Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance

by Emily Swan

We view solus Jesus as a break with the quest for certainty. We aim, rather, for a more attainable goal—sufficient confidence to proceed.

An interesting notion. Lowering our expectations of Scripture

We’re more like the recovering alcoholic who can only gain sobriety by admitting that alcohol has them beat. Certainty claims have us beat.

Seeing certainty as a drug we abuse may be a helpful lens for my understanding here

Clearly, the Jesus to whom the apostolic writings bear witness saw himself within the tradition of the Hebrew prophets and as one who stands in solidarity with the Jewish people.

The negligence of the "Jewishness" of Jesus certainly seems tied to a lot of bad theology trends in American christianity

Certainty, well—that’s beyond our grasp, and any claims to it are riddled with illusion and presumption.

Seeing the pursuit of certainty as a curse rather than a pleasure, is a paradigm shift for me that I am slowly coming around to

Certainty fits the overreaching claims of empire, while the meek, eventually, inherit the earth.

Certainty = earthly powers, humilty = Kingdom of God

that we mortals can maintain.

The idea that certainty depends on men to be held up here might be a major driver of it's continued influence on Christians. I almost suspect patriarchy plays a heavy part in this

To the Catholic Christian, it’s not “the Bible says … ” but rather “the Church says ... .”

I think this might be an overly simplistic explanation of the Catholic approach to Dogma, rooted in Protestant simpathies

who warned against calling anyone else “rabbi”

This de-emphasis on the role of human teachers is something I haven't seen enough from the church. Especially in Evangelical circles which put such a strong emphasis on the role of pastor

How is it that followers of Jesus can expect to experience him now that he is risen from the dead?

I think a study of the post ressurection appearances would make a good series, maybe for Easter season?

Their interactions are rather ordinary—two

Something I hadn't considered before

Bible, in which Christians now have direct access to Scripture and function—in effect—as their own rabbis.

This is a worthwhile note. We need to de emphasize personal responsibility for understanding Scripture, and emphasize dependency on Jesus as our interpreter

isolated individuals but members of a community—just as rabbis gathered students into communities and interacted with them in this communal context.

Communal aspect of Scriptural understanding also seems largely lost. Also, this is not limited to our local temporal community, rather we must include the global community and the historical community

Everything hinges not on our having the right knowledge system, but on whether or not Jesus really is our rabbi still.

I now refuse to allow people who don’t understand what it is to be female and gay dictate how I should live and follow Jesus.

the experience highlighted my increasing awareness of the inherent power differential between storytellers and their audience.

Those who hear a story depend on storytellers to accurately relay meaning and significance—especially if that story, like the Christian narrative, contains the richness of a tradition passed down for millennia.

Creating, summarizing, translating, interpreting or distributing a story places one in a position of power over others.

Would it not thrill you to think that you controlled the reading matter of an entire tribe?”

Who gets to share and who gets to interpret? What criteria do we use to decide? By consolidating interpretive and communicative power into the hands of a few highly educated (and mostly Western) persons, we’ve effectively eliminated and erased the perspectives of the less powerful (De La Torre, Reading the Bible, 45).

They posit that those who are illiterate can possess just as sophisticated and authentic an understanding of the Gospel as those who can read—and perhaps more so, because they often identify with the oppressed and outcast for whom Jesus’s message was good news.

The effect of sola Scriptura is to place the illiterate in a submissive position to the literate.

“the constant danger that the Bible will be taken prisoner by the Church,”

This means that the translation and interpretation of Scripture has largely been handled by the category of people with the most power in the world over the last 500 years. During the last several decades in particular, people who do not fit the above description began objecting to this—and for good reason (Sugirtharajah, 1-2).

Because these new ideas often originate in the margins of power and end up outside the culturally-formed religious ‘boxes’ of these leaders, their authority as representatives of correct biblical truth is threatened. Their belief systems (or they often believe, God’s perspective) are under attack” (36).

My American culture, my female culture, my Midwestern culture, my middle-class culture, my faith culture and my white culture, among others, became my default—just as your particular blend of cultures becomes yours (Huntington, xv).

One of the most difficult parts of our discipleship path is untangling genuine Jesus-centered values from the values of our cultures. Every culture—even cultures trying to live out Jesus-shaped values—takes on baggage, because humans, being human, use culture to bolster our power and sense of belonging.

