I Felt this Loving Presence:
​Ten Ways of Knowing Jesus

​In Process Theology Jesus can be known and loved in ten ways.
Each is a way that Jesus is present in human life.
All make sense from a process perspective.

1. a friend in the journey of life,
2. a prophet of hope (who comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable)
3. a crucified savior,
4. a resurrected savior,
5. an incarnation of God,
6. a living field of force,
7. a cosmic spirit (the universal Christ)
8. a way of living (filled with truth and life)
9. a divine revelation,
10. a loving presence in the here-and-now.​

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Not all of these ways need make sense to everyone. In a person's journey with Jesus, each can be a starting point and many combinations can be meaningful. But all are available.

Jesus as a Loving Presence
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DEAR GOD, Do you cry? Jesus did. He cried when Lazarus died, even though he knew resurrection was coming. It hurt. Do you cry? You created crying—rivers summoned by pain, blurred vision, the washing of cheeks with sorrow. Do you cry? Love, ME

"I was standing out on my patio, and I felt this loving presence behind me. I know that it was Jesus. I felt this love that I had never felt, this kindness that I had never felt. And it was that kindness, knowing that God actually loved me and cared for me, that helped me approach God with honesty. And I think honesty in faith and prayers is what really changes things."

- Bunmi Laditan
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Walking with Jesus,
Sharing in his Journey

​Christians are a people who seek to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and share in his journey. We do not do this successfully, and often we fail miserably. But sometimes, on occasion, we communicate the spirit of Christ to others in our acts of love and kindness. At our best, they know we are Christians by our love. 

We need not claim that we alone do this. For my part, I know many, many people who are not Christian but who walk with Jesus better than I. This includes Muslims for whom Jesus is a prophet of love; Buddhists for whom he is a cosmic Bodhisattva; and friends in 'atheistic' China who have icons of Jesus on their tabletops, seeing him as identified with a kindness they, too, want to live from. We Christians do not own Jesus. His influence has migrated into other portions of the human family, often in very beautiful ways. Some believe he left the church a long time ago.

What distinguishes Christians from others is not that we are saved and they are not. It is our intentionality. We want to walk with him and share in his journey in a direct, unapologetic way, using his name as part of our pathway. We pray to God in Christ's name or in Jesus' name; and some among us pray to Jesus himself, thinking of him as alive with God in heaven. We read the New Testament or have it read to us, finding it both nourishing and challenging. We rely on traditional sources for help: rituals, prayers, fellowship, and sacraments. We gather with others who likewise seek to walk with Jesus, sing with them and pray with them, and call it Church.  We Christians are a vast, multi-generational community of people around the world who try to center our lives around the healing ministry of Jesus, offering good news to the world though in acts of love and kindness. We are, or want to be, disciples of Christ.

And yet, strangely, more than a few of us have lost a sense of the Jesus with whom we want to walk. He has been hijacked by fundamentalist Christians who use him as a way of dividing the world into "us" and "them."  He has been turned him into a doctrine in the mind not a person in the heart. He has become a tool for imperial control. He has been reduced to the second person of the Trinity and somehow lost his humanity. And, in my country, he has been wrapped in an American flag.

On this page I suggest that process theology affirms at least ten ways of knowing Jesus. There may be many more. The ten ways are not listed in order or priority; they are best considered ten portals through which Jesus can become a meaningful presence in people's lives.

As I see things, the ten ways form a single whole, like a mandala, often implicating the others. But Christians will emphasize some more than others. Some will focus on Jesus as a brother in the journey of life, others on Jesus as an incarnation of God, and still others on Jesus as a way of living or loving presence. In different contexts some will be more important than others.

For many but not all Christians, one of the most important of the ten ways of knowing God lies in a recognition that he was God incarnate or, as some would put it, the Son of God. I best speak to that at the outset, lest readers be confused.

​The doctrine of the Incarnation asks the question, “How can Jesus, in whom God became flesh, be both human and divine?” Early Christian councils debated fiercely the question of the balance between Jesus’ humanity and his divinity. The traditional Christian response to these questions is that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Yet, this view of Christ became static, isolating Christ to a long-past creedal formulation that Christians repeat tirelessly every Sunday in their churches. In Christ in a Pluralistic Age (1975), John Cobb offers a process alternative. Building upon traditions of Logos Christology in the early church, Cobb interprets Jesus as "the incarnate Logos of God": that is, a man who is "fully human" but who identified with the universal spirit of God present in the world (the Logos) such that his own sense of "I" and the spirit of God came together. This suggests that, when people were in Jesus' presence, they felt the very presence of God in him in a special way and that, as the Bible puts it, he "spoke with authority." When they heard him speak they felt that it was God speaking through him.

