What's wrong with the Incarnation?

Many Christians think that other religions don't like the idea of the Incarnation because they're offended by the idea of God becoming human.

The thing that is specifically offensive about the idea that Jesus is the only way to God is the idea that stems from it that all other religions are wrong, and that unless you have "accepted Jesus as your personal Saviour" you will go to hell. So according to this insane and offensive theology, that means Gandhi and other great luminaries are in hell.  (Then there's penal substitution theology, which is also offensive, but that is a separate issue.)

I don't have a problem with the idea of Jesus being divine. I do have a problem with the idea of his being the one and only incarnation of the godhead. As far as I'm concerned, we are all divine.

In polytheist religions, the idea of humans becoming divine, or the divine becoming human, crops up frequently. There's Krishna, who is an incarnation of Vishnu. There's Oðinn, who is either a deified human or a god who became human. There's Aradia, who was Diana's daughter and came to earth to teach Tuscan witches their craft, and how to resist oppression. There are many, many deities who became human, and humans who became deities. So the idea that other religions have a problem with the Incarnation because they don't like the idea of God becoming human is laughably ignorant.

In Judaism, the soul has three components - the nefesh (the animal soul, which disperses at death), the neshamah (the divine part, which returns to God at death), and the ruach (the breath of God, which gives life). The more spiritually developed you are, the greater the neshamah becomes. When Jesus told his disciples that he would send his ruach (his Holy Spirit) to be with the disciples at death, he meant he would send that component of his soul to be with them. This insight must have got lost in the early centuries of Christianity when the Judaic elements were eradicated from Christianity by opponents of "Judaizing".  Anyway, the point here is, that in Judaism, everyone is a child of God, and has God within them. (For more on this, see my earlier post, The Trinity and Jewish theology).

In the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers), they say that everyone has "that of God" within them, and refer to the Inner Christ or the Inner Light. The idea is to uncover that light (not hiding it under a bushel) and let it shine.

In Unitarianism, which rejected the doctrine of the Trinity back in the 16th century, the view is usually that everyone has the Divine within them, too. James Martineau, a great 19th century member of the tradition (who actually identified as a Free Christian), said:

The incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Man universally, and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there; and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.

What a truly great concept - the incarnation is true of all humans. Or as Shakespeare (religious beliefs unknown) so memorably put it:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals

Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

In Buddhism, we all contain the potential to become enlightened, to become a Buddha, to become divine. We are all Future Buddhas.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, although they believe that Jesus is the one and only divine incarnation, they also have the concept of theosis, which means that because Jesus opened the way between the human and the divine, we can all become divine. Indeed, Jesus himself said, "I have said, ye are gods."

So, no, the thing that annoys people about the Incarnation is not the idea that God became human - it's the idea that it only happened once.

Everyone has "that of God" within them - the neshamah, the ruach, the seed of a Future Buddha, the potential for theosis.

The woman caught in adultery

Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery, by Guercino, 1621 (Dulwich Picture Gallery).

Apparently Prof Richard Dawkins likes the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery.

[Richard Dawkins] made the broad and uncontroversial point that the Bible includes passages both laudable and vile. As an example of the former and a great teaching he thought most people in the room would immediately get behind, he gave the Gospel injunction, ‘he that is without sin, cast the first stone’.

Alex Gabriel is a bit baffled by this:

Of course literal stonings are undesirable, and of course reacting to transgressions overharshly is worth discouraging. But the point of what Jesus says is, he is without sin. Not being subject to paternally transmitted original sin, Jesus is the only completely sinless human being and was (to commandeer a phrase) born that way. This is what gives him moral authority, as the son of God, over the woman; it’s why only he gets to absolve her sins. When he tells the crowd, ‘You are not without sin’, he is telling them they don’t get to judge her.

Here's the story from the English Standard Version:

8 ¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ²  Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst ⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” ⁶ This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. ⁷ And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. ¹⁰ Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]

Now, we could view Jesus entirely as a fictional or mythological character presented by the gospel authors - there is good reason to think that he acquired several legends from other mythological characters, in much the same way as King Arthur and Robin Hood did. Certainly the virgin birth story is as old as the hills, and was told about several Middle Eastern vegetation gods (Attis, Adonis, etc). The same goes for the story of the resurrection.

