s i age i Ch ist a d i itatio
imitatio as the
human focusing moral and spiritual attention on Christ the exemplar (but what is Christ an
exemplar of is still ague . E. J. Ti sle , “o e P i iples fo ‘e o st u ti g a Do t i e of the
I itatio of Ch ist, Scottish Journal of Theology, no. 1 (February 1972): 45-57.
13
Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, 56 vols. (St Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1955-
1976), 29:124.
12
exhorted to imitatio
suffe i g a d death.
14
For Luther this took the form of a theology of
the cross wherein genuine Christian suffering demonstrated realistic solidarity with Christ. It
did ot gi e us a a to li e ut o ie ted us to the loss of ou li es i solida it
loss of life. His Wittenberg Thesis 94 eads: Ch istia s
ith Ch ist s
ust e e ho ted to follo Christ their
head ith utte de otio , th ough pu ish e t, th ough death, th ough hell.
15
Likewise,
according to Calvin, the demonstration of union with Christ takes the form of righteousness
that is o e ith death: He ot o l e ho ts us to
a ifest a example of his death, but
declares there is an efficiency in it which should appear in all Christians if they would not
e de his death u f uitful a d useless.
16
Calvin maintained that imitation is proper to the
Ch istia s life a d is of the ha a te of self-denial and cross bearing. It depends upon the
suffi ie
o Joh
of the a atio of Jesus ide tit i the gospels, as Cal i offe ed i his o
:
, if e ish to o tai the k o ledge of Ch ist, e
ust seek it f o
e ts
the
Scriptures; for they who imagine whatever they choose concerning Christ will ultimately have
nothing instead of him but a shadowy phantom. First, then, we ought to believe that Christ
14
Bengt R. Hoffman, Luther and the Mystics (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Publishing House,
1976), 85.
15
Martin Luther, The Ninety-Five Theses (1517), in Henry Bettenson, ed. Documents of the
Christian Church, 2d ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1963), 191.
16
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, 2 vols.(Philadelphia, Pa:
Westminster Press, 1960), 1:511-12.
13
a
ot e p ope l k o
i a
concludes, O l those a
to follo i His footsteps.
othe
a tha f o
the “ iptu es.
17
From this Calvin
e alled dis iples of Ch ist ho t ul i itate Hi
a d a e p epa ed
18
Such encouragements are perhaps less imaginative than late medieval interest in the
imitation of Christ, and less useful for contemporary renderings of Jesus in our circumstances
as ith “heldo s uestio . Also, the a e o espo di gl
o e o ie ted to a d a
demonstration of regeneration, conformity with Christ as the purpose of predestination, but
not so as to leave off the demonstrati e atu e of Jesus Ch ist s e a ple. “o Augusti e offe ed:
All the e e ts, the , of Ch ist s u ifi io , of his u ial, of his esu e tio the thi d da , of his
ascension into heaven, of his sitting down at the right hand of the Father, were so ordered,
that the life which the Christian leads here might be modeled upon them, not merely in a
sti al se se, ut i
ealit . A d Augusti e s eti e e to o ie t i itatio
e o d Ch ist s
a tual life i the gospels leads to this autio : But hat e elie e as to Ch ist s a tio in the
future, when he shall come from heaven to judge the quick and the dead, has no bearing upon
the life which we now lead here; for it forms no part of what he did upon earth, but is part of
what he shall do at the end of the world.
19
The movement, if such a metaphor is to be
employed, is in the direction of the present subsumed under or by means of the singularly
17
John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Baker, 1979), 218.
18
Cited in Wilhelm Niesel, The Theology of Calvin, trans. Harold Knoght (Philadelphia, Pa.:
Westminster Press, 1956), 142-151.
19
Augustine, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1996), 63-65.
14
unique life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Christian is to be identified by or within
the identification of Christ. There is an exchange, but it is never mutual as our identities are
taken up or submitted to the regulative or norming example of Christ (more on this in a
moment).
There are also significant differences between The Imitation of Christ and In His Steps.
The Imitation envisioned the continual union with Christ to be based on the mystical
contemplation of an idealistic and quixotic resignation and withdrawal based in the interior life
of spirituality. The Imitation offers a certain commendation of interiority. For example, in the
second book of the Imitation e titled Ad o itio s Pe ti e t to I
a d Thi gs :
He often visits the inward man, and has sweet discourse, pleasant solace, much peace,
familiarity exceedingly wonderful within him. . . . A lover of Jesus and of the truth, and a
true inward Christian, and one free from unruly affections, can freely turn himself unto
God, and lift himself above himself in spirit, and with profit remain at rest. . . . He who
can live inwardly, and make small reckoning of things without, neither seeks places, nor
waits for times, for performing of religious exercises. A spiritual man quickly recollects
himself, because he never pours out himself wholly to outward things. He is not
hindered by outward labor, or business which may be necessary for the time. . . . If you
refuse to be comforted from without, you will be able to contemplate the things of
Heaven, and often rejoice within.20
While “heldo s
otto What ould Jesus do?
as de oted to a tio afte a
as i te tio all fu tio al, e e utilitarian; it
ief o te plati e sta t. “heldo s ad i e as also p ag ati
(or democratic) and based on the certainty that the means to accomplish what Jesus had asked
he ould ot de
20
his o
. “heldo s ‘e e e d Ma
à Kempis, Imitation, 63-66 (II/1).
15
ell o te ded: If Jesus e a ple is the
e a ple fo the o ld to follo , it e tai l
ust e feasi le to follo it.
But e e if “heldo s e a geli al ede tials e e suspe t i
21
e tai
ua te s, this is
rarely a concern for those appreciative of The Imitation of Christ from Thomas á Kempis.
Criticisms of In His Steps have ranged from literary castigation (it was simply not a well written
novel— flat, lifeless, i plausi le
22
, to u e tai t a d suspi io
“heldo s a ti is , ased
upon his commitment to the social implications of the gospel, made him suspect among
o se ati es . I a ei si ila to “heldo s, p opo e ts of the so ial gospel, su h as Walte
‘aus he
us h, e e o e ed to justif thei
of Jesus, a d the ethi of Jesus.