Cobb believes that process categories are closer to terms Jesus himself would understand than are the Greek notions of "substance" used by the early Church. For my part, when I say "Jesus is God" I mean, along with Cobb, that Jesus was the Logos incarnate, because his "I" and God's Logos (living presence in the world) were two sides of a single coin. This does not mean that Jesus was literally born of a virgin (maybe so, but maybe not) or that everything he said and did, from birth to death, was totally conformal to God's will. He was, after all, a teenager and before that a small child. He was human. But in his healing ministry his "I" and God's Logos were at one.

Of course Jesus is much more than the Logos incarnate. He is a friend, teacher, savior, and living presence in the here-and-now. He is also a field of force (a continuing influence in the world) that shapes the hearts and minds of many people in positive ways, within and outside the Christian community. Process theology offers a way of saying "Yes" to the many faces of Jesus, one of which is that of incarnate Logos of God. There are at least nine others, and they can be appreciated even if the notion of divine incarnation does not seem important. What distinguishes Christians is that they want to walk with Jesus and share in his journey, even if they believe he is human but not divine. Even as human, he is or can be a window to God, as can each of the nine other ways.

The page is prompted by many sources: Diana Butler Bass' book Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way and Presence; the writing of a contemporary evangelical Christian, Bunmi Laditan, formerly homeless, whose writing career began with an experience of Jesus as a living presence; John Cobb's Christ in a Pluralistic Age; and Tripp Fuller's Divine Self-Investment: An Open and Relational Christology. Fuller's book is especially helpful in bringing some of these themes together, without sacrificing the prophetic challenge. You'll find a short review of his book at the bottom of this page.

​- Jay McDaniel

Ten Ways of Knowing Jesus

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​In Freeing Jesus, Diana Butler Bass speaks of five ways that Christians and others can feel connected with Jesus today: friend, teacher, lord, savior, and presence. Building upon her general work, I offer a process companion to her ideas. Make no mistake: her work is more important than what I say below. But if you are influenced by her work and seek a theological companion to support your influence, process theology can help. I suggest that process theology can help us appreciate ten ways of knowing Jesus.