Or we could view him as a real person who has been at least partially misrepresentedby the gospel authors.

The mainstream Christian view is of course that he was the Son of God, in which context Alex's interpretation may well be correct.

Whether we view him entirely as a fictional character or as a real person at least partly misrepresented by the gospel authors, there are two questions we could ask here:

• What does Jesus mean by "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” and "Neither do I condemn you"?
• What does the gospel author think he meant?

Alex argues that Jesus chooses not to condemn the woman because he believes that he has the authority to forgive her because he is without sin, because he is the son of God. Now, the Gospel of John comes from a different Christian tradition than the other three gospels; it is a gospel of signs and wonders, highly symbolic and allegorical, and constantly emphasising the author's belief that Jesus was the Messiah.  But remember, in Hebrew tradition, 'messiah' (anointed one of God) and 'son of God' meant two different things. The gods of other nations were sometimes referred to as the sons of God, and so was Satan (see the Book of Job); and Jesus never referred to himself as the Son of God, only as the Son of Man (which means something like "everyman" or "average bloke").  Not all early Christians believed that Jesus was part of the Godhead ("very God of very God" as Orthodox Christian liturgy puts it). Some were Adoptionists (they believed that God adopted Jesus as his son when he was baptised in the River Jordan); others were Arians, who believed that Jesus was conceived by the union of God and Mary, but that he had not co-existed with God from the beginning of time). There was a bewildering variety of opinions on this, some of which still survive: the Monotheletes, the Monophysites, Diaphysites, and all manner of variations. So the author of the gospel may not have thought that Jesus was part of the Godhead, though he or she did think that he was the Messiah and the Son of God - the doctrine of the Trinity was not finally settled till the Council of Nicaea in 352 CE, and the doctrine of Christ's nature was not settled till the Council of Chalcedony in 451 CE.


Why do I care about this if I think Jesus may well have been a fictional character? Because I like the story, and I think it's important to be able to interpret stories in a poetic and flexible way, but not to infer the author's intentions from later interpretations.



So here is my interpretation of the story.


Jesus comes (as a rabbi among other rabbis) to the temple. He is teaching the people (as a popular rabbi would) when the woman taken in adultery is brought to him. The punishment for her "crime" is a horrible, slow and painful death. Jesus points out that the people who want to kill her for it are also guilty of some misdemeanour or other. The story is silent on whether Jesus thinks he himself is without sin - perhaps the reader is meant to infer that, but it is not explicitly stated. The point of the story is that we should show mercy and not excessively punish people for their bad behaviour, because we have also behaved badly. It's about showing empathy to others.

When Jesus says "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” and "Neither do I condemn you", I do not think that he's claiming to be without sin himself - that is a later doctrinal position.


OK, so elsewhere Jesus is reported as having said "Therefore be ye merciful, even as your Father in heaven is merciful" and "Judge not, that ye be not judged". But as far as I can recall, Jesus never arrogates to himself the right to judge. This power is attributed to him later by the Book of Acts and the Book of Revelations.


In fact, Jesus repeatedly extends sonship of God to humans generally. He says "I have said, ye are gods" and refers to God the Father as the father of everyone, not just his own father. So I don't think that Alex's interpretation is justified either by the text, or by the state of Christian theology when the text was written. It may well be the view of later theologians, but that is another issue.


So I think Richard Dawkins is right to like the story. He likes it because it's about being reasonable and empathic, tempering justice with mercy, and taking all factors into consideration, and not being judgmental and self-righteous.

What do you think the story means?

What is the source of morality?

Recently, when the US state of Georgia decided to execute Troy Davis, and the state of Texas decided to execute Lawrence Brewer, many bloggers wrote some heartfelt and moving articles arguing against the death penalty. I wrote one myself outlining what I think are the reasons for abolishing the death penalty.

Many of the Christian blog posts on the subject focussed on the commandments of God and/or Jesus as a basis for the ethical argument for abolishing the death penalty. The trouble is, there will be many Christians who think the opposite, and will probably find some Biblical text or other to justify their position.