23
essage
the tea hi gs of Jesus,
the faith
The Jesus of the so ial gospel, like “heldo s Jesus,
embodied an attitude toward the world, for the individual, which addressed the social crisis or
the nominal religious climate with ease. Interestingly, rather than rejecting In His Steps
out ight, se e al e isio s of “heldo s o el e e pu lished that pu ged suspe t
o al
21
Sheldon, In His Steps, 18.
22
Miller, Following In His Steps, 96.
23
Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology of the Social Gospel (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1945), 146-
166; and Christianity and the Social Crisis (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), 44. Also, fo a o e ie of the i flue e of the ethi of Jesus a d the No th A e i a so ial
gospel movement, see Reinhold Niebuhr, Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writings of
Reinhold Niebuhr, ed. D. B. Robertson (Philadelphia, Pa.: Westminster Press, 1957), 29-40. For a
iti ue of these
atte s, see Ja es H. “
lie, “heldo s In His Steps: Conscience and
Dis ipleship, Theology Today 32 (April 1975): 32-45.
16
aspirations or corrected overt activism with a prefatory address concerning conversion, other
editions simply purged faulty motives. Sheldon notes these efforts in his autobiography:
A bewildering controversy arose over the teaching of the book. Hundreds of pulpits
took it up and sermons were preached all over Great Britain denouncing the attempt to
do as Jesus would do, or advocating it. Religious journals like the British Weekly week
after week argued the theological soundness or unsoundness of the principles of the
human conduct based on such an attempt to follow Jesus. Several expurgated editions
e e pu lished o e ti g the autho s fault theolog by inserting the orthodox
teaching of Christ. One of these, which the author cherishes as a literary curiosity, is
e titled The ‘es ue of Lo ee , a d it is i te spe sed ith o e satio s a d
preaching intended to counteract the very dangerous influence of the original story.
The compiler of this interesting amended edition was a Mrs. J. B. Horton. Her pamphlet
sold
the thousa d alo gside the o igi al I His “teps, a d as ead
the e t e e
conservatives as an antidote to the first story.24
Even as Sheldon notes, the popularity of imitation spirituality that was at the heart of In His
Steps seemed too valuable to reject and worth the effort to purge of impurities.
What Sheldon and similar social gospel novels accomplished was significant in its time.
Efforts to bring the social dimensions of the gospel to the Christian rank and file had failed, in
part because its preachers failed to capture the attention of Protestants. That is, until the
genre of the social gospel novel in Britain and North America served the popular purpose of
awakening religion to the so-called social emergency. Sheldon was retracing the new paths of
o ks like Willia
24
T. “tead s If Christ Came to Chicago
. “heldo s e phasis upo
Charles M. Sheldon, Charles M. Sheldon: His Life Story (New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran
Company, 1925), 100-101.
17
What
ould Jesus do?
as
e el a othe
e sio of “tead s
otto Be a Ch ist!
ith si ila
e ho tatio s a d o se ue es. I fa t, “heldo s the es a d e a ples e e so lose to
“tead s that the latte a used the fo
e of o o i g f eel f o
his o k. “tead a gued:
Not only is the watchword of the two books the same, but the same remedy is
propounded in both cases. Mr. Sheldon dwells more on the evils of the saloon that I
saw any reason to do, and he lays much stress on Sunday journalism, of which I said
little or nothing. But with these exceptio s, I His “teps, alike i its diag osis of the
disease and in the remedy which it prescribes, might have been written for the express
pu pose of popula izi g the tea hi g of If Ch ist Ca e to Chi ago.
25
If nothing else, this demonstrates the shared interest in realistically portraying how imitation
spirituality addressed the social crisis both authors perceived.26
The Futility of the Quest
I suspe t that as popula as What ould Jesus do? spi itualit is fo
a , a e ual u
e
dismiss its simplicity. Criticisms characteristically point out that it is self-righteously naive and
that it purposefully avoids the tangled matters of social, theological, and historical
dissi ila ities et ee Jesus da s a d ou o
. The o se ue e, so the iti is s argue, is
that we fall prey to the temptation to assume too much of our own circumstances. That is, the
epi sto
of Jesus life is
ade to
at h the epi sto
of ou li es—Jesus is transformed into a
25
Cited in Miller, Following In His Steps, 71.
26
Ga “ ott “ ith, Cha les M. “heldo s In His Steps in the Context of Religion and Culture in
Late Ni etee th Ce tu A e i a, Fides et Historia 22, no. 2 (1990): 47- ; a d Paul “. Bo e , In
His Steps: A ‘eapp aisal, American Quarterly 23 (May 1971): 60-78.
18
o te po a . The a i atu es of What ould Jesus do? , hat e a tuall sa i
espo se to
the question, look like a reflection of ourselves.
There is an instructive contrast between Albert Schweitzer, the famous chronicler of
efforts to reconstruct a life of Jesus that could be followed in the modern world, and the
h istolog of Cha les “heldo s What ould Jesus do?
uestio . I
“ h eitze
evaluated a century of scholarly lives of Jesus in the liberal tradition and revived the popular
illustration of George Tyrrell that liberal Protestantism looked
e tu ies of . . . da k ess a d sa
otto
of a deep ell.
27
a k th ough i etee
o l the efle tio of a Li e al P otesta t fa e, see at the
“ h eitze offe ed: ea h su essi e epo h of theolog fou d its
own thoughts in Jesus; that was, indeed, the only way in which it could make Him live.... [And]
ea h i di idual eated Hi
i a o da e ith his o
ha a te .
28
Lacking the specifics of
Jesus total life, la ki g a ps holog of the Messiah, ha i g o l a pi tu e a d ot the hole of
the life of Jesus from the gospels, the modern reconstructions were viewed as projections of
o eso
attitudes. Whethe
oti ated
hat ed of hat Ch istia it
ade of Jesus o lo e
for Jesus who was the only remedy to modern quandaries, these reconstructions were meant
to justify our commitments by seeing in the face of Jesus our world, our struggles, our lives.