1. Friend in the Journey of Life: In his humanity, Jesus undergoes a journey or pilgrimage that is deeply human. He lives, he loves, he weeps, he hopes, he cares, he welcomes children, and he turns water into wine at weddings. He is a brother in the journey of life. We can share in his deeply human journey and take on his priorities, that the will of God be done on earth as in heaven, as our own. To do so is to share in other people's journeys, too. Identifying with Jesus becomes an act of identifying with each and all, thus becoming more "fully human" along with him. In our time we rightly realize the importance of identifying with all of life: with all sentient beings who suffer and enjoy. Brother Jesus is also Brother Sun and Sister Moon. 
2. Prophet of Challenge and Hope: Jesus was a Jewish friend, teacher, lord and savior who lived two thousand years ago, and whose life and ministry are presented in the New Testament. He stood primarily in the prophetic tradition of Judaism, understanding his own ministry as helping bring about a new social order and new way of being in which the will of God, that we love one another, is done on earth as it is in heaven. His primary ministry was to his own people. He "comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable."  John Cobb and Tripp Fuller build upon his prophetic ministry to say that, in our time, we extend his ministry by helping to build a new kind of civilization - an Ecological Civilization - that is good for people, other animals, and the Earth. The units of this civilization are just and sustainable communities: that is, communities that are compassionate, participatory, inclusive, diverse, humane to animals, ecologically wise - with no one left behind. The radical teaching of Jesus is that, in order to build these communities, we must love even our enemies.
3. Crucified Savior: Jesus was a young man who died a violent death, along with many others, at the hands of Roman authorities. Whereas some say that God was unable or unwilling to love the world without the death, process theologians disagree. They see his death as a window into a side of God too often neglected: (a) a side of God shares in the sufferings of the world, including all people and all other living beings and (2) a side of God does not respond to violence with violence.
4. Resurrected Savior: Jesus was a man who reappeared after his death to his followers, having been resurrected by God. Jesus did not "raise himself" from death; he was "raised by God" after his death, a promise to all that there is hope. John Cobb deals extensively with how this can be understood and appreciated in Chapter 15 of Christ in a Pluralistic Age.* 
5. An Incarnation of God: Building upon traditions of Logos Christology in the early church, Cobb interprets Jesus as "the incarnate Logos of God": that is, a man who is "fully human" but who identified with the universal spirit of God present in the world (the Logos) such that his own sense of "I" and the spirit of God came together. This suggests that, when people were in Jesus' presence, they felt the very presence of God in him in a special way and that, as the Bible puts it, he "spoke with authority." When they heard him speak they felt that it was God speaking through him. Cobb believes that process categories are closer to terms Jesus himself would understand than are the Greek notions of "substance" used by the early Church. 
6. Field of Force: an atmosphere or field of force (John Cobb's phrase) generated by Jesus' life and ministry, in whose influence we can participate through worship, prayer, fellowship, service. This field of force has now reached out to the whole planet, but its boundaries are vague and, in the words of John Cobb, "it is no longer clearly manifest with distinctive efficacy in avowedly Christian institutions." Still, for many, the Church in one of its expressions (Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Asian, African, Non-Denominational) can be a vital way in which the life and ministry of Jesus is known. The Church at its best is a participating in Jesus' Field of Force. 
7. Cosmic Spirit: The universal Christ as the spirit of creative transformation at work in the universe, understood as the Logos that became flesh in, but is not reducible to, the historical Jesus. This Logos can be known apart from reference to Jesus, but also with reference to Jesus, with Jesus as a window to the Logos. It is present in human life as a lure toward truth, goodness, and beauty and in the more-than-human world as a spirit within the vitality of the universe itself. The Logos is in plants and animals, hills and trees, rivers and stars. Wherever there is healing and creative transformation the spirit is seen. Christians call it the universal Christ.
8. Revelation of God's Hopes for the World: a revelation of the fact that the universe "lives and moves and has its being" in a womb-like and beckoning presence, whom Jesus addressed as Abba, and who is revealed in Jesus' own yearnings for beloved community and a discipleship of equals.
9. Way of Living: What made Jesus so important to many in his time was his way of living. He centered his life in the spirit of creative transformation, which he understood as the living presence of his Abba, and he invited others to center their lives in that spirit, too. He was, in this sense, a Way that was itself truthful and full of life, showing how people can come to God, not by preaching or teaching, but by living in the Way. It is, above all things, a way of love and forgiveness.
10. A Loving Presence in the Here-and-Now: a living person with agency and feeling, whose presence we feel in the here-and-now. ​This is the post-resurrection Jesus who appeared to people after his death and whose journey continues today.

​         - Jay McDaniel

Residual Questions 

One Person's Perspective
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Is Jesus for Christians alone? Or is Jesus for everybody?

Jesus is for everybody.  Jesus does not belong to Christianity and cannot be contained within its boxes. Many and perhaps all these ten ways can be known by people who are not avowedly Christian in their self-understanding and who are not associated with avowedly Christian institutions. Jesus is not limited to Christianity, and in some ways, understood as a field of force, he has migrated outside its parameters. His influence can be more pronounced in non-Christian settings than in Christian settings.

What about the resurrection?

​For some critics of process theology, the idea that God raised Jesus from the dead points to a weakness of the process view of God. "How can a non-omnipotent God who merely lures the world," they say, "raise anyone from the dead."  Thomas Oord, a process theologian, offers a response, saying that Jesus cooperated with God's lure in being raised from the dead. See Did God Resurrect Jesus Single-Handedly?

What about the gathering of Christians on earth? What about the Church?

​Avowed Christians who participate in Jesus' field of force in meaningful ways do so through a gathering of people who seek to live from his memory and expand his healing ministry. They are the Church. They participate in his field of force through sacraments, music, fellowship, and service. For many Christians, holy communion is an essential way that Jesus is present in worship and in life. The idea that Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine of the eucharist, whether through memory or in another energetic way, is appreciated by process theologians who believe that, after all, everything is present in everything else. The real presence of Jesus in the eucharist is an expression of, not an exception to, a universe of inter-becoming.

Where is Jesus today? Is Jesus still alive as a person?

Yes, I think he is. I realize that the ninth way - Jesus as a person who appears to people after his death in his post-resurrection state - is problematic for people shaped by modern western, scientistic ways of thinking. Liberals will ignore the possibility altogether, deeming it a mere projection of the mind. They will emphasize that Jesus is alive as a memory or field of force, and some will also emphasize the universal Christ. But it is a way of experiencing and knowing Jesus that many of his followers, including Paul, have felt and known. Process theologians can affirm it (see below). 