I think you probably can make quite a good case that Jesus was against the death penalty, as in the story where he saves the woman taken in adultery from being stoned to death by saying "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". On the other hand, he is also recorded as saying "I come not to bring peace, but a sword" and "if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off"; so in order to work out what Jesus' ethical stance was on anything in particular, we have to select the texts that support our argument. So wouldn't it be easier to work out whether something is right or wrong without reference to Jesus' views, or indeed God's commandments, which are similarly ambivalent ("Thou shalt not kill" as part of the Ten Commandments, but lots of injunctions to stone people to death for various infringements of the Law).

The death penalty is not wrong because Jesus was against it, or because it's against God's commands as handed down in the Bible. It's wrong for far more basic reasons than that; because you can never know to what extent the person was responsible for what they were doing when they committed murder, or to what extent they might change. They may well be innocent, as evidence is not 100% reliable. Killing is wrong because it cuts short someone's life and does them extreme harm.

The Golden Rule (attested to by every religion) says that we should do unto others as we would have them to do unto us - and being killed is pretty high on the list of things we would not like to have done to us. (The fact that a version of this rule has been worked out by every major religion suggests that it transcends cultural context and is based on universal human experience). God's commands (and Jesus' ethical stance) can be interpreted one way by one group of people, and another by a different group of people; so the Bible is not a reliable guide to ethics. It's got some rattling good stories in it, which when pondered can produce some interesting insights, but I would not use it as a guide to ethics.

So what is the source of morality? According to Richard Holloway, author of the excellent book Godless morality, morality is based on weighing two conflicting good things. So, in deciding whether abortion is ethical, one weighs the good of the life of the foetus against the good of the mother who may or may not bring it to term. In the case of the death penalty, it cannot benefit the victim of the crime to have the perpetrator killed. Society should be protected from the possibility that the perpetrator might repeat their crime, but the life of the perpetrator outweighs the cost of maintaining them in prison as opposed to killing them. There is also the very valid point that carrying out the sentence places a burden of distress on the people who carry it out.

The source of moraliy is not some absolute command handed down from on high (the very absolutism of which can often cause more distress than it alleviates) but the pragmatic considerations of the context in which the ethical decisions must be made: who benefits? who suffers? and to what extent?

That Jesus character

The thing that both atheists and fundamentalists fail to realise about the likelihood that the gospels' account of Jesus is almost entirely fictional is that it really doesn't matter - in fact it's better as myth than as history.

It’s taking myth literally (whether you're an atheist or a believer) that is the problem. That's what causes all the wars and arguments.

Just because something is a myth, that doesn't make it irrelevant. Myths are powerful stories that inspire people. Robin Hood and King Arthur were probably entirely fictional (or very exaggerated versions of historical figures) but they have inspired people down the ages to emulate their values. Jesus may well be entirely fictional too (and I am certain that his miracles are entirely fictional and symbolic), but he is still an inspirational figure. (And the same goes for the other solar dying-and-resurrecting vegetation gods such as Horus, Mithras, Attis, Adonis, Tammuz, Dumuzi etc.) Unfortunately there are things which Jesus is reported as having said that inspire fundamentalist bigots. But Jesus’ message of non-violence also inspired Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It’s a mixed picture.

Most of the stories about Jesus can be given a mythological reading which fits in well with the archetypal stories of the Hero Journey, or other myths. The same stories (virgin birth, massacre of the innocents) are told about other deities such as Krishna, Mithras, and so on.

Bill Darlison has shown how the Jesus myth fits in with an astrological initiatory system. Joseph Cambell showed how it fitted with other versions of the archetypal Hero Journey. The gospel of John in particular can be read symbolically (and was various scholars have shown that it was intended to be read symbolically). Various authors (notably Timothy Freke) have explored the similarities between Jesus and pagan gods. It's all mythology, and that's good.

Kitt's on the radio

Rev. Kittredge Cherry will be interviewed LIVE ON NATIONAL RADIO tonight about the Senator Larry Craig gay sex scandal!

The Alan Colmes Show: 8 p.m. Pacific (11 p.m. Eastern) Thurs., Aug. 30

You can call in with questions at 1-877-FOR-ALAN (1-877-367-2526).

Colmes contacted Kitt today about her offer to send Senators a free copy of her book "Hide and Speak: A Coming Out Guide."