What Schweitzer chronicled and so effectively exposed as self-indulgent hagiography is also to
e fou d i a e tu
What is so
No
of aski g “heldo s pious uestio
What ould Jesus do?
o g ith these e o st u tio s of Jesus life? Me
a K aus a gued that the
ode
p eo upatio
o ite theologia C.
ith a ep ese tatio of Jesus life is
27
George Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross-Roads (London: Longmans Green, 1909), 48-49.
28
Albert Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York, N.Y.: Macmillan, 1968), 4.
19
closer to Jesusology than Christology.29 Seeking Jesus according to everyday awareness (or
Ch ist a o di g to the flesh , t ul the locus classicus of such thinkers) hinders spiritual
appraisal of Christ and ourselves (2 Corinthians 5:16). Schweitzer noted:
In the very moment when we were coming nearer to the historical Jesus than men had
ever come before, and were already stretching out our hands to draw Him into our own
time, we have been obliged to give up the attempt and acknowledge our failure in that
pa ado i al sa i g: If e ha e k o
Hi
o
o e. A d fu the
e
Ch ist afte the flesh yet henceforth we know we
ust e p epa ed to fi d that the histo i al k o ledge
of the personality and life of Jesus will not be a help, but perhaps even an offence to
religion.30
The mission to bring Jesus into our world is fashioned after our fondness for an ethical ideal
that transcends history and circumstance. And Jesus is, within this framework, the example for
our lives because he is regarded as ideal human (or the divine human). The Jesus we find
followable is reflected in the idea of being human, and what it means to be ourselves.
It seems that our quest for a satisfying life of Jesus as the source of Christian piety is a
search for a Jesus so much like us. We believe that only with this type of a Jesus will we be able
to app e iate a d u de sta d his life a d, the efo e, ou s. Ho e e , e e
e ditio of Jesus
life that bears social, political and psychological similarities to our own lives effectively renders
Jesus irrelevant to us, contrary to our best intentions. The Jesus whose life is as full, complete,
and transparent as our own is a Jesus who (we think) transforms us only because he has been
29
C. Norman Kraus, Jesus Christ Our Lord: Christology from a Disciple’s Perspecti e, rev. ed.
(Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1990).
30
Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 401.
20
transformed by us. Transforming Jesus from the original setting in which he is identified (the
Gospels) by the categories we say constitute being human (our inner life) is to literally violate
the o st ual of Jesus ide tit a d a tifi iall
effo ts as di e se as Wilhel
He
histo i al i
31
e life of Jesus
a
aluate a d o je tif ou e iste e. This is t ue of
s atte tio to the elie e s e ou ter with the supra-
a d Jesus
essia i self-consciousness in order to objectify
faith. Just as it is t ue of “heldo s p esu ptio that a si ple, st aightfo
the uestio
What ould Jesus do?
a d appli atio of
ould e olutionize the world. Sheldon was convinced:
Suppose that were the motto not only of the churches but of the business men, the
politicians, the newspapers, the workingmen, the society people—how long would it
take under such a standard of conduct to revolutionize the world? What was the
trouble with the world? It was suffering from selfishness. No one ever lived who had
succeeded in overcoming selfishness like Jesus. If men followed Him regardless of
results the world would at once begin to enjoy a new life.32
The critique of these sentiments offers that this Jesus is too much like us to be credible. When
Jesus has been made our contemporary by means of a biographically shared experience known
as human life, we are pursuing a piety that presumes a Jesus who was as we are in the world;
we commit the error of mistaking, confusing or conflating Jesus as he lived and our
reconstruction of a Jesus of history.
Often what we find compelling about the life of Jesus is how Jesus was and is so much
like us in our ordinary existence, the psychology of our lives, the soulish existence that is what
31
Wilhelm Herrmann, Systematic Theology, trans. Nathaniel Micklem and Kenneth A. Saunders
(New York, N.Y.: Macmillan, 1927).
32
Sheldon, In His Steps, 224.
21
it means to be essentially human. In light of the dismay and loss of piety associated with the
de ise of the ea l li es of Jesus esea h Ma ti Kähle offe ed: This
i gs us to the crux of
the matter: Why do e seek to k o the figu e of Jesus? Kähle s espo se is to fo us o the
depi tio of God s ide tit i Jesus, ad itti g that Jesus
i o pa a l sig ifi a t fo us a d is t easu ed
hat he is looki g fo
so eo e like
as like us, of ou se,
us. But If a pe so
eall asks hi self
he he eads the Gospels, he ill ad it to hi self, I a
self, ut athe
opposite,
fulfill e t,
“a io .
hi h is
33
ot seeki g
Critical deference
to the union of theological and historical interests, especially among scholars fond of an
eschatological portrayal of Jesus, forces us to address the loss of a simple view of imitation,
o e justified upo a appeal to hat e ha e i
o
o
ith Jesus. ‘udolf Bult a
rejectio of this sa e ess is at the hea t of the uest at o k ithi
s
iti al s hola ship: I do
indeed think that we can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus,
since the early Christian sources show no interest in either. . . .
34
If nothing else, critical scholarship has attempted to cure us of our naive comparisons
et ee Jesus
33
o ld a d ou o
. Jesus e o o i , so ial, politi al a d eligious o ld s a e
Martin Kähler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ (Philadelphia, Pa.:
Fortress Press, 1964), 58-60. Kähler concludes that what Jesus offers us, and the reason why we
seek to understand Christ by means of the Gospels, is the redemptive focus of the biographical
a atio of sal atio fou d o l i Jesus Ch ist: If I ha e all this I do ot eed additio al
i fo
34
atio o the p e ise details of Jesus life a d death.
Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word Ne Yo k, N.Y.: Cha les “ i
Collins/Fontant, 1962), 11.