Will Jesus come again?

Yes. he has already come again many times. Whenever people undertake acts of love and kindness, whenever they are open to creative transformation, whenever they forgive their enemies, Jesus comes again as a field of force. Whether or not he also comes again in a more literal way remains unclear.

Was Jesus without sin?

Probably not. There is no need to put him on a pedestal of perfection. He may well have missed the mark at times in his life. But he was much, much better than most of us.

Was Jesus always at one with God?

Probably not. There seem to have been times in his life when he felt very different from God. "Not my will but thy will, Oh Lord." Even as he was an incarnation of the Logos in many ways, he was human, too, and he knew it. He was our brother.

Can Jesus truly save us?

Yes, but only if we take on his priorities and walk in his way. Salvation is relational. In this life we can be saved from greed, hatred, and envy, and saved for a more abundant way of living, by walking with Jesus.

For many Christians salvation also pertains to life-after-death. They think of salvation as "going to heaven." In process theology the idea that souls undergo a continuing journey after death is a meaningful one. Heaven can be a name for a place in the afterlife where God is immediately present. If we are saved by Jesus in this life, at least partially, we can rightly hope that the process of growth is completed after death.

Did Jesus grow spiritually after he died?

We can hope that he, too, grew after his death and that he is still growing into a still greater perfection of love. Jesus may know things now that he didn't know while he live on earth. He is our brother.

Can we join Jesus in heaven?

Even if Jesus appears to us on earth, he is also "in heaven" along with many, many others. Heaven can be understood as a realm of reality (a region of the space-time continuum) in which the loving presence of God is immediately present. It can well be the end of the human journey, for many and perhaps for all. Whether Jesus has a special place in heaven is not so important. But we can rightly hope that, in heaven, we will be with Jesus even as we might also be with many, many others. 

Does the meaning of Jesus partly depend on how we imagine him?

Yes. No savior is an island. All depend on how they are interpreted. The meaning of Jesus partly depends on how people understand him. The ten ways of knowing Jesus are also ways of interpreting him. Jesus is relational. Understood as a field of force, the very force of Jesus - his power in life - partly depends on how he is interpreted.

What about the Trinity?

It is not a doctrine essential to Christianity, but it can be affirmed as indicating the relationality of God and, for that matter, the relationality of Jesus. Understanding Jesus as the second person of the Trinity can be helpful for many people, as long as they - we - simultaneously recognize him as our brother and friend.

Have there been other Jesuses?

​There may have been. We do not know. If so, this is wonderful. If not, one is enough.

Can a person have a "personal" relationship with Jesus?

Of course, as a friend and companion if not also a savior. 

Can a person pray to Jesus?

Don't see why not. He can be a window through whom God listens.

Is belief in Jesus compatible with belief in an open and relational God?

Yes, see the work of Thomas Oord, John Sanders, and many others.

​- Jay McDaniel

Diana Butler Bass on Freeing Jesus

to be Friend, Teacher, Lord, Savior, Way, and Presence
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Diana Butler Bass Website

John Cobb's Christ in a Pluralistic Age

A summary reposted from Endnotes

"Cobb’s Christ in a Pluralistic Age deals primarily with the Christian theme of incarnation. The doctrine of the Incarnation asks the question, “How can Jesus, in whom God became flesh, be both human and divine?” Early Christian councils debated fiercely the question of the balance between Jesus’ humanity and his divinity. The traditional Christian response to these questions is that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Yet, this view of Christ became static, isolating Christ to a long-past creedal formulation that Christians repeat tirelessly every Sunday in their churches.

What does this ancient formulation have to do with contemporary religious pluralism, asks Cobb, and is there a more dynamic understanding of Christ that will allow us to embrace the promises of religious pluralism? His answer is to understand Christ as an image of creative transformation. This transformation is a process by which we all—looking to Jesus as the model of the incarnation of the divine—come to understand ourselves as more fully human and to open ourselves to others and all that they have to offer.

Using process philosophy, Cobb presents God’s presence, or Logos, as the potentiality of novelty to an ever-changing world. Jesus, a specific entity in this world, became the concrete actualization of this potentiality. Christ, for Cobb, becomes the image of that novelty as it is made real, or incarnated, in the world. Thus, following the model of Christ in Jesus—the incarnation of the novelty of God’s presence in the world—Christians can actualize the potential they share to deepen that incarnation. For Cobb, the Incarnation as a way of creative transformation encourages Christians to become more fully human in the same way that Jesus modeled his humanity to respond freely to God’s initiative to love others and to embrace them as fully human.