Cultural forces exhibit such a strong evolutionary pull on us that we can be blind to how they cloud our interpretations—both of interactions with people not like us as well as of Scripture (Lightsey, 43). [24]

He cautions us that, when the Gospel remains disconnected from views outside one specific culture, it festers and grows sick (15-22).

Having a culturally homogenous church or network is not inherently unhealthy.

“Most Christian workers have so overlearned their cultural values that they confuse them with the teaching of Scripture. They are blind to the passages of Scripture that contradict their point of view, and they are skilled in rationalizing their values through proof-texts from their Bible study.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he didn’t tell his disciples, “That’s it—you’re on your own now, equipped with the material about me that will eventually get written down and compiled into a canon in 300 years.” No. Jesus said, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” [34]

Truth, coming to us in the form of a person, requires all our personal capacities to embrace: our senses, minds, hearts and bodies. That means we can feel with Truth as much as we can think with Truth. It means we can question Truth, argue with Truth and be angry at Truth, as much as we can agree with Truth because the proper response to Truth that presents as a person is involvement. It’s only as we become involved with Truth in these personal ways that we are affected by Truth.

Where disregard for the experience of the neighbor is defended by appeal to Scripture, the fruit is often bitter.

reading the Bible affects praxis, and the experiences that follow influence the understanding of the Bible”

As Ken discussed in Chapter 3, the project of sola Scriptura was to lead Protestants into greater certainty about their beliefs, and here the Spirit was shaking up that delusion of certainty—a function of the modern need to control.

Certainty and Spirituality would seem to be fundamentally opposed

People would claim to “have a word” for someone, or to have “heard from God” about what a mission team (or individual member) was supposed to do, with little to no pastoral guidance.

If the prophetic word was given loudly and with many tears, it “must be from the Spirit.”

The alarm bells were drowned out because power has become a sacred entitlement in this religious subculture.

The pursuit of power hinders the work of God. It distorted Pentecostalism’s early instincts of inclusion and pacifism, and power continues tempting people to misuse their gifts to gain the praise and acquiescence of others.

love—a way the divine relates with us, regardless of our context, even if none of us fully understands it. This spirit of love is less concerned with our theology than it is with relationship.

Sometimes we Christians want to tackle enormous systemic problems, but it can be overwhelming. What if we can best affect large-scale change by caring for the people in close proximity to us?

Revival is not a state we seek to keep the Church in; it is an energizing experience in which we partake in order to revitalize and get new direction from God. [94]

Whether we pursue power or lay down power in the name of Jesus makes all the difference in our witness. The Church’s increasing revelation—that we worship a God who stands with the vulnerable of the world—encourages us, and as we grow in our collective understanding of the Gospel, our interpretive lenses for our experiences will shift.

“I have also come to realize that revival is not the normal state of affairs, nor is it intended to be so. Those of us who appreciate the role that revival plays often miss this. At the core of the term ‘revival’ is the Latin root viv—‘life.’ That is what revival does: it brings life into life-less situations or people. And the prefix re indicates something being done again.”

No, the voice told me I would see Tibet. That’s all. I try to be cautious in not reading more into my experiences than is there.

Who best understands the suffering messiah? It should be obvious that the oppressed, the poor, the dispossessed, the outcasts, those in ill health and the second-class citizens of the world have greater insight into the salvific work of God—just as they did when Jesus traversed the earth, as a human.

When we neglect the perspectives of the downtrodden, the likelihood of Scripture distortion rises exponentially. Nearly the entire Bible is written from the perspective of the persecuted. If we haven’t experienced persecution ourselves—whether as a community outcast, by experiencing the consequences of standing with community outcasts or by being part of a minority community—then we do not have a full understanding of Jesus and what he did on the cross.

The person saying that homosexuality is sinful experiences the pushback as persecution, even though such dissent harms none of their rights while LGBTQ+ peoples’ rights remain sub-par and tenuous.

When a storekeeper in America claims “Christian” victimhood for refusing to sell cake or flowers to gay people, I feel infuriated on behalf of my friends who have truly suffered.

PREACH!

the former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed. Conditioned by the experience of oppressing others, any situation other than their former seems to them like oppression. Formerly, they could eat, dress, wear shoes, be educated, travel and hear Beethoven; while millions did not eat, had no clothes or shoes, neither studied nor traveled, much less listened to Beethoven. Any restriction on this way of life, in the name of the rights of the community, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual rights—although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow and despair.