22
e s “o s,
;
simply not our own (nor can I imagine many of us longing for his world). As Schweitzer said,
The
it as a
istake as to suppose that Jesus ould o e to
ea
o e to ou ti e
e te i g i to
a like ou sel es. What e ha e i a Jesus-so-much-like-us a i atu e is a half-
historical, half- ode , Jesus ; the Jesus Ch ist to hom the religion of the present can
as i e...its o
thoughts a d ideas, as it did ith the Jesus of its o
He e as “ h eitze s se
o a out o e hu d ed ea s of se
aki g.
35
o s ased o the
reconstructed life of Jesus—his jeremiad against all efforts to free Jesus from the past in order
to make him our contemporary.
There was a danger that we should offer...a Jesus who was too small, because we had
forced Him into conformity with our human standards and human psychology.... In the
process we ourselves have been enfeebled, and have robbed our own thoughts of their
vigor in order to project them back into history and make them speak to us our of the
past. It is nothing less than a misfortune for modern theology that it mixes history with
everything and ends by being proud of the skill with which it finds its own thoughts—
even to its beggarly pseudo-metaphysic with which it has banished genuine speculative
metaphysic from the sphere of religion—in Jesus, and represents Him as expressing
them.36
Now Sch eitze s eligio , his o
u k o
po t ait of the es hatologi al Ch ist, the O e
i ou da , is su je t to the sa e sea hi g iti is
he e plo ed so effe ti el to
so many lives of Jesus. His eschatological Jesus, dominant through the work of Bultmann,
35
Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 398-99.
36
Ibid., 400.
23
elegates Jesus ethi to a othe ti e o fo a othe ti e fo “ h eitze Jesus ethi
as
interim and only for the preparation for the dawning of the kingdom, for Bultmann the study
of Jesus was to be viewed as belonging to the culmination of the Old Testament but not the
identity of what was proper to Christian faith).37 We
a e uall sa of “ h eitze s Jesus that
he looked surprisingly like Schweitzer!
The o st u ti e asis fo “ h eitze s iti ue of the histo i al Jesus, e should ote, is
founded upon the strangeness of this Jesus (and the unlikely possibility of imitating such as life
in present circumstances). According to Schweitzer, Jesus was abandoned to the future, the
mysterious one unconcerned with affirming the world. Thus evangelical discomfort with
“ h eitze s eligio is o e ed ith the a
iguit that his Jesus e essa il e
odies. Fo
Schweitzer, and in the liberal caricature, faith was inherently ambiguous with the potential for
mistaken identities and inappropriate convictions. But in contrast, within early twentiethcentury fundamentalist circles faith tended to be settling, pacifying, conclusive, and ordinarily
37
The theme of the i ele a e of Jesus life is, st a gel , aki to ea l dispe satio alists lai
that the gospels tea hi g, Jesus se
o o the
ou t, et . a e the ul i atio of the
dispensation of law or applicable to the offering of the kingdom to Israel but not fo the hu h s
concern in this dispensation of grace. Such sentiments are found among primitivists like the
original Plymouth Brethren who generally advocated devout attention to the original life of
Christian existence only to advise that such a life was irrecoverably lost (historically as well as
theologically). Thus, there was to be no attempt to restore, replicate or imitate primitive Christian
existence. For the account of this theological commitment, see James Patrick Callahan, Primitivist
Piety: The Ecclesiology of the Early Plymouth Brethren (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996).
24
objective. What Schweitzer encouraged us to understand is that Jesus of the gospels is not
simply our contemporary; that Jesus may be, in effect, more unlike us than we may be
comfortable with.
The Quests
What Albert Schweitzer chronicled was the (vain) attempt to do in European scholarship what
evangelical piety was attempting to do in North America: the effort to make Jesus our
o te po a
i o de to ha e a Jesus to i itate. The uest of Jesus set out . . . believing that
he it had fou d Hi
it ould
i g Hi
st aight i to ou ti e as a Tea he a d “a iou .
38
What Schweitzer set out to debunk was that convictio that Jesus life as a s he e, a
stratagem, for living in the modern world. This search is reflected in the three phases of what is
known as the quest for the historical Jesus.
The first quest for the historical Jesus led to a frustrated end, according to Schweitzer,
with little promise for making Jesus our contemporary. Jesus was a genuine stranger to our
times, our ethics, and imitating this Jesus was anachronistic as well as deluded fancy. Following
“ h eitze s pessi is
the e pe sisted the o i tion that little that was historical mattered
about our pursuit of faith in Christ (according to Martin Kähler 39). Here was the opportunity to
have genuine faith without necessarily duplicating the actions of Jesus or finding an exact
ep ese tatio of Jesus identity within the gospels. Spirituality was found elsewhere; namely
in the existential encounter of the Word proclaimed.
With the advent of what we know as the second quest, awakened by Käsemann and
38
Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 399.
39
Kähler, So-Called Historical Jesus.
25
Bornkamm, it was believed that critical knowledge of the historical Jesus could be known by
means of a critical appraisal of the gospels. Criterion of informed evaluations were necessarily
prior to any true knowledge of who Jesus was, what Jesus said, and what Jesus might have
done. The real Jesus was accessible to us and his message was relevant but only by means of a
proper hermeneutic, diachronic in essence, informed by a historically governed vocabulary. So
g eat is the i flue e of so ial a d ultu al i u sta es i u de sta di g Jesus ide tit that
any and every detail is taken to be important and any and every detail is thus rendered too
important (with no interpretation necessary)—effectively rendering the historical Jesus a
removed and unapproachable figure both by means of overwhelming as well as foreign
detail.40 This diachronic sovereignty still exerts tremendous pressure in academic awareness of
social-histo i al, so ial/ ultu al, a d a haeologi al studies. A d i as u h as
o li es a e
drawn forward into our own time . . . the figure of Jesus continues therefore to remain back
the e, i the dista t past.
41
The Jesus we seek to follow, according to the second quest, was
strangely foreign and only coldly contemporary, but what made him thus was not Jesus, per se,
but Jesus within the confines of historical scholarship, of a sort. And against this historical
distance Christians continued to raise the (critically and historically) naive assertion that Jesus
was not in fact so distant that Christianity would be only tangentially related to Christ.
