Particularism and Universalism

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded with the following words from Jeffrey J. Butz:

 

(p.172) This brings us now to the bottom-line question: What would Jesus have

thought of the development of the early church? Would Jesus have agreed with how

Paul interpreted his ministry and his message? In short, is the Christian church

that emerged as the official religion of the Roman Empire what Jesus would have

wanted? Paul's teachings are being seen by a rapidly growing number of modern

scholars and writers as a distortion of what Jesus taught, and the development

of the Christian church as a travesty of the original Jewish beliefs and

teachings of Jesus. Yet, in the end, the Christian Church that developed was

actually the salvation of Jesus' teaching, for without the rise to power of the

Church of Rome, the Christian movement would surely have died out, and Jesus'

message would have faded into obscurity. Though many contemporary scholars have

claimed (with some justification) that Paul essentially " invented " Christianity,

without the theological innovations that Paul brought into it, the Jesus

movement would surely have died. While the Christian church that emerged indeed

has many flaws, and has committed many grievous sins, it has managed (to some

extent despite itself) to preserve the essential story and teaching of Jesus for

the ages.

 

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity) Chapter 9, pg.

172.

 

Here now, is Particularism and Universalism.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

 

Particularism and Universalism

 

(p.172) Pauline Christianity survived because it was the most successful of all

the early heresies (or parties) of the Christian movement. And it was the most

successful heresy for a simple and quite legitimate reason--it had the most

universal appeal. James and the Jewish Christians saw their mission as being

almost exclusively to the 'Jews'. And it must be emphasized yet again that

James's mission was the continuation of Jesus' mission. John Painter comments:

 

The evidence of the Gospels suggests that James, in limiting his active role in

mission to the Jews, was consistent with the practice of Jesus for whom,

according to the Gospels (which reflect the reality of the mission to the

nations), mission beyond the people of Israel was exceptional.

 

(p.173) James, centered in Jerusalem with a focus on the mission to the Jews,

had every right to think that his approach to mission was true to the mission of

Jesus and that the mission of Paul was without adequate precedent in the

practice of Jesus... Nevertheless...evidence suggests that Jesus was not

strictly observant of Jewish purity laws, and it can be argued that the Law-free

mission to the nations is an extension of the logic arising from the exceptional

practice of Jesus. [1]

 

With only a very few exceptions (at least as far as we know from the

gospels), Jesus' mission was aimed exclusively at the people of Israel and

James's mission clearly reflects this, but as Painter notes, Paul's Gentile

mission had its roots in the practice of Jesus as well: " The Pauline position

was an extension of the exceptional practice of Jesus, which did not wait until

Israel first enjoyed the blessings and was satisfied before extending the

blessing to the nations. "

 

The prime example of Jesus' " exceptional practice " is the well-known story of

the Gentile woman who begs Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter (Matthew

15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30). Here is Matthew's version:

 

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then

a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, " Have mercy on

me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon. " But he did not

answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, " Send her away,

for she keeps shouting after us. " He answered, " I was sent only to the lost

sheep of the house of Israel. " But she came and knelt before him, saying, " Lord,

help me. " He answered, " It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it

to the dogs. " She said, " Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall

from their master's table. " Then Jesus answered her, " Woman, great is your

faith! Let it be done for you as you wish. " And her daughter was healed

instantly.

 

Quite surprisingly, Jesus is hesitant to help this needy woman, even likening

her to a dog (a Jewish term of derision for Gentiles) begging for scraps at the

table prepared for God's children, the Jews. Many defensive explanations have

been offered for Jesus' most un-Jesus-like behavior here (I must confess to

having used these myself in sermons to try to " explain away " the import of this

passage), but Jesus' hesitancy to reach beyond Israel is quite clear from his

blunt response to the woman: " I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. "

(p.174) Of course, he does in fact end up helping her, after she dares to rebut

him.

 

The traditional Christian explanation for Jesus' behavior in this passage is

that Jesus' mission 'during his lifetime' could only be focused on the Jews, but

later, through his post-resurrection commissioning of Paul as the Apostle to the

Gentiles, Jesus also brought the Gospel to the nations. As we have seen,

traditional Jewish belief was that the salvation of the Gentiles would come

'through Israel', an idea rooted in scriptures such as Isaiah's prophecy of the

Gentile nations carrying their treasures into the Temple in Jerusalem on the Day

of the Lord. The prophets likened the Temple on Mt. Zion to a beacon on a hill,

bring light and salvation to the nations.

 

In light of this image of the beacon, it is fascinating to look again at

James's adjudication of the Jerusalem Council, called to decide the question of

the salvation of the Gentiles (most emphatically, those in attendance, including

Paul, were not concerned about the salvation of the Jews). In his concluding

remarks at the Council, James quoted the prophet Amos:

 

'After this I will return,

And I will rebuild the dwelling of David,

which has fallen;

from its ruins I will rebuilt it,

and I will set it up,

so that all other peoples may seek the Lord-

even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called'.

 

For as much distance as is often put between James and Paul, James did support

Paul's mission to the Gentiles; and, conversely, Paul continued to uphold the

centrality of the Jerusalem church. Paul believed that through his mission, and

especially through his collection for the Jerusalem church, he was fulfilling

the prophecies of the streaming of the Gentiles into Jerusalem, thus ushering in

the Day of the Lord. In the end, James's concern and Paul's concerns were the

same: to bring God's salvation to all people through Messiah Jesus.