You can hear "The Alan Colmes Show" on 80 radio stations nationwide and online at:
AlanColmesRadio.com

Colmes is best known as the moderate liberal half of the Fox News Channel's political debate program "Hannity and Colmes."

For more info, visit Kitt's new blog:
http://jesusinlove.blogspot.com/

Rev. Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author who was at the forefront of the international debate on sexuality and spirituality as National Ecumenical Officer for Metropolitan Community Churches. She offers gay-friendly spiritual resources at JesusInLove.org.

Her books include "Equal Rites," "Jesus in Love" and "Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More."

Aspects of the Divine Feminine in Christianity

Robert Graves wrote that there were three aspects of the Goddess (Divine Feminine). Contemporary Wiccans would also add the sexual aspect of the feminine.

They would also criticise the apparent lack of a crone (wisdom) and the sexual aspect in conventional Christianity.

However, in Orthodoxy, they have the festival of the Myrrh-Bearing Women - the women who anointed the body of Christ after his death; and they have the Holy Wisdom herself, Hagia Sophia, an energy of God, I think. They also have Salome (one of the Myrrh-Bearing Women), who I think was a midwife according to tradition. And of course they have a deep reverence for the Theotokos.

One of the functions of the midwife is also as layer-out - the one who tends the body after death. That's the role that the Myrrh-Bearing Women were performing - and is associated with the Crone in Wicca.

Add to that Mary Magdalene as the Bride - the sexual aspect - and you have the full set.

Maiden - young Virgin Mary
Bride - Mary Magdalene
Mother - Mary Theotokos
Midwife - Salome
Layer-out - The Myrrh-Bearing Women
Wisdom - Sophia

Update 5-3-2008: the Pope has just slammed the door in the face of feminist Catholics

Coptic art

Did anyone else see the fabulous Art of Eternity programme with Andrew Graham-Dixon? There was some beautiful Coptic art - very geometric and happy-looking saints. You could see the connection with the art of Celtic Christianity as well (the Coptic Church was allegedly the first to evangelise Britain). Wonderful stuff.

the art of Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin

Featured in Kittredge Cherry's latest book, Art that Dares, Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin's work is a series of dramatic (sometimes disturbing, as in the series In Hate We Trust) photos. Her series Ecce Homo (key scenes from the life of Christ with a queer twist) is amazing. It received a very varied reception; some Christians saw it as a sacred expression of Jesus' relationship with outcasts; others saw it as a "satanic trick" and one man attacked two of the pictures with an axe - what a sicko. Ohlson Wallin based the tableaux on classic paintings. The full story appears in Art that Dares (Cherry, 2007). Check out Ohlson Wallin's website; better still, buy the book.

sweet Jesus

• Controversial chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled - CNN
• Chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled - BBC

What's wrong with the chocolate Jesus? Is it that his genitals are showing? Or is it that he is made of chocolate? OK, so it is milk chocolate - should have been dark chocolate, but hey. Also it's perhaps somewhat ambivalent that the sculpture appears to depict the crucified Christ, rather than the sweet Jesus image, but Christians have been saying for centuries that he is the source of all sweetness, so why not. Maybe the Catholics who complained are worried that someone is going to eat the sculpture, but don't they eat the body of Christ in the communion ritual?

Buddhists make holy images from butter. Pagans revere naked gods (some are so ithyphallic it makes your eyes water) and goddesses. Queer Christians celebrate Jesus in love. When the male disciples rebuked Mary Magdalene for pouring perfume over Jesus' feet, he praised her and rebuked them. I think he'd feel the same way about this. It's a sensual thing. There's even a song by Tom Waits called Chocolate Jesus.

Some of Cavallaro's other work is quite disturbing, particularly the stuff he does to perfectly harmless pillows. It's clearly meant to disturb, to make you think. Just because something disturbs one's sensibilities, that's no reason to ban it or make death threats against the artist. It's interesting that a Catholic spokesperson said "They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the Prophet Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan." No, because Muslims would make death threats... It's almost as if Muslim extremism is encouraging or licensing other forms of extremism, and there is a climate in which it will eventually become impossible to do or say anything for fear of offending someone. There was a documentary recently about the controversy that surrounded The Life of Brian, which speculated (probably correctly) that the film couldn't have been made in the current climate of fear.