And the third quest, popularly represented by the Jesus Seminar, offers us still another
attempt to find a Jesus to follow. After all, why would we seek to imitate Jesus by means of a
40
As Glebe-Mölle poi ts out these o
it e ts a e aki to Nietzs he s a ti ua ia histo ia ,
a most appropriate analogy for the earlier quests for the historical Jesus. Jens Glebe-Möller, Jesus
and Theology: Critique of a Tradition (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1989), 16.
41
Ibid., 11-12.
26
saying, event, or deed of only doubtful authenticity (color-coded by gray or black lettering in
The Jesus “e i a s t a slatio of the Gospels
he ge ui e o likel sa i gs a d e e ts e e
distinguishable to the reader (appearing as red or pink coloration). 42 The same criteria applied
to the acts of Jesus yields a doubly complicated version of the report about what Jesus really
did. A d The “e i a s effo ts lead to the ulti ate goal: I due ou se, the se i a
ill
inquire what impact its findings have on ancient versions of Christian orthodoxy, on definitions
of heresy, and on Ch istia life a d p a ti e i the
ode
o ld. I sho t, The Jesus “e i a
will revise Christianity on the basis of its quest to answer the question: What would Jesus have
42
See, Funk, Hoover, Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 36. Fellows of The Jesus Seminar cast votes with
two different options:
red:
I would include this item unequivocally in the database for determining who Jesus
was.
pink:
I would include this item with reservations (or modifications) in the database.
gray:
I would not include this item in the database, but I might make use of some of the
content in determining who Jesus was.
black: I would not include this item in the primary database.
or
red:
Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it.
pink:
Jesus probably said something like this.
gray:
Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in it are close to his own.
black: Jesus did not say this; it represents the perspective or content of a later or
different tradition.
27
really done?
The identity of the one to be imitated is at the heart of self-proclaimed correctives
offered by The Jesus Seminar; an effort bent on discrediting supposedly naive, popular, and
t aditio al po t aits of Jesus ide tit still fou d a o g o se ati es. The Jesus the ai e
follow, Robert Funk argues, is uncritically rendered. Therefore we are mistaken in our ethical
convictions concerning how one should regard Jesus and what shape the lives of those who
follo this Jesus should take. The fi al ge e al ule of The Jesus “e i a is Be a e of fi di g a
Jesus entirely congenial to ou.
43
Jesus is genuinely foreign, purposefully displaced, and
severed from the casual, pious reader seeking a way to live, but this Jesus is nonetheless
exemplary of and for Christian identity today.
But all that the Jesus Seminar represents it not exhaustive of the so- alled thi d
uest. Ne
odels of histo i al s hola ship o et ie als of p e iti al app e iatio fo
realistic forms) are often characterized by a more modest understanding of critical criteria, a
realization that an increase of historical information of social, political, economic, and
intellectual circumstances makes a more reliable and demonstrable rendering of Jesus likely.
This leads to the hope that a soft a d o ga i
u de sta di g of the histo i al
a
ield a
credible, if not exact, representation of Jesus identity.
One example is put forward by Richard Hays who offers that it is essential for us to see
Jesus histo i all . B this Ha s sa s that Jesus is to
e lo ated o ga i all
ithi fi st-century
Palestinian Judaism. [Inasmuch as] He neither rejected nor sought to supersede the faith of his
people. Ha s u de sta ds Jesus to e the ea e of the t uth a d the defi iti e pa adig
fo
o edie e to God —a claim to imitation spirituality that is justified from within the supposed
o se sus of Ch istia faith a d “ iptu e. This is oupled ith his se o d guideli e: Jesus life
43
Ibid., 5.
28
and teaching stand in some relation of continuity with the movement that he initiated—that is,
the hu h. The i pli atio is i po ta t i that the effe t of these fi st t o guideli es is to
ou te a t the
ite io of dissi ila it ,
hi h de ees that e a
e
ost o fide t of the
authenticity of the tradition when it represents Jesus as standing out of synch with firstcentury Judaism and ith e e ge t Ch istia it .
44
While decrying the absolute criterion of
dissimilarity and historical distance, the perennial relevance of Jesus Christ for Christian
existence admits to a comparability (the historical or concrete identity of Jesus Christ) and
continuity (a theologically justified assertion of coherence between Jesus Christ and our
existence as Christians).
The effect of this argument goes to the heart of our interest in critical and devout
recognition of the exemplary and unique significance of Jesus Christ. Continuity with the
historical, social, and religious identity of Jesus is essential for the (any, present) Christian
o
u it . Fo e a ple a o g Ha s se e al o se atio s ega di g Jesus as the defi iti e
paradigm for obedience to God he otes these th ee :
The e e sal of
o
al
o eptio s of status a d po e
as e t al to the
essage
of Jesus and would remain central for a community that carries on his legacy. The
kingdom of God belongs to the poor, the outcasts, the weak, the children. Wherever
the church becomes acclimated and deferential to conventional human authority that
rests upon pride and coercion, it has lost continuity with the Jesus of history.
Jesus eje tio of iole e a d his all to lo e the e e
ould e given prominence in
any ethic that looked to the historical Jesus for direction.
44
Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco, Calif.: HarperCollins,
1996), 160-161.
29
Jesus of Nazareth died on a cross. Those who follow him can hardly expect better
treatment from the world. Insofar as the community of faith follows the path of the
Jesus of history, it should expect suffering as its lot.45
I his o lusio to these thoughts Ha s offe ed: All of this has fa -reaching implications for
Christian ethics. If God really did raise Jesus from the dead, everything Jesus taught and
exemplified is vindicate by a God more powerful than death. He must therefore be seen as the
ea e of the t uth a d the defi iti e pa adig
fo o edie e to God.
asse tio appea s to e that o e s e aluatio of the uestio
46
The sum of his
What ould Jesus do
a
ot
venture far afield of theological and critical justification. Imitation cannot be dismissed as
simplistic piety (even though it often appears in such forms) inasmuch as it is justified,
according to Hays, by critical demonstration. Historical and theological matters cannot be
adjudicated apart from one another, neither sequentially or historically justified, nor can they
be appropriately de-historicized in the name of theology or piety. These emphases—because
of their focus on retrieval and transformative influences, and yet reliance upon critical
methodology and interests—are thus referred to as postcritical.47
The construction of gospel literature itself indicates that early Christianity regarded
45
Ibid., 167.