Cobb’s rich blend of process philosophy and Christian theology challenges traditional notions of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation and offers fresh new ways of thinking about how Christianity can embrace religious pluralism.
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Sources for Further Study
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• Cobb, John B., Jr. “Response to Ogden and Carpenter.” Process Studies 6 (Summer, 1976): 123-129. Cobb argues that Ogden misses the point of Cobb’s Christ as the way of creative transformation and that Carpenter confuses Cobb’s idea of “structure of existence” simply with “quality of life.”
• Fackre, Gabriel J. “Cobb’s Christ in a Pluralistic Age: A Review Article.” Review of Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Andover Newton Quarterly 17 (March, 1977): 308-315. A critical but appreciative review that applauds Cobb’s use of art and the imagination as ways of understanding Christ as creative transformation.
• Jenson, Robert. Review of Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Interpretation 31 (July, 1977): 307-311. Jenson criticizes Cobb’s image of Christ, arguing for a more orthodox view in which Christ functions as a singular way of salvation for others.
• Lewis, John M., and John B. Cobb, Jr. “Christology and Pluralism.” Perspectives in Religious Studies 4 (Spring, 1977): 63-72. A conversation between Lewis and Cobb on potential Christian responses to increasing religious pluralism, emphasizing Cobb’s notion of a pluralistic Christ.
• Ogden, Schubert M. “Christology Reconsidered: John Cobb’s Christ in a Pluralistic Age.” Process Studies 6 (Summer, 1976): 116-122. Ogden argues that Cobb’s image of Christ as creative transformation misses the point of Christology and is too hypothetical to be useful for theology."

Jesus as Loving Presence
​in the Here-and-Now
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Jesus is more than the  historical Jesus. He is Jesus before his death (the historical Jesus) and Jesus after his death (the resurrected Jesus). I want to offer some speculative possibilities about Jesus after his death.
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​The historical Jesus was Jewish from birth to death, standing fully in the prophetic tradition of Judaism. John Cobb puts it this way:

Jesus was a Jew. His teaching was, in his own view, fully Jewish. But of course the Jewish tradition had many elements, and much depended then and depends now on which is treated as central. Jesus was emphatically in the prophetic tradition, viewing both the priestly and the legal traditions from that perspective. The implications of his message shattered the boundary between Jew and Gentile. The total result was to create a Jewish sect that was clearly different from what continued as the Jewish mainstream.

After Jesus died and reappeared to his followers, groups of people began to tell stories about him and interpret him, in the context of which he became a living presence in their hearts and minds. The late New Testament scholar, Marcus Borg, speaks of this living presence as the post-Easter Christ. I will speak of it as the post-resurrection Jesus.

Who is this post-resurrection Jesus? Who is he? Where is he?

Option One: He is an object of memory and a dynamic field of force.

Some may think of the post-resurrection Jesus primarily as an object of memory and as a field of force that his ministry set in motion.

I borrow the phrase field of force from John Cobb. In describing what he intended in Christ in a Pluralistic Age (1975) Cobb writes:

"I identified Christ with creative transformation. My way of understanding this is similar to Henry Nelson Wieman's, although I understand creative transformation as God's active presence in the world rather than as exhaustive of God's reality. Hence, Christ as creative transformation is the incarnation of God. As such, Christ is not another name for Jesus, but it is important to show how closely and richly Christ is bound up with the historical person...I interpreted Jesus' message as one that disrupted the simple continuity of the hearers with the past in such a way as to open them to God's present gift of new possibility. I understood the new not as displacing the past or discontinuous with it, but rather as creatively transforming it. I proposed that Jesus' life and death generated a field of force and that to enter that field is to be opened to creative transformation. (Cobb, 9)

By field of force Cobb has in mind the energy and ideas that come from the events of Jesus' life while on earth, as they are (to use Whitehead's language) objective immortal in the world that succeeds him. Here objective immortality is another name for the influence of the past in the present. This influence is not reducible to conscious memory of the past, it can also include emotions and aims received from the past, to which present experience conforms.

