From: John Beasley (beasley@austarnet.com.au)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 16:44:55 BST
Hullo Sam and others on this thread,
Like Sam I was also reluctant to get into a topic that could easily
degenerate into another slanging match. It used to be that in 'good' society
the hostess ensured that no one was so impolite as to introduce politics or
religion into the conversation, since both had the potential to wreck the
evening. Now it appears that religion is perhaps debatable, possibly because
it no longer inspires such fervent belief in many people (fundamentalists
excepted). I find this an interesting possibility.
I thought Sam's summary of what can be known of the 'historical' Jesus very
fair. As he says, you can quibble with the detail but the general sense
remains. I also have no argument with his criteria for selecting what parts
of the written Gospels might be authentic, either in terms of quoting Jesus
or accurately representing his actions.
I found Jonathan's summary of the role of the Pharisees and the Sadducees
equally valuable, though his title "Jesus the Pharisee" is to me quite
controversial, as I think Maggie also pointed out. An Australian theologian
has attempted to paint Jesus as the Essene, but again I find her argument
hard to accept, despite some valid points. What was really of interest in
Jonathan's input was an attempt to see the Pharisees and Sadducees in MOQ
terms. So I wonder if I can provoke some discussion of the possibility that
Jesus fits best into the 'mystic' category, and therefore the MOQ is not
well applied to him. Put differently, if Jesus was a mystic, he would,
according to Pirsig's own logic, find the MOQ an inappropriate vehicle for
expressing what was important to him. ( A thirty thousand page menu?)
Further, if Wilber is correct, the MOQ is an incomplete model of the
developmental moral sequence through which human beings may pass. If this is
conceded, then attempting to look at Jesus through the MOQ lens is useless,
since it partakes of the immorality of a lower level moral code taking
precedence of a higher level code, or in this case, judging a higher level.
Of course, it may be that Jesus was actually coming from a rather low level
himself, and the higher level input was largely Paul's. (Though I am well
aware that some of Paul's thinking seems pretty low level today.) Someone
else referred to the movement from a fairly narrow Hebrew sect to a more
universal Hellenic movement. We will probably never know for sure, which is
one reason I long ago gave up theology for psychology.
I read very little theology now, so can hardly speak with authority, but
from my perspective there was a huge transition in theology in the early
20th Century from social to intellectual levels, to use Pirsig's convenient
shorthand. In popular theology, this resulted in John Robinson's "Honest to
God", which more or less asserts that I would choose to be honest, if the
choice was between faith and honesty. What this 'honesty' actually entailed
might be debatable, but it certainly put intellectual integrity high on the
list.
But it seems that this debate has not produced much of quality in the
churches. 'Liberal' churches do exist, and perhaps the empasis on
intellectual credibility has permeated the broader church, but I fail to be
convinced of this. Theologians like Don Cupitt seem to be off with the
postmodernists, and I find them hard to follow, both literally and
metaphorically. Bishop Spong writes very interesting books on the nitty
gritty of the society in which Jesus lived, and the likely meaning of the
Gospel records, and manages to upset quite a few fundamentalists in the
process. Matthew Fox, who seeems the most interesting of the theologians I
have read, (but difficult to read), has been chased out of the Catholic
church. The process theologians, who seemed to me the true heirs of
Robinson, and who potentially took theology into higher levels of morality,
seem to have disappeared without trace. I am inclined to accept Cupitt's
view that "the church has always been a disciplinary organisation that aims,
not to fuse the divine and the human together, but to keep them apart for
the sake of social control."
If Cupitt is right, the attempt to bring intellectual values into the church
has largely failed, and it remains a social level organisation. While a
radical reinterpretation of the meaning or value of Jesus remains an option
to many individuals, some within the churches, it has largely failed to
influence the broader church culture. In this situation, I wonder does it
matter.
My own feeling is that trying to change the church is a waste of time, even
if an intellectually credible view of Jesus is possible. The church is mired
in a social level stage of development. Individuals might as well aim for
direct experience of dynamic quality, which even Pirsig admits is the
driving force of mysticism. What Jesus said then becomes an interesting
commentary, perhaps even a mild endorsement of a mystic path, but the mystic
will not be constrained by either the social values of the churches, or the
intellectual values of a Pirsig.
Regards,
John B
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