46
Ibid., 166.
47
‘ega di g the app oa h of Ha s as post iti al, see Geo ge A. Li d e k, Post iti al Ca o i al
Interpretation: Three Models of ‘et ie al, i Theological Exegesis, eds. Christopher Seitz and
Kathryn Greene-McCreight (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999), 26-52.
30
Jesus as an exemplar, with his actions and words addressing a variety of circumstances within
early Christian communities. The supposition that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were
add essed to histo i al, so ial, eal eade s o
Matthe s o
hu hes has e ou aged s hola s to efe to
u it , o Joh s eade ship. This opens up our awareness of the social space
of these texts as they continue to function in effectively Christian ways in their representation
of Jesus add ess to o
u ities that t a s e d the li ited o igi al audie e. This is espe iall
true of postcritical literary interest in the gospels as classical Christian literature—classical
because of the normative and norming function the narratives of Jesus have assumed within
Christian theology, liturgy, confession and piety. Thus the rather conservative case is being
made by non-conservatives that the gospels both function as and are thus taken to represent a
fo
ida le ase fo the autho it of Ch ist i the Ch istia s e pe ie e. It is thus ag eed: the
Ch istia ethi , o e
a sa , is Ch ist s ethi . But the spe ifi it of Jesus life
akes the task of
idealizing the human life and circumstances of Christ an impossibility. We both have Jesus and
yet do not really possess Jesus by the same means that we seem to have him. The Jesus we
seek to follow is there amidst the historical narration, even inasmuch as the gospels are
situated within the vast and complex ancient world (a world strangely reminiscent of our
current preoccupation with cultural diversity, pluralism, and literary antagonisms). Possibly
histor , as i a
uestio
oe
odest histo i al s hola ship, a
What ould Jesus do? o l
esu e t
edi le a s e s to “heldo s
e ou i g the e pe tatio to do so
ea s of a
reconstructed, contemporary life of Jesus.
A Christology of Imitation
There is no proper end to our quest after Jesus; not because an answer is impossible but
e ause it is ot the atu e of the uestio
What ould Jesus do? to t a s e d the
particular circumstance that would prompt the concern to ask such a question. Or, as Martin
31
Kähle suggested, the o e ho ould e o st u t the histo i al Jesus e o es a fifth
e a gelist.
48
Ou
ost p essi g uestio
to Ch istia faith? Histo
ight e What ill etu
the a ated Jesus Ch ist
has ee a popula sa io of the “a io among evangelicals, but the
tentative nature of historical understanding current in our world makes this dependency
precarious. Our quest for a Jesus to follow leads us elsewhere.
The modesty of the third phase of the quest for the historical Jesus, and the current
admission that historical knowledge is not simply based on cataloging facts but evaluating
historical warrants, leaves us with new questions when evaluating evangelical concerns for the
imitation of Christ. Faith and history are more closely allied because history has been brought
closer to faith (not vice-versa). It is not because history has replaced faith, but because the
quest for faith and the quest for history share similar concerns and subjects, although they
have dissimilar objects. The warrants for faith and following Christ are found in the experience
of following itself, whereas the warrants of historical understanding are possibility or
repeatability, likelihood and correspondence to human understanding.
Efforts to retrieve imitation spirituality, in this light, tend to reduce historical distance
to a meaningless excuse for not abiding by the obvious (that Jesus must be followed to be
named a follower of Jesus). Or, the tendency is to celebrate the absurd (that Christians must
not suggest that Jesus should be imitated literalistically—in his celibacy, male-ness, life in
Palestine, and adopting first-century C.E. customs and dress). Jeremy Moiser helpfully guides
us through a retrieval of imitation spirituality by avoiding the obvious and the absurd. He traces
the co-opting of philosophical traditions of participation (common possession in which two or
more persons share the enjoyment of a quality or good, proper to the Platonic tradition), with
a passing reference to mimesis (imitation as in re-presentation), to the repeated idea in
48
Cited in Hays, Moral Vision, 159.
32
Christian Scriptures to the identity of God (or God in Christ). After this fashion, imitation
spirituality is an exemplar of Christian action that supposes imitation as a display of identity or
union with God. Solidarity, then, with God in Christ best represents the spirituality of imitation.
Or rather, it dominates the hermeneutic of imitation so that it is an extension of redemption
(imitation of Christ as redeemer). It is not simply disconnected from the soteriological identity
of Christ and the Christian so that salvation and moral identity are unfortunately separated.
I stead of
odeli g ou li es o Jesus life a d supposi g hat Jesus life ould look like i ou
times, Moiser advocates that Christian identity is constituted by being absorbed or assimilated
i to God s a ti it i Jesus Ch ist. He offe ed:
Christians are called on to imitate Christ not primarily in the sense of modeling their
behavior on the patterns of living followed (or established) by Jesus Christ but in the
sense of allowing the divine activity in history to absorb or assimilate them into its
mainstream, of associating themselves with divine reality (at his invitation) and so
drawing on the life of God.49
The crucial difference is one of orientation, as in an alternative sense of (historical) direction.
I stead of desi i g to
ake Jesus ou
o te po a , solida it to use Moise s te
ep ese ts the ealizatio of Jesus life i ou li es as ou ide tities a e a so ed
God
through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Imitation without solidarity is religion, while solidarity
leading to imitation is Christian faith.
In a similar vein, we observe in the work of George Lindbeck an effort to express
solidarity in terms of orientation and direction— ei g a so ed
God s e elato
a ti
Jesus Ch ist. He efe s to this as a appeal to u de sta d faithful ess as i t ate tualit . B
49
Je e
Moise , Dog ati Thoughts o the I itatio of Ch ist, Scottish Journal of Theology,
no. 30 (June 1977): 208.