In this case of Jesus, this objective immortality can be seen in how he is remembered by Christians and also in how his aims and feelings influence the world outside Christianity. Gandhi was influenced by Jesus, for example, but was a Hindu not a Christian. Still, Jesus was objectively immortal in Gandhi as much as (if not much more than) he is in most Christians.

Let it be noted that the objective immortality of Jesus - that is, the memory of Jesus and his continuing influence - in the world does not necessarily replicate the ministry of Jesus. As he is remembered he is also interpreted and misinterpreted.

Note also that interpreting him may extend his ministry in ways he may never have imagined, but which are faithful to his spirit. For example, someone may extend his ministry of compassion to include animals and the earth in ways that would be foreign to him but appreciated by him.

On this view, the post-resurrection Jesus is not a living subject with agency of his own, but rather a historical figure as remembered by his successors. He does not make decisions or feel his surroundings. He is dead and resurrected only in our memories.

Option Two: Jesus as Enjoying a Continuing Journey after Death

Christians such as Bunmi Laditan will not be satisfied with Option One. To be sure, they will appreciate the idea that he is objectively immortal as remembered and that he is now "alive" in some way as a field of force by which people can be influenced. But they will disagree with the idea that he is not also alive today. For them, the post-resurrection Jesus is not simply a memory. He is a living person whose journey through time continues even after his physical death; and with whom they have a loving and trusting relationship. Jesus is their friend, their teacher, their savior. He has agency of his own and a listening ear. 

Is this plausible? Skeptics, including Option One Christians, would say no, especially as they are influenced by a certain kind of empiricism from from mechanistic science. The rise of mechanistic science in the West brought with it the reduction of "reality" to the physical world as perceived by the eyes, consisting primarily of three-dimensional space. Practically speaking, this means that if something is "real" in any genuine way, it can be photographed or otherwise measured by sensory perception. Things in the mind and heart, but not visible to the eye, exist only in the mind, either as memory or imagination. And the mind itself is akin to a closed container.

Process philosophy and theology offers a more sympathetic approach. Several process thinkers, David Ray Griffin and John Cobb, have argued that a human soul can survive the death of the body and undergo a continuing journey after death. Indeed, in such a journey, a soul can continue to receive energy and guidance from God, thus grow spiritually. For more on this, see The Metaphysical Possibility of Life after Death.

In arguing this, Griffin and Cobb are influenced by the philosopher Whitehead, who believed that the universe contains multiple dimensions and that a human soul (seat of awareness) is not precisely identical with the brain. This means that, upon death, a soul might enjoy a continuing journey after death in another dimension and that we best judge for ourselves, based on evidence. 

For my part, I find evidence, not only in the accounts of the reappearance of Jesus after his death but also the millions upon millions of people who have felt the presence of Jesus as Friend, Lord, and Savior. Thus I find it plausible, and perhaps even probable, that Jesus is alive today, communicating with people who love him.

I do not think Jesus is the only person whose journey continues after death; I hope this for everyone. I also hope that we call can grow in ways we need to grow, after our deaths, so that we might become wiser and more compassionate, as needed.

- Jay McDaniel

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Jesus with no Fixed Address:
​Prophet of Challenge and Hope

Neil A. Ellis, Center for Open and Relational Christianity

Jesus was an itinerant preacher. At no point, while an adult, do we ever have reference to Jesus’ home. Couple this with Matthew’s account of the holy family fleeing to Egypt for fear of political persecution. The resulting description is that Jesus was a homeless refugee. Jesus of Nazareth might as well have been known as “Jesus of no fixed address.”

The concept of home is ingrained in our psyche. We all want that place to return to and put our feet up. We say, “Home is where the heart is,” but for many that’s an empty expression. The ministry of Jesus demonstrates that he was reliant on the generosity of strangers. We like to have a noble image of Jesus and his disciples travelling the countryside, preaching the good news. However, without the help of strangers and benefactors, Jesus would appear closer to a transient, homeless individual.

​Jesus, as we find him in Scripture, is often the one serving. Whether it’s a meal as we find with the story of the loaves and fishes, breaking bread with the disciples, or tending to the needs of the crowds that gathered in his presence. The model of the soup kitchen fits and therefore has a scriptural basis. However, Jesus was also the guest for many meals. From the wedding in Cana to the meal at the Pharisee’s home, and we can’t forget about the various, more-intimate meals, such as those with Jairus, Mary, and Martha.

When we relate with the other—and see God in their presence—barriers are broken down. Gone are the divisions of served and server. Instead, we discover a community that is rooted in God’s love. Concepts of service are important but become secondary to the relationships that are formed. Those who need the meal can offer something back to the community, so strengthening the relationship of everyone involved.