 

One of the main purposes of the Jerusalem Council was to delineate the

parameters for the twin missions to the Jews and Gentiles. (p.175) While the

goal was the same--to proclaim the Good News of Christ's resurrection to all

people--the two missions slowly grew competitive and antagonistic, the Jewish

Christians clinging ever more tenaciously to their beliefs as the Gentile

Christians increasingly expanded their understandings of Jesus beyond the

parameters that could be tolerated by Judaism. John Painter gives a wonderful

summary of how the embryonic Catholic Church attempted to resolve the problem of

the competing missions and their diverging interpretations of Jesus, a process

that can be seen at work in Luke's writing of the book of Acts:

 

Acts is an attempt to hold together the position of the church of all nations

toward the end of the first century with the position of the mother church of

Jerusalem between 30 and 60 C.E. It is an attempt to bring together the regular

practice of Jesus, which was the basis of the position of James and the

Jerusalem church, with the position of Paul, which was rooted in the exceptional

practice of Jesus, who at times broke through the boundaries of Jewish law,

enabling the benefits of his mission to reach the outcast of Israel and even

beyond to the nations. Luke acknowledged the differing approaches to mission,

especially between Jerusalem and Antioch and sought to hold the two together...

In this context James was a significant and farsighted leader whose strategy

was to preserve the mission to his own people. History proved his worst fears

concerning the Pauline mission to be correct. The mission to the nations indeed

ensured the ultimate failure of the circumcision mission. [2]

 

Some of the new Hellenistic understandings of Jesus that developed in the

Pauline churches, and that ultimately developed into Catholic Christianity, are

what began to turn more and more Jews against the rapidly growing Christian

sect, and due to that backlash, soon the Jewish Christians in the Diaspora

[Dispersion/Scattering] were declared heretics by their fellow Jews and banned

from their synagogues. This was a double indignity for the descendants of the

original Jewish Christians (including Jesus' own family): to be branded as

heretics both by their fellow Jews and by the Gentile Christians, when it was

they who carried the original orthodoxy--the actual teachings of Jesus--which

were in no way incompatible with Judaism.

 

(p.176) Although the Jewish Christians were splintered and persecuted after

70 C.E., scattered groups such as the Nazoreans, the Ebionites and the

Elkesaites managed to hang on for centuries in areas such as Syria, Egypt, and

parts of Arabia--eventually even influencing the rise of Islam. The Christians

that Muhammad encountered during his days leading caravans around the Arabian

Peninsula were largely Jewish Christians who survived among the Arabs. So it is

no coincidence that the Muslim understanding of Jesus is remarkably similar to

the Jewish Christian understanding. Jewish Christian influence can also be seen

in later " heretical " groups such as the medieval Cathars of the Languedoc region

of France, who held many beliefs in common with the later Jewish Christians. Of

course, the orthodox church had learned much about effectively combating heresy

in a millennium, and the Cathars were almost completely wiped out in the

Albigensian Crusade--the crusade that has the dubious distinction of being the

only crusade carried out on Christendom's own soil against its own people.

 

Despite the tenacity of Jewish Christian beliefs and ideals, James's mission

to the Jews ultimately ended in failure for the historical reasons we have

delineated. But it failed only in one sense; in another sense it succeeded

gloriously, for it was through Paul that the Gentiles did, in a sense, come

streaming " into Israel. " More and more Gentiles looked to Jesus as their

Messiah. They rooted their understanding in Paul's teaching that the Gentiles

were " grafted " onto Israel through their faith in Jesus:

 

You Gentiles are like branches of a wild olive tree that were made to be part of

a cultivated olive tree... And because of this, you enjoy the blessings that

come from being part of that cultivated tree... Just remember that you are not

supporting the roots of that tree. Its roots are supporting you. (Romans

11:17-18, CEV)

 

The Jewish Christian fear that Paul's teaching of salvation through faith

would do away with reverence for the Law among the Gentiles did 'not' actually

come to pass. For almost all Christians to this day, the essence of Christianity

is found in its ethical guidelines for living, ethics that are thoroughly rooted

in Jewish law, particularly the Ten Commandments. In the end, no matter how

loudly Christianity (especially Protestantism) has proclaimed that salvation

comes by faith alone, average Christians still live their day-to-day lives as if

their salvation came by their works. The Law, which James struggled so hard to

uphold, is indeed still in effect for the vast majority of Christians. (p.177)

In the final analysis, it is inconsequential whether a Christian's desire to

live a godly, ethical life comes out of a sense of duty to God ( " works

righteousness " ), or out of a sense of thankfulness for God's undeserved love

(Grace). It is the end result--transformed lives--that matters. And that is all

that Jesus, James, and Paul wanted: to transform lives, to enable people to be

born anew into life in the Kingdom of God.

 

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity)

Chapter 9, pg. 172-177

Jeffrey J. Butz

Inner Traditions - Rochester, Vermont

ISBN 1-59477-043-3

 

Notes:

 

[1] This and the following quotation are from Painter, 'Just James', 98-99.

 

[2] Ibid., 101-102.