33
intra- Lindbeck refers to the meaning of religious language being rendered immanently in the
self-disclosure of God i Jesus Ch ist fo Ch istia s, athe tha
e t ate tuall
o e te all
reference to an alternative frame of reference. This, Lindbeck argues, is the theological
tradition of Augustine and Aquinas, of Luther and Calvin, leading us toward a textual
(scriptural) and linguistic (theological) representation of Christian identity. He offers:
The believer, so an intratextual approach would maintain, is not told primarily to be
conformed to a reconstructed Jesus of history . . . , nor to a metaphysical Christ of
faith . . . , but he or she is rather to be conformed to the Jesus Christ depicted in the
narrative. An intratextual reading tries to derive the interpretive framework that
designates the theologically controlling sense from the literary structure of the text
itself.50
Jesus ide tit is e de ed histo i all , ot to
ake hi
a essi le as histo
ithout gospel ut
to present him as accessible as gospel. Inasmuch as the imitation of Christ is intimately related
to the ability of Scripture to provide us ith Jesus ide tit a o i tio e ide t th oughout
the history of Christianity), the adjustment to the orientation of solidarity would compel us to
engage the self-i posed ualifi atio s of “ iptu e s suffi ie
inquire i to the a tual life a d ha a te of Jesus i fe ed f o
Hans Frei.51 We si pl do ot k o
50
that
. This
ea s
e a
ot . . .
the e o ds, a o di g to
u h a out Jesus . . . if e a e aski g a out the
George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
(Philadelphia, Pa.: Westminster Press, 1984), 120, 112-138.
51
Hans W. Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermeneutical Bases of Dogmatic Theology
(Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press, 1975), 87.
34
a tual
a apa t f o
the sto .
52
Scripture is sufficient to render the identity of Jesus
Christ, which in turn is sufficient for Christian self-understanding. We should not seek the real
Jesus behind or before the Gospels, a Jesus who is more real, tangible and sufficient than Jesus
in the Gospels, nor a Jesus of history that would determine a Christ of faith. Instead of
p esu i g to ask What ould Jesus do? , e a geli al spi itualit should e o te t to follo
the one who was uniquely other than we are in the world. There is a distance we should not
attempt to breach, but instead be receptive toward a life we cannot duplicate.53 The effect is
to take imitation as inseparably joined with salvation, but not so as to eliminate the need for
faith
su stituti g Jesus life fo ou o
li es as Ch istia s.
Critical suspicion of imitation spirituality is concerned that the notion of imitation may
lead us down a wrong path precisely because its rationale and practice misplace (or displace)
christology from Christian identity in the effort to unite them. It will be helpful to invoke
Mi hael ‘oot s des iptio of a ati e i te ests ega di g sote iolog at this poi t. O se i g
the structures employed to organize the biblical narrative, such as accounts of the story of
Jesus and how Jesus redeems, serves to augment the narrative (who redeems and how
redemption are effected demonstrate the inseparable, interwoven patterns of such a
52
I id.,
. Also, see Ja es Pat i k Callaha , The Co e ge e of Na ati e a d Ch istolog :
Ha s W. F ei o the U i ue ess of Jesus Ch ist, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 38,
no. 4 (December 1995): 531-547.
53
The ph ase is f o
Ge e Outka, Follo i g at a Dista e: Ethi s a d the Ide tit of Jesus, i
Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation, ed. Garrett Green (Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress
Press, 1987), 149.
35
narrative).54 The relationship of narrative and understanding depicts how the explanatory
po e of the Gospels is to e fou d i the u io of Jesus ide tit and the demonstration of
following Jesus enacted in the narrative, but this in turn does not indicate how the connections
ae
ade. Thus ‘oot o l
e essa
o
e a ks The o
e tio s that hold a a ati e togethe a e ot
e tio s. That is, i stead of fatally closing us off from possibilities, the narrative
patte s of Jesus ide tit a d dis ipleship
ithout i pl i g its e essit .
55
a
seek to o e the fitti g ess of hat o u s
In this way, the narrative patterns contribute to the
coincidental character of imitation spirituality.
Instead of events, instances and sayings being transferred or extracted from a narrative,
we would configure our inquires by locating them within the larger meaningful narrative (in
this ase, Jesus ide tit i the gospels . To ask a uestio like What ould Jesus do? is a
sto -state e t,
hi h i ol es a patte
i u sta es. The e is si pl
a d elatio
et ee , i this ase, Jesus a d
o app op iate a to o side Jesus apa t f o
the
instantiation of his identity in the Gospels. Likewise there is no appropriate way to offer the
question in reference to our identity as followers of Jesus except by configuring that identity by
ea s of Jesus
a atio al ide tit .
The pattern being described has been addressed by Hans Frei as a pattern of exchange
that is not mutual nor among equals but is mysterious (not systematically or universally
o elati e ith e te al o st ai ts o
54
e essa
o
e tio s a d is fo used o a
e ha ge
Michael ‘oot, The Na ati e “t u tu e of “ote iolog , Modern Theology 2, no. 2 (January
1986): 145-157. The article is reprinted in Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones, eds., Why
Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 263-278.
55
Root cited in Hauerwas and Jones, Why Narrative?, 272, 273.
36
of guilt with self-sacrificing pu it .
56
Nevertheless the exchange shapes, transforms and is
evaluated by means of the biographical (narrated) identity of Jesus Christ. The uniqueness of
Jesus ide tit se es to a e tuate ou a a e ess of the alue e pla e upo ou ide tit a d
the ci u sta es that o t i ute to ge e ate uestio s su h as What ould Jesus do? The
relationship between Christ and disciple, then, addresses the nature of both salvific and ethical
affinities and illuminates how one evaluates following this Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
What would Jesus do? He would suffer humbly for us, not returning abuse, suffering without
threatening, entrusting himself to the righteous judge. We know he would do this because this
is what he has done, and in turn, we are encouraged by example to follow in his steps (1 Peter
2:21-23). Jesus oriented himself toward the demonstration of his love of the Father, thus our
li es a e a
ost i id po t a al of the t ue ide tit of Jesus elatio ship ith the Fathe Joh
17:23). A better motto tha
o
,
What ould Jesus do? as if the a tio s e e Jesus i stead of
ight e Ch ist i
e
f. Colossia s :
, just as it is the spi it of Ch ist that
akes
those with faith alive (Romans 8:9-11). And solidarity with Christ refers us to our character and
ide tit as Ch ist s people. I itatio spi itualit is ou effo t to a ou t fo ou o
ha a te izatio as Ch istia s. “tephe Fo l e i ds us that Cha a te izi g a pe so is a
narrative achievement. That is, to render a character, one must fit that character into a
a ati e se ue e of a tio s.
ea s of Jesus
57
To imitate Jesus Christ is thus our effort to narrate our selves
a ati e i the gospels.