​Tripp Fuller's Christology

A Review
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Jay McDaniel
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Virginia McDaniel: My Mother

As I pick up Tripp Fuller’s Divine Self-Investment I think of my mother, Virginia McDaniel. Not that my mother would have understood his book. It is a scholarly book for scholars.  Still, I remember what she told me that summer night when I was six years old.  I was sitting with her on a patio on a summer evening, after having had a Sunday School class earlier in the day.  The topic of the class that morning was Jesus, and I was confused on why we were hearing so many stories about him.  I believed in God, but I wasn’t sure where to place Jesus within the spectrum of beliefs, so I asked her: “Mom, who is Jesus?”  She answered: “Jesus is someone who is always holding your hand even when you don’t know it.”

I’ve never forgotten those words and believe them still today.  She was saying to me that there is something deep and mysterious, tender and loving, within the very depths of the universe, that it is always holding our hand, and that Jesus is a window to this something.  
Fuller anchors his book with the story of Peter responding to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?”  Jesus says “You are the Christ.”  Fuller’s point is that Peter’s answer was not an attempt to ‘get it right’ with labels, or to draw an inference from observable facts, but rather to confess: that is, to share his heart with the one standing in front of him:

“What Peter is doing is making a confession of his faith, a response itself a response to the God who is present to him through Jesus.”

I get this.  I’m pretty sure that, if the historical Jesus had been sitting beside my mother and asked: “Who do you say that I am?”  I would have responded: “You are God’s window, revealing the loving side of God.”  And, truth be told, I think he was sitting beside me that night.  I think that, in that moment, he was my mother.

Three Registers

Fuller speaks of this existential response on Peter’s part to Jesus as one of three dimensions of Christology he wants to emphasize.  The first is what he calls a historical register, and it deals with how scholars seek to understand the historical Jesus.  The second is the existential register, and it deals with the confessional response just identified.  And the third is a metaphysical register that deals with how we understand God and the universe cosmologically or, as it were, metaphysically.  Much of the book is introducing scholarly readers to various theologians who are addressing these three registers - Roger Haight, Joseph Bracken, Douglass Ottati, Andrew Sung Park, for example – and bringing them into conversation.  Along the way readers receive a primer in various kinds of Christology: Logos Christology and Spirit Christology in particular.  

A good bit of this material is presented in terms so technical, and with nuances so subtle, that the non-scholarly reader will be lost.  Only the die-hard theology nerds will survive.  But the whole idea of three registers or domains will make sense to people, including my mother.  In speaking of Jesus and his significance for me she was speaking to the existential register (in this case my own) and in linking his hand-holding love with the mystery in which we live and move and have our being (God) she was speaking to the metaphysical register in her way.  In effect she was giving me what Tripp Fuller and others call an “open and relational theology.”

Hand-Holding?

I know that the image of ‘hand-holding’ can seem sentimental, perhaps appropriate to a six year old but not adults or even adolescents.  In particular, to those of a prophetic mind-set, it seems too comforting and far-removed from the challenging side of a life of discipleship.  I was six, after all!   But in hearing the phrase I ask you to mean what Fuller means when he speaks of the promise of the God of Love:  Hear him out:

“The promise of the God of love is that God will be ever faithful, that the God of love is ever shaped by God’s deep solidarity with the world, and that the God of love promises to bear each moment of history within God while offering greater beauty, healing, and goodness to each moment of the Creation’s becoming.”

He speaks of a God who ‘bears each moment of history” with us and with the whole of creation, and adds that this ‘bearing’ includes vulnerability, suffering and pain.  Let this be part of God’s love: a receptive side of God which can share joys and which can be wounded.  This is what process theologians mean by the “consequent nature of God.”

And Fuller also speaks of a God who, in response to what is felt, offers “greater beauty, healing, and goodness to each moment of creation’s becoming.”  Let this be part of God’s love, too: a side of God which is nurturing in an active way, providing us with fresh and empowering possibilities relative to the situation at hand.  This is what process theologians mean by the primordial nature of God as active in the world through initial aims. 

Yes, let ‘hand-holding’ refer to these two sides of God, with God imagined along the lines of a truly loving parent, an Abba or Amma.  Fuller’s point, and I think my mother’s as well, is that this God is indeed ‘metaphysically’ real in some important sense and beckoning us in love to become more loving ourselves.  As Fuller explains, when we respond existentially to God as revealed in Jesus, we simultaneously commit ourselves to a journey, a pilgrimage, the ends and implications of which cannot initially foresee.  The life of discipleship to Christ, for individuals and communities, is an open-ended journey into a future that is itself open, even for God.  So saith open and relational theologians, so saith Tripp Fuller, and so suggesteth Virginia McDaniel to her six year old son.

Judgment and Sin

Make no mistake, as someone reared in evangelical traditions, Tripp Fuller also speaks of a judgmental side of God.  No, God is no namby-pamby.  In his words:

God feels with the world, judges and redeems what the world has become, and then gives to the world the gift and grace of new possibilities.

But when Fuller says judgment I don’t hear something like retaliation, but rather something like discernment: a capacity to distinguish violence from peace, injustice from justice, cruelty from care, greed from generosity, sin from goodness, and to recognize that we human beings fall short from who we can be, and should be, when we embody the sinful traits.  Moreover, and so important for Fuller, these sinful traits belong not only to individuals but to groups and societies.  Entire societies can fall into greed, hatred and delusion, indeed in God’s name!  Surely, the loving heart of the universe, the very One who is wounded along with us, the Abba of Jesus, judges, too.  For Fuller we can experience God through holy No’s as well as Yes’s. Through tough love as well as tender love.

Sharing in Jesus’ Faithfulness

What might it mean, then, to be saved?  For Fuller, it seems to mean something like wholeness, human and divine.  Interestingly, Fuller points out that the very God revealed in Jesus needs saving, too: healing from the wounds suffered from receiving and absorbing the world’s sins and other kinds of violence.  God has, as it were, a wounded heart.  If we speak of the ministry, death, resurrection of Jesus as an activity on God’s part and on Jesus’ part (and Fuller does) then one purpose of this activity is to help save or heal God!
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Moreover, after having happened, these events become part of God’s own ongoing history as well as our own.  Consequent to Jesus, we humans inherit a past that includes a memory of him within our own consciousness, and we can advance his own healing ministry by sharing in his faith.  Here Fuller quotes John Cobb:

“We interpret Paul’s statements in Romans 1:16-17 as pointing to the participation of believers in Jesus’ faithfulness, which involves a real change in those who were bound to sin. Jesus’ faithfulness breaks the bonds of sin for those who participate in Jesus’ faithfulness, not sin. Anyone who participates in Jesus’ faithfulness lives in the sphere of influence of that faithfulness, instead of in the sphere of sin’s power. That does not mean they are no longer in danger of coming again under the bonds of sin, but it does mean that they can turn to the faithfulness of Jesus to deal with that danger.” (John Cobb)

Was Jesus God?

Back to my mother.  Later, as she was approaching the end of her life, I asked her if she thought Jesus was identical with God: God in the flesh.  My impression was that, for her, this was not such an important question.  She loved him and believed he loved her and everyone else. And he was somehow wrapped into what, for her, was a more encompassing metaphor: God as an encircling Spirit whose love includes all.  I think that this being wrapped into the divine Encirclement was her way of saying that Jesus sits at God’ right hand.  But whether he preexisted his birth was irrelevant to her.  It was the love, understood as a window to the God and the Spirit, that counted.

Tripp Fuller, too, does not find the notion of Jesus pre-existing his birth all that helpful.  And while he does seem to believe that Jesus responded to God’s lure at every single moment of this life, such is not his emphasis.  For my part, along with John Cobb, I am doubtful.  I doubt that even when he was a teenager he always responded ‘perfectly’ to God’s lure.  Maybe so, but not so important.  As Fuller emphasizes, part of what is most important about Jesus for us is what he means to us.  We, too, have a voice in answering the question: “Who do you say that I am?”  As Fuller emphasizes, the question is a love question not a label question.  It’s a bit like asking: “Do you love me and will you walk with me?” 

Fuller’s book is an invitation for Christians to say “Yes,” each in our way.  He speaks of a divine reality who is invested in us: of a God who is self-invested.  I might add that this God is, like any good abba, world-invested.  Fuller does not point to a God who is about flattery or power, domination or control, but rather a God who says “Come, walk with me, and we will be healed together,” and then adds, like my mother, “I will always be with you, even when you don’t know it.”  This is the God who is revealed in Jesus: a God in whom, along with Jesus, we can place our faith and who, in the spirit of an already existing covenant, faithful to us.