56
Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ, .
57
“tephe Fo l, Lea i g to Na ate Ou Li es i Ch ist, i Theological Exegesis, 351.
37
Fo e a ple, e e Paul s o fessio of self-de ial, it is o lo ge I ho li e, is
fo e ost a e p essio of ho Paul li es his life, the life I o li e I li e
God Galatia s :
ee
faith i the “o of
. “o, “tephe Fo l a gues that Paul s self i light of Galatia s :
de e te ed. A d fo the Galatia s to
a ati e of Ch ist s o k
e o e as I a
Galatia s :
has
e ui ed the
hi h is to o up the e te of thei sel es. Fo l o ludes: B
presenting himself as an example of what God graciously has done, Paul blurs his personal
particularities in a way that makes hi
su je t to the
essage.
58
a i st u e t fo God s use, a
esse ge
ho is
This ha a te of esig atio is fou d i Ka l Ba th s ad o itio that
Christian faith is simple obedience to Christ who was himself obedient, without regard for our
circumstances, with the confidence that the one we follow in obedience is the living Christ:
What is e ui ed of us is that ou a tio should e
ought i to o fo
it
ith His a tio .
59
A d Ba th offe s: Ho shall e fi d i the life a d tea hi g of Jesus so ethi g to do i
p a ti al life ? Is it ot as if he ished to sa to us at e e
step What i te est ha e I i
p a ti al life ? I ha e little to do ith that. Follo afte me o let
e go
a !
60
ou
So it
appears that to emphasize imitation spirituality is to be oriented theologically in the study of
Christian ethics itself. In turn, imitation spirituality is nothing of Christian value apart from its
proper source which is christology.
58
Ibid., 346.
59
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley, V
vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975-), II/2:737.
60
Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton (New York, N.Y.:
Harper & Row, 1957), 38.
38
Imitation spirituality can thus be spoiled by its own ethic and degenerate quickly into an
idealism of humanity in general—whether it becomes an ethic of a moral ideal, or a means to
epitomize humility, suffering, mercy, or even love—instead of devotion to Jesus Christ. In his
influential work The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer complained that the imitation of
Christ had come to represent a way of being Christian without discipleship to Christ. Imitation
was corrupted because it embodied a confident and gratifying ethic available through means
other than faith and o edie e. E hoi g Ma ti Luthe s o e s ith i itatio , Bo hoeffe
a gued: To follo i His steps is so ethi g hi h is oid of all o te t. It gi es us o
i telligi le p og a
fo a a of life, o goal o ideal to st i e afte .
61
Our devotion is to the
person of the living Christ, which means that the Christian experience of obedience, humility,
suffering, and love must first relate to faith in Jesus Christ and secondarily conform to the life
that Jesus Ch ist li ed. The desi e to i itate the fo
of Ch ist Philippia s
uestio of appl i g the tea hi g of Ch ist. . . . It is Ch ist ho shapes
Jesus life poi ts i
a
e ....
is ot a
62
diffe e t di e tio s, ut all o e ge i his u i ue ide tit as
the solitary Son (there is a sense of loneliness, which although we will come to experience, we
will never have a share in). The troubling personality of Jesus is that unique concoction—that
union of word and action—which will not yield a resolution by finding a corresponding instance
in our li es. “o hile dupli atio e phases te d to fo us o Jesus fa ilia it , i itatio
spirituality (after the likes of Thomas à Kempis) focuses on the distinctiveness, the uniqueness,
and the otherness of Jesus Christ. This is a christological assertion in that Jesus ide tit is
61
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller (New York, N.Y.: Macmillan,
1948), 51.
62
Cited in White, Christian Ethics, 376.
39
understood by us to be unique, he is the figure of divine-human identity, which yields no exact
scheme. It is even ambiguous to those with faith (that is the nature of Jesus as the figure of
faith: Without a
Ou
dou t, the
ste
of ou eligio is g eat. . . . [ Ti oth
:
].
o lusio is that h istolog go e s ou ethi s i as u h as e ho o all the
diffe e es et ee Jesus a d ou sel es. As Ge e Outka e i ds us:
These differences, though impassable from our side, vary in their effects on us. One
difference is to disclose our limits: We cannot and so ought never attempt to duplicate
Jesus a ti it , to sa e o edee
o ep ese t othe s. A othe diffe e e e a les us to
understand the positive possibilities available to us in our own identity. Indeed, perhaps
these possibilities are found in him. Yet another difference directs us to affirm a
o ditio that is illu i ed
Jesus a ti it
ut that o sists i a
a
e of life fo e e
distinct from his own. We must not contravene these several differences when we
specify points of correspondence between Jesus and ourselves. Still our following must
be discernibly patterned after him; we must show that the points of correspondence
genuinely refer to him. The way we view our actions and passions, the shape of our
own lives, the events of our era must display definite effects of his activity. 63
Simply put, Jesus was not the first Christian. He is not what it means to be a Christian, but Jesus
Christ is, instead, what it means for us to be Christian. It is not that Jesus cannot be imitated,
but that the manner in which we do so must correspond with the identity of the one we wish
to follow. The resolution of our quest for a Jesus to follow is the pilgrimage of following itself,
to
63
o e a d see fo ou
uestio s to e a s e ed.
Outka, Follo i g at a Dista e,
.
40
James Callahan